by Jen Klein
I get a sudden flash image of Oliver on one of the stools in his basement, hunched over the bar with a pair of scissors, and I go clenchy inside. I realize that I’m still sliding my finger gently against him and I start to pull away, but Oliver catches my hand before I can. I look up into his eyes and the clenchiness increases.
“You could have called,” he says. “I would have come back for you.”
And that’s when it happens.
In that moment, the world turns and everything around us dims. Oliver’s eyes are focused right on mine and his shock of angel-blond hair is the only light in the room. It’s not just about how he looks; it’s about who he is and my heart cracks wide open. I am slammed with the absolute, painful knowledge that somehow, accidentally, this boy has squeezed in. Against all my plans and denials, I missed a spot when I was setting up barriers around myself. There was an opening somewhere, and then there was Oliver.
I gasp with the realization, and this time when I pull back, he lets me. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asks.
It’s like he can actually see my mind spinning, or maybe it’s that he can hear my heart flinging itself against the wall of my chest. I shake my head, because Oliver has a girlfriend, one who is pretty and popular and nice, and I am the one who is at fault here; I am the one whose feelings changed, and—
“No animals.” Oliver spreads his arms wide. “No vandalism. No destruction of property.”
He’s talking about the prank.
Just the prank.
Not us.
Because there is no “us.”
I’m just the charity case he drives to school.
So I nod. I force a smile. “Great job. Really, really great job.”
“Good news.” Oliver beams huge. “You’re here for the coup de grâce.”
“Amazing. You’re even bilingual when Theo’s not around.” Since I’m clearly not going with honesty, I guess I’ll rely on my old friend Glib. I want to leave, run, escape, but there’s no way to do it without Oliver’s wondering why.
Oliver jogs to a duffel bag by the far wall. I watch him, finally admitting to myself that I like the way his body moves, that I am the same as any other girl watching his muscles and his hair and his…Oliver-ness.
If I could punch myself in the soul, I would do it right now.
Oliver hefts a gallon jug from the bag and carries it back to me. I squint at it. “Vegetable oil?”
“Don’t freak out.” He turns it upside down and thick oil glunks onto the floor.
I jump out of the way. “What are you doing?”
The oil oozes, spreading out into a big, slick circle, and Oliver tosses the empty jug to the edge of the room, where it clunks against the wall. “Come on, you’re more observant than that.”
Apparently not observant enough to notice I was falling hard for the school jock.
“It’s a winter wonderland,” Oliver explains. “Hence the snowflakes.”
I point to the widening circle. “And you’ve made a wintery, wondrous oil spill?”
“This is the ice-skating rink.” I think he mistakes my avoidance of his eyes for recrimination. “It’s not hurting anything. Easily cleaned up with soap, and there’s caution tape around so no one will be surprised by it. It’s what you wanted, right?”
Except that everything I thought I wanted has suddenly been turned on its head. “Sure,” I say with what I’m pretty sure is a sickly grin. “It’s great.”
Oliver grabs my right hand and pulls me into the slick circle of ooze. I skid toward him, nearly falling, and he catches me against his body. For the briefest of seconds, I’m circled by his arms, my entire length against him, and I know every other girl has had it right this whole time, because even my shins are tingling from the nearness of him. My left hand is against his chest and—totally acting on their own—my fingers flare out, feeling the muscles beneath them, feeling Oliver’s hand slide over mine.
And surely—surely—this time he has to hear my breath catching in my throat, but he doesn’t mention it. He only pushes me backward, holding both my hands in his own. “We’re skating,” he says, and pulls me into a spin. I squeal and he laughs, but his laugh is cut off, because now he almost falls…and then I’m laughing, too, because even though none of this is real and even though it’s going to end in pain…for this moment only, I’m holding hands with Oliver Flagg and we’re skating together in a winter wonderland.
The lights cut off and the glare is replaced with darkness. I can’t see him, but I can hear his voice.
“June, what are you doing?”
I know I need to say something important and epic and romantic, because this is a moment that requires an important, epically romantic gesture, but the words aren’t there. Instead, all I have is the overwhelming fear that I’ve already lost the one person I want the most to find.
So I blurt something out—something that hasn’t always come naturally to me.
The truth.
My cocoon is soft around me. Protective. Warm. I’m nestled inside, happy and comfortable, and when a muffled sound edges against my consciousness, I shake my head in irritation. I bury myself deeper in my own shell, no reason to become a butterfly, no need to change….
But it’s not a cocoon; it’s a quilt. And the sound is coming from somewhere outside.
A horn.
The behemoth’s horn.
Ack!
I fly out of bed, and now that I see my phone on the nightstand, I have a fuzzy recollection of turning off its alarm. I grab the skirt from last night, the one I dropped on the floor before crawling under the covers a couple hours ago, but it’s greasy with vegetable oil, so I rush to my dresser. I find a pair of jeans and am yanking them on when my door opens. I squeal and whip around, thinking it’s Oliver, but it’s only Mom. Her hair is stringy against her face and she has mascara smudges under her eyes. We stare at each other. “You don’t look good,” I finally tell her.
“Speak for yourself,” she says, and I remember that I didn’t even wash my face or brush my teeth before falling asleep last night. And by “last night,” I mean “earlier this morning,” since that’s when Oliver dropped me off. “I told Oliver to go,” Mom says. “I’ll drive you.”
In the car on the way to school, Mom says she’s proud of me. “But FYI, you still have a curfew.”
“That’s fair.”
“By the way, don’t drink too much at Michigan,” she says. “This type of headache…it really sucks.”
• • •
I miss homeroom, but I rush through the snowflake-strewn halls and into English just as the bell is ringing. I slide into my seat, my hair twisted into a still-damp knot atop my head. I had time to take a quick shower, but not enough to use a blow-dryer.
Everyone is laughing and chattering, and no one has their books with them. “We can’t,” Lily tells me. “They changed the locks on all the lockers.”
“She knows.” Shaun plops down next to us. “June helped.”
Lily stares at me. “Who are you?”
I don’t answer, because I’m still trying to figure that out for myself. Apparently I’m the awful cliché mess who has it bad for the boy everyone wants. I’m not sure if I’m more terrified of running into Oliver today and having to make small talk or of not seeing him at all.
Ms. Jackson doesn’t even try to have class. “I’m grading papers. Keep it to a dull roar.”
She sounds amused, which is why Shaun asks the question. “You’re actually not mad at us about the prank, are you?”
The corners of Ms. Jackson’s peach-slicked lips twitch upward. “Let’s just say I’m relieved my car isn’t covered in pigeon shit.”
The room bursts into uproarious laughter and she waves us toward the door. “Go.”
Every hallway is lined with students spinning dials and yanking against shackles before stepping to the next locker and trying again. After forty-five minutes, I finally find my combination lock on a locker by the
math rooms. “Winner!” I shout, which is apparently what we’re supposed to do. Just like everyone else’s, my victory yell is met with cheering and applause.
It attracts the attention of Ainsley, because suddenly she’s right there with her arms around me. “We did it! We’re rock stars!”
I pat her on the back as Oliver arrives, brandishing a lock. My heart jolts when I see him. “Mine was on third,” he says. It appears that he is unaffected by exhaustion, because his eyes and hair and everything are as bright and perfect as always.
Ainsley gazes up at him with adoration. “Isn’t he a genius? Most epic prank ever and all because of him.” She rises on tiptoes to kiss Oliver, and it lands on me like a piano.
“I gotta go—” I start, but Ainsley suddenly grabs my arm.
“Oh my God, what are you doing for spring break? Kaylie flunked algebra, so her mom won’t let her go, and now we have an extra bed in the cabin. It’s in Cheboygan. Want to come?”
“June’s going to New York,” Oliver says quickly.
Actually, I’m not, because Dad got cast in a new play, so he’s going to be in rehearsals, but this is definitely not how or when I wish to share the information that the Grand Plans for my senior spring break involve me at my house with my mom. “Sorry,” I tell Ainsley. She hugs me again.
When I return her hug, my gaze accidentally floats up to Oliver’s face. We make eye contact and he smiles at me.
I look away.
Luckily for me—but unluckily for them—neither Darbs nor Lily has big spring break plans. That’s why we decide to schedule a Girl Day, when we go out to lunch before splurging on manicures and shopping. When we all have pretty fingernails, we hit a bookstore (my choice), then go kiosk-hopping in the mall (Lily’s), and then make our way to a craft store (Darbs’s).
“I like the soy wax,” Darbs tells us as we browse the candle-making aisle. “It’s better for carrying the essential oils.”
“How about this color?” Lily holds up a tube of light blue candle dye. “Look, it matches.”
She flutters a periwinkle-tipped hand at us and I look down at my own fingernails, painted a bright red. Halfway through the manicure, I realized I was channeling Marley Flagg with the color, but it was already too far gone to switch. Now I can see that I’ve already chipped my ring finger.
Figures.
“Are you hanging with any of your rah-rahs over spring break?” Darbs asks me. When she sees my quizzical look, she clarifies. “Cheerleaders. Jocks. Assholes.”
“Some of those assholes are my friends,” I tell her.
“Seriously, June. Theo.”
“Gross,” says Lily.
“Not Theo,” I tell them. “Definitely not Theo.” I look at Darbs. “Are you hanging with Ethan?”
“Unclear.”
“If you’re not, Lily should go make out with him,” I say, and then Darbs and I crack up. Lily only blinks at us, so I explain. “Because I did it over summer break and Darbs did it over winter break, so spring break—your turn.”
“Actually, hold off on that,” Darbs says. We turn to her, surprised.
“You actually like him!” Lily accuses her.
“Maybe,” she says. “I don’t know. I just don’t want anyone else putting their tongue in his mouth yet.”
“That’s fair,” says Lily.
We reach the end of the aisle and round the corner to find Zoe Smith carrying a plastic store basket. After we all exchange hellos and commiserations about a lame spring break, she shows us what she’s buying. “They’re candy melts,” Zoe says. “All you have to do is cook them down and pour it into molds. They harden into chocolate candy, like magic.”
Lily looks down at the bags in her basket. “But they’re already chocolate candy,” she says. “They’re shaped like little hearts.”
“I know,” says Zoe. “But after I’m done melting and pouring, they’ll be shaped like little teddy bears. Way cuter.”
“Are they a present for someone?” Darbs asks, and Zoe shakes her head.
“I wish. They’re for home ec, which is bullshit. It’s supposed to be an easy class, but somehow I’m failing it. My GPA is all screwed up, so I have to cook for extra credit over spring break—how shitty is that?” We all agree it’s shitty, and Zoe continues. “Even Oliver Flagg—who only took it because of that bet with Theo—even he’s getting a better grade than me. When a jockstrap like that is schooling you in flambé, you know you suck.”
Anxiety tickles my insides. I forgot about the bet, and I never found out what it was about. Suddenly, I feel like I really, really would be better off in blissful ignorance.
Darbs is the one who asks, “What bet?”
“Oh, you don’t know this?” Zoe sets her basket on the floor at her feet. “So Oliver started dating Ainsley sometime last year, right?”
I hearken back to eleventh grade, when Itch moved to town. When I was the girl who got the new guy. Back then, I wasn’t exactly paying attention to Oliver, but now that I think about it, Zoe’s time line seems right.
“It was around this same time,” Zoe says. “Spring break adjacent. Oliver bet Theo that he could get into Ainsley’s pants by the Fourth of July.”
“No.” I don’t realize I said it out loud until everyone looks at me. “Oliver’s not like that,” I say as an explanation.
“Please.” Zoe snorts. “They’re all like that. My brother’s on the track team. He’s the one who told me.”
I turn into a statue. Cold. Hard. So still that I can’t turn my head to look at Lily or Darbs.
“All the letter jacket guys knew about it,” Zoe says. “Oliver didn’t make the deadline, so he had to sign up for home ec. And yet he’s still killing it while I’m flunking the class.”
The waves of horror wash up and over my statue self. I’ve been feeling jealous of Ainsley when really I should have felt sorry for her. And Theo—thinking he’s the devil incarnate, but now it turns out Oliver is just as terrible. Or even worse. Because Ainsley is his girlfriend. He’s supposed to cherish her, protect her, be kind to her. Not treat her like an object.
Oliver.
I am so disappointed in him I could cry.
Zoe is still talking. Something about how she also needs to do an extra-credit sewing project and do we think latch-hook counts. I don’t answer and neither do Darbs and Lily, because they’re both looking at me.
Looking at me with pity.
I’m already on my porch when the behemoth rumbles down Callaway. I’ve been preparing for this all week, and now that it’s here, I’m ready. In fact, I’m more than ready. I’m ecstatic. I no longer have to wrestle with some moronic crush on Oliver, with my stupid feelings for him. All that has vanished in one heartsickening moment, with the knowledge that he is exactly the person I thought he was the very first time I climbed into his giant gas-guzzling monster of a car. I have been reminded that Oliver Flagg is a dick boy making dick bets, and that means it was just an attraction. That’s all. Stupid chemistry. Nothing else.
This is a relief.
Oliver pulls into the driveway and I’m there before he unlocks my door. I fling it open, launch myself inside, and slam it. Then I turn to look at him, and I give myself full permission to notice his man-beauty, all the muscles and angles and everything. All of it nothing but a mask for his true self: a misogynist, woman-using prick. Everything that I loathe.
He flashes a glance at me before backing out onto the road. “You okay, Rafferty?”
It barely computes that he’s back to calling me by my last name.
“Fine,” I snap, folding my arms across my chest.
Oliver drives. He doesn’t start the playlist. Neither do I. He doesn’t speak. Neither do I. Finally, I realize that his jaw is set and his eyes are narrowed. He looks every bit as furious as I feel.
Well, screw him, then.
We get all the way to Main Street before we come to a red light and Oliver finally turns to me. “What is your problem?” he asks in
a voice that is rough and angry.
I glare at him. “I thought you were different.” I spit the words out between gritted teeth. “I would be so pissed if I found out that Itch had made bets about our private life.”
Color rises up Oliver’s cheekbones, docking in the tips of his ears. Those dark circles within his eyes deepen, and his muscles tense in his neck. We stare at each other, and for a second, I’m almost afraid of him, because he looks so, so livid.
But then he turns back to the road. He steps on the gas. His fingers tighten on the steering wheel and his knuckles go white. He doesn’t say a word for the rest of the drive.
• • •
I manage to avoid Ainsley by arriving late to physics class and scooting out early. Later, I catch sight of her in the cafeteria, but I make a fast turn and head in the other direction. I can’t explain to her why I’m not going to sit with her and her friends at lunch today. Or tomorrow. Or ever.
The guilt over not telling her the truth—it’s too much.
I run into Oliver in the main lobby between afternoon classes, but he pointedly looks away from me—which makes no sense at all, because I’m the nice one here. I’m on the side of the angels. I’m not a bet-placing, girl-exploiting asshole.
What. The. Hell.
• • •
Shaun grabs me at my locker after school. “Lily and Darbs told me what’s going on,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?” He only looks at me, so I spell it out for him. “He drives me to school, whatever. It’s not like we’re really friends.”
A few days ago, it would have been a lie.
Now it’s not.
• • •
Third day of the Silent Treatment. Oliver showed up late (for him) and now we’ve sat in stony, awful silence for the last twenty minutes. As we pull into Robin High’s parking lot, I steal a look at him.