Don't You Wish (8 page)

“Yeah, right,” he snorts. “The only extra credit you do is with an American Express card.”

I hear my mom’s voice in my head:
Extra credit is not optional
. I just clear my throat. “Excuse me, have we actually met?” I ask.

“I’m Charlie.”

“Hi. I’m—”

“I know who you are.” He searches my face a little. “You seriously read the book?”

“Yep. And
not
SparkNotes, either.” Digging for a pen in my bag, I steal another look at Ryder, who is staring at Charlie’s head like it’s target practice. He’s jealous?

I give him a three-finger wave and smile, then hand my pen to Charlie, mentally calling up the three essays I wrote on Golding’s symbolism, the lowest grade an A-, thank you very much.

The noise level rises around us, but I whisper to Charlie, “Face paint. The conch. Butterflies. Write those down.”

He leans back, blown away. “Really?”

“Well, you could argue that rituals are symbol—”

“No, I mean, you’re not playing me? Like, you
know
this stuff?”

“It’s a fluke,” I assure him. “Like everything else today.”

He starts to write, dividing his attention between the paper and me. “I might have pegged you wrong.”

“Thought I was just a dumb, rich, popular girl?”

His color deepens. “You have that reputation.”

I nudge him to write. “C’mon. This is timed. Face paint is a big symbol in the book. They use it for fun at first. Then it becomes camouflage.…”

As Charlie madly writes what I’m saying, I feel some weird pressure on me. Eyes. Attention.

Get used to it, Annie. You are no longer invisible
.

Still, I look up from the paper, and the room is somewhat
hushed, and all twenty sets of eyes are staring at me, a whole classroom full of disbelief, and displeasure.

Oh, now I get it. I’m upsetting the feng shui of this school or something. This is not how Ayla Monroe is expected to act. This is how Annie Nutter acts. Do I want to blow what’s been a perfectly wonderful dream day by showing off my lit skills?

“Okay. What else besides face paint?” Charlie asks, clueless to the strange dynamics in the room.

I push my hair off my face, warm from the unexpected attention of the class. “Um … whatever. Just write whatever.”

“The conch?” he prods. “Didn’t you say something about the conch? And bumblebees?”

“Butterflies,” I say softly, aware that I’m vibrating again. I touch the phone screen.

Ryder: r u high?

He would think that. Gorgeous, cool girls don’t sidle up to geeks and ace pop quizzes.

Charlie taps the paper. “What about them? The butterflies?”

I hit the screen to compose a note to Ryder.
Ha ha, I
write. Lame, but I’m in a pinch here.

“Ayla?” Charlie insists. “Butterflies?”

The phone vibrates; Ryder is clearly an industrial-strength texter.

Ryder: how much longer?

Me: for what?

Ryder: very funny. i’m dyin here.

For sex? My stomach flips around a few times, and I stare at the screen.

I’ve never really made out with a boy. I mean, I’ve kissed a few, and even got tongue in eighth grade when Justin “Cheeto Boy” Reddick laid one on me after lunch, and I don’t think I’ve eaten a cheese puff since that day.

And at last year’s Spring Fling dance, fellow orchestra geek Alan Schumake did kiss me for a good, solid three-point-five minutes in the band locker room. (Lizzie was timing, as we had long ago decided five full minutes that included tongue and at least a side brush of boob constituted bona fide making out, so it didn’t officially count.)

And now that hunk is telling me he’s dying for … the real deal?

“Butterflies are what?” Charlie insists, tapping the phone so I’ll pay attention to him.

“They’re cute,” I say with a quick smile. “And maybe good luck, or is that ladybugs?”

He puffs out a breath of disgust. “I knew you were playing me. Shit. We’re toast on this test.”

“Quiz,” I shoot back. “It can’t be worth as much toward the grade.”

The room is pretty quiet; everyone is listening to this conversation. So this is what it’s like to be the polar opposite of invisible. I’m the center of attention, and for some reason, I feel like I have a reputation to maintain.

Ayla’s reputation, not Annie Nutter’s. I can’t mess with this … this … alternate reality I’m in.

“Two minutes!” Brighton announces.

“Why didn’t you read the book, anyway?” I ask Charlie. “You seem like a smart kid.” Except for the unfortunate hat choice.

“I’m interested in other things. Why else do you think I’d be in DK lit and not AP?”

“DK?” That’s a new one.

“Dumb kids.”

The phone buzzes with a text from Ryder again.

Ryder: gimme what you got!!

Seriously? I don’t know what shocks me most, Ryder’s style or the fact that Ayla is a dumb kid. “In my school, we just call it regular lit,” I say to Charlie.

He frowns. “This is your school.”

“Only briefly.” And something tells me if I screw with this dream state, I’ll be back in South Hills High before that timer dings.

“What should I write?” he asks, impatience growing.

“Whatever,” I say, sliding over my texts with total disinterest. “Say anything.”

“One minute.”

For some reason, my stomach is churning and I feel my palms dampen. Like, it’s killing me inside to deliberately fail a quiz. Who would want to be like that, anyway? Who would throw a test just to maintain an image?

Um, me. A-list Ayla.

But I am screwing this kid in the process, because I know the answer to the butterfly symbolism, and I know about the conch, too.

He blows out another breath, and I lean over. “Nature has no regard for man. Like when the butterflies are—”

He scowls at me. “What?”

“Just write it,” I urge in a whisper. “No regard for man.”

He does, considering the words. “I actually get that. What about the conch?”

Jeez, I gotta do this. Still, I fake like I’m reading a text on my phone.

“The conch, Ayla?”

I glance at him, caught by the glint in his dark eyes. “If it mattered so much to you, why didn’t you read the book?”

“ ’Cause I’m a science geek. Do this, and when you’re stuck in chem later this year, I’ll return the favor.”

Except I’ll be in Pittsburgh and he’ll be a dream I had once.

“Wrap it up, class!”

“It’s a symbol of order, leadership, and power.” I click to the text that just came in.

Ryder: i need answers!

Me: not now

I hit send before reality hits me. He’s not sexting, he’s trying to cheat. Jeez, I’m dense. I turn to look at Ryder, but the teacher is already collecting papers, and my boyfriend looks madder than hell.

Annie wouldn’t cheat, but Ayla? From what I know of this girl already, yeah. Of course she’d give her answers away. Most kids do, especially the cool ones.

Mr. Brighton passes Ryder and his partner—ironically, the kid who heckled my butt—giving them a look of disgust when he picks up a blank paper. When he reaches us, he takes Charlie’s paper and reads it, nodding.

“Well done, Mr. Zelinsky.”

“I had help,” Charlie says.

Mr. Brighton raises his eyebrows in a silent
Yeah, right
, but Charlie tips his hat back a bit and angles his head toward me. “I really did have—”

“It’s okay.” I stop him with a hand to the arm. “Team effort.”

Brighton nods and moves on, the silence behind him suddenly uncomfortable. Then the bell rings and I snag my bag.

“Hey,” Charlie says as I scoot away. “Thanks.”

I manage a totally disinterested look. “Forget about it.”

“I had you all wrong,” he adds, with a smile that’s surprisingly sweet.

“No, you didn’t,” I assure him. Then I escape into the hall before Ryder can catch up with me.

I try to blend into the student traffic, but it doesn’t take long before I realize that
blending in
is no longer part of my daily life.

The minute I leave fourth period, I’m flanked by Jade and Bliss. A few others trail like a wake behind me, but my right and left are instantly bookended by besties.

“Ryder is pissed beyond description,” Bliss announces. “He’s epileptic.”

“He’s epileptic?” I couldn’t tell that.

“I mean he’s just crazy furious with you.”

I frown at her. “Do you mean apoplectic?”

“What
ever
,” Bliss shoots back. “He’s not happy.”

I shrug, but inside I’m kind of disappointed, and a little mad at myself for blowing it with the hot boyfriend before I’ve even gotten to know him. I’ve been kind of hoping to wake up having had at least a moderate dream make-out.
Considering how real this whole thing is, I might be able to convince Lizzie to count it.

A funny twist squeezes at my gut, the same one that’s been annoying me all day.

Considering how real this whole thing is
.

When is it going to
not
be so real?

“Oh, don’t look so upset, Ayla,” Jade says, shouldering me toward a bank of lockers. “Bliss is exaggerating.”

“I am not.” Bliss leans against the locker right before I open it, crossing her arms and flipping back some blond hair, revealing sizeable diamonds in her ears. Stolen, no doubt. “We cut third together and he told me.”

I smell a whiff of pot on her, although her eyes are bright. In my school, popular girls don’t get high during the day, just stoner kids do. But this isn’t my school. This isn’t even my life.

Which doesn’t stop me from wanting to know everything Ryder said.

“What did he tell you?” I ask, nudging her to the side so I can get to my locker.

“Ryder and I talk about a lot of things, Ayla.” There’s an unmistakable challenge in her voice. “You know we’ve always had a special friendship.”

I give her an incredulous look, trying to decipher exactly what that means. “How special?”

Bliss gives a dramatic and vague shrug. “All I know,” she says, “is that he’s sick of waiting for you to give it up.”

“Give what …” I stop before I sound like a complete moron. My V-card, of course.

“A flusterated boyfriend is not a happy boyfriend,” she singsongs.

“Flusterated?”

“Speak Bliss,” Jade whispers to me.

“And an unhappy boyfriend is an ex-boyfriend,” Bliss finishes haughtily.

“And then what?” I shoot back, taking the bait. “He’s your
next
boyfriend?”

“Stop it, Bliss,” Jade chides her. “Why are you always trying to get between them?”

I slam the locker door hard enough to startle her. “You know what happens when you skate on thin ice, Bliss?”

She frowns, the metaphor obviously lost on someone who annihilates the English language every time she opens her mouth.

“You fall and you freeze to death.” I ice her with a look that matches the threat, a zing of endorphins shooting through me.

Bliss pales for a second, then turns, defeated but refusing to show it. Feeling smug, I let them bookend me all the way to the cafeteria, the three of us parting the invisibles right down the middle like Moses and the Red Sea.

Wow. Nice. Is this what I’m missing while I sit around with orchestra kids and discuss the miserable song selections for Winter Musicfest?

I follow their lead for salads, but only because the line for pizza is too long. Maybe because I have a feeling it’s super-uncool to chow down on the good stuff, even though the french fries smell out of this world. Bliss and Jade don’t look like they’ve ever eaten a french fry in their lives.

There’s no evidence of seniors in this lunch period, so we obviously get the best tables on a veranda just outside the
cafeteria, with a view of palm-tree-dotted lawns. In one fast scope, I find all the usual gatherings, from potheads to math geeks and everything in between.

Our table seats ten, and there are six girls around it, including us. The others are pretty quiet, clearly deferential to the three of us.

The hierarchy of Crap Academy, as the school is universally known, is becoming crystal clear. And the social strata are not that different from my real school. There are invisibles (nobodies), wannabes (subpar), almost-could-be’s (lower class), just-about-there’s (middle class) … and then the top of the heap. The popular kids, as they are known in every world, real or … whatever this is.

Right now, it doesn’t matter what this is, because I am a popular kid, so far at the top of that heap that I could get a nosebleed.

I’m digging through the salad, looking for a crouton or something of substance, when two strong hands smack down on my shoulders and squeeze.

“What the hell was that all about, Ayla?”

I don’t have to look; I know it’s Ryder. But I turn anyway, still not used to how insanely cute he is. But he doesn’t look too cute right now. He looks … 
apoplectic
.

“Told you,” Bliss whispers as she circles glossy lips over a wide straw and looks up at Ryder. For a second, it’s not clear who she’s talking to, him or me.

“Move over,” Ryder says to her, giving her arm a dismissive tap.

She slides, not happy about it.

Ryder climbs onto the stone bench, his thigh pressing against mine, his mouth to my ear. “Now you owe me.”

Chills explode over my skin, cascading down to my toes, which curl in my Michael Kors platforms. I close my eyes to hide the response, and put plenty of indifference in my voice. “I don’t owe you anything, Ryder. You should have read the book.”

“Very funny, Ayla.” He flicks his tongue over my earlobe.

Oh. My. God.

“I’ll forget the quiz on Saturday night,” he says, his hand possessive—and really high up—on my thigh. “You know why they call it homecoming.”

I whip around to him. “Saturday is homecoming?”

He laughs. “Among other things, as you know. And everything’s arranged.”

“We’re going together.”