They all stared at Jenna. She looked pretty miserable, but that didn’t mean much. Even if she liked the guy, she would probably feel awkward dancing with him since he was going out with one of her friends.
“It doesn’t even matter,” Val said. “Sarah deserves to know that her boyfriend is asking other girls to dance.”
“I don’t know, you guys,” Tori said, hugging herself as a cool breeze kicked up. “What’s Sarah going to do about it from home?”
“We should let David handle it,” Alyssa said diplomatically. “If he likes Jenna then he should break up with Sarah.”
“Yeah. She should hear it from David, not from us,” Brynn agreed.
“But what if he doesn’t tell Sarah?” Alex said, her stomach squirming. “We’ve already decided that boys are weird. Just because we would do the right thing, that doesn’t mean he would.”
This made all the girls fall silent again. They turned and looked at Jenna and David dancing under the lights. David really did have stars in his eyes. Meanwhile, Sarah was sitting at home thinking her boyfriend still totally liked her. Alex was starting to think that boys weren’t just weird, they were also mean. Between Adam and David, it was clear that boys never thought about anyone’s feelings other than their own.
Jenna could tell her friends were whispering about her. Every time she looked over there they were staring at her and David, and they kept ducking their heads together to talk. She just wished this stupid song would end already. Her stomach was in nervous knots, and she felt awkward and warm with her arms around David’s neck. So warm that she was pretty sure her wrists were starting to sweat and they were going to leave stains on his sweater. Who knew wrists could sweat?
“Think we’re gonna win the balloon toss tomorrow?” David asked.
“Depends,” Jenna replied, trying to sound normal. “Are you any good?”
“I can throw a water balloon with the best of them,” David replied with a grin.
Jenna started to smile, but then bit her tongue. Instead, she lifted her shoulders. “Then we have a chance,” she said.
David pulled back a little and looked down at her. “Are you mad at me or something?” he asked.
With a deep breath, Jenna managed to look him in the eye. Big mistake. He had the nicest eyes ever. She quickly looked away.
“Why would I be mad at you?” she asked.
Maybe because you might want to kiss me and cheat on one of my best friends? she thought. And even worse, I might want you to kiss me? If I even knew what kissing felt like . . .
“I don’t know,” David said. “That’s kinda why I’m asking.”
Jenna sighed and the song finally plucked its way to a close. Everyone stopped dancing and applauded for the band. Everyone except Jenna. All she wanted to do was get out of there as fast as possible.
“Well, thanks,” she said, pulling her arms away and backing up. “That was fun.”
Or torture, depending on how you look at it.
“Jenna, wait,” David said.
Jenna’s breath caught in her throat. She knew she should just turn around and walk away, but for some reason she couldn’t move. David took a step closer to her.
“I just wanted to tell you something,” he said.
“What?” she asked. Her heart was pounding a million times a minute.
“I wanted to tell you that . . . I like you,” David said. “I mean I really like you.”
Jenna couldn’t have swallowed or breathed if her life depended on it. In that moment she knew that she had been hoping he would say that. She really was a bad friend.
“But . . . but you’re with Sarah,” she said.
“I know I am,” David said. “And I like Sarah, too, but not the same way anymore. Not like I like you.”
Jenna felt as if she was going to melt right there, but she made herself think of her friend. This was Sarah’s boyfriend. Sarah’s boyfriend. And as much as she liked him back, it didn’t matter. As long as he was Sarah’s boyfriend, she couldn’t tell him how she felt. And he shouldn’t have been telling her either.
“I have to go,” she said.
Then she did manage to turn and run out of there—fast. She sprinted right through the crowd of dancers, down the steps, and past her friends. She even stepped on a few feet as she went, but she didn’t stop to see whose feet they were. She just threw a few “sorrys” over her shoulder and hoped that everyone would recover.
“Jenna! Jenna, wait! Where’re you going?” Brynn shouted.
But Jenna didn’t stop. She had to get away from David. That was the only thing she could think about right then.
chapter NINE
“I love fireworks!” Brynn said excitedly as she helped Jenna spread out the two blankets they had taken from the linen closet. One was covered in pink flowers and the other was red and blue plaid. “There should be fireworks every weekend of the year instead of just special occasions.”
The grass underneath the blankets made them all bumpy, so Grace crouched down to smooth them out. “I second that!” she said.
“But if they had them every weekend, they wouldn’t be special,” Alyssa said as she dropped down on her knees. Then she looked up at her friends, wide-eyed. “Oh, man. I just sounded exactly like my mother!”
Everyone laughed and Alex forced herself to smile. Her friends seemed to be having so much more fun than she was. All over the park, families and couples set up beach chairs or sat down on towels to await the big fireworks display. Kids wore glow necklaces and bracelets and ran around, waving their arms to make streaks of light in the dark. A few older teenagers walked through the crowd selling ice cream and cotton candy. There was a buzz of excitement in the air, but Alex just felt annoyed. All she could think about anymore was Adam. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he thinking about her? Did he still want to be her boyfriend or not? She was sick of it. She wanted to be having fun like her friends. This whole boyfriend thing was just not worth it.
Alex knew what she had to do to save her weekend. Maybe even her entire summer at Camp Lakeview. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be done. She narrowed her eyes and scanned the crowd. It was already dark out and Alex knew it wouldn’t be easy to find Adam in this mess. Of course, there was one good place to start. Like Jenna, Adam liked his food, so Alex glanced from popcorn vendor to ice cream truck to hot dog cart, checking all the lines.
“Alex? What’re you doing?” Jenna asked, looking up at her. “You look like an angry statue or something.”
“Yeah! Come sit!” Natalie said, whipping out a pack of cards. “We’re going to have a spit tournament until the fireworks start.”
“Count me out,” Grace said. She pulled out her textbook and a flashlight. “I have a little more studying to do.”
“What about you, Alex?” Brynn asked. She yanked out a bottle of bug-repelling baby oil and started spreading it on her arms. “Are you in?”
Suddenly Alex spotted Adam and David. Sure enough, they were hovering near the hot dog stand at the far end of the field. The instant Alex saw Adam, she rolled her shoulders back and screwed up her courage.
“I’ll play winners in the second round,” she told her friends. “I’ll be right back.”
She saw a few of the girls exchange curious glances as she walked away, but she ignored them. Right now, Alex had a one-track mind. Her heart pounded painfully as she stalked across the grass, making sure not to step on anyone’s hands or feet, but she ignored her heart, too. If she was going to start acting normal again and stop obsessing about Adam, she had to do this now.
“Adam!” she shouted from a few feet away.
He and David both looked up and smiled. Of course. An hour ago he couldn’t even look her in the eye, but now he was smiling at her. One look at that cute grin and part of her wanted to forget the whole thing, but she knew that his friendly attitude was only temporary. Tomorrow he’d be all mean to her again and she would be miserable. It was time to get this over with.
“Hey, Alex!” Adam shouted back. “We have a sheet set up over by the path. Want to come hang out with us?”
“No,” Alex said, making her way toward him. “No, I don’t.”
Adam’s face fell. “What’s wrong?”
By now Alex was standing only a foot away from him. “Look, Adam, I don’t know what your problem is this weekend, but I am so sick of the way you’re acting,” Alex ranted, her face heating up.
“Uh, I’ll be over here,” David said, turning and walking away to give his friends some privacy.
“What do you mean?” Adam asked, stunned.
“I mean . . . well . . . you either like a person or you don’t like a person,” Alex said, repeating Val’s words from earlier that night. The words that had sounded so wise.
“What?” Adam said.
“And if you like a person then you’re nice to them all the time,” Alex continued. “Not just when you feel like it.”
“Alex—”
“I thought you liked me, but I guess I was wrong,” Alex said, crossing her arms. “So I don’t think we should be boyfriend and girlfriend anymore, okay?”
Adam stared at Alex like she had just turned into a vampire right in front of him. “O . . . okay,” he said finally.
Alex felt as if someone had just shot her through the chest with an arrow. Adam wasn’t even going to tell her she was wrong? He wasn’t even going to try to fight her decision?
It looked as if he really didn’t like her anymore.
“Fine,” she said.
Then she turned around, her dark hair flying, and stormed off. Tears sprung from the corners of her eyes and she quickly wiped them away with the backs of her hands. She couldn’t believe it. She and Adam had just broken up. Alex Kim had just broken up with the first boy she had ever liked. If there was one thing she had never thought this weekend would bring, it was a breakup.
With a deep breath, Alex lifted her head and tried to look as if nothing was wrong. She just hoped that by the time she got back to her friends’ blankets, they wouldn’t be able to tell that she had been crying. Because she was done talking about Adam Bloom. Done talking about him, done thinking about him, just done.
As of this moment, Alex was over boys.
“Yes! I win! I sooooo dominate!” Jenna cried, thrusting her fists in the air. She had just beaten Brynn in the first round of their spit tournament. “I am the spit master!”
“I don’t think that’s something you want to be shouting at the top of your lungs,” Brynn said grumpily, swinging her legs around so that she could lie down and look up at the sky. “At least not in a public place.”
Jenna dropped her arms and looked around. Several people were looking at her in a disturbed way. “So what?” she said, shaking her curls behind her shoulders. “I did beat you.”
“And you wouldn’t be Jenna Bloom if you didn’t rub it in,” Grace said. She looked up from her book long enough to reach over and pat Jenna on the back.
Jenna grinned. “Exactly.”
At that moment, Alex returned to the blanket and dropped down, hard. She had a look of extreme concentration on her face. Like she was trying to do algebra in her head. Something about it made Jenna’s senses go on alert. She glanced at Brynn and saw that Brynn looked concerned as well.
“Alex? Everything okay?” Brynn asked.
“Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine,” Alex said, shrugging. “I just broke up with Adam.”
Jenna’s heart dropped. “What?” she asked.
“Alex! When? How?” Natalie asked.
Suddenly everyone was gathered around Alex. She didn’t look all that comfortable with everyone watching her, but still. You did not make an announcement like that and expect everyone to just shrug. The girl had to explain.
“I just decided to do it,” Alex said. “Just now. I was thinking about what we talked about before and Valerie was right. If Adam really liked me, he would be nice to me. And he hasn’t been very nice to me this weekend.”
“But that’s just my brother. He’s a doof,” Jenna said.
“I thought you’d be happy about this,” Alex said to Jenna. “You always thought it was weird that your brother was going out with one of us.”
Jenna squirmed. “Yeah, it was weird. But it’s not like I want to see you unhappy. Either one of you.”
“I’ll be fine,” Alex told them. “Let’s just . . . let’s just talk about something else.”
Everyone looked around the circle at everyone else, clearly confused and sad for Alex. It seemed as if no one could come up with a good subject change. What did you say to a girl when she’d just broken up with her first boyfriend ever? This was new territory for Jenna. Natalie had broken up with Simon, but she’d done it in the middle of the winter, so most of her communication had been via e-mail. The girls had never been together for an in-person breakup.
One thing Jenna knew for sure was that she couldn’t say anything about the bright side of the situation. It was only a bright side for her. If Alex and Adam had broken up, then Adam and David probably wouldn’t be crashing her little fireworks party. Which meant she wouldn’t have to deal with being around David for the next couple of hours. She had no idea what to say to him now that he’d told her he liked her. Zero idea. Zilch.
But thanks to Alex, Jenna was safe. For now.
“So . . . Jenna,” Natalie said. “What’s the deal with you and David? For real this time.”
Jenna turned beet red. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t safe.
“This again?” she said, rolling her eyes.
Jenna hadn’t told her friends that David had said he liked her. Normally she would have gone straight to the girls and told them everything, then asked for their advice. But this wasn’t a normal situation. One of their friend’s boyfriends had told another friend that he liked her instead. Who knew whose side everyone would take? All Jenna knew for sure was that the whole thing would be dramatic and messy. Plus no one would be able to stop talking about it. And that was the last thing she wanted to do for the rest of the weekend.
For the millionth time she wished that her father had let her and her friends come alone. No Adam would mean no David. Which would mean that none of this would have happened.
“You guys looked pretty cozy out there on the dance floor,” Tori said.
“So? You’ve gotta touch the guy when you dance,” Jenna said. “Otherwise it’s not dancing.”
She dropped back onto her elbows and looked up at the darkening sky, willing the fireworks to start already. They couldn’t exactly talk about boys over the sound of ten million explosions.
“Yeah, but the point is, you did dance with him,” Natalie said. “Normally you don’t want to go anywhere near boys.”
“Ew! Boy cooties!” Brynn teased.
“I only danced with him because my father made me!” Jenna said, sitting up straight again. “You guys saw it! You were right there!”
“All we’re saying is, it seems like you guys are having a lot of fun together this weekend,” Alyssa said, lifting one shoulder.
“So, for real . . . do you like him?” Grace asked.
Jenna looked around at all their faces. They didn’t look very happy about this conversation, and she knew why. If Jenna admitted that she liked David, it was going to cause a huge problem between her and Sarah. Which meant that there would be a huge problem in their bunks this summer. That was the last thing anyone wanted.
“Because if you do like him, you might want to tell Sarah,” Valerie said. “She has the right to know.”
Jenna suddenly felt as if she was being questioned by the police or something. They were all looking at her as if they already thought she was guilty. Clearly they had discussed this behind her back already—a lot. And it seemed like they had decided that Jenna was in the wrong.
“Look, you guys, I do not like David,” Jenna said firmly. “We’re only hanging out together because of the olde-tyme competition. If it wasn’t for that
stupid boy-girl pair rule, I wouldn’t even be talking to him.”
“Yeah. You just keep telling yourself that,” Tori said, tossing her blond ponytail over her shoulder.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jenna snapped.
Tori paled slightly. “It’s just that . . . Jenna, we’ve seen the way you look at him, you know, when you think no one is watching?”
Jenna felt as if she was going to be sick.
“You definitely look like a girl with a crush,” Natalie put in.
“Well, what do you guys know?” Jenna fumed. “You think you’re so smart just because you come from New York and L.A.? Well, you don’t know everything. And I’m telling you I don’t like him. What do you want me to do? Prove it to you?”
No one said anything. Jenna knew she was getting kind of loud, but so what? She was mad. Her friends were all accusing her of going behind Sarah’s back to steal her boyfriend. She would never do that. No matter how much she liked him. And even though he’d already told her that he liked her.
“Fine. I’ll prove it to you,” Jenna said.
“How?” Alyssa asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jenna told her. “I have my ways.”
Just then the first firework jetted into the sky, letting out a loud whistle. It popped overhead, sending a blanket of blue and white sparkles over the sky. Everyone around Jenna’s blanket oohed and aahed.
“Let’s just watch the fireworks,” Jenna grumbled.
Gradually all the other girls settled back, tipping their faces toward the sky. Grace turned off her flashlight and closed her book. Alex lay down next to Jenna, looking as if she would rather be curled up in bed. With a sigh, Jenna lay back as well and tried to get into the beautiful display in the sky above, but her mind kept wandering.
She had to show her friends that she did not like David once and for all. There was no way she could handle having this conversation again. They had to know for sure that there was no way she would ever stab Sarah—or any of them—in the back that way. It was time to come up with a plan. A really good plan . . .
A Fair to Remember #13 Page 7
