Being Not Good: as opposed to being bad

by Elizabeth Stevens

  How the fuck was I supposed to come up with lessons? Short of just corrupting her entirely and having her streak across the oval – note to self: do not even suggest that, there was no telling if she’d take me up on it – I had no idea how to teach her how to ‘be not good’.

  All I knew was how to be bad.

  Seven: Avery

  The idea of dating Davin was thrilling. The actual act of dating Davin was… Well it wasn’t boring but he was less eager than even I’d expected of him. He’d managed to wangle out of hanging out with Blair or anyone else on Monday, or any other day. And we only really talked by text or between lessons. But he still kissed me in a way that seemed to ignite my senses and he hadn’t refused another date.

  On Wednesday, the school knew we’d been on that one date and they’d seen us talking in the hallways and that, but I wouldn’t have definitively said that anyone knew we were actually going out. But Blair and I put that to rights when Molly and Krista were sitting with us in the Common Room at Recess.

  “How are you…? You know? Dealing?” Molly asked, her eyes darting to Cindy on the other side of the room.

  Blair scoffed as I shrugged.

  “She’s fine with her new boyfriend,” Blair told them and I saw them look at each other in interest.

  “New boyfriend?” Krista asked.

  Molly leant forward. “You don’t mean Davin Ambrose?” she asked like it was scandal of the year.

  Blair nodded. “The very same.”

  I saw a newfound respect in Molly’s and Krista’s eyes.

  “Really? Why?” Molly asked as Krista said, “I didn’t think he dated.”

  “Well, he dates Avery,” Blair said proudly and I smiled.

  “How did it happen?” Molly asked.

  I smiled coyly. “I decided I wanted to try something…different.”

  That had their attention.

  As the unofficial force behind the school’s rumour mill, Molly and Krista were the people to tell something if you wanted the rest of the school to know something.

  “You mean better?” Krista asked.

  “Less vanilla?” Molly offered.

  Damn. I wished I’d thought of putting it that way. I was going to need to talk to Davin about hurrying along those lessons.

  But I pretended that was exactly what I’d meant as I looked up and shrugged innocently, which was all the ‘yes’ they needed.

  Molly sniggered. “And is he better?”

  “Is he better?” I scoffed, like that was so obvious it didn’t even need to be stated.

  “And…” Krista looked around. “It’s official? He’s your boyfriend?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  The girls looked like they were about ready to burst with the excitement of spreading the news around. Luckily for them, the bell for third lesson went and Blair and I slowly picked ourselves up as Molly and Krista hurried out.

  “Step four is well under way,” Blair said with a smirk and we giggled as we headed for class.

  “Goodbye, little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes,” I answered.

  As we went through third and fourth lesson, it was already obvious that Molly and Krista had done their jobs. Kids looked at me differently. Some seemed to think it was a joke and some didn’t seem to know what to think. Miles frowned when he saw me and for a moment I imagined jealousy on his face.

  Unlike usual, when Davin walked into Home Group he made a beeline for me. He dropped his hands onto my desk and his semi-vague glare seemed a little harder than usual.

  “Do I want to know why the school is talking about how I kiss better than Miles?” he asked, looking between me and Blair like Blair might have put me up to it.

  I looked up at him with a smile. “Because you do. Isn’t that great?”

  He looked like he seriously couldn’t care less and had no idea why anyone else did. “It’s infantile. Why does it matter?”

  I didn’t know why it mattered. Only that it did matter. “Because–”

  “You want to use me to make Miles feel like shit? Fine. But don’t pretend that’s not what’s happening here. Even you’re not that idiotically naïve.” He gave me a scathing look, pushed off the desk and walked out of the classroom.

  “Davin?” Mr Boyle said as they almost collided in the doorway.

  I jumped up and started following Davin.

  “Avery?” Mr Boyle looked at me as I paused in front of him.

  “Uh… I should… See if he’s okay?” I said uncertainly.

  Mr Boyle was understandably confused, but nodded slowly. “Sure. I’ll mark you both off as present…”

  I nodded my thanks and ran out after Davin, calling his name.

  He stopped halfway down the hallway and swung around to face me as reluctantly as possible. “What, Avery?” he snapped.

  I hesitated as I looked him over. His eyes were hiding behind his hair and glasses as usual. He towered above me in his uniform that looked almost too big, and I wasn’t sure if he’d lost weight or had got it to look like that on purpose. His face was as usual an unimpressed, expectant expression with his mouth held hard. Only he looked like all he expected was disappointment.

  “Davin, I’m sorry…” I started rather lamely.

  “For what?” he asked like it mattered little for what or that I was sorry.

  “For… If you felt like I was using you to hurt Miles.”

  “Well, you are. Aren’t you?”

  My hands fiddled in front of my body. “Not Really… Not on purpose.”

  “You just expect me to somehow make you not so good. That my bad boy qualities will, what? Rub off on you?” he asked. “You want me to get you arrested? You want me to corrupt your innocence? You want me to put you in detention? What exactly is it you want from me, Avery?”

  I swallowed hard, super glad that it was Home Group and there was no one in the hallways to see us…

  Did this count as a fight?

  “You know I’ve never actually been arrested, right?” he continued. “I don’t know where the rumour came from. But I haven’t. The most severe detention I’ve served was under Mrs Mack. I do stupid shit out of acute boredom and I stick to myself for a reason. I don’t play well with others.”

  “I… I want you to help me tank my reputation, yes. But… Davin, I actually like spending time with you, too…”

  He blinked like I’d completely surprised him. “Excuse me?” It was like the idea that someone could enjoy his company was unimaginable.

  “I know you’re grumpy and…well, rude. But you always say what’s on your mind and you stick up for yourself and you’re funny and smart…” I looked at him, hoping I hadn’t put him off the whole idea. “I want to be like that.”

  For once, the great Davin Ambrose was speechless. He ran a hand through his hair, for a moment raking it off his face and I was struck by the fact that it wasn’t just his touch or what came out of his mouth that made him sexy. He was actually attractive under there.

  He cleared his throat awkwardly as the familiar sounds of students starting to move came from the classrooms around us. “Lessons, then.”

  I nodded. “Lessons. One lesson per date.”

  He ran his tongue over his teeth. “And you want another date this weekend, I suppose?”

  “I think that would be appropriate,” I replied.

  A few students started filing into the hallway so I moved closer to him.

  “Fine. But I’m not dating you in anything resembling public again so soon. You want to hang out and get to know each other, you can come to my house.”

  I was intrigued. “Okay. When?”

  “Friday night.”

  “Oh, meeting the parents already?” I teased and his face was even more emotionless than usual.

  “No.” He looked down at me and there was a shine to those hypnotic green eyes. “My dad won’t be home. Fly in, fly out at the mines. It’ll be the middle of his two weeks
on.”

  “Home alone, then?”

  He gave a slow, seductive wink. “Just the two of us.”

  I took another step towards him, catching my lip in my teeth for a second. “Isn’t that the whole point of this little exercise?”

  I almost thought there was a hint of respect in his eyes and I grinned up at him. I watched as his eyes darted around the hallway behind me for a moment, then he looked back at me and nodded once.

  “Fuck it,” he said before pulling me to him and kissing the ever-loving heck out of me.

  One hand was on my cheek and the other was firm on my hip. I reached up on the tippest of tip toes and my arms went around his shoulders. A few people around us cheered the way you did when someone made out in the hallway – not that I’d ever made out in the hallway before – and I thought Davin was going to pull away. But instead, he just pulled me closer and deepened his kiss. His hand slid around onto my arse and he held me tight against him.

  My nose bumped his glasses, but he didn’t seem to care as his fingers trailed down my leg and found the bottom of my skirt. I could feel him collecting up the material in his fist and I laughed against his lips. Our eyes opened and we looked at each other, and I was totally not bothered by the fact that probably every person in the hallway was watching us avidly.

  “What do you think that’s doing for my reputation?” I asked him.

  His eyes were shining bright as he answered, “Exactly what was intended.”

  “So that was all in aid of trashing my rep?”

  “What else would it have been?”

  “I don’t know. Because you wanted to?”

  “Me want to kiss you? Why?”

  “Enjoyment?”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  I nodded at him and I saw a flash of heat in his eyes.

  “So you’d want me to do that more often?”

  “Please, be my guest.”

  “Are you supposed to be my all-consuming passion?” he asked.

  “So you’re admitting you’re a Byronic hero?”

  “Never.”

  “You sure?”

  “You seem to know a lot about it considering you didn’t even know who he was two days ago.”

  “I did some research.”

  “Did you now?”

  I nodded.

  “What for?”

  I looked him over. “I thought it might help me understand you better.”

  He scoffed. “Because I’m a character in a novel, written specifically as the Byronic hero, and have no other traits, emotions, or motivations?” He paused, then muttered, “Don’t say anything,” the way he did like he was talking to someone else.

  I pulled out of his arms and smiled at him ruefully. “At least I’m trying.”

  “What about me suggests I ever plan to?”

  I started walking backwards away from him, giving him a shrug. “A feeling.”

  “You can keep those to yourself!” he called as I turned and hurried off to find Blair, assuming she’d be at our lockers.

  I hurried around the corner a little quickly and bumped into Cindy Porter of all people.

  “Oh. Uh…sorry,” I said with an awkward smile.

  “No. It’s fine,” she replied with an equally awkward smile.

  We stood in awkward silence for a moment until I burst out with, “So, uh. Hi?”

  “Uh. Hi,” she laughed self-consciously. “How are you?”

  “Uh. I’m fine. Fine. You?”

  She nodded. “Also fine. Uh…” She pointed behind me randomly. “So, Davin?”

  I nodded and, “So, Miles?” just popped out and I stamped down any excitement I felt at pulling off even passive-aggressive.

  She had the decency to look legitimately sorry. “It…just happened.”

  I nodded slowly. “I don’t blame you.”

  And I didn’t. It wasn’t Cindy’s fault that Miles had cheated. Sure, I could argue that a girl shouldn’t sleep with another girl’s guy. But when it came down to it, Miles was the one to blame for the way he’d treated me. Cindy and I belonged to the same circles, but we weren’t close and she owed me nothing.

  Cindy breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. I was so worried you’d hate me or we couldn’t be friends anymore. But of course. You’re Avery,” she said like that explained everything.

  I smiled at her sweetly, though I felt a little bit of Davin’s sarcasm had rubbed off on me, and didn’t say what I actually wanted to say to her. “Of course. I’m Avery,” was what I did reply before she nodded happily and flounced off.

  Because I was Avery. I didn’t have the courage to say what I was really feeling. I was the push-over who forgave everyone everything because I wanted to be kind and nice.

  “Not for much longer,” I promised myself.

  Eight: Davin

  Avery wanted the Byronic hero to sweep her off her feet and trash her reputation by – among other things – making out with her enthusiastically at school? Well it was unfortunate she’d chosen me. But for whatever godforsaken reason, I went along with it.

  For good measure on Thursday, I ‘anonymously’ – because let’s be honest, everyone did know it was me – distributed a few of the popular kids’ less savoury photos and added a screaming goat to it for good measure. But I had been somewhat behaved and removed the screaming goat from Mrs Nichol’s computer. Although that had more to do with the fact that I’d told Avery I’d meet her in the carpark after school on Friday and I wasn’t willing to face whatever punishment in the guise of fun she’d put me through if I ended up in detention instead.

  Why I was pandering to this infinitesimal walking rainbow, I didn’t know.

  And when I pushed her into her locker and kissed her the way I assumed only a bad boy would kiss her only to have her respond in a way that had me wishing I’d never started anything in the school hallway to begin with, I didn’t care.

  Neither did I care that people were actually risking whatever wrath they thought I had by looking at me more often than usual. Like I’ve already told you, I didn’t have a reputation to ruin. Naturally I had a reputation – it was high school after all – but I didn’t fucking care if the student populace thought it was weird the loner kid was suddenly dating Miss Popular Nice Girl 2017. I didn’t care that the other popular arseholes were suddenly taking more than a vague interest in my life. Because unlike the rest of the non-popular kids, they didn’t intimidate me.

  “Hey, Davin?” one of the aforementioned popular arseholes called while I was at my locker.

  I did what I usually did when I heard someone call my name. I ignored them.

  “It is Davin, right?”

  I slid my eyes left to find a girl with bright red plaits leaning on the locker two down from mine. I was sure my expression told her exactly how I felt about being interrupted. Her look of superior smugness became ever so slightly less smug.

  “Uh. So, I figured if you were dating Avery now that you’d want to know about the party on Saturday…” She seemed to be waiting for an answer. When I didn’t give one, she continued, “Or whatever…?”

  I put my last book away, slung my laptop bag strap over my shoulder and slid my headphones around my neck before shutting the door. I opened my mouth like I was going to answer her, then closed it again.

  “‘Cause I mean, you’re like invited or whatever.”

  I turned to face her and looked down on her, putting one hand on my headphones.

  “I can assure you I don’t give a fuck,” I told her before I pulled my headphones on and walked away.

  But I didn’t get far before Avery stopped me with a hand to my chest and a frown on those usually upbeat features. I knew she’d seen me talking to the redhead. That frown alone made my day. Knowing I put it there was just icing.

  I waited to see how long it was going to take her to realise I had my headphones on and blissfully couldn’t hear a thing s
he was saying. The corner of my mouth was just starting to quirk up weirdly when her frown became a sardonic glare and she totally did just stamp her foot at me.

  She reached up and I didn’t stop her pulling my headphones down around my neck.

  “What?” I asked her.

  She wasn’t impressed with me and I loved it. “You could be less rude.”

  I shrugged. “I probably could. But socialisation credits, Avery. I don’t get more just because I’m helping you trash your rep now.”

  “Krista is my friend, Davin.”

  “What is it about me that made you think I’d care?”

  “You’re my boyfriend now!”

  “I thought the agreement was I could be my usual grumpy self?”

  “Well…yes. But I didn’t think–”

  “I’m supposed to be the bad boy, Avery.” I took a step towards her and her back hit the locker behind her as her eyes widened. “I can’t do that and be polite to your friends.” I dropped my lips as close to her ear as I could get without folding myself in half. “Or did you think this was going to go some other way?” I whispered and I felt her shiver.

  Suddenly this whole ruining Avery St John’s reputation thing was becoming interesting. It gave me a whole new excuse to be rude to people and not have to hide my disdain. My grandmother spent enough time reading about bad boys that I knew exactly what was expected here. Add in some Byronic flair and I was pretty sure I’d have this one in the bag. Helping Avery meant I got to be me, just without having to tone down how much I hated most everything in this fucking hell hole.

  I pressed against her and she bit her lip as she looked up at me.

  “So you don’t want to come to the party on Saturday, then?” she asked, a hint of teasing sneaking through.

  “I think I’d rather wear a yellow blazer to school next week.”

  She tried to hide her laugh, but she failed. “Okay. Not coming to the party then.”