No.
“Yes,” I snap.
“Your brother went to Michigan,” he informs me. How could anyone suck at his job this much? I know my brother went to Michigan. It’s where he died.
“Ryan hated it here.” I glance out the window. A happy couple walks by outside, holding hands. She’s a junior; he’s a senior. Next year, he’ll go to the community college in Central for two weeks before going to work at the cable company. She’ll be pregnant at graduation, and they’ll settle down in a trailer next to his mom’s house. In ten years, they’ll be divorced. “I hate it here.” I turn to Mr. Doolittle. “No state schools. Nowhere near here.”
“Olivia,” he says cautiously.
I stare back without blinking. One of the buttons on his shirt has come loose.
“I’m sorry, but you couldn’t get into a state school even if you wanted to.”
Even though I know that, even though I knew it was stupid to say, it hurts. It stings like hell, and suddenly it hits me that I’m totally alone. I’ve thought I was better than them for so long—better than that couple, these people, but I’m as pathetic as they are.
I’m alone because I’ve burned them all with a smile on my face, but I’m no different from them.
“I mean,” Mr. Doolittle corrects himself quickly, trying to fix it, “not that you can’t, but that you’re behind.” Slowly, he starts to build himself back up, expansive and jovial. “You’re behind. You need to get your grades up this year and quite frankly, you need high SAT scores. Very high.” He slides his glasses back on, looking at the Olivia Clayton head case file. “You could go out of state. You could. I’m going to make you a list,” he announces.
Excitedly, he scribbles down some words onto a loose sheet of paper, folds it up, and holds it just out of my reach. “Some students who I think could help you prepare for the SAT if you could work out a small fee with them. All very smart, very accomplished.”
Unlike me.
“You make a list of schools. You make that list, Olivia, and we’ll figure it out. Start working with one of these students, and we’ll get you in. You’re not lost, Miss Clayton. Yes, yes, this is fantastic progress. Exactly the kind of project you need. Let me—”
I reach out and rip the paper from his hand, stuffing it haphazardly into my backpack without reading the names. A list. Like that would help. Like I can repair the damage I’ve done for three years here in three months. Out of state. What a joke.
I’m even stupider than I realized.
“Are we done yet?” I ask Mr. Doolittle, glancing at the clock. There are ten minutes left until the bell, but I’m exhausted.
He looks at me, smile still looming large. “If you promise to get started as soon as you leave. You’re going to surprise yourself! I know you will.”
I nod, getting up from my chair. “Thanks, Mr. D. Your shirt’s unbuttoned,” I say, pointing to the gap over his belly. Then, like I can’t help it: “And too small. Seriously, give it up.” With that, I flounce out of the room.
Olivia Clayton, biggest bitch in school. Well, second, as Adrienne would have reminded me. Helpfully.
Old habits die hard.
7
I sit on the sidewalk with my back against the redbrick wall, outside the gym, crumpling and uncrumpling the list of colleges I’ve written. It’s ridiculous. Even Mr. Doolittle will laugh in my face.
I haven’t even looked at the names of the people who will supposedly help me. No one can help me. I know that. So why do I keep hoping someone will fix this?
I glance up to see Claire walking over to me, legs clad in a pair of lime-green practice shorts. She watches me for a minute before squatting down. “Are you okay?”
I shrug.
“Did something happen?”
I look up at her, squinting. “Kind of. Not really. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” she says again, slowly. “Hey, listen, Ethan’s been looking for you all day, and I know he’s been smothering you lately, but he’s really worried, you know? So I think you should talk to him, and I mean, he’ll find you eventually—”
“He found me,” I say, pointing over her shoulder. Ethan, already suited up in his football pants, is lurking behind her, watching me.
“Oh, hey, Ethan,” Claire says, straightening back up and giving him one of her perky grins. “You’re supposed to be buying those Snickers bars from me for the candy sale. You haven’t forgotten, right?”
Ethan gives Claire a sad attempt at a smile. “No, Claire, of course not.”
“All right.” She spots Alex Cox—otherwise known as Coxie—who is still her boyfriend or whatever, standing in the doorway that leads to the boys’ locker room. She grins, skipping off toward Coxie. Once she’s out of earshot, Ethan turns to me.
“Hey.”
I pull myself up so I’m standing in front of him. How exactly am I supposed to respond?
“Slept with my best friend lately?”
Well, that’s always an option.
Ethan hangs his head, his blond hair glinting in the sunlight. I get almost no pleasure out of it. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
I’ll give him this. He has balls.
I cross my arms over my stomach, shake my head. There’s nothing I can do, nothing I can change. If he sees me cry, then he’ll know.
No one can know how much it hurts or how hard it is.
“Everything’s messed up, O,” Ethan says, squinting at me through the light. “But that doesn’t mean—I don’t want it to end like this.”
I bite out a laugh. “Well, it did. What do you think this is, Ethan? I have a reputation to protect.”
“What does your reputation have to do with anything?” he demands. “Just listen to yourself! You won’t talk to me.” He throws his hands up in defeat like he’s in a play and the audience is supposed to feel sorry for him. Only this is my life, and I’ve seen enough.
“Adrienne?” I spit out. “She is my best friend, Ethan! And you hate her.”
“I know. I don’t even know why.…” And, oh my God, he’s going to start crying. I see it bubbling up right there under those Caribbean-blue eyes of his.
“Don’t you dare do that,” I tell him. “If you do that, I will humiliate you.” I go to leave, but Ethan grabs on to my shoulder hard and turns me back.
“Don’t tell me what I’m not allowed to do,” he says, slowly regaining control of that quivering bottom lip. Turning the tears into something else.
I smirk. “I won’t anymore,” I say. “I promise.”
“Don’t put all of this on me, O!” He touches the front of his practice jersey where he thinks his heart should be, but it’s not anatomically correct. He never did very well with biology.
“I tried so hard,” he says. “You won’t even talk to me.”
And the fact that he even thinks that he could try to blame me makes me angrier than I could ever put into words. “Are you kidding me?”
“You wanted this to happen,” Ethan snaps at me, finally, before turning around and walking in the direction of the football field. Wiping his face on his sweaty T-shirt and then high-fiving his teammates as if this were any other day to him. As if I’d gotten what I deserved.
I used to wait for him sometimes, after practice; he’d hug me right after he got off the field, so tight I couldn’t breathe. He’d be gross, drenched in sweat, and I would squeal about how much I hated it.
I didn’t.
You never realize stuff like that until it’s gone.
And then you have to live without it.
8
LAST YEAR
“Blood, sweat, and tears.”
That was the football team’s motto the year Ethan transferred in.
I remember because it was so stupid. Our football team had been 5–5 the year before. No blood or tears had been involved. The sweat was debatable.
Until one Friday during the new season. The lights were buzzing, the fans desperate in their green and
white, we cheerleaders loud and sweaty in the late summer heat. On a third down in the second quarter, the new transfer fullback took a handoff from the quarterback. The pads slammed against each other as he drove through a hole in the line. He tried to take the ball straight up the middle and didn’t get up after the whistle. They wheeled the stretcher out on the field and cut the guy’s helmet off. As they were rolling him off the field, short-staffed thanks to an opponent’s broken arm earlier, Dr. McCoy pointed at me, shouting, “Olivia, come here!” Alarmed, I ran over to the cart.
“Hold this on his head,” Dr. McCoy told me, putting my hand on the white towel she pressed to the boy’s temple. “Apply pressure.”
I walked beside the stretcher as they wheeled him into the locker room.
“For Christ’s sake, what a night,” Dr. McCoy said as we stopped in the locker room. I wasn’t looking at her—my eyes kept finding the boy’s face, watching his eyelids attempt to flutter open. “This close to a compound fracture on Lattimer and now this.”
“And we’re down by ten,” I added helpfully.
My hand had grown careless with the pressure, and a thin drop of blood escaped and fell down the side of the boy’s face. I quickly wiped it away with a clean edge of the towel and pushed harder.
He was looking at me.
“Ethan!” Dr. McCoy said loudly, her voice relieved. “Are you okay? Do you know where you are?”
“Go Eagles,” he replied, pushing himself up and pumping a fist.
“Don’t do that too fast,” Dr. McCoy said, putting her hand against the back of his head. He shook her off, and I kept the towel pressed against his cut, my arm brushing against his. He was still watching me. “I called for a backup EMT crew.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
Dr. McCoy stepped around the front of him, holding an index finger up. “Follow my finger,” she instructed, moving it from the left side to the right. His eyes went along with her. “Okay. Where are your parents?”
“Mom’s on her Divorcees’ Retreat. She told me not to disturb her unless it was really important.”
“This is really important,” Dr. McCoy told him, then shined a light into his eyes.
Blue. They were so blue.
Ethan exhaled, like he wasn’t so sure. “Not as important as hooking up with that dentist from Central.”
Dr. McCoy tutted at that. “I’m going to run to Coach Bradford’s office and use his phone to call her, okay? Olivia, will you watch Ethan? And holler if he needs anything.” She rushed off, leaving a roll of gauze trailing across the floor behind her.
“You sure you’re all right?” I asked again. The stark paleness of his skin made his light blond hair look like an actual color in the locker room lights.
He gave me this half smile and laughed. Then winced. “Yeah. Did I get the first down?”
“And then some,” I told him.
“Nice.” He squinted his eyes as if he were having trouble making me out. “I know you.” I raised an eyebrow, reminded myself this idiot might need brain surgery soon. “You’re the most popular girl at this school.”
I felt my face turn red, even though it was such a stupid thing to say. “I am not.” Of course not. Adrienne was the most popular, and I knew my place. Solid number two.
Another drop of blood escaped. “You should be,” he told me.
Then he passed out.
9
Practice. Yelling. Stunting.
Adrienne is in Renatta Youngblood’s face, about as cheerful as a raging bull. She stretches her tan arm into the air, fist closed, elbow perfectly straight. “Is this straight?” she demands.
Renatta looks at her, shaking her head. “Yes, but—”
“But what?” Adrienne asks. “But you’re from a secret fucking religion that doesn’t believe in straight lines?”
“No, but—”
“No wonder everyone thinks you’re such a dumb slut. Does it always work when a guy tells you he’s lost his clothes and needs to borrow yours?”
There is an audible intake of breath and a chuckle from Anna Talbert before Adrienne steps away. Renatta tugs on the end of her braid as if to stop a retort, her eyes flashing dangerously against her brown skin as she stares at Adrienne’s back.
“Do it again,” Adrienne says, staring at the line of us.
“Adrienne,” Claire calls out, a whine in her voice. She turns up her watch. “We’re already fifteen minutes over. I have to pick up my sister.”
“Fine.” Adrienne crosses her arms. “Claire can leave.”
Thirteen voices rise up in protest.
I feel Adrienne’s eyes on me, but I refuse to return her gaze. “Olivia?” she calls.
I’m co-captain. It’s my decision. I’m supposed to tell them to do it again. “Call it,” I say, staring off at the football field.
“Fine!” she yells, looking upward as if only Jesus Himself could help her now. “You can all go. But when we suck, you’ll all know why. Olivia—” she’s calling out.
Before she can finish, I’m making my way across the grass to the locker room with the rest of the squad.
When I go inside, Renatta is at the locker next to mine, throwing shampoo bottles violently into her shower bag. I pull off my T-shirt as Adrienne comes in, brushing past me like I’m not there.
“What is her problem?” Renatta demands once she’s out of earshot. “Is she not getting laid or something?”
I wince, but she doesn’t notice.
“She’s such a bitch. The way she talks to our faces, I can only imagine the shit she says behind our backs,” Renatta spits out. I’m not surprised she’s saying it. Everyone calls Adrienne a bitch all the time. But only when she’s not around. The fear she instills in them is primal, and they’re afraid for good reason. She knows more about most of these girls’ lives than they know about themselves. Renatta calms, eyes me, the casual way my head is turned into this conversation. “Are you going to tell on me?” she demands.
I stare at her, letting her worry for a minute. She’s earned it. She’s not up there at the top with us. She doesn’t have the right to run her mouth, and it doesn’t hurt me in that moment to exercise a little power over her. I want to feel more important than somebody right now.
And that’s what makes me such a shitty person. “No,” I finally say.
Renatta visibly relaxes at my tone. “You really broke up with Ethan, then?” she asks.
My heart drops like a stone. Did she see us talking? If she did, she wouldn’t guess what happened with Adrienne. It would still seem like I was the one in control. That’s what’s important. “Who said that?” I ask.
She inclines her head. Adrienne is leaning against one of the lockers in nothing but her underwear, laughing loudly at some joke, forcing everyone’s attention back to her, same as always. Her eyes meet mine, a challenge in them, and then flit away until it’s hard to be sure what I saw.
It was my secret. It was the horrible thing she did to me, and it was supposed to make her a miserable person who alienated her best friend for a boy she didn’t care about. Instead, she’s whispering my breakup to everyone in school, making me the loser. She doesn’t feel bad at all.
I don’t know why I thought it’d be different when my brother died. Why I thought she’d for one second care about me and what I needed. Not give and take secrets like presents exchanged in times of need.
I shake my head, turning back to Renatta. “Yeah. We did. I’m dating someone else.” The lie rolls off my tongue, rebuilding the walls around me. If I’m desirable, it doesn’t matter if Ethan and I broke up.
“Who?” she asks, her head tilted to the side.
I lean closer to her, my lips curling into a smile. I’m in a show and I’m fantastic. “It’s a secret,” I whisper.
She returns the look conspiratorially, throwing a towel over her shoulder. “Anyway, I really am sorry,” Renatta says. “Whatever everyone says about you, Ethan’s so nice. I thought he really liked y
ou.” There’s almost a gleam in her eye, like thank God Ethan finally wised up and saw the real Olivia.
Like my brother’s death left me exposed, freeing Ethan from a spell I’d cast.
Renatta follows the others into the shower. I’m left behind.
Adrienne was my best friend, I think. She brought me my homework when I was sick. I cried with her the day her dog died. We created a No Boys Club in middle school, baked cookies on snow days, told each other every detail when we lost our virginity.
Smoked our first joint together, stole our first test, forwarded the first naked picture of one of our classmates.
I never should’ve let her. I never should’ve let her control me. I should’ve been a better person.
I have to do something.
I’m across the cold tiles of the locker room before I think about it, my feet slapping as I go. Instinctively, I twirl the code to Adrienne’s locker—Claire and Adrienne and I all have one another’s, in case of emergency. Her cell phone sits innocuously on top of a pile of her clothes—her flawless clothes, an expensive pair of bright pink-and-green-printed pants and a loose tank top her mom found in Chicago. An outfit so cheerful, I could only read it as meant to spite me. I grab the phone.
I type in her code and click open her texts. The very first one is from Ethan.
Has she forgiven you yet?
I almost laugh. That’s what they think I am. That’s what they both think I am.
I take a screenshot. Heart pounding outside of my rib cage, out of my body, into the floor, I hit forward. The phone prompts me to select contacts. I select the special group Adrienne has for cheerleaders. Send.
The sound of phones chirping in unison echoes over the walls. My fingers tremble. Nerves. Excitement. Adrenaline.
There must be more.
I scroll through, clicking and screenshotting conversations at random and forwarding to the cheer list. I try not to read them, because I can’t stand to know what she’s said about me—words jump out as I go: slut, idiot, unhinged. I know it’s all horrible, every vicious word, and I want them to see it, too. I don’t want her to be able to hide behind a lie anymore—she should be as exposed as I feel. Even thinking about her, the way she creeps under the radar of all her misdeeds, I feel sick to my stomach. They have to know.
How to Break a Boy Page 3