To Be Honest

by Maggie Ann Martin

  Ben had been kind enough to lend us his student-athlete pass to access the gymnasium outside of school hours, and we were about to witness firsthand the battle royal that would go down between the dance team and the baseball team, who each felt like they deserved the room for practice.

  We had it on good word from Melinda Aldridge that they were especially fed up by the baseball team’s latest antics, and they were ready to reclaim their rightful practice spot in the gymnasium, especially with the homecoming game quickly approaching and with no other logical place to practice.

  Although the practice wasn’t technically open, we’d had verbal confirmation from Melinda that we could observe the dance team rehearsal. And if we happened to walk into the baseball team’s practice, it would be a total coincidence that we never could have predicted happening.

  We peeked into the window of the gymnasium, and, in our heads, we both planned out our sneakiest strategy of getting in there unnoticed. We just had to wait for the perfect moment to enter the gym when no one would notice us.

  “While we’re here,” Grace whispered. “My mom is making reservations for homecoming. She said Luigi’s gets booked really early.”

  “That’s good thinking on Mrs. M’s part,” I said.

  “You’ll bring George, right?” Grace asked.

  “Ah, I’m actually not sure that he’d be up for it,” I said.

  “What! No way! Did something happen? Did you not tell me something?” she hissed. Her whispering was basically yelling at this point. The whole school could understand now that George and I had an awkward moment and I was now firmly a visitor in Unrequited Land.

  “Um, we’re on official paper business right now,” I said.

  “Why aren’t you taking George to homecoming?” Grace asked, steamrolling over my request for professionalism.

  “Because he hasn’t asked me? Because he canceled our study session on Monday in the most obvious sign of ‘I’m not interested’ in the world?” I said.

  “He’s new to school! He doesn’t know when it is. Plus, he’s shy. You’re, like, the complete opposite of shy. Help him out! Ask him! He’ll say yes!” she said.

  I shook my head. “He doesn’t like me. I saw the Look, where he wanted me to get out of his general area and leave forever because the thought of having to kiss me absolutely repulsed him.”

  “I think you’re being a tad dramatic,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I’ve seen you two together. He likes you.”

  “Boys don’t like like me, Grace. It’s just a fact that I’ve grown to accept,” I said.

  “Bullshit!” Grace said. She shouted it so loud that she shrunk a little bit as it echoed down the hallway. We really weren’t keeping our position secret anymore. “You’re the queen of pushing people away before they can say they like you. The queen of rejecting first so you can’t be rejected.”

  “That’s not true. Not one person has ever asked me out before,” I said.

  “Because you don’t give them a chance! You shut them down, talk about being great friends, and even talk about how you’re going to be alone forever in front of them. That’s not really an open invitation to ask someone out, is it?” she asked.

  “If I looked like you, they might still try,” I said.

  The hallway was quiet for a few beats before she finally replied.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “I’m fine with how I look. And trust me, I’m not going to ever support making drastic changes to a body, like my mom, to get attention from people, but it’s just never easy. The minute you break up with someone, you have a whole line of guys waiting to take you out on a date. You have to realize that, right?” I said.

  “It’s not about how I look, Savvy, it’s about how I treat people. It’s about how I’m open to letting new people into my life,” she said.

  I shook my head, feeling my anger starting to boil behind my ears, turning my whole head hot with fury. If we stayed here any longer, tears would start to spring out of my eyes. And there’s no crying in baseball practice.

  “I let new people in. That’s not the problem,” I said.

  “Isn’t it?” she asked. “Coming from the girl who pushed Saint George away for the first few weeks of knowing him because it scared her how easily they clicked right away?”

  As much as it pained me to admit, she had the tiniest bit of a point. I had pushed George away so hard at the beginning of our friendship for that reason. I didn’t click with people like that. And, to be honest, it scared me.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said.

  “You can be a little intimidating sometimes,” she said.

  I scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’m not! You’re so smart, and quick on your feet, and have this ‘Savvy against the world’ attitude that makes it hard for me to even feel like I know the right thing to say back to you sometimes. I guess … I wish you believed in yourself in the same way you project yourself to the world, because you’re fierce, funny, and hella loyal. There’s no one on this planet that I’d rather have in my corner,” she said.

  “Just this planet?” I teased.

  She pushed my shoulder, laughing. “See? That.”

  “You think I’ve scared him off?” I asked.

  “No way,” she said. “But I do think he is of a rarer, quieter breed. A breed that doesn’t always make the first move. So ask him out, ask him about the dance, and I’m sure he’ll say yes.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  “A good friend doesn’t lie. And I hope you think I’m a good friend,” she said, leaning into my shoulder.

  “I do,” I said, taking her hand in mine. We sat there for a while, taking in the musky smell of the boys’ locker room on the other side of the hallway. It was a distinct smell that my nostrils would never be able to forget, and would perpetually associate with the hideous Coach Triad. That whole interview with him still made me shudder.

  “Time to do some super sleuthing?” she asked. She stood up and held a hand out to me to help me up from the ground.

  “Indeed,” I said, taking it and letting her pull me the rest of the way up.

  We figured that our best bet would be to get into the girls’ locker room and shuffle our way to the emergency ladder at the corner of the gym. From there we’d perch up at the top of the bleachers, where we had the potential to be hidden behind the electronic scoreboard.

  Halfway up the incredibly steep ladder to get to the top of the bleachers, I regretted this decision so hard. Heights and I were not friends, and if I looked down now, I felt like I might vomit all over the squeaky-clean gymnasium floor. Good thing Grace went first. At least she wouldn’t have to experience the vom.

  “Are we almost there?” I asked, my vision starting to go spotty. If we didn’t make it up this ladder in a reasonable amount of time, I was going to go splat on the floor, and we would most definitely be caught for spying on Triad.

  “Three more rungs!” Grace whispered down to me. I had to keep my eyes firmly closed for two reasons: the impending doom that lay below, and the fact that Grace had chosen to wear a miniskirt that day.

  When I finally felt flat ground, I sprawled onto it while Grace pulled me the rest of the way onto the bleacher. Thankfully, the team was practicing running drills up and down the gym, so no one could hear my body scraping across the bleacher as Grace maneuvered me.

  “Are you doing okay?” she whispered.

  I managed to give her a thumbs-up with a small moan. She took this as her cue to take notes and be attentive while I collected myself.

  “Melinda said they would be here by now,” Grace whispered.

  For the next five minutes, all we heard was Coach Triad yelling at people to run harder and pick up the pace, and I figured that this was my own hell. Being at the very top of the bleachers while listening to a misogynistic coach yell at people while he sat on his ass. Confirmed. Grace and I were in Savannah’s Pers
onal Hell.

  “Oh, crap, I think someone spotted me,” she said.

  She ducked down, and I felt like I could be one with the gymnasium again. I took my turn to pop my head up and observe. I heard a door open underneath us, and Melinda and the rest of the dance team walked out of the girls’ locker room.

  “Showtime!” I said, smacking Grace’s leg.

  Jolene Foster, the dance team coach, came up to Triad and handed him a sheet of paper. He looked at it for a few seconds before handing it back to her and actually shooing her away. She pointed again to the paper, and I wished that the baseball guys would stop running so we could hear their exchange.

  “We’ve got to get down there,” I said. “We have to know what she’s saying.”

  I started to make my way toward the ladder before Grace had a chance to stop me. We had to hear what was going on.

  “Savvy!” she hissed at me.

  About halfway down I felt those same stars begin to dot my vision and the overwhelming nausea take over again. I knew that I had to get down the rest of this ladder, fast, before something bad happened.

  Everything around me suddenly sounded like it was muffled underwater. I could hear Grace calling out my name as I completely lost my vision, and I could hear Coach Triad bounding up to us and yelling profanities as he discovered that we’d snuck in. The last thing that I heard was a high-pitched “Savannah!” before everything went dark.

  * * *

  “… you had no right coming into my practice unannounced. I would have given you permission to observe with an official press pass through the principal if you would have asked. Don’t think this is going to be brushed under the rug,” I could hear Triad saying.

  My eyes refused to open, the darkness still surrounding me.

  “We’re so sorry, sir,” I heard Grace saying. “We had a firm belief that we wouldn’t be observing a typical practice environment if we came with your knowledge, and we wanted to have the most authentic take on the baseball experience at Springdale as possible.”

  I could practically hear her eyelashes batting at him. For her, it might just work.

  “So how do you explain this?” he asked. “Is this supposed to be me?”

  “Uh—” Grace started.

  My eyes sprang open and I turned to see Coach Triad, Jolene Foster, and Grace hovering over me.

  “I’m more of a caricature artist. I exaggerate certain features,” I said.

  Everyone’s eyes snapped to me. Grace knelt down beside me and wrapped me in a hug, helping me to sit up. Every part of my body hurt, and I was convinced that I had become a giant, human bruise. I winced as she let me go and laid me back down.

  “Why didn’t you let me go first! Oh my God, this could have been so much worse!” she said.

  Coach Triad was still holding up my page of notes, where I’d drawn a very true-to-life depiction of him with his face in a super frown. Jolene Foster looked like she was trying to hold back a laugh when she looked at the notes as she turned back to face me.

  “Those are private notes,” I said.

  “Private my ass,” Triad said. “If I see either of you sniffing around practice again, I’m going to have to make a formal complaint to the principal.”

  “Yes, sir, of course, sir,” Grace said. She lifted me up off the floor and, while the world spun for a few moments, I was able to carry myself out of the gym without a problem.

  “Oh my God, Savvy, are you all right?” Grace asked as we left.

  “I only fell down a few rungs, it’s no big deal,” I said.

  “You passed out!” she said.

  “For, like, point two seconds. I could hear every badmouthing thing that Triad said,” I said.

  “Should I call your mom? Should I take you to the doctor?” she asked.

  “Really, I’m fine,” I said. “I swear, I only passed out because my body realized how far off the ground I was. The only damage will probably be my butt, since I landed there first. I can already feel an epic bruise coming on.”

  “If you’re sure…,” she said.

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Besides, we got great notes for the story. That’s what we came for, right?”

  She dropped me off at my house, and I found one of those neck pillows that you get at the airport, to sit on. Even sitting on my cozy couch was painful. I couldn’t even imagine going to school and sitting on the hard seats for eight hours the next day.

  As I went back over my notes from the day, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

  Grace: I texted Melinda for details after we left. Apparently Ms. Foster got a petition signed by school officials to grant the dance team the gymnasium until the homecoming game. Those were the papers that she showed him. Triad refused to leave, and Principal Laurence had to come down and ask him to move his practice outside. Wild!

  Me: SO wild! Thanks for getting the scoop.

  Grace: Of course! Take it easy, my clumsy partner in crime.

  chapter FIFTEEN

  My prediction of having a most painful sitting experience throughout the day had come true, and it was only first period. I couldn’t image an entire rest of the day with this pain. If it was more socially acceptable to view calc class from a standing position, I would have been a much happier camper for that hour.

  I couldn’t stand up fast enough when the bell rang. The sweet relief of taking pressure off my backside was enough to make happy tears sting my eyes. Grace sidled up next to me as we merged out into the student traffic in the hallway.

  “So, I have a proposition for you,” she said.

  “Nothing good ever starts with your propositions,” I said.

  She glowered at me. “I’m going to let that one slide since you’re injured. Anyway, Ben is planning on having a party at his house tonight. Nothing too wild, but a chance to blow off a little steam after the game. I think you should invite George.”

  I started to object, but she held up her hand.

  “You obviously have some tension going on there that neither of you is willing to admit right now, but with the right atmosphere, things could just be … easier,” she said.

  “Easier?” I asked.

  “Parties are made for admitting your crushes. Plus, I’ll be there the whole time to back you up. It’s foolproof,” she said.

  “I don’t know—”

  “George!” she yelled, waving to a very startled George from down the hallway. I became super aware of the distance between George and me, and as he got closer, my body responded accordingly. I was trying to remember everything Grace had told me about intentionally pushing people away before they had the chance to reject me. I had maybe possibly jumped to the wrong conclusion during the Clarinet Incident, and I was going to try my best to go back into my ideas of more-than-friendship with George without the fear of rejection.

  “Hey,” he said, his eyes sliding to meet mine. His half smile absolutely killed me, the way his dimple formed just on top of it … the feeling of needing his face on mine was coming back in full force.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound like I wasn’t imagining what his lips felt like in a very dramatic fantasy going on in my head.

  “You know what? Ben mentioned that there was a party going on at his house tonight. You two should come!” she said.

  I tilted my head, and she smiled at me, waggling her eyebrows. My eyes widened, begging her to stop. But George had seen it. He was officially blushing.

  “Uh, sure, maybe!” I said. I wanted to die that Grace was being so obvious. Maybe George really wasn’t as on the same page as I had hoped.

  “I’ll go if you go,” he said, looking at me. “Both of you—I mean I don’t know that many people.”

  “Yeah, we’ll be there!” Grace said. The warning bell rang and she pulled me off with her. She yelled a quick “I’ll text you with the address!” over her shoulder, and I followed along in a daze.

  “You’re trouble, Grace Moreno. I’m serious,” I said. I would never admit to her the th
rill that went down my spine thinking about hanging out with George in a party setting. Maybe this would be the moment that I could finally give into my overwhelming desire to kiss him.

  I couldn’t pay attention to anything the rest of the day—my brain was already in party-preparation mode. What would I wear? How was I getting there? Would I have to drink to fit in? Would I like it? All of these questions bounced around like loose Ping-Pong balls in my brain and made me feel dizzy and overwhelmed.

  I landed on a floral print dress that made me look tanner than I actually was. It cut right under my boobs and pushed them up to make them more pronounced. I’d never actually had a venue to wear the dress out, but I figured it would get the job done. My hair was a complete disaster and being entirely uncooperative, so I pulled it into a messy braid that came down to my right side. Little loose ends of hair jutted out here and there within the braid, but it looked pretty decent for a girl who’d learned to fishtail her own hair from a YouTube tutorial.

  My phone buzzed angrily on my bathroom counter. I picked it up and found five texts from Grace saying that she was outside.

  The last text read:

  Grace: Get down here or I’m going to call George and tell him how badly you want to see him at this party.

  That got my still-bruised butt moving. I put the last touch of bubble gum lip gloss on that I’d had since I was in middle school, and surprisingly it still looked decent (even if it was a little bit clumpy). I ran downstairs and saw Grace, phone in hand, waving to me from the front seat of her car.

  “You better not have called him,” I said when I opened the door.

  “Of course not,” she said. “But I knew it would make you get here quicker if I threatened to. By the way, you look hot.”

  “The hair isn’t too much?” I asked.

  “Absolutely not,” she said, touching my carefully crafted fishtail braid. It had only taken me five tries. I think I accounted for one thousand of the views on the tutorial video I watched. “If my hair was long enough to do this, I would do it all the time.”

  “And the dress? Is it too much?” I asked.

  “You look great, babe. Stop all this worrying and let yourself have some fun,” she said.