One Moment in Time (3 page)

“Sorry,” he says, and grins.

As he passes, I catch a glimpse of the tag on the bag he's holding.
Lyla McAfee
, it says in pink script. What the hell is Beckett Cross doing with Lyla's bag? Lyla's been dating this guy Derrick for, like, ever. Did they break up? I turn to watch Beckett as he carries the bag to the back of the plane, but before I can see where he's going, the pilot comes over the speaker and tells everyone to get ready for takeoff.

I lean back and buckle my seat belt. I hate the taking-off
part of the flight. Most crashes take place during the takeoff or the landing, so I can never really relax until we're in the air. Of course, even then I can't
completely
relax, because there's still the landing part to deal with.

“It
does
mean that he likes you,” Celia says. “It means that he loves you and he wants to have, like, five million babies with you.” She giggles. “Or at least make out with you on the beach.”

“I'm not sure if I want to make out with him,” I say, even though I'm pretty sure I do. I clutch the armrests as hard as I can as the plane starts off down the runway.

“Yes, you do,” Celia says.

“You definitely do,” Paige calls over the back of her seat.

Celia looks at the way I'm clutching the seat. “Actually, I don't think you have any idea what you want. You should have taken the Xanax I offered you. You're a mess.”

“Thanks,” I say sarcastically.

“You're welcome.”

Celia takes out her headphones. Once the plane is safely in the air, I push my seat back a little and close my eyes. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, the plane is coming in for a bumpy landing. I sit up and look around wildly, my heart pounding.

“Hey, hey, hey,” someone says. “You're fine. Just relax.”

The voice is coming from next to me, but it's not Celia's or Paige's voice.

It's a male voice. A deep male voice.

Nathan Duncan is sitting next to me.

I look down.

He's holding my hand.

Nathan Duncan. Is. Holding. My. Hand.

THE THING ABOUT WAKING UP ON A PLANE
with one of the most popular guys in school holding your hand is that if you're me, it doesn't happen. And I'm not saying that in an “Oh my god, I don't know how cute I am” Jennifer Lawrence kind of way. It seriously just does not happen. It's the kind of thing that would happen to Celia, or Paige, or probably a million other girls. But not me.

I'm completely out of my element. So of course I do something completely stupid. I pull my hand away. Which is really rude. And not the kind of thing you do when you wake up holding the hand of a superhot guy. And besides, he has a really nice hand. Very comforting.

“Oh, sorry,” Nathan says, “I probably shouldn't have done that. You just seemed a little disoriented. I guess it was instinct. I didn't mean to scare you.”

He grins at me, and my heart melts. He doesn't seem like
he's insecure or has a fragile ego, or whatever it is Celia said about men. In fact, if he's hurt that I've taken my hand away, he doesn't show it. He's probably not used to being rejected, so it, like, doesn't even register to him. Not that I was rejecting him. Was I rejecting him? I'm not . . . I don't . . . I feel hot and confused. This whole trip is just starting off way too weird.

I wonder if I'm in a dream. A dream where I haven't gotten into Stanford and where I wake up holding Nathan Duncan's hand. Although that would be very weird—to have a dream where you wake up.

“Um, that's okay,” I say.

“I asked Celia if we could trade seats. Sorry I freaked you out.” He has really long legs—even longer than mine—and his knees are pushed up against the back of the seat. “Are you okay?” His light-blue eyes are looking at me with concern. “You were mumbling and getting really tense.”

“Oh yeah, I'm fine,” I say. Mumbling and getting tense? What was I mumbling? And what does that mean, exactly, getting tense? Like, my body was getting tense? An image of my back getting stiff and my torso convulsing like the exorcist runs through my mind. How humiliating. I reach up and smooth my hair, then run the back of my hand over my chin. Sometimes I drool when I sleep, and the last thing I want is for Nathan to see that.

The plane bounces and skitters down the runway before slowing to a stop. I just sit there, not really sure what to do now. Should I get up and let him by? Or is this where I'm supposed to let him know that I'm interested?

“Where's Celia now?” I ask.

“A few rows up.” He leans down so that his head is touching the back of the seat ahead of us. “I didn't know you were sleeping. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked to switch with her.”

“Oh.” I swallow and try to think of something else to say to him. Now that I'm coming out of my fog, I realize that the flight is over. Yay for not crashing! Of course, the odds of dying in a plane crash are something like one in eleven million, and your odds of dying in a car crash are one in four thousand. And yet I get in a car all the time. The brain really does work in mysterious ways.

I try to focus it on coming up with something flirty to say to Nathan. Am I ruining my chance? My chance is passing me by! People on the plane are starting to get up and grab their stuff. Someone almost hits me in the head with their suitcase. I can't think of anything to say! I'm just sitting here like an idiot!

Finally I take a big deep breath and then stand up, because honestly, what else am I supposed to do? I can't just sit here forever.

“Is this your bag?” Nathan asks, standing up next to me and grabbing the one in the overhead compartment.

“Yes,” I say, and he hands it to me. Standing here next to him, I realize how tall he is. He towers over me. He smiles at me again. Say something, Quinn! But I'm blank. I've got nothing.

From the front of the plane, one of Nathan's friends calls his name. “I should go,” he says. “But maybe I'll see you later?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Of course.” I try to emphasize the last part, so he knows I'm definitely interested. But he doesn't seem to really catch on.

He takes a step toward the front of the plane, and then he's gone.

My phone buzzes.

That stupid email again.

Before graduation, I promise to . . .
do something crazy
.

It's a sign! I should have asked him to hang out. I should have done something.

But then I shake my head. That's the last thing I need to do.

My future is completely in jeopardy. I haven't gotten into Stanford. And doing something crazy isn't going to help me. At all.

By the time I walk into the lobby of our hotel, I'm actually starting to feel a lot better. About everything. Yes, that performance with Nathan wasn't stellar, but it's not like I did anything horrible. And he did say he wanted to hang out with me later. So I'll have a chance to redeem myself.

And as for the Stanford thing, yes, it's a problem, but really all I need is a plan. I'm sure there's someone else I can talk to, or an appeals process I can go through. I'll probably just have to go in for an extra interview or something. Maybe I can even make charts and graphs, the kind that will prove I'm way more qualified than some of the other people they let in. I'll do a PowerPoint and knock their socks off with how science-minded I am.

“Ugh,” Celia says, sitting down next to me in one of the hotel conference rooms. Our whole class is meeting here so Mr. Beals can go over the rules with us. “This trip is already ridiculous.”

“Where have you been?” I demand.

After I got off the plane, I caught a glimpse of Celia at the airport, but then we got separated in the crowd.

“Just around,” she says breezily. “I tried to find you on the airport shuttle bus, but I think we got on two different ones.” She lets out a big sigh, like she can't believe how hard her life is. “Did you hear that Paige and I got stuck rooming with Katie Wells? Like, how annoying is that? She's the
worst. All she wants to talk about is herself and her horses. Her
horses,
Quinn. The girl is seventeen years old and she still rides horses. I mean, we're not in middle school anymore. Get a new hobby.”

She reaches up and fiddles with her fake eyelashes, making sure they're still connected to her real ones. Celia gets eyelash extensions put on, but she didn't have time to get them refilled before we left for Florida, so she's wearing falsies. I hope they're waterproof.

“What?” I ask, confused. “I thought I was rooming with you and Paige.” A couple of weeks ago we had to fill out a form and indicate roommate preferences for the trip. Of course Celia and Paige and I all put that we wanted to room together. Since there were supposed to be three people to a room, we figured it was a given we'd get matched up.

“Yeah, well, somebody must have screwed up.” Celia takes in a deep breath. “I tried to talk to Mr. Beals about it, but he's being totally and completely unreasonable. He didn't even want to listen to what I had to say. Apparently someone on this trip has ringworm and he's, like, completely consumed with it.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Some kid named Bruno. He allegedly got it from wrestling, but can you imagine? It's, like, highly contagious.” She looks down at her arms, as if checking them
for any kind of disease, but of course her skin is perfect as always. “Anyway, you should check your room assignment and see who you're with.”

On the bus on the way here they handed out papers to everyone that listed their room numbers and roommates. I hadn't even looked at mine, because I just assumed I'd be with Celia and Paige. I rummage through my bag and pull out the paper.
Quinn Reynolds,
it says,
room 217
. When I see the names underneath my own, my heart sinks.

Aven Shepard.

Lyla McAfee.

What? How did I end up rooming with Lyla and Aven? Those two are the very last people in the whole wide world I'd want to room with. In fact, if I had to fill out a form that asked me who my very last choices were, I would have written Lyla McAfee and Aven Shepard. Seriously, I'd rather room with Ringworm Bruno than Lyla or Aven.

“Who was in charge of making these room assignments?” I demand.

“I dunno.” Celia shrugs. “But don't even think about asking someone to change them. They won't do it.” She shakes her head and drums her fingers on the table, impatient for the meeting to begin.

I look back down at the paper in front of me.

Lyla. Aven. Me. All in the same room. The last time
the three of us were in close proximity, we ended up in a fight. A wave of guilt sears through my body, the kind of guilt that burns like an inferno, the kind of guilt you don't want to have to face for even one second, because if you do, you might have to confront the fact that you're a horrible person.

I take in a deep breath and do what I always do whenever I think about Lyla and Aven—I push them out of my mind. But then I spot something at the bottom of the paper I'm holding.

From the Office of the Student Action Committee.

The Student Action Committee is a committee I actually thought about joining, because I thought it would look good on my Stanford application. (Ha-ha.) But then I realized I'd be better off doing debate and tennis, because it would make me seem more well-rounded. (Intellectual and athletic!)

And even though the Student Action Committee
sounds
very impressive, they actually don't really do that much. They meet once a week in the library and try to implement programs for the student body. But I think all they really do is sit around and
talk
about stuff they want to implement,
because they don't seem to really get anything done. They spend most of their time doing clerical work and other busywork for all the different school events—like adding up money for fund-raisers, or making room assignments for our senior trip.

So I didn't join. For all those reasons. But if I'm being completely honest, one of the other (main?) reasons I didn't join was because Aven is on the committee.

As Mr. Beals takes his place at the front of the conference room and starts talking about the rules for the trip (which are completely ridiculous and self-explanatory—like not spending the night in other people's rooms, not partaking in alcohol and drugs—pretty much everything everyone's going to do anyway), I let my eyes wander around the room until I spot Aven.

She's sitting in the corner at one of the round tables, her dark hair pulled back from her face. She's pretending to listen to Mr. Beals, but she seems a little distracted—her leg is bouncing up and down under the table, and she keeps chewing on one of her fingernails. She looks nervous. Is it because she knows she's going to be rooming with me and Lyla? Or is it because she set us up to be roommates on purpose?

She must have. There's no way she was on that committee and the three of us just
happened
to end up rooming
together. It's way too random.

But why would Aven want us all to room together? She's not expecting the three of us to become friends again, is she? If so, she's more delusional than I thought. I keep watching as she twists her hands in her lap and then glances toward the table next to her. I flick my eyes over to see what she's looking at. Liam Marsh. The guy she's been obsessed with for, like, ever. Supposedly they're best friends, but Aven's always been secretly in love with him.

Before graduation, I will . . .
tell the truth
.

That's what Aven wrote in her email to herself. It was ambiguous, but Lyla and I both knew exactly what Aven was talking about—finally telling Liam she wanted to be more than friends.

Of course, I thought it was a terrible idea. You don't just go around telling your guy friends you're in love with them. There's no point. If a guy likes you, he doesn't just continue being friends with you. He makes a move. It's definitely a misconception that guys won't go after you because they don't want to ruin the friendship. Puh-leeze. Guys don't care about friendships. They care about sex. And if they think they can get it from someone they're even remotely interested in, they go for it. Whether they're friends or not.

But when Aven wrote that email, I didn't try to talk her
out of it—I was sure that by the time we were seniors, the whole Liam situation would have been resolved, one way or the other. I figured the most likely scenario was that they wouldn't even be friends anymore, or if they were that Aven would have gotten over her ridiculous crush. But from the way she's looking at Liam, it's apparent she hasn't.

As Mr. Beals drones on and on about the signs of ringworm, I scan the crowd of my classmates for Lyla until I spot her on the other side of the room, looking agitated and impatient.

Could she have had something to do with the room assignments? I don't think so. If Aven and Lyla had worked together to make sure we all roomed together, that would mean they were friends again. The thought of the two of them becoming friends without me makes my stomach squeeze. But if they
were
friends again, wouldn't they have just roomed with each other? Unless they wanted to make up with me, too. But then why didn't they just approach me? They could have asked me to talk, sent me a text or an email or something.

Plus, if they were friends again, they'd probably be sitting together. No. This is definitely Aven working alone. I can't believe how nervy she is. Especially for someone who lives her life being so afraid of everything.

My phone vibrates.

Before graduation, I promise to . . .
do something crazy
.

Well. Rooming with Lyla and Aven certainly fits the bill.

Once the meeting is over, the conference room erupts into complete and total pandemonium. Kids are talking and laughing, bags are being rolled over the floor, and everyone's pushing toward the exit. Our whole class is jazzed up from sitting so long, and they're anxious to get out into the sunshine and start the trip.