by Doty, M.
“Well,” asked Kimi. “What did she say?”
“She’s becoming…” Emily trailed off. “She’s becoming me.”
In study hall that day, as Emily struggled through her Statistics homework, Ben sat down at the desk next to her and leaned over to whisper, “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you be, you know, in class?”
“I told Mr. Carr I had appendicitis. Again. He really is a terrible health teacher.”
“I thought you were supposed to be working on your grades,” said Emily with a frown. Had he just told her that in the heat of the moment? What if he hadn’t changed at all? Her mom had warned her about guys like Ben, guys who promised girls the world at night and then took it all back the next morning.
“I am. I really am,” he said. “I already turned in the last month and a half’s worth of calculus problem sets, and I just got 105 percent on my AP Physics test. But is everything still okay with you? Last week at the pool you acted like I was a creepy stranger or something.”
Emily was about to reply when Mrs. Watanabe walked by, checking to make sure everyone was still hard at work. She grabbed an iPhone away from Howard Wu, who was in the process of burning down his Sims’ house, and stuck it in her pocket. Emily and Ben waited in silence until she’d returned to her desk before resuming their conversation.
“I just want to keep things between us—private. At least for now.”
“You’re embarrassed of me?”
“What? No, of course not.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I mean, we’ve only been on one date,” he said. “I think it’s a little early for us to start fighting.”
“No, I’m not embarrassed about you—us—whatever,” said Emily.
“Good,” he said. “Because I already told Spencer about our late-night rendezvous, and he’s not exactly the best at keeping secrets.”
Emily cringed. What if Spencer had blabbed to Lindsay? Or even worse, Dominique?
“The thing is, I may have forgotten to mention that my dad is kind of a controlling psycho who’ll ground me for life if he finds out I’m secretly dating you.”
“So we’re ‘dating’ now?” asked Ben.
“Are you kidding me?” asked Emily. “Did you just hear a word I said?”
“Emily, you worry too much,” said Ben. “Not getting caught is my specialty. I’ve sneaked you out after bedtime once. There’s no reason to think I can’t do it again. And again. And again.”
“This is going to end badly,” said Emily.
“Is that a reason not to try?”
She looked into his brown eyes and suddenly lost her ability to say no. She’d have to work on that.
“I guess I wouldn’t be upset if you happened to show up at ten thirty tonight,” she said.
“Sounds good. I’ll send you a text when I get to your place. Then you can just hop out the window and”—footsteps approached—“yes, that is how you get the derivative of that equation! Thanks for the help.”
Emily looked over her shoulder to see Mrs. Watanabe lurking behind her.
“Kale, out,” she said. “Kessler, save the romance for your own time. I’d hate to tell your father that you’re sitting out a meet to head to detention, but I’ll risk it if I have to.”
“See you tonight,” mouthed Ben silently as he backed out of the room, and Emily couldn’t help but smile. He was right. Even if it was doomed to fail, even if it was only a matter of time, seeing him was worth it. She had to try.
CHAPTER TEN
Over the course of the next week, Emily and Ben developed a routine. At ten thirty, she’d say good night to her parents, turn off her light, and lock her door. By ten thirty-five, he’d text her to say he’d arrived, and by ten forty, she’d be walking down the block, bundled up in a huge coat to keep out the cold November air, and there at the corner would be Ben, waiting in his car.
As Emily approached, Ben would leave his engine running and jump out to give her a big hug. He’d wrap his arms around her fluffy coat and squeeze her so tight that she’d let out a joyful squeak.
Ben took her to a new place every night: a bowling alley where everything was illuminated by black lights overhead so that whites and colors shone with an eerie luminescence; a pet store downtown where a horde of puppies slept peacefully in the front window; a hill overlooking the city that provided a perfect view of the local amusement park’s weekly fireworks display.
They’d talk for hours about everything and nothing, and sometimes, staring at the city lights, they’d just sit together in silence as Emily wondered if they were thinking the same thoughts. Instead of discovering some unpleasant facts about him, Emily only liked him more and more with each date, until she felt her crush deepening into something more like love, though, of course, they were still a long way from saying that word out loud.
And every night, he’d get her home at midnight or two AM or later. He’d hug her good-bye, and she’d crawl into bed as her muscles ached and her mind drifted.
As the days passed, her lack of sleep started catching up to her, and Emily found her eyelids growing heavy in class. There just weren’t enough hours in the day for school, swimming, and Ben, but which of the three was she supposed to give up?
She was asking herself just that question, shuffling down the hall one day after school, when she came around a corner and ran directly into Cameron Clark.
“Oh,” he said. It was the first time she’d seen him look truly uncomfortable. “Hey.”
“Cameron,” she said. And then she drew a blank. What exactly was she supposed to say to her sister’s ex?
“Listen, about the party,” he said. “I shouldn’t have mentioned your sister.”
“No,” she said. “It’s okay. Samantha told me—”
“Samantha told you what?” he asked.
“That you and Sara, you know, dated.”
Cameron snorted.
“I wish you were right,” he said bitterly. “Sara and I—we trained together every day. Nobody pushed me like she did, and I think she would have said the same of me. She was one of—maybe the only girl at school I truly respected. Between sets, I used to tell her about all the girls I hooked up with. She’d just roll her eyes and give me a hard time.” Cameron smiled slightly.
“I don’t understand,” said Emily.
“Sara… was amazing. A champion, a competitor. But, you know. She wasn’t exactly popular. No one really thought she was hot. Except—I guess I did. I just didn’t know it at the time, how much she meant to me.”
His voice was shaking. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I have these dreams where I go back—and instead of telling her about the other girls I dated, I ask her out instead. Maybe—maybe then things would have turned out differently—”
“But I heard she had a boyfriend.”
“I’ve heard that rumor,” said Cameron. “I told you before, though, Sara could definitely keep a secret. I told her everything. Yeah, everyone knows about the girls I’ve dated, but Sara actually knew about the ones who turned me down. She never told anyone. If she did have secrets of her own, she guarded them pretty close.… And if she had a boyfriend, he was a lucky guy.”
Emily finished changing into her swimsuit before the next Thursday’s practice. She was unsteady on her feet, and she had to brace herself against a locker as she straightened her swim cap.
“What’s with the zombie impersonation?” asked Samantha from a few lockers over. “You do realize it’s not Halloween, right?”
Emily hadn’t seen Samantha alone since she’d gotten that ride home from Ben’s party weeks ago, and since then, she’d been so focused on dating Ben that she hadn’t really made an effort to track down Samantha. Now the older girl’s words echoed in Emily’s head.
“If your sister had time for a boyfriend, so do you.”
But if Samantha hadn’t been talking about Cameron, who could it be?
For a seco
nd, Emily paused. Maybe it was better if she didn’t know. She’d always loved her sister, looked up to her. Knowing the truth could change everything.
“I’m just tired,” Emily said.
“Well, get some sleep,” said Samantha. “Quals for Junior Nationals are a week away. I’m not sure if it’s your biggest priority anymore, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to lose to blondie.”
Emily took a deep breath. She couldn’t run away from the truth. Even if what she found out about Sara wasn’t pleasant, she had to know.
“Yeah,” said Emily. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask.… You mentioned something about Sara—and a boyfriend?”
A shadow passed over Samantha’s face.
“Look, I’ve tried to be nice to you about the whole thing,” she said. “Out of respect, you know. She’s gone now. Who cares what happened?”
She stripped off her sweater and tossed it violently into her locker.
“I do,” said Emily.
Samantha started unlacing a big black combat boot. Her hands were tense and white against the laces.
“Nick and I—we were in love,” said Samantha. “At least I thought we were. Then she came along and it was like he couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.”
“Nick?” asked Emily. “Nick Brown?” She felt her pulse pounding through her body, and her breathing quickened. Was it really possible?
“I know how much it hurt him to lose her,” said Samantha. “But that doesn’t make it any easier for me.”
“I’ve—I’ve got to go,” said Emily. She walked out of the locker room and out to the pool, where the shouts of the other swimmers echoed from every wall. Nick Brown—the same Nick Brown who had killed Sara—had been her boyfriend?
She leaned against the wall, trying not to pass out from the one-two punch of sleep deprivation and sheer emotional exhaustion.
“Kessler!” shouted her dad as he came up from behind her. “What’s the holdup? Get into the pool!”
“Just a second.”
“What’s with the bags under your eyes?” he asked. “You having trouble sleeping? If you can’t get to sleep, you’re not training hard enough.”
How much more could she take? Maybe this was the moment when she would break, when the weight of the sky became too much for her shoulders, and it crushed her beneath its weight.
She looked her dad—her coach—in the eyes. No, not yet. She wouldn’t break. Not here, not now.
“I’m fine,” Emily said, gritting her teeth.
Nick Brown, she thought, as if repeating the name inside her brain would force it to make sense. Nick Brown. Nick Brown. Nick Brown.
Then she walked to the side of the pool and jumped in.
“Kessler!” shouted Mr. McBride the next day in class.
“Huh?” asked Emily. “What?” She’d just been dreaming about sleeping on a very nice, very fluffy cloud next to Ben. Oh, no. She’d gotten to the point where she was literally dreaming about sleeping.
“I’m sorry,” said Mr. McBride. “Did I wake you?”
“No. I was—concentrating.”
Mr. McBride massaged his forehead, his fingers brushing against his bushy eyebrows.
“Well then,” he said, “I’m sure you won’t mind telling us how the Hittites had such a profound combat advantage over their contemporaries.”
“They, uh, developed bronze weapons?”
“Almost!” shouted Mr. McBride. “So very, very close! But in fact, the correct answer is that they were one of the first cultures to develop—wait for it—iron weapons, which cut through their enemies’ bronze swords like a hot knife through butter.” He put his hands on Emily’s desk and looked down at her. “Minus one. And see me after class.”
After class, Emily waited as the other students filtered out of the room, then calmly walked over to Mr. McBride’s desk.
“About earlier,” she said. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Not yet,” he said, marking a large D-minus atop another student’s essay. “We’re expecting one more guest.”
Confused, Emily turned to see Alicia Prez walk into the room.
“Ah, there she is,” said Mr. McBride. “Please take a seat.”
Alicia and Emily both sat down at desks near the front of the room.
“Just because I fell asleep once?” asked Emily. “How did you even have time to call her?”
“We were planning to meet with you already,” he said, still not looking up from the paper. “Your little nap merely allowed me a chance to punctuate the statement we’re about to make.”
“I’ve been getting reports from a lot of your teachers that your performance is slipping in class,” said Alicia. “Nothing too drastic—just a little drop from stellar down to above average. But what’s got a lot of people worried is the way you look—it’s like you can barely keep your eyes open.”
“I haven’t been getting much sleep lately,” Emily confessed.
“Not too many students push themselves as hard as you do,” said Alicia, scooting her desk closer to Emily. “There are plenty of students taking nothing but honors classes—and plenty more athletes—but to try to do both—”
“I’m doing fine,” said Emily, standing up. She turned to Mr. McBride. “What’s my grade in this class right now?”
He looked down at his notebook.
“B-minus.”
She picked up her backpack, feeling her face glowing red with embarrassment.
“Fine,” she said. “Then I’ll just have to work harder.”
“Emily,” said Alicia, “that’s not what we’re trying to—”
But Emily didn’t want to hear any more. It was just too much to take, especially from Alicia, who had been so proud of her before. She got up and left the room without another word.
“Hello?” called Kimi. “Earth to Emily! Are you ready?”
Emily sat on a bench outside the fitting rooms at the huge Macy’s at the center of the mall as Kimi prepared to show her yet another dress. This would be the twelfth one she’d tried on, each more hideous than the last.
“Ready!” said Emily, trying not to let her exhaustion creep into her voice. As she and Kimi had scoured clothing racks in every corner of the mall, Emily realized two things: one, that she had never really gone dress shopping before, and two, that she didn’t like it.
On each of her previous trips to the mall, Emily had come with her mom, or on infrequent, stressful occasions, her dad. She’d seen clothes as something functional—a way to ward off the cold and rain. She’d barely cared how she looked.
This was real dress shopping. Hitting every store at the mall with a girlfriend in tow, trying on any dress that looked even remotely flattering on the rack. By the time they’d been shopping for an hour, Emily’s calves and feet ached, and she’d had to beg Kimi for a break so she could sit while Kimi tried on more dresses.
Still, shopping wasn’t all bad. Normally Emily would have cringed at the thought of spending a Saturday afternoon this way, but given her current stress level, any distraction was a welcome one.
“What do you think?” asked Kimi as she emerged from the fitting room and twirled in a full-length green ball gown. This one hugged Kimi’s body strangely, making her appear almost cylindrical instead of curvy.
“You look like a big cucumber,” said Emily after a few seconds. “But maybe that’s what you’re going for?”
Kimi’s face fell.
“That’s not even attractive by vegetable standards.”
She turned to go back to the dressing room.
“Whatever I end up getting, it has to be hotter than any possible dress Dominique and Lindsay could possibly find!” she shouted from behind the dressing-room door. “I need to look so good that they look like real estate agents in comparison!”
“Just don’t overdo it,” pleaded Emily. “Remember, it’s homecoming, not prom. The ball gowns are just a little—much.”
“This is impossible!” shouted Kimi, frustrated.
“I may as well just go naked, like in my recurring nightmare.”
“We’ll find something—don’t worry,” said Emily, but her heart wasn’t in it, and the words came out flat.
“So what’s with you?” shouted Kimi. “Is everything okay?”
Everything most definitely wasn’t okay. Emily had just found out her sister had been having a secret relationship with Nick Brown, her dad was getting suspicious about the bags under her eyes, and with Quals for Junior Nationals just around the corner, her muscles ached and she felt like she might pass out at any moment.
“Do you ever worry you don’t really know the people in your life?” asked Emily. “Like, sure, you know the surface things about them. But deep down there’s a whole other self you can never access.”
“Definitely!” shouted Kimi. “Like on my dates with Phil, the guy could spend two hours talking about the new sound system his cousin just hooked up, with, like, sixteen different speakers positioned at precise angles to mimic true, movie-quality surround sound—but if I asked him what his relationship with his brother is like, he’d stare at me like I just burped or something.”
“Yeah,” said Emily. “That’s—too bad.” She loved Kimi, but the girl could be entirely dense sometimes. She hadn’t even considered that Emily might have something important she wanted to talk about. Still, in a way, she appreciated Kimi’s boy-crazy tirades; they were a nice change of pace from all the drama going on in Emily’s own life.
Kimi emerged from the dressing room in a white shimmering dress that came down just over her knees. Cinched at the waist, it accentuated Kimi’s natural curves. Emily couldn’t believe it. Kimi didn’t just look good. She looked like she’d walked in off the cover of Cosmo—or at least Seventeen.
“That’s it,” said Emily. “That’s the one.”
“I knew it!” said Kimi triumphantly. “That’s why I saved it for last.”
Thanks for that, thought Emily.