The Revenge Playbook (9 page)

He opens his mouth and closes it. Opens it again. “I'm sorry,” he says.

I remember when I was little and pretty much anything could be fixed by those two magic words. It's too bad we're not little anymore. “I'm sorry too.”

“So, this is it for us then?”

“Yes.” I didn't realize one little word could hurt so much. “Maybe you could call me when you graduate, though.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

He walks out of the laundry room utterly defeated. I put my head in my hands and cry. I made the right decision, didn't I? I don't deserve to be called a slut. Or to be someone's secret, on-the-side girl. So, why do I feel so horrible right now?

“Hey,” says a deep voice.

I jump. I didn't realize I wasn't alone. It's that guy Rey from earlier.

“Oh, um, hi.” Crying in front of a total stranger. Exactly how I want to spend my Friday night. Rey must have noticed too because he winds his big fingers together in supreme discomfort.

“He's really torn up about having to break up with you,” he finally says.

“Yeah? Well then, maybe he shouldn't have done it,” I snap. And then I feel guilty because this guy doesn't seem like the ones that were talking about me. “Sorry.”

He shrugs. “It's okay. From what your friend was saying, it sounds like you're pretty torn up too.”

Remind me to have a chat with Peyton about sharing my feelings with football players.

“You need to know, he didn't want to do it,” Rey says. “He felt like he didn't have a choice.”

I frown. “But he did have a choice. He could have picked me. He could have told them no.”

“If you saw the email, it might not seem like such an easy decision to you either.”

“What email?”
There's an email? Hopefully, one that will explain why my life sucks so much right now.

“I shouldn't be talking about this.” He pauses, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Let's just say you weren't the only girl this happened to. There may have been . . . a list.”

“Are you
kidding
me?” A spark of anger sizzles through me, effectively cauterizing my tears.

His face is kind, but serious too. “I shouldn't have said anything, but Trevor's my friend. You can't tell anyone.”

“You have to forward it to me.”

“I can't do that.”

“Do the other girls even know the football team made their boyfriends dump them, or do they think their broken hearts are just a coincidence?”

“I don't know,” he says in a way that makes me think the other girls have no idea.

“This is ridiculous.”

I jump off the dryer. Worry flashes in his warm brown eyes.

“Where are you going?”

I put a hand on his shoulder, stretching to reach it because he towers over me. “Don't worry. I'm not going to tell anyone you told me.”

But that doesn't mean I'm not going to tell anyone.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“A
re you serious right now?!” I don't mean to yell, but that's kind of how it comes out. I am so angry I'm pretty sure there is steam coming out of my ears. “I can't believe those jerks have a list! Am I on it?” I don't give Liv a chance to answer. “Of course I'm on it. I just got dumped. I can't believe they put
me
on a list.”

“I don't actually know who's on it,” says Liv. “I didn't get to see it.”

“Well, I know how to find out. Where's Weston?” I think I saw him watching a fight in the front yard.

Liv catches me by the wrist. “We aren't supposed to know. You can't say anything to him.”

“I can't know something like this and not do something about it!” It comes out louder than I mean it to again, and this time people hear. And not just any people. Cheerleader people. Crap.

A few of the girls flit over, all raised eyebrows and sideways glances at each other. Aubrey leads the charge, putting a hand on my arm and cocking her blonde head to the side in concern.

“Are you okay, sweetie? Is it about Weston?”

“He totally sucks,” says Chloe.

Beth nods fervently. “The whole squad hates him for what he did to you.”

“I'm fine, y'all, really. I am so over him,” I say with a winning smile.

Liv stands at my side, but they aren't really acknowledging that she's there. High school caste system in action. Chloe and Beth are giving me sad, hopeful looks. Sad because that's what they're pretending to be. Hopeful because they're failing. They are actually prissy debutante hags who would like nothing more than to see me go “crazy train” over Weston in public.

“Do you want to go somewhere and talk about it?” asks Beth.

I think I've had about all the heart-to-hearts I can take for the night.

“Nah. I'm off to find my next victim.”

“Text me if you need anything,” says Aubrey, who is actually pretty great to talk to even if she can't keep a secret to save her life.

“I will. Wish me luck.” I grin at them before I walk away.

I kind of said that stuff to get away from them, but boy-finding really was part of my plan for tonight. Plus, Weston totally deserves it since he broke up with me over a freaking list.

The kitchen is the heart of any party, so that's where I head first. There are not one but two kegs—the guys have really gone all out this time, and the winding beer line is where I begin my search for my next boyfriend. I have to work fast. Whoever moves on first wins.

Being on a guy search makes me feel like I'm some kind of robot girl. I can practically see the info on each boy pop up in my view screen as I assess the candidates. There's a guy from my health class pumping the keg.

Terry Hanes. Blond hair. Track team. Kind of goofy. Expiration date: five months from now. Meh. I think he has horrible breath.

The guy standing next to him with an empty cup, I've known since second grade. When he used to sneak behind the cubbies and eat glue. He hasn't changed a whole lot since then. I'm kind of surprised he got an invite. And is that a faint white residue I detect on his lips? Hell. No.

In the dining room, Big Tom tortures some rookies with forties duct-taped around their wrists.

“This is the sorriest game of Edward Fortyhands I've ever seen. Mason, I had no idea you were such a little bitch.”

He pushes one guy, Mason, I guess, in the shoulder. The bottle slips out of Mason's mouth and beer spills down his shirt.

“I gotta pee,” whines Mason in a voice that makes me fear for Casey's mom's dining room
chairs.

“Well, then I guess you better drink faster.”

Some guy vomits in the corner, and Mason gets a reprieve.

“Vomiting is an immediate disqualification,” yells Big Tom.

I stifle my own gag reflex and move to the living room. Music blasts over the speakers, a few girls dancing while Purdeep Patel and Judd Baker play deejay.

Purdeep Patel. Gorgeous smile. Eyelashes I would kill for. In all the smart-people classes but still cool. Expiration date: ten to twelve months. Huh. I never realized Purdeep and I were so compatible. Bonus: he's completely unlike Weston, which would totally piss Weston off. Not-so-bonus: my parents, well, my mother at least, would hate the idea of me dating him because I don't know a lot about the Hindu religion, but I'm pretty sure it does not include Jesus.

Judd Baker, on the other hand . . . reasonably attractive, but smokes way too much pot and has no discernible life goals. Expiration date: two months. Tops.

I'm thinking about going over to flirt with Purdeep when this other guy, Michael, joins them. There he goes in his Boston College shirt, slapping Purdeep and Jake a high five and looking deceptively safe. I've been actively avoiding Michael ever since I met him in physical science last year and thought I might be in love with him.

We were working on this lab together, and I felt the prickly feeling I get when I catch someone noticing my finger. I made sure to keep it tucked in even farther as I wrote.

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?” I shook my hair over my shoulder as if to say,
I am certain I don't know what you're talking about.

“Hide it.” He stopped my hand and unbent my knuckle so my pinkie was showing, all the way out to its nail-less tip. “You're beautiful. People aren't going to stop seeing that if you let them see all of you.”

And then he
touched my finger
. And when he did it, when he ran his thumb over those thousands of nerve endings, I could have sworn he was touching my soul. Unlike some people, I find the sensation of having someone plunge their hand into my chest and grab my still-beating heart to be extremely unpleasant. Feelings that strong are scary. Feelings that strong for someone you just met are even scarier. There's a word for them in Japanese—
koi no yokan
—the sense you get when you've just met someone but feel certain you're going to fall in love with them.
Koi no yokan
is part of why I started dating Weston in the first place. I needed an emergency exit.

I realize I need to stop with the staring before he notices, but it's too late. When he tilts his head up and our eyes meet from across the room, I get the same feeling I got last year.

He's dangerous.

He gives me a smile and my insides feel all toasty, like I've just gulped down a mug of hot chocolate. I retreat to the kitchen. I eat some chips and salsa, which normally I wouldn't do because eating at a party shortly after a breakup makes you look mopey and desperate, but I estimate I need
to stay here at least another few minutes before it's safe to walk back through the living room. Before my heart rate returns to normal.

“Hi.”

“Holy jeez!” I almost flip the entire contents of the salsa bowl onto my dress because I was so not expecting for someone to—to—

Michael stands in front of me, his eyebrows raised at my obvious weirdness. Perfectly groomed eyebrows, I might add. Guys actually taking the time to do personal upkeep is kind of a turn-on of mine, and most guys in this town just . . . don't. Memo to high school boys everywhere: Axe body spray cannot be used in place of actual hygiene.

“I'm Michael. I think we had class together last semester,” he says. He's so much taller up close. Mmmm. Tall guys are my Kryptonite.

“I'm—I'm Melanie Jane.” Seriously? Stuttering? Pageant queens do not stutter. I am nothing if not well spoken—with all my training it's like I can't even help it. I take a breath. Maybe this is a good thing, him finding me. Maybe I was wrong before, and I can find out all kinds of annoying things about him, and he'll turn out to have an expiration date measured in weeks. Maybe.

“Why'd you run away back there?”

“I didn't.” I flip my hair over my shoulder in an attempt to center myself and get some of my swagger back. “I just really wanted some chips.”

“Oh. Well, in that case.” His hand brushes against my forearm in the very best way as he snakes around me to snag a chip. He dips it in salsa and pops it into his mouth with a James Bond grin. “I'll have chips with you.”

“Accidentally” brushing my arm. Trying to be all suave. Things like that don't work on me. Maybe he's just nervous or maybe he really
is
that cheesy and my guy-finder needs recalibrating. Whew. Now that I know he's not a threat, I can relax. I hop on a bar stool, and he takes the one next to me, and we just talk. Not about anything vitally important. He asks me questions about my friends and my family. And he listens, really listens, and it's not the I-want-to-get-into-your-pants kind of listening I'm so used to with guys. I find out he's from Boston, and he misses his friends like crazy. His stories about his family's attempts to acclimate to Tennessee have me laughing so hard I almost spit chip pieces everywhere. I wipe my mouth, embarrassed, and reach for another chip. He reaches for one too, both of us still laughing. Until it happens.

Until our fingers touch in the half-empty bowl, and a jolt ricochets down my arm, and suddenly we're staring at each other all serious. And it's not like salty fingers + one lingering glance = me seeing visions of us getting married and having perfectly eyebrowed children, but wow, holy wow. I was right to call him dangerous. If my
Terminator
vision popped up right now it would say something like:

Michael I-don't-even-know-his-last-name. Gorgeous. Charming. Deliciously tall. Makes me laugh in unladylike ways at parties. Expiration date: indefinite.

And I don't mean “indefinite” as in “Oh, I just haven't figured it out yet because I don't know him
well enough.” I mean “indefinite” as in he's the kind of guy who might not have an expiration date. Who I could fall for so completely that I might as well put my heart in a blender right now because it would hurt less. Who I could want with the kind of passion that makes you forget important things like the promises you make to yourself. I am terrified. Because the last time I let myself fall this hard, I learned that a lack of control sets you up for heartache and that maybe I shouldn't trust my heart anyway if it picks guys like Chad MacAllistair. Now I know the only safe boys are the ones who fit neatly into expiration date–stamped packages. I know exactly what to do in this situation.

I run.

I make an excuse first about how I desperately need to use the powder room and the downstairs one always has a crazy-long wait, but running is what I am doing. I need to purge Michael and his taller-than-six-foot self from my brain. Stat.

And I know I hardly know the guy, and really I'm not dumb enough to believe in love at first sight, but you hear people like my dad say he knew he was going to marry my mom from that first day when he saw her carrying an entire crate of books up the stairs of their freshman dorm by herself and in heels. He nearly took out two other guys and an RA so he could be the one to open the door for her. And I guess what I think is, sometimes when you meet someone Big, you know. You can't love them. You just met them. But you have this irrepressible feeling that they could change your life forever. It's kind of like how I felt when I met Ana. We were drawn together at that first practice because we were the only two brunettes on the seventh-grade cheerleading squad, but it was about so much more than hair color. I met her, and I knew I wanted her to be my best friend.