The Lie

by Glasko Klein

  Things were going better than Leanna had hoped they would. Maybe Jenny will talk herself out of trying out for the team all on her own, Leanna thought. If I give her a delicate push in the right direction, I can play on the JV team and save our friendship.

  “So what does College Party have to do with any of that?” Leanna asked, urging Jenny to continue.

  Jenny bit into her pizza slice and chewed on it thoughtfully. “I guess I just figured that since this whole tennis team thing is kind of outside of my comfort zone, you’d understand how I felt a little more if I pushed you outside of yours. You know, it might show you—”

  “But that’s the problem, Jen. Why do you have to show me? Why couldn’t you just tell me how you’re feeling? I’m your best friend.” While what she said was all true, Leanna suddenly felt bad about manipulating Jenny, even if she was just trying to save Jenny from embarrassing herself at tryouts. But this will be for the best, she reminded herself.

  “You’re right, it was stupid. I figured we’d end up going to see Teen Witch 3 anyway. It’s just hard for me to talk about this kind of stuff sometimes, you know? And think about what it’s like for me—I keep feeling like I’ve been holding you back. I mean, that’s even what your mom thinks,” Jenny said.

  Perfect, she thought, barely containing her relief. Jenny’s giving me an easy shot, and now all I have to do is put it away.

  Leanna wiped the pizza grease from her hands. “Well, I’m glad we’re able to talk this out, Jen. So I guess you don’t have to worry about trying out for the team anymore then.”

  Jenny’s jaw dropped. “What are you talking about?”

  11

  Leanna immediately began to panic. Clearly she had misread the situation—or maybe they weren’t quite as good at being honest with each other as she thought. Jenny’s face was still frozen in a horrified mask, mouth open.

  Leanna scrambled to come up with something to say. Take a deep breath, she thought to herself. So the plan hit a bit of a snag. I can still recover. I shouldn’t have expected something this delicate to go perfectly. She decided to keep up the pressure, just like when she attacked the net as soon as an opponent started to struggle. She already knew how things turned out if she kept things to herself.

  “Isn’t that what you were saying?” she asked. “I mean, you were just telling me you felt like you were holding me back and that you didn’t really want to play competitive tennis, so I just thought—”

  Jenny’s mouth snapped shut, her lips settling into a thin line that matched the creases forming on her forehead. “You thought what? That you wouldn’t have to worry about me embarrassing you in front of the other girls if I didn’t try out? Are you serious, Leanna? This entire week you’ve been encouraging me and telling me that you would help me get good enough to be on the team. But have you just been waiting for a way out this whole time?”

  Leanna hadn’t forgotten about the time travel thing, but she didn’t think about how everybody else was living their lives at a normal rate, with no do-overs. It seemed like it had been forever since she had been trying to build Jenny’s confidence, but to Jenny it had been less than twenty-four hours. Jenny wasn’t reliving last Friday—to her this was just the Friday after finding out that her best friend’s mom didn’t believe in her. Her best friend who was now telling her that she didn’t believe in her either.

  Leanna’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Jenny, I didn’t mean—”

  Jenny pushed her tray toward the center of the table and stood up, her chair grinding across the plastic tiles with a painful creak as it slid back.

  “This is unbelievable! I was just telling you about how nervous and uncomfortable I am about doing the tryouts that were your idea in the first place. And then you think this would be a great time to mention that you’d changed your mind about believing in me and would rather we just called the whole thing off? Seriously, I’m curious, Leanna—how could you ever think that was a good idea?” Jenny’s voice continued to rise as she spoke, and she was starting to draw the attention of some of the other people in the food court.

  “Jenny, please,” Leanna begged. “I’m sorry. Look, why don’t you just sit down, people are looking at us.” As soon as the words passed her lips, she regretted them.

  “What’s wrong, Leanna? Am I embarrassing you in front of the food court? Do you think it would be better if I just went to the crappier mall across town so that you don’t have to worry about looking bad in front of these strangers?” Jenny shouted. “Look, I’m out of here. Enjoy your salad—I’m sure the JV squad will be very impressed that you’re trying so hard to stay fit for your Kramer High tennis debut.”

  Leanna sat in stunned silence as Jenny grabbed her bag, spun on her heel, and stormed off. Well, that went horribly wrong, Leanna thought, staring into her salad. She felt bad—terrible actually. Jenny did have a point. Leanna thought back to how irritated she’d been when Jenny disappeared after tryouts and then refused to see her, and realized that now Leanna was doing the exact same thing. She wasn’t thinking about what it was like to be Jenny, she was just thinking about how she had wanted things to go.

  Jenny was almost out of the food court by the time Leanna snapped out of her thoughts. She could think about all of this later. Right now, she had to catch up with Jenny and try to make things right. Her friend was hurting—and this time it was definitely her fault. By trying to do the right thing and talk it through, she’d forgotten to do something else important—listening to what Jenny actually said. If I would have thought less about what I wanted and more about how Jenny felt, I wouldn’t have come off as so insensitive, Leanna scolded herself.

  “Hey, Jen, wait up!” she shouted. Racing through the mall, Leanna attracted even more stares, but she didn’t care. She just kept shouting Jenny’s name as she wove through the crowds, hoping Jenny would stop.

  She caught up to Jenny at the bike racks, where she was rushing through putting her combination into the lock.

  “Jenny, it’s not like that,” Leanna panted, trying to catch her breath. She placed a hand on Jenny’s shoulder, but Jenny quickly shrugged it off.

  When Jenny looked up at her, her face was starting to get red and tears were forming in the corners of her eyes, but it was clear that she was determined to fight them off.

  “Actually, Leanna, I think that it is,” Jenny said, her voice beginning to break. “You’ve clearly been lying to me all week, and it’s obvious that getting onto JV is much more important to you than our friendship.” Jenny seemed to regain her composure and she stood up straighter, faced Leanna, and spoke with more confidence. “I know you can’t control whether or not I make JV. I know that I probably wouldn’t make it anyway, but none of that matters. I just wanted you to remember that you’re my friend too, not just my doubles partner, and at least try to be supportive, which I thought was what you were doing—until tonight.”

  Leanna wanted to tell Jenny everything. Maybe if she knew what had happened when Leanna tried to be supportive the first time around, Jenny would be a little more understanding. As much as she wanted to explain herself, she held back. There was no way Jenny would believe she was time traveling from the future and trying to save her from embarrassing herself at tryouts while Leanna got friendly with Kelsey and basked in the glory of her great tryout.

  “I was just trying to keep you from getting hurt,” Leanna said weakly.

  Jenny snorted, then shook her head. “Well, you’re doing a real great job, Leanna. Give yourself a pat on the back. But you don’t have to worry about me embarrassing you at tryouts. Or ever again. We’re not friends anymore. Goodbye.”

  Leanna hung her head in silence as Jenny rode off on her bike without another word.

  12

  Leanna desperately wanted to make things right with Jenny before tryouts. She needed to make sure that Jenny wasn’t serious about not being friends anymore, but Jenny didn’t give her much of a chance. She wouldn’t take Leanna’s calls or reply to
her texts, and whenever Leanna tried to stop by Jenny’s house, she had conveniently just stepped out and her mother didn’t know when she’d be back. For the next two miserable days, Leanna felt like she deserved it. She knew that she had been insensitive, and that her friend’s feelings were really hurt. After all, if the roles were reversed, she would have felt crappy herself.

  Still, tryouts were coming up fast. And as her mother had gotten into the habit of pointing out, she wouldn’t get another chance at making the team until next year if she didn’t play her best on the big day. Although the additional pressure didn’t help her mood much, Leanna knew that her mother was right. She had already gotten one do-over, which was more than most people ever got. She couldn’t count on getting another one.

  Even though she knew she had to, it was tough to keep practicing through the weekend. Her mother wanted to help however she could, so they spent all of Saturday and Sunday at the school courts drilling and playing practice sets. It didn’t help her feel any better about Jenny, but Leanna did notice that her game improved when she was playing against her mother, who was still a pretty exceptional player despite not playing as much as she used to.

  By Sunday night, Leanna was physically and emotionally exhausted. She still hadn’t been able to reach Jenny, and the matches she played with her mother were grueling. So when her mother encouraged her to take the night off to rest up for the big day, Leanna was far too tired to disagree.

  “I know it’s been hard with you and Jenny fighting and everything,” her mother said over dinner, shoveling a second helping of pasta onto Leanna’s plate. “But tomorrow you should just focus on playing hard and having fun. You’ve been great out there this weekend, even though you’ve been a little distracted. If you can keep your head in the game through tryouts, I know you’re going to make JV.”

  Leanna sighed, mindlessly twirling some noodles around her fork. “We’re not fighting, Mom, we fought. Now she won’t even talk to me. I don’t think we’re friends anymore.”

  “Oh honey, that’s nonsense,” her mother said with a smile. “You two have been inseparable since elementary school. I know this fight seems like a huge deal to you right now, but as soon as the season is over Jenny will forget all about it, if not much sooner.”

  Leanna didn’t want to wait until the season was over to make things right. She wanted to do it right now. She would have said that, but she knew her mother wouldn’t understand. From her perspective, this was all just part of the plan she had laid out in her head. The plan where Leanna gets on JV as a freshman and is quickly recognized as a star. She’d make varsity, then get scouted by some top tier university, where her career would flourish while she got a free education and the ride of a lifetime.

  “Well, I hope you’re right, Mom,” Leanna sighed, dropping her fork on the half-empty plate.

  “I am right, honey,” her mother said, giving her a reassuring smile. “Trust me—everything is going to be just fine. Everybody goes through this kind of thing at your age.”

  If only you knew, Leanna thought. High school drama and fights between best friends was one thing. But the pressure to make the right choices after she got a magical do-over? That was something completely different.

  13

  When Leanna woke up the next morning, she did her best to push her fight with Jenny out of her mind and stay focused on the matter at hand—dazzling the coaches with her skills on the court and winning a spot on the JV squad.

  This turned out to be easier said than done.

  At tryouts, she got off to a sluggish start. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t get her mind off the situation with Jenny, who was nowhere to be seen. Leanna held her own in the warm-up drills, but every time she fell into a solid rhythm, she made some technical error—too much wrist, not enough follow through, leaving her racquet face open—and embarrassed herself, which forced her to find her groove all over again.

  She was starting to think she might wind up on the C-squad herself until she found herself facing off against Kelsey Gartner—again. That was when her competitive instinct took over. Just like last time, her and Kelsey seemed to feed off one another’s energy, building up intense rallies that caught the eye of the coaches, who had appeared completely uninterested in Leanna up until that point. By the end of tryouts, Leanna was playing on a level she had only reached once before—during her first round of tryouts, before the do-over. Still, as she rode her bike home, she couldn’t help but worry that her performance might not have been enough. Things had really picked up for her near the end, but after such a rocky start, the coaches might decide that she was too inconsistent to risk putting into a JV spot. She laughed bitterly to herself. After all of this, maybe Leanna had been right to pressure Jenny into going to tryouts the first time around. At least that way she wouldn’t have been distracted by their fight and risked winding up on the C-squad.

  Her mother didn’t waste any time when Leanna got home. “So, how did it go, honey? I mean, I know you did great out there—you always do—but what do you think the coaches thought?”

  Leanna dropped her bag by the door and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, her mother following along behind her. “I did okay,” she sighed. “Much better at the end than I did with the drills in the beginning. I don’t know, last time I knew that I’d made it, but this time I’m not so sure.”

  “What do you mean ‘last time?’ ” her mother asked, confused.

  Crap, crap, crap! Leanna took a big gulp of water to buy herself some time. “I meant last night. I dreamed about the tryouts last night and I felt like I did really well, but now that tryouts are actually over I don’t know how I did.” She didn’t like how easy it was becoming for her to lie. Leanna never really lied before, but now she felt like she was bending the truth somehow every time she said anything to anyone. I guess telling the whole truth isn’t really an option in this case, but still, she thought.

  Leanna’s mother placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “Well, I’m sure you did great.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” she said. “But I’m pretty worn out, so I think I’ll shower up and then take a nap.”

  Her mother smiled. “Of course. And Lee, you should be proud of yourself for getting out there and giving it your all.”

  * * *

  The shower was warm and refreshing, and as the sweat and grime from the court washed away, Leanna started to feel a little better about herself. She had done what she could, and that was something to be proud of. After she dried off and went to her room, it didn’t take long for her thoughts to return to Jenny. Leanna decided to send her one last text, then leave it alone for a while. If Jenny still wasn’t ready for her to apologize, she would just have to wait until she was.

  Just got back from tryouts. I was really sorry to not see you there. Also just want you to know that I love you and I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. We can talk when you’re ready.

  Exhaustion came over her in a sudden wave, and it quickly became impossible for her to keep her eyes open. She fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.

  14

  Three weeks had passed since Leanna had last talked to Jenny, but life without her got a little easier every day. Soon she started to think her mother might have been right about their fight—that Jenny would stay mad all season. But Leanna also realized that this might not be such a bad thing. Both she and Kelsey made the JV team, but it didn’t take long for the thrill to wear off and be replaced with focused determination. Most of the squad was older than her, and they had also been playing competitively for at least a year and were used to balancing their schoolwork with the rigorous practice schedule. Yet despite her inexperience, Leanna quickly rose up the JV ranks—but the higher she was ranked, the harder she had to fight to keep her spot on the lineup, which was always changing.

  Kelsey found herself in the same situation. While she was clearly seen as a talent by the coaches, her spot was far from assured. She had managed to remain slightly ahead
of Leanna for the first couple of weeks, but now the two traded spots on an almost daily basis. With the season now underway, there wasn’t much time left before the first match, which the older girls told both of them usually cemented players into more permanent positions in the lineup. Skill mattered to the coaches, but what really mattered was performing well in actual match play.

  “So, do you think you can keep it together against East?” Kelsey asked. She and Leanna were both packing up their things after a long afternoon of practice. In the past, Leanna would have thought Kelsey was just being snarky, but since they’d been spending so much time together at practice, it seemed like they might be shifting from rivals to friends, or at least friendly rivals.

  “I think I’ll be able to manage,” Leanna said. “What about you? Are you getting worried about the rankings yet?”

  Kelsey snorted. “Of course not. East is one of the worst teams in our conference.”

  Kelsey was right. It was pretty well known that the girls’ team at East wasn’t able to compete. Still, Leanna knew the first match was a huge opportunity to impress her coaches, and she didn’t want to screw it up.

  “Yeah, I know. I just wish that I had a nicer racquet,” Leanna said. “This one is getting a bit worn out.”

  “Why don’t you just buy one?” Kelsey asked.

  Since she had joined the team, Leanna had started to fall in with the other girls, but there were some things about her life that they just didn’t understand. Like money, and how not everyone had it. They knew her pretty well on the court, but they didn’t know much about her personal life. They didn’t know that her dad was gone, or that her success on the court meant a lot more to her family than bragging rights—that how she did over the next few seasons might determine whether or not she could afford to go to college.