#Scandal

by Sarah Ockler

“Do you know where Cole is?” I ask.

  “Upstairs,” Olivia says. “He seems, like, out of it. Oh, do you think he broke up with Ellie? Maybe?”

  Hope drips from the end of her question, and I let the silence hang between us, waiting for her to make the implied threat real. I saw you kissing him. I’ll tell everyone. Ellie will hate you.

  She looks at me over the bottles, blinking and confused, not so threatening after all. Before she can take another breath, I rush past. Marceau is still outside and Griff’s probably never speaking to me again and Cole’s upset and there’s a horse on the deck and sparkly fairy wings all over the place and the entire night is reaching postapocalyptic proportions of mythical madness.

  If I were online right now, I’d lay a flamethrower to this whole shit.

  But reality calls.

  I gather my chiffon and trudge up the stairs. Cole’s in the hallway, dragging a vampire and a winged zombie out of the bathroom by the arms.

  So much for reality.

  “It’s a bathtub,” Cole snaps. “Not a motel.”

  “Chill. I got this, bro.” Vampire loops his arm around zombie girl, who’s clinging to a plastic baby bottle that says LIQUID BRAINZ—inauthentic on about five different levels—and together they stumble down the stairs.

  Cole drags a hand through his hair and turns to face me. His eyes are glassy and red, and I can’t tell if it’s from the beer or the creature-wrangling or something else entirely.

  “I assume you’re not here to help with make-out patrol,” he says. “Unless you’re waiting for the room? Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “I just . . . You seemed pissed, and I didn’t want . . .” Blood simmers beneath my skin, but I can’t stay mad. I can’t stay anything.

  That kiss wrecked me.

  “What happened out there?” I finally manage.

  Across from the bathroom, he clicks open another door and nods for me to follow, all the hard edges of him replaced with something soft, something scared. “I’ve been trying to get this out all night.”

  After what happened on the deck, his bedroom feels like a crime scene in waiting. The sight of his pillows sends a warning through my head.

  Danger! Danger! Danger!

  “I need to tell you something,” he whispers, and his earlier words echo. What’s the worst that could happen?

  Everything presses in. Ellie’s last-minute favor, the dance, the kiss, Marceau, Miss Demeanor, Griff, Prince Freckles, Olivia, John’s midnight swim, my throbbing feet, the syrupy drinks. My head spins, and suddenly I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to smell Cole’s outdoorsy scent and look at his soft lips and pretend the kiss didn’t happen. I don’t want to hear his voice, to feel his hand on my shoulders as he tells me about the stars.

  “Take me home?” I ask. “I can’t stay here.”

  Cole presses his forehead against the doorframe. The sound of his defeated sigh loosens something forbidden in me.

  Four years.

  I step closer.

  Four years.

  I reach for his fingers, brush them with mine. Fear. Guilt. Hope. Shame. All of the above.

  He pulls me through the doorway, both of us stumbling. He closes the door behind him, leans up against it. Everything in me trembles.

  “Cole . . .” My breath is as shaky as my knees. “What are—”

  “Ellie and I broke up.”

  THIS BED AIN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR THE THREE OF US

  Things haven’t been good with us,” Cole explains. We’re standing in his room in the moonlight, door bolted, so much for the danger danger stuff. “Not for a long time.”

  “No way. Ellie would’ve told me.” I close my eyes and the floor tilts. “If my best friend’s relationship was falling apart, I’d definitely know.”

  Wouldn’t I?

  Ellie didn’t ask about Cole in her texts tonight, didn’t mention how cute he looked in the tux, but I assumed she was texting him directly, sending him the usual puppy-eyed love notes.

  I squeeze the dress in my fists. She was so excited the day she found it; she dragged me and Griff to this vintage store in LoDo to see it. If only she hadn’t gotten—

  “She’s not actually sick.” I open my eyes at the realization. The room stops moving, but Cole’s rubbing his jaw, his nonanswer all the confirmation I need.

  “I can’t do this,” I say. “Please take me home.”

  Even before he shakes his head, I know it’s impossible. We’ve been drinking, and anyway, his car isn’t here. He’ll have to borrow John’s and take me in the morning.

  Resigned, I flop on his bed, springs moaning and creaking, something scratchy poking my thighs. I reach under the fountain of chiffon and yank out a pair of fairy wings.

  Perfect. I just ass-pancaked my fairy godmother.

  Cole sits next to me, but I can’t look at him. I need to stay sharp, clearheaded. Looking at him only makes me replay that kiss. It was hard enough when I just imagined it, but now that I’ve had the real thing, I’ll never get him out of my head. And if it’s true about him and Ellie breaking up—

  No. No, no, no, no, no.

  “Why did you kiss Marceau?” Cole’s voice is laced with betrayal. “You said you didn’t like him.”

  “Why do you care? I don’t have a boyfriend. I can kiss anyone I . . .” Guilt makes my words evaporate. When I speak again, it’s a whisper. “Ellie’s your girlfriend—at least, she was. My best friend. We cheated on her.”

  The confession floats and curls between us like smoke, and my gaze drifts out the window to avoid it. The moon has shed its hazy coat; a white crescent shimmers above the ponderosa pines. Cassiopeia is hidden, and if she can see us from her perch in the sky, she isn’t saying a word.

  “Look,” he says. “I’m not trying to justify it, okay? Things with me and Ellie are over. I don’t know what she told you, but it’s true. Why do you think she bailed tonight?”

  The floor wrenches sideways again, and I put my hand on the dresser to steady myself. The walls are too close, the air thick with an earthy tang. There’s a baseball hat on the dresser, orange and dingy, a peeling pot leaf decal that’s basically scratch-and-sniff.

  “Looks like 420 stopped by,” I say absently.

  “Luce, look at me. Please.”

  His voice cracks. I want to look, but I can’t. Is he telling the truth? Whose idea was it that I go in Ellie’s place tonight? That I wear her dress and corsage?

  Why didn’t I just say no to her for once? I could be home slaying zombies, lips unkissed. Rules unbroken, lines uncrossed.

  Friendships intact.

  “She’ll never talk to me again,” I whisper.

  “It’s not your fault. It was my mistake.”

  My head jerks up.

  “Oh . . . kay,” he says. “Not a mistake? I mean, it wasn’t. I just—”

  “No. I mean yes. You’re right. We were caught up in the moment.”

  “And a little drunk.”

  “And a little drunk.” Yes, yes. I nod, but my stomach twists with guilt. And disappointment. Which triggers more guilt. A whole ocean of it now, prickly hot waves crashing between my shoulders. I stand again and pace the floor, excuses blowing away in the storm.

  I can’t keep this from her.

  A fresh wave sears my skin, but that’s the truth. Maybe Cole made the first move, but I didn’t stop him. Not until after I kissed him back. Even now, moments ago outside his bedroom door, I wanted . . .

  On top of the dresser there’s a crack. I slide my thumbnail into it and run it up and down, avoiding 420’s hat, imagining I’m carving a trench. Soon I’ll reach the clothes inside. Then the floor. The party below. The earth. The molten hot thing in the middle that keeps it all spinning.

  “Is that why you invited me to the party?” I say, acutely aware of the bed behind us. “Rebound girl?”

  Outside, clouds skirt back over the moon, darkening the room. Cole touches the red bow at my back, his voice a pale whisper to matc
h the sky. “Not even close.”

  • • •

  “T-shirts are in the top drawer,” Cole says. His parents asked him to keep everyone out of the other bedrooms, so we decided to crash together in here. Far from ideal, but there’s nowhere else to go. I’m spent, and I can’t face anyone downstairs. Definitely not Marceau. Especially not Griffin.

  She’ll know.

  “I’ll be back,” he says. “Just need to make sure no one’s driving.”

  “Tell Griff I’m . . . just tell her I’m passing out and we’ll talk tomorrow. And please apologize to Marceau.”

  Cole’s jaw twitches.

  “I totally ditched him,” I say. “Just . . . tell him I have a headache.”

  His eyes soften. “Do you want Tylenol?”

  “I don’t have a headache, Cole.”

  He sighs and unlocks the door.

  “Wait, I can’t.” Breathe, Lucy. I offer him my back. “I need help with the sash and zipper.”

  The floorboards groan as Cole takes three steps toward me. The air shifts, campfire and apples and beer, and then there’s a tug at my waist as he works out the bow Mom so expertly tied. I wind the red sash around my hands to keep from fidgeting. To keep from touching him.

  Knuckles brush between my shoulders as he grips fabric with one hand, zipper with the other.

  “There’s a hook at the top,” I say. “You have to undo it first.”

  He’s slow and delicate, like he’s afraid to do the wrong thing, to touch me. The tiny metal hook releases. The zipper opens, tooth by tooth by tooth, my back exposed to the chill in a long, narrow V, and I give in to a gentle shiver.

  “Sorry,” he whispers. One hand is still on the dress, fingers just beneath my left shoulder, breath tickling my neck, agonizingly close. He swallows. Twice. His other hand drifts to the curve of my hip, and Griffin’s words haunt me.

  It’s not like anyone would find out.

  “Thanks.” I slide past him to the dresser, my bound hands clutching the dress to my body. “Check on Prince Freckles? And grab my phone? I left it on the deck.”

  Finally alone, I open the drawer and dig out a pair of basketball shorts and a shirt from Estes Park. Bears love people! it says, right under a bear chasing a stick figure. They taste like chicken!

  I lay Ellie’s dress facedown on the bed and zip it up, remembering again how excited she was to find it. I was just playing dress up tonight, a Cinderella doll, but she loved this dress. She called it the one, her eyes glowing with possibilities about how the big night would unfold.

  How could she fake something like that? Why didn’t she tell me?

  When did we start keeping secrets?

  Four years ago . . .

  I drape the dress over the footboard, hang those stupid fairy wings over the post, remove the chandelier earrings Mom lent me, pull on Cole’s shorts and shirt, and shake the pins from my fancy Texas hair.

  By the time I crawl between the forest-green sheets, the transformation is complete. I’m no longer a princess.

  Just a girl with a twisted-up heart.

  I turn on my side and glue my eyes to the wall, to the calming ocean-blue paint. It doesn’t matter what Cole said, how long he and Ellie have been drifting or how much blame he takes. Ex or not, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.

  The kiss was over almost as soon as it started, but my feelings weren’t.

  Aren’t.

  And that’s the worst offense, because for the first time in four years . . . I think maybe he likes me too.

  Cole slips back into the room, shutting the door and sliding the lock in place behind him. Dresser drawers open and close. Buttons, zippers, legs sliding out of pants. Dress shirt tugged from arms, dropped to the floor. Shorts pulled up. Keys on the dresser, clicks and clangs, and then a camera flash like lightning.

  Say . . . magic pixie dust!

  “Sorry,” he says. “Trying to set your phone alarm. John gave me his keys—we’ll head out at nine.”

  The air cools when he lifts the sheets, mattress moaning under his weight. He flops around for a minute, finds the right spot. The sheet falls back into place, tickling my arm as it lands softly between us.

  Music and laughter filter through the floor from the living room below, and on the dresser, my phone buzzes with a text, then another. Ellie. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to slow my breathing, convince them both I’m already asleep.

  “Luce? You okay?” Cole whispers.

  The bed is small—only a twin—and he’s shirtless and there’s hardly any space. I’ve never shared a bed with a boy before—just friends or otherwise—and now my skin involuntarily seeks his warmth, his touch. In the narrow gap between us, I feel Ellie’s presence, watching us with tears on her cheeks, holding out for an explanation that just doesn’t exist.

  I inch closer to the wall without answering his question.

  “We’ll take off first thing.” He leans over and kisses my shoulder, lips warm through the Bears love people! shirt, and Ellie vanishes. “Everything’ll be better in the morning.”

  The bed creaks as he settles back onto his side. I focus on emptying my head. Counting sheep. Ten. A hundred. Drifting.

  Somewhere far, far away . . .

  “Lucy?” His fingers trail through the ends of my hair and I shiver. He finds a stray bobby pin, drops it to the floor.

  Ping!

  It’s impossible to hold on to my resolve; like my fairy godmother wishes, I feel it floating away, breath by breath.

  Sheep. Count the sheep, Lucy. One, two, three . . .

  The bed moans again. Cole rolls toward me.

  “For the record,” he whispers, “if you ever got sick, I would totally hold your hair back.”

  THE MURDEROUS LITTLE HARLOT ALSO KNOWN AS MY SISTER

  Are we okay?” Cole asks when we pull into my driveway the next morning.

  It was a groggy thirty-minute drive, and now Cole’s looking at me through heavy-lidded eyes, hair rumpled and adorable, and for a heartbeat I imagine us waking up together in his bed, smiling instead of shamed, lingering in postprom bliss instead of making small talk about the trashed cabin. Spence the horse-napper and Prince Freckles were already gone, but the rest of the place was still full of the drunk and the damned, everything smelling suspiciously equine.

  Cole smiles before I respond, and all I can think is, I should be looking at that smile over pancakes and coffee. . . .

  “No.” I blink away the fantasy. “I mean yes. Call when you find my cell? I forgot my license and stuff in your tux, too. Oh, and I couldn’t find my earrings. And I left some hairpins in your bathroom.”

  I basically forgot everything that wasn’t attached to my body, all in my haste to disappear before Griff woke up. I’m pretty sure she was wasted last night—too drunk to remember our run-in—but there’s no way she would’ve just sent me out the door in Cole’s clothes this morning, all bed-headed and guilty-looking. Not without the grand inquisition.

  “Hairpins?” Cole says.

  “I’m dead if Mom finds out I lost them. The earrings, not the pins. The cell, too.”

  “Should I call you on the missing phone?” he asks.

  “Stop trying to make me laugh.”

  “Never,” he whispers. The familiar mischief is back in his eyes, and I allow myself a smile. “Lucy . . .” Cole taps his fingers on the steering wheel, and my smile vanishes again, a ghost in the morning sun. “I don’t know what to do, either, okay? It’s not like I don’t care about Ellie. I don’t want to hurt her. It’s just . . . it’s over. What happened with us . . .” He sighs, his gaze tracking a robin in the grass before finding its way back to me. “We’ll figure something out. We’ll go to her house and—”

  “I have to do it,” I say. “Alone. I want her to hear it from me.” Even if she lied about being sick, about her reasons for skipping prom, I can’t keep this from her.

  Images of Ellie and Cole swirl in my mind, all our high school highlights blending
together: listening to Vanitas in Cole’s garage practically every weekend. Fishing trips to the cabin. My parents and me taking care of Spike when the Fosters went to Italy last year. Dad teaching me and Ellie how to drive stick in his old five-speed Accord. Ellie getting her UCLA acceptance letter the day after I got mine, both of us jumping up and down at her mailbox, planning out our future.

  Ellie, my best friend. And Cole, a spark burning in my heart, always bright and silent, always just a dream.

  Until last night.

  In the cramped space of the car, Cole rubs his eyes and I trace circles on the window and all I can wonder is, Why can’t I have them both?

  I reach for the door handle.

  “I know it’s weird.” Cole touches my hand, pulls away again. “I get it. I just don’t want things to be—”

  “They’re not. We’re fine. I mean, not we’re, like we. Just you. And me. Separately. Anyway, I’ll talk to Ellie tomorrow. I’ll go over there before school.” I smile and duck out of the car, grab Ellie’s dress from the backseat.

  Cole’s touch lingers on my skin, my wrist, my fingers after I close the door, but I don’t turn back, not even when his car rolls down the driveway and zooms into the street.

  Category-five disaster.

  I’m still in the bear shirt, and the basketball shorts are so long on me they cover part of my boots, which really tie the whole ensemble together. My hair is a roiling sea of bent red-brown waves, my lips ache with the ghost of last night’s kiss, and as I drag myself up the walkway to the house, I notice our front door is wide open.

  A beautiful blonde crosses her arms in the doorway, flashing her cosmetically whitened smile like an evil queen, and behind her, Night of the Living Dog barks in warning.

  Who’s the fairest of them all?

  Angelica Darling.

  Also known by legions of rabid fans as Jayla Heart.

  Also known by Mom and Dad as Janey Vacarro.

  My sister.

  “Jesus, you look like hell,” she says. “Come inside and tell me all about it.”

  • • •

  Thrashing computer-generated zombies is my go-to relaxation technique, but even the battle against the undead can’t keep my mind off Ellie and Cole.