Surviving High School (10 page)

All the girls in the circle, Kimi included, lowered their fingers and drank. Everyone but Emily. Spencer stared at her, his mouth open.

“Seriously?” he asked. “Never?”

Emily’s face turned bright red.

“You’re joking, right?” asked Hannah, and Emily shook her head, ashamed.

She looked around the party. Everyone else stood in small circles, talking, drinking, and laughing—and for a moment it seemed as if the joke was at her expense. She was the only one in the circle who had never been kissed. Maybe even the only one at the party.

“That’s just—sad,” said Spencer.

“Leave her alone,” said Samantha. “She’s, like, eight years old.”

“I wasn’t trying to be a jerk about it,” said Spencer. “I was just sur—”

“I have to go—to the restroom,” Emily said, standing up.

“Em, wait,” said Kimi, but Emily was already walking out of the room and up the nearby staircase, trying to get as far away from the party as possible.

“See if you can find someone to make out with on your way back!” Zach shouted before Hannah elbowed him in the ribs again.

Upstairs, Emily looked down a long hall of closed doors, trying to guess which one was a bathroom. She ran a finger
under her eye and was relieved to find it dry. Good: She’d held it together pretty well so far. Still, she needed a few minutes of solitude to shake off the shame of Never Have I Ever before she faced the party again. She walked to a door in the middle of the hall and, hoping it led to a bathroom, turned the handle.

The door opened into a large, dark room. The only light came from the far wall, where a faint blue glow from a projector stretched over a large, empty space. As Emily took a step toward the light, a burst of green and yellow spread across the wall in the shape of her body, and she looked back to see a camera hooked up to a computer and pointed in her direction.

Emily jumped up and down, and the colors on the wall swirled, copying her movements. She waved her hands, and bursts of red and violet sprouted from her projection’s fingertips. She couldn’t help but smile. She leaned left and right, watching her image change colors and move in sync with her body. She started twirling, the poofy bottom of her dress floating around her like a parachute, and her image glowed bright white. On the wall, the edge of her skirt became a golden circle surrounding her like a ring of Saturn.

“Kind of geeky, huh?” said a voice from behind her, and Emily turned to see Ben in the doorway. Rather than the night’s standard guy outfit of dark jeans and a T-shirt, he wore pajama bottoms and a Golden State Warriors jersey, as if he were ready to crawl into bed. She stopped twirling, felt her skirt settle back down around her thighs, and watched
her projection fade to a cool green. Unfortunately, the room continued to spin as a wave of dizziness passed over her.

“I, uh, thought this was a bathroom,” said Emily, leaning on a nightstand to steady herself. She stifled an urge to jump out the window. Couldn’t she go five minutes at this party without completely embarrassing herself?

Ben smiled. “Well, I hope you figured out your mistake before you did anything regrettable in here. It wouldn’t be the first time someone at one of my parties mistook this for the bathroom.”

“Don’t worry,” said Emily. “All I did was dance like an idiot.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were pretty graceful, and your dress generated some really cool visuals, like it was on fire or something. Of course, I might happen to know a few tricks you don’t.” Ben stepped forward into the camera’s field of view, and his image joined Emily’s on the wall. “Watch this,” he said as he raised a hand and snapped his fingers. On the wall, a shower of sparks fell from his projection’s fingertips as if a firework had exploded in his hand.

Emily raised her arm into the air and unsuccessfully tried to snap her fingers. She felt her face glowing red for what had to be the thousandth time tonight—embarrassment was becoming her default setting.

She wondered if Ben had heard she’d never kissed a boy. Even if he didn’t know yet, he would by the end of the night. She imagined Spencer leaning over and whispering the news in Ben’s ear—and Ben trying to stifle a laugh as he realized
her inexperience. Her skin glowed even redder, as if she were a strawberry Tootsie Pop or cherry Popsicle. At least it was dark in here.

She tried to snap again. Total silence. Ben looked up at her fingers, amused.

“Wait,” he said. “You
do
know how to snap, right?”

She tried again, pressing her fingers together as hard as she could, but the only noise she made was the soft rubbing of skin against skin.

“I, uh, don’t know how to whistle, either,” she said.

“It’s not too hard,” said Ben. “Here, you just put your thumb against your middle finger like this—”

He took her hand and laid her fingers against each other. A few moments passed before he seemed to realize he hadn’t let go, and he quickly drew his hands back as if he’d burned them on a hot stove.

“I, er, yeah, like that,” he said, taking a step back and smiling a little too wide.

She tried to snap again, and a faint popping sound echoed through the room. A tiny shower of sparks appeared at her image’s fingertips on the wall.

“Not bad, Kessler, not bad,” said Ben.

“This is pretty cool,” said Emily. “What is it? Like, a Wii or something?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask that,” said Ben. “I actually designed this myself. See, the camera I set up over there sends a feed to my computer, where some software I
wrote transforms the image, then sends it to that projector on that shelf.”

“Huh,” said Emily. “So you
do
use your brain for purposes other than hacking student newspapers and destroying swimming pools?”

“Hey, that was some of my best work,” he said, smiling.

For the first time, Emily noticed a shelf full of dusty trophies at the side of Ben’s room. She walked over to them and examined a certificate that read
BEN KALE, 1ST PLACE, CALIFORNIA STATE TECHNOLOGY FAIR, 8TH-GRADE DIVISION
.

“Those are all from a long time ago,” said Ben.

“So why aren’t there any new ones?” asked Emily.

“Let’s just say I’ve seen where that path leads, and I don’t want to go there.”

Emily picked up another trophy and said, “I don’t understand.”

Ben ran a hand through his hair and stared at the floor, lost for words for the first time since Emily had met him. Finally he said, “It’s like that one quote—I don’t know exactly how it goes—something like, ‘What’s the point of gaining the world if you lose your soul?’ Or, ‘What’s the point of success if it means you have to spend your whole life unhappy?’ ”

Emily blew a sheen of dust off another trophy. It read:
CALIFORNIA MATH OLYMPIAD, WINNER, PRE-CALC DIVISION, 9TH-GRADE DIVISION
. The dust filled her nostrils, and she coughed a few times before backing away from the trophy shelf.

“I get what you’re saying,” she answered, thinking over
his words carefully. “But I’m not sure it makes sense. Like, success and fun don’t have to be opposites, right? And what’s the
fun
in doing nothing but having fun? Wait, that doesn’t quite sound right. I guess what I mean is, wouldn’t you get bored after a while?”

“Constantly,” said Ben, taking a step toward her. “Except for right now. For the first time in a while, I’m not bored at all.”

He took another step. He was only inches from her, close enough that if he leaned forward a few more inches they’d touch.

“Emily, I—”

“Be-en! Be-en!” a voice called from down the hall. Ben’s eyes went wide, and he tiptoed to the door, closing it as quietly as possible.

“Be-en!”

Emily recognized that voice. Dominique. Ben locked his door and put a finger to his lips. Footsteps approached, and a second later a loud knocking reverberated through the room.

“Ben!” shouted Dominique, slurring slightly. “I know you’re in there! Let me in so we can pla-ay!”

Ben cringed as a second round of knocking began.

“She’s kind of relentless, isn’t she?” he whispered. “I’m not quite sure what Spencer sees in her. If he doesn’t hook up with that girl soon and get her out of my hair, I’m going to have to stop inviting her to parties.”

“Most guys would be flattered to have Dominique chasing after them,” Emily whispered.

“I’m not most guys.”

A small burst of joy filled Emily’s chest. He really
didn’t
like Dominique! In fact, it seemed like Ben wanted nothing to do with her. It wasn’t as good as finding out definitively that he liked Emily, but it did give her a certain guilty happiness. What was that SAT word she’d learned for taking delight in an enemy’s unhappiness?
Schadenfreude?
She’d have to look that up when she got home.

Ben walked over to a sliding glass door with a small balcony on the other side. He opened the door and stepped out. She walked up next to him and looked down, where, fifteen feet below, the swimming pool shimmered in the moonlight. At the far end, a crowd of the Never Have I Ever players, including Spencer and Samantha, had stripped down to their underwear and were splashing each other and laughing.

“Be-en! Don’t you want to at least see my dress?” shouted Dominique from behind them.

The night air blew cold against Emily’s legs.

“Only one way out,” said Ben as he started taking off his socks. “Know any sweet dives?”

Emily shook her head as Ben removed his shirt to reveal a thin yet muscular body.

“I’m a swimmer,” Emily said. “Not a diver.”

“Ben!” shouted Spencer from below. “Do a cannonball!” The rest of the crowd cheered and shouted Ben’s name.

Emily tried to look away as he stripped down to his boxers. She ended up watching the far wall, where his projection pulled off its pajama bottoms and swung them playfully over its head several times while the crowd cheered.

“Right. Maybe just a standard flip for me,” said Ben as he climbed over the edge of the balcony.

The crowd began to chant.

“Jump! Jump! Jump!”

Emily started to say, “This doesn’t seem very sa—” But before she could finish her sentence, Ben was gone, flying through the air. He did a graceless flip and a half before landing in a near belly flop down below. The crowd exploded in applause.

A few seconds later, Ben surfaced and looked up at Emily.

“It’s really nice in here!” he shouted. “You should come down!” He looked back at his friends and started to chant, “Em-i-ly! Em-i-ly!”

The others joined in. “Em-i-ly! Em-i-ly!”

“I don’t have a suit!” she shouted at them, but the crowd only chanted louder.

“It’s like that old song!” shouted Ben. “Come as you are!”

Emily looked down at her dress. She imagined the pool water soaking through the fabric and how much it would weigh as she tried to surface, how stupid she’d look with it fluttering around her on the way down, like a girlie pink-and-white parachute.

“Em-i-ly! Em-i-ly!”

She imagined what Ben would think of her if she didn’t jump. Then she pictured opening the door to face a belligerent Dominique, and a shiver ran through her. She took off her shoes and swung her legs over the balcony. Ben looked up at her and smiled.

“I don’t have any spare clothes!” she shouted at him.

“You can borrow some of mine!”

“We won’t be able to get back into your room!” she warned.

“I’ll pick the lock! Come on!”

She jumped.

For a moment, time froze as she hung in the night air, the pink ruffles of her skirt floating up past her waist, up to her shoulders. The crowd cheered and called her name as every pair of eyes followed her trajectory. And then, suddenly, the water parted beneath her feet and enveloped her.

She opened her eyes beneath the water’s surface to see the soft pink of her dress, now darker with the wet, floating around her like candy-colored seaweed, and she wondered if there’d ever been a time in history when girls had to swim in long, flowing ball gowns. That definitely couldn’t have been good for their race times.

As she began to push to the surface, she saw Ben swimming toward her, a big smile on his face. As he got closer, he put a hand on her shoulder and pulled his body close to hers. He closed his eyes and moved his lips close to Emily’s.

Wait a second
, she thought.
Is he trying to… to kiss me?

A dozen pairs of legs kicked beneath the pool’s surface a few feet away, and the sound of music and laughter filtered softly through the water. She wondered if anyone at the edge of the pool was looking down and watching them. This definitely wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she’d imagined her first kiss.

Suddenly, Emily’s head felt light, and she realized she hadn’t taken a breath since she was up on Ben’s balcony. She needed some air. Now. Two competing impulses took hold: Press her lips against Ben’s or swim to the surface and breathe. A first kiss or oxygen? She wasn’t sure which one she wanted more.

A moment passed, and Ben stayed in place, looking into her eyes and smiling. But he didn’t move forward to kiss her, and after a few seconds, Emily’s need to breathe grew so overwhelming that she had to swim to the surface.

A second later, Emily gulped air and treaded water as her dress floated up around her. She felt her now-exposed legs kicking through the water and tried to remember if she’d worn her stupid underwear with the pattern of kittens playing with balls of yarn.

She hoped that down below Ben was keeping his eyes closed and that he’d surface soon. After a few moments, he swam up beside her and inhaled deeply.

“Hey,” he said. “What, uh, happened just then?”

“I needed a breath.” She started swimming backward to the edge of the pool. “You didn’t, uh,
look
while you were down there, did you?”

“I wouldn’t dare,
kitten
,” he said. “You wait here. I’ll get you a towel and a change of clothes.”

He pulled himself out of the pool and ran inside, his wet boxers clinging to his thighs as the nearby crowd whooped at him.

As Emily reached the pool’s edge and struggled to heft
herself out, waterlogged dress and all, she looked up to see an angry stiletto-heeled figure staring down at her.