She turned back to me. “Definitely. You should be the one getting his letter this time. And leggings and a big T-shirt aren’t going to get you there. I bet you could sleep over at his house after. I mean, my place is fine, but it’s not Mateo’s. If you play the game right, he’ll ask you over. And I just got you a free pass from your grandparents.”
“Sleep over at his house?”
“Sure, we used to have coed sleepovers in Chicago all the time.”
“I don’t want to use sex to play the game,” I blurted. Again. God.
Chloe’s eyebrows shot up, and I thought maybe she should use a little less pencil on them, but I didn’t say anything. “Are you a virgin?”
I shoved my pinkie in my mouth and shrugged noncommittally.
“Oh my God. You are. Really?”
I spit out part of the nail, not even caring how gross that was. “Who cares? It’s not a contest. I . . . well, there could be some pretty serious consequences to sex. Look at Melissa. And it seems dumb to make that kind of commitment with someone I don’t like just to get it over with.”
“You haven’t liked anyone but Mateo? Even before he came to Grinnell? You didn’t have a crush on anyone last year or anything?”
“No.” I’d lived vicariously through Eve’s Aiden crush and actively tried not to like anyone. High school relationships seemed like a hassle I wasn’t ready for. And it wasn’t like everything Holly had been describing to me and Eve for the past year was a big selling point.
“Why not? You’re so pretty. Surely guys have been all over you.”
I flushed again. Mom always said pretty was a bullshit compliment, but no one called me pretty, unless it was Nan telling me how pretty I could be if only I wore better clothes.
“I’m not pretty.”
“I’ve seen guys checking you out. You’re pretty, and I’m sure at least a few have hit you up.”
I couldn’t tell her about being afraid. I couldn’t tell her how my mom’s brand of sex education coupled with her miscarriage made the cost of being with a guy too high. Until Mateo. “I don’t know. I guess there weren’t really any I thought would be worth the drama.”
“So you really haven’t had sex?”
“No. I really haven’t.”
For a little while during freshman year, I thought maybe I’d just get it over with. But when I’d gotten really drunk with Eve at a party that spring, I hadn’t been able to follow the GHS wide receiver up the stairs. He’d had his hands all over me and whisper-slurred it wouldn’t hurt too much and I knew I should’ve just gone with him upstairs, but I couldn’t. Not without thinking about my mom in bed for weeks after her miscarriage, sobbing and calling for my grandparents or my dad to deal with me.
“I haven’t ever had sex,” I repeated, stronger now, less embarrassed.
“Have you ever had an orgasm?”
I blinked. This girl went right for it, not blurting, but more as if she had a right to know. I swallowed too much spit in my mouth and said, “I don’t know. Maybe. But I think it was accidental.”
“How do you have an accidental orgasm?”
I sat on my hands and stared at my feet, blinking, blinking, blinking, then said, “I don’t know. I mean, haven’t you sometimes been washing down there or had a loofah or whatever and sort of rubbed yourself enough that you got a little warm and tingly?”
God, I was calling it down there. My mom would be so salty about how shy I was being, but come on, I didn’t have much to go on when it came to girl talk and orgasms. Holly always sounded like she was lying, and Eve had as little experience as I did, or at least I’d thought she had until I found out about the spring break thing.
Chloe Donnelly laughed and I felt as humiliated as I had when my mom called out that hostess at Beau’s. “Um, no, my hot button clearly is defective if you can get yourself off with a loofah. But good for you.”
I took a deep breath and sat up straight like I was doing the mountain pose in one of my mom’s yoga videos. “I’ve never had an orgasm with someone else, and that’s fine. I’m seventeen.”
Chloe Donnelly studied me for a long time, her thumb twisting the single ring she’d kept on her right hand. Finally, she shrugged. “Whatever. You don’t have to use sex to play the game.”
I almost blurted that Cam did, that sex was the only thing I had if I was playing offense, because I didn’t want to use secrets and I didn’t know how to win a platinum favor otherwise. That rock-paper-scissors best-out-of-three wasn’t going to position me into an unconditional yes from Mateo, not with the guys’ team playing to win. And now I wasn’t even sure I wanted an unconditional yes from Mateo anymore.
But it was too many words and they clogged in my throat, especially with the echo of Chloe Donnelly’s laughter at my expense still ringing in the room. I didn’t trust her, even if we were on the same team. For all her attention—and kindness—to me, I couldn’t shake the broken sound of Aiden’s voice when I’d discovered him and he’d said, Another fucking Chloe.
I wondered if I was being immature. If Chloe Donnelly using Aiden and Josh’s secret wasn’t that big of a deal, if maybe it really was just about the game and never something she’d hurt them with. I’d spent too much of the year stressing over Eve and was probably making a bigger deal of everything Chloe Donnelly said and did than I needed to. But I felt the weight of our town on my shoulders, and knew that “outing” Aiden or Josh could leave them exposed and unsafe. Secrets were not something anyone should play with, particularly in a game called Gestapo. Everyone should be able to see this. So why was I too afraid to say it?
I cleared my throat. “If you don’t expect me to use sex to play, why do you keep pulling out dresses and talking about my legs as if they’re an invaluable asset?”
Chloe Donnelly crossed to my bed and sat next to me, taking my hand in hers so I felt the purple stone on her ring. “Other Chloe,” she sighed. “The game is a device to get what you want. It strips away all the things people are hiding and leaves everyone honest. Think about you and Mateo. You’ve been crushing on him for a year and nothing has happened, but after Friday night’s Gestapo, suddenly things are different between you two.”
“How do you know?” I pulled my hand from hers, fisting it to keep from chewing on my nails when she sat so close to me.
“Because I’ve seen you. I’ve seen him. Something changed and it was because of the game. So why not use Gestapo as an opportunity to figure out what you want and how to get it?”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“Of course. I’m new and the game helps me be less alone because I get to know people. Especially you girls.”
It was a little weird how she said girls like we were her children, but there was truth in her words, a starkness that made me certain that she’d been lying about her abundance of friends in Chicago. That maybe why I was drawn to her was the same reason she’d been drawn to me—loneliness.
“I . . .”
She stood. “Trust me. People don’t want to pretend and hide who they really are. They don’t. They’re just stuck most of the time. They love this game because it allows them access to everything they’ve ever hoped for, everything they’ve dreamed of. That’s why I love it. It’s fun.”
I wanted to roll my eyes at her dumb line about accessing dreams—it sounded like a commercial for a cruise to the Caribbean—but I couldn’t help thinking about the chance to kiss Mateo, the chance to go out with him, the chance to be his girlfriend, all with just one platinum favor. Will you walk me home every day? Will you text me when you’re falling asleep? Will you answer when I call? Will you ask me to stay in Grinnell?
I looked at my feet, letting my hair fall and taking a few deep breaths. Finally, I said, “I’m not wearing my confirmation dress, but I’ll consider wearing a skirt.”
Chloe Donnelly smiled wide and pulled me off the bed, wrapping her arms around me in a slightly too-tight hug. “You’re going to be unstoppable tomorrow night. It
will be so pink. Wait and see.”
14
Señor Williams sent us to the media center to do research for our upcoming oral reports on Friday afternoon. He assigned us to tables, and even though Chloe Donnelly stood next to Mateo like she assumed they’d be together, Señor Williams put her with a girl with a pixie cut and large eyes who also couldn’t speak Spanish nearly as well as the rest of us. Chloe Donnelly huffed, but Señor Williams crossed his arms and said, “¡Ni modo!”
Then he pointed me and Mateo to a table near the windows. Me and Mateo. For a second I thought I saw Señor Williams give me a wink, but I couldn’t be sure. I felt ridiculously giddy and I couldn’t really express why. Maybe Chloe Donnelly was right. Maybe something big had changed between us.
“What are you going to do your research on?” Mateo asked, when I’d dropped my bag and sat across from him.
“Glaciar Perito Moreno and how it’s able to maintain equilibrium with its icebergs in spite of climate change,” I said.
He laughed in this startled way. “Ambitious project.”
“I know. And I’m not even sure how I’m going to pull it off in Spanish, but it’s an area of interest for me. I mean, my dad got me into environmental stuff.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nodded. “Yeah, a little. He majored in biology with an environmental studies concentration at the college.”
Mateo looked at me but didn’t say anything. So I said, “What’s your dad do?”
I immediately saw the shutters drop over his eyes. He shrugged. “He works on a farm.” Then he stood and moved toward the computers. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Hadn’t I learned by now that Mateo didn’t like invasive questions?
I sighed and dragged myself to the computers, pulling a list of books to check out on climate and the Argentinian glacier. When I returned to the table, Mateo didn’t even look up from the book he was reading. I sat and mumbled, “Sorry.”
He glanced up. “I’m not really a sharer. It’s not you. My family is complicated, and mostly I feel like people who ask about them are digging.”
“Digging for what?”
“You tell me.”
My pits got sweaty and I was certain my cheeks were all pink. Was I digging, or was I just trying to be nice? I thought it was being nice, but maybe it read as nosy. “You don’t have to tell me anything about your family.”
“Okay.”
Then I opened my book and we didn’t say anything to each other for the next twenty minutes, though every once in a while our eyes met and I smiled a little. Chloe Donnelly kept looking at the two of us, but she must have figured out there was nothing to see, because she asked for a pass to the bathroom and then disappeared. As the end of class neared, I saw her standing outside the media center door staring at Mateo in this way that made me think she liked him as more than a friend. But how could that even be after she’d helped me pick out clothes for him? Her gaze turned to me and it looked both lost and envious, like she wanted something from me she wasn’t getting. But then her expression dropped into a sly grin, fake and a little jaded and too old for anyone from high school. She tipped her head at me and then took off down the hall, evidently not worried about bailing on Spanish for the rest of class.
The bell rang and I got all flustered and beelined out without saying good-bye to Mateo. I bumped into Aiden standing outside the door of the media center.
“Mateo in there?” he asked.
“Yeah. He’s putting books away.”
Aiden pocketed his phone. “Okay.”
I studied him and he seemed to stand a bit taller. I wanted to say something about him and Josh, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know Aiden that well, and he wasn’t warm like Josh. He was serious and somber.
“You guys have practice, huh?” I asked, trying to linger so maybe I could see Mateo and diffuse the weirdness that my invasive question and abrupt departure had created between us. Why couldn’t I have tried to patch things up earlier, apologized for my nosiness?
“Yep,” Aiden said.
“Then we all play the game tonight,” I said, and my voice definitely sounded a little pathetic. His expression went angry.
“Gestapo,” he practically snarled. So maybe I wasn’t the only one who felt horrible. “The game is called Gestapo.”
“I wish . . . ,” I started, wondering if I could tell Aiden how sorry I was, how it was stupid to play, how I thought it was gross too and had from the first, and maybe there was a way out of it, but Mateo exited the media center before my words could form.
“Did you need something, Chloe?” Mateo said, and there was no warmth there. He was a closed book, and part of me wanted to scream in frustration. We hadn’t taken a step closer, like Chloe Donnelly said. It was exactly the same as we’d been all year, with him being guarded and mistrustful and me being nosy and bumbling.
“No,” I choked out. “Just wanted to say sorry again. I’ll see you.”
Then I turned on the heels of my Converse and left. I wanted him to call me back. I wanted him to catch up to me and maybe tell me he was being illogical and suspicious. But then I didn’t know if he had a reason to be. Chloe Donnelly said he’d just given her his letter, but I couldn’t really believe it now. Unless giving her a letter was easier than answering any personal questions.
I spotted Eve talking to our English teacher. She had tears in her eyes, but Mr. Meyers didn’t seem to be in a forgiving mood for whatever she was asking for. Eve’s shoulders slumped and she walked away. I considered catching up to her, but I stopped myself. I didn’t want to fix something for Eve right now. I couldn’t even fix my own life.
I turned to the right at the end of the hall and couldn’t stop glancing back to where Mateo and Aiden still stood talking outside the media center. Mateo looked at me and the expression on his face seemed to be asking me a question. I had no idea what the question was, but I tried to put everything I felt on my own face so that he understood whatever he asked, I would answer yes. He didn’t even blink, just led Aiden in the opposite direction.
When I turned the corner feeling like the saddest sack in the world, I saw Melissa McGrill at her locker tossing books into it with way more force than was necessary. A pang of guilt crept up my back. I should’ve walked with her to Beau’s that night, kept her company on the way home, asked her if I could do something for her, but I’d chickened out. I always chickened out.
I stopped a few feet away from her and said, “Everything okay?”
She turned. No smile for me today. “Yep. I hate this school.”
I laughed. “That bad?”
“It’s like no one has anything better to do than gossip or talk about other people.”
I nodded, and she stopped her book throwing to say, “They talk about you too, you know.”
I opened my mouth to ask what they said, but the soft voice of my mom filtered into my head. Chloe, don’t spend your time on people who won’t discuss things with you to your face. Don’t give them that kind of power over you. I shoved my finger into my mouth and shrugged.
Melissa laughed and it was as if suddenly her bad mood lifted. “Don’t ever change, Chloe.” Then she grabbed her hoodie, slammed her locker shut, and took off with a wave over her shoulder, not bringing one book home with her.
15
My legs were covered with goose bumps and I was shivering as I walked toward Burling Library on Friday night. We’d started earlier tonight so the temperature would be warm from the day still, but April had gotten cold again, and I didn’t know whether I should curse Mother Nature or Chloe Donnelly for the fact that I was freezing my butt off.
Eve rushed over and hugged me when I arrived. She had on the see-through shirt again and a super-short mini that looked more like a cheer skirt than something to wear for a night out. She must have been even colder than I was. She smelled like curry, and I knew her mom had been experimenting with what she called Iowa-Indian fusion for dinner again. “I thought you were going to bail,” Eve whispe
red, like she hadn’t blackmailed me into playing again.
I was late because I’d lingered outside of Melissa McGrill’s house, hoping by some miracle she’d come out and save me from the game, that these half conversations we’d been having could turn into something more and I wouldn’t care about Gestapo or any of this. As if she had that kind of power. As if she had any power now that rumors were flying that she’d intentionally caused the miscarriage, something I’d heard after she’d taken off today.
I’d stood on the sidewalk of High Street for ten minutes, but she didn’t come outside. It was barely sixty degrees, hardly a night for hanging out on the front porch. And though I knew all I had to do was walk twenty feet to her front door and she’d probably let me in, I couldn’t do it.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Chloe Donnelly eyed my outfit and smiled. She had on a long-sleeved shirt and a just-above-the-knees flowy skirt with bobby socks and Converse low tops. Weird, but it worked on her. I, on the other hand, felt naked. “You look ready,” she said with approval.
I glanced at Mateo and saw his lip piercing shift up with his half smile. The air gushed out of me. One look and I knew he forgave my nosiness. Whatever had happened in Spanish class today, he understood that I wasn’t trying to hurt him. We were okay.
His lip ring had two silver balls on it, which was different. Was that how guys got “ready” for someone they were interested in: switching piercings? Did he think about his THIS IS THE END T-shirt when he put it on tonight? I hoped it all meant what I thought it did, but maybe I was projecting. I felt dumb suddenly for wasting so much time wardrobe scheming with Chloe Donnelly. It didn’t matter now. I was ready. Or as ready as I could be.
“So,” Chloe Donnelly said, spreading her ring-covered fingers wide. “Same rules apply. I’ll be captain of the girls. Cam?”
Cam stepped forward and grabbed Holly around the waist, draping his arms around her and tucking her into him. “Yeah. I’ll be the captain for the guys.”
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