I guess she
is
one of Janae’s crowd.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.” She tips her head to the side and gives me a cocky, annoyed look.
I don’t give her an answer, and she doesn’t give me one. She goes to sit next to Janae—
right next to her
—and I retreat to a stool in the kitchen.
I feel like the room is filled with electricity, popping and sizzling. People are whispering again. It’s hard to keep pretending I don’t notice, hard to keep staring into my fizzy drink as if it holds the secret to life or at least the SAT answers. That familiar discomfort starts to rise again.
Someone crosses the tile floors—which at this point feels like she’s just crossed the border between two cities: Perfection Town and Loserville.
The girl, Kelsey, I think is her name, picks up a plate and scoops some tortilla chips out of the bowl in the middle of the island.
“People say you got implants, you know.”
I blink a few times. She’s not looking at me, but it’s not like she’s talking to anyone else. I nibble on my lip and resist the urge to look down at my chest. “I didn’t.”
“I know, that’s what I said.”
I look up at her, surprised.
“I mean, it’s pretty stupid to even think that, you know?” she says.
I nod. “Definitely.”
I didn’t expect this girl, someone I barely know, to be an ally.
“I mean, duh. You would have had to miss school for a few days, at least, to recover. I’ve wanted to do the supplement thing for a while, but I don’t know which ones work. What’d you use?”
Oh.
Definitely not where I thought she was going. “Steroids.”
She straightens. I think she’s actually contemplating the merits of my answer. “Really?”
I nod, my eyes wide and genuine. “Oh yeah. I mean, the mustache is a total hassle, and I accidentally ripped the refrigerator door right off its handles, but man, aren’t these suckers worth it?”
I use both hands to emphasize my rack, and the girl gets a horrified look on her face and backs away, slowly, like I’m about to launch an attack. She keeps one wary eye on me as she retreats into the living room.
I watch as she whispers into the ear of the girl next to her and nods in my general direction.
I shift on the stool as I watch Ann laugh, and Bill or Will or Phil slings an arm around her. I don’t know where they come from, but gumballs start dropping, hitting the floor with loud cracking noises. There must be a dozen, rolling in different directions.
The doorbell rings and Janae gets up. “You better pick those up,” she says, flouncing out of the room. She stops for a second and backs up and stares at me, her eyes narrowed. The wheels, they are a-turning. I can tell she’s starting to realize I don’t belong here. She blinks a few times and then shakes her head and continues toward the entry.
I get off the stool and chase down the gumballs, and I hear a few girls snicker when I lean over to fish one out from under a houseplant. Somewhere in the last twenty minutes, things have shifted, and I’m getting progressively more uncomfortable.
The sound of Janae’s boots clicking along the tile makes me look up. She’s standing in front of me, her arms crossed, staring down with a look of spite.
Oh, crap. She’s figured out that I’m not one of them.
“Some dude is at the door, saying he’s with you. You know this party isn’t some open-invite thing, right?”
“Uh, who?”
She shrugs. “Some freak with really bad hair.”
I close my eyes and take a deep, steadying breath.
Ken.
“I don’t know what made you think you belonged here, but you don’t. So the sooner you and your bizzarro boyfriend get out of my sight, the better.”
Okay, well, my almost-bonding moment with Janae is officially over, and it’s time to bail.
I stand up, wishing I was Janae’s perfect five-ten height, and look her square in the eyes. “Don’t get that designer floss you call underwear in a bunch,” I say.
“Just go,” she says.
“Baaaaah,”
I say, staring her dead in the eyes. Bleating is my fall-back, the old standby if I can’t come up with something better.
That same confused look crosses her face.
I turn to the living room. “Ann, we’re leaving.”
She turns around. “No.”
I blink a few times. “Um, yeah. We
are
.”
“Then go. I’m staying.” She turns back to the screen in time to smash a ball back across the net.
“Sweetie?” Ken’s voice carries down the hall.
And that’s when I hear it.
The clattering of hooves on expensive Italian marble. The shrill, happy little whinny. The gumballs, once again, tumbling out of my pocket.
The sound of the last bit of my reputation shattering.
The pony trots into the kitchen. For about a second and a half I harbor the fantasy that the pony won’t notice me, but I’d never be that lucky. It lets out a another whinny and runs right up to me, shoving its nose into me so hard I fall backward and knock into the granite countertop. My elbow hits the two-liter bottle of root beer I’d been pouring earlier, and it flies off the counter, rolling toward the sink.
I swallow, watching my life go up in flames as the soda spills out onto a beautiful, pristine white rug, one that probably came from Europe and cost as much as an exotic island.
“If someone doesn’t get that
thing
out of the house in the next half a second, heads are gonna roll!” Janae screams, and even though she says it like she wants
anyone
to take care of it, she’s staring straight at me.
“Ann,
we are leaving
,” I say, with absolute conviction.
The scene with the pony and Janae’s screaming seems to have changed Ann’s mind, and she flings the controller at her partner and scurries after me. I push the pony toward her, and it merrily runs after her, as if it didn’t just single-handedly etch my name in stone on the D-list.
The last thing I see as I glance back to the living room is Nicole, staring in shock, surrounded by the mocking faces of the rest of the A-list.
30
ANN AND I
ditch Ken and walk the pony home. As she heads into the backyard to put the pony away, I don’t say a word to her. I go straight to the garage and open the big door and roll the bike out.
She comes back out front as I’m pushing it across the driveway. “Where are you going?”
I regard her for a moment with narrowed eyes and then turn away. If I speak, even one word, I’m going to blow up.
I push the bike into the backyard, near the retaining wall, and then jog inside and swipe my brother’s truck keys off the counter.
Ten minutes later, I’m pulling into the field near the motocross track. It’s almost nine and the night sky is filled with clouds, which means it’s pitch black out, but the whole place is lit up with the yellow glow of a dozen big stadium lights.
There’s someone on the track. I let my foot off the gas and the truck rolls to a stop.
Ben.
My breath hitches in my throat and I just sit there, watching him fly into the air, again and again. Watch him pop a wheelie that lasts a hundred feet.
Watch him nail a perfect backflip.
My jaw drops and I just stare.
How long has he been doing backflips?
I sigh. I thought maybe I could sneak over here and ride a little, but I can’t, not in front of Ben. I’ll make a fool of myself.
I’m about to shift into reverse when Ben stops his bike and turns to look toward me.
Oh, dang. My headlights are on, but at this angle, he can definitely recognize the truck.
I close my eyes and rest my forehead on the steering wheel. I contemplate leaving anyway, pretending I never saw him, hoping he’ll pretend he never saw me.
But I don’t want to. And I already got my wish today, so I know he won’t kiss me. At least not tonight. And maybe he deserves an apology for the weird way I’ve been acting.
I know I can’t explain why I’m acting so strange, but I
can
apologize. And then I’ll go home, crawl into bed, and never leave the house again.
I shift back into drive and bump along across the rutted grass, ultimately killing the engine when I pull up next to his truck. Ben leans his bike up against the fence, then pulls his goggles off and slides his helmet over his head. He slips his gloves off and sets them on the seat and then runs his fingers through his spiky blond hair.
My heart seems to be pounding in every direction, thump-thump-thumping against my rib cage. I wonder if he can hear it.
Ben climbs over the railing and jumps to the ground, the buckles on his boots rattling. I slide out of the truck and try to smooth the wrinkles from my V-necked sweater.
I forgot to change.
Dang.
Ben walks up to me, and I notice the subtle way his eyes dip lower, just for a heartbeat, before he meets my eyes. He was totally checking me out. I try not to grin or blush or give away that I noticed.
“You look g—” His eyes shift over to the bed of the truck, and a look of surprise settles over his features. “You have a bike.”
I try not to be disappointed that he didn’t finish his sentence. The next word started with a g. I look . . . good? Great? Goofy? Gargantuously horrid?
I nod. “Yeah, for my birthday,” I say. It’s sort of the truth. “Wow. That’s awesome.”
I nod.
“Are you going to ride?”
“Oh, um, no. I don’t know how to ride, actually.”
I really should have thought out this apology thing a little better. Obviously Ben was going to notice the motorcycle.
“So you came to the track with a bike and you were just planning on hanging out? And what? Bonding with it?”
I snort and feel myself relax at the playful tone in Ben’s voice. “Um, well, no, but then I saw you and I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll grab my ramp, and I can teach you a few things.”
And then before I can protest, he’s untying the ropes I used to secure the bike and unloading it.
It looks a little small next to him. His is definitely bigger.
I follow him over to the gate, my nerves multiplying and intensifying. There is no way I can do this without making a complete tool of myself.
“Do you have a helmet?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. I guess I can’t ride. I’ll just forget it and go home,” I say, grabbing the handlebars from him.
“You can wear mine.”
“Oh.”
He walks over to his bike and grabs his gear as I stand there, holding the bike, wondering if it’s totally crazy to actually give it a shot.
Maybe just a teeny bit. Two minutes. A hundred feet. The bike’s gonna disappear in a few days, so I may never have another chance. And I really have wanted to try riding a dirt bike. Every time I watched Ben, I imagined myself as him, soaring into the air.
What’s the harm?
“Hop on and sit down,” he says, “and then you can put the helmet on.”
He’s standing so close to me, taking the handlebars out of my grasp. He seems extra tall right now. I face the bike and swallow, slowly, resisting the urge to just lean back into him. I feel weird and shaky, being so close. I tell myself I’m nervous about riding the bike.
I swing a leg over and sit down on the bike, one black-Converse-clad foot firmly planted in the dirt on each side. Ben hands me his helmet, and I pull the goggles and gloves out of it. I start to slip my fingers into the gloves, but Ben places his hand over mine.
My heart flops all over.
“It’s hard to buckle the helmet if you have gloves on. Save them for last.”
All I can feel is his palm over my knuckles, warm, soft, perfect. I nod and slip my fingers out of the glove as he lets go of my hand.
I sweep my hair back over my shoulders and tuck a few strands behind my ear, then slide the helmet over my head.
I’m wearing Ben Mackenzie’s helmet. I can’t get over it. It’s a little too big for me, but I want to keep it on forever anyway.
I fumble around with the strap, but I can’t figure out how it works.
“Here, let me help you,” he says, leaning closer to me.
His fingers brush against my chin as he slips the nylon strap through a couple of silver loops. Each time his skin touches mine, my nerves jump and twist. How many times has he touched me today?
For the first time, I’ve lost count.
My stomach has a whole line of cancan dancers in it.
Once the strap is secured, he leans further over so that he can look me in the eyes. The visor sticks out, so he’s at least a foot away, but he seems so close. He puts a hand on each side of the helmet and tips it back a little bit to get a better look at my eyes. I can’t breathe.
He picks up the goggles and slips them over the helmet and tightens the elastic strap.
Then he steps back, and I fumble with the gloves. When they’re on my hands, I nod, as if I’m ready to just go for it.
“Do you know how to start it?”
I look up. “Uh, turn the key?”
I feel muffled inside this helmet, miles away from reality.
Ben laughs. “Sure, but then you have to kick-start it.”
“Oh. That sounds hard.”
I turn the key, but of course nothing happens, because Ben knows what he’s talking about. Ben pulls out the metal bar that I hadn’t even noticed, and I try four times to kick-start it, but the fourth time my foot slips off and the big metal kicker thing slaps my shin. It stings.
“Here, let me get it going for you.”
I hop off the bike, and Ben brushes against me as he climbs on it. Is that the tenth time he’s touched me? The fifteenth?
The bike looks so small when he’s sitting on it. It fires up on the second try, and then he holds the clutch in for me and gets off the bike. I sit down and grip the handles with an über–death grip.