by Kieran Scott
Done and done.
ally
Right. So this was a bad idea. I felt it the moment I stepped up to the imposing double doors of Connor Shale’s sprawling ranch-style house at the very back edge of the crest. The homes were newer here. More modern than the classic mansions my family and friends had grown up in. And Connor’s was practically all windows. Floor to ceiling, back to front. How anyone got any privacy in this place was beyond me. The house was tucked away in the thick woods that formed the barrier between the crest and the Garden State Parkway a couple of miles off, but if you got past the trees, you could see everything.
Like Chloe Appleby standing in the center of the sunken living room, surrounded by Shannen Moore, Faith Kirkpatrick, and a half dozen other Crestie girls, both younger and older. Like the backyard beyond, where the Idiot Twins had hooked up some kind of zipline over the pool, from which they were now swinging like monkeys from two opposing trees. As I watched, the two of them collided in midair. There was a groan. A splash. Then a cheer. Which meant, I supposed, that they had lived.
And then there was Bedroom Boy, who was pressed up against the far wall, a girl in a barely there minidress slobbering all over him. Well, then. I guess he hadn’t invited me here because he actually wanted to see me or anything.
I took a breath to quell the disappointment in my chest. This was not about Bedroom Boy. This was about seeing my lifelong best friends for the first time in a year and a half. I reached for the door, but my nerves took hold and atrophied my arm. I couldn’t do this. Wait, yes I could. I had to. If I didn’t see them now, I’d see them at school tomorrow. And then our encounter might happen in front of my mom. Which would just make it that much more intense. Besides, if I stood out here one second longer, someone was going to notice me, and then I’d have to go in but I’d already be mortified because they’d have seen me hesitating. This was a total nightmare. I held my breath, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.
“Ally?”
The voice came from behind. I whirled around to find Hammond Ross standing there all Long Beach Island tan in a colorful Billabong T-shirt and destroyed cargo shorts. He was just as blond as ever, but taller, broader, less doofy-boy and more hot-guy. Also, he didn’t look unhappy to see me. Which kind of made sense, but also kind of didn’t.
“Hammond. Hey.”
His eyes flicked past me toward Chloe and the rest of them. Checking to see if they’d noticed him talking to me. My nervousness mounted.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked, wrapping me up in a brief hug.
So I guess they hadn’t noticed us yet.
“I—”
“Wait.” He pulled back, looking suddenly nervous. “You’re not gonna tell anyone about—”
“Oh. My. God. She’s. Here.”
I would have recognized Faith’s voice even if it hadn’t been louder than every other one in the room. I moved from Hammond and the wide-open foyer into the even wider-open living room, where all my former friends had turned around to face me. Bedroom Boy somehow lost his hanger-on as he stepped away from the wall. He hovered a bit behind the rest of them, pushing his hands sheepishly into the pockets of his chino shorts. Even though he’d just been hooking up with some drunken frosh and obviously didn’t care one iota about me, my heart was not unaffected at the sight of him standing there with his hair all coiffed, a royal blue Polo shirt hugging his muscles just so. But it was more distracted by the fact that I was here. I was home. With my friends.
“Hey, guys,” I said, lifting a hand awkwardly.
Hammond closed the door behind me and went directly to Chloe’s side. So I guessed they were still together. There was a prolonged moment of silence as the periphery people moved discreetly away, staying close enough of course to keep an eye on the impending drama. I tried not to ponder what it meant that my friends hadn’t all rushed forward to hug me. Instead, I took them in. Chloe Appleby in her white sundress and coral sweater, her light brown hair pulled back in an eyelet band. Her posture was as perfect as ever, her discerning green eyes assessing me as if I were the new girl in town rather than the girl she’d known since nanny care. Shannen had cut bangs in her dark hair, and they practically covered her eyes. She was wearing skinny jeans and a black T-shirt with a studded belt, looking like some kind of badass supermodel. And then there was Faith. Faith had changed more than anyone. Gone were the cutesy tank tops and wild blond curls and natural skin. She was now wearing a cowl-necked tank top over microshorts and high-heeled sandals, her hair straightened and her face so perfectly painted it was practically airbrushed. Gone also was the friendly, open face. She had a scowl on like nothing I’d ever seen before.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Faith said. “What are you doing here, Norm? Because I know no one invited you.”
Norm. That was the nickname we Cresties had for the kids from the other, “normal” side of town. Which I guess was me now, technically. It wasn’t pretty, but there it was. My eyes automatically flicked to Bedroom Boy. He flushed and looked away. Perfect. I loved a guy with no spine.
“I just wanted to see you guys,” I told her.
My brain struggled to reconcile this bitchy socialite with the cherubic Hannah Montana fan I’d left behind less than two years ago.
“How are you?”
“Oh, please,” Faith said. “Like you care?”
“Faith,” Chloe scolded. That was Chloe. Always making sure that no situation grew too awkward or unpleasant. I had news for her. I was already feeling plenty awkward.
“No! No way!” Faith said, incredulous. “You know the only reason she’s here is because she wants us to take pity on her. She thinks she can be, like, rich by association or something.”
My skin stung as if I’d just endured a full-body slap. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Like we’re really going to be your friend again after your dad stole from our families?” Faith said, turning on me again with narrowed eyes.
“Stole?” I repeated, baffled. “He didn’t steal anything. Is that what you guys think? He—”
“Oh, please! So that’s why my parents can’t retire and Shannen’s mom had to sell their shore house and get a job and Hammond has no trust fund?” Faith said, crossing her skinny little arms across her skinny little chest. “Did you know the Zeldinas and the Fallons had to move away and the Steins had to take over their grandparents’ place? They lost their homes thanks to you.”
I swallowed hard. I knew my family had been hit hard by my dad’s mistake, but no one had ever told me exactly what it had meant for everyone else. Trust funds, retirements, and homes just gone? I had no idea.
Okay, Ally. Deep breath. You didn’t do this to them. Your dad did. They can’t really take it out on you.
“And don’t even get me started on what you did to Chloe,” Faith added before I could speak.
Gravity reversed itself. I looked at Chloe. She couldn’t know, could she? Faith didn’t mean—
“All right. That’s enough,” Shannen interrupted, speaking up finally.
Faith was dumbfounded. “Shannen, you’re not gonna let her—”
“Faith, please,” Chloe implored. “I don’t want to make a scene.”
“Too late,” someone in the crowd muttered, earning a round of uncomfortable laughter.
“It’s okay,” Shannen said. “Everyone, just chill.”
Shannen stepped in front of me. The girl who used to challenge me to swim races and paint my toenails in rainbow colors and name stars with me at sleepovers in the backyard. The girl I’d comforted on the worst night of her life. The one whose deepest secrets I kept locked away in the bottom of my heart.
“You need to go,” she said. “Now.”
My heart couldn’t take this. “Shannen, I—”
“Faith’s right. Take a look around. You don’t belong here.”
Her dark eyes flicked over my Old Navy shorts and well-worn shoes in distaste. I felt sick. My friends were reall
y going to reject me because of what my dad did? Because I wasn’t wearing the latest label? I looked around, desperate for someone to tell me this was a joke—to take my side. Chloe looked sad, almost sorry, before she trained her eyes on the floor. Bedroom Boy, meanwhile, stared right back at me, his jaw clenched with something unspoken, his blue eyes almost pleading. For what? For me to go? Or for me to never have come?
Right then, the back door slid open, letting in shouts and squeals and splashes from the backyard. In tromped the Stein twins in their almost matching Hawaiian-print bathing suits, dripping pool water all over the pristine wood floors. They had identical red welts forming on their foreheads. Not that either of them seemed to care.
“Yo! Where’s the chips and dips?” Trevor shouted.
Todd stopped in his tracks. “Dude. Who died?” Then he saw me and his eyes lit up. “Ally Ryan!” He loped over and gave me a huge, wet bear hug, his soaked brown hair dripping all over my shoulders. “You’re lookin’ smokin’ as ever! Where you been, girl?”
Trevor came over and hugged me too, turning me into the filling inside an Idiot Twin sandwich. The force of their hugs brought tears to my eyes. I’d missed them. All of them. Even the Idiot Twins. But clearly, only these two doofs had missed me.
“I have to go,” I mumbled, extricating myself from their clammy grasp and ducking away so that no one could see my eyes.
“Wait, what?” Trevor said.
“You just got here! We’re gonna have chips and dips!” Todd added.
I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so miserable. On my way out the door I almost barreled over some punk-looking chick with blond hair who had just walked in—right in time to see my ignominious exit. I sputtered an apology, then almost tripped again when I realized she was Annie Johnston, Faith’s best friend. Another one with a completely new look. In any other scenario I would have stopped to say hi, but she probably hated me as much as Faith did. I slipped by her and ran for the edge of the jam-packed driveway, where I’d stashed my bike under the thick border of evergreen trees.
My legs pumped the pedals with all their might as I raced away from Connor’s house, my breath coming short and shallow, until I reached Harvest Lane. There I placed my feet on the ground and glanced back over my shoulder in the direction of Vista View. Somewhere back there behind the trees was my old house. My old life. The life that I, apparently, could never go back to.
I was never going to lie out under the sun with Chloe again or ride bikes with Shannen or put on fake concerts with Faith or climb trees with Hammond and the twins. I was never going to kiss Bedroom Boy under the bleachers after a soccer game. Never going to see him waiting for me after class or searching for me in the caf or standing in a tux under the domed ceiling of the country club ballroom.
Not that I had been daydreaming about those things for the last two days. Not at all. Clearly it was time for me to officially grow up. I turned my back on Vista View and rode on.
My mother was going to die when she heard what had happened tonight. All she wanted was to move home and reclaim her old friends, her old life. That was all she wanted for the both of us. Well, it appeared that, for one of us at least, that was not going to happen.
God, I hated my father. How could he do this to us? To them? How could he lose all their money, move us out of a town we loved, and then just drop us? Just disappear without a word, without an explanation? Where the hell was he? Was he ever going to come back? Was he ever going to try to rectify what he’d done?
I tipped my front wheel down the hill at the top of Harvest and took my feet off the pedals, just letting myself fly. Letting the wind clear my head and tug a few tears from the corners of my eyes. At the bottom I almost forgot to stop. Almost flew directly into the two-way traffic on Orchard Avenue. But as soon as I saw the cars whizzing by, my brain snapped back into focus. I hit the brakes hard and yanked my wheel to the left, stopping two inches away from the brick wall of the bagel shop at the corner. My chest heaved. My heart raced. My pores oozed hot sweat into my clothes. And only one word came into my mind.
No.
Just like that, I knew. I knew my mother would never find out about tonight. She didn’t need to know I’d pathetically reached out to them and been brutally rejected. Clearly, my new life in Orchard Hill was going to be just that—a new life. I didn’t need the Cresties. I felt, suddenly, foolish for ever thinking I did. Somehow I’d survived the last year and a half without them. I could survive the next two. And so what if Bedroom Boy hadn’t defended my honor back there? I could handle myself. Sort of. At least, I would. From now on.
I turned my bike down Orchard Avenue and headed for my new home. Faith was right. I was a Norm now. It was time to start living like one.
september
Did you guys hear what happened at Connor Shale’s house last night? It is so intense.
What?
Faith Kirkpatrick completely bitched out Ally Ryan.
Wait a minute. The Ally Ryan? She’s back?
Where have you been? I’ve been tweeting about this for days.
Wait. You 6uu were invited to Connor Shale’s house?
Um, no. What am I, sleeping with the guy? Please. Annie told me.
Annie Johnston? How did she get in?
Oh, she goes to all the Crestie parties. She’s, like, obsessed with Faith Kirkpatrick or something. Ever since Faith dumped her at that Spring Fling dance freshman year?
Oh my God! Yeah! Remember that?
Wait, Faith’s a lesbian?
No, you loser! They were just friends. Faith was, like,
the only Crestie who ever even acknowledged us.
Until she turned to the dark side.
And Ally.
Ally what?
Ally was always cool to us too.
jake
“I’d better get eighth-period study hall,” Shannen said, yawning hugely She stopped at the bottom of the steps to the junior/senior entrance and looked up at the school. It was sort of intimidating. The first time I saw it I thought it was some huge church. It was all red brick and had towers at the corners. The one right above us held the clock that hadn’t worked since before I moved here. We sometimes snuck up there at lunch and tossed soda bottles and doughnuts off it to watch them explode. The Idiot Twins had once even peed off it. Gross, but kind of funny.
“Why? It’s not like you can leave campus,” Faith said as she checked her reflection in a tiny mirror for the fourteen thousandth time that morning. She clicked it closed and sighed. “Seniors get all the perks.”
“Yeah, but I can sleep,” Shannen said, taking the steps two at a time. “By eighth I am definitely gonna need a snooze.”
“Unless I get study hall too,” I said.
Shannen grinned. “Of course. Then we’ll be having some fun.”
We knocked fists as Faith rolled her eyes at us. “Just try not to destroy any school property. My mom’s this close to not letting me hang out with you guys anymore after the whole founder-clown incident.”
Shannen and I laughed. Over the summer we’d been bored one night and she’d decided we should dress up the town hall statue of the two Orchard Hill founders as clowns. We’d gotten caught, of course, since the Orchard Hill police station is inside borough hall. But we’d had a killer time getting as far as we had.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ally Ryan waiting at the bottom of the hill on the other side of Orchard Avenue, at the corner of the OVC complex, which was where she lived now—according to all the rumors I’d heard last night after she’d left the party. She was wearing jeans and a white top with buttons and short sleeves. Her hair was down. It looked nice down. Standing next to her was her mother. At least, I figured it was her mother. They looked a lot alike. Except that as they crossed the street toward the school, her mom actually seemed happy to be there.
I felt bad about what happened at Connor’s last night. The way the girls had kind of humiliated Ally. And about how I hadn’t said anythi
ng. I wanted to talk to her about it. I had no idea what I was going to say, but I hoped it would come to me soon.
“So what the hell happened last night with that Ally girl?” I asked. We were all climbing the steps together, and the girls stopped as soon as I asked.
“What do you mean? You were there,” Faith said.
“I know, but I mean . . . what did she do to Chloe that was so bad?” I asked.
Faith and Shannen exchanged a look. “It’s complicated,” Shannen said, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder.
I saw at least ten guys take notice of her because of that one gesture. Shannen’s dad was tall, athletic, and Irish. Her mom was skinny, petite, and Chinese. Apparently the two countries had to get together more often, because they had pretty much spawned the hottest girl in North America and every guy at OHH was grateful.
“Girls,” I said, rolling my eyes. I looked back at Ally and her mom again. They were heading toward the faculty entrance around the corner. Shannen and Faith hadn’t seen them yet.
“You coming?” Shannen asked.
“I’ll catch up.”
They exchanged another look—always needing to check the other’s reaction to everything—and then kept walking. I jogged around the corner to the front of the school, sticking close to the building, and was waiting against the outer wall when Ally and her mom got to the stairs. I clutched the strap on my backpack and waited for Ally to see me. When she did she almost tripped, then looked away. I knew it. She hated me now. The girl I couldn’t stop thinking about hated my guts. I took a few steps toward her so she couldn’t ignore me.
“Hey,” I said.
