by Ivy Adams
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t answer mine.” They stared at each other for a minute, and from the look in her mom’s eyes, Cassidy knew she wasn’t going to win. But she couldn’t let it go, because as she stood here talking to her mother, it really hit home how much Lucas wasn’t like her father.
“Did you sleep with him, Cassidy?”
“Mom, no. I can’t believe you would ask that.”
“Well you must have been doing something with him, because a guy doesn’t spend this much money on flowers for nothing.”
She felt the words like a slap. “Stop it, Mom. He’s rich. The money’s not important to him.”
“If he’s got that much money, then why would you think you’re important to him?”
“Why would you think I’m not? Because no one ever spent that kind of money on you?” Her mother’s eyes widened in shock and Cassidy knew she’d gone too far. She felt her throat close with tears she couldn’t shed, at least not until she made her mother understand.
“Don’t you think I haven’t thought about that, Mom? Haven’t you been telling me since the time I could walk that I should respect myself, not fall for the first guy that looked at me twice? Well, I listened. I listened so well that now I can’t trust any guy. Not even one who acted like I was the most perfect girl in the world. A guy who would have done anything for me. I treated him like crap and ran away because I couldn’t let myself believe what he was saying to me, that he loved me.”
The tears ran hot and sticky on her cheeks now. As she swiped at them with the back of her hand, she was painfully aware of Izzy watching every second of her breakdown, but the tears wouldn’t stop. She had hurt Lucas, and he’d done nothing, nothing but love her. Remembering the wounded look on his face the night she’d run away, and then the next morning at the airport—that she had caused it made the pain in her heart so much worse.
Then her mother began to cry too, making Cassidy feel even more horrible. “Oh, baby girl,” she said, coming to wrap her arms around her. “You’re so young. I just want you to make better choices than I did.”
“I know that, Mom, but I’m not you. I won’t make your mistakes. Whatever happened between Lucas and me, it wasn’t a mistake.”
“You’re in love with him,” her mother said. It was a statement, not a question.
Cassidy sighed heavily, exhausted by the whole argument. “I only knew him for ten weeks. That’s not a long enough time to fall in love with someone, right?”
Her mom laughed, a sad, cynical little sound. “Honey, love doesn’t follow a schedule—it just shows up, usually when you least want it to. Unfortunately, while there’s nothing I know of to stop it, there’s also definitely no mistaking it when it does happen.” Her mom pulled away, kissed her on the cheek, and then, with a sigh, left the room.
“Are you okay?” Izzy asked, her comforting hand on Cassidy’s arm.
“I don’t know,” she answered. She glanced at the little card she still held in her palm. See you in March. March!!!
Cassidy couldn’t help the quick jump in her heartbeat when she reread the words. She woudn’t let herself believe it—that after everything she’d done to him, he would still come all the way to Texas to see her. She was afraid to get her hopes up.
She didn’t know what frightened her more, the idea that he might come. Or that he might not.
Chapter 27
Izzy
It was supposed to get better once her friends came home.
For ten weeks, she’d lived in solitary misery, so lonely she’d started hanging out with Germaine, for God’s sake. Having Piper, Mei, and Cassidy back in Paris should have fixed all that. Instead, it was worse.
The fight they’d had the other day at Dairy Queen still hung in the air. They were all miserable, but no one seemed able to talk about it, least of all Izzy.
On one hand, she’d finally told someone the truth about River. That horrible weight had been pried off her shoulders. And better still, Cassidy hadn’t leaped down her throat, ripped out her stomach, and used it to beat some sense into her. Which was pretty much what Izzy had expected Cassidy to do.
And how weird was that? Cassidy—the one who’d always relentlessly ragged on any girl stupid enough to have sex in high school, the one friend Izzy had been sure she could never tell—was the one she had told. Weirder still, Cassidy had been understanding—though she had called River’s cell and left a message on his voice mail that could earn Cass fifty years to life if he ever disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
But even Cassidy’s vivid description of River’s mangled body parts couldn’t ease the sick feeling in Izzy’s stomach as they entered the yogurt shop to meet Mei and Piper. During homeroom earlier that day, she’d choked out an apology for her behavior at their reunion. Piper had accepted it stiffly. But some warning bell in the back of her mind told her that Piper wouldn’t be as forgiving if she found out that Izzy had been sitting at Germaine’s table during lunch.
Back when everyone was away, sitting with Germaine had seemed harmless. Now, things had changed. And it wasn’t just because Piper was home, either. Izzy had kissed Tanner. Germaine’s boyfriend.
Now that Tanner’s lips weren’t looming over hers, kissing Germaine’s boyfriend seemed like a colossally bad idea. This was Germaine. The girl who’d once keyed the car of a new kid because he’d parked in “her” spot in the parking lot. She had a well-deserved reputation for being a mite territorial. Izzy guessed Germaine didn’t yet know about the kiss, seeing as how Izzy was still walking around with all her limbs intact. She wanted to keep it that way. For as long as possible.
Preferably forever.
Which was also how long she hoped to keep the secret about eating with Germaine.
Her plan for keeping all of her secrets? Well, it was simple.
The way she saw it, there were three separate storm systems brewing on the horizon: Germaine, Piper, and Tanner. If all three came in contact with one another, it would be her own perfect storm. Surely in a town of twenty-five thousand people, in a school of almost one thousand kids, keeping Piper from seeing Germaine and Tanner couldn’t be too hard. All she really needed to do was make it through the next week. Then Christmas break would start. If she could just keep her head down for five more days, she could hide in her bedroom and relish her sweet, sweet invisibility.
With that goal in mind, she convinced Piper, Cassidy, and Mei to leave school during lunch to eat at Yogurt Worxx. The four of them, all back together, back at the spot that had started it all, where they’d first decided to go international.
This was supposed to be a happy day, so why did they all look like the photos their history teacher had shown them of Texans during the Great Depression? Except instead of ancient farming implements, they each held massive cups of yogurt. She knew why she and Cassidy were miserable. She just didn’t know why everyone else was, unless her mood was catching. Sitting at Germaine’s table choking down a steady diet of carrot sticks and criticism had been better than this.
Cassidy was still paying for her yogurt as Izzy approached the table where Mei and Piper already sat. In front of Mei was a tower of mint yogurt, mounded with an equally impressive serving of chocolate chips. The sensible Mei of the past would have gotten a dash of fat-free vanilla and added a topping just so the rest of them wouldn’t tease her. Piper had served herself vanilla yogurt. Without a sprinkle in sight.
The tension in the group was too thick for their forced cheer to cut through. Izzy knew it was up to her to smooth things over, and the words were right there on her tongue, but her own misery kept them trapped in her mouth.
Izzy lowered herself into the chair opposite Piper and dug into her bowl of sour green apple drizzled with caramel. The taste of betrayal, she had decided. More tart than sweet.
She looked up and caught Piper’s gaze, digging deep to muster a smile.
Piper gave a little nod, as if to say she too was willi
ng to put the tension behind them. After a minute, she said, “You know what I missed about Paris the most? Besides y’all I mean.”
Izzy piped up with an answer. “American cheese?”
Piper giggled. “Yeah, right.”
Mei plucked a chocolate chip from her yogurt and popped it in her mouth. “Coffee that doesn’t keep you up all night?”
Piper snorted in disgust. “Who needs that? I’ve been so spoiled by French coffee, I may have to take up drinking tea when I’m not at home.”
“I know what I missed,” Cassidy chimed in, sitting down at the table. “Real Texas guys. Guys who are tough, monosyllabic, and don’t talk about their feelings.”
“Guys who don’t all smoke!” Piper added.
“Amen to that.” Izzy shuddered in disgust.
Mei didn’t have to give it much thought. “Food. And having only one person in the school who hates me.” Then she asked, “Piper, you never said what you missed besides us.”
Piper’s gaze raked over them. She just shook her head as she smiled. “You know what? That was it. Just you guys. That’s all I missed.”
Izzy felt her guilt rise up to choke her. She was a bad friend. A bad, bad friend. She’d always thought Germaine was a turkey buzzard, but now she knew it was really her, picking over the remains of other people’s relationships.
She’d betrayed Piper by befriending Germaine. She’d betrayed Germaine by kissing Tanner. What were her chances of making it to Christmas break without being smothered by her own regrets?
Piper dropped her spoon. “You know what we need?” Her tone was overly bright. “We need to go into Dallas this weekend. Do some Christmas shopping. Maybe meet some guys.”
Resentment reared up to give Izzy’s guilt a firm shove onto the back burner.
Piper needed more guys? Tanner wasn’t enough? Sebastian wasn’t enough? Half the guys in France weren’t enough? Piper still needed more? Here she was feeling guilty about kissing Tanner, and Piper was planning to extend her kissing campaign to Dallas.
Izzy threw down her spoon and pushed back her chair. “Screw this. I need a burger.”
She snatched the still-full yogurt cup off the table and dumped it in the trash on the way out. Even though there was a recycling bin just beside the garbage can. Five inches away.
“What the hell?” she heard all three of her friends squeal from behind her.
Izzy stopped outside the yogurt shop and surveyed the familiar stretch of Clarksville Street. The nearest hunk of charred cow flesh could be had about a hundred yards down the road at the Dairy Queen. She set off at a brisk pace. She heard Mei, Piper, and Cassidy spill out onto the street behind her.
She wasn’t entirely sure if all the exclamations of confusion were coming from them or from the voice of reason in her head. She didn’t care.
Naturally, Cassidy caught up with Izzy first. She didn’t try to stop her, just fell into step beside her. “Is this going to be another diving-into-the-pool incident?”
“Nope. This is just going to be an eating-a-burger incident. An I’m-tired-of-making-sacrifices-when-everyone-else-gets-to-do-whatever-they-want incident.”
“Fair enough.” Cassidy stepped forward and opened the door to the Dairy Queen for Izzy.
She marched up to the counter. Ryan, who had graduated from Paris High the year before, was manning the register. She tried to smile at him, but it felt like a snarl instead. “I want a double bacon cheeseburger.”
Ryan stared at her blankly for a second, then asked in a nasally voice, “You mean the half-pound bacon Grillburger?”
“Whatever,” she snapped. “And I want a side of those fried steak things.”
“Those don’t come as a side.”
“Whatever,” she repeated.
Ryan frowned. “So do you want the steak fingers or not?”
Cassidy leaned forward, speaking slowly—since Ryan was clearly an idiot. “Is there some sort of legal limit to how much beef one person can have?”
“Um … no,” he stammered.
“Then place the order.”
In that instant the door swung open and Piper and Mei came stumbling in.
“OMG,” Piper screeched. “Is she really doing it? Is she really going to eat a burger?”
“She will if this idiot ever rings it up.” Cassidy glared. Ryan started typing.
“A real burger?” Piper’s eyes were huge with disbelief. “With beef in it? From an actual methane-spewing cow? Not some hippie, vegan burger made of spelt but an honest-to-God burger? That a real person, with actual taste buds, would want to eat?”
Izzy gritted her teeth and slammed her cash down on the counter.
Then she spun to face Piper. “One time I made veggie burgers for you, one time, and you’re still pissing about it a year later.”
“What is wrong with you?” Piper asked, annoyance making her voice low and clipped.
“I just …” She blew out a breath. Trying—really trying—to find words to explain. It was really, really hard. “I just,” she tried again, “had a hard time being alone. And …” Okay. Here it was. The horrible truth about her three IKC points. The points she never should have posted, won from the lips she never should have kissed. She swallowed again. “The thing is, I—”
But before she could force the words out of her mouth, the door to the Dairy Queen swung open and in marched Germaine.
She stopped dead just inside the doors. A bevy of minions followed in her wake, fanning out on either side of her like a league of pom-pom wielding supervillains. Her icy gaze swept over Izzy, and a disdainful sneer settled onto her face. There was something so cold, so dismissive about that look.
Oh, crap. Her desperate bid to keep the fronts separate hadn’t worked. The perfect storm was about to make landfall.
Somehow Germaine had found out that she and Tanner had kissed. Germaine knew and she was going to make Izzy pay. Pay big.
Piper and Mei both swung around. Cassidy stepped forward so the three of them stood almost shoulder to shoulder. Only Izzy hung back, dread supergluing her feet to the floor.
“Well,” Germaine sneered. “If it isn’t Piper. Finally back from Paris.”
Piper stiffened. “Don’t bother making any pig jokes,” she spat. “I think the World Wide Web is past that now.”
Germaine arched one perfect eyebrow. “If you’re referring to your little kissing club, you don’t have to act so coy. We all know about it.”
Cassidy took a step forward, but Piper spoke before she could act. “I bet it was really dull around here for you without me to torture. You probably missed us while we were gone. And there I was, off in the real Paris, shopping at designer boutiques and flirting with French guys so hot they make Texas boys look like, well, pigs.”
For a moment, real annoyance flashed across Germaine’s face, and she had to visibly swallow it back. “If you didn’t miss us, then you sure went to a lot of trouble to make sure I knew about it.”
Piper smirked. “You can’t imagine how much sweeter it was being kissed by a hot guy at the foot of the real Eiffel Tower, knowing you were stuck here in this Paris. Why wouldn’t we have wanted you to know?”
Germaine smiled in a way that sent shivers of dread down Izzy’s spine. “It’s not me you should be worried about. It’s your parents. And the school staff. Don’t you think they’re going to be concerned when they realize you were kissing all those boys?”
“You wouldn’t!” Izzy gasped.
Piper’s jaw jutted out in defiance. “Oh, she can try. But I’d like to see her prove that we have anything to do with the IKC.”
But in that moment, Izzy knew that Germaine would find a way. She would twist some computer geek around her little finger and get him to hack the page for her. Something. Izzy didn’t know how she’d do it, but she would.
“Germaine, please … ,” she began.
Germaine narrowed her gaze and spoke in that icy-cold voice. “You think I’m going to do you any fav
ors after you kissed him?”
Mei gasped. Of course. The genius IQ would be the first to put it together.
Piper just looked confused. “Izzy, what is she talking about?”
“I’m talking about her three measly little points on the fan page for the International Who-Would-Have-Guessed-You-Could-Be-So-Skanky Club.”
Piper looked from Izzy to Germaine and back again. “You kissed Tanner?”
“What, your plucky little sidekick didn’t tell you she’d been poaching? Where do you think her three points came from? Tanner heard that she hadn’t scored at all.” Germaine’s confidence may have wavered a moment ago, but she was back. The look she sent Izzy was equal parts pity and disdain. “I can’t really blame him for feeling sorry for you. It is pretty pathetic that you couldn’t find anyone in town to kiss.”
Though time had slowed to a crawl for Izzy, it seemed to have stopped entirely for Piper, who was still staring, openmouthed, at Izzy. “You kissed Tanner and you didn’t tell us? He was your points?”
Tears sprung up in Izzy’s eyes. All she could do was shake her head. But she didn’t know what she was denying or who she was crying for. Because if Germaine knew about that kiss, it could only be because Tanner had told her.
“You know what’s really pathetic about you, Izzy? If you hadn’t gone and kissed Tanner, then we could have stayed friends even after they came back. But you chose to earn points for your stupid little IKC page instead. I rescued you from Loserville. I let you eat lunch with us. And this is how you repay me?”
Izzy could hardly hear past her thundering heart. “I … I …”
Germaine rolled her eyes, feigning boredom with the conversation, despite her obvious glee. “I know he just felt sorry for you. But really,” she slowed down to enunciate each word. “I. Don’t. Share.”
