Last Year's Mistake

by Gina Ciocca

  There was no way to clue him in that wouldn’t be completely awkward. Sex was the one subject he and I had always skirted around, probably because it was something we’d never done together, and never would. We’d kept it out of each other’s faces. Or he’d kept it out of mine, since I’d been a virgin until Ryan.

  As Mr. Ingles took attendance, I decided I could at least tell David that Violet was upset, though that much was pretty obvious. Passing a note would have been too noticeable, so my eyes wandered to my cell phone in my bag, an actual smartphone from the twenty-first century that my parents had upgraded me to when we moved. I could text him, but what if his number had changed? A twinge of shame went through me as I remembered all the times last summer when I’d seen Missed Call: David Cell on my screen, and New Message: David Cell.

  I’d ignored them until they stopped coming altogether. I definitely owed him an explanation for way more than just Violet’s behavior.

  Pretending to dig through my bag on the floor, I scrolled through my contacts and prayed (a) David’s number hadn’t changed and, (b) he had his phone on him.

  I typed in, Run for the hills, and hit send.

  A second later, as Mr. Ingles wrote out questions on the board, David took his cell phone from the pocket of his hoodie and looked at it. Then he glanced at me and mouthed, What did I do?

  I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing as I typed back, It’s what you didn’t do.

  “Okay, ladies and gentleman, I’d like to begin our discussion on Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare,” Mr. Ingles said in his booming voice.

  My bag vibrated with David’s reply. I’ll bite. What didn’t I do?

  Violet’s hand shot into the air. “Mr. Ingles? Wasn’t Shakespeare gay?”

  In the same moment she asked the question, my response reached David: Her.

  Horror washed over his face as he connected my answer with her question. Spots of color appeared at the tips of his ears, and I had to cover my mouth with my hand to keep from dissolving into a fit of giggles as he whipped around in his seat to look at her, then spun forward again, wide eyed and fidgeting.

  Mr. Ingles grabbed the back of his chair and leaned on it. “It’s a highly debated topic, Ms. Kensing. Shakespeare was, of course, married to a woman, and he fathered several children.”

  “But that doesn’t mean anything, right? He could have been trying to hide it.”

  David sank in his seat and rubbed his temple. He looked so uncomfortable that I wondered if I should have just kept my mouth shut. But then he cast a sidelong glance in my direction, and the corner of his mouth pulled up into a smile.

  “There’s undoubtedly evidence of homosexual themes in Shakespeare’s work,” Mr. Ingles continued. Or tried to, before Violet cut him off again.

  “Right. So why write about homosexual themes if you’re not homosexual? I mean, he was definitely bi-­curious, right?”

  A rumble of laughter rippled through the classroom, and Violet looked like she wanted to murder someone.

  Mr. Ingles held up his hands. “While this is a very interesting topic of discussion, I’m afraid it has nothing to do with our lesson today. But, Ms. Kensing, I’ll be happy to pick it up later this week. Now then, everyone . . .” He turned to the board, and Violet folded her arms across her chest, scowling.

  David and I spent the rest of the class sneaking furtive glances at each other, trying our hardest not to laugh. It had been a long time since we’d shared an inside joke, and I couldn’t help but enjoy it. I prayed Violet was too distracted to notice, or I’d have to get in line behind him to grovel for her forgiveness.

  She bolted from her seat the moment the bell rang, throwing a hurried, “Later, Kelse,” over her shoulder.

  At least I was in the clear.

  David stood up and ran his hand through his hair, finally letting the grin he’d been stifling break free. “So that’s what’s bothering her? Geez. Guess chivalry really is dead.”

  “Was there a reason?” Ugh. That sounded a lot less nosy in my head. I concentrated on putting my books in my bag so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “I mean, is everything all right with you two?”

  He shrugged. “They’re fine. Besides, that was almost a week ago. Why’s she getting all bent out of shape now?”

  “Maybe she’s been stewing all this time.”

  I didn’t mention Violet’s other accusation, about him being hung up on someone.

  David grinned again. “Look’s like the stew’s up.” He glanced toward the door. “Guess I should go take care of this. See you at lunch?”

  I nodded and slung my bag over my shoulder before heading over to Mr. Ingles’s desk. The question I needed to ask him and the answer he gave me couldn’t have taken more than two minutes. Which made what happened next that much more unbelievable.

  I shouldered my way into the hall, slipping into between-class traffic. As I turned the corner, I stopped short when the blue bulk of someone’s book bag nearly collided with my face.

  The boy turned around and gave me a once-over, then stepped closer to the wall without apologizing for his loitering nearly making me face-plant into his bag. Annoyed, I shoved past him and a few more stationary bodies. That’s when I saw what the holdup was.

  Ryan and David stood barely a foot apart. Both of them had clenched jaws. A vein in Ryan’s temple throbbed, his face was bright red, and his back was pressed up against the lockers.

  I took one look at David and instantly all those feelings I’d started to reacquaint myself with—the camaraderie, the fondness—all melted away. The laughter and lightheartedness I’d witnessed moments ago were gone. I didn’t even recognize the person in front of me.

  He shook with rage. His eyes were filled with hatred so intense I never would have thought him capable of feeling it.

  And his fingers were wrapped around Ryan’s throat.

  Fourteen

  Connecticut

  Winter, Sophomore Year

  My mother freaked out, as predicted, when I came home from sledding looking like I’d gone ten rounds with a slasher movie villain. A phone call to the doctor resulted in the very plausible explanation that it had probably been a combination of lingering sinus issues and dryness caused by the extreme cold, along with the assurance that they could cauterize my nose if it happened again.

  We were both satisfied with that, especially since it hadn’t been my first nosebleed ever, just the most intense.

  Not so satisfying? The balled-up snot rags that had mysteriously started littering the floor near my locker the Monday after the incident. The first time it happened, I’d wrinkled my nose and kicked them away, remarking to David that people who didn’t have basic knowledge of how to use a trash can shouldn’t be allowed to graduate. But when it happened for the next two consecutive days, the feeling I’d had when Maddie and Isabel’s friends mocked me at the golf course—the one of having swallowed a bowling ball—returned with a vengeance.

  “David,” I murmured as I frowned at three white wads. When I leaned closer, I saw that some of them had been colored with red marker. “They’re doing this on purpose.”

  “Who is?”

  “Isabel and her friends. Maybe Maddie, too. I saw them making fun of me when we were leaving the golf course.”

  David frowned. “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because it’s embarrassing.” My shoulders sagged as I kicked the tissues away.

  “I’m getting to the bottom of this right now,” David said.

  My head snapped up in time to see him striding down the hall toward Isabel, his back straight and tense.

  “David, don’t—” But it was too late. I wished I could crawl inside my locker and hide as he caught up to her. Isabel’s eyes grew round and incredulous as David looked down at her like he’d caught her stealing. That part I might
’ve liked.

  My mortification turned to confusion, though, when David’s features relaxed after a few seconds and his scowl morphed into a smile. Then the two of them headed toward me, together. I tried to appear busy with my books as they closed the distance, the whole time wondering why Isabel looked like she was about to hug me. And hoping like hell she wouldn’t.

  “Kelsey!” Her voice dripped with remorse. She motioned toward the scattered tissues. “I am so sorry about this. I had no idea what was going on. Sometimes my friends think they’re funny when they’re not. It’s so immature.”

  I glanced at David. He raised his eyebrows and nodded ever so slightly toward Isabel, like a parent prompting a kid to remember her manners. Which meant he was buying this crap.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s pretty immature.”

  She pressed her manicured fingertips against her collarbone. “That’s why I wouldn’t have any part of it.”

  No, she’d just tried to decapitate me with her laser eyes.

  Isabel’s red-glossed lips pursed earnestly. “You saw that, right? It wasn’t me making fun of you.”

  I had to give her credit. Declaring her innocence in front of David was one smooth move. Especially since I couldn’t deny it.

  “I saw, Isabel. I saw the whole thing.”

  “I’m so sorry, Kelsey,” she repeated. “This will never happen again. And I’ll make sure that they apologize to you.”

  I held up my hand. “I don’t need an apology, really. As long as I don’t get any more ‘presents,’ it’s fine.”

  “You won’t.” She flashed a brief grin at me, then turned a full-on beam at David, like she’d completed the performance of her life and expected him to applaud or something. “Walk us to class, David?”

  “This is where Kelse and I part ways,” he said. “But I’ll walk with you.” He looked at me. “See you after second period?”

  “See you then.” I was too tired and too weirded out to pull off a fake smile. David might’ve bought her apology hook, line, and sinker, but I would’ve eaten my textbooks before I’d believe one word had been sincere.

  I hated fake people.

  But even more, as I watched them walk away together and leave me with crumpled tissues at my feet, I hated that I felt so alone.

  “You look tired, Kelsey,” Mom said, studying the purple-tinged bags beneath my eyes over her coffee mug. “And pale. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

  I dragged a piece of pancake through the syrup on my plate, finding no desire to put it in my mouth. “I got my period last night. It’s really heavy.”

  “Ah.” Mom nodded knowingly. Once a month my body decided it hated me, a trait I had picked up from my mother’s end of the gene pool. And it seemed to be hating especially hard this month, though certain other stressors probably weren’t helping the fact that my energy level was zero lately. But I didn’t want to get into that with my mom. I wouldn’t put it past her to ambush me into a meeting with Maddie and Isabel to “talk things out.” She watched me play with my food for a few more seconds before asking, “Do you want to stay home from school?”

  I shook my head. I hated being absent to be sick. Playing hooky was one thing, but staying home alone to feel lethargic and useless was its own brand of suck. One person, however, definitely wouldn’t complain about it—Isabel.

  I’d felt her eyes drilling holes of hatred into the back of my head during study hall ever since the sledding incident, despite her apology and the cease-fire on tissue-bombing my locker. I still couldn’t figure out why my bleeding had offended her so thoroughly. I just knew that she saw the time David and I spent together as a roadblock in her never-ending quest to hit on him, even though His Denseness shrugged off my suspicions.

  I caught up to him at his locker before first bell. “Hey,” I said. “You never responded to my text about the history project last night.”

  “Um, last night?” He avoided my eyes as he transferred books to his bag. “I kind of went over to Isabel’s to help her with her homework.”

  My fingers tightened around the strap of my own backpack. “Went over . . . to her house? For real?”

  He mumbled something I couldn’t hear over the sound of lockers slamming and feet shuffling and jaws dropping. My jaw, anyway.

  I waited for him to apologize for not texting back, or to at least make an excuse and then spill the details I was dying for. Like what Isabel’s house looked like on the inside and whether or not he’d seen the four Porsches her parents were rumored to own. And whether or not Maddie had been there, sucking face with Jared and acting like David was her new best friend.

  He said nothing.

  “So,” I hedged. “How was your study date?”

  The red tinge that lit his ears told me they hadn’t done much studying at all. “It was fine. She’s um—she’s nice.”

  Oh, Christ.

  “I’ll bet she is.” I’d meant to sound teasing, but it came out sour.

  David threw his bag over his shoulder. “You’re not mad, are you?”

  “I’m too tired to be mad.” Which was true.

  A look of concern clouded his face. “You have to snap out of this soon, you know.”

  “Why is that?”

  He looked past me and bobbed his head to indicate something behind me. “For that. It’s this weekend.”

  I turned around to see what he meant. A poster hung on the side of the lockers, featuring glittering black and white snowflakes whirling around the shadowed figures of a dancing girl and boy. WINTER SWIRL TICKETS NOW ON SALE.

  I shrugged as I faced him again. “Eh. Isabel will be happier if I don’t go. Then she’ll have you all to herself.”

  “Wha— Isabel? What does she have to do with it?”

  “You’re taking her, aren’t you? Because that idiotic look on your face a minute ago told me you probably should. You must’ve at least copped a feel.”

  “Kelse, me and Isabel . . . I don’t think . . .” He trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “You don’t think what? Whatever you did counts? Oh, David. You got a piece. Just say it.”

  David didn’t laugh at my ribbing. He seemed genuinely flustered, and even a little frustrated. “But she’s—I—Isabel’s a junior. She’s not gonna want to go to the dance with a sophomore.”

  Before I could answer, a manicured hand appeared on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Isabel said. She beamed up at him.

  And ignored me.

  “Oh, hey,” David said, his ears turning beet red. “We were just talking about you.”

  She pressed her chin against his shoulder. “I know. And I’d love to.”

  David shot a half-nervous, half-apologetic look at me. “Uh, that’s—”

  I spun on my heel. “I’ll catch you later.” Between my nosebleed and my period, I didn’t have enough blood in my digestive tract to keep my stomach from rejecting my breakfast if I stuck around much longer.

  I’d only made it ten steps when I felt a hand on my arm. David pulled up in front of me, blocking my path. “Kelse, wait a second. I’m sorry about that. That’s not how it was supposed to happen.”

  Now I was the one confused. “What were you planning to do? Get her roses or something?”

  “I wasn’t planning—” He shook his head. “Never mind. You’re still gonna go, right?”

  “I doubt it.”

  David’s face fell. “Why not?”

  I looked down. I didn’t want to say something as self-pitying as No one else cares if I go, even though it was obviously true after what had happened at the golf course. I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling everything I’d felt that day, right down to the cold.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “Well, think about it, okay? I really wan
t you to be there.”

  “Oh-kay?”

  He smiled, my bewildered answer apparently satisfactory.

  As he walked away, a pinprick of realization started somewhere in my head, turning my whole body hot with embarrassment as it spread. Blood loss and all, any moron should have been able to see what had just happened, and why David had been acting so weird.

  Maybe I’d misinterpreted his half-finished sentences. When he said he hadn’t planned for it to happen that way, he hadn’t meant the way he asked Isabel to the dance. He meant he hadn’t planned to take her at all.

  He’d planned to go with me.

  Fifteen

  Rhode Island

  Senior Year

  No one would tell me what started the fight in the hallway. Or rather, Ryan and David wouldn’t tell me. No one else seemed to have a clue.

  It ended when I ran up and smashed my palms into David’s ribs as hard as I could, attempting to break whatever psychotic spell he’d been under. I demanded to know what he was doing, but it was like he didn’t see or hear me. He pointed at Ryan and, through clenched teeth, told him to watch it. Then he walked away like nothing had happened.

  I tried confronting both of them, but neither one would talk. The more I questioned Ryan, the more agitated he got, so I dropped it. For the moment.

  As for David and me, things went right back to the way they’d been before our semi-reconciliation. Worse, actually. We’d at least been polite before our tentative mending of fences, but watching him try to choke the life out of my boyfriend had sent hypothetical fence posts flying all over the place, damaged beyond repair.

  We hadn’t spoken since.

  Which made the fact that my parents had invited him and his father for Thanksgiving even more unbearable.

  I was at least happy to see Mr. Kerrigan looking somewhat healthier since our last get-together, and made sure to give him a big hug when he walked into the kitchen. This time without blubbering all over him.