The S-Word (13 page)

I’d like to prop
him
up against the lockers.

Now my face was burning. My entire being was burning, filled with embarrassment and yearning at the same time. With Drake’s eyes on me, I felt mature, powerful, and wild. I didn’t want the moment to end.

Of course, it did.

“Hey, can I talk to you a minute?” he said.

The “yes” was already out of my mouth when I realized he’d returned his attention to Lizzie. “I mean, you guys talk,” I said quickly. “I’ll see you in class.” Really, it was a miracle those words made it past my lips. I could feel the tears forming in my eyes, stinging and reminding me of my place.

“Hold on,” Lizzie called after me. “Drake, we were talking.”

“This’ll just take a second,” he promised.

“That’s not the point.” It was amazing how cool she was being, when she should’ve been basking in the joy of Drake’s affections. She was so nice. Too nice.

She deserved him.

I twisted my grimace into a grin. “We’ll talk later. We have all day to talk.”

I hurried to the bathroom. I thought I was going to erupt but the tears never came. I just stood there staring in the mirror, wondering how I ever thought Drake could love me.

Just then, a stall opened and the first of two crazy things happened. This tall, leggy blonde with boobs out to there stopped dead in her tracks, eyeing me up and down.

“You’re hot. Are you a freshman?”

“Um. Yeah.”

“You should try out for the squad.”

The Geek Squad? Ha-ha, very funny.

I just looked at her, afraid to open my mouth.

“Trust me, it’s not as dumb as it sounds,” she said, adjusting her sweater to accentuate her chest. Her nails were painted to match. Everything red. “The cheering is just a cover for the real fun.”

“Meaning?”

“You know, the parties, the pranks.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “The prestige.”

“You want me?”

“Oh, please. Insecurity is so boring.” She smirked at my reflection, fluffing up her hair. “So your hips are a little wide. Wear skirts.”

I gasped. “Are you my fairy godmother?”

“Good, you’ve got a sense of humor. You’ll need that, cheering for guys who can’t play.”

“And my gigantic hips won’t be a problem?” Sure, I knew they were big. But hearing it still sucked.

“Oh, don’t twist your panties.” She pinched my cheek, but it wasn’t motherly. It was a warning. Those sharp nails could draw blood at any time. “I already said you were hot.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it.

“Besides,” she said, turning back to her reflection, “if big hips were a deal-breaker, I wouldn’t have invited my little sissy to try out. Maybe you know her? Name’s Kennedy.”

“I’ve heard of her,” I said casually. Of course, who hadn’t? Kennedy McLaughlin was the girl who got a real live pony on her seventh birthday. What kind of person would forget that?

“You’ll hear more,” Big Sissy said. “Three o’clock, okay?”

She didn’t wait for my reply. She sashayed out of the room just as the bell rang. But I was frozen in place. A part of me suspected this bathroom was a portal to another dimension, a dimension where dorks were sexy and popular. I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave yet.

Good thing too. Just seconds after Cheer Girl’s exit, Lizzie swept into the room, looking frazzled and a bit out of breath. And then the second totally crazy thing happened:

“He’s going to ask you out,” she said.

“What?”

Alternate dimension, remember? Just go with it.

“Drake is going to ask you out.” She started reglossing her lips.

“Are you okay?” I teased. “You look pale. Do you have a fever?” I held my hand to her forehead.

“I’m not hallucinating!” She jerked away from me. Her reply was a bit snappish. Was she mad? Or disappointed? I reminded myself that she liked Drake too.

“I’ll just tell him no,” I said. It was the last thing in the world I wanted to say. But Lizzie was clearly upset.

Smoothing down her hair, she turned to look at me. “Why would you do that?”

Any other time, in any other bathroom, I would have just lied. But there, that day, I couldn’t.

“Because I know you like him.”

“I
what?
” She scoffed way too loudly. “I do
not
like him.”

And she started listing off her reasons. He was ordinary. He was boring. Too tall. Kind of clumsy. At first, I thought she was trying to convince herself. But by the end of the list I started to believe her. After all, it was possible that I’d misread her all this time. Lizzie was so protective of her feelings. She could’ve liked any number of brown-haired, blue-eyed boys.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Why would I lie?”

I looked at her then, really looked at her. I think I was trying to see into the depths of her soul. It struck me, in that moment, that I had blabbed so many of my secrets, yet I knew so few of hers. Who
did
she like? What did she
really
think of me?

She hadn’t said a word about my transformation.

“You have to tell me,” I said. “You have to tell me who you like. It’s the only way I’ll believe you.”

“Do you want to go out with him?”

“Yes.” Again, I couldn’t lie.

Stupid bathroom.

“Do you?” I asked gingerly.

Lizzie lowered her head. Why was it so hard for her to open up to me? What was she afraid of?

“I don’t,” she said.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You’re not telling me the whole truth.”

“I will.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.” She lifted her head. Her voice was shaking, and her green eyes glittered in the fluorescent light. “Just not today.”

Any other time, in any other bathroom, I wouldn’t have chosen to believe her. But there, that day, I did.

P
ARTY TIME!”

Okay, that’s what I would be saying if I could go back in time. If I could just return to the beginning of spring I would be fun-loving Angie, joined with Drake at the hip and up for a grand old time. Preparing for a bash after Lizzie’s death is a bit like returning to the Alternate Dimension Bathroom.

The motions are all the same, but they feel different.

“You look different,” my mother says as I examine my reflection in the glass of the front door. It’s eight thirty-five. Jesse is late.

I shiver before I realize Mom’s talking about my outfit. She’s not so good at the whole mind-reading thing. “I look sexy,” I say. “Don’t you think?” I’m wearing this skintight suit over a satin corset that pushes my boobs up to my chin. Everything black. I look dangerous and feminine and masculine at the same time.

Jesse better love it.

Mother doesn’t. “I think you need some color,” says the collector of the cement-gray pantsuit.

“I want to complement my date.”

“No shit,” she says.

I follow her gaze through the glass. There’s Jesse skipping up the walkway, wearing his raspberry froufrou skirt over dark pants.

“He’s going to outdress me at every turn,” I say. “This could be a problem.”

Mom can’t read sarcasm. “Do we need to have a talk?”

“About how happy you are that I’ve made a friend?”

“Angelina.”

“Yes, he’s gay, Mother. So you don’t have to worry about me sleeping with him.”

She frowns into her Syrah. “Your father did talk to you about sex. He did,” she insists to herself.

Oh my God. This is not happening.

“Um. I’m seventeen years old,” I say.

“Answer the question.”

“Yes, he did. Totally.”

Is she kidding?

“Honey?” she says.

“Pills. Bitchiness. Bloating. No baby.” I can see Jesse poised to ring the bell. “We done here?”

She kisses my forehead rigidly. “Have fun, sweetie.”

I’m out the door faster than she can say “condom.” Jesse waves to her as I close it in her face. “Wow-y, mama,” he croons, looking me over. “You look like sex on wheels.”

“On
heels.
” I lift my foot. My shoes are chunky with a strap. None of that stiletto crap for me.

“Retro.”

“You look great,” I say. His hair is slicked back, kind of. Some of the strands are trying to rebel. He’s got on this black collared shirt. I can’t tell if it’s a women’s top or one of those really tight
tailored ones for men. And then I wonder why that should matter.

“You ready for this?” I take his arm.

He hesitates. “I’ve never been invited to a fancy-people party. You think they’ll throw things at me?”

“Only if they want to invoke my wrath.”

He lays his head on my shoulder. “You scare me, honey.”

“You love it.”

The drive to Cara’s is short. The “fancy-people” houses are all within a five-mile radius of each other. Elevated on a hill, looking down on the town.

Looking down.

The night is dark, but Cara’s house blazes from within. She’s got these red lights on in the living room like it’s a brothel. Maybe it is, in a way. I don’t think very highly of these people.

Could you tell?

There are so many cars out front I have to park two blocks away. Jesse bolts around the side of the car to open my door. He takes my arm again as we reach the walkway. We’re almost to the house when he stops.

“This is wrong. We’ve made a mistake.”

“No, it’s fine,” I say. A few stocky boneheads are standing on the porch. “They’ll let us in, no problem.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He pulls me over to the shadows. “If Kennedy sees us here together, she’ll know we’re in cahoots.”

“ ‘Cahoots?’ I thought you said we weren’t spies.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Kennedy’s not here yet.”

He frowns at the street. “You didn’t see her car?”

“I didn’t look for it.”

“So?”

I start to walk forward again. I’m practically dragging him along. “So. Beauty Queen? Most popular girl in school? If you
think she’s not fashionably late to everything, you haven’t been paying attention.”

I can see his cheeks growing round in the darkness. He’s smiling. “All right, fine,” he says begrudgingly. “But once we get inside you better not stick to me.”

He has a point. But I’m not leaving him alone with these freaks. “I’ll stick to you like glue, baby.” The word is out of my mouth before I can stop it.

INSIDE OF CARA’S
minimansion, the crimson-walled living room swells with the push of bodies, the pulse of the music. Furniture has been pushed aside, and red lights flicker, inviting us into the inferno. Though it’s entirely unnecessary, the fireplace is lit.

People are already taking off their clothes.

I don’t mean everybody. The party’s not that orgiastic. But a few key players hint at a world of possibilities: a redhead in the corner flashes a polka-dotted bra to her girlfriends, while two shirtless guys flex muscles no high school boy should have. These are the boys who’ll spend their lives trying to look like the Photoshopped actors in
Details
magazine. They’ll kill themselves for their bodies, just like the girls do.

Still, these flashes of skin can’t compare to the girl standing on the wet bar, reciting a scene in iambic pentameter. A very saucy scene, if her lewd gestures are any indication. Miss Shelby McQueen gives the people what they want, and tonight the people want sex. Her black flapper dress swishes as she thrusts her hips.

I step back.

“You okay?” Jesse asks, lips close to my ear. He’s pressed against me, due to the lack of room in this crowded space.

“I’m fine,” I lie.

In reality I’m shaken. This amped-up sexuality reminds me of
other things, of people who’ll whisper
I love you
when they’re inside of you, only to turn around and do the same with your best friend. When Jesse whispers “Let’s go out back,” I let him lead me toward the back porch. There’s a bowl on the wet bar marked Mystery Juice and we stop there, because, you know, when in Rome.

After that we slip into the darkness.

Except it’s not dark. Not entirely. Out here they’ve strung up dangling icicle lights and people are pressed together by choice. Farther out, there’s this beautiful stretch of grass just calling to us, and that’s where we go.

“Let’s hang out here for a while,” Jesse says, sitting on a bench that’s clearly made for lovers. Little flower beds surround the entire yard, in shades of purple, pink, and red.

It’s Valentine’s Day every day at the Belle estate.

“Good plan.” I sit beside him. There’s not much room on the bench, and I’m close enough to Jesse to feel him shaking. But when I go to give him my jacket, I find no goose bumps on his arms.

He’s not shivering.

He’s scared.

“I brought you into the belly of the beast, didn’t I?” Sure, no one’s shoved him or called him a name yet. But no one’s smiled at him or welcomed him into a hug either.

They’ll ignore him, just like they did with Lizzie.

Until they get him alone.

“I’m okay,” he says, looking up at the sky. Those icicle lights are nothing compared to the stars, and I follow his gaze, soothed by the vastness of space.

“Are you sure?” I ask softly. “Because I can find another way—”

“No, it’s fine.” He turns to look at me, and the lights are reflected in his eyes. “I was curious.”

“Well, curiosity quenched, then.”

He laughs. “Besides, it’s nice out here with you . . .” He trails
off, hands curling over the front of the bench. When he leans back, taking in all the stars, I can’t help but notice the muscles in his arms. They’re sort of . . . delicate, compared to the ones on the show-offs inside. The kind you get from working in the yard or picking up little kids.

The kind you get from life.

Jesse closes his eyes, and my gaze trails to his face. I’m watching his mouth to see if he really wants to stay. Everyone looks at the eyes, but the lips are so telling.

I watch them carefully as I say, “Can I ask you something?”

His lips twitch. I can tell he’s fighting a smile. “Aw, hell,” he says, “tell me you’re not serious. Tell me you didn’t bring me here to interrogate me.”