Authors: Kels Barnholdt
“Um,” I say a little uncertainly, “because I’m not.”
“So you weren’t with him after school today?”
“No,” I say. “Well yeah, I mean…I was. But we were studying.”
“I didn’t even know you knew him.”
“Well, I don’t really. I ran into him this morning at Starbucks and he offered to help Karli and me study for Spanish. We have this huge test and he spent the summer in Spain so…”
He laughs out loud. “Is that what he said?”
“Why are you making a big deal out of this?”
Austin sighs and runs his hands through his hair. “Ash,” he says slowly, “Mark isn’t a good guy at all. And he’s definitely not the kind of guy you want your girlfriend hanging out with.”
Suddenly, I’m really annoyed. So when I wanted to talk to him this morning about the Carmen situation I was overreacting, but it’s okay for him to be mad at me about the Mark situation? That makes absolutely no sense.
“So let me get this straight,” I say, trying not to sound angry, “it’s okay for you to be jealous about me studying with Mark, but if I mention Carmen’s name at all I’m getting mad over nothing, right?”
Austin rolls his eyes and sighs. “The situations are completely different.”
“No, Austin, I don’t think they are. I don’t think they are at all.”
“Yes,” he says, “they are. You don’t even know Carmen. I know Mark. And I’m not jealous. If you need help studying, then fine, but find someone else. Mark isn’t a good person, Ash. And maybe if you had told me he was helping you instead of hiding it from me I would have been able to tell you that.”
“When did you want me to tell you, Austin? When we were fighting about Carmen in gym? Or when you were ignoring my text messages after that?”
“First of all,” he says, “it was one text message.”
“Whatever,” I say cutting him off. “Why don’t you want me hanging out with your friends? Am I not good enough to be seen with Mark or something?”
He doesn’t say anything for a second. “I think I’ve proven myself pretty well when it comes to people who don’t think we should be together Ashley. It’s Mark. He’s a bad guy. How many times do I have to say it?”
I shrug. “He seems perfectly nice to me. And besides, aren’t you friends with him? You go over to his house and stuff.”
“That’s basketball stuff. It’s not really a friendship.”
“Or maybe,” I say, “you’re afraid he’ll tell me things that you don’t want me to find out about you.” The words are out of my mouth before I even realize it. And as soon as I see the look on Austin’s face, I immediately wish I hadn’t said them.
“What the hell does that even mean?”
I’ve never seen him this way before and I hate it. In the two months we’ve been dating we have never once gotten into a fight. Not even a little one.
“Nothing,” I mumble.
“No, tell me,” he says sarcastically. “Please enlighten me.”
“It just means I heard you have a history of being unfaithful.”
His face turns red as he sticks his hands in his pocket and pulls out his keys. He unlocks his car door and swings it open. For a second I think he’s just going to leave without saying anything else, but then he turns around to look at me.
“This is what I mean about him. He’s very manipulative. But it’s good to know you’re so quick to believe bad things about me.”
Then he slams his door shut and pulls away, leaving me standing in my driveway alone.
Chapter Five
Austin doesn’t call me or text me at all that night.
I get like zero studying done, because I keep replaying our fight over and over in my mind. By the next morning, I’m a total mess, wondering what’s going to happen when I see him at school that day.
Even though we don’t have gym today, we do have study hall. Austin and I usually sit together in the caf and work on our homework together, or just talk and goof around. Usually we sit with a bunch of people, his friends from the team or various other people who come and go.
I get to study hall first. And when Austin comes in, he doesn’t come sit with me.
Instead, he goes and sits with a few kids I don’t even recognize. I spend the entire period sitting there alone, trying to study. And doing everything I can to not look at him.
The worst part is that Austin seems to be completely and totally fine. I can’t help but sneak a peek at him and see him talking and laughing with his guy friends like there’s absolutely nothing wrong.
I swear, boys go to some kind of class or something to learn how to act like they don’t care about anyone but themselves. I mean, I definitely care about what happened.
How could I not? It was our first fight ever.
But it doesn’t seem like Austin cares, because I don’t hear from him for the rest of the day, or again that night. No call, no text, no anything.
“What’s wrong?” Karli asks me the next morning on our way to school.
We take turns carpooling. Sometimes I pick her and Alexa up, and sometimes they pick me up.
I sigh and dig through my book bag for my Spanish book. I need to get all the studying in that I possibly can. “I’m in so much trouble with our test,” I tell her. “It’s like no matter how much I look at the information I can’t remember it.”
“Do you think it’s that you just don’t understand it?” Karli asks. “Or do you think it’s everything going on with Austin?”
My heart hurts at the mention of his name.
“You still haven’t heard from him?” Alexa asks me.
I shake my head. “Nope.”
Karli turns around from the front seat to look at me. “That is honestly fucked up.
It’s been, like, over a day. If I were you I’d go right up to him in school and call him out on it.”
“I wanted to say something to him yesterday in study hall but he was with all his friends. I didn’t want to cause a scene or anything.”
Karli rolls her eyes. “Why the hell not? I love causing scenes. It’s the best way to get your point across.”
“No,” Alexa says as she turns into the Starbucks parking lot, “that’s exactly why you’re always in trouble. And exactly why you don’t have any real friends.”
“Hey!” Karli exclaims, shooting her sister a dirty look. “I have real friends.”
Alexa pulls into a spot toward the back of the lot and quickly swings her door open. “Well yeah, you have a few, but you also have a lot of fake friends.”
Karli scowls as we all get out of the car. “What does that even mean?”
“It means,” Alexa says smoothing out her white sweater dress as we walk, “that some people are only nice to you because they’re scared of you. And it’s better to be on your good side than on your bad side.”
Karli shrugs. “Oh, well. There are worse things than having people being scared of you.”
Alexa shakes her head. “Yeah, but somehow you always manage to drag me into trouble with you.”
Karli swings her arm around Alexa’s neck and pulls her close to her. “That’s what sisters are for!”
“Don’t!” Alexa says, pulling away from her. “You’ll mess up my hair.”
Karli laughs and turns to me. “I know, we wouldn’t want Jake to see you looking a mess, would we?”
“Why?” Alexa gasps, looking around the parking lot frantically. “Do you see him somewhere?”
Karli and I burst out laughing as Alexa practically spins around looking for Jake.
She catches us laughing and gives us a dirty look, then takes off running ahead of us.
“Wait!” I call out, still laughing. “We were just kidding.”
Karli and I walk slowly across the rest of the parking lot.
“So,” Karli says, “how much trouble are you going to be in if you fail this test today?”
“I’ll be grounded for sure,” I sigh. “I could probably get it, but I just need more time to prepare. I guess I suck at the whole studying part.”
Karli doesn’t say anything, which makes me think something’s wrong. In the two and a half years I’ve known her, Karli has never been silent for long periods of time.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.
“Nothing,” she says, swinging open the door to Starbucks so we can enter, “just thinking.”
“Oh, God, no. Not one of your plans, Karli.”
But Karli just laughs and runs to catch up with her sister.
***
“Well,” Alexa says, reapplying her eye liner, “it’s clear that you’re going to have to make the first move. I mean, he’s a boy and boys are stubborn.”
We’re in the bathroom at school getting ready before the bell rings for homeroom.
Alexa is re-doing all of her make up even though it’s already flawless. She flips her hair back and forth in front of the mirror.
I look down at my jeans and sweater and feel very unstylish next to her.
“I know,” I say, pulling my hair up into a high ponytail. “I just don’t know what to say.”
“Just tell him you’re really upset about what’s been going on and you think you guys should talk about it. He’s still your boyfriend, Ashley, even if you guys aren’t talking at the moment.”
I sigh. “You’re right. I’ll do it in gym.”
“Good.” She zips up her purse and smiles at me. “Besides, I’m sure he’s just as upset about all of this as you are.”
“I hope you’re right,” I tell her as we start out of the bathroom and down the hall.
“I’m definitely right,” she tells me.
Then, just as we turn the corner towards our homeroom, I see Austin walking straight at us. And, he’s not alone. Carmen is right by his side, laughing at something he just said. He looks at me for half a second and then looks away and keeps walking right past me. I feel like someone just punched me in the stomach.
Alexa reaches her hand out to steady me a little bit. Before I can say anything, Melissa appears next to us.
“I’m really sorry to hear about you guys breaking up,” she says in a sarcastic tone.
“Oh, wait. No, I’m not.”
Then she laughs and runs to catch up with them.
***
A few periods later Karli and I are sitting in Spanish waiting for our teacher to come in so we can take our test. “Do you think it’s possible that he broke up with me without telling me?” I ask her.
She frowns. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“I know. I mean, do you think him slamming his car door in my face was code for ‘we’re done?’”
She shrugs. “It just makes no sense.”
“I know,” I say. “I mean, all that Mark stuff was clearly just a cover up. The real issue here is definitely Carmen.”
Karli stops scribbling in her notebook and sets her pencil down on her desk.
“What Mark stuff?”
“Oh,” I say, “Alexa didn’t tell you that part of the story? That day Austin came over and we went at it, he was going off about Mark.”
“Oh, really?” Karli asks curiously. “What did he say about him?”
“He said that Mark’s a really bad guy and that he’s not the type of person I would want to be around. He said that he’s manipulative and all that. I really think it was just an act though, to not have to deal with the Carmen situation.”
“Probably not,” Karli says, frowning.
“Probably not what?”
“Doesn’t sound like an act to me. I mean, you should hear some of the stuff I’ve heard about what Mark has done to people.” She laughs after she says it like it’s funny and not the end of my world. “Plus,” she continues, “Mark and Austin have this whole secret competition thing going on. They’re both like neck and neck for MVP this year in basketball. And that’s a pretty big deal in their world.”
How come I didn’t know this?
“They are?” I ask quietly.
Karli nods and then picks up her pencil again and starts drawing in her notebook.
“Plus, there’s that whole rumor thing.”
“What whole rumor thing?” I ask her. I’m on the edge of my seat now, practically hanging on her every word.
“Oh, you remember. That scandal a few years back,” she says casually.
“No,” I say quickly, “I don’t. That’s why I’m asking!”
Karli stops and looks at me again. “Okay, jeez, calm down.”
I lean a little closer to her in my seat, waiting.
“Well, from what I hear,” she continues, “Austin hooked up with Mark’s girlfriend at some party or something. And according to Mark, Austin had a girlfriend at the time. They didn’t talk for a long time after that, but apparently they’re fine now.”
“Karli!” I say, clearly annoyed. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
Karli looks confused. “I don’t know. You didn’t ask.”
“And you didn’t think maybe it was a bad idea to bring Mark around me given their history?”
Karli shrugs. “It was like two years ago, Ashley. Plus, Mark may not have the best history, but if Austin
did
hook up with his girlfriend, then that’s not exactly Mark’s fault.”
I look down at my hands and try to stop myself from crying. So Austin was telling me the truth when he tried to warn me about Mark. And I had just blown him off.
But was Karli right about Austin hooking up with Mark’s girlfriend? That was super shady. The questions were endless.
This new information, combined with the fact that I was about to fail a Spanish test was enough to almost give me anxiety attack. Enough was enough. I needed to talk to Austin.
“What’s taking so long?” I ask, looking at the clock on the wall above the door.
“The bell rang like ten minutes ago.”
Karli picks her purse up off of the ground and looks through it quickly. She won’t look at me and I know her well enough to know she’s acting strange.
“Oh no,” I say, whispering. “Karli, what did you do?”
Karli keeps digging through her purse, pretending not to hear me.
“Karli,” I try again, this time a little louder.
She finally looks up and I can just tell by the look on her face that whatever plan she came up with this morning had to do with why our Spanish teacher, Mr. P, is late.
“You said you weren’t ready to take the test,” Karli says, as if whatever she did was my own fault.
“Lots of people aren’t ready to take tests!”
Karli considers this for a second. “Yeah, but you can’t miss Alexa’s party. She’ll freak out for sure.”
“Karli,” I say very slowly, “tell me what you did right now.”
Karli opens the pink sparkly folder on her desk and pulls out a big stack of papers.