18 Things (15 page)

The lies came easily now.

My hands felt sweaty, so I stuck them in my pockets. “You, too. Guess Kyle is open for business already?”

Nate nodded, his hair falling over his forehead lower than usual, and I wondered if he planned on ever cutting his locks again. Nate looked like a younger, hotter version of Bono with his dark curls and sideburns. Nicole and Sean locked lips to my left, and Tammy and Kyle did the same thing to my right.

Annoyed with the awkward silence, I shuffled my feet, and my yellow sneakers squeaked against the hardwood floor.

Tammy came up for air, her face flushed, reaching underneath her shirt to push up her bra.

“Classy,” I said.

She fluffed her teased, blonde hair. “Thanks. So, you’re like totally ungrounded as of yesterday, right?”

I reached up, then tucked a stray curl behind my ear. “I think so. I mean, they said I was grounded until school started, and it’s the first day, so—”

“Great! It’s settled, then. Your first big party is this Saturday at Kyle’s house. His parents are going out of town.”

Looking around, I noticed the crowd in the hallway thinned and figured I should head to class.

“Yippee,” I said dryly, twirling a finger in the air. “I’ll catch up with you guys at lunch.”

Nate walked beside me, apparently headed in the same direction. “Where you going?”

“Multivariable Calculus,” I answered, looking down at my schedule to triple check.

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means I took regular Calculus last year, so this is a step up. I’m not taking it easy my senior year.”

He laughed, patting me on the head. We arrived outside my classroom. “Good for you. That stuff’s all Greek to me.”

“Yeah, well nothing is more like a punishment out of Greek mythology than high school.”

The bell tolled five times, the sound of a ship, reminding us Grand Haven was the Coast Guard capital of the good ole U.S.A.

Nate followed me into my class, then stepped in front of me. “Hey, have a good day, okay?”

A fluttery feeling settled in my belly.

He stretched out his hand, swept the long strands of hair out of my face, then turned on his heel and loped out the door, travelling in the same direction from where we just came.

I took my standard spot in the front row. Everyone stared, making me feel like a mannequin on display. Whatever, I was used to that. What I was not used to? My skin tingling strangely, making my head spin.

Mr. Propert skipped the introductions and jumped right into the lesson. The students in this class were serious about learning. Math wasn’t even required for seniors, unless a student took remedial course as a freshman.

The teacher pointed to the first problem on the Smart Board, and I smiled. A calculus theorem I could figure out and prove. But trying to decipher my new feelings… butterflies in my stomach, dry mouth, heat rushing through my body in waves? I didn’t have a clue.

I sat cross-legged on the floor of the gym, wrapping my hands around my neck, giving myself a massage.

“It’s on your life list. You can’t back out now,” Tammy propped her pom poms on her hips.

In front of us, dozens of girls who actually wanted to be here learned tryout cheers. I took a swig from my water bottle, inhaled a deep breath, then tried to roll the stress from my shoulders, which were killing me after some not-so-skinny junior girl stood on them for my first pyramid formation.

“I just didn’t think cheerleading would be so hard.”

She brushed the blonde hair from her face with perfectly manicured nails and held out a hand to help me up.

“I love it when geniuses find the simple things difficult.” She smiled widely. “But you’re not terrible. If you work hard enough over the next few hours, I think you have a shot at making the squad.”

I knew she was just being nice; let’s not sugar-coat this… I stunk. Outside of sailing, I’d never been good at sports. That whole coordination thing was something I’d never mastered. In fact, I was prone to falling, and every time I did, the Jedi Order all shouted, ‘Gravity Check!’

But for some reason, I did work hard during the next three hours, knowing it’d still take a miracle for me to make the team. There were plenty of other girls better than me. Maybe I channeled Conner’s spirit. He always excelled at everything. Or maybe knowing I should have some sort of athletics for my senior year on my college application motivated me. Sailing team was no longer an option. Best of all reasons was perhaps it’d tick Mom off if I made the team. I didn’t even tell her I planned on trying out. Whatever my logic, when the coaches and Tammy, still head cheerleader, finally announced the roster for this year’s squad at seven-thirty, my name was on the list.

Tammy ran over, then wrapped me in a hug. “Congratulations! I knew you could do it!”

Nodding, I didn’t fully comprehend why I made the squad. Then it hit me. “You pulled your head cheerleader rank for me, didn’t you?” Pressing my lips in a fine line, I broke away from her grasp. “Tammy, I don’t want a pity spot.”

Her hand flew to her halter-top. “I didn’t. I mean yeah, I recommended you, but Coach agreed. You may not have been the best one out there, but you had the most heart, and you worked the hardest. I mean, you’ll be like the cheerleader for our cheerleading squad.”

I never thought of earning a spot that way, but her words were actually kind of touching. I headed straight home and told my parents the news. I figured a congratulatory dinner or speech or anything displaying a sense of pride in their daughter would be out of the question, and they didn’t disappoint.

“We need to talk,” I said after walking through the front door. “Here. Incase you ever want to come watch one of my games.” I handed Mom the cheerleading schedule.

She sighed so hard I think actual smoke fumed from her ears. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You are way too intelligent to become a dumb cheerleader.”

I sat on our seen-better-days lumpy couch, a permanent staple of our living room since my childhood.

Dad relaxed in his Lazy Boy across from the television. “I didn’t realize you wanted to…” He stopped and cleared his throat. Then he looked at Mom and I saw her calculating stare, warning him not to get involved.

Mom stood over me, her usual power position. “Is there a permission slip I need to sign?”

I retrieved the form from my bag on the floor, then handed the paper to her.

She didn’t even read the paper before tearing it up.

Propping my socked feet on our wooden coffee table shaped like the state of Michigan, I pulled a power play of my own.

“Whatever, Mom. Tear it up. I’m eighteen next month, and I won’t need your permission then to join the squad. And by the way, cheerleaders
aren’t
dumb.” I wanted to add, only your rules are, but thought better of it since she could still ground me.

With each exhale, her face burned redder, and she flashed me a look with fire in her eyes, like I wasn’t her daughter any more but rather the spawn of Satan. But I just gritted my teeth and stood my ground. I needed a change. No more depression. No more life on autopilot. No more unconscious thought behind my actions. No more heading toward some pre-determined destination chosen for me by my parents. For the first time in my life, probable valedictorian or not, I finally thought on my own.

“Memory is the diary that chronicles history that couldn’t possibly have happened.”
―Oscar Wilde

hen I arrived at Kyle’s, the only light in the living room emanated from a few lava lamps and black light sets around the room. The band already played loudly. I headed to the back corner where a folding table served as a makeshift all-you-can-eat junk food buffet. All ten of the extra large pizza boxes were empty.

“The early bird gets the worm,” Tammy said, appearing beside me with a plate of brownies. “Want one? They’re fresh outta the oven.”

I eyed the brownies suspiciously. I couldn’t picture Tammy in the kitchen wearing an apron Betty Crocker style. Up until a few months ago, I thought she was rich enough to have maids waiting on her hand and foot. “Um, yeah, if they’re regular brownies.”

She loaded one onto a monkey-themed paper plate, then handed it to me. “Like, if you’re insinuating what I think you are, then don’t even. I only smoke cigarettes. I wouldn’t do anything to get fired from my spot as head cheerleader.”

Nodding, I grabbed a handful of salty chips and a chocolate chip cookie, then searched the cooler on the floor next to the table until I discovered the last root beer.

The door slammed behind us, another carful of guys arriving, and Tammy said, “The dinner of champions.”

This group already seemed drunk. I recognized one boy, Dave, from my Driver’s Ed class. I chomped on my cookie for a few seconds, watching the boys head straight to the back porch where several people played Quarters. Like Zeus sitting on his throne surrounded by worshipers, the beer keg sat prominently on the patio table.

“Did you make these cookies, too?” I asked, my mouth full.

She struck a match, and smoke formed a cloud around me. “Yep. Good, right?”

“Sweet. Maybe you can teach me how to bake sometime.” I grabbed another cookie, then excused myself to the leather couch sitting against the wall. I wanted to listen to the band.

For the past five years, I heard Conner play guitar and sing every week. He had such raw talent, and I knew it’d be tough to replace him. But as I listened to them playing
Haunted
, I didn’t think I’d ever heard them play so well in the two years’ time they’d been a band.

Mostly the stoner non-conformists clique from school littered the green carpet, moshing as Nate hit all the right notes, Sean nailed the rhythms on his bass, and Kyle whaled on his drums.

The song ended, and Nate cleared his throat by the microphone, ready to address the crowd of twenty-something people. “We’d like to thank everyone for coming out tonight and supporting the newly regrouped Cantankerous Monkey Squad.”

Whoops and hollers rang out.

“I’m sure all of you know they lost their previous singer to a tragic accident five months ago. This last song we’re playing for you tonight is one we found in Conner’s song book after he passed away.
Return
is its title.”