All's Fair in Love, War, and High School

by Janette Rallison

  I didn't understand any of it—I took Spanish instead of French—but just the sound of it made me feel like my entire body could melt like a lump of candle wax onto the gym floor.

  I didn't care whether Josh and Cassidy were off together. I didn't care if they ever came back. I wanted to stay here dancing with Logan, listening to French drop from his lips. Then I pushed the thought away. Logan didn't mean any of this. He was just proving a point about romance.

  And a very valid point too.

  Apparently I was such an idiot, my heart would race at a romantic line no matter who said it. "Very good," I said, "but knowing you, you just told me I ought to change the oil in my car every thirty thousand miles, didn't you?"

  "No, I told you that you look beautiful when you walk through the hallways, when you stack books, and when you cry."

  "You've never seen me cry."

  "Yes, I have. In eighth grade English when we watched Where the Red Fern Grows. You cried at the end. That was the first time I thought you were beautiful."

  "When I was crying?"

  "Yeah. When you were crying."

  When I cry, my face turns red and my eyes swell up. I silently considered Logan's aesthetic taste for a moment and then thought about that long-ago day in junior high. It was sweet to think of him noticing me, of him liking me back then. I let out a slow sigh. "Whatever happened to us?"

  "You dumped me."

  "Well, yeah, but some guys try to win girls back, you know."

  "I know, but at that point you had really started to irritate me." He followed this statement with a short, "Ow!"

  "I'm sorry." I smiled up at him. "Did I step on your foot? Sometimes it's hard to know where to put these pointy heels."

  He limped for a couple of steps. "That is just the sort of thing I'm talking about."

  I danced on as though nothing were different. "Don't be ridiculous. I never stepped on your foot in eighth grade. In fact, after we broke up, I was nice to you until that day in English when you decided to edit Shakespeare."

  "I can't believe you still remember that."

  "You took all the English books and wrote my name under Taming of the Shrew."

  He held me away from him, as though trying to take precautions. "All right, I was mean to you first. I apologize."

  "You just don't want me to step on your foot again."

  Another smile crept across his face. "Well, if the pointy heels fit . . ."

  I stomped my foot down, but in aggravation, not in retaliation. "Logan, you are the most frustrating—"

  The music began to fade, and Logan dropped his hand from my waist. "Well, the song is over. Let's go back."

  I didn't let go of his hand. "Oh no you don't. We're in the middle of a conversation. Our dates can wait for another song."

  Holding tightly to his hand, I pulled him a few steps closer to the center of the dance floor. As Josh and Cassidy walked past us off the dance floor I gave them a small wave. Josh looked a bit confused, but I didn't care. It served him right if he had to stand there and watch me dance with Cassidy s date.

  Logan said, "And that's another thing, Samantha, you're too bossy," but he didn't offer any other resistance. Another slow song came on, and he put his hand back on my waist and picked up the rhythm of the song.

  I tilted my face up at him. "I believe you were in the middle of apologizing to me for being mean for the past three years."

  "Uh, right, sorry about that."

  I wanted to step on his foot again. Instead, I said, "The least you could do is tell me why you act that way."

  He shrugged as though it were actually something he needed to think about. "You know in sophomore English when we put on a scene from Hamlet and you were Queen of Denmark?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, a lot of times you act like you're still wearing the crown."

  "I do not."

  "You're running your campaign on school unity, but you're so cliquish you've spent your entire high-school existence associating only with those people who could pass for fashion models."

  "I have not." Aubrie was too short to be a fashion model.

  "You're only being nice to people now because you want to win the election. Afterward you'll go back to being exactly the same—a person who only thinks about herself."

  Logan had said a hundred mean things to me over the years, and I had always let them roll off me. This time it hit me with a resounding thud. I could barely say anything at all for a minute, and then I wasn't sure what to say. I wanted to say, Oh, you must want to see the beauty of me bursting into tears again, but I couldn't pull it off in a lighthearted manner. I probably would actually burst into tears right there on the dance floor, and what was left of the evening would be ruined. My pictures would show puffy eyes and giant mascara stains, and I'd forever be known as the girl who cried at the prom.

  Logan must have felt bad when I didn't say anything, because after another minute of dancing in silence, he said, "I'm sorry, Samantha. I shouldn't have said that."

  Right. Of course. He wasn't at all sorry. "Go ahead and think all sorts of horrible things about me," I said. "You don't really know me at all." And then because I thought I might cry anyway, I pulled away from Logan and stormed off the dance floor. He had no choice but to follow after me, but I didn't even glance back at him.

  I walked toward the table where Josh and Cassidy sat. They were looking at each other, not at me, and I heard a snatch of their conversation.

  Cassidy said, "If you didn't want me to treat you coldly, then you shouldn't have broken up with me."

  "I thought you could be a little more mature about this," he said.

  "I'm sorry. You must have me confused with some of your other ex-girlfriends."

  "Cassidy—" he said, and then noticed me walking toward him. "Samantha," he said in a startled voice, and then because he must not have known what to say, he added, "There you are."

  "Yes, here I am." I forced a smile and pretended I hadn't heard them arguing. I sat down in the chair next to Josh, only slightly consoled that Cassidy and Josh weren't having a better time than Logan and I just had.

  Logan came up to the table and sat down next to Cassidy but looked over at me. I put my hand possessively on Josh's arm. "Are you ready to get our pictures taken?"

  "Sure." He seemed relieved. Relieved, perhaps, to get away from Cassidy?

  I smiled again. I would refuse to think about Logan and all of his accusations for the rest of the night. I would only think of Josh. True, I was still a little angry at him, but thinking of him was better than thinking of Logan. And besides, now that Josh had an opportunity to get Cassidy out of his system, maybe he'd start paying attention to me. So Josh it was. He was tall, dark, and handsome, and he thought I'd grown up a lot since last year.

  This thought gave me a small twinge of guilt. Josh thought I'd matured because I wasn't insulting anyone, and the only reason I wasn't insulting anyone was because of Logan's bet. Could Logan be right about the other things he'd said too?

  I shook the thought off. I didn't think only of myself. I didn't.

  As we walked toward the photographer I gave Josh's arm another squeeze. He smiled back at me. Which was a form of paying attention to me, which meant the evening was bound to get better. Logan was definitely so, so wrong. I wanted to turn back to him and say, See, someone thinks I'm nice enough to date. Plus he's in college, so therefore he's smarter than you.

  Before we reached the photographer, Chelsea and Mike strolled up to us.

  Chelsea gave me a hug, complimented me on the prom decorations, and then gave me a quick critique on who looked stunning, who looked so-last-season, and who looked like a hooker with a corsage. Then she turned to Josh. "Have you seen the new improvements here at PHS?"

  "Improvements?" he asked.

  "Vintage Samantha Taylor artwork." Chelsea took Josh's hand and pulled him toward the drinking fountain, where a couple of posters hung on the wall.

  We all parked in
front of one of my posters while Chelsea lifted a hand toward it in appraisement. "Notice the subtle shading and fine craftsmanship behind the lettering. One day when she's president of the United States, this will be worth money."

  Josh gazed at it with placid interest. "It's really nice." What else could he say?

  "It's much better than the paltry competition's," Chelsea said, pointing with a grand wave to one of Rick's posters.

  It was then I looked, really looked, at the other poster. It was one of Rick's newer ones, and I hadn't seen it before. It read: RICK DEBROCK RULES THE SCHOOL.VOTE FOR RICK ON ELECTION DAY.

  But that's not what caught my eye. What struck me was the e's—they were tilted upward like sloppy i"s.

  I continued to stare at the poster. In fact, for several moments that poster and my thoughts floated and twisted together, the only things existing in the universe.

  Rick had made the flyers.

  I knew this now, but still I couldn't fathom it. How had he known my SAT score? Surely Cassidy wouldn't have told him. Cassidy and Rick belonged to two completely different high-school stratas. They didn't talk to each other. They had absolutely no reason to associate with each other.

  Then it all fit, like puzzle pieces snapping together to finish the picture.

  Chelsea had a reason, or rather Chelsea's little sister did. Chelsea said that Adrian had gone out with Rick. Suddenly, like a movie playing in my mind, I remembered exactly the time and place I told my friends about my SAT score.

  I don't know what was stronger, my anger or my disappointment. I turned to Chelsea. "You told Rick my SAT score, didn't you?"

  Her eyes riveted to me, and her smile vanished. "No, I didn't."

  Now I was even more certain. "Yes, you did." I put my fingers across my mouth and felt my hand shaking. In a low voice I said, "I can't believe this, Chelsea—I trusted you."

  She didn't say anything for a moment, and both Josh and Mike stared at us, unspeaking.

  Then, as if it were almost an apology, her voice dropped. "I didn't tell him. I told Adrian. I didn't know she'd tell Rick about it."

  "You didn't know?" My anger now outweighed my disappointment. "You just expected little Miss Black Death to keep that information to herself?"

  Chelsea folded her arms, and her lips pursed into a rigid line. "Look, I didn't know Rick would make those flyers."

  "You could have at least told me what you'd done, and then I wouldn't have . . ." Then I wouldn't have done an ugly thing myself by taking down Amy's posters. Then I wouldn't have blamed Cassidy for the past two weeks for betraying me.

  With her arms still folded, Chelsea said, "I didn't tell you to go on a poster-tearing rampage. You guys did that all by yourselves. If I had known you were going to destroy Amy's stuff, I would have tried to stop you. But what was the point in telling you the truth after you'd already done it? I knew it would just make you feel bad."

  "How noble of you." I turned and walked away from her, my dress making angry swishing sounds with every step I took back to the photographer.

  I hadn't seen Josh's expression during my exchange with Chelsea, and now with him walking beside me, I was afraid to know what it was. We took our place in the back of the picture line, and for a moment neither of us said anything. Then slowly, as though he was talking to himself as much as talking to me, he said, "You tore down Amy's posters?"

  And wham—I was no longer mature, or nice, or anything good. I was the same critical, insulting, immature girl he'd known last year. It was practically a vindication of Logan's words, and that one sentence hurt just as deeply.

  I wanted to shrug the whole thing off and say, "You know how it is. All's fair in love, war, and high school." But I couldn't. I couldn't act like what I'd done didn't matter when I knew, inside, that it did.

  "I made a mistake. I thought Amy wrote something horrible about me, and I retaliated."

  "You weren't sure it was Amy, but you retaliated any-

  "I thought I was sure."

  "Did you talk to her?"

  Of course I didn't talk to her. She wouldn't have told me the truth— Well, actually she would have told me the truth, but I wouldn't have believed it was the truth. I couldn't tell Josh this, though. I couldn't admit to being blindly suspicious along with being vindictive. "I said it was a mistake."

  "A mistake because you retaliated or a mistake because you retaliated against the wrong person?"

  Either. Both. I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to think about it anymore. How much guilt should a person have to endure while waiting to get prom pictures taken? I didn't answer, but I couldn't think about anything else.

  Why hadn't I just taken that flyer into the office and let them handle it?

  Josh didn't press the point. We stood together in line, silently apart, until the photographer called out it was our turn. Then we went and stood side by side, hands clasped, under the archway. I smiled, but I knew the picture would turn out awful anyway. It was a fitting symbol of the evening.

  After the pictures Josh and I went back to the dance floor and danced for a few more dances. The music blared out a quick tempo, and even though I tried to dance to the beat, my arms and legs suddenly felt stiff and clumsy.

  Once, I noticed Logan dancing with Cassidy in a far corner. He looked perfecdy happy. And why shouldn't he? He knew he'd been right about everything all along.

  For the second time that night I came close to beautifying myself with tears and runny mascara. I wanted to go home; instead, I kept dancing with Josh. Every step I took, every note I heard, all seemed to echo the words in my head, "It's true . . . It's true . . ."

  Finally, mercifully, the prom ended. I decided not to suggest one of the after-prom parties. Instead, when they turned up the lights, I yawned and commented on how late it was.

  Josh drove me home, and we didn't talk much in the car. I knew he wanted the evening to be over as badly as I did, so it almost surprised me when he got out of the car at my house and walked me to my door—but that was the thing about Josh, he was a perfect gentleman.

  He paused on the doorstep. "Thanks for asking me out, Samantha. I had a nice time."

  He wasn't even a good liar; still I smiled at him anyway. "Thanks for coming. I'll give you your copy of the pictures as soon as I get them." If I didn't burn them first.

  I hadn't expected him to, but he leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "That's a friendship kiss. I want us to be friends."

  "Right. Exactly." I felt like he was breaking up with me.

  "Well, I'll see you later."

  I opened the door and went into the darkened house. Without turning on the lights, I put my purse on the hallway table and my corsage—which was now brown around the edges—into the fridge. I walked quietly up the stairs, checked in with my parents, then went to my room and kicked off my shoes. I slowly took off my earrings, necklace, and all the trappings of the evening.

  The night was over, and yet in some ways it wasn't. In some ways tonight was a beginning. The person I was going to become was just beginning to form, because I couldn't stand to be the person I had been before. I could still see Josh's face looking at me with disappointment—still hear Logan's words as we danced. I went to the ball as Cinderella and then found out I was actually one of the wicked stepsisters.

  I got in my pajamas and slipped into bed, trying to clear my mind of the images of the night: colorful dresses swishing around me, couples swirling by. Music blaring. I pressed my eyelids together tightly and imagined that instead of blankets, I was covered in a layer of thick green vines. Then in my mind, one by one, I turned over each leaf.

  Chapter 14

  The next day I got out my extra poster board, the markers, the scrapbook stuff, and then locked myself in my room. Very carefully, I made VOTE FOR AMY posters. I couldn't undo that I'd helped tear her first ones down, but I could make her some new ones.

  After dinner I went back to my room, and while I did my homework I resolved to be friendlier to
everyone in school. I'd say hi to people in the hallway. I'd ask Cassidy what orphanage project she was working on next and volunteer to help. I'd even be nice to Elise. See, I wanted to say to Logan. See, I'm not only thinking of myself.

  On Monday I went to school early and put the Amy posters up before anyone was around. I didn't worry too much about someone catching me; after all, there was no rule about putting posters up for an opponent.

  I thought about resigning from the race. I really did. I wondered if that would be the only way to completely redeem myself for what I'd done. But then again, I hadn't actually done anything to hurt Amy's chances for winning. I hadn't smeared her name the way Rick had smeared mine. I'd just made her redo all of her posters.

  These thoughts still edged around my mind as I put up the last poster. I surveyed it for a minute, then went to put the tape away in my locker. I didn't feel like standing and ogling with my friends on the front landing, so I took my biology book from my locker and sat down on the floor to read it.

  I wasn't sure what to say to Chelsea or how I should act when I saw her next. I wanted to be angry and blame everything on her, but in truth I knew she hadn't set out to sabotage my campaign. Of course, she should have told me Cassidy hadn't done the sabotaging, but I even found this hard to be angry about. I kept asking myself what I would have done in Chelsea's place. If I'd made a horrible mistake and my friends had already blamed it on someone else, would I have straightened them out? Would I have done the right thing or the wrong thing?

  I thought about all of the insults I'd wanted to utter over the last two weeks, Amy's posters, and the way I'd treated Cassidy.

  Not only did it deflate all of my anger but it made me feel really depressed too. It seemed like the last few weeks had been nothing but a revelation of all my faults.

  I flipped open my biology book and tried to push these thoughts away. The chapter heading read, "Predators and prey, the life struggle of the ecosystems." Hmm. I got to read about things killing other things. That might take my mind off my problems.

  This is what I'd sunk to. I was now finding escapism in the food chain.