How to Ruin Your Boyfriend's Reputation (12 page)

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Okay, so everyone finished the bars easily except for me. I got to the first bar, then slid off because my palms were sweaty and a bee buzzing in my ear freaked me out, even though I knew it was probably a worker bee. In the end, my team had to go down on their hands and knees again. I walked over them while grabbing each bar, just like Miranda.

The next obstacle is a tunnel. We all climb through easily and stop when we get to the rope. It's at least the height of a flagpole, if not higher.

I turn to my group. "I just want everyone to know that I'm afraid of heights."

"Then don't look down," Tori says. She steps on the first knot and starts climbing. "Hold it so it doesn't swing!" she yells at me.

I hold down the rope, even though I'm tempted to jiggle it hard until she falls off. I don't do it, because that would be mean. I might be whiny and a drama queen, but I like to think I'm not viciously mean to people.

David shimmies up the rope right behind Tori.

When they finish, Jess climbs and then the guys hold the rope for Miranda. For a girl who couldn't do the monkey bars, she's pretty impressive on the rope.

Now it's my turn.

Just the thought of going up that high makes me dizzy. I turn to Nathan. "Nathan, I don't think I can do it. I'll get vertigo. I don't want to die."

Nathan surveys the rope and says to me, "Well, nobody said we can't do it together. Go up and I'll follow behind

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you. You
are
my girlfriend; it's only natural we do it as a couple."

I roll my eyes so only Nathan can see. He kisses me on the nose, putting on the boyfriend act for anyone who cares enough to watch. "When Ethan holds the bottom of the rope, I step on the first big knot.

"Go up one," Nathan instructs.

I pull myself up to the next knot, and Nathan steps on the first. His arms are wrapped around my knees, holding me tight. "You okay?"

"So far, so good."

"Go up one more," he says, loosening his hold.

I go up another one. I feel Nathan right behind me, then holding me tight again. "Any vertigo
yet!"

"Not yet."

"Go up another one."

"Come on!" Tori yells. "Just do it!"

"I swear if she yells at me again I'm gonna punch her in the face.
If I
get out of this alive," I add.

"Ooh, a girl fight. "What a turn-on."

"My foot is close to your nuts, Nathan, and you're suspended on a rope. It's probably not the best time to piss me off."

"You kick me in the nuts, I'm pulling your pants down," he says, following me up another section of rope.

"Avi will kill you if you do that."

"I'll already be dead from the fall so it won't matter. One more, Amy."

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I close my eyes as we get higher. I have to admit, when Nathans arms are around my knees, I feel safe.

Up and up we go. I close my eyes when I get to the top and tentatively ring the bell.

"Grab the handle and ride to the bottom," Nathan says.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. You've come all this way--you can't stop now."

"We're losing because of you!" Tori yells at me. ""What a
spaz,"
I hear her say.

That's it. My anger overrides my fear. I grab the handle and shut my eyes tight while my body glides back to earth.

When my feet safely reach the ground, I open my eyes. Tori is laughing at me. Jessica looks ready to murder her, probably because she's my best friend and we always look out for each other. I storm up to the laughing hyena.

"You are seriously the most annoying person," I tell her. "I wonder how anyone can be friends with you."

She pushes me. At another time or place I might have lost my balance and fallen on my butt. But adrenaline rushes through my body, giving me strength beyond my normal capabilities. I push her back, and she goes flying. She lands on her butt.

I stand above her and let it all out. "Stop harassing me, you double-jointed, breast-challenged, designer-knockoff-wearing bully."

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Tori's mouth is open wide. "You hit me!"

"No, I didn't. I pushed you."

"It's against the
Sababa
rules to assault another person. I'm telling!"

Oh, no. "You pushed me first, Tori." Geez, and they call
me
a drama queen.

Tori storms up to Avi. "Your girlfriend assaulted me."

"You've got two facts wrong. She's not my girlfriend. And you assaulted her first. Get back to the group and finish the course."

"She
pushed
me."

"This is not a discussion. Get back to the group and finish the course."

"Can't we just give up?" Nathan asks, watching as the other group nears the finish line. "We've obviously lost."

Looking into Avis eyes, I see strength and determination. He would never give up. He won't let us give up, either. "Let's keep going until we finish," I say to my team.

We walk half-heartedly to the next obstacle.

When it's my turn to go through the swinging tire, I put my hands and feet in first. It's a big mistake, because now I'm stuck. The front half of me is through the tire, but my butt is sticking out the other end. "Push me, Nathan."

"You're giving me permission to touch your ass?"

"Not touch it. Just push it."

"Avis watching. Should I caress it first to make him jealous?"

"Oh, yeah. What a great idea. Caressing my butt while

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it's stuck in a tire is definitely going to make him jealous.
Not."

Nathan puts his hand on my butt. "Don't fart." He pushes me hard until I pop out of the tire. We're all sweaty and hot and it's worse because we know we lost.

The cargo net is easy enough to maneuver, although my foot slips a few times and I get rope burn on the back of my legs.

At the half wall, Miranda and I are hopeless. The guys hold Miranda on their shoulders and heave her over, then do the same for me. I swear, the wall is impossible. You have to have major arm strength to pull your body over it. Arm strength that I just don't possess.

After we step through a bunch of tires, we reach the last obstacle: crawling under the net. I look over at Avi watching us and wonder what's going through his head. There's hardly any room under the net. I kneel on the ground and duck my head. The ground is muddy, so I'm definitely getting dirty. I can't even crawl; I have to wiggle on my belly in order to go under this thing.

I use my fingernails to dig into the ground and my toes to help me slither forward like a snake. Seriously, how can Avi do the entire course in just over a half a minute?

"Push off my hands," Nathan says from behind me. He pushes me forward. I feel the time ticking away as I slide through... all the while my boobs are squished into the ground. My big C/D-cup boobs can probably fit into a training bra now.

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I climb out and we all jog to the finish line. I feel victorious, although I must look like a complete mess. And we are in fact the big losers.

Avi has us sit on the ground while the other teams take their turns competing on the course. Tori grudgingly mumbles something about her uncle who's a lawyer and about what it did and did not say regarding assault in that infamous
Sababa
brochure.

Our group doesn't get to compete in the final heat because we came in last. "When I look up, Avi is standing over me.

"Amy, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Whatever you want to say to me, you can say in front of Nathan," I tell Avi. "We have no secrets between us."

Avi takes a deep breath, says, "Forget it," then walks away to stand by himself.

"He's brooding, Amy," Nathan informs me.

"I know."

I did tell Noah that whatever Avi wanted to say, he should say it to my face. Well, I guess it's time for me to hear it firsthand. I shouldn't delay the inevitable, dreaded conversation.

"Nathan, I'm going over to him."

"Want me to go with you?"

"That's probably not the safest idea. I think I can handle it." I stand, ready to face Avi and whatever news he's about to tell me. "I'll be right back."

"Good luck. You'll need it."

"What do you want to talk to me about?" I ask Avi,

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who's standing close enough to our team to be seen but far enough away not to be heard.

"You didn't even try on the obstacle course, Amy."

"Are you kidding? I tried. Sorry if I'm not all buff and perfect like Liron."

"Yeah, not many girls can compete with her."

"Thanks. Next time you could give your team some pointers along the way. You
are
our team leader, you know."

"And as team leader, I knew your team could do it on your own. Amy, admit you're lying about dating Nathan."

"No."

"Then why'd you make me take you somewhere private that first day and let me kiss you?"

"I had a brain fart."

"No, you're having a brain fart right now by pretending you and Nathan are a couple. God is definitely inscribing you in the Book of Liars."

My blood is way past boiling now. "How dare you! I'll have you know that Nathan's kisses are the best I've ever had. By far. You could take lessons from him."

He opens his mouth to respond, then snaps it shut when someone walks by. We can't have a conversation in true private and Avi hates dishing his dirt in public. "When are you gonna stop playing games, Amy?"

"Never. I like games. It makes life interesting. You should try it sometime, you know."

"I don't have time for games." He looks behind me to Nathan, who's chatting with Miranda and Jessica. "So this is how you want to end it?"

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"Don't you?"

"No. Didn't you talk to Noah?"

"Not about us. Listen, Avi, you and I both know it's not working."

"I'm not good at relationships, Amy."

"Well, that's one more obstacle we'd have to get through if we were dating. You'd have to deal with my games, and with your girlfriend being an obstacle-course flunkee. I'd have to deal with your commitment phobia and the fact that you don't really want a full-time girlfriend you have to answer to. We were doomed from the start."

He lets out a slow breath. "Please don't make more out of this than it is. I've been trying to be who you want me to be, Amy."

"I just want you to
be yourself.
I've never once asked you to be someone else. It may not seem like it now, but I'm actually doing you a favor. Now you can have Liron or any other girl all to yourself, with a clear conscience."

Nathan slides up beside me and puts his arm around my shoulders. "Sorry, Avi," he says. "You win some, you lose some."

Liron comes up out of nowhere and stands next to Avi. She nudges him. "So you told her?"

He nods.

"I'm so sorry, Amy," Liron says so sincerely I want to rip those blond streaks right out of her head. "But I'm glad you know. Now I won't feel so weird around you anymore."

Great. That makes one of us.

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Avi puts his arm around Liron. I want to swat it off her, but as Nathan said, you win some, you lose some. I just wish I wasn't the one who'd lost.

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Chapter 14

Second place is the first loser. Last place is the biggest loser.

At night, I'm so shaken up by the finality of our breakup that I skip my normal facial

cleansing routine and just climb into bed. Avi and I have broken up before, but this time its for real. I try sleeping, but with the squeaky springs above me (Vic's indentation getting more and more pronounced), along with the fact that I can't get the awful conversation Avi and I had at the obstacle course out of my mind, sleeping is impossible. Listen, deep down I know I should have come clean to Avi about my non-relationship with Nathan. But I couldn't.

Avi uses a rifle, Krav Maga, and non-communication for self-defense. I use games, attitude, and manipulation.

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No matter what I've thought in the past, we might just be too different.

In the morning, our team gets assigned kitchen duty, (thanks to Tori and her tirade yesterday on the obstacle course). It's not bathroom-cleaning duty, so I'm okay with it. Again, they wake us up at the crack of dawn. Actually, it's before the crack of dawn, because it's still pitch black outside. My team is held back while everyone else does an activity. Ronit leads us to the kitchen, and even though I don't want to see Avi, I can't help scanning the base looking for him. He's nowhere in sight.

Noah, the American IDF soldier from Colorado, is in the kitchen waiting for us.

"Hey, Noah," I groan, my eyes still at half-mast.

"Hey. I'm going to give you assignments." He points to a humongous pot half the size of me. "Two of you need to set baskets of bread on the tables. Two of you need to put water in that pot. When it boils, put three hundred eggs inside and let them sit in the boiling water for fifteen minutes. Two of you need to put jam in the bowls. And two of you need to make coffee."

We divvy up the jobs.

As soon as Miranda and I start pulling jars of jam from the huge refrigerator, bees swarm around us.

"Noah, the bees are bothering us," I tell him.

Noah waves some of the bees away. "Yeah, that's kind of a hazard of working here. Living with bees becomes part of your daily life."

"I hate bees," Miranda tells him.