Starlight

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  “He must really want to go back home,” I mutter.

  Charlotte gives me that look again, like everything I say is in a foreign language.

  “Back to Canada, I mean. I bet he can’t wait to get away from me.”

  “Adrienne.” Charlotte points at me with a celery stick from her lunch. It has a glob of peanut butter on the end. “You have to give yourself more credit.”

  “He could have sat here. He chose to leave.”

  “If he wanted to get away from you, he’d look more happy about it.”

  “He’s homesick. He’s upset that he’s stuck here, all because of me.”

  Charlotte rolls her eyes. She crunches into her celery stick. She waits until she’s done chewing to speak. “What would you do if he asked Nichole out?”

  Rage flares up. My first thoughts are that it’s not fair, she gets everyone, she can’t have him, too. Saiph stood up to her, he was the only guy who didn’t fall down lust-sick at her feet. I guess guys are all the same, after all. Then I remember that it’s a hypothetical question. I’m getting all worked up over nothing.

  Charlotte’s smiling at me.

  “Oh, no.” I think I know what she’s getting at. I glance over at Saiph. He stares at his knees, his lunch tray abandoned beside him. He’s dressed in his plaid jacket and thick glasses, and his hair is extra greasy, but he doesn’t need them. Today, he looks like a loser for real.

  I grab Charlotte’s arm and pull her away from the table. “You don’t understand,” I whisper. Charlotte’s only seen Saiph at school. She doesn’t know what he really looks like and that if he did ask Nichole to the dance, he could get her to say yes. Charlotte has no idea that Saiph belongs with the popular crowd and is just uglying himself up to grant me wishes.

  “Oh, I think I do.”

  “He’s my friend. Maybe.”

  Charlotte raises an eyebrow. “He came all the way here to see you, right?”

  “Only because he had to.” Because I called him down here. “It’s not what you think.”

  “You asked Jason out, and now a boy who came all the way from another country just for you looks like you ripped his heart out and showed it to him.” She taps a finger to her temple. “Think about it, Adrienne. That boy’s got it bad. For you.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A huge group of kids crowds the hallway after school, fighting to get a peek at the newly posted cast list. I hang out in the back. I feel like I don’t belong. Everyone knows how badly I did at the audition. They’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, or maybe they just think I’m being overly hopeful. And I know Mrs. Wagner told me I had the lead, but there’s still this huge part of me that expects to look at that paper and not see my name anywhere.

  Saiph leans against the wall, frowning at the mob of people clambering to see if they got a part. One of those people is Charlotte. She takes the bus, but I told her I’d give her a ride home so she could check the list. I hope she got a part, even if it’s just as an extra. It might be kind of fun to hang out with her, and maybe with her around, I won’t feel so out of place.

  “Saiph,” I whisper, moving closer to him. I’m sure he’s mad at me. I’m sure he hates my guts, but I have to say something.

  He raises an eyebrow, waiting.

  My insides feel like they’re shriveling up. I can’t believe how stupid I was. Ever since Charlotte put the idea in my head that Saiph might be jealous, that he might actually like me, it’s all I can think about. I replayed the conversation we had, the one where he told me to ask somebody out. My memory might be a little fuzzy, but now that I think about it, I’m not sure if he ever said there was magic involved. I might have assumed that part.

  He never said I could ask anybody. In fact, I think he might have been, well, hinting that I should ask a certain guy in particular. Like that maybe he thought I was going to ask him.

  Here’s the thing. Asking Jason Thomas out might have been really dumb, and it might have really hurt when he said no. Or when he said I’m, you know, a dog-loser, whatever that means. And even though he proclaimed it in front of everyone, thinking about it now, I didn’t lose anything. A guy I didn’t really believe would ever go out with me said no and told everyone something that wasn’t exactly a secret. And it’s not like I wasn’t already the laughingstock of the school. But if I’d asked Saiph?

  My throat clenches up just thinking about it. Saiph is way out of my league, just like Jason, but Saiph actually hangs out with me. He’s my friend. And if I asked him and he said no, how awkward would that be? He’d still be stuck here, granting my wishes—one of them being to get me a date for the dance, no less—and he’d probably think I was getting the wrong idea from him being nice to me and not treating me like total dirt. And there would go our little friendship, and I’d know that even the one guy in the world who’s seen me in a dress and not laughed or puked or anything didn’t want me.

  Obviously, asking someone else worked out so much better. It’s not like me and Saiph aren’t talking or anything. It’s not like he hates me now. It’s not like I completely asked out the wrong guy and ruined my life.

  Oh, wait. Yes, it is.

  Saiph is staring at me like I’ve gone insane. I’ve just been standing here, thinking it all over, and I forgot I was trying to apologize to him. I take a deep breath. This is going to be hard. I mean, how can you say, “I’m sorry, and now that I think about it, I didn’t really like that cute jock who I asked to the dance, even after you dropped about a million hints that I should ask you, and I might want you instead, if you don’t hate me now, that is?” You can’t. It sounds completely selfish, even if I didn’t mean to hurt Saiph, and it’s not like I’ve ever had a guy like me before. If Saiph actually likes me. Because I don’t have any proof, just some speculation from Charlotte.

  “Saiph, I…” I wring my hands together. This is harder than I thought it’d be. “I’m—”

  “Adrienne!” Charlotte shoves her way out of the crowd, screaming my name. She’s out of breath and her eyes are wide. “You got the lead!”

  “Wow.” I swallow, not quite having to feign my surprise. I mean, I knew I had the part, but it didn’t feel real until now. Until it was in print for everyone else to see, so I know I didn’t just imagine the whole thing.

  “What did I tell you?” Saiph tells her, still not talking to me, apparently.

  Charlotte leans in closer and whispers, “Do you know who got the opposite role? The guy’s part?”

  Before I can tell her I have no clue, I hear a shriek of distress coming from the middle of the crowd. People back away, holding their ears. Nichole stands in the center, screaming her head off like a two-year-old. “That was supposed to be mine!”

  People come running from down the hall to see what’s wrong. It’s not every day a cheerleader screams bloody murder in the hallway. Jason is one of the guys who comes running. I want to die.

  “What’s wrong?” he says when he sees Nichole. He glances around, like he was expecting to see an ax murderer attacking her. I can’t say I blame him.

  “Oh, it’s awful!” she wails, throwing herself into his arms.

  Okay, despite that stuff I said earlier, about not really liking Jason, I have to admit that I’m a little jealous here. But how can I help it? He calls me a dog-loser in front of the whole school, but someone like Nichole can just whine like a baby and throw herself at him whenever she wants? I don’t think I have to say this, but I will anyway—the world is so not fair.

  Nichole silently points to the cast list. Jason’s eyes follow. I watch as the look of horror spreads over his face.

  “We were supposed to be together,” Nichole whimpers. She doesn’t care what kind of spectacle she makes of herself in front of everyone. She doesn’t have to. They’ll all still be in love with her tomorrow. “I had that part. You saw me try out. I nailed it.”

  Saw her? Jason saw her? I don’t remember him being at the auditions. Then again, Nichole was late. Maybe Ja
son was late, too. Maybe he…

  I glance at Charlotte. “No,” I whisper. “Tell me it’s not him.”

  Her mouth is a thin line. She nods. “Sorry.”

  And that’s when my heart stops beating.

  I guess it’s not enough for Jason to have the whole school looking at him on the football field, just like it’s not enough for Nichole to be head cheerleader. No, they’ve got to be in the spotlight in as many places as possible.

  Jason laughs and tips up Nichole’s chin. “Hey, baby, don’t worry. That’s obviously a misprint. Look at you, getting worked up for nothing.”

  Ugh. Okay, so maybe I can live without some guy calling me “baby.” “Dirt princess” is much more endearing, even if maybe I wasn’t so crazy about it in the beginning. And at least it’s original.

  Er, not that it’s really the same thing. I mean, I don’t even know for sure if Saiph likes me—if it’s even possible for a guy to like me—and when he called me dirt princess, it wasn’t exactly meant as a compliment. Right?

  The crowd’s starting to disperse, now that everyone knows whether they got a part or not, and most of the drama is over. Jason pets Nichole’s hair. “You know they’re not going to let someone like her onto the stage. The audience would go blind or something.”

  I can feel tears welling up. I hold my breath and bite my tongue until I can talk again. “Come on.” I motion for Charlotte and Saiph to follow me to my car. I just want to get out of here.

  But Saiph ignores me and marches over to Jason and Nichole. “It’s not a misprint. Are you so full of yourselves that you can’t even believe what’s in front of your own eyes? Adrienne’s going to play Victoria. She deserves the part, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  I have to say, even though Saiph’s definitely doing something pretty cool right now, he’s not his usual cool and controlled self. He sounds pissed. He sounds like he’s about to lose it.

  Nichole looks confused. I almost feel sorry for her, since she probably thinks she stepped into some kind of parallel universe. Not only did Adrienne get the lead, but now a boy is sticking up for her?

  Saiph clenches his fists. “You’d better apologize for what you said.”

  Jason lets go of Nichole. “Why should I?”

  “Because she’s a better person than you, and you didn’t have any right to call her a dog-loser!”

  Can I just point out that right now, to an outside observer, this scene might look a little strange? Here’s Saiph, decked out in the geekiest clothes he can magic up, yelling at Jason, who’s standing tall and clean in his letterman jacket with someone like Nichole hanging on him. Saiph, my supposedly dorky-looking pen pal from Canada, wants the most popular guy in school to apologize to yours truly. And even though he’s shorter and scrawnier than Jason, he looks and sounds like he means business.

  Jason shrugs, despite Saiph’s outburst. He glances over at me. “What can I say? I’m an honest guy.”

  Saiph nearly lunges at him, but I grab his arm. I’ve never had guys fighting over me before, but I’ve got a bad feeling that things are about to get out of hand. “Adrienne, I can handle this,” Saiph mutters through clenched teeth. “Don’t help me.”

  “Well, you’ve helped me plenty of times when I didn’t want it,” I whisper. “Consider this payback. Besides… you could get hurt.”

  Saiph’s eyes widen and he backs down, staring at me. I’m suddenly super aware of my hand on his arm. How warm his skin is against mine, and how little sparks shoot through my fingers where we touch.

  Jason smirks, like he knew all along Saiph didn’t have it in him. In one quick, disturbingly practiced motion, he reaches out and slips Saiph’s glasses off with one finger. They fall to the floor, where Jason “accidentally” stomps on them. There’s a crunch, and then the tinkling of broken pieces of glass skittering across the tiles.

  “Oops,” Nichole says, as she and Jason walk away, grinning. “I think you stepped in something.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  We’re at home, about to get out of the car after dropping Charlotte off, when Saiph puts his hand on my arm. “Adrienne…” He takes a deep breath, sucking it in slowly through his teeth, like what he’s about to say is really killing him.

  My heart nearly explodes. This is it. I know he just stuck up for me back at school, but he’s going to tell me he hates me and that he’s had enough of granting me my wishes. He doesn’t want to hang out with me, not after all the trouble it’s caused him, and it’d be best if we kept to ourselves as much as possible until all this is over. And there’s no way I’ll be able to get a date to the dance. He’ll probably have to take me himself, and we’ll both know how much he won’t want to be there.

  “Don’t—”

  But I cut him off, blurting out, “I’m sorry!” before I can stop myself.

  “—listen to them.” He pulls his hand back. “What?”

  “Er, I’m sorry. About what happened to you. You stuck up for me, and they… they treated you like crap and broke your glasses.”

  He snaps his fingers. The car smells like sugar—an improvement over the pine-tree air-freshener I got—and then he’s holding a new pair of glasses, just as square-framed and thick-lensed as the last ones. He grins. “These? You know what? You worry too much, dirt princess.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?” My mouth hangs open in shock, not because he just made a pair of glasses appear out of nowhere—you’ve seen one pair of glasses materialize out of nothing, you’ve seen them all—but because he doesn’t care. Nichole and Jason made a total fool out of him in front of people. He might be a star, but he’s still sixteen, and that makes them his peers. As far as anybody else knows, he’s one of the biggest nerds in school. He hangs out with me, and he ate lunch alone today. Not to mention the spectacle he made of himself in my math class last week. “Jason treated you like… He walked all over you! You stood up to him, and he just laughed.”

  Saiph pushes his glasses further up on his nose. He leans back, his arms behind his head, looking completely relaxed. “You only wish you could be as brave as me.” And cocky. Did I mention cocky?

  Still, I hate that he’s right. “You should have sat with us today at lunch.” My voice goes quiet when I say it.

  Saiph shuts his eyes, playing up the “too cool to care” attitude he’s got going on. “There wasn’t room. No big deal.”

  “I’m sorry.” I reach out to touch him, but I draw my hand back. I fidget with my seat belt instead. “I… I shouldn’t have asked him out.” There. I said it. I squeeze my eyes shut and all my muscles go tense. I just want this to be over with.

  “Uh… Yeah, okay. Whatever.”

  I blink at him. “Really?”

  He gets out of the car. I do the same, only I’m so flustered and in such a hurry that I accidentally close my sleeve in the door.

  Saiph comes around to my side as I’m fumbling to get my keys. “Need some help?”

  “I’ve got it.” I get my keys into my free hand, but getting them to the keyhole doesn’t go so well. It might have been okay if I wasn’t facing the wrong way and kind of blocking the handle.

  Saiph rolls his eyes at me. He holds out his hand and the keys appear on his palm.

  “So,” I say, as he unlocks the door and sets my arm free, “you’re not mad?”

  “Mad.” Saiph stares at me like he has no idea what I’m talking about. Like maybe he doesn’t know what the word means.

  “At me!” I gesture to myself as I say it, flailing both arms—now that he’s freed me from the car door—to emphasize how much it would make sense to hate me right now.

  He snaps his fingers. “You know, now that you mention it, I am still sore at you for sticking me in the attic.”

  “There’s nowhere else for you to go.”

  “How about we switch tonight? You sleep in the dusty room with no windows, and I’ll take your bed. Or is princess too sensitive for that?”

  I fold my arms and shi
ft my weight to one foot. “I don’t think so. And that’s not what I’m talking about. You know you’re upset because I asked Jason to the dance.”

  “Yeah. He called you a dog-loser. That wasn’t cool.” Saiph shifts his eyes to one side. “I kind of thought you would have known better, though.”

  I kind of thought there was magic involved, but I’m too embarrassed to admit that to Saiph. “And…?” I tap my foot. “You’re mad at me. Admit it. You wanted me to ask you to the dance.”

  Saiph gasps in shock. He looks startled and takes a step back, practically swooning in surprise. He’s way overdoing it. “Why, Miss Dirty, are you implying that I’m…” he grabs his throat, pretending to choke on the word, “jealous?”

  “Never mind.” I turn my back to him. I can see my breath. It’s cold, and I sling my bag over my shoulder and march to the house, my footsteps heavy and my jaw clenched.

  “I’m flattered, princess, I really am.” Saiph jumps in front of me, leaning against the door so I can’t open it. He’s grinning.

  “Get out of my way.” I shove him while he’s only got one foot on the ground, and he topples backwards, into a couple of bushes. I turn my key in the door and consider locking him out.

  “Adrienne, wait!”

  The mocking tone in his voice is gone. He sounds sincere enough that I turn around, forgetting about getting in the house before I freeze. He picks himself up and dusts himself off, climbing back onto the porch. His glasses are in the dirt. He looks me in the eyes. I hold my head up, not afraid to hear whatever he has to say. He glances at his shoes and scratches the back of his head.

  “Maybe,” he says, drawing the word out to twice its normal length, “maybe I might have been, well, a little…”

  He pauses to swallow, and then I don’t get to find out what he might have been a little of, because right then my mom pulls up in the driveway, honking the horn like mad.