Famous (14 page)

“I know all about that.”

Together, we paused near a tall, leafy plant, making room for an older guy in a wheelchair to maneuver down the hall.

“Once,” Carina said, gathering her long blond hair into a messy ponytail, “I had a science project that was worth half of my semester's grade. The teacher chose our partners, and I got stuck with the infamous and notoriously lazy Jon. He was
thrilled
that we were working together.”

“Oh no,” I said as we stepped back into the hallway.

We walked at a leisurely pace. I liked talking to Carina.
I wished I'd had more time to chat with her since she'd been here. Things had been busy, there had been drama, and I'd had my early issues with her. Once I had gotten to know her, though, she was one of the nicest people I'd ever met. She went out of her way to be kind, and she was genuinely excited about being here, aside from the occasional bout of homesickness. Carina fit in so well—both in classes and riding—it was as if she'd been a student here as long as I had.

“Big oh no,” Carina continued. “Jon didn't even try. He came up to me when class had ended and said, ‘I know how into this science stuff you are, so I'm going to do you a favor and be nice. The whole project is yours. Just don't forget to put my name on it. Have fun!' ”

“Noooo way! Oh my God!” I whipped my head from side to side. “Are you
kidding
me? What kind of person does that? Jeez!”

“Jon truly believed that I wanted the entire project,” Carina said. “I just stood there, staring after him, and thankfully, it was the last class of the day.”

“What did you do?” I asked. “Please tell me you didn't do the whole thing yourself.”

Carina looked at me and made an
oh, please
face. “Not at all. I did Jon a favor back.”

I grinned, knowing whatever she was about to say was good. “I hate to interrupt,” I said. “I want you to tell me the rest of the story, but I wanted to give you a heads-up that I promised to eat with Drew already. I didn't want to make you feel bad that we weren't going to sit together.”

Carina shook her head. “No worries! You're lucky to have a cute boyfriend to eat with.”

“Thanks, Carina. Okay, so tell me the ‘favor' you did!”

We stepped into the caf. It was busy but not packed. Canterwood had things timed well right down to lunches. The cafeteria never felt overwhelmingly full of people, since we all had different lunch periods.

“Well, I had a good relationship with my science teacher. After I got home that day, I e-mailed him and explained what had happened. I didn't ask for a new partner. I did explain that unless Jon stepped up, it would be turned in with only my name.”

“Your teacher talked to Jon, right?” I asked.

We got into the slow-moving lunch line. I smelled pizza—tasty thin-crust oven-baked—and lasagna. Both were
so
going on my plate.

“Not exactly. I got an e-mail back later, and my teacher thanked me for being honest and said he would handle the
situation. He told me to reduce the project in half and do only that amount of work.”

We picked up beige plastic trays.

“The next day I went to science, and toward the end of class, my teacher stood up and gave a short, casual speech about our projects. He reminded us that we'd be graded on
team
effort as well as the work we did, and if anyone did not participate, that person would get a zero.”

“Ooh! Was that Jon's warning?” I asked. I used tongs to grab a clump of crisp romaine lettuce and put it on my tray.

“Yup.” Carina laughed. “His
only
warning too! He didn't ask me once about how things were going, if I needed help—nothing. I turned in ‘our' project, and he just assumed everything was fine.”

“What a jerk,” I said. I passed the salad tongs to Carina.

“Oh, he went down. Hard,” Carina said. “A couple of weeks later we got our graded projects back. I got an A and Jon, sitting rows away from me, raised his hand and said he didn't get our papers back.”

Suddenly I realized that I was so caught up in Carina's story that we'd sort of held up the lunch line. I made an
oops
face, and Carina looked over her shoulder. Her cheeks
were pink when she looked back at me. We zipped our lips and focused on our salads.

I poured raspberry vinaigrette onto my lettuce and added feta cheese, dried cranberries, carrots, cucumbers, and candied walnuts. Carina used ranch dressing and added bright-colored peppers and tomatoes to her salad.

We moved on to the next lunch station. We gave our orders to the lunch lady and then had time to talk while we waited for our pizza and pasta.

“To end my rambling story,” Carina said, “my teacher, without blinking, looked at Jon and told him that he hadn't turned in a project, so therefore he had no grade. Jon said he and I were partners—‘we' must have forgotten to put his name on it.”

I held out my tray for my food.

“That didn't work, did it?”

Carina shook her head. “Not a chance. My teacher said he'd warned everyone about teamwork and had seen none from Jon even during periods where my class had been told to pair up and work together. If Jon could use his laptop, produce the project, and send it to the classroom printer, then my teacher would take a look.”

“Ohhh, Jon,” I said, giggling.

“The entire class stared at him and watched his face go through about ten shades of red before turning purple. He finally mumbled that he couldn't find it on his computer. My teacher said then the grade stood.”

“Sweet! Score for Carina!”

“And no more scoring for Jon,” she said. She offered her tray to the lunch lady as I got mine back.

“What do you mean?”

“Jon got a zero, and his grade was already so low that it put him on academic probation. He was off the hockey team for the rest of the semester. Note that he was the star player.”

My eyes widened. “Whoops. Bad play, Jon. Did he ever say anything to you?”

We headed for the drinks area and got plastic cups with lids and straws. I let Carina get ice first.

“He had plenty to say to me. After class, he found me and said that I'd set him up and I wasn't so smart after all for messing with him.”

“Carina! That's bullying.”

“I know,” she said. She pressed the button for Dr Pepper. “He really got in my face, and our vice principal happened to walk by when Jon called me a nasty name. He got suspended for a week.”

“Whoa.” I watched my own cup fill with cherry Diet Coke. “Did he ever bother you again?”

“Nope. Never.”

“Whew,” I said as we stepped into the main caf room. “I'm sorry he attacked you, but I'm glad he got in trouble
and
left you alone after that.”

Carina nodded. “Me too. I was worried, but I think Jon knew teachers were watching him.”

We exchanged good-byes, and Carina headed toward Lexa, who waved her over. I spotted Drew at a table for two and walked over to him. I looked but didn't see Taylor anywhere. Or Brielle. At least lunch period was going to be drama free.

I put down my tray and sat across from Drew. He smiled when he saw me, but I saw the stress in his eyes.

“You feeling any better?” I asked.

My stomach did nervous flip-flops. I didn't want Drew to give up on us because my ex was causing problems at Canterwood.

“Better
and
worse,” Drew said. He held out his hand across the table. I placed mine in his.

I squeezed his warm hand. “Why better and why worse?”

“Better because I got to say those things to someone who had hurt you,” Drew said. “It felt so good to defend
you and let Taylor know how wrong he was. I wanted to make him hurt like he hurt you, even though I knew my words couldn't do it. But anything I could do to him in that moment felt like the right thing to do.”

“Why worse?” I asked.

Drew looked down, then back at me. “Worse because how I acted with Taylor isn't me. You don't need me to defend you, Laur. I know you took care of things yourself. It was never my battle to fight unless you asked me to get involved. You didn't, and I jumped in.”

Drew locked eyes with me. I rubbed my thumb across the top of his. I leaned closer to him.

“Drew, you did what you felt was right in the moment. You defended me. Stood up for me. I know that I didn't ask you to do anything, but it felt good to have someone do that for me.” I gave him a tiny smile. “That's the selfish side of me. The other half of me stood there wishing you weren't fighting at all. I hated that you had been dragged into drama from my life and you were involved at all.”

“So, we both feel better
and
worse, huh?” Drew asked.

I nodded. “Guess so.”

“At least we feel the same way together.” Drew leaned over the table and kissed my hand.

DAYS MELTED TOGETHER, AND I
managed to keep my life free of Brielle or Taylor interactions. I saw them in some classes, but I kept my eyes on the teacher or on my books. I hurried out of each class the second the bell rang, and I didn't hang around in the halls where I could run into either one of them.

When I had accidentally made eye contact with them, they each looked awful. Taylor looked as if he'd swum a dozen laps with his eyes open and the chlorine had irritated his eyes. Brielle looked just as tired and even more miserable. She never smiled, and both she and Taylor were silent during classes we shared.

My Canterwood friends had stepped up their support, and without them . . . I couldn't even imagine.

Whisper was probably ready to start charging me rent for being in her stall so much. Lexa had joked that Mr. Conner should add my name to Whisper's nameplate. She made me feel so calm, though, and was always there to listen. Plus, we were doing a lot of work. We had this weekend and next week left to practice. Then it was go time. During our last lesson, Mr. Conner had brought the sign-up sheet for the show. I'd decided on dressage and show jumping. I wanted to compete in one area where I felt comfortable and another that would challenge both Whisper and me.

I stayed busier than ever, intent on exhausting myself each day so when I went to bed, I'd fall asleep immediately. If I didn't, my thoughts wandered to Bri and Taylor.

When I thought about Brielle, memories flooded back to me. Memories from our time at Yates, the mall, watching movies, riding at Briar Creek, having sleepovers with Ana. I saw my smiling friend's face as she told a silly joke or listened to Ana or me share news. Even though I'd been at Canterwood and away from seeing Brielle daily, I'd gotten used to having her here in seconds. Brielle and I had fallen immediately back into our old groove, and she had fit right in with my Canterwood friends. As mad as I was, thinking about
Bri being sad made me feel bad. Same with Taylor. No matter what—I felt
awful
.

If I let myself think about Taylor, it was a different kind of hurt. He had been my boyfriend. We had shared so much with each other when we had been together. Taylor was the first boy who had ever made me feel pretty. The first guy I had wanted to dress up for. My first kiss. My first breakup.

When we had decided to break up last summer, it must have been one of the easiest splits in history. There had been a short period of awkwardness before we had transitioned into being friends. We'd maintained that friendship until and after I'd arrived at Canterwood. Sure, I hadn't known about his time with Brielle, but Taylor had his mind set on getting me back as his girlfriend. I'd never entertained the idea—my heart was with Drew—but I wanted Taylor in my life.

Now things would never be the same. Brielle's and Taylor's actions had caused them to be absent from my life. I was ducking Ana, too. She called and messaged me every day since we'd spoken on the phone, but I wasn't ready to talk to her. I just didn't know what to say.

I didn't know if I'd ever have the right words for Brielle or Taylor. Something kept nagging me, though—I
wasn't . . .
right
without them in my life. I had to find a way, somehow, to forgive them. I'd talked to my mom and Becca a lot over the past few days. They'd both been amazing listeners and gave me advice when I'd asked for it. They made it clear: They supported me no matter what I decided to do about Brielle, Taylor, and Ana.

One part that kept sticking in my mind was the upcoming holidays. I couldn't imagine them without my other three friends. The other night I'd been online after I'd finished homework. Khloe had been asleep, and I'd been on a Union message board that I used to visit often. My sisters and I used the forums during the holiday season to find a volunteer gig that we wanted to participate in. It was a family tradition—every year my parents, Becca, Charlotte, and I contributed to our community in some way during the holiday season. Once I'd met Ana, Brielle, and Taylor, we'd always done an activity together.