The water almost ends up on both of us.
“How’d you hear about that?”
“One of the guys, Rey, told me. You can’t tell anyone.”
“You know I wouldn’t do that.”
“I thought I knew a lot of things about you,” I say. And then, because he looks so damn sad, “Sorry.”
I gulp down half my water and wait for him to break the silence, but he’s picking at the wooden slats of his chair and not making eye contact.
“Why couldn’t you tell me?” I’m holding my breath before I even get the question out.
“I wanted to,” he says to the chair. “I just— I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Plus, I wasn’t sure how you’d take it. If anyone found out I told, I’d be dead.”
“Yeah, but so would Rey.”
Trevor shakes his head. “No. He wouldn’t.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does if you understand how these guys work.”
I’m mildly horrified at the idea of finding out how people like Chad MacAllistair work. I’m also DYING to know.
“Rey has more power on this team than I do. The coaches love him. He’s an incredible player. I don’t think it’s possible to make the guy look bad. Me, I’m good. But I’m not that good. And besides, I’m offense. The defenders can hit me hard at practice and make it look like an accident. If offense tried the same thing on Rey, they’d probably hurt themselves.” He takes a sip of his water and stops when he sees the look on my face. “They’re not all bad guys, Liv, but no one will go against Chad. He’s the golden boy. And he hates me.”
I frown. “Shouldn’t he have stopped messing with you by now? You did what he wanted.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think Chad likes there to be any other stars on his offense. Nobody expected me to be this good, and that’s making the buzz even bigger. I can almost see him seething over every pass I catch. Every bit of attention I take off him.”
I wince. I hate what they’ve done to him. And what they’ve made him do to me. All because Chad MacAllistair has sick ideas about what he’s entitled to.
“I want to see The List,” I say.
“Sugar, I can’t. I just told you why.”
Being called “sugar” makes this hurt even more. I think Trevor senses that because he moves to sit beside me on the bed. He puts his arm around me, and when I don’t protest, he rubs my back in gentle circles.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “For everything that happened. For all the things that are still happening. If I could think of a way to fix this that didn’t involve screwing up my future, I’d do anything.”
The familiar touch of his hand on my body. The gray of his eyes searing into mine. I’m tempted to tell him that I’m going to pay them back for both of us. But I have to keep my secrets too. So I keep my mouth shut—in the spilling-secrets sense only. In reality, there isn’t enough willpower inside me to stop me from telling him AND to keep me from kissing him. Not when his face is so close to mine and his lips are parted like that. It’s like we’re in slow motion, him running his hand up to the back of my neck, me leaning toward him. Thousands of seconds pass where I could stop this from happening. I ignore each and every one of them.
Our lips touch, featherlight, like they’ve forgotten they know each other. I can feel his smile against my mouth. I can’t hold back anymore. I need this—the crush of his lips against mine, the cinnamon-sweet taste of him. His strong arms wrap around me, and I pull him closer. Pull him to a place where they can’t touch us and no one and nothing matters more than the blissful, dizzy feeling of being together. I press him into the blankets, taking more more more. His hand slips up the back of my shirt, and I return to my senses.
“Trevor, I can’t.”
He sighs and hugs me to him, but he doesn’t try anything else. “I know.”
We stay that way for a long time, neither of us willing to let go.
The front door opens downstairs, and we tear apart. It feels like when you rip a piece of superglue off your finger and part of you goes with it. I tell him I better go. And I do. But I can’t help wondering which parts of me I left stuck to him.
Wednesday, September 9
PEYTON
Why does it feel like a date? I didn’t do anything special, like wear eyeliner or try to shrink my pores. We’re just studying. Geometry. Which has to be the least sexy subject in the world. I mean, half the classics we read in Brit lit are chock-full of sex, and biology can be awkward too, especially when you have to say words like spermatozoa without giggling. But what does geometry have other than lame pickup lines like “I don’t mean to be obtuse, but you’re acute girl” and “Hey, baby, nice asymptote”?
“Hey, Peyton.”
I know it’s him before I turn around. Rey, as my tutor, that’s what geometry has. He sits next to me at the cafeteria table—we both had our parents drop us off early so we could study together before school.
“Do you care if I eat breakfast?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Go for it. I already had a giant bowl of cereal at home.”
“Me too,” he says. And then he pulls out two bananas, a stack of bagels that have been cut, cream-cheesed, and rebagged, and a bottle of orange juice that looks like it’s meant for a family.
“Wow, you eat a lot, huh?” Did I really just say that? He’s going to think I’m an idiot. Oh, wait, he saw my last geometry quiz, so he probably already does.
He smiles. “During football season I have to.”
And then he gets right to work, both on eating the bagels and teaching me about angles. The date feeling goes away, and I’m glad. We go over practice problems, and Rey is super patient, even when I ask questions I would feel way too dumb asking in class. He’s also super patient with the four different girls who interrupt us to flirt with him. They mostly glare at me, but one of them smiles. I hope he ends up with that one.
“She seems really nice,” I say after she leaves.
“Who, Victoria? Yeah. Yeah, she’s cool.”
Soon, we’re finished with the practice problems, and we only have a few minutes left, so we end up talking about all kinds of random stuff while Rey drinks his OJ. I finally get up the nerve to ask him something I’ve been dying to know.
“Do you really have those tattoos?”
He laughs, and it’s the warmest, happiest sound in the world. “You heard about that?”
“Everyone heard about that.”
“Oh.” And for a second he looks almost sad, but it passes before I can ask him about it. “Yeah, so I went to Samoa to visit my family this summer. My cousin, Tupe, he’s a few years older than me, he was getting his pe’a—it’s this tattoo that wraps around your whole body from your waist to your knees. It’s kind of like a rite of passage. It takes a really long time, and it hurts like crazy, so I told him stories and stuff during a lot of it. That’s as close as I came to getting a tattoo.”
“So that’s where the rumor comes from.”
“Yeah. I want to get one, though. Someday. It’s a really big deal in my family.” He polishes off the last of the juice. “Mom says I have to wait until I’m done growing though. Hey, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Yeah?” The first-date flutters come back with a vengeance. I feel there is a high probability of me running into things.
“You remember those kids I was talking about at FMF, right?”
“Sure, I was hoping to get involved with that.”
His grin lights up the entire hallway—seriously, I think it could power a continent. “Right on. Well, I’m going to see them tomorrow after practice, and we were going to play football again. Some of the girls are into it, but I can tell some of them are really bored, and I was thinking since you’re a dancer . . . ?”
“Totally! I would love to come do some dance stuff with them!”
“Okay. Well, cool.”
“Yeah, cool.”
He nods, that grin still shining on
his face like a beacon. “Cool,” he says again.
I feel suddenly and supremely shy, like I’ve been struck with a disease that makes me incapable of speech, and my hands are these huge awkward things that wave around of their own accord, never finding a place to rest. So, I settle for smiling, trying for a good closed-lip one that will make me look friendly but not constipated. But one look at his face, and my smile bursts at the seams, and it’s broadcasting all of my secrets, and if I don’t shut it down soon, he’s going to know I spent three whole minutes of our study session thinking about orange juice–flavored kisses. Mercifully, the bell rings. We go our separate ways, Rey calling good luck to me as I walk the long hallway to geometry.
Karl falls into step beside me. “Peyton, can I talk to you? Now.”
I get a rush of anxiety—the kind that makes you feel cornered and queasy at the same time. “Um, sure.”
“What were you talking to that guy about?”
“Nothing. He was just asking me if I wanted to help with teaching dance to some little kids.”
“So, that’s what you were talking about all morning in the cafeteria? Dance?”
“No, he helps me study for geometry.”
“I should be the one helping you study for geometry.”
It didn’t click before, but now it does. “Were you watching me?”
Karl ignores my question. “I don’t like the way he was looking at you. Is he your boyfriend?” The way he says it implies I’m not allowed to have one.
“No.” I hurry to say it, almost like it’s an apology, and then I remember it’s absolutely none of Karl’s business. I lift my chin the way I’ve seen Melanie Jane do. “I’d like him to be my boyfriend.”
Karl narrows his eyes. “So, what, are you trying to make me jealous?”
“No, I . . . Look, you’re not my boyfriend anymore. And you treated me so badly that I don’t think it’s good for me to have you in my life at all.” I force my voice to stay calmer than I feel. “I don’t think we should talk anymore.”
“Wow. You must really like this guy, huh? What’s his name?”
“I don’t want to talk to you about him.” I feel protective, as if by knowing about Rey, Karl could somehow infect that relationship too.
He sighs into his hands like he’s exhausted. “I miss you, okay? I love you so much.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, and his blue eyes sear into mine. “I know I’ve made mistakes, and I’m sorry. But we can work on things, I promise. We’ll make it just like last year, like when it was just you and me. You’ll see.”
I cross my arms. “Look, I’m glad you’re realizing this, but I can’t get back together with someone who treats me like dirt and tries to control me.”
“We’ve shared something that makes us inseparable for life. I had a good reason.”
“No.” I shake my head firmly. “There is never a good reason to talk that way to someone you love.”
Karl steps backward in surprise. “Maybe I didn’t treat you well, but I gave you all the respect you demanded.”
“Wait, so now you’re saying it’s my fault you treated me badly? You’re only confirming the fact that this is a good decision.”
He opens his mouth to argue, but I raise a hand to stop him.
“We’re not together anymore. That means I don’t have to argue with you if I don’t want to.”
Karl takes another shocked backward step. If he goes any farther, he’ll trip over a newspaper stand.
“I have to go. I can’t answer anymore if you call me.”
I see him realize that I mean it. That we really are over. Permanently. The shock turns to hurt turns to desperation turns to him grabbing my arm like I’m a disobedient toddler.
“No one will ever be able to love you like me,” he says into my ear. “You probably can’t get the kind of guy you want anyway. Good guys want girls who are virgins.”
“That’s not true.” I say it fast, like a reflex. Because that is my secret dark fear, and now that he’s named it, it feels more real.
I walk away like it doesn’t matter, but how could he know I worry about that? My mind drifts to this lesson we had in Sunday school last year on one of the days they split up the girls and boys. They brought in this rose and had us pass it around. “You can pull petals off, turn it upside down, smell it, whatever.” When it got to me, I just sniffed it and passed it to the next girl. It smelled like how a rose was supposed to smell. I didn’t really get where we were going with this. By the time the rose went around the entire circle, it wasn’t looking so great. The Sunday school teacher placed it on the table, and then she brought in a box of new roses and put them in a pile beside it. She said we could each pick a rose to take home. Well, of course, every girl picked one of the fresh, pristine roses and not the sad lonely rose with the bruised petals falling every which way. Then our teacher talked all about how you’re supposed to save your virginity until you’re married and how nobody good is going to want you if you’re used. And a part of me knows that’s not really the way the world works. But another part of me thinks, Why would a guy like Rey Lemalu, a guy who could have any girl in this school, want to pick the ugly flower?
I’m still thinking of that Sunday school lesson and what Karl said—all through school, all through dance team practice, right up until it’s time to go to Wednesday night church. Mom and I drive there together, and then she leaves for her class, and I should go to mine, but instead I plop down on a bench in the middle of the courtyard. And I start bawling. I cry until I run out of tears. Even then, my body keeps going through the motions of crying, like when you get really sick with the stomach flu and you dry-heave even though there’s nothing left.
My eyes drift to two children playing on the balcony over the courtyard which reminds me of us hiding out in the hayloft in Big Tom’s barn which makes me think of the vow which makes me realize I desperately do not want to be alone right now. I wipe my cheeks with the back of my fist and text Melanie Jane. The Montgomerys never miss a church service.
A few minutes later, she hops onto the bench next to me. “Hey, girl!”
“Hey,” I reply, the word coming out shakier than I want it to.
“Are you okay?”
“N-n-nooo.” A sob rises in my throat, but I manage to turn it into a hiccup. I hate crying in front of people.
“Oh, no. Peyton. Hey, it’s going to be okay. If you want to talk about it now, that’s fine. And if you don’t, that’s fine too. I’ll just sit here.”
I’m still working on not crying, so I don’t say anything back. Melanie Jane has her hands clasped in front of her like she’s restraining herself from doing any number of things. And then she does the best thing she could possibly do. She drops her hands and scoots closer to me so our shoulders touch. It was just six inches, but I feel like she crossed miles and years to pull me back from a precipice.
I try talking again. “Karl and I had a fight, and I told him I can’t talk to him anymore. It was bad, I guess, but not that bad. I mean, I stood up to him, so I should be happy. I’m embarrassed I cried so much.”
“Maybe you’re crying about more than the fight,” Melanie Jane says.
I nod. “I think I am.” I try to organize my thoughts, while she waits, as promised. “I feel like an idiot. I wasn’t ready to have sex, but I did it anyway, and then I realized Karl was toxic, and I’m upset I waited so long and then had sex with some guy who isn’t the one and didn’t even treat me that well.”
“You’re not with him now. That’s something. A big something.”
I shake my head. She makes it sound so simple. “But I lost my virginity. And my religion says . . . I mean . . . we’re Southern Baptist. I feel like Karl and I are bound for life. Like it was wrong to have sex with him and now it’s wrong to break up with him because it’s like we were married.”
“Whoa.” Melanie Jane grabs my shoulders and turns me so we’re looking each other straight in the eye. “Peyton, you are not and never were
married to Karl. Losing your virginity doesn’t condemn you to a lifetime of misery.”
I almost start crying again. I want so badly to believe her. I tell her the story about Sunday school and roses—I’m pretty sure she was there that day. She looks like she wants to kick something.
“Okay, first of all, that’s a bunch of crap, and you should forget it right now. Side note: I’m a little disappointed that they used such a tired metaphor. And second of all, I want to know what the boys were doing in their class because you know for damn sure they weren’t talking about saving their flowers.”
I snort. “Maybe they taught them that girls who don’t wait for marriage are worthless. It would make a lot of sense.” The overwhelming feelings hit again. Hard. “I don’t know what to do. A part of me still believes it—that no one will want me now.”
“You can’t talk like that. Anyone with a brain would want you. Look, choosing to wait until marriage makes me feel empowered. But if the same choice cripples you, then it wasn’t the right one.”
I sigh. “I wish I could be more like you.”
She smiles. “Well, I wish I could be more like you. You leapt into love, and it didn’t work out, but at least you went for it. And you’ll leap again, and next time it’ll be for someone who’s worth it. And I’ll probably miss out because I’m scared.”
It’s funny because I can’t imagine her being scared of anything. “Maybe we should both make a promise that we won’t be scared this time around.”
She links her pinky with mine. “It’s worth a shot.”
RANBURNE PANTHER SCAVENGER HUNT
In Ranburne:
1. Fill a condom up with water. Draw a face on it. Put it on Principal Corso’s doormat, and ding-dong ditch. (One person)
2. The egg-on-a-string trick. Hang an egg from a power line by a string and watch a car run into it. (Everyone)
3. Paint the David Bowie statue at Old Lady Howard’s corn maze. (Everyone)
4. Chair race through Walmart. (Everyone)
5. Get a picture of the team with the Ranburne Panther. (Everyone)
6. Go to the Dawsonville football field. Find that stupid rock they touch before their games. Pee on it. (Everyone)
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