Live Through This Page 3

  “Me too,” I say, but I’m too busy trying to figure out what’s happening to put any feeling into my words.

  Behind Piper, Ming is chewing her pinky nail and frowning at her lap.

  “What’d I miss?” I ask, trying to ignore the knot in my stomach. “Not the ice cream, I hope.”

  Piper shakes her head. “Not at all. But there’s something we need to talk about first.”

  She leads me to squish onto the couch between her and Ming, grabs the remote from the coffee table, and turns down the music.

  I glance around at Dia, Olivia, Rachel B., Liz, Becca, Megan, Felicia, Rachel S., and Hannah. No one is talking and their expressions give nothing away, but I have a feeling that I know what’s coming.

  “We all heard what Coach Laine said at practice about the Day of Repentance,” Piper says, using her squad-captain voice again. “Now, Coley. Alejandra. We all know you haven’t been getting along. Coach wants you to work it out because your rift is affecting everyone. That’s why I invited you both here tonight.”

  Just like I thought—a surprise intervention. This might end up being my least favorite Piper party ever.

  I put on a big smile. “We won the competition last week, and we’re going to keep winning. So I guess I don’t know what the problem is.”

  “The problem,” Felicia says, sitting up straighter in her chair, “is that I spend more time with this team than I do with anyone, and the nonstop tension is getting so old.”

  Hannah nods from her spot on the floor. “And it isn’t Alejandra’s fault. Maybe if some people were a little more supportive—”

  “Oh, please!” Ming interrupts. “It isn’t like Coley hasn’t been trying to make things better. She even stopped changing in the locker room so that Alejandra can have her space—”

  “More like so that she can keep avoiding Alejandra,” Liz says.

  As someone who has helped smooth over arguments between my teammates many times, I’m so not used to having all this hostility directed at me.

  Piper puts her hand up like a crossing guard. “Stop, please. Don’t make it worse. Let’s all go put together our sundaes so that Coley and Alejandra can talk alone.”

  Everyone gets up slowly to leave the room. Hannah and Liz glare at me as they head to the kitchen. Dia pats my shoulder, while Ming quietly says, “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “I know,” I tell her. Ming would never set me up. Not in the way that Piper obviously would. “Save me some marshmallow sauce, okay?”

  Then it’s just Alejandra and me.

  All I want to do is sprint from the room. There’s nowhere to go, though, and dealing with her is still preferable to sleeping in my own bed tonight. I sink farther into the couch cushions, bracing myself.

  “Just so you know,” Alejandra says, “they sprang it on me, too. Piper told me you weren’t coming.”

  “I figured.”

  She scoots forward in her chair. “But since we’re both here, we should try to talk. Don’t you think?”

  I study the throw pillow next to my elbow, and run my fingers through the beige fringe. “Why?”

  “Because we need to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s important.”

  “Why?”

  I know that I sound like my brother Jacob, but I don’t know how else to respond to her. With anyone else, I might be able to fake my way through this. Not with her, though. Never with her.

  “Because,” she says through her teeth. “Coach wants us to work this out and so does everyone else.”

  I remain silent. I don’t look up.

  Alejandra continues. “What is your problem? We did everything together from the beginning of sixth grade until two months ago. Now you’re acting like the past four years don’t matter, like it’s all just whatever to you.”

  It’s been longer than two months since she got together with the guy we both liked and started ditching me for him all the time—more like five months, actually—but I don’t bother correcting her. “Of course it matters,” I say.

  I mean it too. Being around her right now makes me too uncomfortable, too angry, too exhausted, too much of too many things to be “whatever.”

  She gets up from her chair and stares down at me, making it impossible for me to keep from looking at her. “Okay,” she says. “Then why are you being like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, an unbelievable bitch!” She practically spits her words at me. “You said you were fine with me going out with Derrick. Now it’s like you want to get revenge on me because he picked me instead of you. Neither of us has him now, so why don’t you get over your jealousy and stop holding this stupid grudge?”

  At that, I’m on my feet too, and Alejandra’s eyes widen. We’re at opposite sides of the coffee table, poised as if we’re getting ready to jump into the middle of a boxing ring. “Guess what, Alejandra! I don’t care about being with Derrick and I’m not dying of jealousy. So why don’t you get over your delusions already?”

  It’s been a long time since we’ve really looked each other in the eye. What I want most is to turn away from her angry gaze, but I somehow manage to hold strong, all while standing composed with my posture perfect.

  “I don’t understand you,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I swear, you have got to be the most self-centered person and the worst friend in the world.”

  “Whatever,” I say with a shrug.

  • • •

  I’m trying not to seem upset. I’m trying not to mope around. But after two hours, Alejandra’s words are still distracting me from the laid-back-Piper-party fun that I should be having.

  An Unbelievable Bitch.

  The Most Self-Centered Person.

  The Worst Friend in the World.

  I can’t believe she said those things to me. After all the times that I listened and tried to help with any and all of her issues. All the times that I dropped whatever I was doing just because she asked me to. All the times I kept my own problems to myself even though what I really wanted was for my best friend to notice just once that I don’t have it all together either. And now she’s saying this ridiculous stuff about Derrick. I mean, yeah, I liked him. Alejandra and I met him in eighth grade at the performing arts camp we go to every summer for the dance program. He’s into acting and it was always fun to gush together over his hotness and joke about all the things we’d do with him if we ever got the chance.

  But then this past July, she did get the chance. It stung that Derrick wanted her to be his girlfriend instead of me, but I got over it. What I can’t get over is that she broke up with him on their three-month anniversary and blamed it on me.

  A loud, male voice jolts me from my thoughts. “I knew it. I totally called this!”

  I glance up from my InStyle magazine and watch Noah strut into the front room carrying a bottle of clear alcohol. His parents went to bed, but if Piper sees that in his hand, she’s going to go crazy.

  Noah settles on the floor next to my sleeping bag. “I saw the stack of movies out earlier and said, ‘No way is Coley going to make it through a horror flick.’ And now everyone’s in there watching it and you’re here hiding like I knew you would be.”

  Not everyone’s in there. Alejandra stomped out after our argument, and Hannah and Liz took off with her. Our team—especially Piper’s squad—is even more divided than before.

  “I’m not hiding,” I say to Noah.

  “Right,” he says with a grin. “So, you’ve suddenly stopped crying and running away from scary movies, then?”

  “Ha-ha.”

  Noah has an annoying way of constantly bringing up embarrassing things that I wish he would forget already. The truth is, it doesn’t matter much what they’re watching; I’m avoiding Piper and her disappointment in me as much as I am the movie.

  “Listen,” Noah says. “You’re not the only one. I got so freaked out when my dad took me to one of those Saw movi
es that I pissed my pants. In the theater.”

  “Gross, Noah.”

  “The good news is that I can help you. Do you want to know how?”

  I do, but I don’t want to flat-out admit that he’s right in thinking that I still have nightmares even though I’m almost sixteen. “You want to tell me how you recovered from the disgustingness of peeing yourself in public?”

  “There’s no getting over that,” he says. “But getting over the patheticness of being afraid was easy. I just decided not to let it get to me anymore. I reminded myself that the actors were playing roles and that lots of people were working behind the scenes. You know, special effects and makeup and music and everything. Everyone involved in creating those movies was trying to scare me and I refused to give them the satisfaction.”

  I manage a small smile. “You sure showed them.”

  “Yeah, I did. And you can too!”

  He raises his arm and we high-five. I let my hand drop on top of my sleeping bag, and he takes it in his. It isn’t in any way romantic. It truly never has been, even though Noah and I have gone to all of the school dances together since we were twelve, and he seems totally fine with everyone at school thinking that we’re together.

  I’ve secretly been suspicious for a long time that there isn’t any girl in the world who will ever have a chance with him. I saw some pictures on his computer last year of guys kissing and stuff. Add to that the fact that Kimber snuck into his room and tried to make out with him two weeks ago, and he—according to Ming—walked out and slept in the garage, and it proves to me that I’m right.

  “By the way,” Noah says, letting my hand go and leaning against the couch. “Reece Kinsey’s still trying to make me hate you. He was talking about you in pre-calc. The. Whole. Fricken. Class period.”

  I feel myself blushing. I kind of wish that Reece wouldn’t talk about me. And yet . . . I kind of like that he does.

  Noah goes on. “Last week, I had to listen to him complain for days about his mom and dad being cock blockers about your ski trip. I told him to just kill the visiting grandparents and solve his problem for good. It didn’t go over well, though.”

  “No?”

  “No. It seems that his sense of humor is broken, at least in regards to the Amazing Coley Sterling. He worships you. I’m not even kidding.”

  And now I’m back to wishing Reece wouldn’t discuss me—at least not with Noah. “I don’t want to be worshipped.”

  “Then Reece isn’t the guy for you.”

  His words hit me harder than they should, but I try not to show it.

  Noah lifts the bottle. “Truth, dare, or drink?”

  “Oh, you know me,” I say, with a wave. “I’m not the daring type and I totally hate telling the truth.”

  He nods. “I hear you. Drink it is then.”

  I glance over my shoulder. “Piper will get mad at me, you know. More mad, I should say.”

  Noah doesn’t look surprised or ask me what happened, which makes me wonder if he already knows.

  He and Alejandra were never close, but they were both my friends, so they hung out sometimes. In the weeks after Alejandra and I stopped speaking, Noah tried to get information out of me, but I made it clear that I wasn’t going to talk about it. He stopped trying.

  “Do we really care that my sister’s a”—Noah makes an imaginary box in the air in front of him—“square?”

  Honestly, I care a lot, but right now I want Noah to stay with me more. I motion like I’m drawing a cartoon speech bubble out of my mouth and over my head. “Insert more weak protests here.”

  And then we drink.

  CHAPTER 5

  It’s almost midnight two nights later and Ming and I are perched in the dark on her bedroom windowsill, preparing to make our escape.

  “You first?” she asks.

  “No, you.” I move aside. “Show me how it’s done.”

  It isn’t an incredibly long way down—Ming’s room is on the ground floor—but there are tons of bushes below. She dangles her legs, pushes off from the side of the house, catches her foot on a crispy-looking hydrangea, and falls to her hands and knees on a pile of dead leaves.

  Holding in a laugh, I whisper down to her, “That was graceful. Are you okay?”

  “Fine, fine,” she says, hopping up and brushing her palms over the front of her jeans.

  I check that my backpack is securely on my shoulders and then make the same jump—except I manage to miss the vicious plants and land on my feet.

  Ming sticks out her tongue. “Show off.”

  She pushes her way back to the window, reaches up, and inches it across its track until it’s almost closed.

  I zip my coat to my chin. We’re both wearing lots of layers like Xander suggested, but I’m still feeling the chill. My breath steams in front of me as I dig my gloves out of my pockets and pull them on.

  “All right,” Ming says. “Let’s go!”

  We creep out of the yard, and then when we’re about a block away, we start skipping down the sidewalk like hyper kids at recess. It’s eerily quiet in her housing development, and I’m wound up; I finally get to see Reece for the first time since Christmas break started two days ago. All I want to do is jump around and dance, dance, dance.

  “Did Xander tell you where we’re going yet?” I ask.

  “All he’d say is that they’re picking us up at the park. My guess is that after that we’ll probably end up at some abandoned boxcar or secret cave somewhere. You know how my boyfriend is.”

  “Horny?” I’ve seen them all over each other enough times—totally against my will, obviously—to know that that’s the truth of it.

  Ming gives me a push. “I meant that he’s adventurous. Anyway, I’ll make sure that wherever we end up, you and you-know-who get some quality alone time.”

  “Well, okay!” I laugh like she’s beyond strange for bringing it up. I’m looking forward to exchanging Christmas presents with Reece, but the idea of “quality time” is kind of outside my comfort zone.

  We turn the corner and reach the park. The parking lot is empty, so we make our way across the grass. “I can’t stop wondering why you’re so weird about him,” Ming says in a way-too-concerned sounding voice as we approach the swings.

  “I’m not.”

  “You are.” She’s still being serious. “You won’t even admit to liking him. He’s going on vacation with your family. You’re together all the time. You got him a stuffed giraffe for Christmas. It doesn’t get any more obvious, but you still won’t confess to me!”

  I reach back and pat my bag containing Reece’s gift. The first time I ever really talked to him was earlier in the fall at the zoo after Ming and Xander disappeared on us. Reece and I then paid extra for the chance to hand-feed bamboo leaves to the giraffes, and immediately afterward, I tripped and took him down to the ground with me. It was embarrassing, but he was nice about the whole thing and we’ve been hanging out ever since.

  “It’s a stupid present to get for a boy, isn’t it?” I ask Ming.

  “No, it’s very cute.” She sits on a swing. “And if there was ever a boy who’s exactly the right amount of sappy to appreciate it, it’s Reece.”

  The frowny-faced way she’s looking at me makes my chest tighten. Alejandra was my best friend for so long that I was used to sharing most of my secrets with only her. The fact that we’re not close anymore is an understatement, but maybe I can have something like that with Ming.

  “All right,” I blurt out. “I like him.”

  That’s all it takes for Ming’s lips and cheeks to spring into a positively gleeful expression. “You like who?”

  I kick the wood chips at my feet. “Who do you think?”

  “Oh, no. You’re not getting off the hook, Coley. Say it!”

  There’s no reason why this should be hard. Four words. I’ve spoken all of them before—just never in this particular order. I take a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I like . . . Reece Kinsey.”


  Ming makes a high-pitched squeal and jumps up. “You like him like him?”

  “Yes!”

  “The kind of like where you want to rev his engine or actually use his gearshift?”

  I burst out laughing. Leave it to her to be completely unromantic. “I don’t know. Maybe both someday?”

  She shrieks and throws her arms around me. We hug and hop up and down, and I’m glad that I played along because this is a lot like what it used to feel like when I had a best friend.

  “He’s good for you, you know,” Ming says, going back to her swing. “I mean, he’s a little geeky and all, but you’re so cute together.”

  I get on the swing next to hers. “Reece went out with Violet for a long time, right?”

  “I think for, like, two years.”

  “He never talks about her. Not with me, at least. Is that weird?”

  “Of course not! She’s in college now and they are completely over and done with.”

  I’ve never had a boyfriend, but it’s weird to me that people can be important to each other for two years and then just not be anymore. “Do you think it’s true what people say about them?” I ask.

  “You mean that they got it on over four hundred times?”

  “Um!” I pump my legs to get some air, wishing, wishing, wishing she hadn’t told me that. My question was going to be about whether they’d for sure for sure hooked up; I’d never heard this crazy number before. “Is that even possible?” I ask. “That many times in two years?”

  “Wellll,” Ming says. “From what I’ve heard, Reece and Violet had exactly two things in common. And they both happened to begin with s and end with x.”

  I take a moment to work it out. Sex, obviously. Obviously.

  Four! Hundred! Times!

  And the second thing? Oh, right. Sax. Violet was in band too.

  “Aww, Coley.” Ming leans toward me a little as we sail through the air, completely out of sync. “You don’t have to worry. Reece is way over that nympho and totally into you. I promise.”

  “I’m not worried,” I say, forcing a smile. “It’s just that I haven’t even been kissed four hundred times.”