One of the Guys (24 page)

“Holy crap,” I breathe. Panic. Pure panic. “We have to clean these up! If any of the faculty finds them…”

Mrs. Kemper appears around the corner. She picks up an envelope and opens it, curious. I'm pretty sure Emma has stopped breathing beside me. I grab her elbow, as if holding onto her might make everything okay. Mrs. Kemper's face changes from content to disturbed as she reads over Micah's profile.

“Shauna did this,” Emma whispers. “I know it.”

“It'll be fine,” I whisper back, squeezing her elbow. “Names aren't on the profiles. Just a boy's picture. His fake hobbies. No big deal.”

Mrs. Kemper looks up at us and says, “Ladies?” She marches toward us, the open envelope in hand.

“We're screwed!” Emma whisper-squeals.

“You know anything about these?” Mrs. Kemper asks.

“All of these college brochures littering the hall?” I shake my head. Try to whip out some acting skills. “Maybe someone's trying to make a statement?”

Mrs. Kemper's thick eyebrows raise. “A statement about what?”

“A statement about the pressure of choosing the right college,” I ramble, scratching my collarbone. I can feel the red blotches there, giving me away. “Maybe these envelopes are supposed to represent, I don't know, the cluttered mind or something.”

I run out of bullshit so I stop talking. Mrs. Kemper frowns. She's not buying it. An eternity passes. I think Emma might faint.

“You're late. Get to class, ladies,” Mrs. Kemper orders.

Later that night I open my laptop with the intention of watching a movie to clear my head, but my thoughts return to the blanket of white envelopes. I chew on the string of my hoodie, nervous. Mrs. Kemper will investigate. It's just a matter of time before the profiles are traced back to me, especially if Shauna Hamilton is questioned. This could be it. The end of the business. And Micah won't have money for UVM.

Micah. I rub my fingers over my lips and retrace his steps on my mouth. My lips are numb. My thoughts shift from Micah to Micah to Micah. I stare at the words written on my cast until the letters transform into nonsensical symbols of nothing. Words. Letters. Sentences. I inhabit a foreign world. Like Emma said, I am walking on the dark side. Everything tastes different, looks different, sounds different.

Outside my window, I hear the familiar sound of a basketball skidding across pavement. I peek through the blinds. Ollie, Cowboy, and Micah are playing basketball in the Garrys' shoveled driveway, each boy bundled up against the cold.

That's what I need. A moment of normal. Old times.

I throw on a Colts sweatshirt and head outside. Mom got the mail today, but I walk to the mailbox with purpose. I can't play with a broken arm, but I'd like to be invited over. There. Ollie spotted me. I think. Maybe not.

Snow seeps through my sneakers. I steal glances at the game. Ollie dunks the ball, cheering to the overcast skies. Cowboy rolls his eyes. I open the mailbox and gaze inside the hollow vessel. I look up and meet Micah's stare. My heart pounds.

He looks away and steals the ball from Cowboy, laughing. He misses what should've been an easy layup. Stomach churning, I make my way back to the house with my hands tucked firmly inside the front pocket of my sweatshirt. The stupid kiss. This silent treatment is all because of the kiss. It ruined everything.

“McRib!” Ollie shouts, tucking the ball under his arm. “Show us your moves!”

I try to hide my smile and relief. They're messing with me. This is how the guys operate. They tease and joke and give silly nicknames. I casually make my way over, but I want to run across the lawn and thank them for including me. Micah and Cowboy look very uncomfortable. Cowboy's the only one who looks at me. A few awkward moments pass. Why is this so weird?

“Hey, Cowboy,” I say. Seems like I haven't seen him in forever. “Any progress with Katie Morris?”

He shuffles his feet. Looks down. “Still waiting for my perfect moment to open a conversation,” he says. “I did get that scholarship to Johnson State. So there's that.”

“Congratulations!” I say. Good for him. I hate that we've lost touch over these last few weeks, but we've both been busy. Besides, we'll have the summer to catch up. I hope. So what if he can't talk to Katie Morris anyway? He'll grow out of his painfully shy phase. Eventually.

I scratch at my cast and look at Micah, but he turns away and shoves his hands into his coat pockets. We should really talk. This is torture.

“We wanna see your moves, McRib,” Ollie says, bouncing the basketball.

Thank God. A distraction. I raise my cast. “I can try one-handed,” I say.

Ollie's grin grows wider. “You don't need the ball.”

“Don't.” Micah looks at Ollie and rubs the back of his neck. I'm not understanding something, but I try to keep my cool.

“Ollie's afraid I'll knock him over again,” I joke. I shiver, not exactly dressed for snow-play. But I don't want to go back inside now.

Ollie's eyes narrow, and he licks his chapped lips. “Why didn't you choose me for the snowboarding date?”

His tone is accusing, laced with an edge of mean. I'm a little taken back, but I reply confidently, “The client chose Loch. The client gets what she wants.”

“Seems to me,” Ollie says, dribbling the ball, his tone dark, “that you want to help Loch earn money. So he gets more dates than any of us. All I get is Lemon.”

Micah sighs. “Come on, man. Let it go.”

“Not true.” My voice rises. This isn't about the snowboarding date. This is about the stupid prank. He still blames me. “I want to help all of you. This is supposed to be a team effort.”

Ollie dribbles the ball harder and harder until I think he might shatter the concrete. “Two thousand dollars for the weekend? That would've made a huge difference to me. This thing between you two?” He nods at Micah, then me. “It screws everything up. I'm not the only one who thinks that.”

Ollie glances at Cowboy. Cowboy raises his hands in surrender. “I don't want to do this.”

“Do what?” My heart thumps. What's happening here? This feels like a rebellion. An unraveling. Streetlights cast shadows across the snow. The neighborhood is cold, quiet, most everyone tucked away in their living rooms, winding down, preparing for bed. While I feel like my world with my boys is about to crack.

“You want to know why I don't go on hunts anymore?” Ollie asks. He tugs at his earlobe. “I see the way you look at Loch out on the water. We're not the same kids we were. Next year, we'll all be gone. Accept it.”

My cheeks warm.
The way I look at Loch? What does that mean?
“That's why you want to spend the summer in Colorado?” I ask, trying to keep my cool. “You want to abandon us as soon as possible because it's inevitable that we change?”

Ollie frowns and dribbles the ball some more. “I'm not sure I even know you anymore.”

“I'm the same person I've always been.” I fidget with the string on my sweatpants. “This is about your parents. You won't stop blaming me for that dumb prank. It's not my fault you've goofed off for years, Ollie. And it's not my fault your parents are making you take some responsibility for something.”

Ollie shoots the ball and misses. The ball rolls into the snow. Ollie leaves it there and blows into his bare hands, warming them. He points to the basketball goal. “Well,” he says with a sinister grin. “Aren't you gonna show us your pole moves, McRib? I hear that's a new hobby of yours. See? I barely know you.”

I step back, a wave of dizziness slamming into me. No one moves or talks. A gust of wind fills the silence. I look to Micah. But he's facing the garage door, his face hidden behind his gloved hands. He shakes his head over and over like that movement might fix something. It won't. What exactly did he tell them about our little trip? Ollie kicks at a clump of snow.

All of a sudden Cowboy retrieves the ball and goes in for a dunk. After he makes the shot, he moves across the driveway in calm-cool-Cowboy-mode, arms raised, trying to get some kind of applause from us. No one claps though. At least someone's trying to break this terrible awkwardness. But I don't even need to be here. Ollie says he doesn't know me anymore. Well, I don't know him either. I'm not sure I know any of these guys anymore.

I turn away from my boys—wait, they're no longer
my
boys—and march toward my house. This is the part where I say goodbye to my childhood existence. This is the part where everyone is different. No turning back. No clinging to what once was.

Behind me, his voice. “Toni! Wait! I wasn't making fun of you!”

I can't even look at Micah. I break into a jog and hurry inside. I press my back against the front door and catch my breath. I glance at my cast, at the stupid words scrawled on it, and wonder what else he told them about the trip. What else they laugh about. I am nothing more than a joke to them. A conversation piece for the basement. I am no longer one of the guys.

twenty-four

“Y
OU SURE YOU WANT DO THIS?”
Emma asks. She sits at my desk and organizes rarely used Post-It notes by color. “Because you don't have to. You could just not wear them anymore.”

I adjust my hoodie. “This is my way to vent. Plus they ride up my butt too much. Skirt or no skirt.”

I look at my old pair of basketball shorts strewn across my bed. In my right hand I hold a pair of scissors. I take a deep breath. Time to say goodbye to things that don't work anymore. As I raise the scissors, Emma belches. I glance over my shoulder. She waves her hand and says, “Sorry. Please. Continue.”

Without another thought, I cut the shorts down the middle, but the scissors get stuck on the fabric. So I attempt to tear the rest. This proves impossible with my broken arm. Emma hops up and takes one side of the shorts. I take the other. She gives me an encouraging nod.

“Ready?” she asks.

I nod. We each pull our side, and the shorts rip straight down the middle. Satisfied, I place the scissors on the bed. I plop down at my desk and gulp a Mountain Dew while Emma studies the torn shorts, perplexed. Look at that. Something I once refused to let go of torn up.

Emma's phone vibrates on the desk, and I startle. The screen lights up. I catch the name before Emma hurries over and picks it up. The text is from Ollie.

Flustered, Emma studies the screen and says, “Um, Ollie's headed over to Lemon's.”

I stiffen. “Right on schedule.”

Over the last few weeks, Mrs. Kemper investigated the origins of the brochures, but Winston girls know how to keep a secret. Everyone's lips are zipped, along with their wallets. Business has been slow. Nonexistent, actually. Tonight is an exception. Ollie and Micah are booked because it's Valentine's Day.

“This will blow over, Toni.” Emma sighs, sitting on the bed. She swings her legs. “Whatever's going on with you guys.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” I look away.
It really won't. What's done is done
. I sip my soda, depressed. I miss the guys, but I'm done trying to mend those bridges. They don't see me as the tomboy with skinned knees anymore. I don't see them as the guys who would never hurt me.

“Fingers crossed all goes well tonight.” Emma focuses on the business. She slides her phone into the front pocket of her jeans. Her nails are neon blue today. “Maybe
Rent-a-Gent
could get back on track.”

I shrug and play a game on my cell phone. With low demand, we had to fire Henry and Jason. We saved what business was left for Ollie and Micah.
Micah
. Emma coordinates his dates now. I'm currently not speaking to him. It's weird. I'd spent the year determined to hang on to my friends and somehow lost them in the process. Ollie thinks I don't care about him. Cowboy's pulled away since his disaster fake date. And then there's Micah. Well. Things
definitely
aren't the same there.

I've been thinking about the summer we saw Champ. How we sat at the edge of that dock, legs hanging over the edge, bare feet in the water. We watched the sun go down. Crickets chirped and cicadas sang while a warm breeze floated over the water. We were sitting in silence, sharing a bag of oversized Skittles, when we saw it surface. That dark mass several feet ahead of us. That tail. Champ's tail. It had felt like magic. From that moment on, we were inseparable.