The Ex Games

by Jennifer Echols

  Everyone in the pool looked at me. They expected a rebuttal.

  For once, I didn’t have one.

  Chloe extended her hand toward Nick. “Give me back that cake.”

  He held it away from her. “No, it’s good.”

  “Give it. I don’t like where you’re going with this.”

  “No, I’m hungry.” Wisely, he waded into the deeper end of the pool, where Chloe would not follow him if she wanted to keep her hair dry. Holding his cake and fork at chest-level above the surface of the water, he looked straight at me and said, “I just think that unless you compete with everyone, it’s not really a competition.” His dark eyes dropped to his plate, and he shoveled a big bite of cake into his mouth. He had basically told me my win today didn’t even matter, and I was not quite as important as cake.

  I opened my mouth to holler at him. I was so angry, I had no idea what I would have said.

  Luckily all I got out was a noise like nyah before Chloe interrupted me. “That’s ridiculous. Girls and boys compete separately in almost every sport. You don’t have girls on your football team.”

  “That’s because girls would suck,” Gavin offered. Nick waded back across the pool so they could bump fists. As he passed, the movement of his big body splashed water on my cake.

  I slid my plate onto the pool deck and opened my mouth to lay into Nick with the insult he deserved.

  But all I got out was something that sounded like yerg before Liz talked over me. “Basic physics. The average boy is bigger than the average girl. Girls don’t play football with boys because they’d get crushed. Girls have slower times than boys in the slalom because they’re not as heavy. You should have seen Hayden’s 900 in the half-pipe. Not a single boy did a 900 today, not even the guy who came in first in the oldest boys’ division.”

  “That’s because he’s not that good,” Nick countered. “Even I could beat that guy.”

  “Besides,” Davis spoke up, “this was a local competition. You never know who’ll show up for those. It would be different if she stepped up to a higher level. The men’s Olympics are an event. The women’s Olympics are a bathroom break.”

  “They are not!” I gasped, instinctively coming to the defense of snowboarding chicks, my idols. Et tu, Brute? I thought. This was getting ugly if even Davis, usually such a gentleman, was making light of my win.

  Liz must have been thinking the same thing. After her big logical speech, she just gaped at him like she couldn’t believe he’d said this.

  Chloe was the one who shouted, “The three of you really mean Hayden didn’t accomplish anything today? You weren’t even there to watch her!”

  Nick was, I thought. He was there on his deck. He’d made note of the slalom times. Now he cut his eyes at me, letting me know this had flashed through his mind, too.

  “We didn’t have to see her,” he said. “Any snowboarder knows this about the sport. Women aren’t anything compared with men. Hayden won lessons with Daisy Delaney, right? Pit Daisy Delaney against Shaun White. He’d crush her. Hell, pit Daisy Delaney against Mason Aguirre.”

  “Yeah!” Gavin took up the challenge. “Did you see the X Games on TV a couple of weeks ago? The guys stick 1260s on the slopestyle. They throw down back-to-back 1080s in the half-pipe or it’s not even considered a run. The girls are lucky if they land a 900.” He then created a range of Daisy Delaney slap-downs with every famous male snowboarder he could think of. Davis laughed, and he quietly offered suggestions when Gavin ran out of ideas. Chloe kept breaking in with protests, and Liz kept saying, “But …” From their separate places around the pool, all four of them waded closer as the talk got more heated, until they surrounded Nick and me on all sides.

  But I didn’t really hear them anymore. I stared at Nick in front of me. He stared back. We’d set this argument in motion, and now it kept rolling without us. No one seemed to notice we’d dropped out. I watched him, hoping I’d get some sign he was just kidding.

  He watched me, too. But he never winked or made any move to break the tension. Everything he’d said about girls versus boys, he’d meant.

  “So, you think you could have beaten the first-place guy?” I asked Nick.

  He knew I’d said something. But he was listening to Gavin, and he couldn’t hear me over the guffaws. With a last dark look at me, he turned toward the other boys and laughed.

  I was angry now, truly angry. I’d worked hard to win that competition, and it did mean something. I slogged through the warm water and cold air, stopping right in front of him, my tummy only inches from his knees where he sat on the stairs. I said again, “Nick, you really think you could have beaten the first-place guy today if you’d only bothered to enter the competition?”

  “Absolutely,” he told me, still not looking or sounding like himself. He made cocky statements all the time, accepting challenges and taking bets. But his voice always held an ironic tone, like he was half-kidding and didn’t believe it himself. This time he sounded like he believed it.

  Or maybe the difference was in me, not him. Maybe after four years, I’d finally fallen out of love with him.

  “Let’s do it, then.” I reached forward and poked his bare chest with two fingers like we were actors in a gangster movie. “You and me, on the slopes, head-to-head, the slalom and the half-pipe. I will kick.” Poke. “Your.” Poke. “Ass.”

  “Oooooh,” the boys said. The moaning was so loud that I could have sworn Chloe and even Liz chimed in.

  But all I saw was Nick in front of me, not budging a millimeter as I poked him, eyes frowning and lips curled in a tight smile. Quietly he told me, “Remember, you asked for it.”

  I did not ask for this attack. But I didn’t dare defend myself or even hint at what had transpired between us in the sauna. The madder I got, the more he’d know I cared that he’d called me a bitch, and the worse I would hurt.

  “Want to make it interesting?” Gavin asked, wading over. “Let’s do this thing on Saturday. After Nick wins, the girls treat the guys to the Poseur concert that night.”

  “You mean when Hayden wins, the boys treat the girls,” Chloe corrected him. “That sounds fair.”

  “It’s not fair,” Davis protested. “After Nick wins, you’ll just say conditions were different when Hayden came down, and that’s what made her slower. Like, it started snowing.”

  “Or it stopped snowing,” Gavin said.

  “Or the wind was harder,” Davis said.

  “Or the wind was softer,” Gavin said. “Girls will whine about anything.”

  “Fine!” Liz broke in, obviously agitated. She never spoke this loudly, much less broke in. “Instead of a slalom where they come down one at a time, they’ll come down together, like in a boardercross.”

  “It’s still not fair,” Gavin pointed out. “No matter how high Nick goes in the half-pipe, you’ll say, ‘But Hayden landed a 900!’” He ended in a high-pitched voice that none of us girls had used since the second grade.

  “Leave it to me,” Chloe said ominously. “I’ll find three impartial judges. Even you won’t be able to complain.” She used one finger on her right hand to pretend to scribble a note to herself on the palm of her left hand. Then she put her hands down and glared around the pool. “In the meantime, we’ve had just about enough of you guys and your sexist attitudes. Find your own way out. Come on, ladies.” She picked up the cake, and Liz obediently gathered the plates.

  I still crouched in the warm pool in front of Nick, stunned. Whether the girls treated the boys to Poseur tickets or the boys treated the girls, we’d be paired off: Liz with Davis, Chloe with Gavin. Did this mean Nick and I had … a date?

  That was so not going to happen.

  Dazed, I moved past him up the stairs, following Chloe. Nick caught me by the wrist. Our hands were wet and I could have slipped out of his grasp, but I didn’t. I stopped beside him on the stairs, shivering in the cold air, waiting breathlessly for him to break the date Chloe and Gavin had arranged for us, or
to make a snide comment about it.

  “We need a tiebreaker,” he said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, but looking only at me. “Not that I’m saying I won’t win the boardercross and the half-pipe. But I want to make sure I win fair and square. Just in case, we need to add a third event. Like a big air.”

  “Done,” Chloe said quickly. “We’ll bury you. Come on, Hayden.”

  Funny, I must have been riding waves of adrenaline the whole afternoon and night. I’d exerted myself on the slopes in the competition, but I hadn’t felt the least bit sore. Now I suddenly felt it. My muscles were sore and tired, my eyes strained, and my brain hurt just thinking about the jump at the slopes, the one stunt I hadn’t tried and didn’t plan to. But Nick was right. This whole argument was about who was the better boarder overall. How could I be better than him if I couldn’t go off a jump, one of the biggest parts of this sport?

  “Good idea,” I heard Gavin say as I sloshed out of the pool.

  “No problemo,” Davis said knowingly. The smack of their high five echoed against the wall of the hotel.

  Before I closed the hotel door behind me, I stole one more glance back at Nick. Maybe he hadn’t meant to set me up to fail. Maybe he’d momentarily forgotten I was afraid of heights. But no, he turned around on the steps and looked straight at me, still wearing that small smile. He flicked his wet hair out of his eyes with his pinkie, as if to show me yet again how little he thought of me. He knew exactly what he’d done.

  comp

  comp

  (kämp) n. 1. an unofficial snowboarding contest 2. Hayden vs. Nick

  Heart racing and mind whirling, I walked into the locker room and changed into my clothes, hardly hearing Chloe and Liz’s discussion echoing against the tile walls about what pigs boys could be. I was calculating how to fix this terrible situation. Maybe I could do the jump this time, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about Daisy Delaney challenging me in the back bowls. Maybe all I’d ever needed to get over my fear of heights was the tall, dark, and hunky heir to a meat fortune to insult me and make fun of me. But gosh, it sure would be easier if I could talk my way out of this whole contest. “What?” I said.

  Liz was standing in front of me. She looked a bit frazzled with her damp curls in her face. Obviously she’d been trying to get my attention for a while. “I said, have you seen your butt?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” I craned my neck to take a gander at my backside.

  Chloe clarified, “She means you have ‘BOY TOY’ written across the back of your jeans.”

  “Oh.” I nodded. “They’re Josh’s.”

  “You say that as if it explains everything.” Liz cocked her head to one side and considered me while buttoning her cardigan. “My stepbrothers don’t write ‘BOY TOY’ across the back of their jeans. They only say the entire alphabet while burping.”

  “That’s nothing. Josh can recite the Gettysburg Address. Listen, y’all.” I pulled my hair free from the collar of my sweater. The long strands were damp, reminding me I’d just been in the pool with Nick. I could still be in the pool with Nick if he weren’t such an ass. “I want to call off this contest.”

  Chloe’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare.”

  Liz’s eyes got big as she wailed, “Hayden, you can’t!”

  “I want to call it off.” I took a deep breath before I warned them, “Otherwise, plan to buy Poseur tickets for the boys. There’s no way I’ll win.”

  “Of course you’ll win!” Chloe exclaimed. “You’ll probably beat Nick in that race thing—”

  “Boardercross,” I corrected her. Chloe owned a snowboard, and that’s about as far as her knowledge of the sport went.

  “—and you’ll blow him away in the trick part.”

  “Half-pipe. And then there’s the jump.”

  They both just stared at me with their arms folded. They’d been pushing me to get over my fear of heights and go pro, so this was no way to argue myself out of my new corner.

  I started over. “Okay, here’s the real deal. I regret what I lost with Everett Walsh—”

  “Come off it,” Chloe said. “Tell us another.”

  I swallowed. “—and I want to make sure y’all aren’t making a huge mistake. I mean, I’m mad, too, but I’m always mad at Nick. Maybe you’re blowing this out of proportion with Gavin and Davis. I know both of you looked forward to seeing them tonight. Your evening with them got off to an excellent start. And now you’re sending them home early, all because of this stupid challenge? I wish I’d never said anything.” At least that part was the truth.

  “Gavin told me a dumb-blonde joke last week when he made a ninety-eight on the chemistry test and I made a ninety-seven,” Chloe said.

  “That’s just Gavin.” I couldn’t believe I was defending that jerk, but I really did think Chloe was overreacting. “Gavin would make fun of you for a hair out of place. He’s just feeling around for material.”

  “He can’t feel there,” she said vehemently. “He can make jokes, and I’ll giggle and pretend he’s actually funny, up to a point. But if he tries to tell me I’m less of a person because I’m a girl? Or you are? That’s where I draw the line.” She pulled her bag from a locker and slammed the metal door.

  “But you can’t blame Davis,” I reasoned, turning to Liz. “He didn’t start it.”

  “He didn’t stop it,” Liz said, not looking up from tying her boots. “He was so disrespectful of you on your big day.”

  “But he didn’t mean anything by it,” I pointed out, “unlike Gavin, and definitely unlike Nick. Davis is naturally a sweet-natured person. He’s just been hanging around Nick and Gavin too long. It’s a wonder they don’t have him stealing candy from babies, or blasting rap music out of his car stereo in front of the retirement home.”

  Liz stood, shaking her head. For a moment I hoped some water had dripped down her face from her damp curls—but no. She had tears in her eyes. “My boyfriend can’t treat my friends that way.”

  “Oh God!” I exclaimed, really desperate now. “Look at me.” I stood in front of both of them. To Liz I said, “You and Davis are adorable together.” I moved to Chloe. “And you and Gavin are—”

  She raised her eyebrows at me.

  “—interesting together. You can’t let my fight with Nick ruin your relationships with your hot boyfriends. Come on, now. My fight with Nick has been going on for years. It’s like this black hole, with gravity so strong that not even light can escape, sucking in winter breaks and dates and whole relationships, until the world—are you listening to me?” When I’d started waxing poetic, Chloe’s attention had wandered around the room. I grabbed her chin and turned her face to me again. “Until the very world is devoid of love!”

  “It’s not that bad,” Nick’s voice came faintly through the locker room wall.

  We all looked at one another.

  “Let’s go up to my apartment,” Chloe said. “Forget them. I have something in my room that will cheer us up, and it’s much better than boys.”

  Chloe was serious about putting the boys in Time Out for the time being, and Liz seemed serious, too. Now that I knew Nick was in the locker room next door, I listened for him and wondered whether the boys would eventually follow us to Chloe’s family’s apartment at the back of the building, overlooking the ski slopes. Chloe and Liz clomped up the stairs like they weren’t giving the boys a second thought.

  I slowed on the steps. Chloe and Liz reached the top of the staircase and pushed into the hall above me, leaving the door to close slowly and bump shut behind them. I was alone. I turned around and watched the door at the bottom of the staircase, waiting for Nick to appear. Wishing he would mate rialize so I could yell at him and get this weight off my chest.

  I’d been so in love with him for that magical month in seventh grade, and I was so devastated to find out I was a joke to him. He must have sensed that I still liked him more than I was letting on, and now he was acting mean about it. Why? What had I ever do
ne to him? I wanted to be furious with him about the girl snowboarder comments, the jump challenge, everything, but it just didn’t make any sense.

  I stood there so long, staring a hole in the closed door at the bottom of the stairs, willing it to open and Nick to walk in and explain himself to me, that I got dizzy in the long white room. The dread of snowboarding off that jump came back to me in a rush. I clung to the railing to keep from falling down the stairs.

  “Hayden,” Liz called from the hall.

  “Coming!” I shook my head to clear it, then ran up the stairs to my friends without looking back again.

  When I reached Chloe’s bedroom, she and Liz sat up on Chloe’s fluffy pink king-size bed, waiting expectantly. Uh-oh. Sure enough, the second I closed the door behind me, they both squealed, “Did you and Nick make out?”

  I sighed. “For a second there, I thought we were going to.”

  “But you didn’t?” Chloe wailed.

  I flopped onto the foot of the bed and stretched out on my back. “No. We had an argument, and he called me a bitch.”

  “What!” Liz exclaimed. “That’s so disrespectful!”

  “That doesn’t sound like Nick,” Chloe said. “What exactly led up to this?”

  Thinking back, I sat up with an enormous groan. The whole evening had been so confusing and frustrating and mortifying. Not like the seventh grade, but close. “I walked in on him in the sauna. We joked around. You know how we do.”

  Liz and Chloe nodded. Chloe motioned for me to hurry up with my story.

  “I thought he was going to kiss me, and I stopped him.” I put up a hand to Chloe’s chest just as I had to Nick’s. Then, when I realized what I was doing, I hastily jerked my hand away. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to feel you up.”

  “It’s quite all right,” Chloe said.

  “Why did you stop him?” Liz shrieked impatiently.

  I rubbed my temple. My headache from the cold shower hadn’t quite dissipated. “I don’t know. It seemed like that was all he wanted, and I couldn’t let him take advantage of me.”