“What do you think, Xavi?” Bastian says.
He shrugs. “I’ve always been the fat kid, and I’ll probably always be the fat kid. But if you want to work out then props, man. It’s a good idea.”
Ciara nods and caps the nail polish on her desk. She’d been painting her nails a new color this whole time, as usual. “I think you should do it. Working out increases endorphins and all that. It’ll be good for you.”
“Cool,” Bastian says, scribbling something into his notebook. “Thanks, guys. Okay, who’s next?”
I stare at my pizza crust as if it’s the most important thing in the world but my nonchalance doesn’t help. “Isla?” Bastian says, turning his attention to me. “How’d it go at the football game?”
I draw in a deep breath, still not used to the feeling of so many eyes watching me even though I’ve been in this group for over a month. “Well … it wasn’t bad, but I didn’t really succeed in my goal of making Nate jealous.” I pick at my cuticles and look up at him, feeling weirdly sad that I have to disappoint him, the sophomore leader of our group. “I stayed on the Wildcats’ side of the field so he never saw me. And I never saw him, so …”
“Are you kidding?” he bellows, tossing his palms up. “That is great news, Isla!”
I lift an eyebrow. Trish nods, pressing her lips together and Xavier starts slow clapping. Ciara leans across Sequoia’s desk and grabs my arm. “We’re proud of you.”
I glance at Emory for some kind of confirmation, but he’s just watching me, leaned back in his desk, not a care in the world. “How is this a good thing?” I ask, still dumbfounded. “I didn’t even see him.”
“Exactly,” Bastian says, his eyes wide and appreciative as if that explains anything.
“Huh?” I lift my shoulders.
“A couple of weeks ago you would have been a crying mess,” he says, writing something in his notebook. “You would have been desperate to see him no matter what. So the fact that you were at a football game and didn’t even bother to look for him shows just how far you’ve come in your healing. We’re really proud of you.”
I find myself smiling, and then the smile fades and my brows knit together. “Was I really that pathetic?”
A circle of nods flows through the support group. I roll my eyes and lean my head back, staring at the ceiling. “That is so embarrassing.”
“See, Sequoia?” Ciara says. “We were all like you once. We get better because we help each other.”
“I think Isla is doing well enough that we don’t need to assign any homework right now,” Bastian says, flipping to a new page in his notebook. “Emory, your turn. How was your weekend and how many hearts did you break?”
His smile slides to the corner of his mouth. He seems so laid back and relaxed, not caring in the least that everyone watches him. He takes a bite of pizza. “I didn’t do anything this weekend.”
“Well, that’s good,” Bastian says. He begins writing and turns toward Xavier. “So Xavi—” I clear my throat and hold up a hand to interrupt him.
I raise my eyebrows and stare at Emory. “Really? You did nothing this weekend?”
Emory’s eyes meet mine. “Yep. Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?” I say sarcastically. “You’re unbelievable.”
Bastian turns toward me. “What does that mean, Isla? Emory, are you keeping something from us?”
“No,” he says at the same time I say, “Yes.”
Emory folds his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes at me. “What are you talking about, Iz-la?”
I swallow, feeling ten degrees warmer under the scrutiny of his dark eyes. “I’m not trying to be a tattletale or anything, but you should probably confess to being at that football game. I mean, how many girls would you have flirted with if I hadn’t been there?”
“Oooooooh,” Ciara murmurs under her breath.
Emory shakes his head, a smile playing on his lips. “Nope. Not true.” To Bastian, he says, “I wasn’t at that game for myself. I didn’t flirt with a single girl.”
“Is that so?” Bastian says, sounding exactly like my father.
Trish says, “So why were you there if it wasn’t to pick up chicks? You’re not really the football type. That’d be like me going to a game, and that is not happening.”
He shrugs and leans back, resting his hands behind his head. His gray t-shirt sleeves rise, showing his biceps, and he looks directly at me. “I went to keep an eye on Isla. I figured I’d punch the ex if he tried anything. But she was strong and didn’t go see him, so my services weren’t needed, and we just hung out.”
My phone buzzes and I glimpse the screen before it goes dark. Ciara just sent me a message that simply says, Snowflake.
Heat rushes into my cheeks. Bastian speaks, taking the attention off of me. “That was really kind of you, Em. Okay, who’s next. Xavi?”
After lunch, I duck out of Ms. Meadows’ classroom and head for the stairs on the south end, my mind reeling with the thought of Emory going to the game just for me. There’s no way that could have been true, could it? Would he have really stood up for me if Nate had somehow started a scene in front of everyone?
No, I decide, keeping my gaze low as I make my way through the hoard of students. He was just being himself—a charmer and smooth-talker. Getting himself out of trouble with Bastian by making up some lie. He did buy me nachos, but I refuse to make that into something it’s not. After all, I’d spent my entire relationship with Nate making it more than what it really was—a high school fling.
I round the corner and find Emory standing against the wall in the history hallway, arms crossed and gaze focused on me. “How’d you get here so quickly?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder as if the real-time version of him should be just behind me.
“I wasn’t playing on my phone when the bell rang,” he says, falling into step with me. I guess I had spent a minute replying to Ciara’s text message before I left the classroom. And he does not need to know what we were talking about. We turn the corner together, taking the stairs next to each other.
“You’re a really excellent liar,” I say under my breath.
“What’s that mean?”
I try to glare at him, but all my attention is needed to get up the stairs in one piece. “You lied about being at the football game back there. Obviously you were there to see how many girls would throw themselves at you.”
“I wasn’t lying, snowflake.” He bumps into my shoulder with his. “There are much better places to find girls, trust me.”
We reach the second floor, and I throw my hands into the air. “Teach me your ways, Emory.” I’m vaguely aware of people watching us as we walk by, turning to go up to the third floor. Girls who grin at Emory, guys who glare at him out of envy. I shake my head. “I want to be like you. Impossible to hurt.”
“Isla,” he says, tossing a sideways glance at me. “I don’t think you really mean that.”
“I do,” I say at the top of the third floor. I stop and turn toward him, folding my arms over my chest. “I want your life. I want to date around in the name of having fun with no strings attached. How do I do that?” He watches me intently, but I can’t stop the rampage now that I’ve started it. I shake my head. “So Mentor Emory, what do I do? Do I just flirt with every guy that walks by?”
He takes a step closer, taking my hand and pulling me out of the middle of the stairwell. People rush by us, some watching our little exchange and others too caught up in getting to their next class on time.
“Are you sure you want this?” he says, releasing my hand and sliding his arm around my waist.
“Yes,” I say.
He holds my gaze, his head tilted down toward mine for what feels like hours. Is he doing what I think he’s doing? Suddenly I can’t seem to breathe. “You want a date with no strings attached? Just like what I do, right?”
I nod, my throat suddenly dry.
“Okay.” He looks up. “Hey, man,” he says, reaching out and p
atting the arm of a guy in jeans and a hot pink polo shirt. “My friend Isla needs a date Friday night,” he says. “You want to take her?”
“Oh my God. Don’t listen to him.” My voice sounds a million miles away as a lead weight drops into my stomach. This is so not happening.
Pink shirt guy lifts an eyebrow and looks from Emory to me. “You sure? I’m free Friday.”
A tingle of heat slides its way up my spine. “Yeah, I’m sure. Sorry. Just—don’t listen to him.” My words are quick and panicked, and all I can do is hope that they make sense.
The guy nods and offers me a half-smile. “Okay then. See ya.”
My heart thuds beneath my ribcage, and as soon as the guy walks away, I turn on my heel and glare at Emory. “How could you do that to me?” My nails dig into my palms, and it’s all I can do not to punch his stupid grin off his face.
“Why are you mad at me?” Emory says. “You’ll never learn to swim unless you dive right in.”
Chapter Eighteen
I avoid Emory for the next week. The task is nearly impossible since we have first period and gym class together but I do the best I can by pretending to be incredibly absorbed in Mr. Wang’s lectures and class assignments. During gym, I head out to the track and run, letting the pain in my legs and the exhaustion in my lungs fuel me to forget all about Emory. I don’t know what he does in gym class, but he’s never at the track, and that’s a good thing.
The rest of my classes are a freaking cake walk because they don’t require spending all of my energy avoiding him. Mrs. Olsen is even starting to smile at me in second period. She hasn’t given me a single pitying glance all week. Maybe she’s just as convinced as my parents and the rest of the support group that I’m fully healed.
And I am, in a way. My original affliction—Heartbreak by Nate—is about as cured as I could hope for. Sure, the occasional song on the radio will make me remember a date with him, or I’ll catch the scent of leather in the mall and think about the smell of his truck after he’s cleaned and buffed the leather seats. But those are just unavoidable memories, and they don’t hurt for very long.
Even with all of this progress, I’m still just as screwed up as ever. And the people who are supposed to help me can never know my new secret. I can’t tell the Break Up Support Group about my undeniably impossible and pointless crush on Emory, the group’s most notorious member. That means my current problem can only be solved by one person: me. The only possible way to get over a crush I shouldn’t have is by ignoring him and hoping my feelings go away in the process. Right?
Sometimes during lunch, I’ll glance up from my desk between Sequoia and Ciara and I’ll see Emory looking at me with an unreadable expression. It’s become clear that the only way to avoid him altogether is to leave the support group, but I haven’t found the willpower to do that yet. I like my new friends in the group, especially Ciara. Leaving the group would mean sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch, having to buy my own food that isn’t delicious and free from Meadows Pizza. Although I’m no Doctor of Psychology, I am hoping against every tension-filled heartstring in my chest that I’ll be able to single-handedly force myself out of my crush on Emory.
I’m feeling pretty good about it on Monday during gym class. After changing into my gym clothes and lacing up my running shoes, I jog into the gym to wait for Coach to call attendance before dismissing us. This last week of running has done wonders for my endurance, and I’m hoping to run a full two miles today.
The moment I enter the gym, I know something odd is going on. Coach Carter stands with the boy’s coach, talking quietly over a plastic bin. She’s as tall as he is, with short brown hair that’s pulled tightly into a bun. One look at her tells you she loves fitness. Her arms are ripped. She holds a stack of black things that look like walkie-talkies or a radio, gesturing to them while she converses with the other coach.
“Have a seat everyone,” she says, her stout voice echoing off the concrete walls. “We have a surprise planned for you today. Partner up—you’ll be geocaching.”
My heart stops at the mention of needing a partner. I don’t have a single friend in this class. I glance around the small basketball court, looking for a girl that I may have spoken to at some point since school started. But people are already pairing up—girls with their boyfriends, groups of longtime friends, people who belong with someone else in this class.
I don’t have anyone.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Emory’s voice is both a relief and the catalyst to tachycardia. I turn toward him, faking a polite smile. He looks strangely athletic in the Granite Hills High gym uniform of black shorts and a blue shirt. The only thing that’s the same is the compass bracelet around his wrist.
“I just—” I say with a shrug, unable to humiliate myself by admitting I have no partner.
“Want to team up?” he says. “I mean, I know you hate me and all but I don’t have a partner and it looks like you don’t, either.”
I blink. “What? I don’t hate you.”
He lifts an eyebrow, tilting his head down as he looks at me. “You’ve ignored me ever since I tried getting you that date. It’s kind of obvious that you’re pissed at me now.”
That day on the stairs was humiliating but not the reason I’ve been ignoring him. He thinks it is though, and this really works in my favor. My chest tightens when I wonder what he’d do if he knew the truth about my crush on him. I push those thoughts out of my mind and make a small nod. “Yeah, I’ll be your partner.”
Emory gets a GPS tracker from the box, along with a list of coordinates and a pencil. The coaches explain that geocaching is a fun way to get exercise by looking up the coordinates on our trackers and then finding the exact location in the wooded field behind the school. Each cache is a small hidden box with a notepad inside. We’re supposed to find the box, write our names, and then place it back exactly where we found it. There are ten locations on the list and finding all of them counts as a test grade.
“Have you done this before?” he asks as we head outside, venturing into the wooden area that separates Granite Hills High from the surrounding neighborhoods.
“Nope,” I say, messing with the buttons on the GPS tracker, trying to get the thing to turn on. I hold it up to him. “Have you?”
He nods and reaches over, steadying the tracker with his hand over mine. I hold absolutely still, ignoring the tingle in my toes that intensifies with each second. He twists a knob on what looked like a static part, and the screen turns on. “You’re a genius,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Not really. We do this every year.”
“So you know where all the caches are already,” I say, eyes going wide. “This will be an easy grade.”
“Hardly, snowflake.” He snickers and bumps into me as we walk. “They move them each year.”
We follow the first set of coordinates to a small pine tree. Emory finds the cache—a tiny black metal capsule—hanging from a branch. We sign our names, and I input the coordinates for the next item on the list. The woods are thick back here, and although there’s a walking trail that winds around the perimeter, the caches are all off the path, deep into the heart of this suburban forest.
Being alone with Emory is a rush. I love every second of it. And I hate every second of it.
By our fifth cache, I’m getting the hang of this endeavor. Emory and I walk around the area of the coordinates, looking for the black box. He’s found every one so far, and I’m getting more than a little agitated at being bested by someone like him. So far they’ve all been different sizes and shapes, so I’m looking for anything that isn’t a piece of nature.
I step onto a pile of white rocks that look like they were dumped out of someone’s garden and scan the branches of the tree in front of me, pulling up on my toes to peer over the leaves.
“Two have already been in a tree,” Emory says thoughtfully, his eyes narrowed as he searches the ground around us. “I’m guessing the rest of th
em will be placed somewhere else.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I say, pushing off the tree and taking a step back. My running shoes hit the rocks and slide, quicker than I can regain my balance. I flail, my shoulder smacking into the rough bark of the tree.
Strong hands grab my arms and hold me steady. “Watch out for the killer rocks,” Emory says, a smile tugging at his lips. “You okay?”
I nod. My legs go weak … being this close to him is more dangerous than the slippery terrain. He watches me for a beat, and I bite the inside of my lip to keep from smiling. Those dark brown eyes, brows knit together in concern—he’s really not making it easy to stop liking him.
Drawing in a deep breath, I turn and walk around the tree, putting the massive oak between me and the guy I’m trying to ignore. “It’s got to be around here somewhere,” I say, casual and collected and not sounding at all like a girl with butterflies in her stomach.
Behind the oak, half-rotten and covered in moss, lies a fallen pine tree. And a shoe print in the dirt next to it. I push away a suspicious-looking pile of pine needles with my foot. “Found it!” I call out, bouncing on my toes. I bend down and take the cache, grinning like a madwoman because I finally found one of these things.
Funny how a plastic pill bottle, painted black and covered in dirt can be the most rewarding part of my day. I hold it in my hands like a precious gemstone as I turn back toward Emory, who’s been looking on the ground a few feet away. “This must be what Christopher Columbus felt like when he discovered America.”
“Nerd,” Emory says.
I twist open the cap and pull out the paper inside, thrilled that I get to sign my name first this time. When I finish, I hold it out to Emory, but he doesn’t take it. He just stares at me.
“Listen, Isla,” he says, a muscle in his jaw twitching. He reaches for the paper and pencil and sighs. “I just want to say I’m sorry about last week. I was just messing around. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s fine,” I say, holding up the paper again. He still doesn’t take it. My shoulders fall, and I push the paper into his hand, closing his thumb around the pencil. “I know you well enough now to know that you can’t help being a dick.”
The Breakup Support Group Page 13