You Wish (3 page)

Once I realized they were a bunch of scaredy-cats, I wanted so badly to just walk straight up and jump over, no hesitation. Show them what I was made of. But they were so freaked out, and it leached into me, until the butterflies in my stomach were the size of seagulls. I had shivered a little, river water dripping off me, the sun blocked by the trees.

Ben, when he saw me, sort of snorted to himself and then tried to cover it up.

“What?” I had put my hand on my pink-bikini-clad, bony hip. I didn’t have curves. Not back then, not now.

Ben’s hair was even lighter back then, sun streaked and longer than he wears it now. Kind of a bowl cut, almost long enough to tuck behind his ear. He had on blue-and-red board shorts, his body lean, just a hint of the muscle he would later develop.

“Nothing.” He crossed his arms and leaned against a tree near the edge. “Nothing at all.”

My heart skipped a beat as his intense blue eyes bored into me, daring me, pushing me, doubting me. “Afraid I’m going to show you up? You’ve been up here a half hour.” I raised an eyebrow, determined not to show him that he was making me more nervous than the jump.

Ben didn’t say anything. He knew I had a point.

My lips curled into an enormous smile, and I stepped to the edge. The boys backed up a little, as if I was going to take them with me. Like my brand of crazy might be contagious. My heartbeat seemed to stop as I peered over the edge, looking down at that tiny little swimming hole. Suddenly I understood why they’d been standing there so long. It reminded me of those cartoons where the clowns climb up a ladder that extends into the clouds, then jump off into a tiny bucket of water.

I could have turned around, told the boys I was just as scared as they were.

But I didn’t. I leapt, soaring through the air, the Green River rushing up toward my feet. As I fell into the river, the cold surface of the water closing around me, swallowing me, I knew I was already falling for Ben and that arrogant, adorable smile. There was something about the way he challenged me, stared straight at me, that twisted its way around my heart.

I spent the rest of the day watching him and his friends swim and splash and laugh, and yes, eventually they did jump off the cliff. I guess they
had
to, once I waltzed up there and jumped with no hesitation.

A month later, he moved across town, and that meant going to EMS with me, instead of TMMS with all of his friends. We shared an English class. But he didn’t seem to remember me, and when I realized that, it was like a painful stab to the chest. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him when we sat so far apart, and the other girls were already latching onto him. He’d looked even better in his new fall school clothes than he had in his board shorts.

It was as if that moment at the river, when we stared right into each other’s eyes, never happened at all. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I’ve never told Nicole about the crush. If it’s embarrassment over the fact that the moment meant everything to me and nothing to him.

“Hey,” he says three minutes later when he slides into his chair. His blondish hair is tousled with gel, and his skin has a natural, dark tan. Even his baggy jeans and loose T-shirt can’t hide his now well-muscled body—one he’s earned through a combination of working his butt off all summer for his dad’s landscaping business and riding motocross every chance he gets.

That’s the other thing about Ben. He races dirt bikes. He’s totally, completely amazing, and I could watch him all day. He has this bright-yellow motorcycle, and every time he launches into the air, my heart jumps right with him. It’s mesmerizing to watch. Someday he’ll probably go pro and get all these sponsors and stuff.

“Hi,” I say, not looking up from last night’s homework.

On an average day, we will exchange at least seventy-three words, his arm will brush mine seven times, and his knee will come in contact with mine on at least three occasions. He will look me in the eye and grin at least once, a grin that tells me in a half second that we would be a perfect couple.

If he weren’t already one part of what is probably
the
perfect couple.

I will sigh inwardly at least once per minute and accidentally sigh aloud at least a half-dozen times. I will picture Nicole’s face more times than necessary, trying to remind myself why I can’t flirt with him. I suppose I should find it ironic that the very reason I can’t date him is pretty much the only reason he knows who I am now. If he wasn’t dating Nicole, I’m not sure he’d even recognize me in a crowd.

He leans closer to me. “Why are fish salesmen so greedy?”

I chew on my lip and stare forward, pondering. “Not a clue.”

“Because their business makes them sel-fish,” he says, slapping his desk.

Ben and I share the same horrible sense of humor. We like jokes. The lamer, the better. But that one? Beyond lame.

“I’ve got a better one. Why did the orange go to the doctor?” I say.

“To donate vitamin C?”

I roll my eyes. “Because he wasn’t peeling good.”

He chuckles. “Nice. You win.”

I grin and meet his eyes. It makes my heart twist a little. He’s too gorgeous for words. His perfect, tanned skin, the way his faded black T-shirt sort of clings to the muscles that seemed to be stretched tightly over his shoulders, the light calluses on his hands. “So you guys are going to some fancy dinner tonight, huh?”

“Yeah. Supposedly the food is amazing, and it’s got a view of the water. It’s supposed to be a pretty fun place. Nicole was excited.”

“Cool,” I say, turning back to my homework.

“Is it? Cool? I didn’t know about your birthday until today. . . . We could always reschedule. . . . ” He adjusts the silver watch on his wrist, and his arm brushes mine for the first time today.

I wave my hand in the air, as if it’s no biggie at all, even though some irrational side of me wishes Ben had known it was my birthday. His is March 6. I’ve known that for two years, since I heard one of his friends wish him a happy birthday in the hall outside the gym. “Nah, I have a birthday every year. You’ll only have one three-month anniversary.”

I reach down and rub at the seam on my fishnets again. It’s driving me crazy. I’d rather have a hundred ants walking up my leg right now than wear these for another minute. I reach down and rip a big hole in them so that the seam isn’t rubbing against my knee anymore.

When I look up at Ben, he’s staring at me, his perfect, dark eyebrows raised, his deep-blue eyes looking at my stockings.

I grin, my cheeks warming. “Sorry. These things are driving me nuts.”

He shrugs and then slides down a bit in his chair and stretches his lanky legs out in front of him. His knee bumps mine. Twice. “They’re kind of hot, though.”

Oh no, he didn’t. Ben has never, not in a million years, paid me a compliment. He reserves those for Nicole.

I suddenly wish I hadn’t ripped a big hole in the knee. Then I shake my head.
Thou shall not covet thy best friend’s boyfriend.

“So, did you get your homework done?” I ask, forcing myself back to safer topics.

Ben flips open his binder and taps on the homework inside the front cover. His arm brushes mine again. “Barely. I finished the last two during homeroom.”

Mrs. Vickers finally walks to the front of the room, a full ten minutes after the bell rang. She begins the day by writing down our assignments, and we all groan when we see that she’s giving us another thirty problems.

Due tomorrow.

Ben leans toward me, so close I can smell his spicy cologne. It washes over me and I have to force myself to keep my eyes open instead of closing them and taking in deep, ragged breaths. “This woman is trying to kill us,” he says. His breath is warm against my neck and minty fresh. If I turned my face, just half a turn, my lips would brush against his, and I’d finally know what it feels like to kiss him.

Instead I just nod and stare forward at the teacher as if I am totally unaffected by being closer to him than I’ve ever been.

Which I am. Unaffected, that is.

Because he’s my best friend’s boyfriend.

3

BY THE TIME
my brother knocks on my door for the third time that evening, I’ve run out of stall tactics. I have no choice but to go downstairs and face the crowd of people who have gathered for my sweet sixteen. I’ve been listening to the hum of voices, hoping my mother would be so busy with the party planning she wouldn’t even remember my presence was a required element.

I’m not wearing the outfit she set out for me. It was too girly. She knew well enough not to buy it in pink, but the blue skirt has white Hawaiian-looking flowers and a slightly asymmetrical ruffle. And she bought me heels.

It’s either the dress or the heels, but there’s no way I’m wearing both. I’m not in the mood to deal with a full-scale argument, so I hope she’ll settle for the fact that I’m not wearing fishnets and these stupid white heels at least match my sailor sundress. I die a little inside as I buckle them around my ankles.

I survey the results in the mirror. The heels ruin the rebel, ironic side of my sailor dress and make me look like I actually take myself seriously. I look like I’m channeling a Ralph Lauren catalog. The kind with polo ponies and yachts. I take my hair out of the ponytail it’s been in all day and brush out the indent from the rubber band, so now it just sort of hangs around my shoulders in big, ugly brown clumps. I never wear my hair down because I hate it. It has no shape, no color, and no curl.

I flutter my eyelashes at myself in the mirror. In a horrible southern accent, I say,
“Why, Kayla, I do declare, that is one hideous dress!”

Then, in an accent worthy of the crocodile hunter, I add,
“Crikey, but that’s an ugly pair of heels!”

Although I usually prefer to mock
other
people, the voices have actually made me feel better. I sigh and flip myself off in the mirror and then decide it’s now or never. And since
never
will get me grounded, it’s time to give in.

I open the door to see my brother standing in the hall, his cell phone stuck to his ear. I am guessing that he’s talking to his long-distance girlfriend. I’m not sure why she hasn’t dumped him, seeing as he’s a college dropout who now lives a few hundred miles from her.

Plus my brother is not that cute, if you ask me. He has the same medium-brown hair I do—as in, it’s nothing exceptional. Mom has this beautiful deep-brown hair, and we have something between that and blond, which is completely blah. His is cut in a faux hawk. His nose used to be straight, like mine, but now it has a small bump in it, à la Owen Wilson, because he took a soccer ball to the face, or so he claims. I still think that’s a cover-up for getting sucker punched when he poached another guy’s girlfriend. We both have those thin, kind of boring lips, and even if I add a pound of lip gloss, mine still don’t look that kissable.

We’re also both flat chested. I think I’ve got maybe a half inch on him in that department. Totally pathetic.

“Mom says if I get you to come downstairs
now
, I can use the truck tomorrow.”

“And that’s supposed to inspire me?”

He tips his head to the side and gives me an
I wish I was an only child
sort of look. “It’s not like she’s going to let you skip the whole party, so just go downstairs and spare us all a headache, will you?”

“Argh.” I roll my eyes and stomp past my brother, heading down the hall and the stairs and through the family room. By the time I’m standing on the back patio, I feel like I’ve exited the house and stepped into a Selena Gomez movie. I don’t even recognize the space anymore. On a normal day, our nondescript house is perched in the middle of a big half-acre corner lot, the perfectly green lawn framed with a tall cedar fence.

Today, though, instead of the empty grassy expanse, there is a big white tent in the middle, long strands of pink and white lights draped between it and the house. There are pink flowers tied to the cedar fence line and some kind of punch fountain near the door, already pumping gallons of pink liquid. Pink and white confetti litters the tables.

A DJ is playing really bad pop music under the tent, a strobe light and disco ball flashing out onto the empty floor. The round tables, flanked with folding white chairs, are perched all over the place, each of them with a pink floral centerpiece.

My mom is one of those super-feminine women who love pink. Once my dad was gone, she completely redid the master bedroom in pink wallpaper, with a bunch of pink and white pillows on her pink–and-yellow-plaid bed set.

In other words, we totally don’t get each other.

She told me about a hundred times how she’d never had a sweet-sixteen party. And now I think I know what it would look like if she’d had one.

I wonder how many episodes of
Sweet Sixteen
she watched in order to pull this off.

Seriously. This is a bit . . . over the top, even for my mom. It’s like something from
High School Musical
. The pre-packaged version of a sweet sixteen. Just add water. And, well, a birthday girl who belongs on Disney, not the one standing in the yard right now, staring at the middle-aged DJ.

“What do you think, honey?” my mom says, appearing beside me like a magician, except without the puff of smoke. My mom normally does bar mitzvahs and corporate events. It’s clear this one is a little out of her comfort zone, and by the tension in her voice, she knows it.

“Now you know I’ve never done a sweet sixteen, so you’ll have to bear with me if the details aren’t just right. You just let me know, and I’ll fix everything I can, okay?”

Ugh. The harder she tries, the more awkward I feel. I blink a few times and keep staring at the backyard. Or what
was
the backyard. There are guests milling about, only a few of whom I recognize. I’m starting to think my mom may have put something like
Pretty in Pink
on the invitations, because there is an absurdly high ratio of pink clothes on the guests.