by Emma Doherty
Who cares?
Sarah would care. That’s who.
The noise level in the cafeteria lowers the second I push through the doors and stand in the doorway with Sophie at my side, but I pretend I don’t notice as I make my way through the various tables on the way to the one I’ve sat at since I was a freshman. My eyes are fixed on Sarah, who has had the nerve to sit in my seat.
The actual seat I always sit in.
I glance to the side, and I’m surprised to see Sophie keeping step with me. She doesn’t sit at our table. She could; she has enough friends there. The truth is that Sophie’s probably the most universally liked person on the cheerleading squad, and probably our school. Everyone likes her, but she’s always sat at a small table in the back with Jessie and Livy. I guess she understands loyalty more than my friends do.
“I’ve got this,” I tell her.
She snickers. “You couldn’t pay me a million bucks to miss this.”
I just about manage to refrain from rolling my eyes as we reach my usual table and it falls deathly silent. Chase looks at me warily, like he’s not fully sure what’s going to happen next as he exchanges glances with Brendon and Aaron, who both avoid looking at me. It’s probably because they don’t want to embarrass me, but it actually just makes me feel more awkward. Sasha looks back at where I’m standing behind her and offers me a friendly smile and a wave before shifting over so there’s room for me, proving I at least have one decent friend.
“I looked for you at the start of lunch,” Sasha says, cutting a glare Sarah’s way and confirming that I at least have one person on my side. Well, two if you count Sophie—I think she’s on my side? “I couldn’t find you.”
“Yeah, I had something to take care of,” I mutter back, turning to stare at Sarah, who has a smirk on her face, a sly look that makes me want to slap her. She knows what this is right now, knows what I do next will either make me or break me in this school. No amount of nervous chatter from Sasha will fix that.
I know the majority of people at this table don’t actually care. Chase, Aaron, and that group don’t give a crap about popularity, but that’s because they have it, no questions asked. Me? I’ve always had to work at it, and I’m not about to let Sarah Billington, my supposed best friend, take me out without a fight.
Sophie’s right. I’m still Abigail Baker.
I step over the bench and sit down without a word while I feel their eyes on me. I reach into my back pocket and pull out my phone, lay it on the table in front of me, and then type in Dan Summers’ number, which I’m still clutching in my hand. I hit speakerphone and look Sarah straight in the eye as my phone rings loudly in front of me.
There’s total silence as it continues to ring.
“Hello?”
I don’t take my eyes off Sarah. “Hi. Is this Dan Summers?”
Her eyes snap to mine.
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“This is Abigail Baker.”
Her jaw visibly tenses.
“Oh, right!” His tone has picked up already. “Hey, how are you?”
“I’m good, thanks. How are you?”
“Yeah, I’m good, I’m good.”
“So, I hope you don’t mind me calling?”
“No, no, not at all. How did you get my number?”
I glance over at Sophie, who is perched on her boyfriend Mark’s knee, watching me with a small smile on her face. “Sophie Steele gave it to me.”
“Oh yeah? I owe her one.”
I glance back at Sarah, whose face has darkened.
“So, I was wondering, remember when you asked me out freshman year?”
He chuckles. “Yeah.”
“And sophomore year?”
He laughs again. “Yup, and junior and senior year too, but you were always too hung up on Mitchell.”
I look over at Chase, and he’s listening intently, his eyes fixed on the phone. I can’t read the look on his face.
“Yeah, well…”
There’s silence on the other end. “You and Mitchell not together anymore?”
“Nope.”
“Well that’s interesting.”
“Yeah, but to be honest, there was always another reason I always said no too, even when Chase and I weren’t together.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” I look back at Sarah. “You see, I had this friend named Sarah who had a crush on you, and I didn’t want to upset her.”
Sarah’s face is like thunder as a blush starts to creep over her features.
“Sarah?” he asks, confused.
“Yeah,” I say casually. “Short, brunette girl.”
Sarah’s bright red now.
“She a cheerleader too?”
“Yeah, do you know her?”
“Sorry, no.”
A sly smirk covers my face as Sarah blushes even redder with humiliation. “That’s a shame.”
“Oh, wait—do you mean that girl who’s always hanging around you?”
Bingo. “That’s the one.”
He chuckles. “I didn’t know that, but, um…”
“Oh, don’t worry.” I look Sarah straight in the eye. “I said no in the past because of her, but we’re not friends anymore.”
I state it flatly, calmly, emotionlessly, and truthfully. Because we’re not. Sarah Billington is not my friend.
She’s seething as she stares back at me. You can see it in her face, and I’m glad.
She deserves it, and I’m still me.
Dan laughs hesitantly, drawing my attention back to him. He’s obviously confused about what I’m talking about. “Okay, so…”
“So, if you still want to go out on a date sometime, I’m down.”
“Yeah, for sure. Sounds good.”
Sarah stands up without a word and storms off away from the table.
“Okay, great,” I say as I watch her move through the crowded tables, through people looking our way, and slam through the cafeteria doors.
“How about Friday?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Great, I’ll text you.”
“Bye.”
I end the call and glance around at the group to see a combination of smirks, glares, and shocked faces. It’s perfectly clear to everyone what I did there—I made it clear that Sarah or anybody else can’t mess with me. I focus on the rest of the girls on the cheerleading squad. Sasha’s loyal and so is Jennifer, but the rest would stab you in the back as soon as they saw the opportunity, and I know they all followed Sarah’s lead this weekend.
“Anyone else got something to say?”
6
Finally the bell rings to signal the end of the school day, and it can’t come soon enough for me as I stand, shoving my books into my bag. I might have successfully shut Sarah down, but I’m still getting murmurs and looks when I walk past people in the halls. It’s exhausting having to act like you don’t care what people think about you when your life is a complete mess. I’m worn out both physically and mentally, and right now all I want to do is go home and lie down in a dark room. I trail the rest of the kids out of the classroom, collecting the homework assignment from the teacher’s desk on the way before I step out into the hallway.
And see Chase leaning against the lockers across from me.
He straightens when he spots me, and I want to sink through the floor. On some level, I knew this was coming, but I really don’t want to deal with it right now.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“You got a minute?”
“If this is about what Sarah was saying then just know she was exaggerating to make me look bad.”
He nods. “I know.” There’s a pause. “I still want to talk to you though.”
I let out a sigh and reluctantly indicate my locker. “I have to get some stuff from my locker.”
He falls into step with me as I walk toward it, and he waits as I grab what I need and dump my other books before following me down the hall to the main entra
nce and out toward my car. It’s hard not to see the second glances we’re getting.
I finally break the silence. “I feel like a pariah. Everyone’s looking at us.”
He shrugs. “Let them. Besides, people have always looked at you, at us. It’s nothing new.”
“Yeah, well, they weren’t looking at me in pity before.”
He chuckles. “After lunch today, I don’t think anyone’s pitying you.”
I try to smile but can’t quite manage it.
“It was kind of cool, actually.”
I shrug and try to pretend it doesn’t bother me that he thinks me asking some random guy on a date is cool.
We reach my car, and he turns to face me. “Sarah’s a dick for telling everyone that stuff. We all told her before you got there. We were pissed at her.”
I believe it. He’s a decent person. So are his friends.
“I didn’t think she’d do that to you.”
I shrug. I probably deserve it. Again, we’ve been scoring shots off each other for years; this was just her way of doing it again.
“What she said…about the other night…” I trail off. “I don’t…I don’t want you to think I’m not happy for you and Livy. Because I am. Like, I want to see you happy.”
“I know,” he tells me. “And old habits die hard.” He clears his throat. “I know it must be weird seeing us together. It’s still new, and if it were the other way around, it would be tough for me too.”
I snort in disbelief. It wouldn’t be the same for him. That was always the problem. He never felt the same way about me, and I spent years picking fights with him trying to get him to prove he did care about me. It wasn’t fair to either of us.
“I was a dick too,” he tells me quietly.
My eyes find his at this, and he’s staring back at me intently.
“I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did. It wasn’t fair of me to keep dating you when I was interested in someone else.”
“I didn’t exactly have a gun to my head, Chase.” I let out a long sigh, looking past him. I might as well be honest at this point. “You couldn’t have kept me away.”
“I’m really sorry, Abbie. Hearing you on the phone today with Dan Summers…all those guys who were interested in you, and you turned them down because of me.”
I bite my lip, close to tears. “It doesn’t matter.”
He’s staring at me intently, in that way he does when he’s really thinking about something. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I bet there were so many guys into you, and I just kept leading you on and coming back.”
“Chase—”
“I should have been honest with you.”
“I’d do it all over again.” And that’s the truth. I would have kept going back again and again just to try, just to try to get him to feel half of what I felt for him.
“I’m sorry.”
I shake my head, snapping out of it. It’s old news now. “Honestly, Chase, forget it.”
“You know you’re one of my best friends, right?”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, come on, don’t be pulling out that crap. We already broke up a million times. We don’t need to be having this conversation when we haven’t been together in months.”
He laughs and glances away before turning back to me.
“I mean it. You’re one of my best friends.”
“Am I?”
“You know you are.”
“Really?” And then I tell him what I really think, something I’ve been trying to bury because I’ve been trying to pretend it doesn’t hurt. “Because this is the first time we’ve had a real conversation in weeks.”
He goes to say something then snaps his mouth shut, pressing his lips together as he surveys me. Eventually… “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. It’s fine. I know you’re all in love and shit.”
“I know, but you’re still my friend.”
“So you said.”
He doesn’t say anything else for a couple of minutes while I stare down at the ground. How weird that it’s come to this. He’s the person who has meant the most to me in the whole world, and now we don’t even know what to say to each other.
“What are you doing now?”
I look up at him. “Now?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know, I was going to just go home I guess.”
“Let’s go to Ferguson’s,” he suggests.
“Right now?”
“Why not? Just me and you. Let’s catch up for real.”
“Won’t Livy mind?”
He shakes his head. “Of course not.”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on, Abbie. Let me buy you a Caesar salad and a banana milkshake to make up for being such a shitty boyfriend for all those years.”
I snort. “It’ll take more than that.” But I’m smiling despite myself, because he does know me. He knows the only thing I’ll order from Ferguson’s is the Caesar salad with a banana milkshake.
“I’ll throw in the chocolate brownie.”
I start to laugh, because despite everything we’ve been through, I still like him—not even romantically, but as a friend. He’s a really nice guy, and he’s a friend. And right now, I need that.
“Okay.”
He grins in triumph then starts walking over to his own car, calling over his shoulder that he’ll meet me there.
I hit the electronic button on my keys, throwing my bag into my car before I lift my leg to step in.
“Abigail!” he shouts.
I stop, looking around to see Chase standing halfway between me and his car, his attention on me, not caring that there are kids milling around on their way out of school who will listen to everything he says.
“What?”
“Just for the record, if you had hooked up with Aaron or Brendon on Saturday, I would have been pissed.”
I can’t help it—a wide grins spreads across my face at those words. “Yeah?”
He pulls a face. “Hell yes. My ex-girlfriend with my best friends? I would have kicked their asses.”
I chuckle as he winks at me before continuing on to his car, completely oblivious, or just not caring about the people watching us, and despite the fact that I know he loves Livy in a way he could never even think about loving me, those words make me smile.
They really make me smile.
“Okay, so what’s this bullshit about you might not graduate with us?”
I groan, sinking back in the booth. I should have known this was coming. There was no way Chase wouldn’t mention it.
“It’s fine. I have it under control.”
“Seriously, explain it to me.”
I shrug. “I guess my grades haven’t been as good as they were. I missed a bunch of assignments and haven’t been doing well on tests. I’m basically failing all my classes.”
He just looks confused. To be honest, so am I. While I’m far from the best student, I’ve always stayed on the right side of acceptable, but it all just seems to have fallen apart recently.
“Is your dad home?” he asks quietly.
I sigh. “He’s coming back in the next week or so.”
He nods in understanding. I guess the last couple of weeks make sense to him now. Whenever my dad is around or due to come back, I’m always erratic. It’s why he always cut me so much slack when we were together. That coupled with the fact that I’ve just watched him fall head over heels in love with another girl over the last couple of months has really messed me up, and it’s no wonder my grades have suffered.
“Well, you can’t not graduate with us.”
“I know. I’ll figure it out.”
“What have they said? I assume Ms. Sallinson has spoken to you?”
“Yeah. I have to get my grades up in math and chemistry, and they’re giving me extra credit if I raise money for charity.”
“Okay.” He nods, his gaze elsewhere as he thinks something through in his head. “How much do yo
u have to raise?”
I shrug. “She didn’t give me a specific amount, but I get the impression that I’m not going to get away with just throwing in a few hundred bucks. She made a point of saying she needs to see evidence of me fundraising on school grounds.”
“Okay, well that’s fine. We can do that.”
I raise an eyebrow. “We?”
He rolls his eyes and throws a fry in my direction. “Yes we. I’m not graduating without you, you douche.”
Something about his words makes me think he’s being serious, and they lift some sort of weight off my shoulders. Maybe I’m not in this alone after all.
“So what ideas do you have?”
I shrug. I haven’t really thought about it. “Maybe a bake sale?”
It sound pretty lame, even to me, but Chase nods. “It’s a start. You could do one every Monday for the next month or so, bake on Sunday. You’d sell out easy.”
I nod my agreement, although the thought of baking all day Sunday to make things people actually want to buy does not sound appealing. I don’t remember the last time I baked anything that was edible. “I guess.”
“You’d need lots of stuff. Brownies, cookies, muffins.”
My eyes widen. This is starting to sound impossible.
“You could get the cheerleaders to help you.”
Well that’s not going to happen. The only one I feel like I can trust is Sasha, and maybe Jennifer. The rest would think it would serve me right to be left behind in high school.
“And we can think of other stuff too.”
I nod and can’t help the small smile playing on my lips. He means it. I know he does. This is the thing about Chase—he follows through with what he says he’s going to do, so if he says he’s going to help me raise a bunch of money then that’s what he’s going to do.
“And how’s the tutoring going? I assume the school’s set you up with a tutor.”
Uh…
He eyes me. “What?”
“I haven’t actually gotten around to that yet.”
“Are you joking?!”
“I just…”
“When did you find out about this?”
“Last Thursday.”
