The Canterwood Crest Stable of Books

by Jessica Burkhart

  “Thanks.” I smiled at Eric and then watched as Jacob strode over to the side of the room and pulled two folding chairs from along the wall. Troy and Eric grabbed chairs for Callie and Paige and we arranged them in a lopsided circle by the couch.

  Paige sat beside me and Jacob hurried to sit in the chair on my other side. Eric sat beside Heather on the couch. He barely looked at Callie. If only he knew how much she liked him! Boys. So clueless.

  “Let’s play Truth or Lie,” Heather said. She scooted to the couch’s edge.

  “Yeah!” Alison said. She bounced on the couch cushion. “I love that game!”

  “How do we play?” Paige asked.

  “It’s easy,” Heather said. She reached into her black purse and pulled out a stack of white note cards. “We’re each going to write a truth and a lie on a piece of paper anonymously. Try to hide your identity so it’s not an easy guess. Like Paige wouldn’t write ‘I’ve got red hair’ as a truth and then make up a lie.”

  “That ruins it,” Julia interjected.

  Heather gave her a how-dare-you-interrupt-me glare. “Then we mix up the note cards in a bowl and draw. You read your note card aloud and then you try to figure out whose card it is and what’s the truth and what’s the lie. If the guesser gets the truth, lie, and person right, you have to confirm it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s play.”This could be dangerous.

  Heather handed everyone a note card and swiped an empty pretzel bowl off the coffee table. We all took a minute to write our truth and lie. Troy’s tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he crossed out some writing and scribbled another line.

  One by one, we all handed our cards to Heather. She tossed them into the bowl and swirled them around.

  “You pick first,” Heather said, thrusting the bowl at Alison.

  Alison reached inside and felt around before pulling out a card. She smiled.

  “Okay, it says, ‘Once, I let my annoying cousin drink a glass of water AFTER I’d watched my cat drink from the glass.’”

  We all laughed—that was a good one.

  “Then it says,” Alison continued. “‘Last week, I watched the I Wanna be a Pop Star 2 marathon on TBS.’”

  Alison shifted to look at all of us. “Julia,” she said. Julia’s poker face was awful! She blushed and twirled a lock of short hair around her index finger. Ben elbowed her and she hid her face in his shoulder.

  “Your truth is,” Alison started, “you let your cousin drink cat spit and you lied about watching Pop Star.”

  Julia nodded. “You got it.”

  “Ewww!” Callie said, laughing. “How could you let her drink that?”

  “Easy,” Julia said. “She said my Ralph Lauren skirt was ugly, so she deserved to swap spit with an animal who licks herself.”

  “Oh, man,” Troy said. He looked at Jacob, Eric, Ben, and Andy. “We’ve got to watch out for these girls!”

  “Ben’s next,” Julia said. She held out the bowl to him and he picked a card.

  “It’s says, ‘I’ve got a secret crush’ and ‘Once, I ate a cricket on a dare,’” Ben read.

  He looked around and his eyes wavered between Andy and Eric. “Eric,” he finally said. “You … have a crush and you didn’t eat a cricket.”

  Eric’s smile gave him away. “Right.”

  Jacob’s head whipped around to look at Eric. He opened his mouth and then his phone rang. He peered at the screen.

  “It’s my dad,” he said. “If I don’t answer, he’ll get mad.” He flipped open the phone. “Dad? Hold on. I can’t hear you.”

  He got up and walked to the door. “Still can’t hear you. Wait a sec.”

  The door shut behind him and the game resumed.

  “My turn next,” Heather said. The rest of us sat back and watched her pick a card.

  She read the card and a gleam filled her eyes, then vanished. She sat up straighter and held the card between her red-painted nails.

  “It says … ‘I’ve never kissed a guy before’ and ‘My parents sent me to boarding school because I embarrassed them.’”

  Phew—not my card. I’d written I sleep in Tinker Bell pajamas (lie!) and I want to audition for a movie someday (truth)—harmless stuff that Heather couldn’t use against me later. She probably expected me to reveal a deep, dark secret. No way!

  Everyone stared at Heather while she read the card to herself and looked around at us. Maybe the card was Alison’s. But why would she say such personal things about her family situation? Or her lack of kissing experience?

  Heather tapped the card against her palm. “I think this card belongs to … Sasha.”

  I almost said, “No,” but I shrugged. If I denied it, she’d insist more that it was mine.

  “I think the truth is that you’ve never kissed a boy and the other truth is you didn’t understand how to play the game. So, you wrote two truths.”

  On either side of Heather, Julia and Alison smirked. Troy and Andy looked at their laps.

  “Excuse me?” I sputtered.

  “You. Wrote. Two. Truths,” Heather said. The shimmery eye shadow on her top lids made her blue eyes look even lighter. “The only kiss you’ve ever gotten is from the Silver family mutt and your parents were embarrassed of your lame shows at fairs and carnivals. They sent you here. Away from them.”

  My stomach clenched. “That’s not my card.”

  “You have to be honest,” Heather chided. “You’re ruining the game. Is this yours?” She pointed to Alison.

  Alison shook her head. “No.”

  “Jules?” Heather asked.

  “Nope,” Julia said.

  “Callie?” Heather asked.

  Callie looked down at her lap. “No,” she whispered.

  “Well, it can’t be anyone else’s, so it’s Sasha’s.”

  Tears pricked my eyes.

  “Heather.” Eric leaned forward, his voice low. I’d never heard him speak in that tone before. “Leave her alone.”

  Heather put the card on her lap. “Stop trying to protect her, Eric. We all know Sasha hasn’t kissed Jacob yet.”

  My fists clenched, fingernails digging into my palms. I hated her.

  Heather turned to me and smiled. “That’s okay, Sasha. Don’t worry about it. I can vouch for Jacob … he’s a really, really good kisser.”

  “Cut it out!” Eric shouted. “Now!”

  My vision blurred. I’d known all semester something had been going on between Heather and Jacob. Paige and Callie had tried to convince me nothing was wrong and that I was being paranoid. They were wrong! I’d known it in my gut for weeks. But that didn’t prepare me for hearing it. Heather and Jacob. Kissing. All semester.

  Callie’s eyes lowered and she slumped into her chair.

  “Yeah, c’mon,” Andy added. “It’s a game—it’s supposed to be fun.”

  “I’ve had enough fun,” I sputtered. “I’m out of here.”

  “Sasha!” Eric and Paige said at the same time.

  But I ran out the door, forgetting to look for teachers, and stepped back into the crowd.

  Heather won’t stop for one night! I screamed in my head. But calm down. She could be lying about kissing him. No, she HAD to be lying. If I could find Jacob and ask him now, he’d tell me the truth.

  I folded my arms and looked for him, but he must have still been on the phone somewhere.

  “May I have your attention, please!” Mr. Davidson stepped into the center of the party and tapped his microphone.

  No! I wanted to shout. I needed to talk to Jacob now, not dance! I headed for the exit. It was better to leave than suffer through a dance. I didn’t want to be here anymore.

  “Sasha?” Ms. Peterson called. I stopped with one hand on the door.

  “Yes?”

  “You can’t leave until after the dance, remember? No one can leave yet, otherwise not everyone will have a partner.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  I pulled my hand from the door and with
a sigh, turned to face Mr. Davidson. I watched as Callie, Paige, and the rest of the Truth or Lie players slipped out of the room and blended into the crowd.

  “It’s now time for the Broken Heart Dance,” Mr. Davidson said. “Take your broken heart and find the guy or girl who fits. Once everyone has found a partner, you’ll dance for one song and then you’re free to party as you like. Go mend your broken heart!”

  I swallowed a scream of frustration and tried to match my heart with a couple of seventh-grade guys from math class, but they didn’t fit. The sooner we all danced, the faster I could get out of here!

  Eric had already found his match—a petite eighth grader with a heart-shaped diamond pin on her pink dress. He looked at me and mouthed, “You okay?”

  I nodded and kept looking.

  “Are we a match, my dear?” a guy who looked like a eighth grader asked. He had a black fedora perched jauntily on his head.

  “Let’s see,” I said. At least he was having fun tonight.

  We held out our hearts, but the edges didn’t match.

  “Too bad,” he said, tipping his hat to me.

  “Sorry.” I slipped back into the crowd, trying to forget for just one second that Heather had just humiliated me in front of all of my friends and claimed she’d kissed Jacob.

  “She’s got to be lying,” I whispered to myself. I’ll ask Jacob the second the dance is over. But I still couldn’t find him in the crowd.

  More people started finding their matches. The guys who were left had grouped together under the Sweetheart Soirée banner.

  “Match?” I asked a guy with blond hair. I think his name was Reese—he was in my history class.

  He held up his heart and we pushed them together. Click!

  “Finally!” I said and he let me hold the heart.

  “Reese, right?” I asked.

  “Yes, Mender of My Broken Heart,” he said with a grin.

  “I’m Sasha. We’re in the same history class.”

  “It does appear that you and I are both grasshoppers of the Wise Educator.”

  Huh?

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know, Mr. Spellman.”

  “Um,” I said. “Right. Okay.”

  I looked over and saw Callie chatting with an eighth grade guy. Across the room, Paige had found her dancing partner—one of the quarterbacks on the JV football team. Poor Paige. Jocks so weren’t her type. Alison and Julia were with two guys I vaguely recognized.

  I didn’t know if I could do this. The last thing I wanted to do was dance right now.

  I turned to Reese. “Sorry,” I said. “But I have to—”

  “You can’t duck out before the dance, Tradition Bucker,” Reese said.

  Where did he get this stuff?

  “But—” I started to protest again. Reese ignored me and put my hands on his shoulders.

  The music started to play. I tried to remind myself how I’d feel if Reese ducked out on me. I couldn’t be rude. This was tradition, and I couldn’t embarrass him by leaving. I took a shaky breath and forced the stiffness out of my body. In two minutes, the dance would be over and Jacob would come find me. We’d find a quiet space to talk and I’d finally ask him about Heather. Whatever his answer—I had to know for sure.

  “You okay?” Reese asked.

  “Fine,” I said. I was the worst partner. “Sorry.” We moved back and forth on the floor and I tried to follow his steps to the classical music for this dance. Reese winced. I looked down and my left foot was on top of his dress shoe.

  “Ugh. I’m so sorry!” I said.

  He smiled. “It’s okay.”

  My eyes caught a flash of a deep red dress and long blond hair. Heather tossed her head back in laughter. Who was her partner? I peered around a tall couple blocking my view and saw him. Jacob. Dancing with Heather.

  That was it.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  Reese let me go and I tore off toward Heather and Jacob. I slammed into another girl and didn’t even apologize as I weaved through the dancers. A waft of lilac body spray almost choked me. Jacob and Heather stopped swaying to the music when they got a glimpse of my face.

  “I can’t believe you!” I screamed.

  “What’s wrong?” Jacob asked. He dropped Heather’s hand and stepped away from her.

  “You’re dancing with HER!”

  “Sasha, I had to. It’s a random draw and we—”

  “Just stop!” I yelled.

  Jacob reached out to grab my arm, but I wrenched out of his grasp.

  Heather stepped back into the crowd and she left Jacob and me in an empty circle on the floor.

  “You’ve been messing with me all semester!” I cried. “One minute, you really like me and we have fun together. Then you can’t wait to get away from me and you act like you never want to see me again.”

  Jacob took a step back. Hurt flashed across his face, but I didn’t care.

  “When did I ever act like that?” Jacob asked. No one in the room spoke and the music swelled.

  “When we were filming at the stable! You wouldn’t get close to me all day and you rushed out as soon as you could.”

  “Sash—” Jacob’s face looked pale.

  Over to the side, I saw Callie and Paige. Callie had her lips pressed together. Then I saw Heather. She stood at the edge of the crowd with a smirk on her face. This was exactly what she wanted. I pulled my eyes away from her and looked back at Jacob.

  “Sasha, it’s not what you think,” Jacob said.

  “It’s not? You’re always with Heather and YOU KISSED HER! I never want to talk to you again. You can dance with her the rest of the night. Go ahead—I know you wanted to anyway.”

  I locked eyes with Heather once more. She blew me a kiss.

  “But I didn’t—” Jacob started.

  I couldn’t do this anymore. I turned away from him and walked out the door.

  I stumbled down the steps and got three feet out the door when the icy air hit me. My coat was still inside, but no way was I going back.

  “Sasha!”

  I stopped.

  “Sasha,” Paige said again. She grabbed my arms. “Calm down. It’s gonna be okay.”

  “No, it’s not!” I wailed. “Heather ruined everything!”

  Paige rubbed my back. For the first time, I noticed Callie standing wordlessly beside her. “He had to dance with her. He didn’t pick her—you know that,” Paige soothed.

  “He kissed her!” I said, “You heard what she said.”

  Callie touched Paige’s arm and a look passed between them. Paige gave me a sympathetic look before turning to go back inside, leaving Callie and me alone together.

  “Heather was lying,” Callie said finally.

  “What?”

  “Jacob told me just now—he doesn’t even like her. She made it up.”

  “No, but he … they were … she said …”

  “Heather’s always going to be a liar,” Callie said. “You shouldn’t have listened to her!”

  I wrapped my freezing arms across my chest. I started to shiver. Callie was right. I should have trusted Jacob, the sweetest guy I’d ever met, but instead I’d let Heather ruin everything. For weeks, I’d been so consumed in making up stories about what Heather and Jacob were doing together that I’d stopped seeing what was actually happening.

  “But they were together all of the time,” I said. Tears of humiliation rolled down my cheeks.

  “Jacob told me he was tutoring her in math,” Callie said. “Heather was so embarrassed about being tutored that she asked Jacob not to say anything. He’s a good-enough guy that he didn’t tell anyone—even the girl he likes.”

  “But that day at the stable,” I choked out. “He couldn’t wait to get away from me! He acted all weird and—”

  I flashed back to that day. Jacob staying away from Luna, being nervous about the palomino in the crossties and not petting Charm.

  “He’s scared of horses,” I wh
ispered. “Jacob’s afraid of horses.”

  Callie was quiet for a minute. “Which means he filmed horses for you even if he was scared of them.”

  The door opened and Callie and I turned to look. Heather stood in the doorway. Light streaming out behind her; she looked like an angel. She stood at the top of the steps and looked down on Callie and me.

  “Thanks, Sasha,” she said.

  I glared.

  “You made it so easy. I didn’t have to do a thing to break up you and Jacob. You did this to yourself. I mean, sure, Julia helped when she sent you that pic of Jacob and me in the library.”

  My stomach twisted.

  “Oooh, and Alison made sure I picked the right card for Truth or Lie.”

  There was nothing I could say. She loved this. I had been horrible to Jacob for no reason. I was the stupidest, most insecure girl on campus.

  Heather continued. “Now Jacob thinks you’re a crazy, possessive freak. He’ll never speak to you again. But don’t worry. I’ll be there for him.”

  My brain was too muddled to snap back. I’d acted like someone I didn’t even know. I’d just given Heather everything she needed to get Jacob to like her.

  Heather turned and went back inside. The door slammed behind her.

  Callie and I stood in silence, our breath clouding the air.

  “Go back inside,” I said. “Paige’s announcement.”

  “Okay, but,” Callie folded her arms. “Maybe you should wait for someone to walk you back.”

  “I’ll walk her.”

  Eric stood beside me—I hadn’t even seen him coming. He had a coat in his hand. He slipped it over my shoulders and nodded at Callie. “Go ahead, I’ll go with her,” he said.

  For a minute, Callie just looked at me—her eyes seething. The phrase If looks could kill popped into my head. And then she was hurrying back up the steps, the door slamming shut behind her.

  Eric and I were left alone in the rain.

  “Sorry, I don’t have an umbrella,” he said.

  I just nodded. Raindrops ran down my dress and splashed onto my shoes.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I knew I should go back to Callie—to tell her she had it all wrong about Eric. But tonight had been awful enough—and I was suddenly completely exhausted. All I wanted was to go back to my room.