Solving for Ex

by LeighAnn Kopans

  “Aw, a tolo?” Vincent said. “I loved those! Too bad guys can’t go without a date.”

  By this point, a couple more kids on the team had started to trickle in.

  “You’ll take me, right, Ashley? Don’t let the poor new kid be left hanging at home.”

  I should have made a joke about how he could have found any girl in the school he wanted to take him. But damn me, I looked up into those warm, soft eyes, and they looked at me the same way they had a week ago on the roof, like I was really beautiful, like I was something to be enchanted with.

  And just like that, the shirt I’d envisioned handing across the table to Brendan a hundred times got passed into Vincent’s hands instead. “Why not?” I said shakily. “And I already have a shirt.”

  “Aw, sweet!” Vincent said as he unrolled it and read it for everyone. “Do not drink and derive.” The entire little crowd cracked up. Obviously everything that came out of Vincent’s mouth was inherently more hilarious than anything I could have said. Britt stared at me with deadpan, murderous eyes, then mumbled something about the ladies’ room and stalked out through the side door. It was just a stupid Sadie Hawkins—she could cut in on a snowball dance if she wanted to, anyway.

  Then my gaze caught Brendan’s. It was moving between Vincent, the shirt, and me. His expression was a perfect cross between realization, sadness, and—did I see a little embarrassment? He knew that shirt was for him. And he knew I was going to ask him. And he knew what a damn big deal that was. The only question was — what would he have said?

  bickerings and jealousies

  I busted through the double auditorium doors to the hallways, only then realizing how much I’d loved the little island of Mathletes practice in an otherwise empty sea of velvet-covered auditorium. The hallway was a salmon run, a frenzy of kids not really thinking about where they were going or why. Voices and conversations flowed around me like water, individual words droplets splashing against my skin.

  And then a whole spray of them hit me in the face.

  “Can you believe that whore Ashley Price is the one who gets to be making out with Vincent on Sadie night?” Britt’s voice was distinctively sharp among the dozens of others around me.

  If I could have, I would’ve stopped dead in my tracks. It wasn’t the “making out” or even the “Vincent” that stopped me. It wasn’t even the fact that I’d never wanted to go to Sadie with him in the first place.

  It was the words “whore” and “Ashley” in the same sentence. It knocked the wind out of me.

  I shouldered my way through the crush of kids to my right, leaned against the wall, turned to the side so that no one could see me and so that I could catch my breath. Even through my gasps, I could hear the rest of what they were saying. “Hanging all over Brendan since the day she got here…then going after the guy we all want? Like he’s more interested in her than he is in us? Like she even stands a chance?”

  It had been a long time since I’d had to deal with this kind of shit. Eight months, to be exact. Hadn’t been trash-talked about, not in broad daylight at least, since I left Williamson.

  I wasn’t going after Vincent at all. Of course I was stunned a little bit every time he looked at me since I met him weeks ago—those warm eyes and thick lashes were almost too gorgeous to be real. Never mind the fact that they focused on me with interest. I was pretty, just as pretty as some of the other girls, but I didn’t dress as nicely, and didn’t run with the giggly boy-baiting crowds. Never attracted that much attention from any guy.

  Until now.

  I’d always thought no one cared that much about me being close to Brendan—although even thinking about the girls saying I was hanging on him made me bristle, since I never did that. Even being hopelessly in love with him, I knew the difference between acting like a guy’s best friend and throwing myself at him.

  Besides, one of the reasons I’d always loved Brendan was that he didn’t act like the other popular, rich guys around those girls. He didn’t take girls out on fancy dates, and never bought expensive clothes. And he didn’t look like the famous actors in magazines. He was just Brendan. With his warm smile and floppy hair and his slightly skinny frame and broken-in jeans and incredible brain and uncannily complete understanding of me.

  And, I reminded myself as I watched him walk out of a classroom and down the hall with Sofia, his interest in the drop-dead gorgeous new girl.

  Either way, Brendan was the one I cared about, and Sadie Hawkins with Vincent was not worth the trouble it would apparently cause. He was cute, but not cute enough to elicit the word “whore” being spat at me for the next eight months, and probably another visit to the psych ward. I had to figure out a way to un-ask him. But first, since my pulse was already racing and I was breaking out in a sweat, I had to get the hell out of there.

  The rush of students had thinned considerably in the time it had taken me to catch my breath and screw my head on straight. Still, I plowed through the middle of the hallway like that was the only way to get through. Maybe it was. Just ten more steps till I reached the outside air.

  Six steps to outside. Two.

  And then, echoing off the walls, someone shouted, “Hey! Ashley! Ashley Price!” Even raised, the voice was baritone and rich, soft and strong at the same time. Like velvet. I turned over my shoulder, against my better judgment, which was telling me to just get the hell out of there. Vincent was jogging up to me, his curls swaying against the bottom edge of his perfectly broken-in baseball cap just the slightest bit.

  I turned back around and kept going. Outside was a shock of smoky cool brightness. The sun scorched my eyes and my field of vision, and I relied on memory alone to propel myself in the right direction to eventually hit the little car Kristin and Bruce sometimes let me take to school, if Kristin didn’t have much planned.

  “Hey, Ashley!” Geez, this guy didn’t let up. His footsteps scraped after me against the gravel. Reluctantly, I slowed down. Anyone could see, in this instance at least, that he’d literally been chasing me. I reached the first line of cars and slowed until he caught up with me, then tented my hand over my eyes to look at him.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.”

  Wow, his teeth were white. And those lips…

  “Well?” Why had he tried so hard to catch up with me if he had nothing to say?

  “That’s it. Just…hey. I don’t know.”

  I gave him a weird sideways smile, shook my head, and kept walking.

  “Hey! Wait up!” Vincent caught up with me again as I hoisted my bag over my shoulder, grunting. He held out his hand. “Let me.”

  I rolled my eyes, but my shoulder did ache from the four huge textbooks straining the canvas. I held the strap out to him, and he smiled as he took the bag.

  Suddenly, I felt a lot lighter.

  Vincent said, “I just thought, you know, since we’re going to the dance together, we could talk. Get to know each other. Or I could at least walk you to your car.”

  “Yeah…about that…maybe I should give the other girls their fair shot at you.”

  Vincent laughed, almost a snort. “Am I a target?”

  “Well, to them you are. And I know you don’t know me that well, but I really am not a fan of putting myself in the path of shooting arrows. Especially when they’re that sharp.”

  “What are you so worked up about? It’s just Sadie Hawkins. Just one night.”

  “Look, Vincent. It’s not you, okay? You’re…” not Brendan. “You’re great. It’s just that…everyone wants to go out with you. Every girl here wishes that she was the one taking you to Sadie.”

  Brendan would have shrugged it off. He would have pretended that wasn’t true. But Vincent just cocked his head a little to the left, smiled, and said, “Yeah. But you’re the one I wanted to say yes to.”

  I started to hyperventilate a little. This was no good. Not at all.

  “Look, are you having second thoughts?”

  “No…I mean y
es…”

  The look of shock on Vincent’s face would’ve made me giggle if I wasn’t so completely freaked out.

  “I mean…no.” I don’t know what came over me then, but something about the way he looked at me made me feel so damn confident that I touched his shoulder. “No, don’t take that the wrong way, just…there’s only one person who knows what I’m about to tell you. Can you keep a secret?”

  He stood up straighter, and a serious look swept down over his face. “Absolutely.”

  “I left my old school because…well…everyone heard that I slept with some guy.”

  “So?”

  “Well, ‘some guy’ was the captain of the lacrosse team…”

  “…and he had a girlfriend?”

  I nodded and swallowed hard. “Yeah. The head cheerleader.”

  He leaned back against the wall and raked his hand through his hair, blowing out a low whistle. “Shit, Ashley. How’d you get caught up in that?”

  I felt my face screw up, and suddenly Vincent looked serious again. “Did he…you know…force you?”

  “No…no! That’s the thing. Nothing happened.”

  “Wait. Like…you didn’t sleep with him?”

  I shook my head, stared at my shoes, tried to keep the tears from filling my eyes. “Didn’t even bat my eyes at him.”

  “Okay, so where did the rumor come from?”

  “His girlfriend’s best friend. I wouldn’t help her cheat on a math final.”

  “And for that, she got you burned so bad you had to leave the school?”

  The tears spilled out now—I watched a couple fall through the air and darken the floor at my feet. “Yeah. Tore my textbooks out of the spine, superglued my locker shut. Slashed my tires. Egged my house. Spray-painted it, too. Stole my homework and used it for toilet paper. Stuffed my clothes in the toilet during gym. Harassed me online. Made a website. Hijacked a billboard.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Vincent stood up again. I could barely see him through all the tears pooling in front of my eyes. The lump in my throat blocked any words from coming out, so I just looked him in the eyes and nodded. I think that was the first time he realized I was crying. It must have been, because he stepped forward and wrapped me in his arms.

  Even though they were warm, and he smelled so, so good, I stiffened. “It’s…it’s okay,” I said, standing up and hastily wiping my eyes with my shirt sleeve. “It’s just that…I don’t know. I already don’t have a lot of friends here, you know? And I have a lot going for me here, academically. Mathletes, and a few friends at least. And really nowhere else to go if I screw this up. So…I appreciate you saving me in there. Really. I do.”

  “What,” he said, “you didn’t mean to get me that geeky math shirt?”

  The smile on his face betrayed him. He knew that I’d really wanted to ask Brendan.

  “Look,” he continued. “I know it wasn’t meant for me. But I think you’re great. Okay? And I don’t want you to miss out on the fun. And I really don’t want to miss out on a night with you.” He reached down and picked up my hand.

  I smiled, and sniffled. I should have felt completely embarrassed, but for some reason, I didn’t. Why was I spilling everything to this total stranger? Was it those eyes? That dimple? The way he smiled at me?

  Whatever it was, I was in trouble.

  “So I promise you,” he said, “that for the next two weeks, until Sadie Hawkins, I won’t so much as look at another girl, if that’s what worries you. No sitting next to them at lunch, no driving them home, and absolutely no carrying their books.” He looked at my bag, still slung over his shoulder. “Do you think that’ll avert the vitriol?”

  I sniffed again. Vincent reached out one finger and touched my chin, lifting it up so that I looked at him, then dropping his hand. I nodded gratefully. “Yeah.” I said. “Yes. That’s…you don’t have to. But thank you. I mean…it’s just a few weeks, and then you can…”

  “Hey. Hey. If there’s one thing you should know about me, Ashley Price, it’s that I don’t believe in playing by the rules. Besides, do you think I’d offer if I didn’t care about you? Or if I really wanted to date anyone else?”

  Oh, God. Did this mean we were dating now? “You mean, go on a date,” I said, immediately biting my tongue.

  He shrugged, and smiled again. “Sure. Whatever. Go on a date. Or another one after it. Or a lot of them.” Then he turned and walked to his car.

  I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you,” felt weird, and “see ya” felt too casual. So all I managed to choke out before he disappeared behind the flashing windows was, “Uh…”

  And he just smiled back at me, not seeming to mind at all.

  ‘never’ is a black word

  Somehow, I arrived home without ever remembering driving along the roads or stopping at the lights.

  There were two things my brain was having serious amounts of trouble computing. First, that the drop-dead gorgeous new girl was literally all over Brendan. There were two options; either someone else had finally realized how amazing Brendan was and gone for it, or there was something else going on.

  Second, that her equally drop-dead gorgeous brother was trying so hard just to go out with me, once, two weeks from now.

  The whole drive home, the conversation with Vincent repeated itself in my mind. He had saved my ass in there. And he looked at me, in my eyes and not down my shirt, like no other guy besides Brendan had ever done. He was decent. He was very cute. And it was only a little weird that he wanted to go out with me. Maybe he didn’t even like sitting at the popular kids’ lunch table. Maybe he liked someone a little quieter. Someone like me.

  The only question was, did I like someone like him?

  Really, I didn’t know much about him. Hardly anything at all. I knew I liked Brendan—I knew I liked his easy, oblivious smile, the way we were together, the way he smelled. But how much of him did I like because he was familiar? Because he’d rescued me? Because he’d been the lives-next-door best friend that I’d never had living in farm country, because he’d been my ticket to everyone liking me at Mansfield? Brendan was the person who helped me start over.

  He also happened to be perfect for me.

  “It’s just a dance,” I said under my breath. I trudged up the front steps and into the house, which was cluttered but not dirty, like always. A problem of people with too much money and too much time on their hands—shopping. The living room was full of random department-store bags containing things like brand-new comforters and napkin rings, and yet another black cardigan or pair of silver earrings for Kristin.

  I stopped in the kitchen to grab a soda, and a note waited for me on the kitchen counter. It was in Kristin’s scrawling handwriting: “Out late. Frozen pizza in freezer.” I wrinkled my nose. Pizza was okay, but the cardboard crust made the frozen stuff completely inedible for me. Kristin meant well, but she never paid much attention to things like that.

  I traipsed through the open living room area, pulling out my phone and checking the texts for the homework questions from Brendan I knew would be there. Every day last year I’d had to field his questions clarifying the assignment. Nothing. I scrolled through to make sure. Nope. Seriously? Nothing? It must just be that he didn’t want to bother with it the first few days—even though he was a little bit of a slacker, he was smart as hell, and always caught up.

  My limbs buzzed with some weird feeling I couldn’t name. Antsiness, annoyance, I didn’t know. I just knew I didn’t want to sit still.

  I dropped my backpack with a thud at the doorway to my room, and kept walking toward the bathroom. Without even pulling up my hair, I cranked on the cold water, bent down, and splashed my face with it. When had it gotten so hot in the house? Or was it just a weird bubble of heat around my whole body?

  Either way, that water felt good. I leaned forward, planting my hands on the sink and staring in the mirror. Water dripped off my eyelashes, my nose, and my bottom lip. I wiped the water from my lids and le
aned in even more.

  I’d always thought of my hazel eyes as a mess of colors that couldn’t make up their minds to be one thing or another, but now that I really paid attention, the light brown flecked with green and a little blue and ringed with dark brown on the outside was mesmerizing. Like a kaleidoscope. My lashes were dark, thick and pretty, and combined with the careful makeup I’d applied there, they looked mysterious. Like something a guy might want to lose himself in. Suddenly, I could see why Vincent looked at my face, instead of scoping out my chest.

  I leaned back a little then and pressed my fingertips to my cheeks. They had thinned out over the summer, I realized now that I really looked at them, leaving what appeared to be a higher cheekbone. Even though my face was tanned golden and sprayed with freckles by my summer in the sun, I definitely looked more grown-up than I had the last time I stared in this mirror. The summer had changed me.

  I mean, hell. I was pretty. Pretty enough for a guy like Vincent to really, really notice me. To be excited, instead of annoyed, when he got stuck going to Sadie with me.

  Pretty enough for a guy like him to pursue, even.

  Staring in that mirror, imagining how Vincent had been looking at me in the hallway, my eyes trailed down my neck, which I stroked with my fingers, and down to my shoulder. My bra peeked out of my tank top strap a little. It was actually a little sexy.

  If I was Vincent, would I really want to go to Sadie with me? If I didn’t know about my crazy crush on Brendan Thomas? Or even if I did know about it?

  Probably.

  Would I want to kiss me?

  Hell yeah.

  I caught my bottom lip between my teeth. I was ready to laugh at myself for even trying to pull a purposefully sexy look, but it actually worked. I really did look sexy. A totally new feeling for me. I kind of liked it.

  But how would it look if I actually tried to kiss the guy? You know, give him the signal, lean in, or maybe even grab him to make out in the hallway?