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How to Break a Boy

Page 19

by Laurie Devore

Everything is cleaned out of Mrs. Baker’s classroom when we get to school Thursday morning. All that bare space makes it feel haunted, gives me chills all over my skin. I keep having this horrible flashback to the picture on her desk, this tiny blond girl smiling at the camera, and feeling so sick to my stomach I can hardly walk down the hallway. Whit asks me what’s wrong, and I have to physically find a way to separate myself from the person who did this. Good Olivia and bad. I’ve done bad things before, but never anything like this.

  Never.

  The words are all over school, buzzing louder than before. In the gym, the caf, the teachers’ lounge, I’m sure. When I walk down the hall with Whit, random guys offer to high-five him, laughing their asses off, and Whit turns redder and redder, barely able to look anyone in the eye. When we finally manage to find a table off by itself in the quad to study, he slumps his head into his hands, and I’m scared he might cry or do something really embarrassing.

  “Maybe if I’m with you, nobody will think it’s a big deal. You know, more normal.”

  He doesn’t look up. “My parents are going to find out. Dr. Rickards told me this morning that he has to bring them in today before it becomes a full-scale investigation, even though I told him it was complete bullshit. Apparently, someone has screenshots of texts Mrs. Baker and I supposedly sent each other, and they’re completely fake. I even told him he could have my phone. So the principal is going to tell my parents I had imaginary sex with my teacher. Mrs. Baker’s mom goes to church with us.”

  The part of me that’s Whit’s Girlfriend and wants him to be happy reaches out to touch him. Everything else about me holds me back. Touching him right now feels over the line. “You told Dr. Rickards absolutely everything, right? It’s just a rumor. It will go away. They always do.”

  Whit doesn’t say anything for a second. Then he opens up my SAT booklet. “Have you been studying your prefixes?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You want to do these?” he asks me.

  “Do you?” I tug on the pencil he has in his hand until his palm falls open. We’re barely touching, fingertips on the pencil rather than skin to skin. Some sophomores are watching us from the other side of the quad, in that we-totally-aren’t-watching-you kind of way. Whit looks ashamed.

  “I know it’s stupid, but I hate everyone staring at me. I hate everyone talking about me. I hate that because of some grudge Adrienne Maynard has against me, Mrs. Baker is in huge trouble. God, I just feel so out of control of my own life and I don’t understand it. I want to take it back.”

  “I know you said you weren’t going to let Adrienne scare you or anything. But—” The words are hard to choke out, especially when he’s saying things out loud that consume my every thought. Take it back. “This is a new low. If you want to walk away—”

  “Then I look even guiltier and she knows she won,” he says, his voice hoarse. I guess, in his competitive mind, it makes sense. Like if he weathers this storm, we win somehow.

  I should tell him we’ll never win.

  I don’t.

  “She’s just some girl,” he’s saying. “She’s some broken girl, and I’m—we’re so much better than that, Liv.” I can’t believe he said that. We. We’re better than her.

  I want to be that. I feel how much I want it in every fiber of my soul, and I am more heartbroken than I’ve ever been and happier than I have a right to be.

  Let’s take it back.

  I glance at the staring sophomores, who are joined by some cheer girls. “Stand up,” I tell Whit.

  “We’ve got—”

  “Just do it.”

  He stands up, the brick wall of the quad behind him. I climb up on top of the stone bench, stepping over to the one he was sitting on, and jump off the seat, landing with a small hop in front of him. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him toward me, kissing him with everything I have.

  He pushes me back with both of his hands. “Olivia.”

  “Look,” I whisper, my mouth right next to his. We turn our heads at the same time to see the sophomores staring. He tilts his head back down and kisses me. Hard.

  A teacher has to separate us.

  49

  Whit and I are sitting together in the front office supposedly because PDA is against the rules, but I’m guessing because the two of us have turned Buckley High into a public relations nightmare in the past two days. We’re sitting quietly shoulder to shoulder when his brother comes in. He’s supposed to be at school; I can only assume that he just plain took off from Durham sometime this morning. The secretary demands his identity, but he ignores her.

  He’s Cason DuRant, so he can do things like that.

  “Whit, I need to talk to you. We need to go,” Cason says.

  I stand up.

  Cason kind of winces. “Olivia…”

  “She goes,” Whit says firmly.

  Cason nods, his jaw clenched tight. We head toward the exit of the school, everyone watching us go. Some people ooh under their breath. I even hear someone say, “Don’t be jealous, Cason!”

  In the parking lot, we cram into Cason’s sports car. I slide into the back, drumming a beat on Whit’s seat in front of me. Cason cranks up the car and speeds out of the parking lot, absolutely obliterating the posted speed limit.

  “You don’t think I slept with a teacher,” Whit says.

  Cason’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “No, I don’t.” He doesn’t say anything for a moment. “But that’s not the problem. Olivia, check my bag.”

  I slide out a newspaper from his book bag and am leaning forward to pass it up to Whit when the picture on the front stops me. It is a haggard picture of Mrs. Baker, out of some old yearbook, I’m pretty sure. They caught her halfway into a smile, and she looks kind of crazed. Like she’s coming after your horny teenage son. The headline reads LOCAL TEACHER ACCUSED OF RELATIONSHIP WITH STUDENT. Before I can read any further, Whit grabs the paper out of my hand.

  “What the fuck?” he demands of Cason.

  “At least no one knows it’s you,” I say.

  “Everyone knows it’s him,” Cason tells me. “Local paper assholes. As if that’s not enough, just read the last sentence of the article.”

  Slowly, Whit reads, “‘Little is known about the student involved, except for that he is a well-known athlete at Buckley High.’” He closes the paper. “Dammit.” A moment. “Fuck. My life is over.”

  “So you had imaginary sex with a teacher,” I finally say. “Your life isn’t over.” Hers is, some faraway version of me thinks.

  Whit whips around toward me. “You don’t understand. No one cares what you do, Olivia. Everyone expects shit like this from you, but I’m supposed to be someone with character, okay? You don’t get it.”

  “Whit,” Cason says. “Chill out, bro.”

  I try not to be hurt. “Yeah, don’t go wasting all that good character on me.”

  “Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter. Just don’t.”

  No one says anything else as we drive toward the DuRants’ house. The silence has expanded through the car and engulfed us all when Whit’s phone begins ringing. He looks at the screen and then toward Cason.

  “What?” Cason asks, his jaw tense.

  “It’s the coach.”

  Cason slams on the brakes so hard, I hit the headrest in front of me. “Take it,” he says. “Get out.”

  Whit steps out of the car, slamming the door behind him. We can almost hear him through the door, but not quite. He walks forward on the sidewalk, head tilted away from us.

  “What is going on with this?” Cason asks me, his eyes still on Whit.

  I rub at the back of my neck, uncomfortable. “You know as much as I do.”

  He turns on me, and there’s something I’ve never seen before. Cason is the older, easygoing, cool brother, but every bit of his face is Whit in this moment. Serious and haggard and worried. Always so worried something he did is wrong. “Whit has never been like this in his life. Suddenly he
’s with you and everything is falling apart for him. There’s only one conclusion I can draw.”

  “It’s me,” I reply.

  “It’s you.”

  Whit walks farther away from the car, running his hand through his hair. I can barely stand the sight of him. I want to argue with Cason but I have nothing to say. No words are on my side. I want to brush it off or tell him it’s no big deal, but I can’t look at Whit and think that. It matters to him.

  So it matters to me.

  “I think you need to leave him alone. I can tell he cares about you a lot.” Cason sighs. “But Whit’s never met someone like you before, Olivia. Every moment of every day isn’t important to you like it is to him. He loves that you don’t care, but he can’t handle it.”

  Whit has taken his phone away from his ear and is staring at it like the plastic personally hurt his feelings. His whole body looks near collapse—the whole tall, solid pillar of him, defeated. “It’s not that simple,” I find myself saying. “I can’t just let him go like that.”

  Whit walks back to the car and gets in.

  We don’t say anything the rest of the way.

  50

  Whit’s dad sits alone at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. It’s like their family has been blown up by a nuclear explosion, and I don’t know how to hide the fact that I dropped the bomb.

  The thought of Mrs. Baker makes my entire body itch as if the wrong person were wearing my skin.

  The three of us amble into the clean white room, all wearing our guilt like a badge. No one says anything for a minute.

  “Your mom asked me to come home.” Mr. DuRant folds his fingers together, watching them as if they’re the only things in the room. This must be killing him on so many levels. Parents hate thinking about their kids having sex, period. They like to pretend their kid is different—they’ll be the one who makes the right choices. Or, at the very least, they’ll love their parents enough to pretend.

  But if your son’s banging his teacher? Then everyone knows.

  “We’re going to handle this,” Mr. DuRant continues. “We’re not going to let these rumors stand. It would be ridiculous for us to hide in the shadows over something that isn’t true.”

  “It doesn’t matter what we do,” Whit says, resigned, like he’s plotted out every battle and lost each one.

  “Olivia, I’m glad to see you have the good sense not to believe such nonsense,” Mr. DuRant says, turning to me. “To think that they would print gossip in the paper. Journalism is a dead art form.” He’s saying the right things, he sounds angry enough, but I don’t really believe him. I don’t think he believes himself. He knows Whit didn’t do it, but there’s that voice in his head that won’t stop whispering:

  What if he did?

  Mr. DuRant drains his coffee. “I have to get back to work. And probably call a lawyer.” As he walks by Whit, he puts a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out, son.” And then he’s gone.

  “My own dad thinks I’m sleeping with a teacher. Great.” Whit shakes his head. He’s mad at everyone and everything. I don’t think there’s anything either of us could say to fix the situation. But even if there is a perfect response, it’s definitely not—

  “Quit being a dick, Whit,” which is what Cason decides to say then.

  Whit takes a swing at him. He misses, on purpose I think, and then Cason shoves him into the counter. “Chill out!” Cason says, but Whit has already pushed around him and taken off toward his bedroom. Cason shakes his head as I try to follow him. “He doesn’t want help,” he warns me.

  I go anyway.

  I nudge open the closed door. For some reason, Whit is just standing there, staring absently at his wall. I close the door and walk up behind him, silent even though I know he knows I’m there. The wall is covered in letters bearing college letterheads—recruitment letters. Mr. DuRant, we are pleased to offer you and we think the academics are a great fit, a full wall of pride and choice.

  “It’s not like it changes everything you’ve accomplished,” I say.

  “You know, I got three more offers than Cason,” he tells the wall.

  “So what?”

  “So what?” He turns around to look at me, incredulous. “So what? That’s everything. That’s what I am.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Get out of my way.” I climb on top of his desk and start ripping the letters off the wall. I throw them to the ground, one leaf of creamy stationery after another.

  “What are you doing?” he demands.

  “Getting. Rid. Of. These.” I punctuate each word with another letter torn off the wall. “It doesn’t matter, Whit. None of this does.”

  “Stop it!” he demands and then his arms are around my waist, pulling me away from the wall, and I’m still trying to rip at the letters like they’re the punishment, not the prize. “Stop, Liv.” The whole weight of the day is in his voice. “Please stop.”

  Just like that, the whole moment comes to a standstill. He lets go of me. I turn away from the wall to face him, sitting down on top of his desk. “They’re not you,” I say after a moment. “You’re Whit. You’re not Cason’s little brother and you’re not the guy who slept with his teacher and you’re not some golf recruit with a bunch of pros and cons. You’re Whit and that’s all I want you to be, okay? If it matters at all.”

  He kisses me, and just like that, everything begins.

  Our lips are barely touching for a breath, and then I have my hand around the back of his head, gripping him as hard as I can and pulling him into me. His arms wrap around me, and I tense in surprise for a moment, but then I love it, relaxing into it. I love the feel of us so close together, and him kissing me and me kissing him. His hand slides up the bare small of my back under my shirt, pulling me up toward him until we move to collapse on the bed. My mouth tracks along his collarbone, searching for sensitive spots. We’re kissing and it’s everything it should be and, in this weird moment where all that matters is we’re kissing, I am so completely happy.

  Except he’s Whit. Except he’s sad because of me, angry because of me. Because everything wrong with his life right now, I did.

  I pull back. “We shouldn’t do this. I told you this wouldn’t get fucked up.”

  His fingers float in the space between us, and I push his bangs to the side, unable to stop myself. “This is fucked up,” he says, almost to himself.

  This is what I want. I can feel how badly I want this.

  But I can’t do this to him.

  He bends his head down, so close to mine, defeat in every line of his body. “I’m sorry,” he tells me.

  “Don’t be,” I say before I can stop myself.

  “That was—exactly what I promised I’d never do,” he says, blowing out a shaky breath. His veneer keeps cracking right before my eyes, all that insecurity he keeps buried right under the surface. I can’t stop myself.

  I want him so badly.

  So, hit with the sudden realization that this might be my only chance, I go for it. I kiss him again, soft and slow, and let it linger. This is the scariest thing. This is what I’m afraid to give up.

  “Don’t keep that promise,” I whisper, inches from his mouth.

  Glance up. His eyes are dark with lust.

  I shove him down onto the bed and climb on top and just let my hormones lead the way. If we stopped, everything would be ruined, so I don’t give us time to think. I tug at the front of his jeans, sliding my fingers over the stretch of skin above the waistband, pulling at the silver button. He grabs the bottom of my shirt and pulls it over my head, slinging it away a little too dramatically when it’s off, and I roll over next to him, laughing. He slides on top of me, grinning. “This is trouble.”

  He draws his fingers across my stomach, down to the rough fabric of my jeans, and I arch my back, throwing his shirt, too. All the while, we keep smiling at each other. I’d forgotten that this was supposed to be fun.

  I push both of my hands into his hair, holding hi
m from either side so we’re looking right at each other. “Take your pants off.”

  His eyes flash with clarity, and even though I’m joking, these serious tingles start over my body. When his fingers slide up my thigh, my heart really gets going in that honest way you can’t make stop. My breath is hitching and my legs feel shaky and the safe part’s over for good.

  Every inch, every moment, every heartbeat is changed now.

  This is trouble.

  51

  Yesterday, I was the girl who made up a lie to ruin our class’s golden boy and coolest teacher. I hate that girl.

  Today, I am totally sure that boy loves me, and I’m going to forget that girl.

  Whit will never know. No one will ever prove anything, and I’m done fighting with Adrienne. I’m Whit’s Liv and that’s all I need to be.

  I get to school early the next morning—Mom had to drop me off since she had a client meeting. Whit and I are supposed to meet up to go over some SAT words before class. I’m coming up on the library when I see Michaela in a blush-pink sweater with mascara running down her face. One of her minions is trying to comfort her, but Michaela is inconsolable, clutching a copy of the school paper to her chest. And then she spots me looking at her.

  “No.” She points a finger at me like I’m a misbehaving dog. “Leave me alone. I didn’t do anything.”

  Shocked, I stop. “What?”

  “I didn’t do it, okay?” And at this, her voice cracks and she lets one little tear escape, giving way to another and another until she’s not Michaela anymore. Just a girl in a quiet hallway whose mom is dying, whose world is so much more than here.

  “What is it?” I ask, snatching the paper out of her hand, dreading and certain it’s going to be about Whit.

  But it’s not. The Buckley Bugle isn’t much—two seventeen-by-eleven-inch pages printed front and back and folded down the middle. The cover story looks normal, something about vegetarian options in the cafeteria. When I flip it open, a loose leaf of paper floats out and falls to the ground.

  It has a color picture of Claire and Ellie printed on it, from the same night as the picture Adrienne told me Coxie had sent to her. But this time Claire is definitely kissing Ellie.

 

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