by Siera Maley
My stomach dropped and instinctively I argued, “She didn’t say that.”
“She did,” he said, shrugging. “Gina was pissed at her all day today, because Gina’s actually a good person who doesn’t like seeing people use other people. You’re not as slick as you think you are. Chelsea’s playing you, not the other way around.”
“Then we’re playing each other,” I said, determined to blink back the tears I could feel welling up behind my eyes. “I don’t like her.”
“Well, right now she’s winning.” He shrugged again and asked, “So. Do you want my help or not?” Then he hopped up off of my bed and brushed past me, heading for the door. “And what’s for dinner?”
“Skylar, this is Cole. Cole, Skylar.”
I rubbed at my eyes as Skylar and Cole took each other in from across the booth at Smokey’s Diner, hoping I didn’t look like I’d gotten as little sleep as I had.
During last night’s stressful dinner with my parents and Cole, I stayed mostly silent while he fielded questions about our burgeoning relationship with a dexterity that made me doubt Cole was even his real first name. Naturally, he’d left a great impression on my parents, who wouldn’t stop talking about how what a gentleman he was afterward. We’d re-exchanged numbers before he’d gone, and I’d promised to introduce him to Skylar after school the following day. Then I’d laid down in bed and cried for half the night over the possibility that I’d been all wrong about Chelsea and I really was just another conquest after all.
And here we were. It was Friday evening, I’d been short with Chelsea over text all day and didn’t have weekend plans with her for the first time in three weeks, and I was completely heartbroken and trying incredibly hard to hide it. I knew everything Cole had said was true; I could feel it in my head and my gut even if my heart was the lone holdout. I didn’t want to believe that everything between Chelsea and me had been a lie, and part of me clung to the fact that Chelsea had been drinking when she’d said those things, but there had been too much truthful context in Cole’s explanation for me to doubt that she’d said them in the first place. The hardest part was that I couldn’t even show how upset I was without tipping Skylar off that I’d caught feelings for Chelsea in the first place. I had to suck it up, channel my sadness into anger, and push forward until I got some answers from Chelsea.
That was the plan, anyway.
“You guys might be doing better than I thought,” Cole told us once he and Skylar had finished introductions. “Chelsea seemed kind of off today at school, like something was bothering her. I saw her looking at her phone a lot, too.”
“So you stalk her and Gina,” I interjected, and he gave a sarcastic laugh.
“Obviously I was keeping an eye out on purpose, since I knew you were gonna freeze her out after what I told you.” I opened my mouth to ask him how he knew that, but he answered my question before I could ask it. “Who wouldn’t? But hey, at least she thinks you’ll be good in bed.” He shrugged.
“I’m sorry, she said what about Zoey?” asked Skylar, confused.
“You didn’t tell her?” Cole asked me.
“I might have skimped on details to spare her,” I mumbled, avoiding Skylar’s eyes.
Skylar didn’t seem bothered. “The point is: There’s no doubt anymore that Chelsea deserves what we’re doing. Right, Zoey?”
I bit my tongue and forced myself to nod. “Yeah. Right.”
“Good. So, Cole, if you know her so well: how do we make this last to Prom, and how do we make sure it actually hurts her?”
“Oh, if we make it last to Prom, it’ll hurt,” Cole assured us. “I mean, if anything, it’ll hurt her pride.”
“The plan isn’t to hurt her pride; it’s to crush her heart,” Skylar told him, annoyed. Instinctively, I flinched at the wording, then inwardly chastised myself. For now, I had to make myself believe that Chelsea was evil again, if only just to stay on Skylar’s good side. “We thought she was really into Zoey, but if she’s not, then we’re doing something wrong.”
“Well, from what I heard, it sounds like she’s pretty into her,” Cole explained, “but it’s physical. And I don’t think Chelsea’s really into anyone emotionally, so your best bet might be to coast to Prom with the physical stuff. If she wants you so bad, let her know that when the time comes, she’s gonna have you. And in the meantime, just keep her interested. Prom’s only three weeks away, right? We can pull that off.” He grinned suddenly, glancing back and forth between us. “Not gonna lie; this is pretty fun. Do you guys have a team name?”
“We’re not naming this,” I deadpanned, and Skylar nodded beside me.
Cole looked disappointed. “Alright, fine. But we need a plan for this weekend.”
After another painful hour with Cole at Smokey’s, we decided that I’d shoot for Sunday plans with Chelsea, just to give her a day to sweat. If she hadn’t asked me what was wrong by that morning, I’d reach out to her and then be passive aggressive in person. I was dreading that option, for fear that if I had to be upset with Chelsea in person, I’d just wind up bursting into tears. Hell, maybe I’d burst into tears in front of her regardless of how we left things over text. I hadn’t felt so terrible or so heartbroken since my breakup with Alex, and though this wasn’t on that level yet, it had the potential to get there.
“He’s annoying,” Skylar said about Cole as we drove away from Smokey’s, and I shot her a look and nodded emphatically.
“Yeah, and now we’re stuck with him. Until I can find it in me to sit down with my parents and come out to them all over again, he’s my cover for dating Chelsea.”
“He’s useful in a lot of ways,” Skylar admitted. “He does go to her school. And he’s obviously smart, considering he figured us out all on his own. But for what it’s worth, I think he’s wrong about the emotional stuff. He thinks like a teenage boy; everything has to be physical. Like, obviously Chelsea’s heart is in it if she’s worried about texts from you. Thinking you’re gonna rock her world in bed can even only take her so far.” She frowned. “At least I hope so.”
“Can we stop talking about how good Chelsea and me would or would not be in bed?” I asked, grimacing. “After last night I don’t even want to think about kissing her.”
“As opposed to before last night?” she asked me, giving me a strange look.
My heart leaped and I tried my best to brush her question off, rolling my eyes at her. “You know what I mean. I was starting to feel sorry for her before. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Yeah, she’s convincing. But don’t feel bad,” she reassured me. “We’ve all said dumb things when we’re drunk; it doesn’t mean she’s been completely playing you all along. I’m sure some of what you thought was real actually is. Just not as much of it. Not enough to get her out of her nightmare Prom, anyway.”
“Yeah,” I conceded, suddenly wishing for a subject change. “I guess so.” I remembered, at last, through all of the chaos, that Alex had come to my locker several days ago. I glanced to Skylar and told her, “Hey, whatever you’re saying to Alex is working. She brought me an old pair of sunglasses I didn’t realize I left with her. We kind of almost had a conversation.”
“Hey, that’s awesome!” She smiled at me. “I haven’t mentioned anything about Chelsea yet, but I’m really pushing that you’re turning over a new leaf and that she should give you a chance. I guess it’s finally starting to sink in. Maybe she’s ready to try to be friends again. Or getting there, at least.”
“Yeah, but then what happens with Wes?” I wondered aloud. “He can hardly look at me.”
“Sounds like he feels how he should feel,” Skylar replied.
“But I want things to be okay with me and him, too. With all four of us.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because I think that they’ll break up soon, and who knows if they’ll still be friends afterward. She’s not happy, Zoey.”
“Yo
u don’t know that,” I insisted.
“Uh, yeah I do. I’m her friend and it’s obvious. Why are you so invested in convincing yourself that she is?”
I sighed and stared straight ahead at the road, tapping anxiously at the steering wheel. Finally, I decided to try being honest. “I guess because if she were, maybe it makes the choice I made worth it somehow.”
Skylar was quiet too for a while. Then she said, “You should tell the truth more often, Zoey.”
Ironic, coming from you, I had to stop myself from replying.
11
“How long will Chelsea last?” had been a question posed by Skylar and Cole at our Smokey’s meetup, but secretly I wondered how long I’d last with the whole short-answer pseudo-silent treatment before I cracked and started demanding answers.
As it turned out, Chelsea cracked first. We’d hoped for before Sunday morning. We got Friday night.
“Are you mad at me?”
The text came in as I was stepping out of the shower and preparing for a quiet night of Netflix and Avoid My Parents. I took one look at it, let out a huge sigh of relief, and then mumbled to myself, “Yeah, no shit.”
I texted Skylar before I texted Chelsea, both to inform her and to make Chelsea sweat a little longer. Even if I didn’t completely loathe her yet, I wasn’t exactly taking pity on her over her stint in the doghouse. “Friday night, 8:23 pm: Chelsea cracks.”
Skylar got back to me quickly. “Suck it, Cole; that’s not just ‘I wanna bang’ o’clock. That’s Chelsea swallowing her MASSIVE pride. She must like something in that head of yours. We just have to figure out how much she likes it.”
“Tell me more about this ‘I wanna bang’ o’clock,” I sent back, laughing aloud. It hadn’t escaped me that Skylar and I had repaired our friendship instantaneously once I’d stopped trying to defend Chelsea. Now that we were practically back on the same page, it was like nothing had ever changed in the first place. It felt good.
“It’s the only time Chelsea knows,” Skylar sent back, and I laughed again, then pressed a hand to my mouth and gasped when I realized I’d just left Chelsea on read for several minutes.
I went back to her text and typed out a few test responses before I settled on the one that I wanted: “Do I have a reason to be?”
I had a second text from Skylar when I was done. It read: “Push her tonight, Z. Cole’s right about one thing: she wants you badly enough that she won’t run yet.”
“Push her?” I mouthed, furrowing my eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
A response came from Chelsea. “I don’t think so…”
I mulled the text over for a moment, then sighed and called Skylar, giving up on texting her and Chelsea at the same time.
“What’s up?” she greeted me. “Shouldn’t you be texting your lovely girlfriend?”
“Not my girlfriend, and I’m calling to ask you about that,” I told her. “I want to run an idea by you.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“You said I should push her. I asked her if I had a reason to be mad at her and she’s denying it. What if I ask her if she said anything about me that I wouldn’t like? If she realizes what I mean, does that give Cole away?”
“Do you have another explanation?”
“I was thinking Gina,” I explained. “She gets upset with Chelsea, maybe texts me to say Chelsea said this thing about me and we should talk it over.”
“Wait, you know what could actually be awesome?” Skylar began. I could hear the smile in her voice already. “Maybe don’t even give her an explanation. Just say you heard it. Who cares if Gina denies it? Chelsea would never guess the full truth anyway. She can wonder.”
“You’re not wrong.” I put her on speaker and went back to my texts. “Okay, help me figure out how to word this. How about: Oh, so we’re not ‘guaranteed’ having sex at Prom? I heard it’s gonna be SO good.”
She burst into laughter and I took that as approval and sent the text. “Man, I’m so glad you’re back on board,” she told me. “I seriously thought I lost you there for a bit.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her. She hadn’t gotten me back yet, not completely, but she certainly had more of me than she had in weeks now. I knew, deep down, that a lot of my heart was still with Chelsea. “I believed her. I think I just wanted to believe there was a good person in there somewhere.”
“I don’t blame you. We both believed her at one point or another.”
My phone went off and I checked my texts. My eyes widened. “Uh…Sky, she wants to come over. Well, actually, she is coming over.”
“Oh, shit.”
“What do I do?” I stared at the text, alarmed, then promptly ripped the towel from my head and raced to my closet, using my free hand to sift through the clothes hanging up inside. “I’m freaking naked; what do I even say to her?”
“Well, don’t be naked,” she told me, sounding a little lost herself. “Damn, I thought we’d have more time. Can you handle a discussion with her about all of this without a prep session first?”
“I don’t know. I think this might be our prep session, Sky.” I froze, blinking rapidly at the collection of clothes in front of me, then felt tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. “Oh, no. I might cry in front of her.”
“Well, on the bright side, emotions from you are always a good thing.”
“You’re not helping.” I snatched a bra off of my closet floor and tossed my phone to the ground while I put it on.
“If you start crying, she’ll feel really bad,” Skylar reassured me. “Well, in theory. So you can use it.”
“I don’t want to use it, I want to be passive aggressive, like we talked about.”
“Oh, we’re past the time for that. She knows you’re mad now. C’mon, Zoey, pull yourself together. You’re the social expert, here; I’m just the brain.”
“Right.” I took a deep breath as I finished getting dressed. Then I took my phone with me as I went to go brush my hair. “Okay, Chelsea’s coming here, my parents will answer the door…Jesus, my parents are gonna meet her.”
“Don’t have a sleepover,” she warned me, and I pulled a face in the bathroom mirror.
“Shut up; I’m not gonna have a sleepover. Obviously.”
“Just checking. Listen, you should do what you think is best, and I trust you and everything, but I think you should leverage this. She can feel terrible or she can feel nothing, but she’ll still know she screwed up. Make her make it up to you. This is good opportunity to figure out what she’ll put up with. Just don’t go too far or you might lose her.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about me going too far,” I pointed out. “So far my big mistake has been being too nice.” I rechecked the time on Chelsea’s text. “Okay, she’ll probably be here soon, so I have to go. Any final advice?”
“Don’t get sucked in. She’s a liar,” she told me. “Don’t forget.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. I hung up and chewed on my lip, staring at myself in the mirror. With Skylar gone, I instantly felt my confidence drain. I tried to psych myself up again, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find that self-assured, hard-hearted girl from the first couple of weeks I’d known Chelsea. I was supposed to find a weakness in her, and it felt like she’d pierced a hole right through me instead. Suddenly, I was terrified to face her.
I grasped at my phone and hastily typed out a quick, “Don’t,” to Chelsea, then sent it. After a moment, I added, “My parents,” hoping she would take pity on me and stay away to avoid putting me through introducing her as my friend. And it was true that I was dreading doing that; my parents were enough of a source of stress in my life without getting them even further entangled in this stuff with Chelsea.
Her text came in two minutes later. “I just got here. Can you just come outside, then? I want to explain in person.”
“I don’t want an explanation!” I groaned aloud, resisting the urge to toss my phone across the room. “I want to hate you!” I pu
t my face in my hands, emotionally exhausted, and mumbled, “This would be so much easier if I hated you.”
When I managed to gather myself, I paced back and forth for a moment, reminded myself about twelve times over that I was about to be lied to, and then went downstairs, past where my parents were in their usual spots in front of the living room television. Before they could ask, I said, “I left a textbook at Skylar’s house; she had Devon drive it over. I’ll just be a second.”
Chelsea was waiting by her car outside. I swallowed hard as I approached her and blurted out, before she could greet me, “I can’t be long; my parents think you’re a friend bringing me a textbook.”
“Okay.” She looked nervous. “Where did you hear that stuff?”
“Does it matter?” I asked her, hoping my voice wasn’t trembling on the outside as much as it felt like it was from the inside. “Because I don’t think it should matter.”
That one stumped her for a second, and I mentally thanked Skylar for the idea. Finally, she said, “It matters because I don’t know if you heard…if it was…” I watched her expectantly as she struggled for words, and finally interrupted her.
“It seemed pretty clear to me. I mean, I definitely got the message.” She swallowed visibly and I folded my arms across my chest. “You really talked me up with the ‘you’re so different’ crap. If every other girl you dated deserved to be treated better and then wasn’t, I guess it was kind of arrogant for me to expect any different for me.”
“It wasn’t crap, and it is different for you,” she said, and I rolled my eyes. “Zoey, I’m serious. You’re right; I should’ve been better to everyone. But I can’t change that now. I can just make it better with you.”
“I look really stupid,” I told her, and then cursed quietly when I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I wiped it away hastily and Chelsea bit her lip. “God, I should’ve known you were too perfect to be real.”
“I am real. This is real,” she insisted. “Sometimes I just say dumb things I don’t mean. I was drinking a lot and I—”
