I watched as Brendan let his hands curve around her waist, right where the shirt bunched into her jeans. I thought my eyes might burn out of their sockets. His hands sat there for the first few seconds, his palms flat, but as the song went on, they talked and laughed even more. Sofia went from resting her wrists on Brendan’s shoulders to leaning her forearms there. Her face was just inches from his. The song swelled as it ended, and Sofia tossed back her head and laughed. Then she looked at Brendan with her eyebrows furrowed, and reached up and held some of the hair out of his face. He shook his head, letting his hair flop like normal back into his eyes. Just like I’d always liked it.
The singer finished crooning the closing notes of the song, then announced, “Okay, each one of our original couple, choose a new partner, and after that, it’s all girls!” Her tone was way too chipper and enthusiastic for something so incredibly stressful. Still, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Brendan.
And then, he looked up at me, and mouthed, “Please?” while smiling that sheepish smile I couldn’t resist. I rolled my eyes and headed toward him, but I couldn’t wipe the grin off of my face. Sofia’s eyes caught mine, and for a split second I could have sworn they shot poison at me. But then that smile, the impossibly peppy and unmovable one I’d seen since I hung out with her at Custard’s First Stand, took over, as she extended one perfectly manicured nail toward the captain of the lacrosse team—Rush, tall and muscled and definitely Julia’s boyfriend.
The interlude music was slow, and my heart jumped as I got closer to Brendan. He put one hand on my waist, but held out the other away from his body.
He wanted to dance with me like he’d dance with his mom. Or his sister. Or his best friend.
Just his best friend. Nothing more.
He smiled at me. That genuine, huge, heartwarming smile that made me feel right at home, even in the middle of this crazy, awkward, angsty dance floor, where girls were starting to pick new partners left and right, and dirty, territorial looks were a dime a dozen. Yeah, I felt right at home with Brendan, no matter what else was going on.
The only question was, why did I even still feel that way? Because the other thing I knew for sure was that his fingers didn’t curve into my waist like they had with Sofia’s. And he definitely wasn’t anywhere close to hugging my body to his.
With a couple dozen couples on the floor, the interlude ended, and the singer started a fast, wild number with loud drums and screaming horns. And that’s when Brendan’s fingers finally dug into my waist.
A smile so wide spread across my face, I swear I must have looked like an idiot. But the same one was on his.
“Do you still remember?” he shouted over the scream of the horns.
“How could I forget?” I shouted.
For being so wiry thin, Brendan was also cut, and a lot stronger than he looked. We launched into the swing dance routine we’d picked up in one of the many fancy elective gym classes Mansfied prep offered last year.Brendan had saved me from the indignity of learning the routine with one of the only other girls who’d been stupid enough to take the class without arm-wrestling her boyfriend into taking it with her.
But when he pulled me to him, his hand was flat against my waist. His fingers didn’t curve in and hold on like they did to Sofia’s. Less curves to hold onto, I guessed, but still. I knew the difference.
By then, between all the kicks and twists and jumps and twirls and lifts, all the other kids had backed up, making a circle of floor around us, and were clapping in time with the music. God, no matter how tightly he was holding on to my waist, it felt so good for us just to hang out for a few minutes. No Sofia. No weirdness. No obsessing. Just moving, feeling, being.
When the song finally wound down in a three-round fanfare of trumpet, everyone applauded like crazy, and the singer cried, “Let’s give it up for our swing-dancing couple in the center! Way to take it back to the ’30s, you guys!”
I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the inside of my wrist and beamed. But when I turned my face to Brendan’s, his eyes were somewhere else. On Sofia, looking all mopey at the edge of the circle.
Vincent walked up and nudged his shoulder into mine, holding a drink in each hand. Brendan took the opportunity to drop my hand and head toward Sofia. The smile she flashed him must have blinded him, because he smiled and walked with her to the milkshake station without a glance back at me.
I spent the next half hour standing around talking with Vincent, then following Julia to the bathroom and listening to her angst about why her boyfriend wasn’t loving every second of this dance. “I mean, that magazine said they love it when the girls take charge. Sadie is all about taking charge,” she whined, touching up her lip gloss in the mirror.
Then, in a cloud of flowery air, Sofia walked into the bathroom and pushed into a stall.
This was my chance. Just to get a second alone with Brendan, to say hi. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say to him, but I did know I wanted to say it without Sofia.
Brendan had stepped out into the courtyard, even though it was freezing. Sofia had spent the evening so far at the punch table with a group of girls, throwing glances at me over her shoulder. How she’d picked up so many girlfriends in the few weeks she’d been here, I’d never know. I couldn’t imagine having that many friends in my whole life.
Brendan leaned against one of the stone pillars. If I stood behind one just right, no one in the auditorium would be able to see me. Perfect.
It was starting to get pretty chilly outside. The wind had already begun to howl through the mountains that held Pittsburgh, and the air it swept in off the rivers was frigid. Even though I had on a long-sleeved shirt underneath the math tee, and full-length jeans with my heels, a shiver shuddered through my whole body. “Jesus, Brendan. What are you doing out here?” If he couldn’t hear my teeth chatter from two feet away where he stood, it would be a miracle.
A song that was not fast, but not slow either, floated out into the courtyard. I peered inside to see how the other kids were taking it. Slow, with lots of wandering hands. Awesome.
I clutched at my upper arms, crossing my arms in front of me. “Oh, Ash.” Brendan looked over at me with a soft smile. “Here, babe.” He unbuttoned the paisley shirt that Sofia had given him—under which he wore a dark blue shirt with a very faded Superman logo on it—and held it out to me. I winced.
“You know how I hate DC comics.”
He laughed, lazily, and leaned back against the pillar. He didn’t shiver at all, though his arms were now bare. “Well, then don’t look at me.”
I couldn’t not look at him if I tried. He wasn’t beautiful like Vincent, but my God. There was something about the way his shoulders sloped down into toned arms, and the way his throat moved when he swallowed. And the way he smelled, which surrounded me as I pulled the cotton button-down over my own shoulders. Like his shampoo and dryer sheets and the grapefruit I knew he ate every morning, and a little vanilla—warm and comforting. I don’t know how or why the stupid pink paisley shirt didn’t smell like some perfume that Sofia had put on there, but I was grateful.
“What are you doing out here? You’ll catch your death.”
He chuckled. “You sound like my grandmother.”
“I’m just worried about you,” I grumbled, and shivered again.
Brendan pushed himself away from the pillar and walked over to me, where I leaned against the other one. He faced me and stepped in closer, so that our feet almost touched. His breath came in white clouds that warmed my face. It was all I could do to not close my eyes.
That is, until a split second later, when the smell on his breath hit me. Sharp. Alcohol. Not beer.
But I couldn’t say anything. He was so close. Then, he reached out to rub my upper arms, and I swear, I could have shaken down to my individual molecules right there in the courtyard. I shook, but it was no longer cold. It was straight-up nervousness.
“You’re freezing,” he said, looking down at me with
a slight smile on his face. With something in his eyes that I had never seen before. He studied my face, smiling bigger now, and dropped his hands, sliding his fingers down over my forearms and weaving them with mine. Warm waves ran up through my arms and back down my torso. He drew my hands toward him and put them around his waist. “Come here. Dance with me. You’ll warm up.”
“Um…okay,” I managed to stammer before he swept me up in the biggest, softest bear hug we’d ever had. We swayed together there in the freezing air of the courtyard, to a beat decidedly slower than the song playing inside.
We’d sat close before, but never pressed up against each other front-to-front. We’d certainly never hugged for this long. Brendan leaned his chin on the top of my head, and before I could even compose myself from that, kissed it softly.
I couldn’t breathe. I swore I would never take a breath again. Brendan hugged me even closer. “I love you, you know that, Ash?”
I closed my eyes. Those were the words I’d dreamed of hearing since the first week I met him. But something about this picture—Brendan in just a T-shirt in the frigid air, the sharp smell on his breath, and the way the “l” in “love” slurred just the slightest bit—it wasn’t right. This was not right.
Sadie Hawkins was not normally a dance that people brought their own beverages to, as far as I knew—kids at Mansfield saved all their serious partying for prom, when punishments would have less weight, since it was the end of the year. But Brendan had come with Sofia. She was new here. And a bitch. A rich bitch. And probably a lush, too.
“Brendan,” I sighed, “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think you can get drunk on three shots, Ashley.” His voice went so soft, and husky at the same time, when he said my name, “Ashley” instead of “Ash,” that I almost wanted to believe him. Almost wanted to believe that the way he pressed my body up against his, the way his hand moved up now and played with the hair at the nape of my neck, came from real emotions, instead of fuzzy ones. I knew about beer goggles, and I tried to tell myself that these were just stupid three-shot feelings.
“You, Brendan? Absolutely can. It’s not like you’re pounding down drinks every weekend like some of the kids here do.”
“You were going to ask me, weren’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. Why couldn’t he stick to the topic? “Why does it matter? Sofia asked first.”
Brendan laughed. “Yeah, she did. And she wasn’t taking no for an answer.”
I tried to figure out what the tone in Brendan’s voice, the edge to his words, meant. Obviously, he thought Sofia was cute, from the way he looked at her. But the way he held me told me that he didn’t only have eyes for her. Maybe. I hoped, even against my brain, which screamed at me that Vincent was the one I should logically be swooning over. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried, it kept coming back to Brendan.
“But you’re having a pretty good time with Vince, huh?”
“Vince?”
“Yeah. He seems like a good guy.” Again. The “d” slurred. Great.
I leaned back and looked at him, shaking my head a little bit. Once again, I had no idea what to say. What the heck was wrong with me? Since when had I cared about saying anything to Brendan?
When I looked out over his shoulder, my eyes met Sofia’s. She was wearing the same damn shirt I was, now. And she was pissed.
Then I knew since when. Since he went to Sadie with stupid Sofia. Since he was no longer all mine.
“Dance the rest of this song with me, huh, Ash?” he asked, his voice still husky. And then I couldn’t help it. I let his warmth wash over me, and stood on tiptoes, swaying with him there, and leaned my chin on his shoulder. And looked straight at Sofia, staring at me from the damn punch table.
Annoyance flashed through her eyes. She leaned in and whispered something in Britt’s ear, and started walking straight toward us. She’d be here in ten seconds.
I stepped back, wrenching myself away from Brendan’s bear hug, even with every fiber of my being wanting to stay there all night. I yanked my arms out of his shirt.
“Hey, what’s up?” The softness in his voice was wearing off. I shoved the shirt into his waiting hands and mumbled something about needing to meet Vincent.
Sofia and I crossed paths, and I stopped for a second to avoid bumping into her. She plastered on the most fake smile I’d ever seen, and reflexively, I fake-smiled in return.
“He’s a little tipsy,” I said.
“That’s just why I was coming out here,” Sofia said. Her breath smelled like alcohol, too, but her eyes were clear and her voice was a little too perky for my liking, or for this conversation, for that matter.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I think Vincent was looking for you.”
I locked my eyes with hers. “Are you okay?” I asked again, articulating each word. Brendan may have been acting ten kinds of confusing, but I wasn’t going to let Sofia drive him home if she had been drinking too much.
“Yeah.” She nodded, meeting my eyes, then looking at Brendan. The plastic smile came back. “You don’t need to worry about him anymore, okay?”
I blew out a shaky breath. The only way she would say that, with so much steadiness and challenge in her voice, was if she knew I’d be tempted to step up to it. If she knew I wanted Brendan too.
And now that she was with him, now that she had staked her claim to him, at least tonight, I couldn’t afford to do that. Not when I still had so few friends, and so many potential enemies. And considering her insta-popularity.
She could crush me. And then I wouldn’t only lose another school, I’d lose Brendan too.
I turned on my heel, stalked back inside, and I didn’t even feel the cold. A blizzard could be going on, and I’d melt a bubble around me just from the heat in my cheeks, and the heat that burned in my chest.
I only made it a few feet inside before Vincent found me.
“Hey,” he called. “Ashley!” His voice was equal parts relieved, happy, and concerned. His eyes danced. Did they do that for everyone, or just for me? Because whenever they were on me, I felt like they didn’t look at anyone else quite that same way. He didn’t grab me. Didn’t step closer. Didn’t pressure me at all.
“Wanna dance?”
My eyes narrowed at Brendan and Sofia, standing outside. She was saying something to him, playing with his hair again, or complaining about it—it was hard to tell. But she squealed, and smacked at his wrist for something, but then caught his arm and wrapped it around her waist. I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t look anymore. Not tonight. Not when I knew Brendan wasn’t even really himself.
Not when I knew that drinking at all wasn’t his real self.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
if one scheme of happiness fails
Sadie Hawkins night ended as uneventfully as any high school dance night possibly could. I got bored, and kids started heading to after-parties, or whatever. Vincent must have understood by my body language or something that I didn’t want to go, and he didn’t ask. He walked me to the limo, let me in, laughed with me about how lame the Snowball and all the other games Sofia brought up throughout the course of the night to get people dancing were, and that was that.
The whole night, Vincent didn’t dance with anyone else. Didn’t talk to another girl, didn’t bring another girl punch, even. One hundred percent true to his promise.
“I think you made your point, you know,” I said, interrupting his calm stare out the window.
“What do you mean?”
“You can hang out with other people. I think the other girls have quit hating my guts for holding your hand.”
It was true. I got a couple glances dancing with Vincent, but overall, no one had seemed to care that we were together.
Were we together?
With four words, Vincent broke my thoughts. “I don’t want to.”
I laughed. “What do you mean, you don’t want to? Don’t tell me you’re some kind of introv
erted, antisocial freak.” Like me.
“No. No, I like partying just fine, hanging out with other kids. But I like hanging out with you way more. And if partying isn’t your thing…”
He leaned over to me, reached his fingers out, and let them brush against mine. The warmth of his touch sent a calm through me, a steadiness I hadn’t felt in a long time. My fingers reached back to tangle with his. Yes, something about this was nice. Solid. Adoring.
But it wasn’t real, because I barely knew Vincent, and all things considered—dinner, limo, and gorgeous smile—I had no idea how I felt about him. The only thing I knew was that I still had feelings for Brendan. Despite Sofia, despite the drinking. Even despite him ignoring me.
I extracted my fingers from his and leaned back against the seat, staring out the window, plastering a smile on my face so I didn’t look as shaken as I felt.
“Look, Ashley. I know.”
“Know what?”
“About Brendan.”
I looked down at my hands, my fingers folded together. Like they could be with Vincent’s if I’d just let him. And there was really no reason why not.
“What about him?”
Vincent smiled that gentle, patient smile that brought out his dimple ever so slightly. “I know you like him. A lot. I could tell by the way you danced together.”
Unfortunately, so could I.
“I can also tell that he likes my sister. Like, a lot. I’m a guy, okay? Even though it’s my sister, and that’s weird, I see these things.”
I wanted to say that she didn’t give him much of a chance not to like her, that she was always all over him. I tried to remember if I had even gotten a word in edgewise with Brendan at school since she’d first arrived at Mansfield Prep.
Then I remembered that Brendan was definitely his own person, who could have made time to hang out with me if he had really wanted to.
And as much as I suspected holding hands with Vincent wouldn’t bring me the kind of thrill I’d always gotten bumping shoulders with Brendan, I couldn’t think of any good reason not to give him more of a chance, either.
Solving for Ex Page 9