Me, Just Different

by Stephanie Morrill

  “Italian?” Had I missed part of the phone conversation? Had I zoned out or something? “For what?”

  “For Fall Ball. John and I thought we could split a limo, and my dad says there’s a great Italian place downtown.”

  No way would my mom ever go for it. “Well, I need to ask my mom, but—”

  “Need to ask me what?” Mom materialized in my doorway.

  I jumped. “Oh, hi.”

  “Ask me what?”

  “Plans for Fall Ball. John and Eli are talking about renting a limo and—”

  Mom pursed her glossy lips. “Skylar, we talked about this. We agreed that you and your friends would get ready here and then you would meet Eli at the dance.”

  “I know, but I thought this would be okay since we’re all going to the dance as a big group. All my girlfriends and their dates.”

  Mom considered this. “Will Connor be with you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “See if Connor’s going, and we’ll talk.”

  “Okay.”

  “May I borrow your chandelier earrings?” she asked as she helped herself to my jewelry box. “I’m going out with some girlfriends tonight.”

  “Sure.” When she’d taken the earrings and left, I said to Eli, “Okay, so my mom said—”

  “Why’d you do that?” Eli asked, his voice dark.

  “Do what?” But I had a good idea.

  “Invite Connor out with us. The only reason we ever put up with him was Jodi, and she doesn’t want him around.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” I closed myself into my walk-in closet, just in case Mom happened to be nearby. “Please don’t turn this into a big deal. She at least sounded open to the idea. That’s what matters.”

  “What I don’t understand”—he was really picking up steam now—“is how you have to hide our relationship, yet you can flaunt how friendly you are with Connor.”

  “I don’t understand it either, but Mom loves Connor. She’ll approve of anything if Connor’s doing it—”

  “Well, wonderful. How nice that your mom approves of the guy you’re in love with.”

  The back of my neck tingled. His accusation felt far closer to the truth than I wanted. “That’s just crazy.”

  “Well, he likes you. You know he does.”

  “Actually, I have it on pretty good authority that he doesn’t.”

  Eli took a moment to process this. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that Connor said he doesn’t have feelings for me.”

  “And why would you guys be talking about that?”

  I should have seen that coming. “It really doesn’t matter.”

  “To your boyfriend it does.”

  I ran my hands through my hair. “I’m so sick of hearing you say stuff like that. We can’t get through a single day without you reminding me that you’re my boyfriend, that I’m your girlfriend, that we’re together.” I hesitated only a second. “Maybe we should’ve just stayed friends.”

  “If that’s how you feel, fine.” Then he hung up on me.

  I swept my spoon along the edge of my ice cream cup. “At first it wasn’t so bad, but now any time Connor’s name comes up, he gets crazy.”

  “Oprah says that an absurdly jealous partner is often a sign that they are cheating,” Alexis said. We all stared at her. “Oh! Not that I think Eli’s cheating on you. What I meant is his jealousy is about him, not you.”

  “I, for one, can’t believe he thinks you’re into Connor,” Lisa said with a dramatic roll of her eyes.

  Jodi stabbed at her custard. “Maybe because she hangs out with him all the time.”

  I shot her a sharp look.

  “I’m not saying I think you like him, but you are together an awful lot.” She continued her stabbing. She’d done more stabbing than eating.

  “Only because our parents are friends. How many times do I have to tell people that?”

  “So what’s the deal?” Lisa asked. She appeared deeply concerned. She hadn’t snarled at Alexis even once since we arrived. “Did you guys break up?”

  “I don’t know. We hung up on each other before making it clear.”

  “Do you want to break up with him?”

  I took a big bite of custard as I thought about this. “I don’t want him to be jealous.”

  “Take it from me, that’s impossible for Eli,” Jodi said. “You just have to decide if it’s worth putting up with.”

  They all paused eating to stare at me, breath baited.

  “Well.” I allowed another bite to melt in my mouth. “I don’t want to spend my last year of high school battling with him.”

  At first, no one spoke, then Alexis rested a hand on my shoulder.

  “On Oprah a couple weeks ago”—I should have expected this—“she had on this group of women who’d given up something important in high school for a boy. It was so inspiring. You should come over and watch it.”

  Thankfully, Lisa interrupted Oprah hour. “Okay, this is why Eli is crazy.” Her gaze was fixed beyond me, and we turned to see a group of three guys waiting for their order. When we looked at them, they looked away. “The really cute one in the green shirt has been staring at you ever since he arrived.”

  Alexis twirled dark hair onto her finger as she evaluated the boys. “When you look at a group of guys like that, do you ever wonder if maybe one of them is the guy?”

  I laughed. “No, not ever.”

  “I do,” Jodi said, her voice just as dreamy as Alexis’s. “And sometimes I wonder how it might affect my life if I talk to him. Like maybe I’d fall in love and change all my college plans so we could be together. Or maybe he knows a modeling agent.”

  “Or maybe,” I said, “you’d discover he’s just like every other guy you already know.”

  Jodi smiled at me, the new smile she’d used since the summer, where her lips curled but her eyes remained flat. “You’re awful bitter when you and Eli fight.” She looked at the guys again, who now walked away from the window with their ice cream. “Hey!” she called.

  “Jodi,” Alexis hissed. Lisa giggled and blushed, but I just watched, amused.

  “Hey!” Jodi yelled again, this time drawing their attention to our spot on the grassy slope. “There’s room over here for you guys!”

  The three of them froze there for a moment, as if shocked by her brazen offer. Green Shirt spoke first. “Cool, thanks.”

  “I can’t believe you just did that,” Alexis whispered, her voice filled with admiration.

  Jodi shrugged and smiled. “I’m not passing up a potential modeling contract.”

  Jodi and Lisa—the two single ones—scooted apart to make room for them.

  “I’m Nick,” Green Shirt said as he took a seat. “This is Brett and Patrick.”

  Brett and Patrick were good-looking in a nondescript kind of way, brown hair and eyes. Nick, with his broad shoulders and dark curls, was definitely the pick of the group, which didn’t go unnoticed by Jodi. As she pressed them for information—Where do you go to school? Have you always been in private schools?—her eyes stayed locked on Nick.

  “So what brought you up this way?” she asked after learning how far out in the suburbs they lived.

  “Brett just got dumped by his girlfriend.” Nick seemed the only one capable of talking. “We went out cruising and wound up here.” Inexplicably, he winked at me.

  “We think Skylar just got dumped too,” Lisa said.

  “We brought her out to get her mind off it.” Jodi offered me a faux-sympathetic smile, like the ice cream run was her idea. I had invited her.

  Now Nick smiled at me, except his wasn’t fake. “Something tells me you’ll make a quick recovery.”

  I looked away, unwilling to indulge his flirting. Besides him being too eager for my taste, I possibly had a boyfriend.

  My phone rang from the middle of the circle, where Alexis had placed it so we could laugh every time Eli called. She leaned to look at the caller ID. “Yep
, it’s him again.”

  “I take it you’re not answering.” Nick winked at me again. Okay, that was annoying.

  “He’s called four times in the last”—Lisa consulted the clock on my cell phone—“twelve minutes.” She giggled, her clear eyes fixed on Brett, the dumpee, staying true to her sickness for guys on the rebound.

  “Come on, Skylar,” Nick said, as if we were old friends. “He’s trying so hard.”

  I kept my gaze on my ice cream. “He should’ve tried harder sooner.”

  Nick recognized me then as the girl with a moat, stone wall, and iron gate built around her heart. That was all it took for him to dedicate his relentless attention on winning me over, the way numerous guys had before him.

  As the night darkened, so did Jodi’s mood. This was the same old story with us, my unintentionally stealing a guy by being difficult. So I’d been right—Nick, Brett, and Patrick were exactly like every other guy she already knew. The only one who’d been different had just dumped her.

  At the end of the night, Nick pressed an old Best Buy receipt into my hand. He’d scribbled his phone number on the back.

  “What a shock,” Jodi said as I climbed into Lisa’s Wrangler.

  “You want it?” I tossed it onto her lap. “Be my guest.”

  She wiped it off her bare legs like a burning coal. With a quick exhale of disgust, she turned from me.

  Abbie slid open the pocket door. “Eli called for you twice.”

  I jammed the toothbrush around my mouth with too much force. I’d forbidden Eli to call the house line in case Mom picked up. “What did he say?”

  “He asked where you were and I said I didn’t know. Then he asked if you were with Connor. I said yes, even though I knew you weren’t.”

  I spit. “You should’ve told him the truth.”

  “The second time he called”—I caught her eyes gleaming and knew this wouldn’t be good—“I told him you died.”

  “Abbie!”

  “I even cried. It was great.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  She shrugged. “I was just having fun with him.”

  “It can’t always be about fun.”

  Abbie narrowed her eyes and jabbed at her stomach.

  “You think I don’t know that?” She rolled the door closed with a bang.

  Connor eyed my new boots. “Those are some serious shoes.”

  “Thanks.” I grinned down at them. They were creamy black leather with squared-off toes and made a great, authoritative sound as we walked to our lockers.

  “You should add some fishnets so you can really capture the hooker look.”

  I rolled my eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with my boots. You just have no sense of style. They’re very in right now.”

  Ever since my misinterpretation of his breakup with Jodi, both of us had gone to great lengths to point out each other’s flaws.

  “In or out, they’re stupid. Why do your legs need shoes? That’s what pants were invented for.”

  “When shoes are this cute”—I paused to lift one in the air—“it doesn’t matter if they make sense.”

  We turned down our locker row and found Eli leaning against my locker, talking to Alexis.

  Eli stopped midsentence. “Hi.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  Alexis grabbed her backpack. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “I just realized I already have my book.” Connor backed up a few steps. “See you guys in class.”

  We watched them leave, then looked at each other warily, unsure of who should make the first move.

  “So.” Eli scratched the scruff of his chin. “They thought you were a goner but managed to revive you on the operating table, huh?”

  His tone allowed me a slight smile. “Sorry about that. Little sisters, you know.”

  “I’m the youngest, so actually I don’t.”

  “Oh, well, you younger siblings are pains sometimes.” He looked unsure of how to take this, so I rushed on. “About last night—”

  “I was out of line,” Eli interrupted.

  I’d been about to launch into reasons why I didn’t think we should see each other anymore. Now I just stood there and stared at him.

  “I get frustrated by how secretive we have to be, that’s all.” Eli reached for my hand and I allowed him to entwine our fingers. “I wish I could come to your house, pick you up, and take you out. I shouldn’t have taken my frustrations out on you. I’m sorry.”

  Looking at him, at his ocean-colored eyes and perfect face, I wanted this to work. On paper we made a perfect match. Why couldn’t my heart get with the program and fall for this guy? Why did I keep getting tripped up by stupid Connor Ross? Here Eli had saved me from a horrendous night, and what had Connor done but laugh in my face at the thought of him having a crush on me? I owed Eli another chance.

  “I guess I was a little inconsiderate of your feelings,” I said.

  “So.” Eli swung my hand, his eyes crinkling with a faint smile. “Fight over?”

  “Fight over,” I agreed.

  10

  Jodi tied a ribbon into her ponytail with so much force I thought it might rip. “It’s high school etiquette at the most basic level. You don’t dump someone so close to a dance. You wait until the day after.”

  I wound my hair up off my neck, then leaned to examine it in the mirror. “There’s no convenient time for a breakup.”

  “Oh, how would you know?” Jodi snapped. “You’ve never been through one.”

  Silence filled the room. This rift between Jodi and me, subtle at first, had escalated these last two weeks, tainting any time we spent together. We’d suddenly become an awkward group, Jodi versus me and Lisa versus Alexis.

  Except Alexis and Lisa appeared to have called a truce on their bickering. They weren’t friendly toward each other by any stretch of the word, but they limited themselves to eye rolling and muttering under their breath. If the whole John thing had happened sophomore year, or even junior year, one of them would’ve left the group. Probably Alexis. But no one wanted to find a new group of friends senior year.

  Although with the looks Jodi had been shooting me all night, maybe there were worse things than finding new friends.

  Sensing the discomfort she’d invited, Jodi turned on her penitential voice. “I’m sorry, Skylar. I’m just going through a rough time. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”

  I avoided eye contact and continued pinning my hair. “It’s fine.”

  “Why don’t you and I skip the dance?” Lisa suggested as she completed drawing her cat whiskers. This year the money raised at Fall Ball went to the drama club, so dress code was “whimsical formal,” which left much open to interpretation. Most guys intended to wear tuxes and come as James Bond, while us girls recycled prom dresses and threw on butterfly wings or cat ears.

  “Skip the dance?” Alexis gave them an incredulous look. “You can’t skip the dance. You’ll miss everything.”

  “What’s to miss about going to a dance alone? It’s so pathetic.” Apparently realizing what she’d just said, Jodi hurried to add, “What I mean is, it’s fine for you, Lisa, but Connor and I just broke up.”

  “At least he doesn’t have a date.” Lisa adjusted the straps of her dress. “John’ll be there with another girl.”

  Alexis narrowed her eyes but didn’t respond.

  “You should come to the dance, Jodi,” I said.

  “Skylar’s right.” Alexis sat beside Jodi. “Is ‘I’m defeated’ the message you want to send the world?” She tilted her head the way she’d seen Oprah do on TV. “Do you really want to give Connor the satisfaction of not going because of him?”

  “If anybody should stay home, it’s Connor.” Lisa pressed her lips together to even the lip gloss, then separated them with a loud smack.

  “Maybe he won’t come,” I said. “He’s not exactly the type who loves to dress up.”

  “Oh, he’ll be there.” Jodi rolled her eyes. “
With ‘whimsical formal,’ he figures he can get away with track pants.”

  Lisa gasped at the horror.

  Alexis’s eyes widened. “He wouldn’t.”

  Jodi shrugged and offered a smile, soft with nostalgia. “You know, his clothes used to really bother me, but not now. Now it seems kind of cute.”

  I paused my mascara application midstroke. Jodi had spoken my exact thoughts.

  “I can’t go.” She plucked at her skirt. “This dress is all wrong.”

  Enough was enough. I chucked a lipstick tube at her. “You’re coming and you know it.”

  “Ow!” Jodi massaged her bicep. “That really hurt.”

  “Grab one of my formals and paint on some whiskers.”

  “I can’t fit into your dresses.” She clutched my pillow to her chest and moped into it. “I’m too fat.”

  “You’re a size smaller than me.”

  “No I’m not,” she said, as if dress sizes were mere opinion rather than actual numbers.

  “Try this one.” I tossed my silver dress at her, the one I wore to prom with a sleazebag senior. “I can hardly breathe in it, so it should fit you fine.”

  Good thing we’d decided not to do the limo thing with the guys and just meet them at the dance. Persuading Jodi into the formal took fifteen minutes. Lots of, “No, you don’t want to go home and change into your pj’s,” and, “What? You think you’ve gained weight? We were all just saying it looks like you’ve lost weight.” Doing her makeup and getting her in the car took another half hour.

  When we finally arrived at the school, the girls dragged Jodi toward the gymnasium and I headed the opposite direction. I couldn’t take her self-pity for another second. If she asked me one more time if I thought her hips had “filled out,” I might say yes just to break the monotony.

  I went to the refreshment room, a classroom where they kept sodas and snacks for those exhausted from dancing. I found Connor there, surveying his drink options.

  I planted my hands on my hips. “Thank you oh-so-much for such a delightful evening.”

  He didn’t look up from the table. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jodi is driving me crazy.”

  “How’s that—” He looked at me. “Wow, you look great. What are you?”