by Seven Steps
“It’s hard to be who I want to be when everyone wants me to be someone different.”
“The elephant does not fear the mouse until its standing in front of him.”
I sighed. “Translation.”
“Don’t fear the things that are not upon you yet. Chances are that when they are upon you, they’ll be a lot smaller than you think.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you should write a book of all these Able-isms?”
He laughed shortly. “Why write a book when I can just tell them all to you?”
34
“Good morning, everyone.” Mrs. Meredith looked especially chipper today, with her forest green shirt and clean jeans. Her graying brown hair was pulled up into a neat bun and she was wearing lipstick. I wondered what had happened to the messy teacher we’d grown used to. “Today, we will be breaking up into pairs for a week-long project.”
She moved to her desk and picked up a stack of papers.
“You are about to receive a list of assignments. Pick one of the assignments and, as a pair, complete it. The next five classes will be dedicated to giving you time to complete your project.”
She handed me a sheet of white paper and I scanned the list of activities. There were twenty different suggestions. Everything from designing a holiday card from a famous painter to looking into the back of a spoon and drawing a distorted image. I placed a star next to five of the suggestions, wondering how I would choose the one I liked most.
“On the back of the paper you’ll find your partner. And before you ask, there are no backsies.”
I flipped my paper over and gasped at the name.
Oliver Santiago.
It figured. We sat next to each other and we’d been tied for the top spot in the art contest.
A part of me was happy that I got Ollie’s name, but another part of me was terrified, mainly because I never knew what Ollie’s mood was going to be. Happy? Motivational? Frustrated? Angry?
It was like each day he was a different person and I had no idea who I would get from day to day.
I peeked over and watched him turn his paper over, drop his head, and let out a long sigh.
My stomach went tight.
He looked at me, showed me my name on his paper, and rolled his head back, staring up at the ceiling.
Really? Was that how he was going to act? Did he not want to be my partner? Even if he didn’t, there was no reason to be rude about it. I choked down the part of me that was happy for our partnership. If he didn’t want to be my partner, then I didn’t want to be his either.
Mrs. Meredith clapped her hands. “Okay, let’s break into our groups and start making some hard choices.”
I did not want to break into my group. I wanted to sit at my desk and draw a six-foot-tall squirrel. Yes, that was one of the options on the papers. I wanted to do something on my own, without Ollie’s huffing and puffing. But, I had no such luck. He dragged his desk over to mine with a loud squeal, then he clasped his hands together and looked at me.
“What?” I demanded. “I didn’t do this.”
“I never said you did. Guilty much?”
“Grow up, Ollie. Not everything is about you.”
“No. That’s right. It’s all about Andrew, isn’t it?”
“Would you get over it? Andrew is my friend.”
“Friend? Funny, that’s not what he told me this morning.”
The quip that’d been waiting on my tongue faded, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “What did Andrew tell you this morning?”
“Well, your buddy Andrew and the entire F.E.W membership cornered me at my locker. He told me to stay away from his girlfriend.” He put his finger up to his chin, in a mock pose of thought. “I assumed he meant you.”
I swallowed. It felt like I’d been caught in a lie, thought I hadn’t lied about anything.
“Andrew asked me yesterday before we went out to eat,” I confessed.
“And I’m sure you did cartwheels all the way around the city, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Which part? Him being your boyfriend or you doing the cartwheels?”
“Yes, he’s my boyfriend, and yes, I’m happy about it. It’s… It’s just that…” I groaned. I couldn’t tell Ollie that I was having some doubts about Andrew because I didn’t even know why I was having them in the first place. It was just this feeling in the pit of my gut like I was about to run a red stoplight.
“I’ll bet he checks all the boxes on your perfect boyfriend score card, doesn’t he? Handsome, smart, rich, and a douchebag.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair, Princess. Anyone that tells you differently is selling something.”
“Number one, you don’t even know him. And number two, what Andrew and I do is none of your business.”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re right. It’s none of my business.” His foot bounced beneath the table. I felt it through the floor. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Fine,” I yelled.
“Fine,” he yelled back.
Mrs. Meredith’s head shot up. “Everything okay back there?” she asked.
“We’re fine,” we replied at the same time.
She looked startled but didn’t say anything else.
I was done with Ollie and his constantly making fun of Andrew. Andrew was a nice guy. He didn’t deserve Ollie’s abuse.
“Pick something and let’s get this over with,” he said.
His lack of enthusiasm made my back teeth clench. What was his problem? We were fine and now he was a big grouch for no reason.
Well, he wasn’t the only one who could be a grouch.
“Fine. I pick making a Vincent van Gogh holiday card.”
He scoffed. “Figures.”
My anger blazed. “What does that mean?”
“You know exactly what it means. Van Gogh flowers in the mural. Van Gogh Christmas cards. You should just write Van Gogh groupie on your forehead.”
I growled, my hands curling into claws.
“Mrs. Meredith!” I called, standing and storming to the front of the room. Ollie was hot on my heels.
“I need a new partner.” We said this also at the same time. I hated that we’d done that twice today.
Mrs. Meredith looked from me, to Ollie, and back again. A tight smile settled on her face.
“Unfortunately, there is no switching of partners.”
“But he’s impossible,” I cried.
“No, she’s impossible.”
Mrs. Meredith’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink. “That may be, but you need each other to finish this assignment. Now, either you work together or you both fail. And, based on Ollie’s late entry into the class and his refusal to hand in the assignments and your absences earlier in the month, you are both on shaky ground academically.”
I gasped. “What?”
“Unfortunately, Jasmine, three weeks is a lot of missed work, and you didn’t hand in the makeup assignments. Now, I don’t doubt your artistic talents but in this class you both need this project to pass. I suggest you spend less time arguing and more time finding a way to make it work.”
Then, she shooed us away.
It was hard to breathe. All I could think about was how unfair my life was right now. My heart was racing. My throat constricted, but I swore to myself I wouldn’t cry. Not in this class and definitely not in front of Ollie.
I walked back to my seat with every eye in the class watching me. It felt like a walk of shame.
I inwardly groaned. This sucked. I wanted to be free from Ollie, but life just seemed bent on throwing us together. It was like I was cursed or something.
I slid into my chair and bit the inside of my cheek.
Okay. I could do this. I could be mature and professional, even if he wasn’t showing the same courtesy to me.
Ollie grabbed the paper and scanned it again.
“Whatever,” he said. “We’ll do the Christmas card.”
No way. I couldn’t do the Christmas cards now. He’d already said he hated that idea. That kind of made me hate the idea too. I didn’t want to be a wannabe. I wanted to be an original. But I didn’t want Ollie to know that. I didn’t want to agree with him. And even if I did agree with him, I couldn’t tell him that.
I thought a minute, then came up with a sensible solution. Without saying a word, I grabbed a sheet of paper, tore it into five rows, then tore those five rows into fours. I numbered the resulting twenty pieces from one to twenty.
“Do you have a hat?” I asked.
He shook his head and I rolled my eyes.
I could almost guarantee he had a hat in his bag, but because he was mad at me, he didn’t want to share it. Whatever. If he didn’t want to give me his hat, someone else would. I looked around the room and settled on Brayden Cohen. He wore a lot of baseball caps to school.
“Hey, Brayden,” I hissed. “Can I borrow your hat?”
He raised his eyebrow, then took his hat off his desk and tossed it my way. I caught it without bobbling it. Score one for me.
I then placed the twenty pieces of paper into the hat and shook it up. Then, I presented it to Ollie.
“Pick one,” I said.
He frowned. “What?”
“Pick a number out of the hat. That number will be the project we do. That way it’s fair.”
“Since when did you care about being fair?”
I rolled my eyes, tired of arguing with him. “Just pick a number. And no re-picks. Once we pick one, that’s it.”
He blew out a puff of air, then reached in, rooted around, and pulled out a piece of paper. He held it up and showed me the number.
Sixteen.
I trailed my finger down the assignment sheet, stopped on sixteen, and read it out loud.
“Draw a single image that represents you at age six, twelve, present age, twenty-five, and seventy-five. Arrange these images in a composition that communicates your identity.”
That sounded complicated. What would represent me at age six? And who did I want to be at seventy-five? And how were Ollie and I supposed to work our pictures in together?
I peeked up at him. He looked just as confused as I was.
So much for asking for help.
The bell rang, releasing me from thinking about the assignment for the moment. Ollie shot out of the room before I could even gather my things.
It was like he was suddenly running from me.
Part of me was happy that he was out of my space for a while. And another part of me, a small part, wondered why he ran from me at all.
35
“You’re not!”
My eyes were wide. My mouth was open. I was absolutely gaping at Bella and Sophia as they sat across from me and told me of their plan.
“We are. And it’s going to be awesome.”
Blue Persia was about to have its second show. On the street. In front of our school. In bustiers. Performing Lady Marmalade. In the middle of January.
If that wasn’t crazy, I didn’t know what was.
Cole raised his hand. “Just for the record, I am not dressing in one of those… things for this, am I?”
“They’re called bustiers, babe,” Bella said. “And no, you don’t have to wear one.”
“Not unless you want to,” Sophia said with a grin.
“What if someone films it?” Ariel said. “What if you get on YouTube and become Internet celebrities?”
“Um, we are going to be on YouTube,” Sophia said. “Because you’re filming it. And everyone is going to share it.”
“Isn’t your mom going to freak out if she sees you in a bustier?” I asked. Sophia’s mom was super religious and super strict. If she knew her daughter was going to perform on the street in a bustier, she would go nuclear.
Sophia waved my objection away. “Don’t worry about her. She doesn’t use the Internet. She thinks it’s the work of the devil.”
Eric laughed. “I can’t say that she’s 100 percent wrong.”
“My mom is the least of our concerns right now. What we have to worry about is Mr. Mann showing up and putting the kibosh on the whole thing. What we need is a distraction.”
Bella raised her hand. “I’m on it.” She pulled out her phone and started pecking at her keypad. “I have this friend, Peter Swift. He’s the king of distractions, especially with Mr. Mann. Plus, I helped him and his girlfriend get together, so he owes me a favor.”
“Great,” Sophia said. “So our costumes are all set. The talent is good to go. And the location is locked down. Are we missing anything?”
“Um, yeah,” Purity said. “Where does the catering table go?”
Sophia groaned. “It’s outside. We don’t need a caterer for this.”
Purity rolled her eyes. “You need a caterer for everything.”
I chuckled. Leave it to Purity to try to feed us while we were watching a street performance.
We spent the rest of lunch prepping for the street show. When the bell rang, I hung back a little. Partially because I was excited for my friends. And partially because I didn’t want to go to chemistry and have to endure another one of Ollie’s assaults. It was like he knew the exact way to get under my skin. I needed to find a way to filter him out. To really keep my distance from him. I didn’t need his antagonizing. Especially not with Andrew’s family dinner tonight.
My stomach hurt just thinking about all the questions his family would throw at me. They’d want to get to know me, but which me? The me I presented to Andrew, or the real me? What would they say if I slipped up and said the wrong thing? It was like there was a time bomb on my tongue, and the only way to diffuse it was to lie.
I was becoming good at that lately. Lying. Especially to Andrew. It was just that every time I showed him a genuine side of me, he seemed so disappointed.
Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I wasn’t giving him enough of a chance.
Maybe I should use tonight to come clean about me and who I really was.
But who was I? I didn’t even think I knew that.
My friends parted ways with me and, with heavy steps, I headed to class.
It felt like I was walking to my execution.
Who knew?
Maybe I was.
36
I sat down in my chair and opened my chemistry book. We were starting on thermodynamics today and it was going to take all my concentration to keep up. Ollie arrived just as the bell rang and took his seat next to me. I felt the tension between us like a brick wall. I wished there were a real wall there. Then maybe I could focus instead of worry about what Ollie would say to me.
Mr. Khan had just started talking about Gibbs free energy change when Ollie slipped me a note.
Does he know who you are?
I shook my head. Was he really back on the Andrew subject? What was his problem? Was this just because Andrew threatened him? If so, then he was a hypocrite because Ollie threatened people on a daily basis.
I balled the note up and placed it back on his desk.
I was done talking about Andrew with Ollie. It was none of his business what Andrew did and did not know about me.
A few minutes later, another note slipped onto my desk.
I balled that one up without reading it. Operation Freeze Out was back on. I never should have stopped it to begin with.
I focused with every molecule of my being on Mr. Khan. Granted, I didn’t really follow what he was talking about, but at least it kept my mind off Ollie.
Then we broke into lab partners again. We’d all been given sodium acetate mixed with water in a flask. From there we were supposed to answer a bunch of questions about enthalpy, entropy, and free energy. I was just writing down that the solution started out room temperature when Ollie spoke up.
“If Andrew really thought I was a threat, he would have approached me one on one like a real man. He didn’t need fifteen guys
to back him up.”
Today we had seniors visit us to be lab assistants. One of them eyed us as she walked past, then kept moving around the room.
“Maybe he knew your reputation and didn’t want to lose a tooth,” I answered quietly.
“I wouldn’t have attacked him.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
He looked hurt, as if he didn’t get into fights on a regular basis. He’d just punched Clay Roman’s tooth out last week!
“I only attack when people attack me first,” he said. “That’s my rule.”
“Really? You were about to fight Andrew when he stepped on your shoe last week.”
“That’s because I didn’t like the way he was looking at you. I was trying to protect you.”
“Funny. That’s what he said too.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t have fifteen guys with me. There’s a difference.”
I put down my pencil and folded my hands. “Is there a point to all of this?”
“Yes. What I want to say is… I’m sorry.”
I frowned at him, confusion wrecking me. He was so hard to understand. One minute he was sweet and gentle, and the next minute he was an angry, and now he was apologizing. Which of those three boys was the real Ollie?
“Sorry for what?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I’m sorry for not giving you your lesson last night. And I’m sorry for arguing with you in art. I don’t want to argue with you. I want us to be friends, and we can’t be that if we’re fighting. So, I’m letting you know that I’m sorry and that I’ve washed my hands of it. You can do whatever you want with whomever you want. I won’t mention anything about it again.”
My shock was so sudden and acute that I sucked in a breath.
My stomach dipped and rolled, and my entire body felt tight.
I was so confused by Ollie lately. And this apology didn’t make me feel better at all. It just made me sad, and I didn’t understand why I was feeling this way over a boy who had been so mean to me over the last twenty-four hours.