by Jen Klein
Shaun clears his throat. “Everyone done peeing on the bleachers?”
“I am,” says Darbs.
“Me too,” says Oliver.
“I don’t have to pee,” says Lily.
Itch and I don’t say anything.
Shaun gestures at me. “Oliver asked me to settle a bet between him and June.”
I feel two things: Itch’s stare and my cheeks blazing up again.
“June,” says Oliver, “will you accept Shaun as our impartial judge?”
“It’s just a game,” I say. “And sure. Shaun is fine.”
Shaun reminds everyone of our morning carpool arrangement. Lily shakes her head. “No, really. What do you talk about?”
“They don’t,” says Shaun. “That’s why there’s a game.” He turns to me. “When are you going to get your license, anyway?”
I’m unprepared to answer that question, so I say the first thing that comes to my mind. “I’ll get to it.”
“When?” asks Itch.
“When I’m ready,” I tell him, irritated. “It’s not like I even own a car.”
“You worked at the nature center all summer,” Lily says. “You’ve got to have some cash.”
“She spent it on hookers,” says Oliver.
“And blow,” I agree.
Lily and Darbs and Shaun all laugh. Itch doesn’t. “You should get on that,” he says.
“Eh.” Oliver shrugs. “It’s just a license.”
Shaun claps his hands really loudly and we all quiet down to pay attention. He explains the game and I lay out my first proof, just like I did this morning by the family sciences room.
Shaun mulls. He considers. He strokes his chin and says “hmmm” until I kick him in the shin. “Ow!”
“Come on. Lunch is almost over.”
Shaun takes a deep breath. “Okay, I have completed my deliberations.”
“Tell us, O Masterful One,” says Lily.
“Seriously?” I ask her.
“Sorry.” She grins at me. “This is hilarious, you know.”
Shaun clears his throat. “It should be recognized that all decisions of the judge are final. No additional discourse shall be allowed once a verdict has been rendered.”
“Agreed,” says Oliver.
“Agreed,” I say.
“In the case of June Rafferty versus Oliver Flagg, I hereby pronounce in favor of…” We all wait while Shaun does some additional throat clearing and head bobbing. “Oliver Flagg.”
“What?” The word squawks from my mouth. “You’re supposed to be my friend!”
“I have been retained as an impartial judge,” Shaun reminds me. “And in this venerable magistrate’s opinion, it’s just crazy-pants to think that something repeating in the future negates what’s happening in the present. Tomorrow, I’m going to have lunch. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have lunch today.”
“He’s got a point,” says Lily.
I know she’s right but it’s super irritating. Still, I try to defend myself.
“But tomorrow’s lunch might be better than today’s,” I tell Shaun. “I could have more money. I’ll be able to afford better ingredients.”
“Or you might not,” he says. “You might be back in the cafeteria eating wilted salads and dry spaghetti.”
“I won’t.”
“But you might. And in other news,” Shaun continues, “I believe Oliver has a proof of his own to share.”
My eyes narrow. I whip my head around to glare at Oliver. “Really.”
“Why, yes. And I have you to thank for it.” Oliver gives me the sweetest of smiles. “What you said about college really hit me. You’re right, you know. All that cool stuff will happen in college. However”—he leans in close—“you know what determines what college you get into?”
My shoulders slump and I know I’ve been defeated. “High school.”
Oliver doesn’t say anything. He just raises both hands in the air and starts snapping his fingers and moving his shoulders in time to an imaginary beat.
“You have no rhythm,” I tell him.
“He’s not so bad,” says Lily, starting to snap along. Darbs grins and joins in. Shaun, too.
“This is the worst,” I inform everyone as, in the distance, the bell rings.
Oliver rises, still snapping. “Foreigner,” he says as he jumps one bleacher down from where we are. “Poison.” He jumps down another. “Warrant.”
“What are you doing?” I ask, exasperated.
“Torturing you,” Itch tells me. “Those are the names of crappy bands.”
Below, Oliver takes several leaps in a row, calling out more inscrutable words with each one. “Whitesnake! Starship! Night Ranger!” He reaches the bottom and turns to face me. “Bad English!” he yells before taking off toward the school.
I shake my head and turn to Itch. “I hate my life.”
“You should,” he says.
When I step out onto my wooden porch, the behemoth is already parked in my driveway, with Oliver standing beside it. He sees me and immediately opens the passenger door with great ceremony. “Your chariot awaits,” he calls. “Your sweet, sweet musical chariot.”
I plod toward him, trying not to smile at the ridiculousness of it all. “Stop it,” I say as he takes a deep bow, gesturing toward my seat.
I swing my backpack into the car and am about to scramble aboard like I always do, when I feel Oliver’s hand on my elbow. It’s warm and it makes my skin even warmer where it’s touching me. I know we must have touched before—besides that kiss in kindergarten—because surely we have collided in the halls or brushed past each other in the cafeteria.
Yet this feels like the first time.
We’re waiting at the Plymouth stop sign when Oliver turns to me with a giant smile.
“This is the moment, isn’t it?” I ask him.
“Oh yes,” he says. “This is the moment.”
And then music—if you can call it that—blasts from his speakers. I am not exaggerating when I say that it is the worst, most egregiously sappy, power-chorded, ridiculously overly romantic rock ballad that has ever had the painful misfortune to grace the earth. That would be bad enough, but as I immediately discover, Oliver knows the lyrics.
All of them.
And he sings along.
With feeling.
When the song finally comes to the bridge—which is a marginal improvement due to the lack of drippy words—I yell at Oliver over the electric guitar chords. “Any part of me that has managed to achieve sophistication, any little shred of my being that has understood something greater and somehow risen above the huddled masses…”
“Yeah?” Oliver yells back at me.
“Right this minute, that shining piece of me is being slowly throttled by this unrelenting stream of sentimentality!”
Oliver holds up a finger. “Wait for it!”
“For what?”
The guitar solo builds to a melodramatic crescendo. “For this!” he shouts…and then he’s back into the chorus, waving one arm around and making wide-eyed faces at me anytime we’re stopped.
The song—annoyingly named “When It Matters”—plays a total of six and a half times before we arrive at school.
Oliver doesn’t miss a word.
• • •
I know I have to wait for the first bell to ring before I can nail Oliver with a proof, but even though we walk onto campus together, I lose track of him before homeroom…or maybe he loses track of me. I look for him afterward, and then again before second period, but he’s as elusive as Itch when my mom is around.
However, it’s impossible to hide forever when we share a physics class.
Oliver again charges in right as the bell is ringing. I make a swipe for his arm as he blows past my desk, but he doesn’t even glance at me.
Oh. Hell. No.
I turn around in my seat and wait while he plops down and pulls out his materials. When he looks up and finds me watching him, he cringes.
I smile and hold up a folded piece of paper. He can’t avoid me forever.
Minutes later, Mrs. Nelson is explaining the principles of thermodynamics and my note is stealthily wending its way back across the classroom—being passed from person to person—toward Oliver Flagg.
It’s simple. Easy. I assume that all four of our parents had high school relationships with other people—even if they were merely crushes or flirtations—and all four eventually moved on from them. Yes, I guess you can say it’s an example more than a proof, but for the purposes of our little game, it should work.
Anything to cut down on the number of times I have to hear that dreadful “When It Matters” song.
I anticipate Oliver’s arguing the validity, since my parents ended up divorcing, but I plan to come back with the fact that they stayed together long enough to procreate, and that’s one of the most life-altering, meaningful things that two people can do together.
It’s close to the end of class and Mrs. Nelson is jotting a stream of symbols across the whiteboard when a familiar folded paper wings onto my table.
Huh.
I guess there’s no refuting that. The second part, that is.
Since Oliver is being fair about it and not calling in Shaun for something that obviously needs no judgment, I pick up my pencil and write a response (in my creepily perfect penmanship).
When the bell rings, I turn around to see if Oliver fully appreciates my last comments, but he’s already heading for the door. Ainsley, however, is staring straight at me. For no reason that carries even a semblance of sense, I have a sudden flash of guilt, like I’m doing something wrong.
But I’m not.
• • •
Lily is meeting with her private music instructor, and Darbs is stalking Yana-the-new-girl, and Shaun is in the yearbook room, so Itch and I are enjoying a rare solo lunch. And by “lunch,” I mean “make-out session.”
Itch sits with his feet on the next bleacher down, and I am half reclined across his lap so all he has to do is tilt a little to reach my face. It’s too warm and humid to be messing around on the metal bleachers, but we’re doing it anyway. Itch’s legs are sticky hot under my back, and I can feel my black-Converse-clad feet baking in the sun, but the whole thing is familiar and public and easy. Kind of like our relationship. I have a flash of remorse as I remember the boy I kissed over the summer, but I hastily pack it away. Itch didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell. It’s not like I’m lying.
I hear clacks and feel vibrations beneath me. Itch removes his mouth from mine and a sigh of disgust puffs out of him. “Is this going to become a regular thing?”
I push off him and sit up. The clacks are the sound of high heels ascending the bleachers, and the person wearing them is Ainsley Powell. She’s clearly headed toward us, because there’s no one else anywhere near, plus her brilliantly green eyes are locked right on us.
“I’m out,” says Itch. He starts to stand, but I lock on to his wrist and pull him down.
“Don’t be rude,” I hiss.
Itch settles back as Ainsley arrives on our row. “Hey, guys,” she says in a voice that is somehow made for both shouting cheers over packed stadiums and whispering poetry into the ears of worshipful boys.
I tense up. Is she here to start something with me? I’m pretty sure she could take me physically—she’s taller and probably stronger from cheerleading—but she is wearing those heels. Maybe I can catch her off balance. “What’s up, Ainsley?” I ask like it’s no big deal.
She gestures to the row in front of us. “May I?”
“Of course,” I say graciously.
“It’s a free country,” Itch says, and I elbow him.
Ainsley lowers herself to a graceful sitting position like she’s a peacock feather drifting to the ground. “Are you going to the first game?”
“The football game?” It comes out of my mouth in a tone of incredulity. Is she trying to figure out where to deploy her band of evil pom-pommed henchwomen to kick my ass? Or is she warning me away, staking her claim to anything sports-related…anything that involves Oliver?
Itch speaks for me. “We don’t do tournaments of brutality.”
Ainsley turns her dark-lashed gaze on him. “High school is a tournament of brutality.”
Itch looks surprised at her comeback. “I’ll give you that.”
Ainsley taps me on the knee. “You should go.”
“Why?”
“It’s the first game of the season. We’re trying to have a big crowd to show support for the team.”
I somehow think there’s a little more to this invitation than school spirit, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out her angle. “Maybe,” I tell her.
“There’s a bonfire after,” Ainsley says. “You guys can catch a ride with us.”
“Us?” Itch repeats.
“Oliver and me.”
“Like a double date?” I ask, and watch Ainsley’s smile grow even wider.
“Exactly like that.”
• • •
I guess Itch and I had to have our first fight sometime. I just didn’t think it would happen in the middle of a Rite Aid.
I’m standing with my hands on my hips, watching him browse a rack of corn chips. “It wouldn’t kill you,” I tell him. “It wouldn’t actually make your heart stop beating and your blood stop pumping.”
“It might. You don’t know.”
“One game. One party.”
Itch laughs and the sound comes out brittle, like it would break if it hit the ground. “That’s how it starts,” he tells me. “A game, a party, a bunch of booze. Then suddenly you’re part of their crap and doing their bidding.”
“No one’s talking about doing anyone’s bidding! It’s football, not slavery.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Itch swipes a bright orange bag off the shelf. “There’s a reason we’re not joiners, June. It’s not because we’re geeks and it’s not because we buy into some sort of outdated hierarchy of popularity.”
“I never said—”
“It’s because we’re better than it.” Itch walks over and slings an arm around my shoulders, which are tensed up higher than they should be. “You’re better.”
He kisses me and I let him.
I always let him.
The sun has barely risen and already there are two guys installing a storage bench in the entryway. I nod at them as I go by on my way to the kitchen, skirting a pile of boards and tools on the floor.
I find Mom and Cash perched on stools, sipping coffee. Cash stands when I walk in. “Sorry about the noise and the mess.”
“It’s cool,” I tell him. “The banisters look great.”
“Thanks.” He nods at Mom. “See you tonight?”
“Yes!” She says it a little too loudly and glances at me. “Omelet?”
Uh-huh.
I nod and watch her start to pull out ingredients. “How long until the house is done?” I ask.
“The entryway will be finished this week. Next is my studio. Cash is going to redo the drywall and put in new flooring. We’re also…Sorry it’s still crazy, honey. Sometimes things get messy before they get good.”
“You’re so deep,” I tell her, and she laughs. I realize that Mom doesn’t look messy at all. In fact, she’s wearing coral lip gloss and hoop earrings, so I ask the obvious question. “Mom, are you dating Cash?”
Mom flushes. “No!” I raise an eyebrow and she sets down her spatula. “We’re friends.”
“Friends,” I say.
“And in the spirit of friendship, he’s coming over tonight for dinner.”
This time, I say it out loud: “Uh-huh.”
“Settle down,” she tells me. But she flushes again, and this time her eyes sparkle, too.
• • •
School let out three hours ago, and I’m still in the main lobby. I’ve already organized my locker and done my English reading for the weekend. Now I’m sitting on the bottom step, braiding strands of my
hair. And waiting.
When my phone vibrates—finally!—I check the text from Mom:
at least 45 more mins
sorry
mtg still going
dept chair droning on about budget
wish you were old enuf to buy wine
luv u
Damn.
If I’d known in advance, I could have asked Itch for a ride and lured him with the promise of an empty house. Or maybe Shaun would have driven me. Or Lily or Darbs. Or anyone. If it at least was Monday, it wouldn’t be so bad, but on a Friday? By the end of the week, I’m ready to get out of here.
I wonder if there’s a chance Shaun hasn’t left yet. He’s not answering his texts, but it’s a very Shaun-like thing to not check his texts. He keeps his phone on silent all the time, even when not in class.
I head out into the student parking lot. There are quite a few cars still here, but I don’t see Shaun’s. I trudge across to see if I’m missing any on the other side—maybe hidden behind a gas-guzzling behemoth like Oliver’s, over there in the center, where he always parks and…
Oliver! That’s a new idea. I didn’t even think about checking with him. It didn’t occur to me that I could ask him for a ride home. Oliver isn’t a guy who leaves when the bell rings. He’s always hanging around after school because of all the throwing and kicking and dribbling. I head toward the gas-guzzling behemoth, pulling out my phone to send him a text, and run straight into him.
Oliver catches me by the arms. “Hey, texting and walking. Not safe.”
“I was texting you,” I inform him.
“Really?” His eyes dance over me, and I suddenly remember I have these crazy little braids all over my head.
“Are you going home?” I ask.
“Yep. Need a ride?”
“Yes, please.”
He gestures toward the car, and a minute later, I’m in the passenger seat, trying unsuccessfully to smooth out my hair, which has flown into a frenzy of static electricity. “Why are you still here, anyway?”
“I had to talk to Coach Rand after practice.”
I assess him. Oliver isn’t carrying himself in his usual jaunty, confident way. He’s drooping a little and looks forlorn, sitting behind the wheel. “You okay?”