Making Bad Choices

by Rita Stradling

  I pointed into his way too-beautiful face. “It’s not funny, Full-of-yourself Fuller.”

  “It’s funny.” He tugged on my hand. “Come on, can’t-get-enough-of-you Cassie.”

  I let him lead me out of the house and ever closer to my doom. After Culter secured me in his truck and started driving, as escape looked less and less likely, he reached over and handed me a school paper.

  My eyes scanned over the cover, seeing that it was yesterday’s issue. “I thought you didn’t pick one up for me?” I asked.

  He merely raised an eyebrow and sighed.

  I flipped through the pages to the cartoon and grinned. Yet again, Tyler and I had managed to pull off inflicting pain and misery on poor Gunther.

  This time Gunther headed to Winter Ball alone, hoping to ask Betsy for a dance. Poor Gunther loses his courage, and takes refuge in a snowman decoration. The comic then has a few scenes of Betsy enjoying the dance with her cow friends, the snowman always nearby. The snowman holds a glass of punch while Betsy gets food. The snowman stands smiling in the middle of the dance floor while the cows dance. As Betsy stands alone during a slow song, Gunther finally tries to shake off his snowman disguise only to fall into the nearest table. Obviously, there’s an immediate domino effect, and then only chaos.

  Looking at the last image of poor Gunter-snowman standing in the middle of a cake and decoration covered, irate bovine crowd in formalwear, I breathed out a laugh.

  When I looked up from my paper, we were already in the Bulvin High parking lot. Turning to Culter, I glared. “You timed that, didn’t you?”

  “Well, I didn’t want you to bail out of a moving vehicle, Cassie.” One of his dimples peeked out.

  “Ha, ha. I’m not going. I’ll stay in the truck. Leave your keys? I promise I won’t drive anywhere, just for warmth.”

  After parking, he turned to me. “Cassie, we’re going to be here for a couple months, and then we can go anywhere we want. No one is going to say shit, and if they do, I’ll deal with it.”

  “So not what I want to hear right now,” I whispered.

  “Who cares? People are always going to talk about everyone else. If Tyler cared, or Spencer or Jake, or Zoe for you, that would matter. All the rest of those guys are just fish in a pond, flitting around. You can stand still and let them pick at you, or you can just go about your life and ignore their bullshit.”

  “That was a really weird analogy. I think I have a sudden fear of fish.”

  He grinned wide and took my hand. “Well, I’m a shark. So, you don’t need to worry about it.”

  I buried my face in my other hand. “You’re a shark? Dear God, kill me now.”

  “Don’t say that. Hey, Cassie.”

  Pulling my hand away, I peered over to his smiling eyes. “What?”

  “I love you.”

  And just like that, that boy melted my heart. My gaze fixed down on his wonderful lips, and I had one instant of insanity before I woke up from crazy-land, and turned forward. “Okay, fine. I’ll go to school.”

  “Good,” he said, releasing my hand to climb out of his door.

  As we entered Bulvin’s crowded halls, we didn’t quite get the rubberneckers I feared. A couple people called out greetings to Culter. Stuffing my hands in my jacket pockets, I focused on walking through the halls without spontaneously freaking out.

  Culter’s friends clustered around the friend zone. I counted at least three girls glancing over at us excitedly as we approached, and turning away quickly. So, obviously there was a rumor, Culter had never completely confirmed it.

  Exhaling slowly, I kept walking.

  “Cassie!” An arm wrapped around my shoulders, and when I looked up, Spencer grinned down at me. “Where the hell have you been? Did you take a second hangover day?”

  “Maybe,” I mumbled.

  “Hey, Cassie.” From across the crowd, Jake gave me thumbs up. “Lamp works perfect.”

  “Yay,” I said, not quite managing a smile.

  “Go put your stuff away so you don’t make us late,” Spencer said, pushing me toward my locker and Tyler, who leaned against his locker next to Misty. Tyler said nothing, but he also gave me thumbs up, like maybe they were all giving me some secret signal I hadn’t been informed of.

  Not needing to be told twice to get my ass to first period, I quickly hung my coat and backpack in my locker and grabbed my stuff.

  As Zoe sat next to me in first period, I held my breath. She glanced over with a smile. “Hey, Cassie, how was Denver?”

  She hadn’t heard? Holy shit, maybe there wasn’t that big of a rumor going around.

  “Pretty crazy,” I said, not wanting to lie, but not wanting to get into it, either.

  She leaned in across. “I need to tell you something at P.E.”

  My heart raced. “What?”

  “People have been spreading rumors about you. I think it’s those horrible cheerleaders.”

  Fuck! My optimism was officially dead in the water.

  “Yeah, I know,” I whispered.

  She nodded. “Okay. I’ll help you if you need to dig up some blackmail, or something. I have the hook-up.” She sounded like she meant it, which was at the same time cool and a little bit scary.

  Taking a deep breath, I said, “Thanks, but probably not. I’ll tell you about what happened in P.E., Zoe.”

  She nodded, sitting back in her chair.

  On my other side, Culter kicked the leg of my desk. When I looked, he whispered, “Everything is going to be okay, Cassie.”

  “Guess we all know why you didn’t want me to ask her out, huh, Culter?” called someone from behind Culter. When I craned my neck, I saw it was the guy who announced to the class that I liked eating fish tacos on my first day.

  “Shut up, Bryce,” Jake called, though no one but me looked over. Fish Taco was Bryce? Ha. Made me feel a lot better that Culter didn’t give the guy his permission to ask me to the ball. . . even though I wouldn’t have minded rejecting him too much.

  The period dragged on, or perhaps it was because now that I had decided to come clean with Zoe, I just wanted to get it over with. My friendship with Zoe was new, but I liked her and I wanted to keep her, if I could.

  When the bell rang, as per usual Culter took my notebook and gave me a big grin before leaving with Spencer and Jake. Obviously it was just another day in Culter-world, the maniac.

  Zoe and I said nothing as we walked to her locker, but as she set her books in, she glanced over. “Last year, Mel and a couple of the other cheerleaders told everyone in school that I was a lesbian with Jasmine.”

  I hesitated, and then asked, “And you’re not?” I probably shouldn’t have asked her, but I always kind of got that vibe with her and Jasmine.

  She exhaled, heavily. “Bulvin isn’t L.A., Cassie—we don’t even have a gay-straight alliance at our school.”

  “Good thing you only have a couple months left then?”

  “Good thing. So . . . is this a ‘Jasmine and Zoe’ are a couple rumor, or the other kind?”

  I leaned up against the lockers beside hers, closed my eyes and whispered, “It might be the first kind.”

  “Heavy.”

  “What’s the rumor say?” I asked.

  “That he told everyone in Denver that he’s in love with you. Then, that you freaked out and drank a whole bottle of vodka—”

  “Rum,” I said.

  The bell rang and Zoe closed her locker. “Let’s get to P.E.” As we walked down the hall, she turned to me, “Might improve the paper’s readership.”

  “Seriously?” It was such a ridiculous idea, I laughed.

  “All publicity is good publicity.” She shrugged. “Just trying to give you an upside.”

  Five minutes later, P.E. was officially my least favorite period at school. I realized that walking into the school and during first period, I had been surrounded by the Culter, Spencer, and Jake popularity shield. And, as amazing as it was that Zoe and Jasmine didn’t care, th
is group made absolutely no popularity shield around me.

  A girl who had once passed the basketball to me, but otherwise I didn’t know from Mr. Rogers, walked up to me while I was changing and said, “Hey, Cassie. Can I ask you something?”

  “Changing here,” Zoe said while pulling up her gym shorts.

  “Um, just really quick,” the girl said, grinning nervously and reeking of perfume.

  I turned to her, while rolling up my gym socks. “What’s up?”

  “Are you going to go out with Culter? And, do your parents know?” She smiled and bounced a little like this was a normal thing to ask a stranger putting on her socks in a locker room.

  “Yo, Jean, go away,” Jasmine said while leaning back against the blue mesh-metal lockers.

  But, as I said, we three managed no popularity shield because not only did Jean not leave, her friend walked up and stood beside her and both of them looked expectantly at me like I might bare my soul to any asshole.

  Looking away, I pulled open the tongue of my shoe and stuffed my foot inside. I turned back to the girls, thinking of the perfect solution. “Go ask Culter. He’ll tell you,” I said it, knowing there was more chance that they’d spontaneously combust from their nosiness.

  Their grins dropped. “Um . . .” Number one said, looking over at number two.

  Zoe jumped up. “Yeah, how about you let us change in peace, and go find Culter. You know where he is, Cassie?”

  “Study hall,” I said as I put on my other shoe.

  “Like you care, Zoe,” Jean’s friend said, rolling her eyes.

  “I do care. Go away,” Zoe snapped.

  “I’m sorry guys,” I said to them as we left the locker room.

  “Don’t worry about it, Cassie. Ours was worse. Those girls are afraid of Culter and his friends, so you have that,” Jasmine said, shrugging like she truly didn’t care that they were going to be pulled into this with me.

  As I ran the bleachers and then played basketball, all with a rapt audience, I focused on the fact that in Math, I’d get another song on my playlist. Yesterday, for the first time ever, Culter didn’t give me another song on the sly. After practice, he stopped by my room, grabbed my phone from where it lay on my bed, and threw it back when he was done. The song was Maybe I'm Amazed by Paul McCartney. It outright said I love you, which I have to say, did all kinds of things to my heart, even though I could tell he was exasperated with me.

  I guess I had known for a while that Culter was telling me that he loved me in his very own language. And, part of me knew that I needed to learn to speak it to tell him that I loved him to. He knew, I think he knew, but he also wanted me to tell him in a real way.

  My brain obviously had too much information in it, because as I stood guarding my basketball basket, waiting to defend it from someone, the ball came out of nowhere and smacked me on the side of the head.

  “Ouch!” I drew out the exclamation while grabbing my head and blinking. When I looked around, the whole class was staring at me shocked.

  “You okay, Cassie?” our P.E. teacher called out.

  “I’m fine. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” I called back.

  “Girls, keep playing. Chloe, go sit in my office please, I’ll be there in a minute.” She pointed back toward her office.

  A blonde girl I didn’t know glanced around at everyone, fighting what looked like tears, and then rushed off toward the side of the gymnasium.

  As the rest of the class started playing again, Zoe, Michael, and Jasmine all jogged up to me, looking at the side of my forehead.

  “I’m fine, it’s no big deal,” I said.

  “Holy shit. Chloe just chucked that at your head,” Michael sounded shocked, still staring up. “I don’t think there’s a bump, though.”

  “It was obvious that she wasn’t passing the ball,” Jasmine said.

  “She made this freaky expression, too,” Zoe added.

  “Great,” I whispered.

  “Break it up, guys!” the P.E. teacher yelled. “Cassie, if you need some ice, I have some in my office, but let me get it for you.”

  “I’m good.” I waved it off, and paid better attention to where the ball was, something I was going to have to start doing.

  Culter, Spencer, and Jake waited outside the gymnasium, and for once I was relieved to be babysat. I didn’t bother to mention the Chloe incident, mostly because the drama level for the day was already at a ten for me, and I wanted to bring it down to a one.

  Zoe, Jasmine, and Michael looked a little relieved to see the guys waiting, and I hoped it was for my sake, but I’d understand if it was because suddenly they’d rather not be cast in the light of my scandal any longer. Unfortunately, enough people knew them as my friends already that they probably still would. As we approached the friend zone lockers, it was impossible not to notice the extreme level of tension that surrounded the group of seniors.

  Before we’d even made it to them, Lily stomped forward, waving a piece of paper. “What the hell, Spencer?” she yelled. Beside her stood the two other girls from Jake’s house. Misty stood with them, but a few feet behind, looking pointedly away.

  Spencer snatched the paper from her hand. “Wow, that’s a lot of signatures.”

  “This is so mean,” Lily said, her voice filled with emotion. Her arms crossed over her chest, and her lower lip pouted out like she might cry.

  Spencer looked over the paper, then back to Lily, shrugging. “It’s a perfectly legal procedure. Here, Cassie, you want to sign this.” He passed it over to me.

  At the top of a piece of binder paper, there was a short message that read:

  “This is a petition to request that Lily Cameron and Melissa Jones either pay sixty-five dollars to Jake to replace the lamp they drunkenly and purposefully smashed, or that they find new lockers. Support for this petition.”

  Underneath, there was a list of about thirty signatures in different hands and pen colors. Tyler’s signature took up three lines and was the biggest one on there.

  “Here.” Culter handed me a notebook and a pen.

  I signed my name, not to be rude to the girls really, but because it was a cause I cared about. Like, who smashes someone’s lamp and then just sneaks out in the morning? So disrespectful to Jake, and after he and Culter paid for their dinners and drinks, and gave them a nice place to stay.

  “Of course you’d sign,” Lily hissed at me.

  I looked up to her. “We spent hours looking for that lamp. It was super lame, not to mention extremely rude to Jake and his family.”

  “Oh, you’re so full of shit.”

  I shrugged, passing the petition back to Spencer. “It’s the truth, you guys should just repay him for the lamp.”

  “We’ll just put this thing back in circulation,” Spencer said, handing the petition to a guy passing.

  The girl I hadn’t talked to yet, but knew as Melissa, said in a high pitched voice, “Yeah, but why me? You didn’t mention Jessica or Misty?”

  “Because this so obviously isn’t about the stupid lamp, Mel,” Lily said.

  “You want to say something, Lily?” Culter asked.

  “Maybe I do,” she said, her chin sticking up at him.

  He just looked levelly at her, but I wasn’t a big fan of where this was going.

  “I will say something,” she whispered with a glare. “First, you shouldn’t have parties at your house if you don’t want to take the risk that things will get broken. Second, we’re not moving our lockers, you guys aren’t in charge of that. Third—”

  “I’m good with two,” Culter said, and then he looked at me and held a hand out, gesturing for me to go ahead.

  I didn’t need any more encouragement. “Excuse me,” I said as I stepped between the girls and headed toward my locker.

  When I reached Misty, she gave me a small smile before turning away quickly.

  “Suddenly life is so much more entertaining,” Tyler said as I stopped beside him to type in my combinati
on.

  “For you,” I grumbled, not looking over as I opened my locker.

  He turned fully toward me. “If someone asks you if you’re in the witness protection program or if you’re a mobster’s daughter on the run . . . they’re obviously crazy and completely made it up in their deranged minds.”

  I paused mid-extracting my math textbook to roll my eyes. “Great, Tyler, just what I need: more rumors.”

  “Oh come on, I guess I’m considered some sort of expert on you. Let me have my fifteen minutes of fame.”

  I shook my head. “Whatever keeps you happy.”

  He grinned, leaned in, and whispered, “Actually, my psychic powers again supplied me with a solution to your new dilemma.”

  Closing my locker slowly, I regarded him hopefully. “Good, what is it? How quickly will it fix my dilemma?”

  “It will be supplied to you after you complete three tasks.” He held up three fingers in case I needed the visual aid or something.

  “Seriously? I will kill you,” I said, and then I attempted to kill him with my gaze.

  He just shrugged. “The tasks are Math, Lunch and Spanish, my friend. And, unfortunately they’re non-negotiable. I don’t make the psychic rules.”

  “So, in auto you’ll tell me?” I regarded him seriously.

  “Ding, ding, ding.” He tapped my nose.

  Batting his hand away, I turned back to my locker and hoped that Tyler actually had psychic powers, and the first time wasn’t a fluke.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  I never heard Tyler’s psychic plan. And the reason I didn’t learn Tyler’s plan was because I didn’t complete my second task.

  As I walked into lunch with Tyler and Culter, Misty ran up to Tyler. The hollows under her eyes had reddened brighter than strawberries, and the color stained down her cheeks. She wiped a tear away with her sleeve.

  “Shit, Misty, you okay?” Tyler asked, grabbing for her shoulders.

  “I swear to God, Tyler, I had nothing to do with it! I didn’t even know that they were going to do it! I would never be okay with that.” She practically fell forward, hugging onto him.