Cherry

by Lindsey Rosin

  After all the cheering and twirling and screaming finally died down, everyone, including the team and the cheerleaders and Emma and Savannah, made their way back to the school bus. The girls shared a seat up front near the coaches and trainers and members of the staff, who had clearly given up on trying to keep any sort of order on the ride home. Savannah pulled out her green notebook and scribbled down a few notes for her article, while Emma pulled out her camera again, hoping to snap a few more candid shots. Mostly she focused her lens on Oliver. And his blue eyes. And his cheekbones. And perfect jawline. He made her job easy. “He’s like a joke,” she said, looking at his face in the viewfinder.

  “What?” Savannah asked looking at this picture.

  “His face . . . I mean, the eyes alone . . .” Emma couldn’t help but smile.

  “Yeah,” Savannah said playfully, “if you’re into that sort of thing.”

  Emma turned around to snap more pictures and saw that Oliver had moved up a few rows. Now he was sharing a seat with Caroline. She was still wearing her cheerleading uniform, her midriff and thighs and cleavage all showing. Oliver was wearing a mesh practice tank top, his arms and abs and jawline all perfectly visible too. Even from twelve rows away Emma could see the attraction simmering between them.

  “Uh-oh,” Emma said. “That’s Caroline. Dylan’s ex-­girlfriend.”

  “The cheerleader?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “And. Alex and Oliver have been . . .” Emma stopped, realizing that they hadn’t actually been anything, and they hadn’t actually done anything either. “Well . . . I don’t know exactly what they’re doing, but they’re neighbors and they car pool, and they went on a date and played flip cup at a party last weekend. I don’t know. There’s a lot of mind games . . .”

  “And Alex is Dylan’s best friend?”

  “No. That’s Zoe.”

  “Okay,” Savannah said, putting the pieces together. “So. The girl Dylan doesn’t date anymore is sharing a seat with the guy Alex isn’t really dating at all.”

  “Well. Yes.”

  “Is it possible I’m missing the point?”

  “There’s no point,” Emma admitted, “but I have a feeling Alex won’t be very happy if they hook up right now.”

  “Because she likes Oliver?”

  “Technically, she’s not sure yet how she feels about him, but I think she does.”

  “And does Zoe like Dylan?”

  “No. Well. I don’t know. Zoe’s dating Austin.”

  “I give up,” Savannah said, laughing. “Your friends are complicated.”

  “It’s one of the many thing I love about them.” Emma laughed.

  She and Savannah spent the next hour of the ride home talking about everything and anything. Their conversation were always so easy and effortless. After a while Emma turned around, stealing another glance at Oliver and Caroline.

  “Are they kissing yet?” Savannah asked.

  “No. Just sitting all close . . . but it looks like any minute now . . .”

  Savannah turned backward to look too. Oliver and Caroline were both sitting with their heads pressed again the bus seat, their foreheads only a few inches apart. Savannah turned her attention back to Emma, pressing her forehead against the seat only a few inches from Emma’s forehead, just like Oliver was doing to Caroline. “Looks like they’re having a bad case of basorexia.”

  “Basorexia? That’s supposed to be a real thing?”

  “It’s your thing,” Savannah explained. “I’ve been meaning to tell you I looked it up. Basorexia is the feeling of having the overwhelming urge to kiss someone. Urban Dictionary said it could also be defined as a strong craving for kissing, or a hunger for it . . .”

  “Oh well, if Urban Dictionary says so . . .”

  “It’s real, I swear.”

  “Awesome. My weirdness has a word and a definition,” Emma said.

  “I feel pretty good about all your weirdness,” Savannah replied.

  Emma smiled. Honestly, at this moment . . .

  128 days until graduation . . .

  . . . EMMA actually felt pretty good about all her weirdness too.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” Emma said as she realized that the time on her cell phone had just switched to midnight. They’d been on the bus back from Santa Barbara for almost two hours.

  “Hey, yeah, you too,” Savannah said, realizing it was officially tomorrow. And then she asked, as if she just remembered, “Did you get my carnation?”

  “Your what?”

  “I sent you a carnation today. Or yesterday I guess.”

  “You did? Just one?”

  “Ha, yeah, just one. Sorry. I’ll make it a dozen next time.”

  “No, no, one is great. Like, so nice. I got it. I got two, actually. But I thought they were both from Nick, since the one he sent me had a card.” Emma didn’t know what else to say, but she got the feeling Savannah was waiting for something more. She finally managed a “Thank you.”

  “You. Are. Welcome,” Savannah replied. “Sorry about the lack o’ card. I’m pretty good with words usually, but I didn’t quite know what to say.”

  Emma totally knew the feeling.

  “Actually—that’s a lie.”

  Emma caught Savannah’s eyes. What was a lie?

  “I think I knew what to say,” Savannah explained, “but it was, like . . . it was like there was just too much.”

  Emma nodded. She totally knew that feeling too.

  And then suddenly Emma felt like there was a reason to turn around.

  And she was right.

  Oliver and Caroline had finally given into their basorexia—­into all the urges and cravings and hunger or whatever it was—and were now in the midst of the inevitable make-out session. Their lips and hands and hormones were more or less everywhere.

  Emma snapped a quick picture on her cell phone.

  “Is it just me or does it look like he’s trying to swallow her entire head?” Savannah whispered, so as not to disturb the horny couple.

  “I guess this is unequivocal proof that two sexy people kissing is not an automatically sexy situation,” Emma whispered back.

  Savannah had to bite down on her bottom lip to keep from laughing.

  Emma was more certain than ever before that the pink shade of Savannah’s lips was actually the same color as her own. It was all she could think about for the rest of the ride home . . .

  And she woke up the next morning thinking about Savannah’s lips too.

  But she wasn’t thinking about their color as much anymore. Instead, now, she was thinking about the words that had come out of Savannah’s mouth about that one carnation.

  And all Emma could really think was why?

  Why did Savannah send her a flower?

  Was it a friendly flower?

  It didn’t feel particularly friendly.

  As Emma wiped the sleep out of her eyes, she remembered that she hadn’t sent the Oliver and Caroline make-out picture to The Chat yet.

  She wasn’t sure who would hate it more, Alex or Zoe.

  * * *

  LAYLA texted back to The Chat almost immediately: Oh. Snap.

  She knew Alex and Zoe weren’t going to be happy to see that.

  She was sitting by her cell phone waiting for Logan to text her. His first clue had said to be ready “bright and early” but she knew that Logan wasn’t actually a morning person, so that was a joke. Still, it was almost 10:45 now, and she was getting antsy.

  Thankfully, her phone buzzed again almost immediately. And this time it was Logan: Your chariot awaits.

  Layla grabbed her bag and flew down the stairs, yelling a quick good-bye to her mom on the way out the door. “Call me from Alex’s!” her mom yelled back. Layla didn’t like lying to her parents, and she wasn’t very good at it, but she had no choice. Even if Logan’s parents had somehow been okay with some sort of sleepover situation, which they weren’t, there was no way Layla’s p
arents would’ve ever approved. She told her mom she was spending Valentine’s Day with Logan, but she’d had to lie and say she was sleeping at Alex’s house afterwards. Alex’s parents were distracted enough not to notice, and Alex was happy to cover for her. Layla wasn’t sure what Logan’s actual plan was for their sleeping arrangements, which made her rather anxious and itchy, but she trusted he had figured something out.

  Layla opened the front door. . . .

  And there was Logan.

  He was standing at the end of her front walkway, leaning against his car, holding a small bouquet of handpicked flowers.

  Some people tried so hard to do so much, and none of it seemed to matter.

  All Logan had to do was shift his weight and lean, even just ever so slightly, and something inside of Layla completely melted. Layla had felt this feeling before. This Logan-induced, full-body-meltage kind of feeling . . . but this time was different.

  This time she could almost literally feel her heart drop out of her chest and all the way down into her feet, as if it were just too heavy, or too full, to stay suspended inside of her.

  It felt like she needed to surrender herself—her feelings or her heart or whatever—to gravity.

  “What are you waiting for?” Logan asked, all happy and playful.

  Nothing. And also everything, Layla thought as she walked to greet him.

  * * *

  ALEX wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring at the Oliver-Caroline picture of doom.

  But she felt powerless to stop.

  She wanted to respond to The Chat, but she couldn’t seem to do that, either.

  She’d started typing a few different responses: screw him and then ouch and then loser with lots of extra r’s tacked on and too many exclamation points, but none of that seemed quite right. Alex wasn’t mad, exactly. She definitely wasn’t surprised. “Disappointed” sort of—kind of—felt like the right word, but not entirely. Technically, Oliver was allowed to make out with whoever he wanted. He wasn’t her boyfriend. He wasn’t even a friend with benefits or anything like that. All things considered, he might not even be a friend at all. Oliver was simply her car pool driver. They’d almost—almost but not actually—kissed in his car one time.

  And that was it.

  He didn’t owe her anything.

  “ . . .” she finally managed to text The Chat.

  She wasn’t sure what the ellipsis was supposed to mean exactly, but it felt right.

  Then Alex managed to put down her phone.

  She decided she wasn’t going to think about the picture anymore, which was easier said than done, especially as her phone buzzed again. There was a new text. This one was from Oliver. It felt like he knew she was thinking about him or trying not to think about him. Either way, she closed her phone without looking at his text message. She didn’t care what he had to say. But that defiant feeling lasted for only about two and a half seconds, and then her curiosity won out. She picked up her phone and opened Oliver’s text.

  Wanna hang out

  UGH.

  No.

  She did not want to hang out.

  And she didn’t want to respond, either.

  She put her phone back down again, but then, once again—almost immediately—it vibrated, signaling another text from Oliver. She didn’t want to look but again—­dammit, again—she couldn’t help herself. She had to check.

  That wasn’t a question

  Alex hated herself for ever thinking that Oliver’s lameness had been cute. She also hated that he didn’t use any punctuation. There were no question marks. No periods. He was literally the worst.

  She started to type No thanks—but decided to delete it.

  Instead she wrote: Why don’t you call your favorite cheerleader?

  She thought for a moment before sending it . . .

  Too mean?

  Too much?

  Nope.

  She decided it was just right and hit send.

  Ha, Oliver texted back almost immediately.

  Alex waited for something more.

  You spying on me now? he added after a minute.

  Don’t flatter yourself.

  Don’t try and tell me you don’t want to hang out tonight

  UGHHHHH, Alex thought to herself.

  She wasn’t sure what she hated more: the fact that she did, in fact, still want to hang out with him even though he had been making out with someone else the night before, or the fact that he—and all his stupid cockiness—somehow seemed to know that already.

  Everything she could think to text back to him sounded stupid or lame or just plain petty. Instead, she turned off her phone without responding.

  The only thing she wanted to give to Oliver right now was her silence.

  * * *

  ZOE attempted to remember all the tips the girls had ever told her . . .

  Watch your teeth.

  Don’t forget to use your hands.

  Make eye contact.

  She remembered Alex had said something about sucking on an ice cube first in order to make the whole thing feel cold or something, but Zoe didn’t have an ice cube, so that piece of advice wasn’t really all that helpful.

  Mostly, Zoe just followed her instincts, which seemed to be working well enough. Austin seemed to be having a good time. A very good time. But Zoe still wasn’t sure whether or not she was doing it right. “You’re doing it so right,” Austin assured her. He was sitting on the edge of his bed with his feet on the floor and his pants and boxers down around his ankles. Zoe was kneeling down in front of him. “It feels amazing,” he insisted, “like, really, the only thing that could even possibly be better right now would be if we were having sex.”

  Whoa.

  Zoe stopped what she was doing again and sat back on her heels.

  “You want to have sex?”

  “Um. Yeah,” Austin said as if that were the only pos­sible answer. “But I know you haven’t, so I didn’t think . . . I wasn’t sure if you wanted to.”

  “I do want to,” Zoe said all at once. She was almost surprised how quickly and confidently the words came out of her mouth. Her voice wasn’t shaking. Her body wasn’t squirming. Her face was red, but not more than usual, and that was mostly because Austin’s penis had been in her mouth until just, like, thirty seconds earlier . . .

  She hadn’t told Austin about the sex pact, but this felt like so much more than that now.

  Zoe wanted to have sex with Austin. And she told him again that she did.

  He could not have been more excited to hear it.

  “Now?” he asked with a gigantic grin on his face.

  * * *

  LAYLA opened Logan’s sixth red Valentine’s Day envelope very carefully.

  She didn’t want to mess up her freshly painted nails. So far, the first few envelopes had led Layla to the Coffee Bean on Pico for an iced vanilla latte, to the small park near her house for a quick ride on the swing set, to her favorite nail place for a mani-pedi, and now they were just finishing lunch at The Apple Pan, an old-fashioned burger spot they both loved.

  Layla read the sixth clue: You wore a headband in your hair. I won a giant teddy bear. This was the site of our first real date. There are still quite a few hours until sunset—but I’m so excited I cannot wait . . .

  Of course Layla knew that their first date was at the Santa Monica Pier. The teddy bear was still sitting on top of the bookshelf in her bedroom.

  “Don’t worry,” Logan said, chuckling, “the rhymes are only gonna get worse . . .”

  “Not worried,” Layla said, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she could feet a pit hardening in the back of her throat. Again, she could feel her heart drop down into her feet, overcome by gravity. This moment, this day, this scavenger hunt, this whole first time, was everything Layla could’ve hoped for. . . .

  Logan was surpassing all of her wildest dreams.

  And yet . . . Layla could feel the tears welling up in her eyes as she and Logan
walked back to his car. She glanced over at him. He was being so cute and so natural, so effortless . . . and Layla felt so exactly the opposite of that, all calculated and forced. They climbed back into Logan’s car and sat together for a minute. No music. No talking. Just their own quiet thoughts. And then a few tears rolled down Layla’s face. Layla had never felt smaller.

  “Talk to me,” Logan said finally.

  “This was my idea . . .”

  “What was?”

  “The scavenger hunt. The date. Tonight.”

  “Yeah,” Logan said, already reading between the lines. He knew Layla well enough to know what was coming next.

  “I’m sorry.” She tried to find more words to add to those first two, to find a good explanation for what she was feeling and why she wasn’t ready to have sex, but Logan stopped her.

  “Hey. It’s okay,” he said. “And it’s still Valentine’s Day. Let’s go to the pier?”

  “Please,” Layla said, already feeling lighter.

  Logan started the car. He pulled out of the parking lot and turned right on Pico Boulevard, heading west. “We have bomb dinner reservations tonight.”

  “Please tell me it’s sushi . . .”

  “Layla, come on, can you please not ruin everything?” Logan teased.

  “Oh God . . .”

  “Too soon?

  “Way too soon,” Layla teased back. “And I didn’t ruin everything. There are still seven more clues, right? Six, I guess, since I know about the sushi.”

  “Right,” Logan said with some heaviness in his voice.

  Now it was Layla’s turn to read between the lines . . .

  She knew him well enough to know he wasn’t going to give her any more clues.

  “It’s not that I don’t want you to have them. But they start to get, like . . . sexy,” Logan explained with a little smile, trying to make light of it. Layla nodded, letting that sink in. She tried to keep her face from looking disappointed, but she couldn’t help it. “Lay,” Logan said in a tone of voice that managed to be playful and honest and sincere all at the same time, “if it’s okay for you to tell me you don’t want to have sex tonight, then I think you have to be okay with me not giving you any more clues.”