by Ivy Adams
Three weeks ago, she’d had a boyfriend who was completely devoted to her, who she believed valued all the things she held most dear. Yes, he’d been leaving for college nine hours away. And yes, he’d told her they should break up now rather than try to do the longdistance thing. But she’d never—not in a million years—have dreamed he’d run off to Lubbock and do crazy shit like this.
Nausea hit the back of her throat like a ninja. He’d betrayed her. The blonde wasn’t even the worst part. He’d lied about everything—about who he was. About everything he believed.
Sleeping with a guy who’d just broken up with you, but who you loved and admired … that was almost like saying good-bye. Sleeping with a liar, and an oil-sucking one at that, well, that was just … incredibly stupid.
Izzy felt like she couldn’t breathe. Unable to swallow the emotion building in her chest, she stormed out of Piper’s room and tromped down the stairs, making a beeline for the sliding glass doors leading onto the patio.
The Douglases’ backyard was landscaped like a tropical paradise. The kidney-shaped pool dominated the oasis, a rock waterfall tinkling away at one end. Near the back door, potted palms and oversized umbrellas shaded the elegant furniture. On a table sat a tray with three pillar candles nestled into a base of smooth river rocks.
Her muscles itching to throw something, lzzy palmed several of the rocks and moved to the edge of the pool. For a second she just stood there, staring into the pristine aqua depths. Then she pulled back her arm, let loose one of the rocks, and watched it skip across the surface before sinking into the pool’s depths. One for her friends, who hadn’t even noticed she was upset. One for her parents, who were always putting her needs dead last. One for the trip she couldn’t take. One for the job she’d have to get. One for the guys she wouldn’t be kissing.
She was out of rocks. But not out of anger. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her favorite cargo pants. Her fingertips touched smooth plastic—her earrings. The delicate leaves of some Amazonian plant that had been encased in epoxy. The present River had brought back for her from his trip to the Brazilian rain forest last year. For weeks now, she’d been carrying the earrings around, unable to wear them—’cause they kind of made her want to puke now—but also unable to just get rid of them.
Now she wrapped her fist around them, pulled them out of her pocket, and hurled them into the water.
Where they floated.
Ah, crap.
Behind her, she heard the door slide open. Mei, Cassidy, and Piper had made it out just in time to see the last of her temper tantrum.
Double crap.
If they’d been here ninety seconds ago, she wouldn’t have thrown the earrings. After all, she’d worn them nearly every day for almost a year. If they knew she’d thrown them into the pool, they’d freak out and demand answers. More in-depth answers than River’s stupid Facebook post could explain.
Sink, damn it! But they didn’t sink. They’d always been suspiciously light. He probably ordered them in bulk on eBay and gave them to all his girlfriends. The jerk.
Not giving herself time to think it through, she toed off her shoes, yanked her shirt over her head, and then shucked her pants. Fury gave spring to her muscles as she dove cleanly into the pool.
Her body sliced through the cool water, washing away the heat of her anger, soothing the prickling irritation of her skin. She swam to the bottom, the chlorine stinging her eyes as she searched for the stones she’d thrown. One by one, she plucked them off the bottom of the pool until her lungs were burning. Looking up at the surface, she saw the earrings floating just above her head. She kicked off, her empty left hand stretched above her. She snatched the earrings out of the water just before she broke the surface.
Heavy with rocks and disappointment, she swam awkwardly to the steps, climbed out, and sat on the edge of the pool. The limestone pavers were hot through the damp cotton of her underwear. Despite the late afternoon sun beating down on her, an icy shiver chased across her skin. She pulled her legs in to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees, curling up like a baby chick still in its shell.
Keeping the earrings in her palm, she let the rocks fall from her hand to the ground beside her.
“I didn’t want them to clog up the system,” she said into the stunned silence.
Someone, Mei probably, draped a towel across her shoulder. She grabbed the ends and pulled it tight, then stood. She could just imagine what they must be thinking: Oh, crap. Here she goes again.
Jeez, it was what she was thinking, too.
And she could hear them whispering behind her.
“What do you think she’s going to do?” Cassidy spoke in a whispered hiss.
“Should we check her for new piercings?” Piper asked.
That had been just over a year ago. She still had a faint scar just to the left of her belly button. That one had hurt like hell. And gotten infected. Which was so not sexy.
“Duh,” Cassidy muttered. “She’s not going to do the same thing twice.”
Piper sat down beside her and rubbed a hand across her shoulder in a way meant to be soothing. “Iz, you can stay at my house if you want to run away again. I bet my mom wouldn’t notice for—”
“Shut up, Pipes,” Cassidy said, cutting her off.
“I’m sure your parents would notice this time,” Mei said, but her voice lacked conviction.
Izzy stood up. “I’m fine.” Her friends looked at her with serious doubt in their eyes. “Really, I’m fine.” She gave her body a quick onceover with the towel and then reached for her pants. As she pulled them on, she slipped the earrings back into her pocket.
“Iz, you just stripped naked and jumped into my pool.” Piper, always there to state the obvious. “I don’t think you’re fine.”
The earrings would have been so much easier to explain than jumping into the pool naked. Clearly, she had not thought this through.
“I’m not upset about River.”
“Yeah, right,” Cassidy said doubtfully.
“I knew it was over when he left for Texas Tech. We broke up weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Piper demanded.
“She did,” Cassidy pointed out.
“But they hooked up again at the party. If they broke up after that, she should have said so.”
“Why?” Cassidy demanded of Piper. “We’re her friends. Not her therapist. She can break up with whoever she wants.”
“Yo!” Izzy waved her hands between them. “That isn’t what I’m upset about!”
They stopped, both turning to stare at her. Then Piper asked the question Izzy had been dreading. “Then what the hell is wrong with you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Mei asked. “She can’t go on her trip.”
“What?” Piper leaped to her feet. “That can’t be true.”
“Huh?” Cassidy’s mouth hung open in obvious shock.
Izzy could only nod as she choked back the tears that had been pressed against her eyes for the past week. She met Mei’s gaze. “How did—”
“I overheard Mr. Szachowicz saying that if your brother didn’t play this fall, there’s no way UT is going to give him a scholarship, regardless of who your father knows. I didn’t think much of it, but then—” Mei shrugged. “You stopped responding to texts. You never posted on the IKC page. I figured something had to be up.”
“What does her brother playing football for UT have to do with her trip?” Piper’s voice was thick with indignation.
Mei leveled her practical gaze at Piper. “If her parents were counting on a football scholarship, then this ruined everything. His grades aren’t good enough for him to get into one of the top-tier colleges. And maybe they can’t afford to send him at all. They have to think about Linc’s future.”
Leave it to Mei to put the pieces together so succinctly. “She’s right,” Izzy said. “Without the scholarship, Linc might not be able to go to college at all, even if he could get in.”
“It’s not fair!” Piper protested.
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Not fair was pretty much the rules of the road in her house. For her father, football was everything. For her mother, it was Shane. And there she was, trapped in the middle. The only unexceptional member of the family. With her nimble-footed dolt of an older brother scoring touchdowns and her nimble-fingered baby brother storming the competition circuit, there was more than enough talent in the family to satisfy both her parents. Unfortunately, none of it was hers. As a result, anything that had to do with her came in last. She’d thought she was used to it.
Cassidy was shaking her head. “It doesn’t make any sense. You live in one of those big old houses near the square. I thought you guys were loaded.”
And they should have been. When her dad had left the University of Texas, he’d walked away with a lot of money. The Paris Independent School District had lured her father there with visions of building a state championship team. Her parents had sold their old house in Austin and bought a 1920s foursquare in the historic district of Paris. Even without her mom’s salary as a lawyer, they should have been okay. But it wasn’t cheap for her mother to cart Shane around to all those competitions, and the price tag would only inch up as he got older.
Still, they might have been fine, if her father hadn’t gone and bought the ranch outside of town and started running cattle on it. Our nest egg, her father called it. But under her breath, Izzy’s mom always called it the money pit. Not that Shane’s baby grand had been precisely cheap. Still, if her parents were having trouble scraping together money for college, Izzy suspected that damn ranch was to blame. Turned out, beef was bad for more than just the environment.
“I think my parents are just really shitty planners.”
We really wanted to send you, honey, her mother had cooed at her last week. But it’s just not going to work out. You understand, don’t you?
Cassidy frowned. “But they already paid for it. They were on board from the beginning. Not going doesn’t save anything.”
Izzy pulled her shirt back on. She’d gone over all of this with her parents. Again and again. She didn’t want to dissect it with her friends, too, like one of those poor frogs in biology class. But she knew they wouldn’t let it alone.
“My parents just paid the deposit. So we’re only out two hundred dollars there.”
“The airline ticket,” Cassidy protested. “You’ve already paid for that, too, right? And that’s nonrefundable.”
“It’s exchangeable.” She sighed. “My mom and Shane are going to use the tickets to hit the qualifying rounds of some big competition in New York in the spring. They said there’s no money for anything extra. Not the rest of the fees, not the cost of books and supplies. Not any spending money.”
“What are you going to do, Iz?” Mei asked, her voice quiet.
“I’m going to stay here and get a job.” The resolve in her voice surprised her, because she hadn’t thought it through until just this second. One thing she knew: she wasn’t going to let this happen again. She was done relying on her parents. “And I’m going to study my ass off for the SAT. If there’s not enough money for them to send Linc to college without a scholarship, then you can bet there’s not enough money for me, either. Plus, I’m going to need money for gas—if I even get to keep Brittney.”
Cassidy sucked in a sharp breath. “Your car. They can’t make you sell your car! That’s your freedom.”
“Forget the car,” Piper jumped in. “Screw that! Sell the damn car and use the money to pay for the trip to Costa Rica!”
Izzy nearly smiled at Piper’s indignation. “Sorry. It’s a done deal. They’ve already canceled everything.”
“No way.” Piper poked a finger up in the air like she was leading troops into battle. “We’re the International Kissing Club. We’re not leaving a member behind while the rest go off to have a grand adventure.”
“Really, it’s fine. I’ll—”
“I’ll stay, too,” Mei interrupted softly.
All heads swiveled in her direction.
Mei nodded with stoic resolve. “Piper is right. You shouldn’t have to stay here alone just because your brother’s a dick. I’ll stay behind to keep you company.”
Izzy’s throat constricted and the tears she’d been trying so hard to keep in check finally spilled out. “Thanks, Mei.” For a second, she even considered it, how nice it would be to have a friend with her for the next ten weeks.
It wouldn’t be Costa Rica. It wouldn’t be living in the rain forest, helping the researchers who were—literally—going to save the world someday. It would still be another ten weeks trapped in tiny, boring Paris, Texas, where gas-guzzling SUVs ruled. But at least she wouldn’t be alone. She’d have a friend with her. A friend who had given up on her own dream to keep her company.
Finally, Izzy shook her head. “I can’t ask you to do that. I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I let you stay behind. Going to China is just as important to you as going to Costa Rica was to me.”
She studied Mei, who hadn’t been back to China since her parents adopted her when she was two. Who rarely got any closer to Chinese culture than the Panda Express in Sherman.
Izzy managed to dredge up a chuckle. “Who am I kidding? Going to China is way more important to you.”
Piper sat down beside her and wrapped an arm across her shoulder, bumping her head against Izzy’s. “Are you sure? We could all stay.”
“Don’t be silly.” But she had to swallow back another wave of tears. “I’m just not used to being the one left behind.”
Then her gaze darted to Cassidy as it hit her. This must be how Cassidy had felt all their lives. All the times they’d gone off to summer camp or to Six Flags in Dallas for the weekend. They’d never meant to exclude Cassidy, but there’d simply been things she couldn’t afford to do or work she couldn’t get out of. Somehow, Cassidy always bore it with a grin. She’d wave them off with a cheerful good-bye. “Have fun storming the castle,” she’d say, quoting The Princess Bride.
Now, feeling slightly sick to her stomach, she looked at Cassidy and tried to smile. “Boy, this staying-behind thing really sucks. I’m sorry, Cass. I didn’t know.”
Cass just smiled, not her normal cheerful smile, but one that was a little sad. “I’m sorry, too.”
Three days later, all four of them loaded up Brittney, and together they made the three-hour drive to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The windows were down to hold the bungee cords strapping Piper’s extra suitcase to the roof. At first, Izzy had only planned on driving Cassidy, whose mother had to work and couldn’t bring her. Then, since all their flights left on the same day, Piper had decided it would make a fun road trip.
Mei’s parents had been the holdouts. Susan cried at the thought of not bringing Mei to the airport to see her off, but Mei’s feisty grandmother, Janece, had faked a fall to convince her to stay behind so Mei could make the trip with the rest of her friends.
They spent the drive singing along to their favorite songs and gossiping about the kids at school. Piper’s flight was around noon, but Mei and Cassidy would have to hang out at the airport most of the day before their flights later in the evening. Mostly, Izzy tried not to think about them, waiting in the airport, browsing the shops, and eating at the food court. No matter how bad airport food was, she knew they wouldn’t mind. It was the start of an adventure. One she wouldn’t be going on.
Still, Izzy managed to push down her sadness until the moment they all stood outside the security check point. With their boarding passes in hand and their suitcases already checked, the girls waited to get in line as long as they could. Finally, it was Izzy who said, “Come on, you’ve got to go. Piper, your flight boards in twenty minutes and you don’t know how long this line will take.” She gave Piper’s shoulder a friendly shove. “Just go already.”
“Okay, okay.” Piper held up her hands in a sign of surrender. “I’m going.”
/> Mei and Cassidy looked at each other. “Our flights don’t leave for hours,” Cassidy said. “We’ll hang out here with Iz for a while.”
Izzy forced a smile. “No, it’s okay. Really.” She pulled out her phone to check the time. “I’ve got to get back anyway. I’m stopping by DQ to pick up an application.”
Mei cringed. “I can’t believe you’re going to apply at Dairy Queen.”
Cassidy smiled too brightly. “Hey, free Blizzards. You can’t argue with that.”
Izzy tried again to smile. “It’ll keep me busy. Besides, I can start saving for next year’s exchange program.”
Finally, Piper laughed, pulled everyone into a big hug, and whispered, “You should still kiss as many boys as you can, Izzy. We’ll make a special exception for you and allow boys from other counties as well as other countries.”
A few minutes later, just before Piper, Mei, and Cassidy disappeared into the crowd of international travelers, Izzy gave one final wave and called out, “Have fun storming the castle.”
When the last of them vanished through the metal detectors, she headed out to her car and started the long, lonely drive back to Paris, Texas. North of Dallas, she pulled off the highway into a parking lot and burst into tears. She cried until she almost couldn’t breathe. Then, when she opened her eyes, she realized she was in the parking lot of a Panda Express. And she laughed.
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Chapter 8
Mei
Bleary-eyed and trembling from fatigue and nerves (she wasn’t a great flyer), Mei deplaned and trudged up the ramp at the Shenyang airport, rolling her spiffy new Samsonite carry-on with the extra-padded laptop compartment. At the opened double doors to the terminal, she paused. The airport was bustling even at this early hour, not unlike a major American airport. Except that here, everyone looked like her.
