Second to No One (21 page)

“Maybe now that you’re not grounded anymore,” he said, “we can start hanging out again. I think I have a rain check to redeem.”

“Maybe,” was all I could say, and a look of uncertainty swept over his eyes. There was a part of me that hated to see it. It was that same part of me that would have done anything for the past ten years to make sure Jess Tyler was happy. But there was another part of me that felt satisfaction in rejecting him the same way he had rejected me. I loved Jess, I always would. But I had to take care of myself. He had hurt me once, and I wasn’t going to let it happen again. Not ever.

Chapter 16

“W
hat’s his problem?” I heard
Lauren say as I approached our lunch table. I knew she didn’t see me, and by the way she would shut her mouth every time I came within a foot of her, I also knew that she didn’t want me to hear what she was saying. “Is it my breath? Do I have a goiter sticking out of my neck that I’m not aware of? Why won’t he kiss me?”

I sat down at the table, and just as I expected Lauren went quiet. “Why won’t who kiss you?” I normally wouldn’t have asked, but
this
I had to know.

Lauren rolled her eyes slightly and mumbled into her chest the words. “Who do you think?”

“He hasn’t kissed you yet?” That couldn’t be possible. They were together all the time lately. Her car was always at his house, and they’d gone on at least three dates since New Years. I looked at Drew for confirmation. “Is she serious?”

Drew looked at me with penetrating eyes. “They haven’t even held hands.”

“Drew!” Lauren shot her an angry look.

Drew feigned innocence. “What? It’s Gemma. We tell her everything.”

“Obviously
not
.” Lauren took a deep breath. “But as long as we’re spreading my personal life crises around the cafeteria, you both might as well know that I have a plan.”

“A plan?” Drew asked skeptically. “What sort of a plan?”

“My birthday is in a few weeks. I’m going to have a party. It’s going to be a sweet sixteen theme.” Lauren’s voice was confident, and it was obvious that she wasn’t going to back down from this decision.

Drew twisted her lips. “This isn’t the eighties Lauren. Why don’t we do something more like a beach party at Kit Walker’s indoor pool or rent out rooms in a hotel and do a survivor theme.”

Lauren shook her head with determination. “Nope. I’ve thought long and hard about this, and it has to be a sweet sixteen party. I just want it to be simple. Music, refreshments, and most importantly, a game of spin the bottle.”

Drew rolled her eyes, and I couldn’t help but grin. “Lauren,” Drew gasped. “This is the twenty-first century. The only people who play spin the bottle are those that are loser enough to not get action any other way.”

Lauren scowled at Drew. “Go ahead and call me a loser, Drew, but this is all I can come up with.” Lauren’s shoulders slumped forward as she dabbed at some hardened nacho cheese with her finger. “If we don’t kiss soon, it’s never going to happen. I’ll just end up being another one of his
friends
.” She dipped a fry in some ketchup. “No offense, Gemma.”

I glared at her across the table, but Drew spoke before I could say anything in my defense.

“Trust me, Lauren, you don’t want your first kiss with Jess to be during a game of spin the bottle. Besides, the bottle is bound to land on another girl.” Drew pointed her index finger straight at me. “Or an ex.”

Lauren looked at me with narrow eyes. “It’s okay, Drew. I trust Gemma.” Her lips twisted as she looked down at the fry she was picking at with her fingers. “Besides,” she said, “Jess and Gemma already kissed, and I think we all know how that turned out.”

My mouth was hanging open with disgust when Drew spoke again. “Lauren, why don’t you just talk to Jess. Tell him how you’re feeling. I think—”

“No.” Lauren jammed the french fry into her plate. “I’ve already made my decision. I want to do the party. You can come or stay home. I don’t care. But I’m doing the party.”

The bell for fourth period rang, and I gladly got up from the table and dumped the rest of my lunch in the trash. I walked through the halls to fourth period, then felt the same emptiness I did every day at one ten when I entered the class room and saw Paul Hauser in Jess’s old seat in the back of the room. Only half the class stayed on to take photography 2 during the second semester that started when we came back from Christmas break, and Jess wasn’t one of them. I didn’t blame him though. He never really caught on to the whole picture-taking thing, and when Ms. Delrose gave him a B on his final project, I think he wanted to leave on a good note. But I missed him. Even if I never talked to him anyway and even though I was resolutely over him it still made me feel that much less a part of his life, and I was working daily to not let that bother me so much.

After class, I heard the familiar sound of Ms. Delrose calling me to her desk. When I reached her, she was watching me with narrow eyes, and her lips were puckered and almost cracking a smile. “Do you recognize this woman?” she said, holding a small photo up for me to see.

“Of course I do.” I took the photo from her hand. “Its Mae from the assisted living center. I took this picture for her Christmas card.”

Ms. Delrose’s eyes were glowing. “She’s my mother.”

“Mae’s your mother?” I looked at the photo again. “Okay, yeah. I can see the resemblance now.”

“When she gave me a Christmas card with that picture inside, do you know the very first thing I did?”

I shook my head. “Stuck it on your fridge?”

“I called Brookwood Assisted Living to find out who their photographer was.” She cleared her long, brown bangs from her eyes. “You can imagine how proud I was to hear that my very own Gemma Mitchell was the photographer and a volunteer to boot.”

“It’s um…not a big deal.”

“It’s a very big deal. Not many kids your age take time out of their busy, self-involved lives to help the elderly.”

“So how is Mae?” I said quickly trying to change the subject. “Your mother, I mean?”

“She’s fine. But that’s not the point.”

“Oh.”

“I know I keep saying this over and over, but I’m going to keep saying it until you believe me. You have a gift, Gemma.”

I cast my eyes to the side of the room, not sure how to respond.

“I want to talk to you about taking AP photography next year, and if you have time to do so, I’d like you also to be my teacher’s aide in my basic photography class.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Yes would suffice.”

“I mean, I want to. It’s an honor for you just to ask. But I was going to try to test into Honors English next year, and if I get in, I may not have enough room for either.”

“Gemma.” Ms. Delrose sat back in her chair with an annoyed huff. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that English isn’t an important subject. It’s obviously very important. But why
honors
English?”

“Because it’s better than basic English.” I felt like I was stating the obvious. “And because the word
h
onor
will look a lot better on my college transcript than the word
basic
.”

Ms. Delrose watched me with a frown. “That’s not good enough.”

“Excuse me?”

“Gemma, why do you think I became a photography teacher? Do you think it was so I could teach a bunch of teenagers how to take cute pictures at their high school graduation? No. It wasn’t. It was so I could find people like you. People who were born with a camera at their eye, who can capture a moment in time like nobody else can. I wanted to find people like you and help you and guide you on the path to becoming something great. Some
one
great. I’m not going to sit here and tell you what to do, and I’m definitely not going to tell you to drop honors English because if I did, I’d get fired. But do me a favor, Gemma. Base your decision on what you want to do in the world, who you are, and who you want to become one day, and not on what will look better on your college transcript.”

I considered her words and shifted my bag over my shoulder. “My parents would kill me.”

She raised her brow high. “Yeah, they probably would, and that’s exactly why I will deny the fact that we ever had this conversation.”

I took a deep breath. “I’ll think about it,” I said; then I stepped backward toward the door.

“Oh! I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did you figure it out?”

“Figure what out?”

“Where your genius is coming from. What is causing your creative flow?”

“Oh, yeah.” I stepped close to her desk again and rubbed my finger along the top of some picture frames set in a cluster at the edge. “I think it has something to do with me being a loser.”

“Hmm.” Ms. Delrose gnawed on the inside of her cheek and considered my answer. “How so?”

“I’ve just been in sort of a social rut, so to speak. I’ve been spending a lot of time alone, and I think it’s made me more creative or something like that.” I shifted my feet. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

The bell for fifth period rang, but Ms. Delrose waved a hand at me. “I’ll write you a note. go on.”

“Like with Jess. He used to mean so much to me, you know. When I wasn’t with him, I was just thinking about the next time I would be. I was always wondering if he was thinking about me, and if so, what he was thinking.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know. I still miss him, but it’s different. When I’m alone, I find myself getting lost in thoughts about where I’m going to go next to take pictures. I worry more about what job I’m going to get or how good, or not-so-good, my grades are or my family or the next election or the purpose to life.”

“I don’t think that’s called being a loser, Gemma.”

“No?” I slowly rubbed a clump of dust between my index finger and thumb.

“It’s called growing up.”

“Not so extraordinary, I guess.”

“No.” Ms. Delrose relaxed in her chair. “I’d say that’s very extraordinary actually.”

I took a deep breath. “So I’ve decided to just be done with boys and the whole relationship thing. I’ll just be alone for the rest of my life, and I think I’m okay with it. I’ve kind of grown fond of myself lately.”

“That’s wonderful. Though the ironic thing about all this, you know, is that when you’ve reached that point of not needing anybody else is when you’re finally ready to actually be with somebody else.”

I hugged my books against my chest. “I think I’m good on my own for a while.”

“Well good.” Ms. Delrose clapped her hands as though she was overtaken with a sudden burst of energy. “Then that will be one less thing to get in the way of your gift.” She scribbled a few words on a pink pad and handed it to me across her desk. “Now, Gemma,” her voice turned low and serious, “when the day comes that you decide you want to date again, and I’m as certain that day will come as I am that I’m going to have a Diet Pepsi the minute you leave, I want you to promise me one thing.”

“Okay.”

“No matter who he is or how cute or how wonderful he might be, don’t you ever forget how wonderful
you
are. Don’t let him take that away from you.”

“I promise,” I said. Then I folded her pink note, stuck it in my pocket, and hoped with everything I had that I had the strength to remember that promise and keep it.

“Thirty-one.”

“Again?” I laid my pathetic cards out on the table. “I swear you’re cheating.”

Tag fanned two kings and an ace in front of his chest. “You can’t cheat cards this good.”

I swept all the cards toward me and straightened them into a stack. “I don’t know. I’m dealing this time, just in case.”

Before Drake’s Peak, the accident, and my informal community service hours, I had never even heard of the game Thirty-One. It was some combination of Twenty-One and Gin though I didn’t know much about those games either. But it was Tag’s favorite, and we could play about a hundred games in an hour, so I made sure I was in his room every Tuesday at four just so I could get slaughtered and help the old guy feel good about himself.

Tag shined his big teeth at me in a boyish grin. “You’re a sweetheart to let me win so often.”

“So often?” I said dealing us each three cards. “Try always, and I’m not letting you win. I’m just that bad.”

“How can you be bad at Thirty One? It’s mostly a game of luck.”

“Just goes to show you how unlucky I am.”

“Unlucky in cards or unlucky in love?”

“Yes.”

Tag chuckled behind his hand of cards. “I imagine a girl as cute as you can get into all sorts of trouble with the boys.”

I examined my cards. They were pitiful. “Well, it was trouble with boys that brought me here, so I guess I’m not all that unlucky.” I winked at Tag over my cards because I knew he’d eat it up.

“You do good for an old man’s heart.” Tag drew a card from the pile. “Speaking of which, what did you end up doing with the photo money I gave you.”

I drew a queen and discarded an eight. “I bought my friend a dress.”

Tag nodded. “That sounds nice. A church dress?”

“No, a formal dress. For the Christmas dance at my high school.”