“You’re so close,” Coach K said, trying to find the bright side.
But Alex didn’t want “close” and she didn’t want “almost,” either.
She wanted actually.
It didn’t matter that she was close to breaking the record, just like it didn’t matter that she was close to having sex with Cameron. She still wasn’t the record holder, and she was still technically a virgin. At this moment, Alex wasn’t sure which “still” was worse.
“You’re just getting in your own way,” Coach K said, sensing Alex needed more of a pep talk. He was talking about breaking the state record, but he might as well have been talking about everything else in her life too. “I can see you’re all up in your head right now, overthinking yourself, second-guessing every choice you’ve ever made, revisiting all your old mistakes . . .” Alex nodded, mildly worried that he might be reading her mind. “But you know as well as I do that’s not going to get you where you want to go. That’s only going to send you backward. And you don’t need to go back. You’ve already been there, right?” Alex nodded again, but more subtly this time. “Yeah?” Coach K asked, pushing for an actual response.
“Yeah,” she grunted back, frustrated.
“Good. Get angry,” he pushed, “because as far as I’m concerned, this record is already yours. But just because we think something doesn’t mean it’s just going to happen,” Coach K said, choosing his words in such a way as to make Alex even more certain that he could read her mind. “Victories have to be achieved, but I know—I believe—that you can do this. You will do this. But I need your faith to be bigger than your fear, Ms. Campbell.”
Alex needed that too.
“Let’s do one last lap and then call it a day,” he said.
She walked back to the starting line with her hands clasped on top of her ponytail, trying to empty her lungs and her thoughts at the same time. She did her best to push unhelpful words like “failure” and “Cameron” and “lie” and “virgin” to the edge of her mind, but as she worked to clear space in her head, she couldn’t help but think about how hard she had to try to do so, which made her think about her twin brother, Max, and about how hard he had to work to do just about anything. Even though she was never entirely sure what was going on inside his head, she always felt like she understood him. She and Max had a special twin bond. They connected over their shared love of Star Wars. Really, Max was the one who loved Star Wars, but Alex loved how much he loved it, and then that just made her actually love it too. Max could quote every word any character said in any of the movies, but he always liked Yoda’s words best—never quite in the right order, but somehow always making sense anyway.
One of Max’s favorite Yoda sayings was “Do or do not. There is no try.” Alex liked that too, because it didn’t pretend that “almost” was acceptable. You either succeeded or you failed—there was no in between. There was no “close.” There was no “almost.” There were no points for trying or planning or expecting.
Max was only two minutes and thirty-five seconds younger than Alex, but that time—that “only”—was everything.
Alex, always the fast one, came out first, while Max got stuck backward or upside down or something. The doctors went in and grabbed him, but those first two minutes and thirty-five seconds had already changed everything. Immediately, expectations were recalibrated. Bars were lowered. Dreams were reimagined. Alex knew her parents loved her and Max equally, but they all knew that she was capable of so much more than he was, so they expected more from her too.
To put it simply, Alex had to be both the good daughter and the good son. Maybe that’s why she was such a tomboy. Maybe that’s why she liked to play sports. Maybe that’s why she approached making out with more of a “boy mentality”—or whatever that meant. The irony was that if she actually was a son, no one would’ve ever written “slut” on her locker. She probably would’ve been called a stud or a pimp, like Oliver. He hooked up with everyone all the time, and he was “the man.” She made out with guys semifrequently, admittedly more often than most girls but not all the time, and she was called a ho. And, ironically, everyone thought she was even more of a slut because she’d had sex before, which she actually hadn’t, so it was all just a jumbled mess. And all of it was still swirling around in Alex’s head even as Coach K blew the whistle to start the last lap of the day.
Alex sprinted hard off the starting line, running as fast as she could, but it wasn’t enough.
This time was even less “almost” than the lap before.
“It’s okay. We’ll pick it up again tomorrow,” Coach K said.
It actually wasn’t okay, but arguing just felt like another lost cause.
A few minutes later Alex walked toward the parking lot, carrying her backpack and gym bag and all of her thoughts and fears and expectations. It was more than she knew what to do with. She was sweaty and frustrated and tired, and annoyed that her mom wouldn’t be able to pick her up for at least another hour . . . and that’s when she saw Oliver, sitting on the front hood of his car, texting. His hair was still wet from a recent shower. “Hey, you,” he called as she approached.
“Hey, me?”
“Yes, you. Who else would I be waiting for?” Alex smiled. “Maybe don’t answer that . . .” Oliver smiled back. “Do you want me to give you a ride?” he asked, his innocent tone not exactly matching the gleam in his eyes.
Alex raised her eyebrows, a new, bold smirk stretching across her face as she considering the wording of Oliver’s question.
“A ride in my car,” he clarified. Alex added Oliver to the list of people she suspected might be able to read her thoughts. “You coming?” he asked one more time. “I’m not gonna beg.”
Oliver didn’t have to beg. Alex was in. Literally. Figuratively. Actually.
She climbed into the front seat of his SUV, flashing him her trademarked Mona Lisa smile.
“You gonna tell me what that smile means?”
Even if Alex had wanted to tell him—which she didn’t—she honestly couldn’t, because she rarely knew what it meant herself. It was the kind of smile that says yes as much as it says no—even though the truth was that smiles didn’t actually say anything at all.
It was the kind of smile that had gotten Alex into trouble before, and probably would again.
“Whatever it means,” Oliver said after a moment, “it’s driving me crazy.”
The look on Oliver’s face was driving Alex crazy too, but she didn’t tell him that.
She didn’t have to. She was certain he already knew.
158 days until graduation . . .
LAYLA felt like Vanessa was doing it on purpose.
And by “it” she meant everything.
Vanessa Martin was the most popular/unpopular girl in the sophomore class. Opinions were evenly drawn between gender lines. The boys all loved her low cut tank tops and her push-up bras and her super short shorts. They loved her flirty laugh and the way she was always sucking on something, be it a lollipop or a strand of her hair. At the same time, the girls generally hated all the things the boys loved about her.
The part that annoyed Layla the most was that everything about Vanessa felt so calculated. It wasn’t just that she knew what she was doing; she also seemed to know the kind of reaction it would elicit. Case in point: She had been sucking on the cap of her pen since the student council meeting started almost forty minutes ago.
Not just sucking, but sucking.
And it didn’t look like she was going to let up anytime soon.
Layla didn’t blame Vanessa for wanting a reaction; she just wished she would own up to it a little more. If you’re in a meeting sucking on a pen cap for forty minutes, you’re going to give all the student council boys hard-ons and you’re going to piss off all the girls. Don’t act all shocked when your guy “friends” want to hook up and your girl “friends” don’t actually like you.
“Does anybody have any new business?” Logan asked from the fr
ont of the classroom.
“Oh, his voice,” Vanessa whispered to Layla as if it were part of some inside joke between them. It wasn’t. “Don’t you, like, die every time he talks to you?”
No. She didn’t, like, die.
Somehow, Layla managed a fake smile in Vanessa’s direction, but her beady, calculated eyes were already locked back on Logan. Layla could practically see her mentally undressing him. There was no new business, so Logan wrapped up the meeting, telling everyone to have a good week and that he’d see them next Thursday.
“Sucks there’s so much time between meetings, huh?” Vanessa whispered to Layla again. Layla couldn’t help but notice her use of the word “suck.” How appropriate . . .
A few minutes later, Layla and Logan walked toward the senior parking lot, hand in hand. Layla couldn’t stop stewing about Vanessa. “I just don’t like her . . .”
“Yes, it’s very Captain Obvious of you—”
“But it’s like she has no idea. She thinks we’re best friends. And she is completely, shamelessly in love with you.”
“Lay, she flirts with everyone—”
“So then you admit she’s flirting with you?” Layla teased.
“I think I’ve always admitted that—”
“Oh no. You usually try to say she’s just being nice.”
“She is being nice—”
“‘Nice’ is not even sort of a strong enough word. It feels like all she wants in life is just to get inside your pants—”
“Whatever. Everything in my pants is already entirely occupied by you.” Logan flashed a smile and that dimple and then pulled Layla in close, pressing his waist up against hers.
“Oh, hi,” Layla said, teasing him—and his hard-on. “You sure that’s for me, though? Not just left over from Vanessa’s extended pen-sucking exhibition?”
“Pen sucking? I hadn’t noticed,” Logan tried to say with a straight face, but Layla knew he’d noticed. All the boys always did. There was no point in trying to deny it. “Hey, so is it annoying or still sort of cute to remind you that I have a condom in my glove compartment?”
“It was never cute.”
“A little bit cute? No?”
“Nope.” Layla let the dust settle for a moment before telling Logan that she wanted to have sex for the first time on Valentine’s Day.
“All right,” he said with a nod. It looked like he was doing the mental math in his head. It was twenty-nine days away, just over four weeks. Layla had obviously already counted. “That’ll be cool. Losing the V-cards on V-day.”
“A little less cool when you make it sound all corny like that.”
“The day is corny—there’s not much I can do about that.”
“Actually, I think there’s a lot you can do . . .”
“Oh. Is this your way of telling me that you want a whole production?”
“Not, like, a production . . .”
“But a scavenger hunt or something like that?”
Layla smiled. Yes, something exactly like that.
Logan pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed her fingers. “For a second I thought you were going to do your best Vanessa impression,” she said, laughing.
“Oh, you mean like this?” Logan playfully slipped Layla’s pointer finger into his mouth and sucked hard. She yanked her hand back.
“Ew, Logan. Slobber.”
“You wanna try me?” Logan held out his hand, wiggling his fingers.
“No thank you . . .”
“Fine. Whatever. I’m sure I could get Vanessa to do it,” Logan said as he finally pulled his car out of the parking lot.
He was joking.
And Layla knew he was joking.
But something about the way he said it, or maybe something about the fullness of his smile as he said it or maybe just something about the twinkle in his eye as the words came out of his mouth . . . whatever it was, something about the moment didn’t sit right with Layla.
She simply couldn’t shake it.
* * *
ZOE couldn’t quite reach the tallest leaves.
She was standing on her toes on the highest rung of the ladder, trying to paint the top of the wooden trees, but so far she was failing. She could feel the ladder wobbling beneath her.
“Please don’t fall!” Austin shouted from the back of the theater.
Zoe was startled by the sound of his voice, and it made her sway on her heels. She had to crouch down on the top step to steady herself. She didn’t realize anyone else was around, but apparently Austin had been watching from the tech booth.
“Sorry for the scare,” he said. “I’d just be super sad and embarrassed for you if you fell. But then I’d also have to laugh at you.”
“I would also be sad and embarrassed too,” Zoe said, already laughing. She realized she probably looked pretty ridiculous up there, covered in green paint. This year’s spring musical was Into the Woods, and, as the stage manager, a big part of Zoe’s job was to make sure that the woods on the stage looked like actual woods. So far this involved a lot of brown and green paint and was only turning out to be a mildly successful endeavor.
“You need a hand?” Austin asked, walking toward the stage.
“Yes. And longer legs and arms,” Zoe said, instantly feeling lame about it.
“What?” Austin asked before realizing it was a bad joke, “Oh, ha, right, yes,” he added quickly. Austin was a nice guy like that. He held the ladder as Zoe climbed down and even offered Zoe his hand as she jumped off the bottom step. Zoe’s hand was sweaty and covered in paint, but she reached for Austin’s anyway. She wanted to know what his fingers felt like.
“You greened me,” he said, looking at his hand after Zoe had let go.
“Oh no. Here.” Zoe held out the bottom of her already paint-covered tank top so he could wipe off his hand on it. Austin looked at Zoe for an extra beat, catching her eyes as if to confirm that she wouldn’t mind. Really, she wouldn’t. “It’s all good. I’m a mess already.”
“You’re not at all,” Austin said sincerely as he wiped his hand.
Then, Austin shifted his weight in his shoes, seemingly nervous. Zoe wasn’t exactly sure why he was nervous, but she was nervous too, so it sort of made sense.
Austin ran his hand over his short hair and then looked down at his shifting feet. Zoe followed his gaze, down his body, and it suddenly occurred to her that she’d never really noticed his body before. She’d noticed his dark skin and his deep brown eyes and the shape of his hands and maybe even his neck and the curve of his ears, which were slightly larger than average and maybe even a little bit pointed in an adorable sort of way, but she’d never really noticed his body. Maybe it was because he was usually sitting in the tech booth designing lighting cues. Or maybe it was because he and Zoe hadn’t actually spent that much time together. Yes, they’d been in the same place, at rehearsal, for hours and hours, but they weren’t really together.
Not like this, anyway.
Not this close.
Even though they weren’t even touching, Zoe could feel him and his presence and his body and the way it was right there, taking up all the space next to hers.
“You have some, um, some more green,” Austin managed to say, getting bashful as he pointed in the general vicinity of Zoe’s chest.
Zoe looked down.
Yep.
There was a big glob of green on her chest, right between her boobs.
Not only had Austin noticed her boobs, but he’d basically just told her that he noticed—and that made Zoe smile. And then blush, too. She hoped her face was only a little red and didn’t look like a full-on fire engine, which is what it felt like. All the red and green was probably making her look like a giant Christmas elf. She wiped the paint off her chest as slickly as she could, which wasn’t very.
After some mildly awkward silence, Austin asked Zoe if she liked The Other Team. “It’s this band,” he explained. “My buddy’s the drummer. They play at house parties some
times.”
“Oh yeah,” Zoe said, pretending like maybe she had heard of them. She didn’t go to all that many house parties, but when she did, they certainly weren’t cool enough to have live bands.
“Yeah. They’re good,” Austin continued, “and they have a show coming up at the Roxy this Saturday. A bunch of the tech guys are gonna go, so if you want to come too, that would be . . .”
“Cool,” Zoe said, completing Austin’s sentence for him.
“Cool,” Austin agreed. And then they just stood there on the empty stage, grinning at each other until Austin finally regained his ability to speak. “Um . . . ,” he started timidly, “can you do me a favor and stand in my spotlight for a minute?”
“Oh sure, but I bet you say that to all the girls,” Zoe said, trying to maybe flirt with him. In her head, it had sounded like something a pretty actress would say in a movie. In reality, Austin just looked pretty confused, and the whole exchange made Zoe feel self-conscious. “Where do you need me?” she asked, getting things back on track.
Austin pointed to a mark in the center of the stage and then scampered back to the light booth. He turned on the spotlight and worked to focus it. Now it was Austin’s turn to make Zoe nervous. It was mostly the spotlight’s fault. At least all she had to do was stand still. “Got it!” he said after what seemed like an eternity. “Looks perfect!”
“Thanks,” Zoe said as a new feeling of excitement washed over her.
It was the kind of feeling that made her want to break into song.
She wasn’t really going to start singing, mostly because she couldn’t carry a tune to save her life, but she felt like a real life version of the characters in the musicals she loved so much. The kind of a character who lived in a magical, musical world where it was normal and acceptable and maybe even encouraged to break out into song at any given moment.
At this moment, Zoe could hear a whole orchestra in her head; the instruments were playing the opening notes from the song “I Know Things Now,” which was Zoe’s favorite song from Into the Woods and might also be her favorite Sondheim song of all time, which was a very big deal considering how many incredible Sondheim songs existed in the universe. “I Know Things Now” is the song Little Red Riding Hood sings about her first encounter with the wolf. At first Little Red describes the meeting as being exciting, but then she clarifies that it’s actually both exciting and scary, which was exactly how Zoe felt at this very moment.
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