The Ex Games

by Jennifer Echols

  “Maybe he thought that’s all you wanted from him,” Chloe suggested.

  I frowned at this disturbing possibility. “Maybe. It’s hard to have a heart-to-heart with someone who throws stuff at you and calls you a fire-crotch and a bitch.”

  “Is that all that happened?” Liz prompted me. “You stopped him from kissing you, and he called you a bitch?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I told him I didn’t want to kiss him because he hadn’t asked me to the Poseur concert. He hadn’t asked me about winning the competition. He acted like I was just a convenient catch because all of y’all are dating. I told him we had irreconcilable differences.”

  Chloe gasped. “Like in a divorce? Hayden, why did you say that?”

  I supposed it did sound ugly, now that I thought about it. But not that ugly. “We were both making divorce jokes in the hall last Friday. He started it.”

  “Hayden.” Liz leaned forward and took me by both shoulders, bracing me for the bad news she was about to break. “Nick’s mother left his father on Sunday.”

  “What!” I hollered, jumping off the bed to pace the floor.

  “He told Gavin and Davis,” Chloe said, “and they told Liz and me. Nick must have thought you knew. If I were him, and you blew me off and made divorce jokes, I guess I would have called you a bitch, too.”

  I stopped pacing and put my hands in my hair to keep from throttling her. “Jesus, Chloe! Why the hell did you invite him over here in the middle of his family troubles?”

  “He’s friends with Gavin and Davis,” she said. “He needed to get out of the house and forget about it for a night. He needs all our support right now.”

  Guilt trip.

  “And you didn’t have a date tonight because you broke up with Everett,” Chloe said.

  I took my hands out of my hair so I wouldn’t tear it out. “Everett and his mama broke up with me, thank you very much.”

  “You shouldn’t have made out with him in his mother’s scrapbooking room,” Liz said sagely.

  “We’re seventeen,” I snapped, “and Everett and I had been dating for two months when that happened. What were we supposed to do, eat dinner with his family and keep our hands on the table where everyone could see them? I mean, you and Davis are Mr. and Mrs. Polite Reserve, and even you were macking in the hot tub an hour ago.” I picked up a pink fuzzy pillow that had fallen from the bed onto the floor and threw it at Liz.

  “You were?” Chloe gushed. “You what? Hello, I need the details of Liz and Davis.”

  “Hayden!” Liz squealed, ducking behind Chloe. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t have made out with Everett. I’m saying you shouldn’t have done it in his mother’s scrapbooking room. Location, location, location. You might have disorganized her supplies. Some people are very particular about their chipboard getting mixed up with their cardstock.”

  I closed my eyes, inhaled through my nose, and felt my lungs fill with air. My blood spread the life-giving oxygen throughout my body.

  “Watch out,” Chloe whispered to Liz. “She’s doing yoga.”

  My eyes snapped open. So much for controlling my temper. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me Nick’s mother left before I went into the sauna with him?” I hollered at Chloe.

  “We didn’t know he was here!” Liz came to Chloe’s defense.

  “And if we’d warned you about him before he got here,” Chloe explained, “you would have known he was coming. We didn’t want you to leave. The two of you are surprisingly hard to throw together, let me tell you.”

  “I’m not buying it,” I informed Chloe. “You were distracted. You had your mind on taking inventory.”

  Liz giggled, turned red, and fell back on the pillows.

  “Taking inventory requires enormous concentration!” Chloe said with a straight face, but she was blushing, too.

  I was glad for them, really. I was happy they’d had fun with their boyfriends, at least for a little while, and I hoped they didn’t push this bet too far.

  At the same time, I was very angry with them for contributing to this terrible mix-up with Nick. As supportive as Chloe and Liz usually were to me, I couldn’t help thinking at that moment that I had Very Bad Friends.

  Liz sat up again and wiped her eyes. “Do you want me to tell Davis to tell Nick that you didn’t know anything about his parents when you were in the sauna with him?”

  I shook my head no. “It sounds too much like a debauched game of Telephone. This whole thing seems very seventh grade. Besides, it’s actually good this happened. Nick is a smooth talker. It took him getting furious for me to find out how he really feels about me. I don’t want or need a boyfriend who thinks so little of my snowboarding skills and questions the very relevance of women’s athletics. I’ll admit, I may have carried a torch for him all these years. He just blew it out. So consult me the next time you want to play Cupid for me. And don’t choose me a boy with four or five girls in a holding pattern. Nick Krieger is all wrong for me. Stop throwing us together.”

  Chloe and Liz stared at me from the bed.

  “Okay?” I prompted them.

  “Okay,” they agreed, way too agreeably. Even after tonight’s disaster, I got the feeling they were not through with Nick and me yet.

  “I’m glad this happened, too,” Liz said quickly. “It’ll give you the push you need to get over your fear of heights.”

  “Yeah, about that bet.” I rubbed my temple again, massaging away the headache that throbbed harder than ever. “I’m sorry, y’all, but there’s no way I’m going off that jump. I’ll buy the Poseur tickets for you.” I had been saving for another snowboard—they didn’t last forever, the way I abused the half-pipe—but fair was fair.

  “Oh,” Liz cried sympathetically, “you don’t have to do—”

  “You will not lose this bet!” Chloe insisted. “We are showing up those boys, and you are going off that jump. I’ll board with you tomorrow and coach you.”

  Now there was some motivation to get over this problem quickly. Chloe was a notorious betty. On the rare occasion when she graced the slopes with her presence, boys zoomed toward her because she was so cute in her pink snowsuit, then zoomed away again as she lost control and threatened to crash into them. She’d made the local snowboarding news a few years ago when she lost control at the bottom of the main run, boarded right through the open door of the ski lodge, skidded to a stop at the entrance to the café, and asked for a table for one.

  “I’m working at the city library tomorrow,” Liz said, “but I’ll ski with you and coach you on Thursday.”

  “Have you actually tried to go off the jump and failed,” Chloe asked me, “or do you not even try?”

  “I don’t even try.” I didn’t like to look at the thing. I averted my eyes when Josh and his friends jumped off.

  “So, now you’ll try,” she decreed. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  I opened my mouth to describe the worst that could happen. I could freeze up ten yards from the precipice, and all four spots where my leg had been broken would throb deep inside, even though I’d been healed for years. I would relive my accident. A series of sickening jerks as every belt and harness designed to keep me safe while rappelling had failed, one by one, and let me fall.

  “Hayden, what’s the matter?” Liz called. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

  I looked at her and then at Chloe, biting my lip to keep from crying. I didn’t want to let them down, but this was a lot of pressure for what was supposed to be a carefree winter break.

  Chloe clapped her hands, snapping me out of it. “I almost forgot what I found to show you! It’s so good, it’ll make this whole night worthwhile.”

  The three of us settled on her bed and ate CONGRATULATIONS HAYDEN! cake straight out of the box with our forks while she passed around this secret treasure that was better than boys (as if). She’d been cleaning out her closet—some people did clean out their closets, I supposed—when she’d come across a teen fashio
n mag–style quiz with twenty questions that she’d written and all three of us had answered back in seventh grade. Our handwriting was young and loopy. We’d dotted the I’s with stars and flowers and hearts.

  1. If you accidentally got locked

  inside the school for an entire

  weekend with a blizzard coming,

  and the only way you could

  survive was to share body heat

  with the boy trapped inside with

  you, who would you want it to be?

  Hayden: Barry Yates

  Chloe: Ollie Cattrall

  “Ollie Cattrall,” Chloe mused. “Right after we wrote this, he moved to Massachusetts. I should look him up on Facebook.”

  “Chloe!” Liz exclaimed, horrified.

  “And then he would post a comment on my page,” Chloe explained, “and Gavin would see it. This would show Gavin he’s not the only man interested in me, and he might treat me a little nicer.”

  “Or,” I pointed out, “this would show him that Ollie Cattrall, who lives two thousand miles away, either is being polite to you or is hitting on you because he cannot get a date at his own school. Which makes one wonder if he had to take his Facebook picture carefully in very low lighting.”

  She glared at me. “Moving on.”

  Liz: Davis Goggins

  “Awww,” Chloe and I both said. I reached out to pinch Liz’s cheek. She and Davis hadn’t been dating long, but it was so sweet she’d thought about him that way back in seventh grade. Almost as if they were destined to be together.

  “I’m not sure anymore,” Liz grumbled. “Ask me again after he pays for my Poseur ticket.”

  2. If you were suddenly transported

  to the 1800s and you had to marry

  a boy in our class to be saved from

  an arranged marriage with an evil

  viscount,

  (Chloe read a lot of historical romances.)

  who would you want to marry?

  Hayden: Mark Jones

  Chloe: Scotty Yarbrough

  Liz: Everett Walsh

  “Everett Walsh!” Chloe exclaimed. I fell off the bed laughing.

  Liz folded her arms and tried to scowl at us, but I could tell she was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “What’s wrong with Everett Walsh?” she sputtered. “I didn’t know when we wrote this in seventh grade that Hayden would hook up with him later. I saw him first.”

  “He’s so straitlaced,” Chloe said. “Not exactly the ideal hero of a romance.”

  “Watch out for his mama,” I advised Liz.

  “I was answering the question you asked,” Liz told Chloe self-righteously. “If your family threatened you with an arranged marriage in the 1800s, you’d want someone on your side who was very mature and organized, who could approach the situation logically and help you out of it. In the 1800s, Everett Walsh would have been a barrister. He’d be perfect for the job.”

  “I’d rather have the evil viscount,” I said.

  We stayed late at Chloe’s, giggling over the other eighteen questions. The night was so fun, and I loved reliving these memories with Liz and Chloe. I hoped we stayed friends forever and would someday look back fondly on this night, just as we were looking back on that night four years ago. And I hoped we wouldn’t remember this as the night we foolishly cut those cute boys loose.

  Because although the night was fun, this quiz definitely was not better than boys. I didn’t admit it to Liz and Chloe, but I remembered exactly what I’d been thinking when I took this quiz in seventh grade. I’d been hoping I wouldn’t go to hell for the little white lies I was telling. I would have been mortified to say so, but when I’d picked Barry Yates or Mark Jones or any boy for the rest of the quiz, I’d always meant Nick.

  “Hayden Christine O’Malley!”

  I started awake. White morning sunlight reflected off the snow outside and bounced through my bedroom window. My body still felt sore and my mind was wiped out from the contest and the argument with Nick yesterday. For my dad to be hollering at me like that, I must have been so tired when I came in last night that I left dishes on the kitchen counter instead of putting them in the dishwasher, or—worse—I forgot to let Doofus out. That really would be a mess to clean up.

  I reached out from under the covers, opened my bedroom door, and called down the stairs, “Yes, honored father?”

  “Get down here.”

  I jumped out of bed, eager to please. That was the only way I knew how to take the edge off the punishment he chose to hand down. Luckily, I glanced in the mirror, because I’d slept in a Burton Snowboards T-shirt. This would not help me look innocent at all. I pulled that off and pawed through my dresser for something more ladylike and less … dangerous. Hello Kitty!

  I galloped downstairs—tripped over Doofus at the foot of the staircase—and slipped into my chair at the kitchen table. A plate of whole wheat pancakes and tofu bacon was waiting for me. I hoped the steam and the giant innocent face of a kitten on my T-shirt would blunt whatever blow was coming.

  My dad had his back to me at the stove. Mom had already left to open the health club.

  Across the table from me, Josh put his fork down and made a small twisting motion with his fingers. I wasn’t sure, but he seemed to be telling me I was screwed.

  Dad set his own plate at the table and sat down. He drew out the torture, taking a bite, chewing slowly, staring a hole through me without speaking.

  Finally I said, “Good morning, respected padre.”

  “Hmph,” he said. “Your brother tells me that by giving in to your acrophobia, thereby ruining your chances of a professional snowboarding career, you are also sabotaging his chances of having the same sort of career through no special effort on his part. Shame on you! You’re grounded.”

  I sniffed. “Did you really wake me up early during my winter break just so you could make a sarcastic comment to Josh?”

  Josh stuck out his tongue at me, then took a huge bite of pancake.

  Dad pointed at me with his fork. “Yes, sorry. If I’d waited until you woke up on your own to make that sarcastic comment, I might have been late for work.”

  I yawned.

  “But while we’re on the subject, Josh is right. His motivation is self-serving, but he’s right about your phobia. If you really want a pro boarding career, sounds to me like you’d better get over your fear or throw away your chance to impress Daisy Delaney. No pressure.”

  I grumbled, “You have no idea.”

  Though my stomach hurt, somehow I swallowed breakfast. Thirty minutes later, Josh and I pulled on our layers of boarding clothes—tripped over Doofus—and headed outside for the bus. But when I opened the mud room door and looked down at the doormat, I stopped short. Josh ran smack into me and nearly brought us both down. “Forward,” he said. “Most people walk forward. What is it?”

  I picked up the local newspaper and held it out to him, speechless for once. It was rolled, but on the part we could see, a huge headline proclaimed, SNOWBOARDING COMPETITION … And a huge photo showed me in midair, snowboard and parka and red hair bright against the blue sky.

  Then I pulled the newspaper back from Josh and took another look. “I’ve never seen myself snowboard before. Check my excellent form! I would be ecstatic, except that my life is crumbling around me and stuff.”

  “Your life isn’t crumbling around you. Just go off the damn jump.” Josh grabbed the paper from me and slid off the rubber band. Unrolled, the news was even worse. The whole headline was, SNOWBOARDING COMPETITION SHOWCASES LOCAL TALENT, and the caption under the photo read, SNOWFALL HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR HAYDEN O’MALLEY LANDS A FRONTSIDE 900 IN THE HALF-PIPE TO WIN THE GIRLS’ 16 TO 18 DIVISION.

  “Give me that, you little traitor.” I grabbed the paper back. “I’ve got to hide from Mom and Dad. You want them to make me spend my whole winter break in some shrink’s office?”

  “If it helps you get over your phobia, yeah. Dad will just call the newspaper office to del
iver another copy. And I don’t know who you’re calling little.”

  I knew one way to solve this argument. I carefully tore the whole article out of the front page, then rolled up the newspaper and slid the rubber band back on. “Doofus,” I whispered. Poor Doofus, behind us in the mud room, stood up in a rush of jingling dog tags and slobber. I slipped the paper into his mouth and whispered, “Take this to Dad.”

  Doofus wagged his tail and trotted into the kitchen. We heard Dad say, “Did you bring me the paper? Good dog. Wait a minute. Bad dog!”

  Josh softly closed the door behind us. “You’ve got to do something, Hayden. You just can’t throw away this opportunity with Daisy.”

  “If it’s a choice between that and me falling to my death, I sure as hell can!” I shrieked. As if in answer, ear-splitting brakes squealed downhill. “And now we’re going to miss the bus!”

  We waved our arms and skidded down the icy sidewalk with our snowboards as fast as we could. The bus driver was used to us and waited. Hardly anybody rode the bus this early—only a couple of other die-hard locals on winter break. We called hi to them in the back and sat down up front.

  I heaved a deep sigh. “You’re not the only one gunning for me to go off the jump. Now I’ve got Liz and Chloe on my case.” Briefly I recounted my ugly convo with Nick last night and explained our snowboarding challenge—leaving out that I’d supposedly made Nick feel worse about his parents’ separation on purpose, which was actually an accident.

  Josh was staring at me with his brows down, perplexed. “Nick Krieger, of Krieger Meats and Meat Products?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that Nick Krieger.”

  “Why is Nick Krieger telling you that girl snowboarders are no good and your win doesn’t mean anything? Does he like you or something? Make sure he knows we’re vegetarian. Mom and Dad would die if they had to pay your dowry in kielbasa.”

  I gaped at Josh in disbelief. “What do you mean, does Nick like me? Is that how you flirt with girls you like? Tell them they’re bad at stuff? Is that how you flirt with Gavin’s sister?”

  He blinked innocently. “Is that wrong?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘wrong.’ I would say ‘not the most efficient way of asking a girl to the middle school Valentine’s dance.’”