How to Make Out

by Brianna Shrum

  I can feel the blood drain from my face. “What?”

  “I don’t. Want. To. Threaten you.”

  “What? You’re gonna hit me now?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. I’d never touch you.”

  “Then what?”

  He’s quiet, avoiding looking at me. Then his eyes meet mine, and my blood runs cold. I know what he’s going to say before he says it. “I’ll tell everyone.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re turning into someone you hate, doing things you regret as you’re doing them. And you’re going to lose everyone. I can’t let you do that. I’ll tell everyone who’s really behind that blog, I swear.”

  “No you won’t,” I say, voice low and shaking. “You’d never do that to me. You love me.”

  “Exactly.”

  I can’t even feel an emotion by this point; I’m just numb. Numb and ice. “I see what’s really going on here. This isn’t about me changing. This is about me choosing Seth over you.”

  A muscle in his jaw jerks.

  “That’s it. I’m not the one who’s changed. You would never have done this to me before. Never.” My voice starts to rise. “You just have such a hard-on for me that you can’t see past it to realize that you’re the one who’s changed.”

  He’s shaking now, jaw clenched tighter than I’ve ever seen, eyes hard. “You’re right, Renley. I don’t care about you at all. I can’t see past this massive erection I have enough to see that this would hurt you. I’ve never really loved you, never done a thing for you. Never let you stay all night with me, dying because I couldn’t touch you. Never gotten up in the middle of the night to stop you from crying. Never stopped a girl from coming over so you could feel special. You’re right. Totally.”

  I shrug.

  His face darkens and his voice is dangerous and low. “Get out.”

  He doesn’t have to tell me twice.

  27. How to Remove a Knife from Your Back

  I roll over sleepily when the sun streams through my window. I have a slight headache. Not horrible, just from … well, the craziness last night, I think. I’m a little annoyed that the first thing that pops into my brain this morning is all of that crap. April and her lovely middle finger. And Drew and his murdery rage-voice.

  The only person I want to talk to right now is Seth. He can distract me. So I reach for my cell phone.

  Ugh, you would not BELIEVE how cray April is being.

  The phone buzzes about thirty seconds after I hit SEND.

  I don’t care.

  I frown and stare at the phone.

  ?

  Stop texting me.

  My stomach jumps up and tries to squeeze itself into my throat. I dial Seth’s number, or try anyway. I have to enter it four times before I get it right. It rings. And rings. And then his voicemail. I’m shaking everywhere. And I have to be at school in a few minutes.

  I get dressed in a panic, rushing a brush over my teeth and another through my hair (though I’m so frazzled, I initially mix them up). I’m trying to convince myself that the adrenaline coursing through me is not because … no. I’m not letting myself consider it; I won’t think about it. Because he didn’t. Drew didn’t.

  I don’t want to take the bus. With every fiber of my being, I don’t. So I focus instead on that and allow myself to dread the ride, because Dad’s car is off-limits when it’s at his office and, you know, not here.

  So I sprint out to the bus, looking like a crazy person, and get on.

  Then one more text from Seth. A forward. It’s nothing but a link.

  I get to my cell’s browser and type the address into the search box, denying over and over what I know is coming. When I navigate there, my hand flies to my mouth.

  At the top of the site in big, bold letters, it says: SWEETLIFECOACH’S IDENTITY REVEALED.

  I’m going to completely lose the nothing I ate this morning. He did it; he actually did it. I shake my head several times in rapid succession, hoping I’m somehow seeing it wrong. But every time I look back at the screen, it’s still there.

  I scroll down, reading the article feverishly, and finally at the end, my name comes up. “The author in question is none other than one Renley Eisler. Some of you know her, some of you don’t. Well, now, I suppose you ALL do.”

  My stomach is churning, every piece of my body burning hot. I have to fix this.

  I practically tumble off the bus and text Seth, knowing he won’t pick up if I call.

  Please, Seth. I have to talk to you. You have to listen to me. I can explain.

  There’s radio silence for an agonizing ten minutes, then he writes:

  Fine. I’ll meet you at the school’s entrance in a min.

  I’m scraping my hands through my hair, fuzzing it up more than it already is when he shows up, and I remember I haven’t touched my makeup, which is embarrassing. And it can’t work in my favor. Sex appeal would probably be helpful here.

  He doesn’t say hello when he enters the hall; he just stalks in and glowers.

  I try to give him a hug, and he turns his body so that it’s impossible. My arms fall to my sides, matching the crestfallen look on my face.

  “Talk,” he says.

  I swallow hard. I hadn’t even considered, in the utter panic of this morning, what to say when he got here. Do I tell the truth? Lie? I stand there in front of him, mouth agape, until he purses his lips and leans back against the wall, arms crossed. I can feel him shutting down. That’s it. Lie it is.

  “Seth, that link, it’s not true. It’s from someone who apparently hates me and wants to destroy my reputation. But I’m telling you, I would never have written some of the things on that site.” I try desperately to ignore several dirty looks I get from strangers when they pass. They vacillate between staring at their phones and at my face. They don’t matter. They don’t matter.

  He laughs a callous laugh. “Oh please. Don’t lie to me. I’m not stupid. You’re trying to tell me it’s a coincidence that the day after we do anything at all together, it magically ends up on that blog? The day after I gave you a hickey, ‘How to Get Rid of a Hickey.’ The day after the party, something about a hand job.” He shakes his head, unable to even look straight at me. “And a day or two after that, ‘How to Cure a Hangover.’”

  “That’s totally not—”

  “Let me just stop you right there,” he says, pushing his hand out at me. “I know it’s you. Don’t lie to me. The second I hear something else blatantly false, I’m gone. And I’m not coming back. You got that?”

  I nod slowly, trying not to hyperventilate, and sit, right in the middle of the hall. I’m starting to feel lightheaded.

  “Okay. It’s me.”

  He blows out a resigned breath.

  “But I swear, I didn’t do it to hurt anyone. And I never meant to hurt you, of all people.”

  “How about Taylor?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Taylor. Did you mean to hurt her?”

  “I don’t understand …”

  He pulls out his phone and taps something, then hands it to me. On the screen are the words How to Steal Another Girl’s Guy. I can feel myself pale.

  “You didn’t steal me, Renley. Let’s just clear that up. I broke up with Taylor because I wanted to, not because of you. You just happened to be my rebound.”

  I recoil from the sting.

  “I know,” I say, throat dry. “I know I didn’t. I just …” I rest my forehead in my palm. “This has all gotten so out of control.”

  “Why would you do this in the first place?”

  “Because I needed money to go to New York with April and the math club, and my dad can’t afford to pay for it all.” My voice is muffled by my hands.

  “The math club? You were going to that? I thought you were going to prom with me.”

  “Yeah. I just … I changed my mind about New York when you asked.”

  The look on his face when I say that confirms that
I shouldn’t have told him.

  “You’re serious? You were going to abandon New York to go to a dance with me? No wonder I’ve been getting so much hate mail from April in the last forty-eight hours.”

  He trails off and we’re both quiet. Then he says, “I just … I can’t believe this. You ‘stole’ me, kissed me, did everything with me for money? For a blog? Was any of this ever real for you?”

  The look on his face is heartbreaking. Like I’ve just stomped all over him, and honestly, I probably have. I can’t help it; I start to cry. “Yes,” I say through the tears. “It was all real, I swear. Just because I wrote about it doesn’t mean I didn’t have feelings for you. I do; I still do.”

  He rubs his eye and stands up straight from the wall. “You know what, Renley? I have put up with more from you than I even put up with from Taylor. And for the record, that’s saying something. You manipulated me, came this close to cheating on me with another guy, got me punched in the face, lied to me, and broadcast it to the entire world. You know all my friends now know exactly what it’s like to get me off with a hand job? Not just anyone. Me.”

  “Seth, please. If you would just listen—”

  “I’m done listening. I honestly don’t know why I’m still standing here.”

  His letter jacket is sitting crumpled on the floor beside me, and he grabs it when he leaves. For a minute after he goes, I can’t breathe.

  Drew. How could he do this to me? Everyone is going to know. Everyone already does know, probably, and the only ones who don’t are the people who are choosing to sleep through the last week of school before break.

  I stand up shakily from the ground and hug my backpack to my chest. And I’m not exaggerating here—everyone is staring at me. Everyone besides the kids who don’t wear makeup or make out with anyone or go to drunken parties anyway. I slink down to calculus, feeling their stares boring into the back of my head, hearing the little whispers behind my back. Sam and the others won’t stop giving me these looks that combine evil and laughter, and I swear, even a couple teachers give me death glares. It’s unsettling. I want to throw up.

  I’ll have to shut down the blog. Maybe even switch schools. I don’t know if I can face everyone after all this. I definitely can’t go to cooking. So I suffer through the first half of the day and walk home before lunch. For once, I’m happy about the placement of my free period.

  It’s cold without Seth’s jacket.

  I’m lying in my bed, slowly dying, thoughts whirring so hard and fast I can’t grab hold of a single one. Then there’s a knock on my door. A loud one. I stand up just as my dad forces his way in. Maybe he thinks I’m sick since I’m home early and he wants to come comfort me. Maybe he’s bringing me some hot chocolate. I could use some of that right now.

  The look on his face tells me otherwise.

  “What. Is. THIS?” he bellows, throwing a giant stack of papers down to the ground.

  I jump up from the bed and take a step back. “I don’t know.”

  He picks a stray one up from the pile and clears his throat. “Step one. Unbuckle the guy’s belt. This is a fairly important step, for obvious reasons. Step two—”

  I grab the paper from him and hug it close to my chest. “How many did you read?”

  “All of them.”

  I’m going to die. I’m actually going to die. “How did you …?” I know the answer. But something in me needs to hear him say it.

  “Drew came over this morning with a stack of papers, right after you left for school.”

  I gag. “Drew told you? He …” I can’t even finish a sentence.

  “I think I might have misjudged that boy,” he says, more to himself than me. “And yes. He did. This behavior. This vulgar writing is not you.”

  Tears are burning my eyes. “Yes it is, Dad. This is me. This is who I am. And I’m really sorry if you hate me, like everyone else does now.”

  He picks up another page, one about the hangover, I think, and scans it, grimacing. “Really? Sloppy drunk? Doing shots all night with kids you don’t even know? This is you? This is the Renley who’s been living with me since she was a baby? The Renley who was so excited to go to the planetarium she didn’t stop talking about it until two weeks ago? The Renley who spends her weekends studying calc and hanging out with the Math Club. That’s this Renley?”

  I choke on the tears welling up in my throat. “Yes.”

  He stares at me with Dad-eyes. The ones that say, I love you, and I’m so disappointed in you I can’t take it for another second. The very worst kind of way to be looked at. People think moms are experts at guilt, but for me, my dad has always been king in that department. He follows the wound up with salt: “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong here.”

  That is the worst. “Dad—”

  “No. You’re not allowed to give me excuses. Or to explain. Whatever I’m doing here is clearly not working. So you’re—you’re grounded.”

  The word sounds so foreign coming from my dad’s lips that, at first, I actually don’t understand. “I’m what?”

  “You’re grounded.”

  “Oh, please.” I stand and head to my door, but he reaches out to it and slams it closed. I snap my head over to look at him, eyes like saucers.

  “No,” he says firmly. “You’re grounded. For real. No friends. No phone. Definitely no blogging. This weekend, you can read and do math problems and, you know, think about what you’ve done.”

  His lack of experience in this area is somewhat glaring, evident from the uncomfortable look on his face and the fact that, when he leaves me standing there, mouth agape, he doesn’t actually take my phone or computer.

  I sink slowly onto my bed, contemplating. Grounded. For once in the last five years, I’m being punished. I should be mad. I should be freaking out and cursing the day my dad was born, right? But I don’t. I’m not happy, but I’m just … not angry with him. It doesn’t make sense.

  I rub my fingers over my bedspread, trying to process everything that’s happened this morning. And when I do, I feel something that doesn’t match the texture of my blanket. It’s a sheet of paper. Someone with lovely handwriting has written on it. Stacey. Dad must have left it.

  Because I have no real desire to defy my dad’s declaration, despite its suckiness, I have nothing else to do. So I pick it up.

  Leelee, —I roll my eyes—

  I’m under no illusions that you like me. Truthfully, I know you hate me. You’ve made that clear. And I get it. I broke up your family. I hoped that after a long enough time, you could maybe forgive me. But it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. I don’t hate you for it. If I was sixteen, I’d probably treat me the same way.

  But the thing is, no matter how you feel about me, I love you. I care about you. I want good things to happen for you. I’m not your mom, but I care. I read your blog. In all honesty, I’ve been one of your readers for a little while. (Mostly the style section—don’t freak out. I haven’t been getting tips from you on how to make out with your father). But I know you; I know who you are and who you aren’t. And you are not this person.

  I know; I’ve given up many things in my life for the sake of being popular or beautiful or loved, whatever. I was a teenage girl once, too. Your father may not totally get it. But I do. I’m not judging you. But I do hope you will take some time to reflect on who you are, and who you truly want to be. I love you, Leelee, and none of us wants to lose you.

  Love,

  Stacey

  I reread the letter several times. And after time number four or five, I hold it tightly in my hand and start to cry.

  28. How to Lose Everything

  Parents never ground you from school. It’s sucky that I can’t stay home, because the thought of going, of facing everyone, is making me legitimately sick. Sick enough that I really could justify staying home. Beads of sweat are popping up everywhere on me as I pull on my jeans, nausea roiling in my stomach as I slip my shirt on.

  I can’t
do this. I can’t. I can’t.

  But I have to.

  I leave the house in silence, the kind of silence that weighs down my shoulders. The snow is deep, so I’m taking the bus. The day has already reached its maximum capacity for potential horribleness, so it’s not like anything can make it worse, bus included.

  I hunch my shoulders and look down when I board, trying to ignore the high-pitched squirrel giggles coming from the freshmen in the seats. I sit beside a kid who is always quiet, reading a graphic novel, because I doubt he gives a care. Then I plug my headphones into my ears and shut my eyes until it’s over.

  When the bus rolls to a stop, I follow the line outside. Slowly I make my way to the front door, take a deep breath, and step into the school.

  It’s like one of those awful dreams when you show up somewhere important, and you’re naked. Everyone is focused on you, laughing, pointing, disgusted. It feels like every person here (faculty and staff included) knows about me.

  “Hey, Renley!” I hear over my shoulder. I turn, shocked that someone is intentionally interacting with me, and find Sam. “Killer blog. I especially loved all the detailed accounts of the sexual shit you did with Taylor’s boyfriend.”

  “He wasn’t Taylor’s boyfriend; he was mine.”

  “Was?” she says, raising an eyebrow. “So your outstanding prowess wasn’t enough for him? Shocker.”

  Tears sting my eyes, and I fold my arms. “It was a blog. I never said anything on it that has the slightest thing to do with you. Why are you being so horrible?”

  “Because you’re fake,” she spits. “And you’re a nobody now. You hurt my friend. I’m Taylor’s friend before I’m yours. Was that somehow not clear to you? And now everyone knows what a plastic little skank you are. Congratulations.”

  I swallow the tears down and turn around, power-walking down the hall just before she calls out, “And I want my share for that menudo and Sprite tip!”

  I duck into math, open my mouth to talk to April, and she isn’t there. But Mr. Sanchez makes up for it when he walks past my desk and says, “Sorry to hear you won’t be joining us in New York, Miss Eisler.”