Hot by Halloween

by Jessica Bucher

  “You’re supposed to knock now,” I scolded. “I could have been changing.”

  Max plopped on the edge of my bed. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll remember that in the future.”

  Only he wouldn’t remember. He never did. Trying to fix Max was a hopeless endeavor. He brushed a greasy chip hand on my bedspread before pointing to the screen in front of me.

  “I thought you were deciding between Minnesota State and University of Wisconsin?”

  I closed the laptop before Max saw that golden bears bit and never let me hear the end of it.

  “I am. I think,” I said, looking down at my hands.

  “So why are you looking at schools across the country that we can’t afford, and no offense, you probably wouldn’t get into at this point, anyway?” He had a point. My grades were good, but swim team was my first real extra-curricular. My application would have been pretty bland next to the kind of kids I saw smiling back at me from the Berkeley admissions page.

  “I’m not thinking of going,” I admitted. “Gray is.”

  “Oh,” said Max, recognition dawning on his face. “That sucks,” he said reaching in for another chip. “I guess, we hope he gets rejected?” said Max, clearly unsure what the right thing to say was.

  I threw my hands over my face, exasperated. “I don’t know! No! Definitely not. I don’t want to be that girl.”

  He gave a half smile. “If you want, we can secretly hope for that while outwardly wishing him the best.”

  I forced a smile. I appreciated Max’s trying to cheer me up, especially since he probably came in here to make me feel better about the swim meet and got stuck talking about boys instead, but even thinking about keeping another secret from Gray made me feel like a loser. The kind of loser you definitely replaced with a cute Californian who put her plastic and glass in separate bins.

  Max gave me his version of a hug which was to graciously offer me a chip before shrugging his shoulders and heading back down to the den. If I let myself, I could dwell on this Gray Berkeley thing all night. Instead, I grabbed my swim bag from the ground. I was not going to forget to throw my suit in the wash like yesterday. Moldy Speedo is not exactly the perfume a girl wants to wear while trying to lure her hot new boyfriend into staying in podunk Minnesota.

  Only when I reached into the bag, my hands met with a pair of men’s flip-flops and not my suit which meant my stuff…..all of my stuff was with Gray.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Gray

  Acquire arm candy to make Mitch jealous.

  The line kept repeating itself in my head all morning. At least I didn’t read it last night. There was no way I could have slept after that. But after I texted Addy an invitation to come hang out this morning, thinking we could have a chill day of Netflix binging since my mom was at work, she replied with a quick “on my way.”

  I grabbed the notebook off the dining room table and flipped through it while I waited on the front steps. I laughed at the big bubbly handwriting and doodles of her and her friends’ names with various other last names, as I guess girls tended to do when they had a crush.

  It didn’t take long to realize it was a working list of goals, complete with brainstorming and reflections. Addy’s goals were perfectly Addy. It didn’t surprise me that she was the one to ask Mitch out her freshman year. She was fearless.

  And I guess when I got to the newest list, I expected to see something about the swim team. Just not...join a school sport and get fit.

  Then, the next line about the arm candy. About me.

  My stomach turned as I sat on my front porch waiting for her to drive up. I couldn’t decide if I was angry, humiliated, or just shattered. Or a combination of all three.

  As she pulled up the curb, I noticed the nervous expression on her face. Thoughts about us rapid fired through my brain. I was just arm candy to her. All of my feelings for her were real, but to her...I was just a dumb jock to wear on her arm. The humiliation was too much; I could never admit that out loud.

  When she got out of the car, I couldn’t look at her. It was too hard to pretend that I didn’t still want to kiss her and cuddle up to her on the couch and act like everything was great.

  “I grabbed your bag by mistake.” My voice was cold and emotionless.

  “Yeah, I noticed,” she said, a small shake in her voice as she stepped slowly up the yard toward the house.

  “This was in there.” I tossed the book onto the grass. “I wasn’t going to read it, but then again...I didn’t think I would be in it.” I lifted my gaze to meet hers.

  “It’s just a stupid book,” she whispered. “We make those goals every year, but we’re just—” She took another slow step.

  “But it worked. You must have made Mitch jealous because you crossed it off. I assume now you’re done with your arm candy.” My words were biting, and she stopped in her place, just feet away from where the book rested. I caught the way she flinched.

  “Gray, it’s not like that anymore. It was just a stupid—” Her hands were splayed open as she tried to step closer, and when her voice shook like she was about to cry, I had to stand and pace the small space between the steps and front door.

  I didn’t want to be the reason she cried. I hated fighting with her, but it was only because I kept forgetting that our entire relationship wasn’t real.

  “Know what’s worse?” I cut her off. “Sure, the arm candy line made me feel like a real idiot, but do you know what’s worse than that?”

  When she only bit her lips without an answer I continued.

  “Joining the team was all a big joke to you. Just a stupid way to show off to your dirtbag of an ex. You have no idea how important that sport is to me, Addy. My mom can’t afford to send me to college, and when you joined the team, you compromised the team’s chances and mine. It’s my entire future, and it’s not a joke!”

  “I know it’s not a joke, Gray,” she said back to me, matching my tone. Then, she stepped closer and with her wide blue eyes now moist with brimming tears, she said, “But you act like getting that scholarship so you can get out of Minnesota is the only thing that matters. It’s all you care about, Gray. How does that make the rest of us feel? I was never more than a fling for you. You couldn’t wait to get back to California. Yeah, what I wrote in that book was wrong, but there are more important things than getting out of Delinki…”

  I wished so much that she was right.

  But I looked her directly in the eye as I said, “No. There’s really not.”

  Addy

  I left that stupid teal notebook on Gray’s lawn and drove away. If it wasn’t full of four years worth of friendship, I’d have lit it on fire right then and there. Why hadn’t I just ripped the pages out when I wanted to? If I’d done that, then Gray and I would be arguing over how nerdy Nora, Lucy and I had been in the past, not what a jerk I was present day.

  I spent all of Sunday night going over and over what Gray said in his front yard. I thought he was just arm candy, I must have enjoyed Mitch’s reaction at the party, I didn’t take swimming seriously, and the final nail, that he wanted out of Delinki as fast as possible.

  I had spent all Sunday evening and Monday morning trying to figure out what to do about Gray. Mitch and I never fought. Probably because there was never anything important to fight over. What I could really use was some solid advice from Lucy and Nora, but neither were available, and before I knew it, it was time to suit up for practice. I sure as heck didn’t feel like swimming, but seeing as how Gray already thought I didn’t take it seriously, bailing wasn’t an option.

  I was trying to stay focused in the water, but everything with Gray had my mind jumping from place to place. I couldn’t concentrate on my turns and the longer we swam the looser my form got until I didn’t look much better than I had on day one. I knew I was having a crummy practice but Willow was hell bent on making sure I felt crummy to match.

  “Argh, enough already,” she barked, waving coach Griffith over
to our side of the pool. “I know you want to give everyone a shot here, but some of us really need to practice. There is a scout coming to regionals.”

  “Willow,” said Coach Griffith, his lips pursed in disappointment. “We’ve already discussed this.”

  Willow placed her hands on her hips, surprisingly her cranktacular pose was just as effective underwater as on land. “That was before we had a prayer of competing. We aren’t that team that has to let everyone play anymore,” she said giving me the side eye. “Addy could seriously cost us a regional championship, plus any chance of the girls’ medley team catching the scouts eye.”

  I wanted to laugh out loud. As if UC Berkeley was going to be looking at anyone other than Gray next Saturday. But I didn’t laugh because I couldn’t help but notice how she echoed exactly what Gray had said to me. Was I really compromising everyone's chances? Coach Griffith began to launch into his fair play lecture, but I didn’t let him get far. I climbed out of the pool and grabbed my towel.

  “I didn’t say you shouldn’t practice,” said Willow, her tone just a bit more smug than I appreciated. “You need the practice, just move to the other lane where it won’t slow the rest of us down.”

  I looked across the pool for Gray’s reaction. This was usually the part where he stood up for me. Even before he was my boyfriend, he would have said something to put Willow in her place. Today though, he wouldn’t meet my eyes. I knew he could see what was going on, even if he refused to look directly at me. We’d talked about how bad the bullying from Willow and the other senior girls was getting after the last meet. He’d told me to stick it out, we’d keep practicing, I’d show them, etc. But I had a hard time believing Gray and I were ever going to have a private practice again.

  “You could work on your backstroke in the far lane,” noted Coach Griffith, trying to appease us both.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, wrapping a towel around my waist. “But it seems pretty clear that I’m not wanted on this team.”

  Willow’s eyes nearly popped out of her head at the prospect of my quitting.

  “Hey now, no one’s quitting this team,” said Coach Griffith, looking to Willow to back him up, or apologize, or anything even remotely resembling captain like behavior. He obviously didn’t understand Willow. This was her endgame, and it always had been.

  “If she’s not serious about swimming, it does no one any good to encourage her,” said Willow, her face screwed up in a smug smile.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” I replied, directing my words at Coach Griffith, but making darn sure Willow heard them. “I’ll sit out next weekend’s race, but I’m not quitting the team.”

  “Whatever,” Willow muttered before pulling her goggles back over her eyes and diving under the surface. I had a hundred smart alec things to say to her, but I bit my tongue. What did it matter if she felt like she won today if Gray couldn’t even look at me?

  Just a couple of hours ago I’d been crying my eyes out over the idea that Gray wanted to leave Delinki. Now, all I wanted was for him to swim his heart out, get that scholarship and never cross my path again. Seeing him look at me like I was the barrier between him and his goals was one of the worst feelings I had ever had.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gray

  The week dragged on, and all of my excitement for the scout and the fact that we were going to regionals had been tainted by the events of the weekend. My anger about the things she wrote in that book never went away—it was just slowly accompanied by shame and guilt over the things I said to her and how I reacted.

  What Addy said struck a nerve. I had been too obsessed with getting out of Minnesota, and although a free ride and a spot on the swim team was about much more than a plane ticket out of town, it was that dream of somehow getting back to my old life that propelled me.

  I wasn’t focused on my future. I was focused on my past, and that wasn’t fair to my girlfriend, no matter what she wrote in some book.

  So every time my mom mentioned the race, trying to hype me up and get me out of my crummy mood, I just ended up feeling a little worse.

  When regionals came around, I sat next to Simon in the front row of the bus and watched as Addy boarded and went straight for an empty row in the back. She sat alone in that row the entire hour and a half drive to the meet. I returned to my pre-competition ritual and drowned out my thoughts with something loud and full of base.

  When we reached the campus, the chaos and excitement of the championship brought back a lot of memories, and actually helped to kick me out of my slump, if only just a little. I spotted my mom in the stands, sitting near Lucy, Nora, and Addy’s family. As usual, they were over-enthusiastic and caused a scene when we entered. When I peered back at Addy, walking alone with her headphones in, she sent a few air kisses to her friends, but she wasn’t her usual Addy self.

  She had to be nervous about today. The pressure from Willow this past week had been intense and probably not very helpful. Everyone wanted to win, but if Addy just kept performing like she had been since the lake party, they would be fine. I kept telling myself that, like it was me I was trying to convince. I had my own race to worry about, but I kept forgetting about that.

  Taking another scan of the stands, I kept my eyes peeled for anyone with the gold Cal logo, but the stands were already pretty filled as we started our warmups. After taking a couple laps, the guys huddled around Freddy for a quick rundown of the events again. My eyes kept travelling over to the girls’ side where Addy was sitting on the bench, not bothering to warm up with the rest.

  “Turner,” Freddy barked when he caught me distracted.

  I ignored him. “Is anyone sitting out today?” I asked, not even bothering to ask what they were talking about.

  “What?” Freddy answered, seemingly offended by the question. “Of course not. We need every swimmer we got.”

  “Not even on the girls team?”

  The group grew quiet. So maybe they knew something I didn’t. I moved to walk over to where Willow stood talking to a few other girls, but Freddy grabbed my arm to stop me.

  “Don’t bother, man. She scratched on her own. No one made her do it.”

  “I doubt that,” I said, pulling my arm out of his grip.

  I should have been focused on my own race. I knew that much, but there was no way I could ignore this. She couldn’t sit out her one leg of the relay, not after all this work and time. It just couldn’t happen.

  Before I got to Willow, Griffith grabbed my attention as he came back from the registration table. “Hey, Gray—”

  I cut him off before he could even finish. “Why isn’t Addy warming up?”

  Seemingly surprised by my question, it was clear he wasn’t exactly aware of our rocky relationship. “I thought she would have told you. She’s sitting it out today. Maggie Ward is taking her place with the backstroke.”

  “Why?” I blurted out.

  “I tried to talk her out of it myself. I hate to see swimmers on the bench, but I think the pressure just got to her.”

  So, she just quit. But why now? I had mentally prepared myself for a fight with Willow or Griffith about the decision to bench her, but as I looked over at the sulking girl on the red folding chair against the wall, I realized that if I was going to get her to swim in this meet, then I would have to talk to her myself.

  Addy

  Do not come talk to me, do not come talk to me, do not come talk to me!

  And he was on his way over to talk to me. Why was it no one ever read my mind when I wanted them to? When I withdrew from the medley, I told myself it didn’t matter. Gray didn’t care that I wasn’t swimming. He hadn’t called, texted, or even really looked at me since our fight on the lawn. But now that he was striding in my direction, his face set in a hard line and the rest of the swim team huddled behind him like a nervous bunch of grapes, I was having second thoughts.

  Thoughts like, you idiot, you promised you wouldn’t quit! And—way to show him you take the sport seriously
by sitting on your butt. I almost jumped out of my chair to salute him. That’s how ridiculous I felt. Like all rational thought had left my brain and now I was just a mannequin in a Speedo waiting for someone to move my arms, legs, and most importantly, lips. What was I supposed to say when he got to where I was sitting? I shot a help look to Nora and Lucy but the two were too far away to help.

  “Addy,” said Gray, a little bit louder than normal.

  I made a big show of pulling my earbuds out, as if I’d been drowning out the world and just now noticed him standing in front of me. Little did he know my phone battery was dead, had been all day, and I’d just stuck the earbuds in to prevent anyone from talking to me.

  “Hey, Gray,” I tried. “Good luck today.”

  He smiled politely. “Thanks, can we…”

  Nope, nope, nope. We cannot talk, I thought to myself. Gray Turner and I had ended ugly, and the last thing I wanted was to intensify that ugliness by getting a lecture in front of the whole team, plus my parents, plus my best friends, plus a whole bunch of people I didn’t know.

  “I have to pee!” I cried attempting to push past him toward the ladies locker room. His hand caught the crook of my elbow, and suddenly it was like my feet were glued to the deck of the pool. It had been a week since we last touched, and his skin on mine felt every bit as good as it ever had. Only now the contact was tinged with the sadness of knowing these touches would stop.

  “I know you’re mad at me,” he said. “But that’s no reason to sit out this relay.” I looked up, surprised. Mad at him? I wasn’t mad at him. I was mad at me. I never should have made those stupid goals. Or at the very least I could have told him about it. Maybe then things would be different.