Neither of us says anything for a couple of moments, and it’s awkward, and it’s not. Because I maybe wanted him last night and he maybe wanted me back for a few minutes, and both my yes and his no were a little bit of a lie.
He did let me.
“Have you been doing those practice math problems I sent you?” he asks me then. The return to a semblance of normal conversation is beautiful.
I think about it, nodding. “Yeah, my answers are matching up most of the time.”
“Awesome,” he says, giving me a smile made brittle by nerves. “Don’t take this personally, but you seem … smart?”
I push my hair back again and pretend everything is totally casual. “No, I’m not. You don’t have to say that just because … whatever. I know I’m dumb.” I point to the now-very-cold pizza on the plate across from me. “You should eat that,” I tell him.
He digs in for a bite. “You are smart,” he tells me through a mouthful of pizza. He wipes at his mouth with a napkin. “You think I’m, like, bullshitting you for the hell of it?”
He’s probably not. I roll my eyes at the suggestion anyway.
“I’m just saying…” He shrugs and finally starts to relax. It’s almost like I’m seeing the real him for a minute. For the first time. “You shouldn’t be in this much trouble with your grades. I don’t get it.”
“It’s school,” I tell him. “It’s useless.” And then, for some reason: “I think I do it to annoy my mom actually. The not caring about it.”
“Why?” he asks, mouth full.
“Ugh.” I throw a napkin at him. “I guess it was, like, an attention thing when I was younger. My mom’s single and doesn’t have a ton of time with work and everything else, and she’s really quiet. Don’t say anything,” I tell him, because he was about to. He doesn’t. “But, you know, school used to be important to her, and Ryan was already great at it, so I just decided to not.”
“To not?” Whit asks with an empty mouth.
“To not do school. School was so boring, you know? Mom didn’t really care, and it was something I could do to be like Adrienne—like, she had the best grades so I couldn’t get better grades than her, but if I could have the worst grades, that was sort of the same? And back then all I wanted was to be like Adrienne. She was the light of middle school life.”
“She was something,” Whit says darkly.
“Some of us choose to live in shadows, I guess.”
His eyes almost cross, looking at me like I’ve said the most bizarre thing he’s ever heard. And it is pretty bizarre, when I think about it. I think of all the people I’ve lived my life for: Adrienne and Ethan and Ryan. All of it’s kind of sad. Like there’s nothing that ties together the pieces of Olivia except my connections to other people. Like when you start snipping away at all the tethers of my relationships, there is nothing left that exists when they’re cut.
At least if I am some horrible bitch, there’s something left to define me.
“Yeah and the rest of us spend all our time trying to climb out of someone else’s shadow,” Whit finally says, once he’s digested the pizza and my words. I like that he doesn’t want to have a conversation about my feelings of futility.
“Cason,” I guess.
He turns his pizza around and bites into the crust, chewing and swallowing before he answers. “It’s, like, everything I do, he’s already done it, you know? Whit won a state championship; Cason won two. Whit graduates salutatorian; Cason was valedictorian. Whit has a girlfriend? Cason has three!”
I giggle. He’s joking, but I know he’s serious. “No one thinks that. Come on, you’re, like, the best at everything.”
“Everything I do, Cason’s already done.” He drops his pizza. “It’s not a big deal or anything.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Well. Sometimes people are stupid. I don’t know. You like him; you like him better than me.”
“What?” I ask. “Where did you get that idea from?”
He shrugs. He acts like he’s going to pick up his pizza again but, instead, grabs at all the toppings. And for a second, I see him. All of him. All the insecurity under that haughty exterior.
“I like you, Whit,” I say. “I know that probably doesn’t mean much coming from me, but I appreciate what you’re doing for me. You’re a lot nicer than I thought you were. Nicer than your brother. Plus a little funnier.”
He gives me a half smile. “Thanks.”
I pick up my pizza again. “It’s nothing,” I say, and take another bite.
40
Parking lots are a very big deal in small southern high schools. Everything goes down in the parking lot—gossip and fights and sex. Last year, the Central High football team all parked in a line between our school and cars to egg everyone’s car during last period and salute our team as they walked out of classes. Ethan went back to my house with his nose snapped in the wrong direction, courtesy of Central’s defensive line.
Everything is pretty normal as Whit and I come out of the school building on Tuesday. Cliques gather around trucks, girls swinging their feet off the beds. Couples face each other, performing their ten-minute good-byes before unbearable hours apart.
It’s all normal. Everything’s normal and I’m normal and my relationship is normal. In a few moments, we could be one of those couples.
We start walking toward Whit’s Jeep. “Hang on,” Whit tells me as we walk out of the school building. He swings his bag around and unzips it, pulling out a baseball hat with a golf logo and propping it up on his side-swept hair.
“Seriously?” I ask as we start walking again.
He adjusts his hat. “Pretty sexy, huh?”
I snicker.
I lean into the side of his Jeep, tilting my head up to look at his face. “Are you going to practice? Or just seduce another girl before Mommy gets home?” I almost blush. I’ve promised myself I will never kiss him again because I’m probably going to ruin his life in some way or the other.
But he just grins to himself as I reach up and steal his hat away, setting it at a jaunty angle on top of my hair. The sun beats across his face, casting shadows around his defined jawline, his high cheekbones. He has a five o’clock shadow, and I’m about to reach out and touch his face for reasons that may come to light only after years of therapy—when my name rings out across the parking lot.
“Olivia!”
Adrienne flies toward me in a flurry of black hair, shoving Whit out of the way. She grabs on to my arm and hauls me back across the parking lot like I’m her favorite rag doll, here to be thrown to the ground whenever she’s in a bad mood.
“What do you want?” I ask, pretending her grip on my wrist isn’t killing me.
“Are you even on this planet right now?” Adrienne returns, her voice dripping with disdain. “Whit on the mind?” She says it like his name is the dirtiest, most disgusting word she’s ever had to roll off her tongue. I can’t push her away, not when one false move will send this whole carefully constructed house of cards tumbling. “It’s Michaela.”
Those are the right words to send all my alarm bells ringing. Adrienne may be on the other side of the battlefield, but I’m happy to call a truce and take up arms against Michaela Verday and her too-proper-to-wear-eyeliner face.
“What did she do?” I ask. I see her up ahead in a group of newspaper staff girls. She sips on a drink from the gas station up the street, taking her mouth off the straw long enough to giggle, probably leaving a ring of her terrible nude lip gloss behind.
“Somehow she got ahold of a picture of Claire and Ellie. I guess they were making out behind the Rough House last weekend or something? She texted the picture to Coxie and he sent it to me.” She hands me her phone, a picture message pulled up. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to tell it’s Claire and Ellie in the picture unless you know what you’re looking at. Their heads are close together in a sort of intimate way, back behind the Rough House. The message below reads, “She says more where that c
ame from.”
“Has anyone else seen this?” I demand. Even if I’m against Adrienne, I can have this. This is worth ruining someone over.
Adrienne puts a hand on her hip. “Not yet. But … matter of time, right? Michaela’s hated us since we cut her from the JV squad. Loser.”
Instead of blacking out in rage like I should, my blood goes totally ice-cold and I feel like I could do anything. I recognize the feeling, the one I shouldn’t allow myself to have. It’s like before—before Ryan died. It was so easy. I feel alive, the path laid out for me, Michaela’s bright green vest a light at the end of the tunnel. Without pausing, I stride forward and smash directly into her, upending the drink in her hand all over her designer vest. Adrienne barks out laughter next to my ear, the noise colliding with Michaela’s horrified scream.
The very bottom tips of her blond hair drip dark soda. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she demands, her too-girlie voice lilting and falling.
“Coxie doesn’t want you. Leave Claire alone before I end you,” I say. I’m barely taller than her, but I can feel everyone else take a step back, intimidated.
“If you think I’m not reporting you for this…,” Michaela says, seething.
“Report me,” I snap.
Finally, Michaela’s face falls, contorting into something like remorse. “I have stopped messing with Claire. I felt bad, okay? I shouldn’t have said what I said to her. But it’s not like everybody doesn’t already know—”
I cut her off. “It’s none of your business what everyone does and doesn’t know.”
Michaela throws up her hands, wet and sticky with soda. I don’t know why she’s trying to reason with me right now. “Fine,” she whines. “Get out of my face, both of you. I didn’t do anything!”
“You’re completely pathetic,” I tell her. “You and your fake voice and padded bra. Going around claiming you’re a virgin when everyone knows you went down on Daniel Smith at a party last year in the basement like some kind of huge slut.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Michaela snaps back at me, standing up straight. “I can’t believe a good person like Whit can even stand to be in the same room as you, much less date you. Even a guy as dumb as Ethan should have known better. Girls like you are what’s wrong with this school, you know that, Olivia Clayton? And no one buys you crying over your brother because you’re heartless and no one feels bad your boyfriend slept with your best friend because you’re the one who’s pathetic.” I glance behind me, ostensibly at Adrienne, but my eyes search out Whit by his car. I can tell he’s watching me, but his face is completely passive, shut down the way he’s so good at. Why can’t I hide my emotions like you, Whit?
I don’t want to think about him.
“If it was such a betrayal, why are you still hanging out with her?” Michaela points out to me. I turn back around to face her. “You’re an idiot. Everyone’s glad you’re hurt, and they can’t wait until Whit wises up.”
My pulse speeds up, my hands shaking nervously.
“Do you know what I’ll do to you?” I say, holding on to my anger like a comfort blanket. Michaela just delivered the knockout blow. But I can’t let her win this. Anyone but her.
Adrienne puts a hand on my shoulder. “She gets it.” She turns to Michaela, in control. The peacekeeper—this is a show we’ve put on a thousand times before. “If you delete the picture, we’ll let it go.” I really glance at Adrienne behind me this time, turn back to a confused Michaela momentarily, then shake my head, walking away.
“Let it go,” I say to myself, adrenaline pumping through me. I could’ve burned the world down, and she wouldn’t let me.
Adrienne sidles up next to me, pushing her shoulder into mine. I’m about to tell her to back off when she slips a knife case into my hand. “Hunting knife. Swiped it from the bed of Coxie’s truck earlier. It has a nice karmic justice.” She smiles at me, and I give her a weak one in return. But when she loops her arm through mine, I allow it.
I have to look out for Claire. That part feels good.
When we walk back, Whit is waiting not so patiently for me by his car. “What was that?” he asks me. I don’t answer. He gives Adrienne the kind of look he usually reserves for, like, dirt or something before turning back to me. “You want to ride with me and hang out while I practice? We can go to my place after.”
My forehead wrinkles up, almost in shock. I’d forgotten who I was supposed to be for a second, and now I can’t believe he asked me that. That he’s staring at me, waiting, like he meant it. I’m going to say yes, I know it, when Adrienne nudges me. “We have to do something,” she says.
Whit averts his eyes. “Fine,” he finally says. He probably wasn’t serious anyway. Just putting on a show for Adrienne. “We can study at my place when I’m done. I’ll leave the front door unlocked for you, okay, Liv?”
I nod. “We’ll see you later,” Adrienne singsongs, wagging her fingers at Whit as he turns around and gets in his car.
“Stop it,” I say as his Jeep roars to life. He pulls out of the spot and I stare after him. With him gone, I start wondering. What would it be like if I was with him? What would we have talked about?
Why did I let Adrienne, of all people, make that choice for me?
This friendship with Adrienne. It’s supposed to be fake.
But when someone goes after Claire, after our best friend, we have to do something to stop it. Because it’s the only thing that feels right, and it’s bigger than Adrienne. “C’mon,” Adrienne says.
I do.
We slink around, foxes in a metal forest. Michaela’s car is this cute little convertible, a hand-me-down from her older sister. We sit down on the curb behind her car, and Adrienne is giggling, but I’ve lost all my edge.
“Go ahead,” Adrienne tells me.
I pop out the knife and stare at the sharp three-inch blade in my hand. It’s nicked in places but impeccably cleaned. Dangerous.
I plunge it into Michaela’s tire and watch the air bleed out.
41
LAST YEAR
“Adrienne!” I called. I yanked open her front door in a rush and stopped short in the foyer.
“Olivia.” Adrienne’s mom was there, perfect in a light pink dress. She pushed back a piece of black hair that hadn’t fallen out of place. “I’m glad you’re here. Our flight is in less than two hours, and I don’t have time for her to be childish.”
“Sure,” I said, because Mrs. Maynard scared me.
“Tell her,” Mrs. Maynard said, coming straight up to me and holding her hands together in a pleading gesture. “Tell her I’ll be back in three days. I’m sorry she can’t come, I am. But he’ll be fine. He always is.” Then she turned away, the warmth leaving her eyes as quickly as she could extinguish it. “Honey!” She grabbed up her rolling suitcase. “Honey, we need to go now!”
“I’m right here,” Mr. Maynard called, and he rolled his own suitcase into the foyer. “Oh, good, you’re here, Olivia.”
I nodded.
“Adrienne,” Mrs. Maynard called up the stairs, “we love you!”
“We’ll call you when we get to the airport!” Mr. Maynard yelled.
“Thanks, Olivia,” Mrs. Maynard said to me. Commanding me to stay and clean up this problem. She squeezed my arm affectionately. Then they were both gone, rolling away like they always did.
“Adrienne!” I screamed again, stomping up the stairs of the house I knew as well as my own. “Ade!” I banged on her door.
She opened it.
She had done her best to look like she hadn’t been crying. She had scrubbed away the eyeliner that had run down her face, splashed water in her eyes. “What bullshit did they tell you?” she demanded.
“They had to go,” I said. It was weak.
“He’s going to die,” she told me, her voice flat. “Grandpa. She thinks I don’t know, but I do. She says I can’t just quit my life. I hate her.”
“Ade,” I said.
“Ad
e,” she repeated. “She wants me to have less feelings. Like she does.”
“So fuck her,” I said.
“Just fuck her?” Adrienne repeated with a laugh.
“Yeah,” I said, gaining steam. “Fuck her. C’mon, let’s go. Who needs her?”
So we did. We ate an entire chocolate cake. Broke the lock on her parents’ liquor cabinet and drank shots of tequila until we could barely see straight. We got out a paint set from her mom’s hobby room and destroyed the foyer wall and then a white couch. I don’t think her mom was ever mad about any of it. She just replaced it all.
We went skinny-dipping in her pool and then wrapped ourselves in towels, leaning against each other as we doubled over laughing.
After, we both stretched out on the back of her car, drying as we watched the stars. Adrienne had found Mike at Night on satellite radio for us to listen to, even though she thought it was stupid. It ruined the point of Mike at Night and the magic of Brown Creek, but I never would’ve told her that. The night buzzed all around us. I felt so small like that, every bright pinprick of light painted against the sky. It made the world seem vast in a way that thrilled me.
Adrienne didn’t need words. She knew. She reached over and grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers together tight.
“It’s always going to be like this,” she said. “Me and you against the world.”
I squeezed her hand back.
42
I spend the rest of the afternoon at practice, buzzing from the high of revenge, the symphony of Michaela’s slashed tire on repeat in my head—I can’t believe she talked to me that way. I can’t believe she thought I’d roll over and die. My adrenaline is still pumping when I pull into Whit’s driveway. He’d left the front door unlocked, so I slam into his house, flying through the hallway until I find his room, then go through the open door, smiling.
I clap my hands together. “What’s up?”
Whit glances at me and turns away, and like that, the temperature in the room drops to subzero.
“How was practice?” I try again.
How to Break a Boy Page 16