“So, knowing all this,” he started slowly, his gaze returning to mine and holding me captive. “Why do you go back to him?”
I drew in a deep breath. Part of me wanted to tell him to shove it, but his voice wasn’t unkind. He sounded genuinely curious, and I suspected he was thinking about himself. About this Leila girl. Trying to figure out the pull she had over him because it likely wasn’t rational.
Lord knew Alex’s hold on me had nothing to do with reason. I shifted beneath Julian’s stare as I tried to find the words. “Because while cheaters make you feel horrible, they also make you feel…” Loved. I swallowed down the word. I’d never said the L-word aloud before and I definitely couldn’t start now. “They make you feel special, I guess.” I shrugged at the lame word which didn’t even begin to cover it. “They make you feel seen and important.”
He nodded slowly. “But you don’t really think they can change.”
I shook my head. “Like I said, I’m a realist.”
The silence that followed felt heavy and thick. I regretted having said anything. The longer the silence stretched the more I hated myself for having opened up like that. With a stranger. A guy who wouldn’t get it. Sure enough, his next question was laced with judgy condescension, just like I’d expect from this guy who lived on the outside.
“I still don’t understand why you knowingly put yourself through this pain over and over again. Why do that to yourself?”
His question made me squirm. Mainly because I didn’t have an answer, but also because I hated the judgement I heard in his tone. “Look, when this Leila girl comes to you with big teary eyes asking for forgiveness and promising never to hurt you again, then you can judge me, all right?”
I hated myself for the rancid anger so clear in my voice. I hated myself even more when he didn’t get all defensive in response.
“You’re right,” he said.
I turned to stare at him. What? No. I wasn’t. I wasn’t right at all. There was no good explanation for why I put myself through this again and again. And when his ex came begging for a second chance he’d probably do the smart thing and tell her to get lost. So no, I wasn’t right. Nothing about this situation was right.
Still, a girl had her pride and mine wouldn’t let those words slip out of my mouth no matter how clearly they were racing through my mind.
He leaned his head back against the wall behind him, scrubbing his face with his hand and looking so utterly vulnerable and frustrated, it made my heart leap in sympathy.
He rolled his head to the side to look at me. “I can’t even explain what happened in my own relationship. I have no idea where I went wrong or what I should have done. I shouldn’t judge you and Alex.”
Yes, I wanted to say. Yes, you should. You should learn from my mistakes and avoid the epic mistake that is my love life.
But again, I couldn’t actually say that. So instead I threw him a crumb. Something that might hopefully help that lost look in his eyes.
“When I first starting having panic attacks a few years ago, my mom made me see a psychiatrist.” I licked my lips and smoothed my hands over the skirt of my uniform, trying not to think too hard about the fact that I had just told this stranger something that not even my closest friends knew about me.
I didn’t trust this guy. I didn’t trust anyone. So why the hell had I just told him that truth? Here, add this to the list of humiliating things you can tell those vultures who live to hear gossip that can take me down a peg.
“And?” he prompted, his voice gentle. Encouraging. God, this random dude was so easy to talk to. No wonder he scored a hottie from Atwater High.
“And he had this theory,” I continued with a resigned sigh. I’d come this far, right? “He had a theory that everything we do is because our subconscious is trying to make us happy.” I risked a glance over, hoping against hope that he wasn’t laughing at me.
I mean, I would have been laughing at me. This was entering into weird psychotherapy talk and no one needed to hear that. Still, it stuck with me because it was the only way I could justify my bizarre addiction to Alex.
I licked my lips again, an old nervous habit I’d thought I’d outgrown. “Anyway, the theory is that even when we make bad choices or seemingly inexplicable decisions, it’s because something inside us thinks it’ll either make us happy or keep us safe.”
“Even though you can’t explain it,” he finished.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
We sat there in silence for a moment, each of us lost in thought. I could guess what he was thinking. Probably something similar to what was going on in my head. What was wrong with me that I kept taking Alex back?
Well, now he knew. Underneath the peppy blonde cheerleader was a messed up panic attack ridden girl with some serious issues. I sighed quietly. And now the whole school would likely know.
Goodie.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t faced the rumor mill before. It was a necessary evil that came with popularity. I’d find a way to shoot down whatever half-truths and lies were spread about me when this guy started the gossip. Not intentionally, perhaps, but all it would take was a whisper.
I couldn’t even work myself up into a rage over it. Not now, at least. I’d worry about it when the time came.
When the bell rang a few moments later, I realized that we’d just been sitting there in silence.
And it had been kind of nice.
I let him leave first. I was in no rush to face my life. At least not without a fresh coat of mascara.
He turned to face me with his hand on the doorknob. “Are you going to be okay?”
The honest concern in his voice made my chest squeeze painfully all over again, but I nodded, brushing some of my hair out of my face. When he didn’t look away, I forced a smirk. “Haven’t you heard? The spawn of Satan always bounces back.”
He gave me that cute lopsided smile in response.
“What about you?” I asked. “Are you going to be all right?”
“I’ll survive.” He was still smiling. It was cynical and rueful, but it still made me believe him.
He opened the door and started out but stopped to look back. “For what it’s worth, I hope you don’t take him back this time.” His gaze met mine. “You deserve better.”
His words shouldn’t have been so shocking but I found myself staring at him with wide eyes for a second too long as my heart played pinball in my chest. Finally, I swallowed and took a deep breath. “So do you.”
And I meant it. I didn’t know what I deserved. I knew he was teasing with the Satan’s spawn comment, but I was certainly no saint.
But Julian? He was a good guy. An honest to God decent guy.
I watched him slip out the door before letting my head fall back with a thud against the wall. Decent guy or not, he’d spill about what I’d said. It was too tempting. The sad, pathetic mean girl, look how low she’d sunk.
But despite knowing that, I still believed what I’d said.
He deserved better.
Chapter Two
Julian
“Earth to Julian.” Alice kicked my chair beneath the table and I snapped back to my sad reality. The cafeteria was buzzing with noise around us, but Alice sat quietly across from me.
“Are you doing okay?” Her voice was laced with concern and her eyes were so filled with it, it was hard to make direct eye contact.
A week had passed since the breakup and since that bizarre run-in with Briarwood’s psycho sweetheart. That was how Alice and I had referred to her prior to the closet incident. I still hadn’t told Alice about that…not that I thought she’d judge. I was just still trying to make sense of it myself.
I’d finally told Alice about my breakup with Leila though, and she’d been great. She’d hardly left my side ever since. Her boyfriend Brian was even getting in on the act, hanging out with me when Alice was busy with rehearsals for the spring musical.
I loved Alice like a sister, and even Brian had become a go
od friend over the past nine months or so, ever since the two of them had started dating. But what neither of them seemed to get was how that it sucked badly enough to go through a breakup, but when your closest friends were the happiest couple on the planet?
Not fun.
I mean, I was happy for them, of course I was. But they were so not on the same wavelength. Mainly because they were happy and I was miserable.
“Do you want to talk?” Alice asked as she picked at her lunch. She’d brought her lunch today and it looked like a medley of fruit and cheese—far more appealing than the greasy pizza I’d gotten from the cafeteria line.
Did I want to talk? Not really. There was nothing new to say. A week had passed but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Both hers, actually. When I wasn’t obsessing over Leila and her betrayal I found myself replaying snippets from that bizarre conversation with Tina.
Tina. Tina Withers. I mean…had that really been Tina?
I was still having a hard time resolving the Tina I’d been peripherally aware of since I’d started at Briarwood and the girl in the closet. I mean, there were times it was clearly the same Tina I’d always known—a girl I’d come to think of as superficial, snotty, cliquey, and bossy.
And those were her nicer qualities.
But then there were moments when she wasn’t like that at all. She’d been refreshingly honest and she’d even made me laugh, something I hadn’t thought possible.
I mean, this was Tina the renowned drama queen. Well, her and Alex, I supposed. They were a drama team. Honestly I’d always just lumped the two of them into one category, like they were the same person or something. Even when they weren’t together—and seriously, who could keep up? They flipped back and forth so often no one was able to keep track. Or maybe everyone kept track except for outsiders like me and Alice.
But now I couldn’t stop keeping track of her. Don’t ask me why. Maybe because she’d gotten it. She’d understood what I was going through in a way no one else had. Hell, by the time I left that stockroom I felt like maybe she understood my situation better than I did.
In the week that had passed since our weird interaction I’d alternated between disagreeing with her and agreeing with her on the topic of cheaters and Leila, in particular—all in my head, of course. But one thing was certain. She’d understood what I was going through. Which had oddly made her a good listener.
I know. I would never have believed it myself.
“Who are you looking at?” Alice asked. Her gaze followed mine to the table in the center of the cafeteria where Tina was holding court with her minions.
“Ugh.” I heard Alice take a sip of her club soda as we both gawked at the A-list table. “Looks like they’re getting back together again. Shocker.”
Alice’s voice dripped with sarcasm, and I couldn’t blame her. Normally I’d be mocking them too. Especially Tina, who had her nose so far in the air it was a wonder she could see anything around her.
But I wasn’t noticing that now. I was too interested in the way Alex, with the brawny build and the surfer dude shaggy blond hair, was sitting next to her. He had one arm slung around her shoulders all casually, like it belonged there.
No, like she belonged to him.
Normally I wouldn’t care. At any other point, I wouldn’t have really noticed, and even if I had I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. They could’ve both rotted in hell for all I cared. They were the kind of superficial clichés who were such caricatures of themselves, they didn’t even seem real.
Catty blonde cheerleaders didn’t really exist outside of 90s teen movies, did they? And no bro was really that bro-like in his douchery, was he?
I’d like to think no, but then I came to Briarwood. My old school in New York was too big to have one popular clique. There were lots of different groups of varying degrees of popularity. So nothing had prepared me for this microcosm of high school hell when I transferred to Briarwood.
Anyway, the point was, I’d grown used to it as one does. I’d started to take them at face value, because how else could one take these people? They had no depths. These were no onions to be peeled one layer at a time.
They were avocados. One flimsy outer layer that could be cut with a butter knife to reveal a mushy, possibly rotten core.
Bitter much? Yeah, I know. Alice and I were both in the jaded and cynical camp when it came to the cheerleaders and alpha-hole jocks who made up the A-list crowd. One of many reasons she and I became such fast friends.
Brian Kirkland was exempt from this contempt, of course, along with a few of his friends who’d passed muster by Alice’s strict standards.
This was all to say that I thought I had Tina pegged. I thought I knew who she was. That, more than anything else, was why our bizarre interaction was nagging at me. Haunting me.
Well, that and the fact that she’d actually had some good insights. And her description of Leila had been so alarmingly spot on that it had made me take everything else she’d said far more seriously. Like, maybe Tina knew what she was talking about.
I took a bite of my pizza and instantly regretted it. The grease did not taste any better when it was cold. “So,” I said as casually as I could. “Are they really back together?”
I felt Alice’s stare but I ignored it. There was laughter in her voice when she answered. “Do you care?”
I shrugged. “Distraction is supposed to be helpful, right?”
She outright laughed then and I looked over to see her nodding. “Okay, fine. If watching Barbie and Ken be crazy and toxic is a good distraction, I’m all for it.”
I had to bite my tongue to keep from prompting her again. My knee was bouncing up and down as I peered over at them like some weirdo creeper.
Alice sighed. “I wish I didn’t know this but Tina and her friends were talking to each other in the locker room after gym class and they were way too loud for me to ignore.”
“So?” I said. “Are they together?”
She drew her brows together in confusion but she didn’t comment on my uncharacteristic interest. “I guess he’s trying to win her back.” She sighed and shook her head. “God, it’s the same old song and dance over and over. Don’t they ever get tired of it? It’s so obvious that they’re just looking for attention.”
I wanted to join in on her exasperation but I was too busy trying to figure out why she was doing it. Tina, I mean. Why the hell would she take him back when she knew it would only end in her crying in the storage room?
I had to stop her.
The thought was insistent and dumb. What right did I have to stop her? And better yet, why did I care?
Because she was nice, a voice pointed out. Well, no. By traditional standards, she was not nice, per se. But she was kind to me when she didn’t have to be. Which, granted, might not have been the best selling point for someone’s character. No one was going to hand out a Nobel peace prize for not kicking a man when he was down. But then again, this was Tina we were talking about. Tina, who I hadn’t thought had a kind bone in her body.
A little nice went along way when you were known for being mean.
And then, oddly enough, I remembered Tina’s voice when she mocked Leila for being nice and I felt a smile creep across my face against my will. Tina would probably hate the fact that I was sitting here contemplating how nice she was. She’d managed to make it sound like a bad word. She’d said the word nice with a sneer, like other people said perverted or disgusting.
I smothered a laugh at the memory.
I was depressed, dammit. I was still heartbroken. I would not laugh over something Tina said a week ago.
“That smile looks good on you,” Alice said. I glanced over to see her watching me with a smile of her own as she nudged me. “You should smile like that more often.”
I turned to look at my friend but I wasn’t really seeing her. The decision had been made, I realized. At some point that insistent voice had won the internal debate.
I was
doing this. “Alice?”
“Yes?” She popped a berry in her mouth.
“If I were to go over to the alpha-hole table and do something stupid, would you still be my friend?”
I was teasing and she knew it but she squinted her eyes and studied me as if to see if I was serious.
“Yes,” she said decisively, giving me a short nod before eating another berry. “I will wholeheartedly support your craziness if it means you keep smiling.”
I leaned forward and planted a supremely chaste kiss on top of her head. “That’s why you’re the best.”
“I know.” I heard her say it as I stood and walked away from the table, leaving my half-eaten pizza to congeal into whatever it was that cold grease turns into. Lard, maybe?
I focused on that conundrum to distract myself from what I was doing. It worked right up until I was standing beside Tina’s table. At first only her friend Melody seemed to notice me. A petite brunette with a wide smile, Melody was always bubbly and outgoing.
But anyone with an ounce of insight could see that Melody was only surface-sweet. Underneath the smiles she was as catty and manipulative as they came. She was sweet. In the same way that Leila was “sweet.”
Oh good God, was I the biggest idiot on the planet? Had I been dating Atwater High’s version of Melody without even knowing it?
How was it so obvious that Melody was as fake as could be but I’d been duped by my ex?
That rhetorical question would have to wait because now Melody’s gaze was joined by Alex and then a few others. Tina was the last to look in my direction.
Not the last to notice me though. I’d seen her stiffen when I stopped beside the table but she pretended I didn’t exist until she couldn’t anymore.
So this was it. My moment to bask in the radiance that was the A-list table. The fact that I was standing here was ludicrous. I knew without a doubt that Alice was watching me with wide eyes and an open mouth.
I’d pretty much spent the entirety of my time at Briarwood trying to avoid being noticed by this crowd. And now here I was. Seeking them out.
The Prom Kiss Page 3
