by Jillian Dodd
I text Riley.
Me: You still at breakfast?
Sex God: Yuuh, where are you?
Me: Hung with Dallas last night. Very tired :(
Sex God: I hate you. Invite me next time!
Me: Okay :) I’m soooo late, will you bring me food to class?
Sex God: Sure. What do you want?
Me: Skinny soy chai latte, maybe some of that pound cake? Or a banana or a whole grain bagel. I’d be grateful for anything, really.
Sex God: I’ll see what I can scrounge up.
Me: You are THE best friend ever!!!
Sex God: My brother’s becoming obsessed with you.
Me: Haha!! No, he’s not!
Sex God: Um, yeah. You serious about him? I thought you were in love with the hottie god. Dawson doesn’t need to have another girl string him along, you know?
Me: Your brother still loves Whitney. That’s why we are just being friends.
Sex God: Friends who kiss, apparently. Btw, you have 7 minutes to be at class.
Me: Shit!!!
Watching a car wreck.
French
Annie plops down in her seat a few minutes before class is ready to start and beams at me.
“Okay, so I was up all night editing, and, oh my gosh, these are some of the best pictures I have ever taken! I can’t wait to show you!”
As she turns on her computer, Aiden sits in his desk behind me.
I realize I forgot to check the back of my hair after lunch. And Dawson was messing with it. Teasing me. Whispering in my ear. He is really pretty freaking cute.
But then there’s Aiden.
Aiden is beyond cute.
Like Buzz Lightyear says, To infinity and beyond.
Aiden is cute to infinity and beyond.
And even though he is sitting behind me and I can’t see his mouth, I still feel his magnetic pull. Like my heart and soul know things my mind doesn’t.
Is it like those birds that migrate back to the same spot every year? Their bodies just know where to fly. Does my body just know that Aiden is where I belong?
OMG!
Stop it!
Stop thinking these stupid, stupid things.
Maybe I should drop French. I think you can still switch classes this week. And, really, I can speak better than the teacher. Plus, do I really need to be tortured by having a god sitting behind me every day?
I tell Annie, “I’m thinking about dropping this class.”
From behind me I hear Aiden say, “Why would you do that?”
“Speak to me in French,” I tell him.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Anything. Ask me where the bathroom is. Tell me you want to order chicken. I don’t care, just tell me a simple sentence.”
“Um, vous êtes une fille.”
“Yes, you’re right, I am a girl. You got anything else?”
“Uh, très jolie?”
“Very pretty? Who is very pretty? You have to make a complete sentence.”
“I’m trying to say you’re very pretty. I just don’t know how.”
“And that is why I’m thinking about switching classes.”
“No, stay. You can tutor me. I suck at French. And, worst case, you get an easy A.”
I rant. “Tutor vous? Comme je pouvais m'asseoir que près de vous et de ne pas être tiré dans votre rayon tracteur. Sérieusement?”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” is what I say to him, but what I actually said was, Tutor you? Like I could sit that close to you and not be pulled into your tractor beam. Seriously?
But then I think, maybe tutoring him wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I could see that he’s not really a god. That he’s just a stupid boy. Because shouldn’t the God of all Hotties be able to speak French a little better? I mean, it is the language of love. Shouldn’t he be pre-programmed for that or something?
“I’d really like it if you tutored me.” He sounds both sweet and sincere when he says it and, somehow, I find myself agreeing.
Annie says excitedly, “Here! Look! These pictures turned out so good! Wait! Let me show you my favorite first. I showed it to my teacher this morning, and she says it’s so good, so full of emotion, that I should enter it in the state photography competition. Would you be okay with that? I told her I thought you would be. And, oh, Keatyn, I didn’t tell you! Ace texted me last night after the game! Can you believe that? Isn’t he just so cute?”
I’m like, “Uh, yeah, that’s so exciting. And, um, how about we see the pics, like, later. Um, seriously, you can show me later.”
“No! I can’t wait!”
I try to tell her with my eyes that I really don’t want Aiden to see these pictures. But she is oblivious.
“Okay. Look! This is the one that is so amazing.”
On her screen is a picture of me and Dawson. We’re sitting on the bench under the tree. Dawson and I are looking in each other’s eyes. His eyes are tentative, like he’s trying to decide to kiss me or not, but he has sorta already decided because his body is leaned into mine; one big hand is cupping my waist.
It’s an extremely romantic and beautiful picture, and if I didn’t know the people in it and what was really going on in their minds at the time, I would have thought they were incredibly in love. And the picture is brutal proof to me of just how gorgeous Dawson is. His dark hair is falling perfectly into his eyes, his skin is tanned and gorgeous, his jawline is strong and his nose looks like it belongs on a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s nose chart for perfection.
I look surprisingly pretty too. There is a slight breeze, blowing my hair back. The lighting is soft. My skin is so perfect it almost looks airbrushed, and there are highlights perfectly glistening on my cheekbones.
It looks like a very tender moment caught on camera.
But I know what was really going on. I felt the emotions. I knew what he was thinking. What looks like tenderness and uncertainty in his eyes about should I kiss her is really uncertainty about kissing me when he’s in love with someone else. And I was thinking pretty much the same. Should I kiss a boy who I know is in love with someone else? But I can’t say any of that. She is too excited.
“Wow. That’s a really good photo,” I tell her, commenting on the lighting and the trees and ignoring the subject matter.
“Wait until you see the rest.” She starts clicking through picture after picture. Showing me a slow motion version of our kiss. Us moving closer toward each other. Our lips touching. His hand moving toward to my face. My hand running through his thick, dark hair. It’s like watching a slow motion video of a car wreck. I want to tell her to stop, but I can’t get the words out.
From behind me I hear a SLAM as Aiden gets his French textbook out of his backpack and slams it on his desk.
I’m thinking he doesn’t like the photos.
Annie looks at him, then at my cringing face, and says quietly, “Oh, um, class is about to start. I will just show you these later.”
We’ll be sneaky.
9:45pm
Annie and I study together in the library tonight. She tells me she’s going to spend the weekend at her parents’ house in upstate New York.
“Are a lot of people here from New York?”
“All over, really, but most are probably from the upper East Coast.”
I was thinking earlier about where I will go on school breaks and maybe even weekends when I just need to get away. This is something no one really thought about. Where am I supposed to go? I can’t go home. I can’t go with my family. So I’ve been thinking that New York would be the perfect place to go. I also realized today that even though we have a small walk-in closet, I seriously need somewhere else to keep my clothes.
What I need is a home.
A place of my own.
I decide that when I get back to my room, I’m going to look at some real estate sites online.
“So what are your plans for the weekend?” she asks me.
“I think I’m going to a surfing tournament on Long Beach. The guy I dated this summer is going to be there.”
“Why is he coming all the way from California for a surf tournament. Is he in it?”
“Uh,” Shit. “No, he’s just coming . . .” *&^%! Why is he coming?
“To watch?” she asks.
“Yes! To watch. He’s watching. He likes to watch surfing. He’s a big fan of surfing,” I ramble.
“Yeah, but can’t he watch surfing at home all the time?”
“Um, uh, yes, but, uh, it’s . . .”
“An excuse to see you?”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Yes. He’s coming to see me and the surfing.”
As we’re walking out of the library, she says, “We need to be Facebook friends.”
“I don’t have a Facebook.”
“Are you serious? Everyone has a Facebook. Even my grandma has Facebook.” Then she looks at me suspiciously. “Why don’t you?”
Shit. What did I tell Riley? That my parents deleted it? “Uh, I used to have one, but my parents deleted it.”
“Oh, that’s just awful! I would die if my parents did that to me. How are you going to keep in touch with your friends from home?”
Shit, again.
“I kinda got in trouble. I’m not really allowed to talk to my friends from home.”
She nods her head, accepting my answer. “So, everyone here uses Facebook. We’re gonna make you a new page.”
Fuck! Does this girl ever give up? Garrett told me no social media.
“I can’t. My, um, parents always check to see if I’ve made a new one. I’ll get in trouble again if they find it.”
“So you can never have one?”
“Pretty much.”
“Oh, that’s ridiculous. And what are they gonna do? They’re in France. It’s not like they can ground you from there.”
“Uh, true. But I really don’t want to find out, you know.”
She puts her hand under her chin and thinks. “Okay, so here’s what we’ll do. We’ll be sneaky, so they won’t be able to find you.”
“How are we gonna do that?”
“We won’t put it under your real name.” She hooks her arm through my elbow and drags me toward the door. “Come back in the library, and we’ll do it quick. I’ll set all the settings to private. Will that work?”
“Uh, maybe.”
Will it work? I can’t tell her I can’t be on social media because of Vincent. I know what she’s saying makes sense to her, but Garrett told me about facial recognition software. I can’t risk having a profile photo of me. But on the other hand, if I don’t have one, it’s sort of a red flag. Like there’s a reason I don’t want people to know about my past or something.
“So if we do a page, we can’t use a picture of my face. My, uh, parents might see that somehow.”
She looks at me funny. “Wow, they must be really strict and have a lot of time on their hands. But okay, we can do that.”
She whips out her laptop. “Okay, so give me your email.”
“We can’t use my email either. My parents know my password. They might see that I set it up.”
“Jeez. That’s practically invasion of privacy. Okay, so we’ll make you a new email, not using your name.” She taps away on the keyboard then gets a piece of paper out of her bag and writes down my log in information. Then she adds the Facebook app to my phone and gets me all set up. “Okay, so your name is just Kiki. Kiki Kiki to be exact. Let me look at the photos in your phone.”
She scrolls through my pictures. It doesn’t take long, as there are only two. One of me and Brooklyn kissing, where you can’t see our faces. And one us facing the ocean where all you see is our backs.
“Why don’t you have any pictures?”
“It’s a new phone and when I tried to sync it, it erased all the photos from my old phone,” I say. Hoping that is even possible.
“How horrible. Well, we’ll just use this one then.”
“What one?”
She points to one that Dallas must have taken when he had my phone. It’s me. Well, it’s sort of me. It’s a photo of my ass in the plaid uniform skirt, over the knee socks, and my platform Mary Janes. “Is it okay if I use this?”
I laugh. “Yeah, that will be fine.”
I’m still feeling a little nervous about this, but I think not having one would make me stick out more than having one. And I can’t imagine any way possible for Vincent to track me through this.
Unless he has some kind of special ass-recognition software.
I go back to my room, pull out my laptop, and search for a place in New York. I find a lot of beautiful places. Most a little stuffy for my taste. Then I decide to search just lofts.
And I fall in love.
There’s a gorgeous brick-walled loft with a huge, curved wood-beamed great room, four bedrooms, the coolest outdoor space, and a turquoise kitchen island. I think about the money Grandpa gave me. About how he’s always told me real estate is a good investment.
And decide to buy it.
I send Sam, the guy who is handling my money, an email with a link to the property. I tell him I want to close quickly, like within a week or two, and to offer the owners extra, if need be, to do so.
Then I close my computer and immediately fall asleep.
Thursday, September 1st
Shot heard ’round the world.
lunch
I sit down next to Dawson and overhear Whitney talking to Peyton and her minions. “I just think college boys are overrated. You never get to see them and who knows what they’re doing all week when you’re not with them.” She gives Peyton a sad smile.
Like, poor Peyton. Her college boyfriend is probably cheating on her.
Then she says, “It seems like all they want to do is drink beer and party. I’m over that. I want a guy to walk me to class every day. Plus, Jake has gotten so hot. And since Kate married Will, royalty is very in style.”
She glances at me. Lets her eyes trail down my uniform with disgust. Like I’m destroying the school’s reputation with my wardrobe. And I look really cute today. Plaid skort. Tory Birch silk georgette blouse with black piping. Black cardigan. Black over-the-knee socks. Adorable short black cowboy boots with silver star studs. A black studded cross body bag. Thick black leather cuff with silver and crystals.
I ignore her look and turn toward Dawson. He’s been acting weird today. Almost ignoring me. I want to talk to him about it, but there is no way I’m going to say something about it now, where Whitney can hear.
I look down at the table and wonder why I’m still sitting here.
“Hey, I’m gonna go sit with Dallas and Riley,” I say quietly to Dawson.
As I walk away, I hear Whitney say to him, “Dawson, Dawson . . .”
I can tell she is getting ready to slam him, or probably me. Either way, I don’t want to hear it.
I sit down at the boys’ table next to Riley.
A few seconds later, Dawson slides into the seat next to me and sighs loudly. “Did you see the pictures on Facebook?”
“What pictures?”
“The ones Annie took of us kissing.”
“Uh, no.”
“Everyone has seen them. Everyone is talking about them. I’m kinda freaking out about this.”
“Why are you freaking out? Wait. Are you saying you don’t want anyone to know you’ve kissed me? Is that the problem? Is that why you’re acting so weird today?”
He sighs again. And it pisses me off because I realize what he’s not saying. He’s upset Whitney saw them.
Honestly, if I were smart, I wouldn’t want her to see them either. I really don’t want to battle her.
I just want to go to school, make some friends, and try not to get killed in the process.
Is that so much to ask?
He says, “I, uh, no, it’s not that. She tagged us both. She added titles to the pictures like Cutest couple EVER, SOOOO ROMANTIC!!!!, a
nd Submitting to MTV Awards as the BEST KISS OF THE YEAR! I know that people have seen us kiss and stuff. I don’t know. I guess I just wasn’t prepared for it to be quite so public.”
Public?
He’s embarrassed of me?
Me?!
Wow.
I realize now why it seemed like people were murmuring behind me during my classes this morning. Why some girl I’ve never met asked me if I was going out with Dawson.
Who knew that while my head was sleeping happily on my pillow other events were occurring, unfolding, whatever you would call it. These photos are like the shot heard ’round the world. Honestly, I don’t know what the shot heard ’round the world was. Seems like I studied that at some point during History. I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure that this Facebook post was like that shot.
Remind me to never go to bed so early.
Dawson is looking down at the table. He’s fidgeting, rubbing his fingers together nervously. He knows he’s being a jerk. And I know for sure that he’s not over Whitney, no matter what he says.
I touch his hand and say slowly, “Hey, don’t worry about it. If you’re that embarrassed, untag yourself, and I’ll make sure that we don’t kiss in public—or in private, for that matter—ever again.”
I shove my chair away from the table.
Get up.
Throw my untouched lunch into the trash.
As if I haven’t had enough, Whitney meets me at the trash. She tosses a single napkin in the barrel.
“Great photos on Facebook.” Then she lowers her voice. “Obviously, he’s embarrassed. I told you, you’re just fresh meat. I remember how he always posted pictures of us on Facebook. He still loves me, you know.”
I don’t say a word to her, just storm outside, to a bench far away from the scene of the crime.
I very feel alone. I look at my phone, sigh, and text Brooklyn.
Me: Sorry for the other night. I’m still kind of reeling from everything that’s happened. From my life being turned upside down. I’m confused. You say things that confuse me. Half the time you act like you want to be just friends. The other half, it seems like you want us to be more.
