“You’re late, Miss Becker.”
I give him my most pleading look, which isn’t that effective, if I’m being honest. But he lets it go and hands out the test. I feel my brain go completely blank.
Keep going. Nell. Keep working.
* * *
“Time’s up, Miss Becker.”
I’m alone with Dr. Rodgers, who is sitting at the front of the classroom, watching expectantly. I scribble down one last thing about the damn American Revolution and stand up. I’m nothing but adrenaline and Russian czar ascension dates.
“I’m sure you did great,” Dr. Rodgers says as I hand the test over. And it’s honestly that more than anything that does me in. I pound out of the classroom, through the empty hallway, trying to get my breathing under control. For good measure, I jog up the stairs and lean against a wall when I make it to the top, working so hard to keep my body under my control, it hurts my chest.
Breathe. Nell. Be like everyone else. Nell.
I stand straight up when I hear someone climbing the stairs behind me, looking down the hall as if something interesting has caught my eye.
“Nell?” Lia’s voice rings out from the stairwell. I turn back to the direction she’s coming from, willing my face into my idea of normal.
It clearly doesn’t work. She frowns. “Are you okay?”
I swallow once, twice, before I can get the words out. “I’ll be fine.” I take another deeper, near-desperate breath. Lia’s looking at my arm like she’s thinking about touching it, but she knows better than to do something like that when I’m so on edge.
“What’s wrong? I was waiting for you to finish the exam and got kind of worried and then you took off.”
I snap my fingers together trying to think think think. “No one else saw, did they?”
“No.” She stares up at me, letting me ride it out, and then says, “Nell. What’s going on with you?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t study enough and I feel like I haven’t slept in weeks. I was trying to outline the rise of the Hapsburg dynasty on that essay question and I couldn’t keep the names straight, even though they were right there in the corner of my mind and I felt, like, everything slipping away from me.”
“Everything?” I hear the skepticism in her voice.
I shake my head, running my fingers through my hair. “I know you think I’m crazy, Lia. But, this. Being on top of this school and volleyball and I don’t know, just seeing my name first on the class rankings when they come out next week—that’s everything to me. Because it means we all lined up on the playing field and even though some of us had to start from behind, we found out who was the best. I want that to be me. I always want that to be me.”
She sighs, and she sounds sad. “Is it worth destroying yourself over?”
I slump down against the wall, looking at her seriously. “It might be.”
“Nell.” Her voice is exasperated.
“You don’t understand how it will feel for me. For my mom. When I’m up there as valedictorian next year. The All-Star MVP. I’ve been chasing after boys like Jackson Hart at this school for so long. Girls like me have. And this time, we’ll all win.”
“You sure it’s not just you?”
I swallow. “It’ll be me first.”
I can tell she doesn’t want to let it go, but she does because she knows when she’s fighting a useless battle. “You scare me when you have these panic attacks.”
I shove off from the wall. “It’s fine. It hasn’t happened in a long time. Just need to keep everything under my control.”
“And you’ll tell me,” Lia asks, “if it’s not?”
I hold up my pinkie for her to grab. “Of course.”
She seems to accept that, at last, wrapping her pinkie around mine. “Okay. Well, it’s officially summer break, and I want to go get milkshakes and hang out at the river. Do you think you can handle that?” At the look on my face, she says, “And then we can go back to practice tomorrow.”
I laugh and follow her out of the building.
16
We wrap up volleyball practice on the first Monday of summer break. It feels good. My energy is back, my body alive and demanding. Final grades are being posted today. I’m feeling slightly better as the days wear on. I was tired and a little flustered when I took Dr. Rodgers’s test, but I’m at my best under pressure. Dr. Rodgers would see how much thought I’d put into each of his essay questions.
If Jackson Hart can do it, so can I.
The team huddle is broken with a “Cedar Woods” chant and we head our separate ways. I grab a ball out of the basket and set it up with my fingers, talking to Lia and Michonne. “What are y’all doing today?” I ask.
“Working,” Michonne tells us, rolling her eyes. “I’m lifeguarding at the river for the summer. My dad says jobs build character.”
“That explains my mother, then,” Lia says, and we all laugh uncomfortably. “Do you want to stay and hit some extra balls? I’ve got time.”
“Sure,” I say, impressed. Usually I’m the one making that suggestion.
“Can’t,” Michonne says, glancing at the clock on the wall over the locker room. “My shift starts in two hours and I have to shower and put eye makeup on because God knows if I’m going to sit around lifeguarding all summer, I’m going to do it looking good.”
We say our good-byes, and after the rest of the team clears out, Lia and I get back to work. She tosses the ball to me, I bump it back to her, and she sets me up. The two of us are like a well-oiled machine. We know exactly where the other will be; we read each other’s minds.
Sometimes I think about leaving Lia when I go to college. She’ll get a scholarship offer to play at some small school, but I should be able to play Division I and my academics will mean that I can get into any school that wants me. It’ll be weird to play without Lia, though. We’ve been together since seventh grade. When I was younger, I spent a lot of time being jealous of Lia, of everything she had—money and an ease of making her way through the world. Volleyball was the one place I always had a leg up, and though I tried not to let myself revel in it too much, it always felt important to me.
I hate how hard it is to let something like that go.
“Back!” she yells as I send the ball to her in a perfect arc. I run to the spot behind her and wait for the set to come, nailing the placement.
“Hell yeah!” She tosses me a grin over her shoulder, holding her hand up so I can slap it, and hanging on, our hands go down together.
“We’re going to kill it in Charleston,” I say, feeling almost as confident as I can. The Charleston Invitational is at the end of the week and the top college coaches are supposed to be there. We have to be perfect.
“Obviously,” she agrees, walking over to our gym bags we’d brought out of the locker room after practice. She glances down at her phone. “I need to go,” she says, picking up her bag faster than is strictly necessary.
“What’s the rush? Where are you off to?”
She glances at her phone again, shaking her head. “It’s Taylor. We’re going to grab lunch.” She puts her phone into her bag, her face clearing in the process. It’s strange, but I think she’s lying. “Him and Amanda aren’t doing so hot.”
“What?” I ask, momentarily distracted.
“Yeah, it’s so stupid. Now that her brother is home, she seems so much better and yet he’s weird about it. She wants to go out and do stuff. I feel like she’s finally kind of … normal now, actually?”
“That’s amazing, right?” I ask.
“Totally,” she agrees. “Only—” Her phone buzzes again. She yanks it out and barks out a laugh at whatever she sees. “Sorry, sorry. I have to go,” she says then, not even completely meeting my eye. “Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? I’ll make that pizza you like.” It’s a diversionary tactic. She immediately goes jogging out of the gym like her hair is on fire. My eyes follow her as I spin the ball up against my hands.
&n
bsp; What the hell?
I throw the ball violently against the wall and it bounces back to me. I do it a couple more times because it feels good. Like my anger has a life of its own.
“What did that wall do to you?” someone yells across the gym. I look back and catch sight of Jackson, drenched in sweat, making his way toward me.
Great. I turn away from him and throw the ball against the wall again.
He comes to stand next to me, twirling his empty water bottle on a finger and watching the ball with interest.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“Off-season conditioning. It is truly never-ending, and I feel like I’ve only got two or three weeks of it before I stop showing up completely.”
My eyebrows go up as I catch the ball again. “Of course.”
“Working out isn’t the same without you, Becker,” he tells me.
I take this as a sign from above. I let the ball roll away from me and walk over to my own bag, grabbing my phone to see that no one has tried to contact me in the last twelve hours. Seems about right.
I’m standing there stupidly, looking at the screen like I have received many important correspondences that I need to attend to before further speaking to Jackson. It’s while I’m doing that that I get the notification: One new e-mail.
I open it up a little bit faster than I mean to. Updated Class Rankings.
The Office of the Registrar isn’t supposed to send this out until everyone has been notified of final grades, but that doesn’t mean much to them, anyway. What is being this rich and successful really about, if it’s not about winning? Nothing.
I click into the e-mail and scroll right past all the bullshit at the top. Then I feel my stomach drop.
1. Jackson Hart—4.87
2. Nell Becker—4.86
It’s the first time. It’s the first time ever I haven’t been number one.
I can’t fully process it. Only that I am doing absolutely everything I can to get air into my lungs and I feel like I’m going to vomit and nothing is in my control anymore. I’m a spinning top and there is no gravity to stop me from spinning on and on out of control forever. I rake my fingers through my hair, pulling it back, looking for something to hold on to.
That point, I can’t stop thinking. I’ll never be able to make back that point.
I think I’m being as subtle as possible. Only then: “Nell? Shit, Nell. Are you okay? Hang on,” Jackson says, and then he takes off running to the water fountain, filling up his empty bottle and bringing it back to me. “Fuck. Breathe. Do you have asthma?”
I try to gulp down water, but the fact that he can see me makes it even harder to breathe and I can’t stop. I can’t force it away and I hate myself so much for it. I’m supposed to be able to beat this.
Stop. Nell. Breathe. Nell. Goddammit what’s wrong with you Nell?
“Hey, that’s better,” Jackson says, his hand just barely touching my arm. I start to get control back, talking myself down.
I’m okay.
I take longer pulls from the water bottle. Embarrassed. Cut to pieces, really, because there are so few things I want less in the world than to cry in front of Jackson Hart because Jackson Hart beat me.
“Nell, look at me,” he says, and he puts the side of his index finger under my chin and tilts my face up. “You’re okay.”
I’m okay.
“Well. Good job,” I manage to squeak out at last with tears burning in my eyes. It doesn’t sound like me at all—more like some pathetic person who can’t hide her emotions. I don’t look at his face.
“What are you talking about?” he asks me, and I wish he’d stop looking at me. I pull away from the wall, walking around him.
“Class rankings,” I say. “You’re beating me.”
He scoffs. “That can’t be possible.”
“Don’t play that shit with me,” I snap, and the anger actually makes me feel so much better. “Your whole ‘I’m Jackson Hart and everything just comes to me, I don’t have to work for anything at all and I don’t even care’ bullshit routine.” I round on him. “You know exactly how to get whatever you want and you’d rip anything you can get your hands on out of mine. Even if I’d earned it.”
“Jesus Christ, Becker. I can’t even imagine what you think I’ve done now.”
“Oh my God!” I say. “The run. Holy shit. That’s what it was all about.”
“What?”
“Your bullshit, ‘just happened to be in the neighborhood wanted to go on a run’ shtick.”
“What?”
“I was exhausted, at my wit’s end, and you show up and run me all over the damn city. You tire me out so much and get in my head and I can’t study, I oversleep. I almost missed the exam! You were doing everything you could to get in my way. I am so stupid,” I gasp.
“Becker, do you really think I care that much?” he asks, like I’m being unreasonable. He takes a step back, feeling the heat of the anger emanating from me.
“Of fucking course you do. It’s all part of your stupid game and this is just another way that you come out on top, like you always do.”
“How was I supposed to know you’d fall asleep? I’m not even convinced you actually need to sleep. I’ve been under the impression that you run on pure rage most of the time. Listen to yourself.”
I do, to the deep breaths I take in and out, to the anger in them. I’m now staring right at him, trying to direct every ounce of hate into my eyes in the hopes that it might affect him in some way.
“It’s you, Nell. You’re the one who works yourself to death. I thought—I guess I just—shit, I don’t know,” he says like he doesn’t want to say something.
“I’m so done with you,” I say, not that I ever started with him. At least, not on purpose. I march back over to where I’d thrown my phone down, pocket it, and sling my bag over my shoulder. I’ve got a clear line to the exit until Jackson steps in my escape path and places his hand on my shoulder.
“Wait,” he says very calmly, “we can fix this.”
I recoil from his touch. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“If they sent out rankings that means all the grades are in the system. How many hundredths of a point am I beating you by? Nudge up your grade on Rodgers’s exam by like one or two points, and you’re golden. Number one when rankings come out next year. Simple clerical error. That old bat won’t notice.”
I dig my fingers into my palm, intrigued against my will.
“And why would you do that?” I ask him. I hear some of the anger leaking out of my voice, to my own annoyance. “You wouldn’t help me beat you. No one’s that stupid.”
He shrugs, looking away. “I don’t care. It’s next to nothing to me, and if you’re that upset—I don’t know. If it does mean that much to you, I don’t want to take it away from you.”
I scan him, from the tips of his brand-new tennis shoes to his thoughtful face. Is it remorse? I have a hard time worrying about him being a step ahead of me. If the run was a trick, it only got to me because I was so damn tired. Not today—today I’m thinking clearly.
And I can’t fall behind now.
“I know how to break into the office,” he tells me, reading the interest on my face.
I stand there, staring at him.
“You wanna be the best, Nell?” he asks me after a minute. “Sometimes, you’ve got to be a little ruthless. Stop waiting—do something. Come on,” he says, and takes off out of the gym, heading back through the deserted halls on a mission. I run behind him, the sounds of our footsteps echoing in the emptiness as loud as a roar. I run my fingers over the strap of my bag nervously.
The sensor lights trigger as I follow him deeper into the heart of the building, flickering on us like spotlights until we are walking down the administration hallways. Alumni Counselor, Guidance Counselor, Donations Manager. All sorts of ridiculous titles line the hall. And then:
Mary Becker, Head of School.
But instead of going to
Mom’s door and just picking the lock with a bobby pin or credit card or whatever you would assume happens in these circumstances, he backtracks to the other side of the hallway. Admissions.
He grabs the handle and pulls, pushing up and away very slowly. And to my amazement, the handle gives until the door I’d assumed was locked is completely open.
“C’mon,” he says, letting me through after him.
The admissions office is for prospective students and their parents. There’s a waiting room with an open window the assistants sit behind. Farther back down a hallway, there are more offices.
Jackson climbs up onto the admissions counter and through the window. Then he disappears and I hear him rifling through cabinets. Without coming up for air, he puts a bottle of Beefeater Gin on the counter. Right behind that, he plops down a set of keys. And then he emerges looking cheerful.
“Gin?” he asks.
I grab up the keys, unamused. “How in the world did you possibly know how to get in here?”
“Some things are best left unknown.” He unscrews the top of the gin and takes a swig, then winces and shudders. “Mrs. Ackley likes the strong stuff.”
I roll my eyes, turning away from him and going back out into the hallway and to Mom’s door. I feel more than hear Jackson coming up behind me, and even though I know it’s him, I shiver. He takes the key out of my hand.
“Watch and learn,” he says, testing out a couple of keys before he hits the jackpot.
“This is why the coaches aren’t supposed to leave us in the building alone, you know,” I say.
“We’re Cedar Woods Prep students,” he answers, going to sit behind Mom’s desktop computer and booting it up. “We’re supposed to be on the honor system.”
I sigh, hating how much he enjoys my corruption, and go to stand behind him.
“Okay,” he says, staring at the screen, “what would your mom use as her password?”
I give him Mom’s favorite female politician and then her alma mater, password combinations I know she has used in the past, but we strike out twice. I think carefully as he toggles the mouse back and forth.
Winner Take All Page 9