Chaste (6 page)

Pounding the dashboard with my fist, I stare daggers at my now ex-ex-boyfriend, too drunk off his ass to hear a single word I’ve said.

John comes out of his house, hands me my video camera and leans into my ear. “Keep it down, Kat. I
have neighbors.”

“Thanks for letting me use your computer,” I say.

“Nothing’s too much for my best girl,” he says. “Hey … maybe I’ll compose some music for your vlog sometime, a tribute to my favorite brown skinned diva.” It may sound racist, but it’s an inside joke between John and me. Two years ago he helped me come up with my vlog’s official name
.

Mike makes a growling sound.

I turn to see him glaring at John.

“John and I are friends,” I snap at Mike. “And just to be clear, so are you and I.” The only thing worse than Mike sober is Mike drunk. He goes from funny to angry without warning. Plus, he thinks he’s invincible, which means he picks lots of stupid fights.

I stick the keys in the ignition of my Jeep, rev the engine and wave goodbye to John. The sooner I get Mike out of here, the better. I so wish Mike hadn’t shown up at John’s house. Now I have to go home and trip over random junk, heat up some leftover Chinese and pass Roland’s shrine of a room. If my father is home, he’ll eat a plate of food and leave. Which means I could cut off all my hair, slice up my arm or start a giant bonfire in the middle of the living room without anyone noticing. It’s like I live in a house with ghosts, ever-present but not really there. We eat without tasting, see without knowing, pass without touching and breathe without living.

***

One week later I’m eating a slice of pizza in the school cafeteria and thumbing through the twenty-page paper I wrote for Mrs. William. The one Quinn didn’t help me with. Not that I asked him or anything. My life is hard enough without trying to coordinate with someone who hates me, especially now that I’m sitting by myself at lunch to avoid Mike.

I shift my weight and my plastic chair wobbles. The room echoes with the sounds of people talking. Mike’s ex-girlfriend, Tasha, with her emerald-green silk blouse and silver-gold hair, scoots in next to me with a lunch bag in her hand. She looks disdainfully at my pizza, pulls out an orange and starts peeling it with her long nails.

“You packing on the weight to take Quinn on next period?” she says, laughing too hard. “He acts like you’re cursed the way he stacks all his books into a wall between you. I admit it’s a relief that not every guy in this school trips over their tongue whenever you walk by. He’s not a bad flirt, either. The way he put you in your place that first day.”

“Oh, please.” I roll my eyes. “The boy may look like a walking Ken doll, but he couldn’t keep up with me if his life depended on it.”

“You should tell that to Molly McCormick,” she says, splitting her newly peeled orange in half. “She’s been glaring daggers at you for a week.”

I wipe my greasy fingers with a napkin. “Molly may pretend to be good, but I’ve seen her do some bad things. And believe me, it’s a miracle she still holds onto her perfect reputation.”

“You sound jealous.”

“Of a prissy little kiss-up who looks like she’s anorexic? I think not.”

“Keep your voice down. She’s two tables away making googly eyes at the cutest boy in our physics class.” Tasha points to a girl with a head full of strawberry-blond hair.

With just one glance at Quinn, a tide of resentment rises inside me. He thinks because he’s a virgin and I’m not that he’s so much better than I am, like a person’s worth can be found between their legs. His holier-than-thou attitude makes me sick.

“I heard he called you a sociopath,” Tasha says.

Groaning, I wad up my napkin and toss it onto my tray. Then I glance at the crowd of boys I usually hang out with, sitting on the other side of the room with Mike smashed in the middle. I wonder how much of this gossip they’ll believe. Time to nip this rumor in the ass. “He’s probably just desperate to get my attention.”

“Yeah, Right.” Tasha laughs. “Quinn wouldn’t touch you if you were the last girl on earth. He acts like you have some contagious disease. He’s so moral. I bet he carries around a Book of Mormon in his backpack. He probably has a picture of Jesus hanging on his ceiling instead of some girl with big boobs in a bikini.”

I think of the pile of books he erected yesterday. There was definitely a book or two of scripture stacked in there. He probably put them in as added protection, thinking of me as a vampire he could wave away with religious artifacts. Maybe today he’ll bring in garlic. Something to make him smell less like baby powder.

“I bet you could throw on lacy red lingerie, and he’d still run the other way. I bet my Macbook you can’t get him to sleep with you.” I glance up. Tasha’s giving me this smug smile, like she’s super hot and I’ve lost my appeal.

“Who’d want to sleep with Quinn Walker?” I sneer. “He’s probably never even kissed a girl, let alone done anything interesting.”

“Are you kidding? Half the girls at this school are in love with him.”

“He’s Mormon.” I don’t date brainwashed guys in cults, or lemmings who blindly follow false-prophets, or anyone stupid enough to think they can become like God. It’s not only blasphemous but an insult to my intelligence.

I fold my cardboard tray in half and crush it with the heel of my hand. Tasha is crazy.

“You’re so prejudiced!” she cries. “All that talk about equal opportunity, the evil
N
word and how you’re just as smart as any white girl. And you’re prejudiced! Don’t be stupid, Kat. The guy is a stud, just look at him.”

It’s not the same thing. I didn’t choose to be African American. Quinn Walker has all the control in the world over what he decides to believe. Even so, I lift my eyes and notice Quinn’s broad shoulders, his shiny blond hair and baby blue eyes, the crinkles around his mouth when he laughs. My stomach does a funny flip.

I wave away the feeling. Cuteness doesn’t matter when someone is a nutcase. “Too preppy,” I say.

“You like him,” Tasha says with a triumphant grin as she wipes her sticky hands with a napkin. “But just like me, he won’t touch you. We’re too dangerous, too experienced. Plus, if you dated him, your dad would kill you.”

My dad! The thought hits me like a lightning bolt. Sleeping with a Mormon boy is about the only thing I
haven’t
done to get his attention. Maybe it would work. It’s a lot less dangerous than burning the house down. I run with the idea before I can change my mind. “I’ll jump him by Christmas,” I say. “You still want to wager your Macbook?”

“You’re kidding, right?” When I shake my head
no
, her eyebrows pull together. “You can’t possibly mean that.”

“Every word.”

“Then I get your video camera when you fail.” She breaks into a toothy smile. I have to admit that gives me pause, because my camera is a part of me. Without it I can’t do my vlogs, tape the boys playing basketball or record the faces of those around me. I know it sounds cheesy, but after burying my brother, having a record of the living is one of the few things which make me happy.

The thing is, I can’t get Tasha’s smug look out of my head, the one she gave me when she said Quinn would never go for me. I want nothing more than to prove her wrong. Plus, I think about her Macbook and how I’m always mooching off John for his computer. My mother’s too involved in gaming to ever let me use hers, and I realize I could really use a computer of my own. Tasha’s isn’t just any computer either. It’s state-of-the-art.

I glance at Quinn again. My smartass physics partner has led a far too sheltered life. He needs someone to take him outside his June Cleaver bubble and show him how the real world works. He may say he’s not into bad girls, but maybe that’s because he’s never had one after him.

He’s a teenage boy. How hard could it possibly be?

I just need to show a little more skin, maybe some cleavage. If I tease him enough with what I wear, he won’t be able to get me out of his head. Then I can accomplish two things at once, get my dad out of his Roland House obsession and get Quinn to stop acting all superior.

I picture how people will laugh when they see the good Mormon boy losing his morals over the girl he called a sociopath. He won’t look so moral when his good guy reputation is dragged through the mud.

“You in?” Tasha asks.

“I am
so
in.”

“Okay, fine, but how will I know you’ve done it?” She twirls a silky strand of blond hair around her finger.
Must be nice to have hair that lies flat on its own.
Tasha has no idea how lucky she is.

“You’ll just have to trust me,” I say.

She laughs. “Right, like I’d give you my Macbook based on trust.”

“I hope you don’t want me to video tape it, because that’s plain trashy.” Just thinking about it makes me shudder. I thumb through my paper about “childishness” before shoving it into my backpack.

“How about this,” I say. “I’ll tell you when it happens, and then you can approach him yourself.”

“Like he’ll tell me,” she says in a voice oozing with sarcasm.

“He won’t be able to hide it. Aren’t you the one who said he’s not like other guys?” I glare at the back of Molly’s head. She’s laughing at something Quinn just said. “The boy has such a pale complexion his face reads like an open book.”

“Who’s pale?” John asks, taking the chair beside me.

“Kat thinks she can seduce Quinn Walker,” Tasha says, crumbling up her brown lunch bag and tossing it like a basketball into the trash.

John whistles long and low. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough already? I mean, he already walks the other direction every time he sees Mike in the hall. Seriously, what’d he ever do to you?”

“You’re taking his
side?” I stare at him open mouthed. I am shocked, shocked John would pick Quinn over me. John, who’s known me since kindergarten, who uses me as his designated driver, who constantly asks me for advice so he doesn’t lose Debbie, his long-distance girlfriend.

He narrows his eyes at me. “Come on, Kat. Do you want me to feed you a feel-good lie or tell you the truth? Last I checked, you and I were straight with each other.”

I wave his words away with the back of my hand. The last thing I need is another arrogant know-it-all in my life. Dealing with Roland was bad enough, not that I don’t miss him. But his constant “‘I know better than you’ lectures” made me want to hit something.

“If you’re doing this to get even with your dad, it’ll back-fire big time,” he tells me. “Quinn’s no pawn, and he won’t fall for your tricks. He’s got his head screwed on straight.”

“Don’t you dare tell him,” I say.

Mike picks that moment to pass our table. “Hey, Kat.” He winks at me on his way out the door, stretching his arms behind him to show off his broad shoulders and washboard abs. I glance at Tasha. Her mouth hangs open.

“Why don’t you stick with Mike?” John whispers to me. “You can have him anytime you want. Tasha’s drooling over there.”

It’s true. She can’t keep her eyes off Mike. He pauses at the door as if lingering will make me admire him.

But I don’t want to ogle Mike. I look at Quinn instead. Now that my friends have both bet against me, I need to come up with a plan to make him let down his guard. I
just need to show a little more skin.

Ironic, since today I wore a blouse with a Mandarin collar in what is probably a pointless attempt to get on Mrs. Williams’ good side. Not only is my belly ring covered, but so is my neck, my shoulders, my chest and every asset I could use to my advantage. I glance down at my legs. At least my skirt is short. So what if I made the mistake of wearing opaque black tights? Their shape still shows.

Tasha brushes a hand through her hair; a strap on her emerald green blouse slips off her shoulder. It’s pretty on her, the way the material catches the light. But she doesn’t have quite enough on top to fill it out, on me though … I picture myself “accidently” knocking Quinn’s books over before bending to pick them up in the silk blouse Tasha’s wearing.

He’d have to be blind not to notice.

“Mmmm Tasha,” I say, making my voice sugary sweet. “I’ll give you Mike for an entire weekend if you switch shirts with me.”

John snorts. “You can’t lease out your ex-boyfriend.”

“Says who?” I turn to him. “I own that boy’s ass.”

Which, in a manner of speaking, is true. I know stuff about Mike that would make my Mama’s hair curl. Stuff about his parent’s marriage, his father’s drinking problem, juicy tidbits about the girls he’s cheated on, who he’s cheated with, even the last words he said to Roland the night he died:
I’ll see you in hell
. Yep, my brother talked with Mike that night just like he talked to me.

“Then why can’t you make him leave you alone?” John says.

I shrug. “He’ll figure it out eventually. In the meantime, Tasha, what do you say?”

Picking up my bag, I walk to the edge of the table and try to play it cool. If I make this look like a take it or leave it proposition, she’s more likely to fold.

I step toward the door.

“Kat, wait … I’m coming.” She stands.

I turn back toward her, but my tights have caught on the edge of a chair. When I look down, my mouth drops open in horror. My tights, damn, my tights have snagged. They have a humongous run in them.

Green silk shirt or no green silk shirt, this looks bad! Even so, I refuse to take them off. My feet will sweat like crazy if I do.
Make the best of it, Kat. Wear the top; show up early; cross your legs so Quinn won’t see.

Tasha and I switch blouses in the bathroom. I rush to Mrs. Williams’ class as fast as I can. Quinn walks in, his T-shirt slightly too tight across his chest, a wide grin on his face that makes his blue eyes sparkle. And all I want is to take that sparkle away, to show him what it means to live in a world where fathers don’t notice their families and mothers don’t bake homemade cookies.

I smile at him when he takes the stool next to mine.

He opens his bag and starts stacking books between us.

Remembering my ruined tights, I pull out my paper about childishness and lay it across my lap. Then I lean back and peer around the book wall. “Can we talk?”