Cross Me Off Your List (20 page)

“No,” I nearly shout. I can’t believe this
guy just asked me this. Wait, yeah, I can. Nothing shocks me at
this point. “Some bitchy reporter asked me a few questions last
night, and then today she edited her film to make it look like I
said something I didn’t actually say. Well, I did say it, but it’s
out of context, and I’m in a serious jam. Like death threats on
Twitter kind of jam.”

“Wow,” Jace says. He leans onto the counter.
“We may drink too much and get in fights, but none of us are
computer hackers. Someone had to have witnessed it, though.
Everyone had cameras out, right? That’s what Emily said
anyway.”

Emily! Cell-phone-holding, all-smiles,
encouraging-me-with-thumbs-up Emily! She was filming last night on
her phone. Miles was with her. She may have that footage. She may
be my freaking salvation.

“I need Emily,” I say in a panic. “I need to
see her right now. She can save me.”

“Well, she’s probably at the beach with
Miles,” he says. “He’s always surfing at Horn Island, down by the
collapsed pier. She should be with him. You want me to call her and
see?”

I wait impatiently while he tries calling to
see if he can find Emily, but as my luck would have it, her phone
is going to voicemail. I desperately need to find this girl before
she deletes any evidence off of her phone. She was too close by
not
to hear what I said.

“You can drive down to Horn Island if you
want,” Jace says. “I can give you a few addresses to try out. I
tried Miles too, but he’s not answering.”

Now I wish I had driven down here in my own
car. I should’ve at least gotten a rental. I was dumb to think I
could just hang out with Noah all week and have free rides whenever
I needed one. I can’t get a rental this quickly, even with the best
service. This is an emergency, and I can’t rely on a taxi driver to
shuttle me around the Horn Island ghetto looking for someone who
may not even be in Horn Island right now. As I ramble on about my
vehicular crisis, Jace nods and attempts to decipher my
meltdown.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, nodding. “I have a
friend who might be able to help you. His car is crap, but he can
get you around Horn Island. Let me make a call.”

I dig through my purse to see if I can scrape
up some cash to give Jace’s friend for gas money. I’m desperate. If
my reputation wasn’t already shot, I’d offer to pay him in blowjobs
– but being called a hoebag was bad enough. I don’t need to act
upon that while the world watches.

“Okay. You’re set. He’ll be here in a few
minutes,” Jace says, sitting on the stool behind the cash register.
“Just remember to breathe. This will all work out.”

I hope on every star in the galaxy that he’s
right.

Fifteen minutes later, Jace’s friend arrives,
and he’s no stranger. He’s the guy who busted Noah’s mouth at the
abandoned carnival. We were supposed to hang out with him some at
Miles’s surf competition so the Hooligans could prove their friend
wasn’t so bad, but he wasn’t there that I can recall.

“A.J., this is Marisol,” Jace says. “She’s a
friend of Emily’s and seriously needs to find her.”

A.J. folds his arms over his chest and stands
like Tank does, all serious and hardcore. Except A.J. is
five-foot-sixish and might be one-hundred-ten pounds when he’s wet.
But he looks scary, and I saw him land Noah the other night. He’s
the kind of guy you envision when you think of Mexican gangs and
drug lords. He’s tattooed with blood-shot eyes and is basically
ugly in a piranha kind of way. If I’m a French angelfish, he’s
definitely a piranha.

“I know you,” A.J. says. “I hit your
boyfriend because he trespassed on my property.”

“Um, yeah,” I say. I decide not to correct
him. I feel safer if he thinks I have a boyfriend. “Sorry about
that.”

He shrugs. “We’re cool. You ready?”

“Uhh, yeah, I think so,” I stammer. I thank
Jace for his help and follow A.J. outside onto the sidewalk. I keep
my sunglasses on, and I stand a few feet away from him, just in
case someone wants to snap my photo in the morning-after-disaster
phase.

“You gotta drive,” A.J. says, tossing me his
keys. He walks over to the junkiest car in Crescent Cove and gets
into the passenger seat.

Really? This is how I have to spend my day
after being butchered online? I get to drive some gang member’s
busted up car around the ghetto looking for a guy with dreadlocks
and his fairy-like girlfriend? Oh, what I’d give to be able to say
‘screw it’ and abandon ship right now.

But I can’t. So I walk around the car and get
into A.J.’s driver’s seat. The fabric on the ceiling hangs, but for
the most part, the car is surprisingly clean. A stitched up voodoo
doll hangs from his rearview mirror.

“Your friend made that,” he says, reaching
for the doll. “Emily,” he clarifies. “She’s kinda weird, but I like
her.”

Can I add a number twenty-one to the bucket
list? Meet a girl who makes voodoo dolls? That’s something I know
my friends won’t be able to pull off. I shouldn’t even be thinking
of that stupid list right now. That’s the least of my problems.

“Why am I driving?” I ask, cranking the car.
It roars – and not in the Katy Perry kind of way – and I pray we
actually make it to Horn Island.

“You see that cop?” A.J. asks, nodding toward
the car I spotted earlier. “That jackass has it out for me. He’ll
arrest me for blinking. He’s a jackass, and I hate him with every
ounce of my being. So you’re driving because he’ll pull me over.
Fucking asshole Pittman.”

I make sure I abide by every rule of the road
as I leave Crescent Cove and head into Horn Island. A.J. doesn’t
make much conversation, and I wish I knew what to say aside from
asking which exit to take and where to turn.

“You ain’t gotta be scared, you know,” A.J.
finally says. “I don’t do drugs. You won’t get busted for being
with me. I’m not whatever you think I am.”

I force a smile. “I’m not thinking anything,”
I lie.

“Fuck that,” A.J. says, catching me off
guard.

I slam the brake at the stop sign I was about
to run through. I fight the urge to jump out of the car and run for
my life. I’m probably safer with A.J. than I would be on my own
since Saturnites have a bounty on my head.

“You know, I expect this from some people,”
A.J. says. “But you? You’re judging me like I’m some Hispanic gang
member? What the fuck? What’s your last name?”

“Cruz,” I admit, feeling ashamed.

“Gonzalez,” A.J. says. “Your parents both
Hispanic?”

I shake my head and admit that only my dad
is. My mom’s incredibly white and incredibly fake blonde. She’s
beautiful and keeps herself in perfect condition. She’s one of
those women who often has noses curled at her upon entering a room.
She owns it, though. She says ‘trophy wife’ is her job title, and
she does it better than anyone else. She doesn’t let anyone else’s
opinion of her affect how she sees herself. I wish I was more like
her.

“We’re the same,” A.J. says. “My dad was some
gang thug, but my mom was white trash. Never knew my dad. Mom
wasn’t around much. Filthy whore. Funny how we have the same
genetic coding but you’re upper class and I’m street trash, you
know?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You know, for judging
you. I was wrong.”

A.J. nods, making me feel even worse than I
already do. Then he tells me to go up a block and take the next
right, so I follow his instructions.

“My best friend is an upper class white
girl,” he tells me. “She’s moving out here this summer. She’s a
badass.”

I laugh. “Is her name Chloe Branson?”

“Who the fuck is Chloe Branson?” A.J. asks.
“No. Never mind. I don’t even care. My friend’s name is Haley, and
I can promise you she’s more badass than this Chloe chick.”

I’m not sure if he’s offended or disgusted,
but his oblivion to the world of Chloe Branson makes me happy. He
may be the only person I talk to today who won’t have a clue in
hell what’s really going on with me.

“Up here,” A.J. says, pointing to a parking
lot. It’s the one I came to with Noah when we played volleyball and
jumped off the pier with Theo. Miles’s truck is parked on the
sand.

I kill the engine and jump out, rushing
toward the shoreline as quickly as I can over this clumpy, gross
sand. A.J. is a few steps behind me, taking his sweet time.

Emily pops around the side of the truck and
waves. “Hey! You looked amazing last night. Did you have fun?” she
asks, all of her words rushing together.

“Hey. Thank you. Not exactly. I need your
help,” I say, answering her question equally as fast. “Do you still
have the video you took last night while I was being
interviewed?”

“Yep,” she says, like it’s no big deal.
“What’s going on?”

I fill her in on the details of how that
bitch reporter edited my answers, how the Saturnites want me dead,
and how she’s the only one who can possibly bail me out of this
mess. She’s on her phone immediately, sending me videos and
e-mailing them to herself and me for backup.

“Hell, send me that shit too,” A.J. says. “I
didn’t know you were famous. I got your back, even if I did hit
that dude you were with.”

For this moment in time, I’m going to pretend
that A.J. is my long-lost cousin somewhere down the line. Maybe my
dad and his dad were cousins – one destined for a job in computer
software and the other hauling cocaine and marijuana across the
border. And maybe for a brief moment in time, our paths were
supposed to cross for the greater good.

As I download Emily’s video to my phone, A.J.
does the same. Then he asks the burning question. “What do we do
now that we have it?”

I take a deep breath. “We go viral,” I
reply.

The problem with going viral is that you
can’t exactly go viral without someone of power helping you along.
Even after uploading the video across all of our social media
accounts, we don’t exactly have the power to make miracles happen.
Emily suggests I change my accounts back to public status, but I’m
absolutely terrified that by doing so, I’ll just open the door for
more drama and madness.

“You need Darby to post it on her channel,”
Emily says. “That’s the number one way to reach the
Saturnites.”

I groan because I’d already thought the same
thing, and her suggesting it only proves that Darby is my gateway
to the Saturnites. I wish there was another way. I haven’t really
spoken to the girl one-on-one, and I highly doubt she’ll be up for
doing me any favors. Between her parents and Saturn security,
there’s no way I can get to her anyway.

“Do you want me to try and infiltrate the
fourth floor?” Emily asks, staring at me from Erin’s former hotel
bed.

I simply shake my head in response. If we
hadn’t parted ways with A.J. back in Horn Island, I’d debate an
infiltration, but I’m not welcome on the fourth floor, and there’s
no way I’m sending Emily alone up there. She doesn’t deserve to be
fed to the wolves after all she’s done to help me.

“Well, we can’t just sit here hiding from
whoever you’re afraid is going to launch some evil fangirl attack
on you,” she says. “What do you have left on your spring break
list?”

I really don’t want to think about the list
right now, but it’s not like I have anything better to do with my
last days in Crescent Cove.

I reach into my bag and rummage for the pink
paper. Then I unfold it to see which daunting tasks remain.

“Okay. Here’s what I’m lacking,” I say. “Get
a tattoo. Send a message in a bottle. Put a crazy color in your
hair. Get wings. And visit a far, far away place.”

“Get wings?” Emily asks, just like every
other person who has seen this list. “Like wings to fly? Chicken
wings?”

I shrug. “I have no idea what it means or
which idiot put that on the list,” I admit. I’ll have to find some
kind of wings before I get home if I want to complete this bucket
list.

But really, I’m so over it. The list means
nothing if I have to do it alone. I’m tired of being the
independent girl who doesn’t need anyone to help her. I’m tired of
being strong and having to roar. Yes, I can do all of the above if
I have to or if I need to, but this week has been great just to
have cool people to chill with. I’m not ready for that to end,
especially like this.

“Do you want to buy some of that wash-out
hair dye?” Emily asks. “I can help you with it.”

Hair dye. Nat was going to help me with that.
As much as I believe that Emily can handle the job, I just really
wanted to share that moment with the younger Winters brother.
Besides, how can you not trust him in the categories of beauty and
fashion?

I sigh. “I have some hair dye,” I tell her.
“I’m just not up for it. Nat was going to help me color it, and
he’s not even allowed to talk to me now.”

“Did Noah say that?” Emily asks.

I shake my head. “No, Nat did. He came by
earlier this morning, after Noah blasted me,” I explain. “He even
believes me, but he has to go along with whatever his brother
wants, and his brother is anti-Marisol right now.”

Emily jumps up and bounces over onto my bed.
“Nat’s your way to Darby,” she says, her eyes bursting with
excitement. “Get the video to him. He can show Noah. Then Noah can
feel like an ass, and Darby will put it into circulation, and it’ll
clear your name.”

I immediately grab my phone, copy the URL to
the video that I uploaded, and pull up a blank message to send to
Nat. But then I stop.

“I need your help with one more thing,” I
tell Emily.

“Anything you need,” she says.

Emily helps me load the last of my bags into
her car. I don’t like intruding on a girl I barely know, but once
this video is in the hands of the Winters brothers, I don’t want to
be in the hotel.