by Kieran Scott
I swallowed hard. “Sucks.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I guess we’re really just not going to be friends anymore. I just have to deal with it.”
Ally let the hem of her shirt drop over her abs again and glanced up at me. I tore my eyes from her stomach, and she blushed. Crap. Suddenly I was finding it hard to swallow. And now I was staring at her lips.
“So, then . . . what should we do?” I asked. I mean, she was here. She’d come here in the middle of a downpour to hang out with me. Even though last night she’d been kissing David Drake at the Harvest Ball. That had to mean something, right?
She smiled slightly. “Play another game?”
My heart dropped. Or maybe she was just using me for her basketball court. I stood up, relieved to put some space between the two of us. Relieved to have something to do other than think about kissing her. I grabbed the ball from the ground where we’d left it.
“You’re on.”
november
Did you hear? Ally Ryan’s going out with David Drake.
Please. Everyone knows that. My mother knows that.
Oh. Well, I didn’t. I kind of thought she had a crush on Jake Graydon.
Why did you think that?
I don’t know. She’s always, like, staring at him.
So is half the female population of Orchard Hill.
And some of the male.
Whatever. There’s just this vibe whenever they’re
in a room together.
Okay, Dr. Phil. Whatever you say. But Ally and Jake? That could never happen.
Why not? I think they’d be kind of cute together.
First of all, he’s a Crestie and she’s a Norm. It’s just not done. And second of all . . .
Second of all what?
Second of all, Shannen Moore would
scratch her eyes right out.
Why? Do you think Shannen likes Jake?
Isn’t it obvious? She’s just waiting for him to wake up and smell the soul mate.
Whoa. So, why doesn’t Jake ask her out already?
Because. He’s a guy.
Which means?
Which means he is, by definition, oblivious.
ally
I dropped my old Orchard Hill High duffel bag on the bottom bleacher in the gym and sat down to retie my sneakers. It was the second week of November and the first day of basketball practice. By Friday Coach Prescott would have to cut the thirty-one hopeful players down to a final roster of fifteen. As I casually checked out the competition, I saw a lot of familiar faces—girls I had played with on JV freshman year. I could imagine that the lineup would be similar to that one, and as long as none of them had developed crazy skills since I’d been gone, I had a pretty good shot of making the team.
“Hey, Ally! Come shoot around with us,” Jessica Landry shouted, waving me over.
Jessica was a Norm senior who I’d always thought was the coolest girl on the team. She was one of those girls who wore sweats practically every day but always looked good anyway. Plus, she had a smile for everyone all the time. Not once in my life had I ever felt uncomfortable around her. I jogged over to join her and her friends, slapping a few hands and feeling lighthearted and ready for a workout.
I had just hit a sweet three from the corner when Shannen walked into the gym. My gut twisted with nerves, which just annoyed me. I was not going to let Shannen Moore make me nervous. She had no power over me. If anything, I should be pissed off at her.
Coach gave one bleat on her whistle and shouted at us to grab some water before we got started. I’d just dropped down on the bottom bleacher and was fishing in my bag for my water bottle when the toes of Shannen’s sneakers suddenly lined up with mine. My stomach hollowed out.
“Hey,” she said. Her foot twisted so that the side was to the floor for a second, then righted itself. She wore an Orchard Hill basketball T-shirt and held a ball loosely between her crossed wrists and her stomach. Her dark hair was back in a sloppy pony-tail, those long bangs half-hiding her eyes. How she expected to play ball with her hair in her face all the time, I had no idea.
“What do you want?” I asked, standing.
We were exactly the same height. Always had been. It was like God had put us on the same growth schedule when we were born, and in seventh grade we’d both shot up and started towering over all the boys in our class. By the time I left in freshman year, most of them still hadn’t caught up. Even now, we were taller than a lot of them.
“Whoa.” She held her hands up and backed up a step. “What’s with the angst?”
I rolled my eyes, laughed bitterly, and slammed her shoulder with mine as I walked by.
“Do you have a problem with me?” Shannen asked.
I whirled around on her. “What do you want, Shannen?”
She blinked a few times, appearing legitimately surprised. Had she woken up with amnesia this morning? Did she have zero memory of the past two months?
“I just thought since we’re going to be on the same team together it might be time to call a truce, that’s all.”
“A truce,” I repeated acerbically.
“Yeah. I mean—”
I took a few steps toward her. “Okay, you want a truce? How about you start by apologizing for the lawn jockey?”
“What?” she said.
“I know it was you,” I told her. “That prank had Shannen Moore written all over it. Do you even realize what that did to my mom? You want to screw with me, fine. Whatever. But she doesn’t deserve it.”
“Wow. Look who suddenly grew a spine,” Shannen joked.
I rolled my eyes and turned away from her.
“All right, fine. I’m sorry. The lawn jockey thing was stupid,” she said.
I paused, looking down at the floor. At least we were getting somewhere. She dribbled the ball over and held it out to me on her palm. “Are we cool now?”
She had to be joking. Like one apology was going to make up for everything. For freezing me out, for insulting me over and over again, for ostracizing me for something over which I had zero control. I took a deep breath and held it, clutching onto every bit of courage in me.
“No,” I said. “I want to know why. Why have you been so awful to me since I’ve been back?”
Shannen laughed contemptuously and shook her head, dribbling the ball from left to right.
“Don’t laugh. I’m serious.” I stole the ball with a resounding slap and held it against my chest. “What the hell did I ever do to you?”
She looked up at me, pushed her bangs out of her eyes, and clicked her teeth together twice before she answered. “I know what you and Hammond did the night you moved away. I was there.”
The edges of the room blurred, and the laughter and shouts seemed to echo between my ears.
“What?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked one knee, looking off toward the scoreboard. “My parents were arguing, as usual, and I heard my mom say something about how you guys were leaving that night. I tried to call you, but it went right to voice mail, so I snuck out and rode my bike over to your house. I couldn’t let you leave without saying good-bye.”
She stared at me then, an accusation in her eyes. My heart thumped with guilt. I’d really hurt her by not calling.
“I opened the front door—your parents were fighting too, so they didn’t hear me—and when I got to your room there you two were, writhing on top of each other on your bed.”
Her lips screwed up in disgust as she looked me up and down. I felt nauseous as the memory of that night swirled through me. I’d been avoiding thinking about it since I’d been back, but now here it was, in vivid HD. Hammond’s breath on my face, his hand on my cheek, the scent of the rain on his clothes. He’d asked me to go out with him just a month earlier, and I’d said no. I’d said I thought of him as a friend. And two weeks later he and Chloe had gotten together and were all lovey-dovey and inseparable. Chloe had been in love with hi
m forever—had always thought they were destined to be together—so everyone was happy for them, but I had felt a little . . . jealous. I mean, one minute he was saying he liked me, and the next second he was all in love with her. But even so, I never would have done anything about it. Even then I knew that my feelings were stupid—that I was just wanting what I couldn’t have. But then, everything fell apart.
“How could you do that to Chloe?” Shannen asked. “How do you even live with yourself after you stab someone in the back like that?”
“Shannen, I know how it looked, but honestly, it was just a kiss—”
“A very long, very horizontal kiss,” she said, snatching the ball back again.
“I know, but it was the worst night of my life,” I said. “I didn’t even know what was going on. My parents were screaming at each other, and my dad was yelling at me to pack and I didn’t even know where we were going or why. All I knew was that my dad had fucked up and he’d lost our house and everyone was mad at us and we were never coming back. That was it. And then Hammond took the shortcut over and climbed up to my room, and he was all upset and saying all this stuff about how he was going to miss me and he wished I’d said yes when he’d asked me out and all this crap, and we just . . . kissed.”
Shannen stared at me as if she was letting this sink in. As if she was trying to decide whether or not to believe it.
“It’s the truth, Shannen,” I said. “I would never do anything to hurt any of you guys. You know that. I was just . . . I wasn’t me.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but the whistle blew.
“Line it up! Let’s do some warm-ups, people! Come on!” Coach clapped her hands a few times. I felt like the real world with all its lights and sounds and colors was suddenly flooding in on me. It made me temporarily dizzy, and I had to shut my eyes. As the rest of the players lined up for drills, Shannen and I didn’t move. We stood in the middle of the court, facing off.
“Why haven’t you told her?” I asked. “Why have you kept it a secret all this time?”
“Because it would kill her,” Shannen answered. “I have a little thing called a conscience. That’s why I didn’t mail your invitation to her sweet sixteen with all the others. I didn’t want you and Hammond hooking up in the coat room or something on the biggest night of her life.”
So that explained it. The sweet sixteen confusion. Shannen had taken matters into her own hands.
“We would never have done that,” I said, my voice a croak.
“So you say.” She looked down, bounced the ball once, then caught it in both hands. “Anyway, I also figured that keeping your secret kind of made us even.”
“Even? For what?”
“You’ve kept my secret, and I’ve kept yours,” she said.
Right. Her secret. I was the only person in the world who knew what had really happened the night her brother, Charlie, ran away. I knew that Shannen’s father came home drunk and went nuts when he found out Charlie had crashed his mom’s car. And I knew that whatever threats he was making had scared Shannen enough to run to my house and call the police. Her dad had been arrested and thrown in jail for the night to sober up, and her brother was gone by the time their dad got home. Shannen’s father had gotten probation and community service for disturbing the peace, since Charlie was eighteen and not around to bring charges, but after that Shannen’s father just got mean. And he started drinking even more than he already did—always saying that if he ever found out who called the police on him that night, he’d kill them. I could still see Shannen trembling with fear that night in my dad’s home office. Could still see the look of terror in her eyes the night of her dad’s court date, when she made me swear I’d never tell anyone. She blamed herself for her dad’s humiliation and her brother’s leaving. I tried to tell her that it was her dad’s fault, not hers, but she didn’t think her parents would see it that way.
“Do you . . . did Charlie ever . . . ?”
“Come home?” Shannen said. “No. He e-mails me every once in a while, but that’s it. And he made me promise not to tell my parents.”
So that made two secrets I now knew.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Arizona. Eric Toricelli went to school out there, so he’s crashing with him, taking classes and working,” Shannen said. Then she eyed me up and down. “And if you tell your mother this, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
“I know,” I said. “I know how to keep a secret, Shannen. I think I’ve shown that. So I guess that means I’m not the worst person in the world.”
Shannen exhaled through her nose, then cracked a small smile. “Maybe not the worst.”
“Ladies! Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?” Coach shouted at us. “Let’s go!”
We turned together and walked toward the opposite end of the gym. For the first time since I’d been back, I felt comfortable being in the same room with Shannen. It was a tentative feeling, but it was there. So that was our truce. We each knew something about the other that we didn’t want anyone else to know.
It wasn’t much, but I would take it.
jake
I used to think there was nothing worse than having my mom’s voice pop into my head when I was hooking up with a girl. But I was wrong. There is something worse. It’s when I’m hooking up with a girl and my mom’s voice and Ally’s voice and the voice of my stupid fucking SAT tutor all pop into my head at the same time.
“Jake? What’s wrong?” Lisa Freckles asked as I pulled away for the fifth time. Her name wasn’t really Lisa Freckles. It was just that I couldn’t ever remember her last name, and she had lots of freckles on her shoulders.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Good.” She smiled. She had a nice smile, especially now that she’d gotten her braces off. “Then come back.”
She pulled me to her and kissed me. All around us my friends were partying like the rock stars they thought they were. It was Chloe’s seventeenth birthday, and her parents had rented out the entire Houston Hotel in New York. We all had rooms to go back to after the party so we could drink as much as we wanted and they wouldn’t have to worry about us getting home.
Yeah. That was Chloe’s dad for you. If he’d lost some of his money with Ally’s father like everyone else had, he probably still would have found a way to throw this party. Chloe was the center of his universe, or so he was always telling her. It was just too bad that Chloe was freezing Ally out even though her family hadn’t been affected. Because otherwise Ally would be here and maybe I could be making out with her instead of Lisa Freckles. Except that Ally would be making out with David Drake. Was that what they were doing right now? Hooking up at some party? Dorkus Drake got to kiss Ally Ryan whenever he wanted. In what universe was that okay?
And now I was thinking about her again. Sonafabitch. I pressed Lisa Freckles back into the couch, trying to concentrate on her and only her. She was a cool girl. We’d gone to a concert together last summer and actually had fun. She deserved some concentration.
Conflagration is to fire as tsunami is to what? my SAT tutor said in my ear.
I kissed her harder, trying to shut out the voice. Lisa moaned a little.
Kissing Lisa Freckles is to kissing Ally Ryan as what is to what? Ally’s voice teased.
I shoved my fingers into Lisa’s hair.
You have to break thirteen hundred this time, Jake. Fordham does not accept scores beneath thirteen hundred, my mom snapped.
I pulled away again, faked a cough, and grabbed my drink, downing half of it in one gulp. It didn’t stop the voices. And Lisa was tugging on my shirt. I took a deep breath and sighed. This was going to be a very long night.
A peal of familiar laughter caught my attention, and Shannen, Faith, and Chloe all semistumbled into the room, clearly drunk. They were cracking up uncontrollably as they teetered over and dropped down onto the couch. Chloe was so out of it, she half sat on my lap, then slid off to the side.
“This
is the best birthday ever!” she cheered, throwing her arms up. Champagne sloshed over the rim of her glass onto my leg. There’s a reason Chloe hardly ever drinks. She gets sloppy and loud.
“You know it!” Shannen said, finishing off her own champagne.
“Oh, but I wish Ally was here.” Chloe stuck out her bottom lip and leaned her head on my shoulder. My heart skipped at the mention of Ally. I shot Lisa a look of apology for the interruption. She sat up straighter and smoothed her hair.
“You so do not!” Faith countered, shoving Chloe’s knee. “We hate Ally.”
“Exactly,” Shannen said with a nod.
“Yeah, but . . . don’t you feel kinda bad for her?” Chloe said, blinking rapidly. “I mean, she lives in a condo, her mom’s all depressed, and her dad’s, like, a waiter . . . ” She sipped her champagne. “It’s just sad.”
Shannen and Faith looked at one another as if they’d just been told they won a lifetime supply of nail polish.
“Wait. What?” Shannen blurted.
“Her dad’s a what?” Faith added.
Chloe’s hand flew to her mouth. She looked at me, wide-eyed.
“I thought no one knew where her dad was,” Shannen said, sitting forward.
“I don’t. I mean, they don’t. No one does.” Chloe got up, steadied herself on her high heels, and looked around. “Where’s my cake? I want my cake now. Mom!?” She waved her hands over her head, trying to get her mother’s attention from across the room. Her mother looked over disapprovingly.
Shannen got up and grabbed Chloe’s arm. “You know where Ally’s dad is?”
“No.” Chloe shook her head.
“Yes, you do. You said he’s a waiter,” Shannen said hungrily. “Is he working for your dad or something? At one of his restaurants?”
