Ditched (4 page)

I kept my mouth shut, though. Mom had a cute look on her face, and she was so excited that I’d agreed to wear a dress and not a pantsuit, which I had threatened to do.

Plus, truth be told, Ian once told me when we were sitting in the front seat of his car before school, listening to AC/DC—me decked out in black, of course, wool even, if I remember correctly—that he couldn’t wait to see me in a bright, happy color someday, to match my insides. And I said it’d have to be red since my insides were sorta bloody.

Then he gave that butterfly-inducing laugh.

Ian didn’t know the real reason I wore black al the time.

30

But I liked that he wanted to see me bright and happy.

So when Mom was standing in the half-off orange-dot aisle, holding a bright iridescent blue dress, wiggling with excitement and saying, “Go for the pop of color!” I gave in to her eager face.

I doubted my decision. Ever since Jimmy DeFranco’s party, I doubted everything. But at least the dress didn’t have a slit up to my girly parts, and wouldn’t further the reputation I couldn’t seem to shake.

Maybe this dress—classic, traditional, colorful, and yeah, un-sexy—would be just the thing to remind everyone I was no longer a kissing addict. Ian might not find me super hot and sexy, and the dress was rather a failure in the good-taste department, but he’d notice the color.

He’d know I did it for him.

“Go get ready!” Mom pushed me out of the kitchen and went back to stirring her pot of fundraiser curry.

I bolted upstairs, finishing my apple just before I jumped into the shower. It was a two-minute blur. I quickly combed and dried my hair, long and straight—an expensive sleek salon updo seemed sil y given al the dancing we were going to do. Plus I wanted to leave my hair wild and open for business in case Ian wanted to run his fingers through it when I laid that kiss on him. I mean, what guy would get excited about his date pul ing her hair back tight and shel acking it with hair spray? It’d be like kissing a dodge bal .

I quickly slathered the Barbados Blue onto my nails. I 31

was fast, but I was accurate. The nail drying—
that’s
what took time. I paced around my room and blew on my nails.

Dry, come on, dry.

My bedroom looks like a museum dedicated to daisies.

I have daisy wal paper, daisy pil ows, even the trim on my lamp shade has a daisy print. I happen to love flowers, any flower, but I
adore
ones that symbolize something. Like how lilies represent friendship. And a tulip means forgiveness. Or like how a rose is supposed to mean love. Except that I hate roses. Maybe because love is too complicated to express with just a flower.

Or maybe because I don’t like red or pink.

Or maybe because Ian’s ex-girlfriend, Eva, was wearing a rose in her hair the night she cheated on him—yeah, at that pool party at Jimmy DeFranco’s. It was an epic night, that’s for sure. Ian caught Eva making out with Jimmy in his parents’ bedroom. She ran after him wearing a pink bikini, the rose in her hair flopping around, about to jump ship. “It was only a kiss!” she screamed. But he dumped her. Wouldn’t even give her a chance to explain.

That was the first night we talked about more than silver bats. My darkest moment. And his too. I was outside on the curb, crying because guys were saying they heard I was making the rounds and could they be next on my list. The jerks. Jason Harper was my only intentional kissing act that night, but Aaron Becker, drunk off his ass on Jägermeister shots, dragged me by my elbow to show me a dent he’d 32

gotten in his dad’s BMW but instead stopped me in the hallway and gave me an unsolicited hard sloppy kiss while he reached for the hem of my skirt. I actually had to stomp on his toe to get him off me. Thank God his toes were vulnerable in those flip-flops. And then all I could do was run away.

So next thing I knew, Ian had plopped down next to me on the curb, right after Eva had taken off sobbing. “Epic night, huh?” he said with sarcasm, but it was the sad kind, not the rude kind, and I instantly felt at ease.

I looked him over and remembered who he was: the handle-first guy. I wiped my face. “I’m never kissing another boy again.”

“O-kay. I’m Ian.”

“I know. I remember you,” I said. “I hate boys. You included. You should probably know that up front.” He nodded. “And I hate girls.”

We shook hands, and that was it. We were perfect together.

As friends.

Months went by. We were friends and then even better friends. We carpooled. We shared history notes. We drove around and screamed AC/DC songs. Then we talked about the important things.

“Seriously, Lay’s are the best,” I’d say.

“Ruffles, you goof.”

“Texture?”

33

“Yeah,” he’d say. “There’s something
there
. Something to hold on to.”

“So you don’t like
flat
things?” I’d wiggle my chest, strangely unafraid around him to be proud of my less-than-impressive humps.

“Are we comparing chips to the female form?”

“I don’t know.” I’d squint my eyes. “Are we?”

“Yes, Justina. That makes perfect sense. I only eat Ruffles because they make me think of girls’ breasts, and I’m the type of guy to base my food preferences on girly parts. I prefer grapefruit to apples, you know.”

“And the truth comes out.”

We always teetered on the edge of flirtation—delicately dipping our toes in, but never ful y plunging. That was the best part of our friendship, the unsaid part—the playful looks, the teetering, the toe-dips.

But there was one part of his friendship I couldn’t live without.

When we took our conversation to the point of “almost too far,” he’d pause, his face would flush, and he’d pul up the right side of his mouth into a smirk. No words, just a smirk. And it was then—when his mouth was pul ed up to the right—that the most heavenly, lovely, tiny crease would appear.

That crease.

It made me drunk.

And what he didn’t know—or maybe he did—was that I 34

spent most of my time figuring out how to get another one.

That crease became air—I needed it.

But I think he loved the feel of that elusive crease on his own face just as much as I loved looking at it.

Even with al that delicate toe-dipping, I kept to my promise and didn’t come close to locking lips with him for a long, long time. Having Ian for a friend was just what I needed.

But everything changed in an instant when he brought me licorice and Motrin, wearing that green shirt. But I never told him. I just kept treating him like a friend and silently imagining us being so much more.

After his breakup with Eva, it took him eight months before he got up enough nerve to ask another girl out.

Me.

And even though we were only friends, I couldn’t help but hope he’d asked because he wanted to be more. But then again, maybe I was just a distraction from a rose-loving girl like Eva.

Al I knew was, to me, roses couldn’t handle the weight of their symbolism. But a daisy never took on more than it could handle. It was a simple flower. It wasn’t complicated.

And it symbolized more than just “Peace, man.” It meant innocence . . . gentleness.

Ian Clark was al daisy.

Nails final y dry, I leaned into my mirror and took an extra moment to pile on the lip gloss. Attached to my mirror 35

was the invitation Ian had left for me in my locker. Of course it had a daisy taped to it. He was persuasive in
many
ways.

The Senior Class of

Huntington High School

request the honor of your presence

at the

Junior/Senior Prom

on Saturday, April Fifteenth

at Eight O’clock in the evening.

The Grand Riverside Hotel

“The Grand Riverside Hotel,” I said out loud with an accent dripping with royalness as I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I couldn’t wait to walk into that bal room with Ian. And I was wearing a sparkly, iridescent blue dress that matched the bright happiness of my insides (my emotional inside part, not my bloody inside part).

He’d better notice, because everything about tonight was going to be different.

I hadn’t had the guts to tel him that my feelings had changed since green shirt day. But hopeful y the kiss I was planning would do the talking for me. For some reason, I just couldn’t say the words. Maybe that’s what had happened to him the day he’d asked me.

“It’l be amazing,” he had said. “No, um, pressure. We’ll just . . .”

36

“Just what?” I’d leaned in and caught his eyes to get him to finish his sentence.

“We’l go . . . as friends.”

“Friends.”

“Right?” He’d winced when he said it. He wanted
me
to decide?

“Right.” The word came out without thought, and I’d regretted it the second it fel out of my mouth. This had been my opening to tel him how I felt, al laid out before me like a red carpet. But the words hadn’t come for either of us—just a lot of wincing and throat clearing and shirt readjusting.

That’s when I decided it was
action
that was going to take this to the next level. Not words.

I knew that the kiss I was going to give him was like putting al my cards on the table. I didn’t know if he felt the same way—maybe he real y did want to just be friends, which meant this could al end badly.

But oh, lordy, that green shirt.

He was worth the risk.

“Are you ready, Justina?” Mom cal ed out. “Let me see your dress!” She was getting anxious.

So was I.

I slipped my shoes on, the ones Mom had convinced me to dye blue, and I spent a moment staring at my outfit, now al final y pul ed together.

Wow. I suddenly felt overwhelmingly . . . blue.

I decided I would show Mom the dress before Ian got 37

there—let her get al her overbearing giddiness out of the way. But it didn’t turn out that way, because he was standing in the kitchen when I walked in, and there was my mother, cupping her hand under his chin, trying to stuff him with fundraiser curry.

“The secret is extra coriander,” she was explaining.

I quietly stepped into the room and cleared my throat. I had hoped for some smiles, maybe some hugs and a gorgeous flower corsage—a daisy, of course. But the overwhelming color of my dress and matching shoes must have taken them both by surprise, because Ian threw his hands in the air and yel ed, “Holy Blueness!”

And Mom threw her hands up too and squeaked,

“Beautiful!”

Which wasn’t initial y such a horrible series of events, but then al the hand flying caused the curry to fly through the air and land just above the hem of my dress.

Mom squealed at first, but then pul ed herself together.

“Let’s get this mess cleaned up,” she said in a calming voice.

I should’ve helped, but al I could do was stare at Ian.

He’d noticed the dress, but did he
notice
it?

But then al I could do was notice
him
. He was wearing a black tuxedo, and it made him look powerful. Rugged, tal , and a bit lanky, too, but he looked so . . . manly. But then I glanced down and noticed he wasn’t wearing dress shoes—he was wearing Converse high-tops. Turquoise.

His long brown hair flopped in his eyes as he looked 38

down at his shoes. “I couldn’t find the right shade of blue. I thought we could match. Sorry.”

I leaned in and made him look up at me. “We match.” My instinct was to reach out and gently tuck his hair behind his ear, but Mom was watching. Plus, we had a whole night ahead of us—there’d be plenty of time for playing with his hair. Among other things.

Mom apologized over and over while she scrubbed the floor with lemon-smel ing cleaner, which always made my nose itch. And Ian just smiled as he scrubbed the bottom of my dress with a wet washcloth. I smiled back at him and scratched my nose.

He managed to get the chunky parts off, but the stain was forever. At the time, I didn’t mind one bit. Ian Clark, with adorably floppy brown hair, was on his knees, washing my dress.

Butterflies.

If Mom hadn’t been in the room, it would’ve been the perfect time to plant that first kiss on him. The Moment of Lip Lock Bliss. I had been deprived of lip lockage for eight months, twelve days. My whole body ached, starving for boy contact. But this kiss was going to be worth the wait.

Ian would hold my gaze, I imagined, then run his fingers through my wild, un-hair-sprayed hair and press his lips against mine. And I would know once and for al which category he belonged in.

But I was an excessive fantasizer, plus, I already had a 39

perfect plan for The Moment of Lip Lock Bliss and it didn’t involve my kitchen, yel ow curry, and certainly not my mother.

Ian stood up and turned to my mom. “We’re going to Dan’s for a pre-party. I’l try to keep her away from anything liquid and yel ow, Mrs. Griffith.”

I took a breath. “My personal stain fighter.” I may have even twirled my dress a little when I said it.

Mom pressed her lips together tightly, trying to control her quivering lip. “I wouldn’t feel good about Justina going to prom with anyone but you.” She reached out and dusted his tuxedo sleeve.

Just then, I felt a lick. Sol was doing his part to clean up my stain. I guess he real y did like coriander. “Could you put him in the backyard, Mom? He’s going to eat my dress.”

“Sol, baby. Come here.” She patted her hip as if she were giving a command, but she had already gone back over to the stove and was throwing more spices into the stew. Mom always cal ed the dog “baby,” and she rarely made him obey.

She didn’t want him to be
uncomfortable
.

Ian snapped his fingers. “Sit.”

Sol stopped licking me. And he actual y sat. Ian rubbed him behind the ears and told him he was a good boy.

“Wow,” I said. “Persuasive.” I wasn’t sure if it was the finger snapping or the forcefulness in his voice or the rubbing of the ears, but I suddenly couldn’t wait to get to the pre-party and away from Mom. Ian seemed to know exactly when to 40