All Our Worst Ideas

by Vicky Skinner

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He bends down to pick up the CD at my feet, straightening and handing it to me, his eyes fixed on mine.

  “Is it okay that I’m in here?” I ask him. “I didn’t mean to snoop. I just saw all the music and…”

  He sends me a strange look, his mouth twisting. “It’s okay that you’re in here.”

  I replace the CD in the spot I took it from and run my fingertips over the cases. “This collection is pretty amazing.” I’ve been looking at it for who knows how long and still have only looked through half of the CDs and vinyl that line the walls of Oli’s room.

  He follows me slowly as I scan my way down the wall. “This is what happens when you abuse your employee discount.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I stop moving and realize that I can’t hear voices in the living room. Damn. Did I piss them off by disappearing? “Oh God. Is everyone mad at me?” I ask.

  Oli shakes his head. “Everyone left.”

  “Everyone left? Because of me?”

  His mouth quirks up on one side. “No. Brooke and Marshal had to get somewhere, and Mom had to leave for her shift at the hospital.”

  I sigh and lean against the shelf beside me. “Brooke was my ride.”

  Oliver’s gaze settles on me, steady, and it’s a little unnerving. “I’ll take you.”

  The reality of the situation starts to tingle under my skin. We’re completely alone in Oliver’s apartment. Everyone is gone, and Oli’s standing so close to me that I can feel his breath on my face.

  We stand in silence for a long time, until finally Oli says, “Do you want me to take you home right now?”

  I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to leave him yet. Just the thought does something to my skin, makes it ache, makes my chest feel tight.

  “Can I stay instead? Hang out? Listen to some music?”

  His mouth opens, but he doesn’t say anything for a long time, his fingers tapping their way along the shelf beside him, like they can’t stay still. Maybe he wants to be alone, but he isn’t sure how to tell me so. He’s used to the quiet, to being on his own, and maybe he needs that again now.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him quickly. “I don’t have to stay. It’s just quiet here, and I thought maybe—”

  “Stay forever,” he says, and I laugh, my stomach fluttering.

  I know Oliver likes me. Or at least, I know he’s attracted to me. He never would have kissed me that night at Spirits if he didn’t like me in one way or another. But when he says things like that, things that make me feel wanted, well … it does something to me, like I can feel all my insides going soft. This isn’t the same Oliver I knew two months ago. He’s not the boy who wouldn’t speak to me, who could barely look at me. He’s the boy who sat across the dining room table and told me my gift wasn’t stupid while his mom watched. I wanted to tell him then that he makes my heart go sore when he does things like that.

  I nudge him with the toe of my shoe, and he reaches out and pulls a CD off the shelf beside him. “Music?” He pops open the case without even looking at it, and I smile at his confidence that every CD on his shelves is worth listening to, that whatever he blindly chooses will be good enough to share.

  I slide down to the floor, stretching my legs out in front of me, and watch him go to his computer and pop the CD in. He’s so deliberate with his movements.

  “How are these organized?” I ask, tapping one of the shelves by my hip.

  “Genre, then artist’s last name or band name, then release date.”

  I smile up at him as he comes back to me. “You are such a nerd.”

  Music filters from the computer, where a screen saver is already flashing across the screen, pictures of Oliver and his mom that I watch go by again and again as Sleeping at Last flows into the room like syrup. Oliver drops down onto the floor beside me, and I try to ignore the feel of his hip pressed against mine. He perches his arms on his knees and looks over at me.

  I close my eyes and lean my head back against the shelf behind me. It’s amazing what music can do to me, like cold and warmth at the same time flooding from one end of my skin to the other. I take a deep breath, like I could breathe it into my lungs.

  “The last time I listened to Sleeping at Last was my first day at Spirits,” I say.

  “You can’t quit,” Oliver says, and I sigh because I knew he would bring it up. We haven’t spoken about what my mother said to me at family dinner, but I know Oliver has to be thinking about it as much as I am. Carlos being out of a job was the only reason I’ve stayed even though fitting Spirits into my life is hard, but now that Mom is telling me it’s okay to quit, well, my stomach feels all twisted just thinking about it.

  “This girl—she’s been tutoring me in calculus—she told me I should quit, and I can’t pretend like I haven’t thought about how it would make everything so much easier. But if I’m being honest, Spirits kind of feels like home. Is that stupid?” I laugh a little to myself, but when I look up at Oli, he isn’t laughing, or smiling, or looking amused at all.

  “That’s not stupid,” he says.

  I press my hands into my face. I feel like an idiot for saying all this to him.

  “Amy,” he says, and he looks like he wants to say something, but for a long time, he just doesn’t. And then he says, “I need you there.” His eyes travel all over my face, and I feel a tug in my chest, in my hands, in my whole body, pulling me toward him.

  I kiss him.

  Oliver reacts so suddenly, it startles me when his hands go into my hair, when he turns and presses as much of his body to mine as he can, when he angles his head and kisses me like he’s trying to memorize my mouth.

  His mouth moves down to my neck, and I clutch his shirt, trying to keep myself grounded as everything becomes Oliver and the notes of a piano and the friction of the carpet on my legs. We make our way up to the bed, keeping contact anywhere we can: our lips, our fingers, our kneecaps. His weight pushes me down into his soft mattress, and I try to catch my breath, gasping anytime he moves from my mouth to find a fresh spot on my skin he hasn’t kissed yet.

  His fingers find their way to the edge of my shirt, and I can feel his hesitation in the way his fingers flex against my hip. I grab hold of his fingers and send them up my stomach. He sighs into my neck, but then his mouth finds mine again as my shirt is shoved up under my arms and Oliver shudders against me.

  When the CD plays its way through the last song, and the room plummets into silence, Oliver presses his forehead to mine. “We should probably slow down,” he says through labored breaths.

  I bite my lip. I’m not a big fan of slow. We’re alone, we’re in his bed, and every inch of my body is on fire. I want him to keep going. But I remember the way he’s spoken of sex like it’s something foreign to him, so I let him pull my shirt down, let him lie down beside me, let him link our fingers together.

  “Oli?” I whisper. “Are you a virgin?” I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m accusing him of anything, like there’s anything wrong with him being a virgin on his nineteenth birthday. There definitely isn’t.

  He doesn’t say anything, but when our breaths have leveled out between us, he nods, his head bumping my shoulder. He sets his hand on my stomach, fingers splayed, and I close my eyes.

  “Okay,” I say because there’s nothing else to say. It doesn’t bother me, and I can’t help but look at him to see if it bothers him. But his eyes are focused up on the ceiling, his fingertip absently tracing a shape on my hip.

  I want to ask him where this leaves us, if we’re still just friends, but the room is quiet, nothing but the sound of our breathing, and for now, I’m okay with that.

  APRIL

  OLIVER

  AMY, SITTING ACROSS the table, is wearing my headphones and smiling as she listens to Hunter Hunted. She tilts her head back, exposing the long column of her neck as it disappears down into her flannel shirt, and I feel like I’m going to combust.

  We haven’t talked a
bout what happened at my party. We haven’t talked about the fact that we made out in my bed or that I almost took her clothes off. We haven’t talked about what it means for us and our friendship. The last time we had this discussion, she was pretty adamant that we’re just friends, but does that still apply? Are we still just friends?

  She bites her lip and slides the headphones off to hand them to me. Our fingers brush, and I take a deep breath to keep from diving across the table.

  “I love it,” she says. “But a musical genius you are not.”

  Just ask her. Just ask her what Wednesday meant. It’s been three days. You guys can talk about it. It doesn’t make you pathetic. Oh, who are you kidding? You are pathetic.

  “This place is nice,” she says, slumping down in the seat so she can put her feet up on the seat next to me. She smiles. “I can see you in this place, late at night, listening to music like the world doesn’t exist.” How does she do that? Know everything about me without me even telling her? “How’s your dad doing, by the way?”

  I shrug. “Still going to A.A. That’s all I can ask, right?”

  She sends me a pretty much look and finishes off her tea. “You have to get back to work,” she says, slipping out of the booth. “The last thing I need is Brooke thinking I’m a bad influence on you.”

  I snort and slide out to stand beside her, slipping enough cash on the table to cover our food and a tip.

  She looks down at the money and then back up at me. “I can pay for my own.”

  I wave her off, even though her comment is rocketing inside me. If she wants to pay for her own, does that mean this isn’t a date and we’re still just friends and I’ve managed to get my heart broken again without even trying?

  But then, as natural as anything, Amy reaches over and laces her fingers with mine, leading me out of Charlie’s and out onto the sidewalk. We walk toward Spirits. My entire body is tingling, with ground zero being the places where her skin is touching mine.

  It’s over too soon because we’re in front of Spirits, and she’s looking up at me with those dark brown eyes, and I’m fairly certain I would sell my soul if she’ll look at me forever the way she’s looking at me right now.

  “When do you work next?” she asks, looking down at our still-linked hands. “I know you’re off Sundays. Monday?”

  I nudge the toe of her shoe with mine. “We could hang out outside of work.” My stomach is rolling with nerves. That sounded casual, right?

  She smiles up at me, the late morning sunshine making her eyes turn the color of milk chocolate. “Are you asking me out?”

  “Fuck yes,” I say because I’m in love with her, and I want to go on a date with her, and hold her hand, and whisper in her ear, and kiss her, and do other things with her, and if she says we’re just friends, I might die.

  But her smile gets bigger, so I drop her hand, grab her face, and kiss her. She kisses me back so enthusiastically, we start to tip over, and then we’re laughing into each other’s mouths.

  “What about Tuesday?”

  She nods and I kiss her again, finally letting her go so that she drops back on her heels. “Tuesday,” she says, and then she turns and walks away, and I’m watching her go and willing my legs to stay put instead of following after her the way they want to.

  I’m about to turn to go into Spirits when I catch sight of someone in the window across the street, inside the tutoring center. I’m not positive, but it seems like maybe they’re watching me. It takes me a second, but then I can make out his face.

  It’s Amy’s ex, Jackson, and his eyes are following after Amy and then traveling all the way back to where I stand. I want to laugh in his face, because he threw away something amazing, and now that amazing girl is mine.

  I turn with a grin and go into Spirits.

  AMY

  WHEN OUR AP bio teacher asks Jackson and me to stay after class, I think maybe she’s going to assign us new lab partners after all.

  But our teacher is frowning. And not that darn teenagers bringing their drama to school again kind of frown that teachers like to give but an I’m not mad just disappointed kind of frown, and I immediately start to panic because I have never done anything to receive that expression from a teacher.

  “Amy, Jackson, I think we need to have a little conversation about taking this class seriously.”

  I frown right back at her. “What do you mean?”

  Her eyes move to me sharply. I know she’s not exactly my biggest fan, but whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, can it? “I will not tolerate you sharing answers. I figured you were studying together, but I certainly didn’t think you’d stoop so low as to copy each other’s exams.…”

  She’s still talking, but my heart has stopped. When she finally ends her tirade, I say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never cheated on anything in my life.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Miss Richardson, you and Mr. Brody had almost identical answers on your essay questions, so don’t you dare look at me and lie about this.”

  I see Jackson glance at me out of the side of his eye, and I know that I’m going to kill him. If I murder him, right here and now in this science lab, what are the chances they’ll still consider my application for Stanford? There’s no explanation other than that Jackson cheated off me, that he copied my test answer for answer thinking that she wouldn’t notice. But there are two tests on the desk in front of her, both of them with the same grade, a ninety-six, and of course, since we share a lab table, there can only be one explanation.

  “I swear, I didn’t—”

  She puts her hand up. “You’ll both get zeroes for this exam, and you’ll be separated at the next exam. If you ever pull a stunt like this in my class again, I will have you both suspended.”

  The tears start before I can stop them. I’ve never been accused of cheating, and all I can think about is losing valedictorian. My grades have to be perfect, and I can’t believe I just lost everything. And because of Jackson.

  Our teacher looks at me and sighs. “Oh, Amy. You don’t need to be so dramatic. There will be other exams, believe me. Now move on before you’re late to your next class.”

  I’m out the door before anyone says anything else, but I can hear Jackson on my heels. Outside, the halls are already mostly empty, the bell for second period looming.

  “Amy, wait.”

  I spin around, and it takes everything in me not to scream, not to just turn into an animal, open my mouth, and emit a battle cry. “Get the hell away from me,” I growl at him. “Haven’t you fucked up my life enough?”

  “I never thought she’d figure it out,” he says, his voice a whine. “I changed words around so it wouldn’t be obvious.”

  I laugh up at the ceiling, a hysterical sound. “Right. Because she’s too stupid to figure that out. Well, I hope you’re happy, because now I’m going to get a fucking B, and Petra is going to be val.”

  “You were already struggling.”

  I freeze. “What did you say?”

  He almost looks embarrassed that he even said it, but it’s too late to take it back now. “People are saying you probably weren’t going to make val anyway because you’ve been struggling in calculus.”

  My eyes shoot to him. “Who told you that?”

  He shrugs.

  “Don’t fucking shrug. If you’re going to gossip about me, at least get your facts straight. I might have slipped, but I’ve been doing better.” I can almost believe it, too, while I shout it in his face.

  He rolls his eyes. “You’re not going to get anywhere when you’re spending your weekends with that guy’s tongue down your throat for everyone to see.”

  I’m so shocked by what he says, I skip right over angry and straight to incredulous. “What?”

  He gestures wildly. “That guy you were making out with in front of the tutoring center on Saturday. You should be at home studying, and instead, you’re making out with randos on street corners.”

  It ta
kes me a second to realize that he’s talking about Oliver. That we did, in fact, kiss in front of the tutoring center. That he’s admitting to watching us. I grind my teeth together and take a menacing step toward him. “Why do you even care? You’re the one who broke up with me. You’re the one who’s seeing someone else. And you’re the one who wanted to have fun, so why are you so concerned about where I am on the weekend? Oliver is none of your business and neither is my academic standing.”

  I’m about to turn and leave him there, but he reaches out, his fingertips brushing my elbow, and it burns me enough to stay put. “I just want us to go back to being friends,” he says, and it is the most unbelievable thing he’s ever said to me, because we were never friends. We were two people who had friends in common, who occasionally ended up in a room together, and then we were more, just like that. There was never time for friendship. Just dates and kissing and sex and a million other things I wish I could take back.

  “We are not friends, Jackson. Not ever.”

  AMY

  I HATE THAT I have to tell my parents that I’m going on a date with Oliver tonight. I hate it because I will never hear the end of their mocking and their teasing, and I groan because I don’t think I can handle it. But Oli is going to pull up in front of our house in, like, ten minutes, and I can’t just jump into a boy’s truck without my mother asking a billion questions, so I might as well just get this over with.

  I knock on their bedroom door, where they’re inside, hiding from the twins and watching Law and Order.

  “I’m going out tonight,” I say, barely poking my head in the door so they can’t see that I’m all dressed up. I’m wearing my favorite red dress, even though it’s still cold out, and a pair of boots.

  Mama crunches on a handful of popcorn she just pulled from the bowl sitting between her and Carlos, and smiles over at me. “I thought you were off today. Where are you going?”

  “Actually, I’m going out with Oliver.”

  By the way they both whip around quick to look at me, it’s like I just told them I’m going on a date with Charles Manson.