Little White Lies (15 page)

I leaned against Charm's shoulder, letting my weight rest against him. Charm, seeming to know I needed someone, didn't even go his hay net. He stood still and let me rest on him.

“Sasha?” Mr. Conner's head appeared over the door. “Let's talk in my office for a minute.”

“Okay.” I could barely get out the word. I latched Charm's stall door shut and walked behind Mr. Conner, feeling as if I was in an a daze. This was it. He was going to tell me I'd messed up too many times to be on the YENT. He'd say there was no way he'd be able to help me improve enough to impress Mr. Nicholson when he taped one of our riding lessons.

Mr. Conner motioned me inside ahead of him and I took a seat in front of his desk. He shut the door, sat at the black leather chair behind his giant desk, and folded his hands on top of his desk. He looked up at me.

“Sasha, I just wanted to talk to you for a minute. First, I want you to know how much I believe in your talent as a rider. I'm proud that you're on the YENT and I know how important it is to you.”

I swallowed. I couldn't say anything.

“Is there anything going on at home or with classes that you'd like to talk about?” Mr. Conner asked. His brown eyes were kind as he looked at me. “I'm here if you need to talk—it doesn't have to be riding-related.”

I shifted in my seat. “Thanks, but everything's fine with school and at home.” I stared down at my clenched hands and then looked up at him. “I thought you asked me in here to tell me that I was off the team.”

“Sasha, no,” Mr. Conner said quickly. “Not at all. I've just noticed that you've seemed stressed since school resumed. I know it's difficult to get back into a routine after summer break is over. But if there is anything going on that's affecting your riding, please know that you can talk to me.”

I let out a breath.

“I've been trying to find the balance of being back to school, seeing my friends, handling homework … just normal stuff,” I said. “But nothing's wrong. I promise I won't let it affect my riding again. I know the YENT is a huge opportunity and I'd never waste it.”

Mr. Conner shook his head. “You're not wasting anything, Sasha. I just want you to take some pressure off yourself, to block out whoever you think is your competition, and to learn everything you can from this experience.”

Mr. Conner knew I'd been watching Jas and Heather. Somehow, he was able to tell that I'd been paying more attention to them than to my own riding.

“I will,” I promised. “I'm going to get everything under control. I'm sorry I lost focus.”

Mr. Conner smiled. “You'll have plenty of time to correct that. We've got a long competition season ahead of us.”

I sat back in my chair and nodded. He had
no
idea how long the year already felt.

WHEN I WALKED INTO MY ROOM, PAIGE
jumped up and hurried to shove a bunch of papers into a yellow folder. She turned, grinned at me, and held the folder behind her back.

“Sasha!” she said. “Hi!”

I folded my arms, pretend-staring her down. “What's in the folder, Parker?”

Paige shrugged. “Oh, you know. Like, homework. Boring stuff you wouldn't want to see.”

“Really? 'Cause I
love
boring stuff of the homework variety.”

Paige and I held each other's gaze for a second, then started laughing. “You're not getting one peek at your birthday party plans. Not one.”

I walked over to sit at the edge of my bed and pull off my riding boots. “Nothing?” I clapped a hand to my chest. “It's only Tuesday. Give me something to survive till Friday.”

Holding the folder away from me, Paige opened it and thumbed through the papers. “Okay, okay,” she said. “I'll be supergenerous and tell you the guest list.”

“Oooh, yay!”

Paige pulled out a light pink sheet of paper. “All right. We've got … Callie, Eric, Jacob, Heather, Julia, Alison, Nicole, Troy, Ben, Andy, Annabella, Suichin, and Ryan. They've all RSVP'd yes. Pretty awesome, huh?”

“Very!” I said, smiling. I didn't want Paige to see how I really felt. “It's going to be great 'cause you're planning it.”

Paige grinned. “Duh.” Then she stared at me for a second. “Hey. You okay?”

“Totally,” I said. “Just thinking about one person not on that list.”

Good cover,
I thought to myself. I'd never tell Paige that her guest list was probably going to give me hives before the end of the week.

Paige scrunched up her face. “I know—Jasmine. I wanted to talk to you about that. She lives on this floor,
and since we're holding the party in the common room, she's
going
to show up.”

“I know. So do we just invite her instead of letting her crash?”

Nodding, Paige put down the folder. “That's what I'd do. Fingers crossed that she'll just think it's going to be an uberlame party and not even show up.”

“True,” I said. “Really, why would she want to come to my party anyway? But go ahead and invite her.”

“Speaking of Jas … how was riding with her?” Paige asked. “Was she awful?”

“No,
I
was,” I mumbled.

“What? No, you weren't.” Paige made a don't-talk-like-that-about-yourself face.

“It's true. I messed up during cross-country and, ugh, so mortifying, Mr. Conner asked me to his office to talk.”

Paige sat on her bed, looking at me. “What did he say?”

“That he knows I'm trying and if I needed to talk him about anything, I could.”

“That was nice of him,” Paige said. “He wasn't saying your riding wasn't up to YENT level or anything.”

“No, but he got that I was too focused on Heather
and Jas. I mean, he didn't come right out and say it, but he knew.”

“He
is
Mr. Conner.” Paige smiled.

I smiled back. “I know. I messed up today, but I've got it now. I don't care about Heather or Jas!”

“Good!” Paige nodded and went back to work at her desk and I headed for the shower.

Leaning my back against the closed bathroom door, I rubbed my eyes with my fingers. I'd covered my nerves about the party with the story about riding, which
had
been true. Paige was planning a blowout party that would be amazing. But I felt so guilty that everyone was coming for me and I was such a liar. Plus, what if Eric and Jacob got into it again and Jacob told him the truth?

The whole party—no, my life—would be ruined. I'd just have to make sure I didn't make one mistake.

ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, CALLIE AND I
scanned the chalkboard with the Sweet Shoppe's specials of the day.

“Um, we're
so
getting frozen yogurt,” Callie said. “They've got strawberry-mango today.”

“Done,” I said. “Large, of course.”

Callie grinned. “Natch.”

We got our orders and picked out a table in the back of the shop, where it was quiet. We started to eat and I smiled to myself, thinking how good this felt. Callie and me hanging out with no pressure and zero weirdness. Maybe things were finally going to be back to normal.

Callie stuck her spoon into her yogurt and leaned
forward. “So, did you hear the latest about Julia and Ben?”

“Nooo! What?” My spoon hovered in the air halfway between my cup and my mouth.

“They just got back together,” Callie said. “They're keeping it on the DL, though.”

“Why? No one cares if they're back together.” I took a bite of yogurt.

“You'd think, but I heard Julia telling Alison that she's sure Jas will try to steal Ben if she knows they're together just because she hates Julia so much.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But we've all got to stop being afraid to go public with our boyfriends.” I laughed. “It's just wrong!”

Callie raised her spoon and we touched them together. “Agreed! And we really need to work on said boyfriends. The hating-each-other thing is getting old.”

“Totally. It would be so much easier for all of us to hang out if they'd chill.”

Callie rolled her eyes. “Jacob can be
so
stubborn. He just won't get over his thing with Eric. They both need to grow up.”

“You think?” I smiled at her. “But no matter what—even
if they never even look at each other again—we're still best friends. They'll have to deal.”

Callie nodded. “Yeah! I mean, we can have boyfriends, but it can't take up all of our best-friend time.”

I smiled. Callie sounded more like herself than she had in months. She wasn't clinging to Jacob and she wanted to do things with me. We were gossiping and joking like we used to.

I took my time eating my yogurt and so did Callie. We got into a long and very important conversation about whether or not Amberlynn, a ninth grader, had made the right decision to get bangs.

“You could totally do them with your face shape,” Callie said. “They'd look amazing.”

I touched my hair. “It's too wavy. I'd be attached to my flatiron.”

Callie giggled. “I can imagine you keeping it in your purse and straightening your bangs in between classes with one of those portable ones.”

“But you could do bangs,” I said. “Your hair is straight. Sideswept bangs would be pretty.”

“I might,” Callie said. “And whatever. If I don't like them, they'll grow out.”

I ate a few more bites of yogurt, then my phone buzzed. I checked it.

“A reminder from my calendar,” I explained. “I've got to tell Livvie that I'm going to stay with Paige during fall break.”

“You guys are going to have sooo much fun,” Callie said. “My parents are excited that I'm coming home for a week—I'm totally taking advantage of them.” She grinned. “They're going to take me to all of my fave local restaurants and Mom will probably take me shopping.”

“I love the way you think,” I said. “I know Paige I and will do some serious shopping in Manhattan. She was telling me about sample sales and how you almost have to fight people to get the good stuff because the prices are so awesome.”

“If you see anything I'd like, you better snag it for me,” Callie said.

“Duh.”

We gossiped and talked about what to look for at the sample sales—purses and shoes—for another hour before hugging and starting back toward our dorms. I wrapped my arms across my chest as I walked. Maybe I'd been making too big a deal out of everything over the past week and a half.

PAIGE AND I CLIMBED INTO OUR BEDS THAT
night and I reached to flick off the light.

“You've been quiet since you got back from the Sweet Shoppe,” Paige said. “Everything cool between you and Callie?”

“Totally,” I said, pausing. I finally didn't have to lie for once. “We had fun.”

“But something's been going on since school started,” Paige said. “I'm your BFF—I
do
notice these things.”

I knew I wasn't going to get away with the I'm-completely-fine-and-stop-asking routine with Paige much longer. We
did
live together.

“The only weird thing with Callie is the YENT,” I said. “She's happy I made it, but I don't know how much
to talk to her about it. I don't want to make her feel bad that she's missing it. But it would be obvious if I didn't talk about it at all.”

Paige made a sympathetic face. “That's true. But you know Callie's proud of you. I'm sure it's okay if you talk about the YENT like you guys talked about riding last year.”

“I know,” I said. “I'm probably reading into it more than I should. Things are great with us and I don't want it to disappear.”

Paige tossed her small purple star pillow at me. “It's not going to disappear. Everything's going to be fine. And let's talk about something happy before we go to sleep—like your party.”

“A most excellent idea,” I said, grinning.

“It's going to be so amazing,” Paige said. “And I'm excited, too, because …”

I looked at her. She blushed and covered her face with her pillow.

“Because some guy you
might
like named Ryan is going to be there?” I asked. “Could that possibly be it?”

“Yesss,” Paige said, her voice muffled by her pillow.

“I'm glad he'll be there,” I said. “It's another no-pressure-of-being-alone type of situation where you guys can hang out.”

Paige removed the pillow. “Right. And that just makes me feel more comfortable. I know! I know! I'm such a dork. I like Ryan a lot, but I'm totally intimidated by the idea of a date with him.”

“There's nothing wrong with that,” I said. “Please. You could go on fifty group dates before you went out with him by yourself. Whatever makes you comfortable.”

Paige raised herself up on her elbow. “Be real.
No
guy's going to do group dates forever. Your party will be it and then if he really likes me, he'll want us to go out … alone.”

“But you could be ‘alone' at the Sweet Shoppe. Or the movies. Or a picnic in the courtyard. There are plenty of people around and you won't feel nervous about being on a date-date.”

It felt good to be the one giving Paige advice for once. I was always going to her with a zillion questions, but I actually had experience with boys—not that I'd had a perfect score in that arena.

Paige nodded. “That's true. But I really like him. Why don't I want to go out with him by myself yet?”

I thought for a second. “Maybe you're just scared to take that step. But you don't have to. Not till you're ready. If he has a problem with doing what you want, then drop him.”