Little White Lies (9 page)

“Excuse you!” Jas said. “Let go of my horse.”

But Callie ignored her and kept petting Phoenix.

“I feel sorry for you, honestly,” Callie said. “You have no friends and you don't know what it's like to support someone else. I'm not going to argue with you about what you said because you
truly
don't know better.”

Callie let go of Phoenix and I dismounted. Together, we walked Charm out of the arena.

Callie sighed. “You know not to pay attention to that girl, right?” she asked.

“I know,” I said. “She's ridic. Whatever. She's just trying to break us up and make me miserable. I worried about her before, but I'm over it.”

I could feel Callie nodding behind me. “Good. You can't even waste your time on Jas.”

Back at the stable, Callie and I walked Charm up and down the aisle to cool him out. We crosstied him and Callie grabbed his tack box while I stayed with him. We were the best grooming team ever. Whenever Callie wasn't looking, I watched her. She was truly happy even though she wasn't on the YENT and one mistake—one mix-up with a lie would ruin that. The on-and-off anxiety I felt about keeping the secrets was worth it. Otherwise, we'd never have moments like these again.

“Want to go to the Sweet Shoppe?” she asked. “I think we need a treat after this crazy week.”

“Definitely,” I said. “If you want to put Charm in his stall, I'll go drop off his tack.”

Callie unclipped Charm and I gathered his saddle, bridle, and pad into my arms. I put away his tack, vowing to clean it tomorrow. My phone buzzed and I opened it to see a text.

From Jacob.

Sry I freaked u out @ lunch b4. Txt me back so I know ur not mad?

I deleted the message without replying and turned off my phone. I tried to take calming breaths. Part of me wanted to text him back because I didn't want him to think I was mad, but I couldn't keep responding to him.

Callie met me in the aisle. “You okay?”

“Totally,” I lied. “I just remembered that I have a quiz in English tomorrow and I have to study when we're done.”

“What's it on?” Callie asked. “Maybe I already read the book.”

“Uh …” I was the worst liar ever! “Um, it's on
The Secret Garden
.”

At least we were actually reading that book in class.

Callie shook her head. “Sorry. Haven't read it. But you'll do fine. And no stressing about it while we eat.”

“Deal.” We linked arms and walked down the sidewalk. For the next hour, I wasn't going to worry. I was ready to have fun with my BFF.

BY THE TIME I SLID INTO MY SEAT FOR MY FIRST
health class on Friday, I was exhausted. I
never
thought I'd say it, but I actually wished I could go home for the weekend just to get away from everything.

Paige and I walked into the class together and sat beside each other.

“This is going to be
interesting
,” Paige said. “Because … you know.”

“Because of our teacher?”

Julia walked into the classroom, looking for an empty desk. She sat a couple of seats away from Paige and me.

“
Any
class with Ms.—”

But I didn't finish my sentence. Jacob had just walked
into the classroom. He saw Paige and me and walked over, taking a desk in the next aisle, next to me.

Of course.

Ms. Utz walked into the room with a massive stack of papers in her hands. She tossed them onto her desk with a thump and gave us a crooked smile, baring giant square teeth. She'd paired black dress pants with a collared white shirt—fine so far—and then … she'd gone for the purple Crocs. I shuddered.

“Welcome to your weekly health class,” Ms. Utz said. “We're going to have fun learning about the human body, nutrition, and exercise.”

Paige and I traded grins and then looked back at Utz. She was way too excited about this.

“You'll also learn CPR and basic first aid. Wouldn't want your best friend to croak if you could help it, right?”

Everyone's eyes widened collectively.

“Let's get started,” Ms. Utz said. “Read the first chapter to yourselves. In twenty minutes, we'll do an exercise. While you read, I'll be readying the CPR dummy for the class after yours.”

I opened my book. We read to ourselves, but really spent most of the time watching Utz try to assemble a
scary-looking CPR dummy. I was
not
putting my mouth on that thing—no way!

About twenty minutes later, Utz had finished assembling the dummy.

“The first thing we're going to do is learn how to take someone's pulse,” Utz said. “Turn to the person to your right. That's your partner for today's exercise. Introduce yourselves.”

With a sigh, I turned to Jacob.

He grinned. “Hi,” he said, sticking out his hand. “I'm Jacob Schwartz. And you are?”

“Stop it,” I said. I reached to grab a pen from the top of my desk, but Jacob grabbed my hand. His warm fingers enveloped mine until I jerked my hand out of his grasp.

“Everyone, take your partner's hand,” Ms. Utz said.

Jacob shot a triumphant look in my direction.

I shot him a look and gave him my hand.

“Place your second and third finger on your partner's wrist, right below the thumb. Press lightly and you should feel a pulse. When you've found your partner's pulse, then let the other person find yours.”

Jacob turned my hand over and brushed two fingers down my palm to my wrist. I took a deep breath, but couldn't stop goose bumps from appearing on my arms.

He pressed his fingers lightly against my wrist and looked at me. “Your heart's beating fast,” he said.

I pulled my hand back. “No, it's not. Let me do yours so we can be done.”

Jacob offered me his arm and I pressed my fingers against his skin. Nothing. I moved my fingers around, pausing in several different places, but I couldn't find his pulse.

“I think you're dead,” I said. “'Cause I can't find anything.” I raised my hand.

“Yes, Sasha?” Ms. Utz asked.

“I can't find Jacob's pulse.”

“Okay, this might occur for some of you,” Ms. Utz said. “If you can't locate a person's pulse on his or her wrist, then you'll need to check the carotid artery at the neck.”

“Put two fingers below the ear, right below the jaw,” Ms. Utz said. “Go ahead, Sasha.”

The whole class turned to watch me and I felt my face begin to burn.

I leaned forward and swallowed, putting two fingers on Jacob's neck. His skin was warm under my fingertips. Immediately, I felt a pulse.

“Found it,” I said, pulling my fingers away and sliding back—waaay back—into my chair.

Paige looked over at me.
You okay?
she mouthed.

“Totally,” I whispered.

Ms. Utz helped the rest of the students find one another's pulses and I paged through my syllabus. If there was even the slightest hint that we had to learn mouth-to-mouth on someone other than Dummy Dan, I was going to find a way out of this class.

Later in the day, I made my way to the theater building. This was just a brief informational meeting about the drama elective, then the class would be held on Mondays and Fridays. I'd been looking forward to the meeting all week. No one I knew was going to be in it—none of my friends were into drama. I'd finally have a class to myself.

As I walked up to the theater building, I couldn't help but stare. It was one of the most gorgeous buildings on campus. Long steps with intricate black iron rails led up to two red doors. Above the doors, there was a peak that stretched to the sky.

I felt a tiny shudder of nerves as I pulled open the door. Sure, I'd watched a zillion movies and had taken a film class, but that might not translate to anything on stage. I could be the worst actress ever. Like, Razzie Award bad. I rolled my eyes at myself. This was going to
be fun. I needed to stop being a dork and worrying about everything.

I tugged open the heavy door and stepped inside, noticing how chilly it was in the enormous building. I walked past the closed ticket counter and entered the auditorium. A long staircase of carpeted red stairs with a gleaming dark wooden handrail led toward the stage. A group of students were already clustered near the front of the stage, so I walked down the aisle and sat behind some of them.

I glanced around and my gaze froze on the back of a familiar blond head.

“You're taking this class?” I asked.

Heather turned around, her dangly earrings swirling. “Deal with it, Silver.”

“But,” I said. “Do you even
like
theater?”

Heather glared. “Omigod, why do you care?”

“Forget it,” I said.

I picked up the handbooks that had been required for the class—
The Guide for Young Actors
and
A History of Theater
. I paged through them.

“Hey, Sash.”

The voice almost made me drop the books.
Not again.

Jacob dropped his fave messenger bag—the one
covered in Japanese art—on the floor and took the seat next to me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

Jacob tugged down the hem of his black T-shirt. “This sounded like a cool class.”

“Theater? But …” I lowered my voice so no one else would overhear. “Won't going on stage make you nervous?”

“We won't be acting the whole time. We'll be learning about theater—all of it. Even the behind-the-scenes stuff.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

I sat back, trying to pretend that Jacob wasn't next to me. But
Jacob
in theater?! Seriously. I'd picked this class on purpose because I didn't expect anyone I knew—
least
of all Jacob or Heather—to be here.

I looked away from Jacob when a woman walked onto the stage, stopping in the center. Her dark brown hair was superstraight—I wondered if I could get a flatiron rec—and it touched down just to her collarbone. She wore giant silver hoop earrings and her red lipstick made her pale skin look Snow White gorgeous. She looked young enough to be in college.

“Hey, guys!” she said. She smiled at us and waved. “I'm your drama teacher, Ms. Scott. Welcome to my class.”

She walked toward the edge of the stage.

“This is
not
a class for you if you intend to coast,” Ms. Scott said. “It's a class that revolves around participation in theater games, reading assignments, and group projects.”

Everyone nodded. I knew before I'd signed up for her class that drama would be lots of work. But I didn't care. I was kind of looking forward to the distraction.

Ms. Scott waved her hand at us. “C'mon. Everyone get up on stage. We're going to play an improv icebreaker game.”

I got up, stepping over Jacob before he could move. A group of about fifteen of us gathered on stage. The dark wooden floor was polished to a deep sheen and thick red velvet curtains hung behind us. The lights were dimmed enough so that we could see the rows and rows of seats that stretched across the theater, all the way up to the balcony section.

Heather stood across from me and Jacob stood a couple of people away from her. I attempted to ignore both of them, sticking my hands in the back pockets of my jeans.

Ms. Scott clapped her hands once and looked at us. “Okay, we'll play games almost every class. The games are supposed to be fun, so don't be nervous.”

Jacob's hands were jammed in his pockets and he looked like he wanted to throw up.

“We'll use this icebreaker to build trust and get to know one another's names,” Ms. Scott continued. “We're going to use our names and alliteration. So, for example, if I were to introduce myself to you with my first name, I'd say ‘Hi, I'm Cool Courtney.'”

We all smiled.

“So, you repeat the person's name before you and then say your own, okay?”

“Okay,” we said.

“All right. Let's go. I'll reintroduce myself as your teacher. I'm Social Ms. Scott.” She turned to a girl next to her. “Your turn.”

The girl grinned. “She's Social Ms. Scott and I'm Writer Whitney.”

My turn. “She's Writer Whitney and I'm Sassy Sasha.”

We kept going around the circle and then it came to Heather. “He's Awesome Aidan and I'm Hot Heather.”

I snorted.

When it came to Jacob, his face was red. He'd made the biggest mistake signing up for this class. Maybe he was trying to get over being shy, but theater class was a
huge leap. He could have taken a beginner speech course or something. But I felt for him the second he started blushing.

“She's Lovely Lexa and I'm …” his eyes met mine and I wanted to help him, to shout something so he wouldn't be standing there with us staring at him.

“I'm Jammin' Jacob,” he said, spitting it out.

The class smiled at his answer and we moved on to the next person. The relief on his face was obvious.

Ms. Scott made the game fun and each person's answer was silly—it definitely
did
break the ice and by the end, I remembered almost everyone's name,

“Okay,” Ms. Scott said when everyone had said his or her name. “It's Friday and it's been a long week for all of you, I'm sure. You may go, but please check your syllabus for the reading assignment and be prepared for Monday.”

I walked off stage, hurried down the stairs, and left the theater before Jammin' Jacob could corner me again.

“
I HATE ALL OF MY CLOTHES AND I LOOK HORRIBLE
in everything!” Paige wailed.

I got up and walked over to her, putting my hands on her shoulders and staring into her eyes.

“You. Do. Not. C'mon, look.” I picked a short black shirt and clover green tank top off her bed. The tank top had lacy straps and the green made Paige's red hair look gorgeous. I waved the outfit in front of her. “Wear it.”