“It wasn’t a game,” Cash whispered. “Not to me.”
But I barely heard him as I bolted from the room, clapping a hand over my mouth to keep from saying another word. I didn’t let myself stop to think about what he could have meant by that. Didn’t let myself hope or dream. I just ran.
I’d lost it. My sanity, my ability to think, my control. I’d let Cash get the better of me, and I’d lost my cool physically and verbally. I was ashamed and embarrassed, and before I even got out of the trailer, I was regretting every word I’d said.
chapter twenty-seven
I was already outside on the porch before I remembered that Cash had driven me here. “Fuck,” I wailed, sinking down onto the front steps of the trailer and burying my face in my hands.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. Freaking out would only make this infinitely worse. I needed to keep my cool. To stay in control. To think and find a way out of here.
I heard the door of the trailer slide open behind me. “Lissa,” Cash said, his voice gentle as his footsteps shook the loose wooden boards I was sitting on. “Do you need a ride?”
“No, thank you,” I said in a stiff, polite voice. I self-consciously tucked the hem of my skirt beneath my knees, feeling exposed.
“How will you get home?” he asked.
“I’ll call someone.”
“You left your purse inside.” I felt the bag drop to the ground beside me. “You sure you don’t…? I could give you a ride, Lissa. It’s not… We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”
“Thank you,” I said, pulling my purse into my lap. “But I’m fine. I appreciate the offer.”
That was the truth. I did appreciate it. I appreciated that he came after me even considering how I’d talked to him. Randy never would have chased me like that. He would have waited for me to cool down, waited for me to come back and apologize for the things I’d said. He would have just let me go. Hell, I would have just let me go.
Then again, I had left my purse inside. Cash didn’t have much of a choice but to bring it out to me.
I ducked my head and began digging for my cell phone. I could feel Cash still standing behind me, silently watching. “You don’t have to wait,” I told him after I located the phone.
“I know I don’t,” he said. “But I’m not leaving you out here alone in the dark, either.”
I snorted. “We live in Hamilton, Cash. Not Detroit. It’s not like something scary and dangerous is going to happen to me while I’m waiting.”
He didn’t respond.
Part of me wanted him to say, “Fine,” and stomp back inside, out of my hair and my life. But the other part of me—the louder, more emotional part—was thrilled that he cared enough to stay. To watch out for me. I wanted it to mean something.
I hesitated with my finger over the keypad. I could call Chloe. Hell, I could walk to her place from here. But that wouldn’t have been a good idea.
Because she’d been right. So right. She’d told me not to do this, not to play with fire. But I’d argued. I’d said I could handle it even though I obviously could not. I didn’t want to hear her gloat at me. I didn’t want her to know how right she’d been. Not tonight, anyway.
For that matter, I didn’t want to see any of the strike girls. Because if they realized whose house they were picking me up from… I didn’t even want to know what they’d think had been going on.
So I called the only other person I could think of.
“Lissa, I thought you said you didn’t need a ride tonight?”
Logan sounded agitated. On the other end of the line, I could hear the sounds of forks scraping along plates on top of a low hum of conversation.
“Where are you?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be at home?”
“No,” Logan said, sounding a little annoyed. “I’m on a date. What’s the problem, Lissa? Why did you call?”
“I need a ride.”
“I thought your shift ended, like, two hours ago.”
“It did. I’m not at work. Can you come get me?” I was all too aware of Cash, so close to me, able to hear everything I said. I cleared my throat. “I just need to go home. Please, Logan?”
“Are you okay?” He sounded worried.
“I’m fine. I just need you to come get me. Look, you can bring your date, too. Just get me, drop me off at home, and go back out. I don’t care. I just—”
“No, no,” Logan said quickly. “I’ll send her home and be on my way. Where are you?”
I gave Logan the address, and I could sense the tone of suspicion as he read it back to me. I’m sure he was wondering why I was across town in the trailer park. There was no way I was giving him an answer to that.
I hung up the phone and slid it back into my purse. “My brother is on his way,” I said, as if Cash hadn’t just overheard every word. “So you don’t have to worry anymore. Thanks.”
“Lissa, I—” Cash began, but then he stopped himself. Finally, he said, “Do you really want me to leave you alone?”
No.
“Yes.”
I wasn’t looking at him, so I couldn’t see his reaction to this. But I felt the ache of my own disappointment when he said, “All right.” The porch creaked, and a moment later I heard the screen door close behind me. When I turned around, I saw that he’d left the bigger wooden door open, and I wondered if he was still keeping an eye on me from inside, still watching to make sure I was okay.
I wished he’d stayed.
Something was wrong with me. I should have been happy Cash was gone. I hated him. Hated him for making me feel this way. For turning me into a sex-crazed freak. I couldn’t believe how willing I’d been. How eager I’d been for things to go further. I was ashamed.
I shouldn’t have been; I knew that. If there was one thing this strike had taught me it was that there was no right answer—it was okay to want or not want sex. It wasn’t anything to feel guilty about. I knew, I knew, I knew….
But I guess sometimes knowing doesn’t fix everything. I’d played by the rules of secrecy and shame my entire life. Learning to break them would take time.
It wasn’t fair. Lysistrata never had this problem. In the play, the other women yearned for their husbands, missed sex, but not her. She stayed strong. Why couldn’t I be like that? Why, after a year of being afraid, of avoiding it with Randy, was I suddenly lusting after Cash?
Part of me didn’t even want to know the answers.
Seventeen minutes and six seconds later, Logan’s car pulled into the driveway. “Hey,” he said, leaning out the open window as I strolled toward him. “What is going on? You look… Your hair… Never mind.”
“My hair what?” I began, but I could see the reddish color in my brother’s cheeks, and I shook my head. Make-out hair.
I climbed into the car and gave the trailer one last look. For a second, I thought I could see Cash’s silhouette in the window, but then we were driving away, and there was no way for me to be sure, to know that he’d stayed there, watching to make sure I left all right.
When we got home I ran upstairs, telling Dad I had a lot of homework to do and leaving him and Logan to fend for themselves dinner-wise.
I needed to be alone for a while, so I closed my bedroom door, curled up on my bed, and pushed my face into the pillow. The tears I’d been fighting back in Cash’s bedroom ached to be released, and this time I didn’t fight them.
I was angry—at Cash for making it so easy for me to lose control, at myself for still wanting him. But I was embarrassed, too. I’d fucked this strike up. I’d taken a good idea and let it get out of hand, encouraging the girls to be cruel, to tease, just so I could beat Cash.
Only one thought offered me any comfort: Cash was wrong as well. The boys had been manipulative. Him, especially. I remembered that kiss in the library, that kiss that should have made me so happy, and how it had hurt to realize it had been a battle tactic. Cash was cruel, too, even if he couldn’t admit it.
Which was why I wasn’t giving up yet.
I sat up and wiped my eyes. The strike wouldn’t end because of this. I’d talk to the girls; I’d tell Susan and Ellen to stop with the seductress acts—and I would stop, too. We could go back to how we started; we could run this strike the right way. We could—we would—still do what we set out to do in the beginning: end the rivalry.
With a little sigh, I climbed off my bed and walked to my desk, where my physics homework waited for me. Tomorrow, I’d fix things. If Cash wanted me to play fair, I would. But the girls were still going to win.
The strike wasn’t over.
Chloe called later that night—I knew she would, but it was a phone call I hadn’t been looking forward to.
“So how’d it go?” she asked. “Did you shut him down?”
I let out a breath. “Um… sort of, but not in the way I’d planned.” Before she could ask, I dove into the story of what had happened in Cash’s bedroom. She waited in silence, and I talked as fast as I could so I wouldn’t get embarrassed and lose my nerve.
“And I know you told me so,” I said.
“Lissa—”
“And I know I messed up,” I said, cutting her off. “I know what I did was wrong, like you said. I’m sorry.”
“Lissa—”
“Please don’t lecture me, Chloe.”
“Lissa!” Her voice was harsh, crackling through my phone, and I flinched. “Will you let me talk? I wasn’t going to lecture you.”
“Oh?”
“No. I was going to ask if you’re okay,” Chloe said. “It sounds kind of… intense.”
“Yes, I-I guess that’s a good word for it. Intense.”
“So are you? Okay, I mean?”
I sighed and pushed away from my desk, where I’d been attempting to do physics homework for the past hour. Attempting and failing. My thoughts were too consumed. With Cash. With the rivalry. With this war between the boys and the girls—the battle of the sexes that had sprung up. Just like in Lysistrata.
The girls had won. In Lysistrata, the women had won. The war between the Athenians and the Spartans ended, and the women were successful. I’d finished the play a few nights earlier, and I’d decided that if they could win, so could we.
“I will be,” I answered. “So, slumber party at Ellen’s this weekend, right?” I turned to my computer and opened up my e-mail.
Chloe snorted. “Hell if I know. I stopped reading your e-mails weeks ago. I just do what you tell me to do, since I have to drive you around anyway.”
I rolled my eyes and checked the calendar I’d set up on my e-mail server. “Well, you’re driving me to Ellen’s tomorrow night, then.” I clicked the button to shut down my computer. “I have to go or I’ll never get this homework done.”
“Whoa, you still do homework?” Chloe asked. “Why? We’re seniors. You’ve already taken your SATs. Why bother?”
I laughed. “Good night, Chloe.” And I hung up the phone.
chapter twenty-eight
Being in Ellen’s bedroom brought on a little déjà vu. She lived in a nice house about a block from the high school, which made it an easy walk for the girls who wanted to support their boyfriends at the football game before heading to the sleepover.
Ellen’s room sent me back to a time before all of this. Before the strike, before Randy, before the stupid rivalry began interfering with our lives. Sitting cross-legged on Ellen’s floor, flipping through one of her fashion magazines, made me feel thirteen again. It felt good. Simple.
Boys had ruined that.
Plink.
“What was that?” Kelsey asked in a bored voice, pushing herself up on one elbow where she was stretched out on the floor. Ellen’s room wasn’t as big as Kelsey’s, but it was still big enough that we had room to lounge around—especially since it was the weekend before fall break and almost half the girls had already headed out of town with their families, venturing to places far, far more interesting than Hamilton. Kelsey wasn’t one of them, and I could tell she was pissed about it.
She got up and stepped over the other girls, making her way to the window as another pebble hit the glass. My body tensed as I thought of Randy and the night he’d shimmied up my drainpipe. The night I’d decided to start the strike.
“Um, Mary?” Kelsey said. “You should come see this.”
Everyone, not just Mary, made their way to the window then, curious and bored and in need of some sort of entertainment.
And we got entertainment, all right.
Standing in the grass below Ellen’s bedroom window was a small group of about seven boys. A few were still wearing football jerseys, and the others were soccer players—Cash among them. The sight of him made my cheeks burn—for several reasons, anger and shame not excluded.
At the front of the group, staring up at us and holding a battered acoustic guitar, was Finn, Mary’s boyfriend. He wasn’t the kind of guy you’d expect to see with a shy, tiny girl like Mary. Finn was tall, broad, and growing a steady beard. Normally, he looked like the intimidating beast that might beat you up and steal your lunch money. But right now, the way he looked up at us, at Mary, with this glow in his eye and the sweetest smile, he looked more like a teddy bear.
“Mary,” he called up to us as Kelsey, against my protests, opened the window. “Mary, I… I miss you. I—”
“Can we get this over with, man?” Shane asked. “Come on. We came here to do this. Let’s get on with it.”
“Right.” Finn cleared his throat. “Anyway, Mary, I have something I want to say to you, but I never get to be alone with you anymore. You won’t let me, and… and I know this strike is… well, anyway.” I’d never seen a boy Finn’s size turn into such a blubbering fool. “You don’t have to come down here,” he said. “But please listen.”
“Shut the window,” I hissed at Kelsey.
She shook her head. “Let the boy speak.”
Finn began to strum on his guitar, but before he got very far, Shane interrupted again.
“Hold up,” he yelled toward the window. “Just gotta say—I did not agree to this song selection. This was all Finn and Sterling’s idea, all right? I just agreed to help.”
“Are you done yet?” Cash asked. Even though it sounded harsh, I could tell he was half laughing.
“Yeah. Whatever.”
Finn cleared his throat and began to strum again. After a moment, he started to sing.
“It’s tearin’ up my heart when I’m with you….”
“Oh my God,” Ellen said slowly. “Is that…?”
“ ’NSync,” Susan said, nodding. “I haven’t heard this song since elementary school.”
The thing was, Finn could not sing. He wasn’t horrible or anything—not like the really, really bad people they showcase on the American Idol audition episodes. But he wasn’t really talented, either. Then again, none of the boys were. They performed as backup singers while Finn strummed his guitar—something he was talented at.
Cash’s eyes locked suddenly with mine as the second verse ended, and my heart thrummed in my chest. I knew this was about Mary and Finn—or, more likely, about the boys sabotaging us. But for a second, I wished he was singing to me. That he was telling me he wanted to be with me. That not being with me was killing him.
And he was killing me.
I looked away and nudged Chloe, who was crouching next to me. “Dear God,” I said. “They’re like sirens. We’ve got to close the window and stop listening.”
“Lissa, look at her.” She reached out her hands and forced me to turn and face Mary.
She was standing up, peering out the window with this look on her face like she might swoon. Her eyes were wide, and for a second I worried she was about to burst into tears. She slowly lifted a hand and placed it over her chest, her gaze fixed out the window. It was like a scene out of a Nicholas Sparks book.
“She hasn’t kissed him in over a month,” Chloe whispered in my ear. “She won’t even be alone with
him. Shane says Finn’s afraid it’s more than the strike. Like she’s lost interest in him.”
I turned my head back to look at her. “You talk to Shane?”
Chloe shrugged. “We’re kind of friends. Like, we’ve hooked up enough that we’re comfortable with each other. We talk.”
I narrowed my eyes at her “Even when you aren’t hooking up?”
Chloe gave me a fierce stare. “Yes, Lissa. Stop being so paranoid. I’ve stuck to the oath, but… but look at her. Mary. And Finn. Look at him, too. You remember how I told you there are some good guys out there? He’s one of them. I know I’m not an expert on romance, but they are clearly in love, and this is hurting them.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but Susan turned to face me, her palms pressed against the window—her boyfriend, Luther, was one of the boys singing up to us. “Lissa,” she said, “when can this whole strike thing be over? It’s been, like, a month. I thought it would be done by now.”
“Yeah,” a few of the girls echoed. “I thought you said two weeks.”
“Stop,” I said, jumping to my feet—I’d been kneeling by the window. “This is what they want. They want us to give in. But we can’t. We have to stay strong. We have to win.” I pushed Kelsey out of the way and positioned myself in front of the window just as the song ended and the last notes of Finn’s guitar were carried off by the October wind.
“Go home,” I called down to them. “This won’t work—and you’ll wake up the neighbors.”
“Mary!” Finn called, ignoring me.
I felt Mary come up behind me so she could peer over my shoulder out the window.
“I miss you,” he said again. “I—”
Before he could finish, I slammed the window shut.
“Lissa!” Kelsey snapped, annoyed. “Why did you do that?”
“It’s a trap.” I looked right at Mary then. “You know that, right? This is just another attempt by the boys to make us give in. To make us lose. But we can’t. We have to win. You know that, right?”
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