Mr. Simmons stumbles spectacularly then, straight into our table, accidentally sending Claire’s Coke all over her. “I’m sorry,” he starts saying, and then Ellie calls, “Shit, Mr. Simmons!” coming out from behind the bar with a towel.
She throws the towel at Claire when she gets to the table, with a “Here.” Claire dabs at the stain, watching Mr. Simmons wearily. But Ellie is staring. “Go back to the kitchen and change. I’ve got an extra shirt in my bag.”
Claire’s eyes shift to Ellie with a look that can be described only as want before she shakes her head and takes off back past the bar, through the door into the kitchen. Ellie escorts Mr. Simmons out using a variety of swear words, then comes back to the table, pulling another towel out of her apron to clean up the rest of the spilled drink.
“Awesome job looking out for her, O. Really A-plus effort you’re putting in over here,” she says without looking at me.
“Fuck off, El,” I say, so she won’t know exactly how much her words affect me. “She can take care of herself.” I pull out my phone so I don’t have to talk to her, not really sure what to do with it. She walks away, still muttering under her breath.
Then I remember. Whit’s social media. Right.
I pull up one of the pages. I don’t follow him, so I at least make that small step toward actual coupledom. I should probably comment on a couple of pictures, too, for the sake of reality.
God. Fuck this.
I scroll through his pictures, staring. Whit golfing. Whit at a banquet. Whit’s ugly guy feet stretching off the edge of a boat on a perfect day. Whit and his family.
I stop at that one, looking closer. His mom’s got her hair curled up, pretty. His dad looks like he’s just finished laughing, and Cason looks like he knows he’s better than me.
His life is so different from mine. So full of privilege and great expectations. He’s traveling and being asked to come to schools because of everything he’s already done.
I’ve done nothing.
There’s a comment at the bottom of the picture.
Case in One: @whitrant how does it feel to constantly be upstaged by that good-looking man on your right
WHITrant: @caseinone you’d have to ask dad
WHITrant: @caseinone mom just mentioned she liked me better
I giggle without meaning to, accidentally thinking of Ryan, of the way he teased me. It’s a good thought. A way I haven’t thought about Ryan in a long time.
“He honestly is kind of cute, isn’t he?”
I jump at Adrienne’s voice, turning to find her standing over my shoulder. I close out the screen on my phone.
“You’re late,” I say.
“Where’s Claire?” she asks, standing next to the table with sunglasses pushed up over her head. I glance in the direction of the bar. Still no Claire and Ellie’s disappeared now, too.
I shake my head at Adrienne. Long story.
“Where have you been?” she asks, falling in the seat across from me. Her voice is starting to border on the edge of desperate when she asks. “I called you yesterday and this morning.”
I think about Friday night and my mission crystallizes. I have to stop her. “I didn’t see a missed call from you,” I say.
“God, at least don’t lie to me, O. Is it Whit? That whole thing on Friday night?” she asks. “To be honest, I was kind of drunk.”
“Right,” I say. Then, “It’s fine. He’s over it.”
She opens up a menu, not looking at me. “I’m actually kind of impressed. That was a smooth move.”
“Smooth move?” I repeat.
“Whit,” she says, paging through the menu. We’ve eaten at the Rough House half a million times, and the menu has never changed. “I’ll admit, I never even thought of all the potential there. He really makes you seem kind of exciting, O. On the cutting edge.”
I curl my fingers around the lip of the table. She’s messing with me, and I can feel it building up inside me. This might finally be the moment. The one where I draw the line in the sand so she can see it clearly. When I finally tell her it’s over.
She drops the menu and looks straight at me. “I mean, that’s what you wanted, right? That’s this new leaf you’re trying to turn over. Whit DuRant and Olivia Clayton. So much goddamn potential.”
I shake my head, looking anywhere but at her. “Don’t do this right now.”
“Oh, what, like hang you out to dry? Like you keep doing to me?” she asks. “Suddenly you’re dating Whit DuRant and siccing him on me over freshman cheerleaders?”
“You were drunk,” I say. I don’t want drama. “It’s fine. We’re both over it.”
“Fine.” She slams down her hands on the menu. “I am, too. We’ll all be best friends tomorrow. Like I said. I’m impressed that you managed to pull it off. That’s all.” She says it like a compliment. Like I should be grateful to her that she noticed Whit was a good find. That I found someone with potential.
“I can’t do this,” I say, sliding out of the booth. “I’m done.”
“O…,” she calls as I turn to go. “O, get back here!”
“Tell Claire I said bye.”
“Olivia, sit back down!” I hear her calling behind me as the door closes.
32
I’m changing out of my workout clothes in the locker room on Monday when Anna finds me and says Adrienne has asked to see me. After yesterday, I had managed to avoid her for most of the school day, tailing Whit around like a lost puppy and then working through our cheerleading routines at practice like it was my reason for living, but she’d finally figured out a way to get to me. Time to face the music.
I pause for a moment outside of the office, bracing myself. Our cheerleading coach, the one they hired after Coach Evans, does exactly enough to keep us from getting drunk at away games and get her cheerleading stipend for the year and nothing more. She leaves choreography, organization, and punishment up to her captains. Adrienne has full access to the locker room office. When I go in, she’s leaning back in the desk chair, feet propped up on the desk, office phone pressed to her ear. “Mm-hmm,” she says, surveying her nails. “We’re very concerned, too, Coach. We just wanted to keep you abreast of the situation.”
Anna giggles from next to the door, manicured hand over mouth.
“Thank you. I’ll be in touch.” Adrienne smiles broadly at the phone, dropping it onto her chest. “Olivia! Glad you could make it.”
“What are you doing?” I ask, looking from her to Anna. Something isn’t right.
“Hang on!” Anna says, leaning over the desk and pointing at the cell phone lying there. “He just got a text from his mom.” She swipes the phone, reading the screen with a giggle.
“Whose phone is that?” I ask.
“What does it matter?” Adrienne says, leaning farther back in her chair like some sort of evil mastermind. “You don’t really have boundaries with phones, do you?”
I swallow. “What are you talking about?”
Adrienne kicks her feet off the desk, leaning forward onto it instead. “Just calling up a few of Whit DuRant’s recruiters to let them know about his small—”
“But alarming,” Anna cuts in.
“Exactly,” Adrienne agrees. “His small but alarming drug problem.” She tilts her head to the side. “He very unfortunately failed a drug test today.”
My whole stomach drops. I suck in a quick breath. “What is wrong with you?”
Adrienne tosses her head back and laughs. Without thinking about it, I lunge at Anna and try to pull Whit’s phone out of her hand. Quicker than anything I would have expected from her, she bends back my wrist. “Nuh-uh,” she says, dangling the phone over my head.
“Fuck you, Anna,” I spit out as her grip tightens. “Adrienne thinks you’re a joke.”
She shoves me away from her. She thinks she’s thrown me off, but I push her hard into the bookcase with both hands and grab the phone. As she rubs her shoulder, she looks at Adrienne, as if she should punish
me. “Trying to kill me again, O?” she asks.
I turn away, flipping the phone in my hands. It looks undamaged.
Adrienne is smirking at the two of us from her throne. “Leave, Anna. Close the door.”
Anna walks behind me, jabbing her elbow into my back before she slams the door closed behind her. Adrienne pushes up from the desk, dramatically using both hands. Walks slowly around it, head tilted inquisitively to the side. “What’s wrong with me?” she asks. “What’s wrong with you, O?”
I hold up Whit’s phone. “This is a new low. Jealous? Thinking maybe you could get his number and sleep with my new boyfriend, too?”
“Yeah. Like you were so upset about Ethan,” she replies coldly. “Took you so long to get over that. Whit deserved it. No one talks to me like that.”
I cross my arms, force a laugh so I seem in control. “So that’s what this is about?”
“This?” She points from the phone to her. “This is nothing. This is about you. I know what you did.”
My hearts skips a few key beats. I clutch the phone tighter. “What?”
“What?” She throws the word back in my face. “You forwarded my texts, my private conversations, to the entire cheerleading squad. You humiliated me and you outed Claire and you walk around here like you’re some wounded puppy, like the world has wronged you. People die, Olivia; grow the hell up. People die and boys cheat and you’re not wounded, so stop acting like it.” She points an accusatory finger at me. “You’re a snake.”
I stare straight at her because that’s exactly what she doesn’t want. I almost hiss. What a joke. Every part of this: ridiculous, hypocritical, inevitable.
“I hate you!” she screams at me, picking up a paperweight and chucking it at the wall next to me. My hand curls up reflexively into a fist. I flinch in spite of myself, half with fear, half with pain.
“How’d you even know?” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. If I don’t, I will shatter, and I don’t shatter. I’m Olivia fucking Clayton. I’m better than that.
“Anna saw you.”
“You’re going to tell,” I say, resigned. It seems about right. The moment I decide to quit her, she fires me. It leaves me with nothing. Down two best friends, one older brother, and a boyfriend. That would be the end of Olivia fucking Clayton.
A part of me feels ready for it.
“I’m not going to tell,” Adrienne practically snarls.
My eyes narrow.
“You want that, don’t you? Me to tell Claire so you can feel even worse for yourself and make everything all about you again? I’m not going to tell.”
“Stop messing with me, Adrienne.”
“I didn’t tell anyone about your brother, did I?”
Every part of my body constricts. My chest, my stomach, everything. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m so not laughing.” She shoves the chair violently into the wall behind her, and I wince at the crash. “You think that stupid text is all I’ve got, O?” she demands. “I have years. Years of supposed friendship where you ran over anybody in your way. I’ve got Anna fucking Talbert, who will do whatever I say. I’ve got texts for days. And you’re the kind of person who’s too fucking stupid to not send out a goddamn text message implicating yourself. God, you are useless.”
She rounds the desk until she’s right in front of me and shoves me against the wall. When she goes to do it again, I grab on to her forearms to stop her.
“It fucking hurts, doesn’t it?” she says to me.
My heart pounds in my chest. “What do you want?”
“I want Whit DuRant’s head on a spike. I want medieval shit, O.”
I try to keep my cool, but my hands are shaking. “Fine. Do whatever you want.” I take a deep breath. “I won’t stop you.”
She smiles at me then, the most disconcerting thing she’s done. “I want more from you. First, say you’re sorry.”
Tears fill my eyes. This isn’t what I wanted. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re on my side now, O. I own you.”
I nod, running my hands through my hair. It’s a specific kind of hopelessness. “Let me break up with him. He’ll leave us alone, go back to living his life in anonymity or whatever. I won’t talk to him, I swear.”
“Where would the fun be in that?” she asks me. She’s standing right in front of me, this girl I’ve always known, dangerous as ever.
I kept a wild animal in my house, and now she’s turned on me.
“Can’t you leave him out of this?”
“You put him in this. You can’t back out now. You had that chance. I wanted to talk yesterday, but you didn’t have time for it. The time for talking is over.”
“Adrienne.” I hear the desperation in my own voice.
“You’re my best friend. You’re going to be my fucking best friend. You’ve sulked long enough. You wanted my attention, right? You got it. This is it. This is how we bounce back.
“And if you don’t, I’ll destroy you, O.”
I close my eyes, fading. Waiting for every last good part of me to leave.
I feel her fingers on my chin, tipping my face up. “Look at me.” I do. “Remember what we used to do for those biology tests?” She smiles. “I have a cheat sheet for Mrs. Baker’s super tricky test on Friday just in case Whit doesn’t have time to study.” She steps back from me, and I let out a shaky breath. Completely calm, she reaches into her bag on the desk, pulling out some stapled-together papers and holding them out to me. “I’m sure the two of you have better things to do anyway, right?”
I grab the test out of her hand and say nothing.
“I’m not going to tell, okay? I wouldn’t do that.” She opens the door to dismiss me, checking out the empty locker room. Seeing it’s clear, she gives me one last almost-tender look. “We’re best friends.”
33
I fall into my chair at the library table opposite Whit, dropping his phone on top of his pile of books. He came in early today so we could meet and study before class. Thanks to the emotion I’ve identified as guilt, I can’t make eye contact with him right now.
“Where did you get this?” he asks me, instantly suspicious. “I was looking for it everywhere last night.”
“From Adrienne. You need to keep an eye on your shit if you’re going to hang around me.” I blow my hair out of my face. “She called some of those coaches. On the office phone. You should—you need to get Dr. Rickards to call them. Tell them someone was playing a prank.”
“What?”
I push back my hair. “She’s a bitch, okay?”
His mouth is wide open, eyes going from me to his phone like he can’t figure out which one just bit him. “This is your fault.”
“Excuse me?” I demand.
“Fuck,” he says, as naturally as if all this time it’d been a polite word made for a nice boy like him. “Fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck. None of this would’ve fucking happened if I hadn’t agreed to fucking help you. Do you know how important those coaches are? Do you know how little time they have for Adrienne fucking Maynard?”
I actually don’t. But I expect he is asking rhetorically.
“Don’t yell at me,” I tell him.
“Yell at you? This is so not about you, Olivia!”
“I got your phone back for you.” I cross my arms. “Can’t we just study?”
“Can you not see I’m freaking out?” he demands, and he totally is. He looks almost unkempt then, like his anger’s mussing up his hair. His voice is too loud in the library, his eyes darting around as if some solution were going to pop out of the shelves, and I think, I can help, I can do this, and I lean forward and kiss him like I would anybody I was dating.
Perception is reality.
It stops him in the moment, all mouth on mouth over the table. The moment is real between us, tangible, so true I can almost savor it. When I pull away, his eyes are on my mouth. After a moment of silence, he tells me, “We can’t do this.”
My heart drops.
>
“Look, I can help you with your SAT prep if that’s what you need but this whole”—he glances around, leaning in close, close enough so I can see individual lashes over his eyes—“dating thing, or not really dating, that’s more than I can deal with.”
I shake my head. “It’s not.” His breath smells like spearmint gum. “It’s just a long con. Think about it.”
“There’s nothing in this for me.”
I bristle. “Some people wouldn’t consider me ‘nothing,’ you know.”
He stares at me.
“Look how easily you lied to Coxie.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” he admits slowly.
“It’s never that bad,” I tell him, and it won’t be. Even if I have to do some double-crossing of my own. He can’t get out of this now. If he does, Adrienne will tell Claire what I did and everything will be ruined. Adrienne’s patience is always a ticking time bomb—if Whit is what she wants, I need Whit. If I can dangle a bigger prize in front of her, I can distract her from telling Claire and ruining my last functional relationship.
Our faces are barely apart, our eyes lined up perfectly. A moment passes. Then another. He ducks away, staring ahead. “I’ve got to call it off. You don’t get it.”
“You can’t.” I grab the side of his face and make him look at me again. Desperation saturates my voice. He has to hear me say it. “I need you. I need you, okay?”
He can’t resist it. He’s like a moth I’m watching fly right into the flame. “Okay.”
He’ll save me if it’s the last thing he does.
The dark thought crosses my mind before I can stop it.
Some people are so pathetic.
* * *
I come in from practice on Thursday night, beat down. It’s been a long week of dealing with Whit’s barely concealed judgment of everything I do and avoiding Adrienne when he’s around while attempting to placate her when he’s not. It’s like I’m being torn in more directions than ever, more lost than I was before things fell apart with Ethan.
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