The Revenge Playbook (8 page)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I
'll have to see Trevor. Tonight. I don't want to, but I know he's going to be there, and I know with the same certainty that I won't be able to avoid him this time. I've been taking
circuitous routes to all my classes, ignoring his calls and texts. It was harder to avoid him at dance team practice, but after Coach Tanner used her megaphone to call him out for lurking, he couldn't very well let the football team see him hovering around our practices anymore.

So I'm dreading tonight, but sometimes the dread feels kind of like excitement. I try to distract myself with some of my favorite things:

1.
  
   Makeovers. Is it just me, or are they way more fun when you're doing them on people like Peyton who are shy and don't wear very much makeup? Marley obviously feels the same way because she practically attacked Peyton with styling products.

2.
  
   Getting ready. Because don't be fooled—the best part of any party is not the time spent at the actual party. It's the time spent gossiping with your girls while you do your hair and then gossiping again in the morning over bagels. Nothing brings out the flavor in good gossip like hazelnut cream cheese.

3.
  
   Dancing. Which I haven't actually done yet but will do the millisecond we arrive.

Marley parks at the back of a line of cars trailing from Casey's house, and we all pile out (as dance team members, we are physically incapable of arriving at parties in groups smaller than three). Climbing Casey's driveway in high heels feels like an extreme sporting event, but we all make it in one piece. A few hours from now, when Casey's front door vomits out drunk people, I doubt everyone will be so lucky.

The last time he had a party here was just a couple months ago. Trevor and I were standing in the front yard, surveying the Driveway of Death. I pulled off my heels because I felt like it would be safer, but then my toes curled into the softest, most luscious grass you can imagine. Seriously, Casey's mom must have an in with the guys who landscape golf courses or something because the stuff was unbelievable.

“You have to feel this!” I said, sinking onto my butt and pulling Trevor with me.

His mouth turned upward in an amused smile. But not amused like I-think-you-do-weird-dumb-stuff amused. More like you-are-the-kind-of-puzzle-that-makes-me-happy amused. “What am I feeling?” he asked.

I grabbed his hand and raked our fingers through the grass together. “This! Isn't it spectacular?”

“Mmm,” he replied, really taking it in. “Oh, yes. This is a whole new level of grass.”

“Right?! So I think we know how we're getting back to the car.” I pointed to where his dad's rusty Ford sat waiting at the bottom of the hill.

Trevor's smile came back. “We're rolling down the hill?”

“Hell, yes, we are. Because, one, there is no way I'm making it down that driveway without a flesh wound. And, two, THE GRASS.” I leaned back and made a grass angel for emphasis and also for fun.

And he could have looked at me, with my grass angels and my childish suggestions, and laughed. Or pulled me up by the hand saying, “How about I just help you down the driveway?” He
could have said any number of things. What he did say was, “Race you to the bottom!” before diving into the grass and rolling down the hill. And as I came tumbling after, all I could think was:
I. Am. So. Hopelessly. In. Love. With. You.
And, okay, maybe a small part of me was thinking:
I hope I don't die
.

Trevor rolled to a stop at the bottom of the hill, but I must have picked up more speed because I barreled into him, limbs crashing into limbs, bodies rolling over bodies. And suddenly, Trevor was kissing me like we were in one of those black-and-white movies where the couple tumbles around in the sand while the ocean licks at their feet (which is wildly romantic until you figure, with all that thrashing, there is
definitely
sand in uncomfortable places). We stuttered to a stop with Trevor's body over mine. He stopped kissing me and pulled a blonde curl away from my eyes.

“I love you,” he said.

It wasn't the first time he said it. Or the last. But it's the time I can't stop thinking about.

“Hey, look out.” Peyton pulls me sideways by the elbow so I just miss walking into an impromptu wrestling match. A couple guys are trying to pin each other on the lawn while people cheer from the front porch. I shake my head. One of the football team's hobbies is getting drunk at parties and beating the crap out of people. Often each other. The guys are getting dangerously close to rolling down the hill, and somehow I don't think they'll find it as magical as Trevor and I did.

Trevor. I have got to stop thinking about him. I spent two hours yesterday playing sappy breakup songs on my guitar. It's really getting sad.

We file inside and head to the kitchen because Marley says she is going to spontaneously combust if she doesn't get vodka-cranberried, stat. Casey pours one for her, and then the rest of us too because we're with her. The vodka he's using comes from a plastic bottle and looks incredibly high class.

Peyton stirs her vodka-cranberry with her straw, but doesn't drink any.

I walk over and bump her with my hip. “You don't have to drink that, you know.”

“I know.”

“If you don't want it, give it to me!” says Marley. “Never throw away alcohol. There are starving people in Alabama.”

Marley keeps cracking inappropriate jokes because it's so easy to shock Peyton into giggles. I can almost see the moment when a friendship forms between my old friend and my new one—it's like the room gets a little brighter.

We decide the kitchen is boring and take a lap around the party.

“People are looking at me,” whispers Peyton.

I grin. “That's a good thing. Now let's get going. We have a job to do.” A job that will be much easier while Trevor isn't here.

I find the nearest Varsity football player and introduce myself. Then old-school Ludacris starts blaring from the living room that has been declared a dance floor by this guy Purdeep from my AP US history class, who happens to be the reigning deejay of every party ever.

I grab the guy's hand. “We have to go dance! Now! Ludacris is my favorite!” And I'm not just
saying that to get this guy to dance with me. Ludacris is like the bacon of music. He can make any song better.

He follows me without question. Of course he does. They all think I'm a mega-slut—he's probably expecting this to end with sex in the laundry room or something. I decide this could work in my favor and attempt to hypnotize him with my Shakira-like hip action.

“What year are you?”

“I'm a senior.”

“Wow, so you must be a pretty big deal on the team then?”

He watches my hips swirl around. And around. “Um, yes?”

“That's so cool. Do you get to know all kinds of insider stuff, like where they keep the keys to the trophy case with that special football?”

“The Football of '76?” He frowns, possibly because I just gave their most prized possession all the respect of a blankie. Or maybe I went too far too fast. “Only Coach Fuller and the team captain have keys to the trophy case. Why do you care anyway?”

And that's pretty much how my conversations go with every football player for the next hour. The guys are all into me, and then I bring up the football, and then they turn into these weird, macho, football-protecting robots. About the only useful thing I figure out is that there are two sets of keys, and Coach Fuller and Chad MacAllistair have them. I wonder if Peyton's doing any better. I catch a glimpse of her silver halter whipping around the corner so I rush after her. And come face-to-face with Trevor.

“Hi,” says Trevor.

“Hi,” I say back.

We stare at each other for several painful seconds, during which entire civilizations in parallel universes spawn, rise, and self-destruct. Trevor's friend and Peyton glance back and forth between us and each other until they are unable to stand the awkwardness anymore.

“I'm Rey,” says the friend, who is built like a California redwood.

“I'm Peyton.”

He looks at us again and clears his throat. “Do you want to go with me to get something to drink?”

Peyton's eyebrows raise just enough to let me know she's silently asking my permission to go, so I give her the tiniest of nods to tell her I'll be okay. She still watches me until the last possible second when she steps into the kitchen.

“Can we go somewhere and talk?” Trevor asks once they're gone. “Please?”

He reaches for my hand, and I pull it away. The words
leave me alone
are on my lips, but then there's this small pathetic part of me that wants him to tell me every detail of every conversation he ever had with them about breaking up with me.

“Okay,” I say.

We manage to find one of the only quiet places in the whole house, the laundry room. (If any of
his “friends” spot us, they'll assume he's just getting me out of his system.) I hop on top of the dryer and sit cross-legged, elbows on knees, chin in hands.

Trevor closes the door behind us. “I'm really sorry.”

I keep my eyes focused on the floor.

“This wasn't what was supposed to happen,” he says.

“No shit.”

He winces and scuffs one shoe against the other, and when he looks up again, his face is pleading. “Those things you heard them say, you know I don't think that, right?”

And my plan to keep silent and make him suffer goes up in flames because there are things I have to know. “But why do they think it? You're the only guy I've ever had sex with, not that it's any of their business. I don't understand why I'm getting dumped for things that aren't even real. Why didn't you stick up for me?”

“I
did
stick up for you. This is why I wanted to talk to you first.” His voice is heavy with the kind of hurt I've been carrying around all week. “They can force me to break up with you, but they can't make me stop loving you.”

He squeezes my hands in his, and his eyes are full of questions and apologies, and a part of me believes him. Loves him. And another part of me hates myself for it.

“So, you really were going to break up with me.” It's more a statement of fact than a question.

“I didn't have a choice,” he says. Which is kind of like saying he loves me,
but
.

“What does that even mean? They're a football team, not the mafia. They can't force you to do things.”

“They don't need to hold a gun to my head to ruin my life.” He paces around the laundry room like it's a cage. “Football is everything for me. It's my one chance to get out of here and do something better because you know my parents can't afford college.”

It's true. My mom may work two jobs, but Trevor is the kind of poor where you get free lunch at school.

“If I don't do what they say, they'll beat the shit out of me at practice, they'll make sure I never get the ball in games. I've been fighting to get on Varsity since freshman year, and now that Chris graduated, I finally get my shot. But I've only got two years to prove to the college scouts that I'm worth anything.” His voice cracks. “They'll ruin me. And everything I've been working for will disappear.”

“I can't believe they can really do that,” I whisper. They're horrible, the things he's saying. That these guys are willing to completely torpedo someone's life because he's dating an alleged slut. But even though my heart is breaking for him, it doesn't excuse what he did to me.

He sighs. “So, yeah. I can't be seen dating you. But that doesn't mean they can keep us apart.”

Now I see where this conversation is going. I understand what he wants from me. And I'm not okay with it.

Nothing good is going to come out of me staying and talking to Trevor. Because life isn't fair. If it
was, my dad wouldn't have been able to break all the rules and have a perfect life while my mom who did everything right can barely keep it together. And still, she's the one facing all this judgment, like if she'd only had sex with her husband more or been sweeter or cooked better, it all would have been okay. I remember Mama getting advice from one of the ladies from church when I was supposed to be cramming for a test but had instead crammed my ear against the space between my bedroom door and the carpet. The woman was telling her to spice things up, as if buying lingerie or making French cuisine can patch a sinking submarine, as if “spice” or relationship-fixing when your husband is straying is entirely the responsibility of the woman. I remember watching Mama tear her hair out over the stove trying to figure out how to make a béarnaise sauce, and then going to my room and stuffing my fist in my mouth and crying because I knew it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference.

So if Trevor doesn't love me enough, I've already learned there's nothing I can do. My only fault is being stupid enough to believe he loved me enough in the first place. No one ever loves anyone enough. Not forever anyway.

He stands in front of me again, his hands resting on my kneecaps. “Liv, you know how much I love you.”

And I know what he's asking, but I just can't say yes.

“Then, tell them,” I say. “Stand on the coffee table, and tell the whole party how much you love me. Tell them you are so sorry being on the football team made you forget that.”

He hangs his head. “I can't.”

“That's what I thought.”

“But we could—”

“We could what? Have a relationship on the DL? Keep me as your dirty little secret? Your friends may think that's all I'm good for, but I know I'm better than that.”