The Tension of Opposites (10 page)

Jessie Richards sauntered past us without even looking, her long legs swinging in a perfectly even stride. Her face and body showed no sign of emotion. She was good, I had to give her that much, because everyone else in the atrium and the four attached halls that spread out like spider legs was staring openly, their mouths agape, their fingers pointing. Not even Jessie's entourage, Kirsten Holmes and Tabby Lock, could hide their wide-eyed shock.

“You ready to go?” Chip asked as soon as Jessie was out of sight.

“Sure.” Elle giggled, and I remembered how much her flirting had always annoyed me. “You don't mind, do you, Tess? Chip's gonna walk me to class.” Elle wrapped an arm around Chip's waist and squeezed his hard body to hers.

“Yeah,” I said. “I'll just meet up with you after this period.”

But she and Chip had already started walking down the hall, the crowd parting for them in the same way they always had for Chip and Jessie.

“She should think about going into acting,” Max said. “I mean, what'd she do to her voice? That didn't even sound like her.”

“Did that really just happen?” I asked. “Please tell me it didn't.”

Elle and Chip were gone by then, swallowed by the mass of people in the hallway.

“It happened, all right,” Max said. “And I have one question.” He stepped forward. “If she can date,” he whispered, a smile creeping to his lips. “Why. Can't. You?”

I took a step back. And then another. “Stop invading my space,” I said.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of answer?” Max's lips tightened, like he was trying really hard not to smile.

I was feeling so much, all of this stuff was just swirling around in my head, and I didn't know how to sort through it. Or even where to start. Elle had broken up the most popular couple in school? She was dating Chip Knowles? And for weeks I had been pushing Max away. I stood there, completely lost, wondering why I had been fighting this thing with him. Hoping I hadn't blown it.

“What about that girl I saw you with today? Are you dating her too?” I asked, my voice high pitched, the words running together. “Little Miss Miniskirt.”

As soon as the questions were hanging in the air between us, I regretted speaking. Max's mouth split into a wide grin.

“So that's what has you so bothered?” It was like someone told him the answer to a tricky math problem, the way his voice lit up. “Renee is my lab partner. She's got a boyfriend. A
serious
boyfriend.”

Max tucked his arm into mine and, with a little squeeze, started to tug me through the hall. “You've got nothing to worry about.” He moved in close, his breath warming my cheek. “I'm all yours.”

“What if I don't want you?” I asked as we walked past a group of giggling freshman girls.

“Renee's my proof. You want me, all right.” Max looked at me, this spark of humor lighting his eyes. “Almost as much as I want you.”

I couldn't help it. That made me smile. “Fine,” I said. “I'll let you take me out.”

“Well, don't sound so excited,” Max said with a laugh. “It's okay, though, I'll take your yes any way I can get it at this point. I'll even let you name the time and place.”

It took only three steps for me to figure it out. And my idea was utterly perfect.

“Christmas in Centerville. First weekend in December,” I said. “You'll want to bring your camera.”

“So you know her?” I asked Darcy as she slid into the seat beside me.

“Renee? Yeah.” Darcy plopped her purse on her desk. “We were on the same soccer team until I quit last year.”

“Is she dating anyone?”

“She's practically married to some Steven guy,” Darcy said. “He drives that beat-up yellow thing. You know, the car that looks like a banana.”

Walking up from behind, Max knocked his knuckles on my desk. “See?”

“Didn't your mother teach you not to eavesdrop?” I asked.

“I was finished with the computer. You're just mad because you don't have any reason to be mad.”

“Oh, whatever.” I kicked his feet, which were crossed at the ankles.

Max bent at the waist and leaned down until his face was inches from mine. He smiled. I tried as hard as I could not to. It didn't work. “You
have
to go out with me now,” he said.

“I know.” I nodded. “You win.”

“As gushy as I feel about this moment”—Darcy smacked my desk, and her silver ring made a pinging sound—“I need info. Is it true?”

“I told you it wouldn't take more than five minutes,” I said to Max.

“For what?” Darcy asked.

“For everyone in the building to hear.”

“That's totally true,” Darcy said. “But is the rumor true?”

“I don't know anything more than the rest of you.” I put my hands up to my face and squeezed my eyes shut for a second. “But they were all touchy-feely in the atrium just now.”

Darcy widened her eyes. “You have to tell her to back off,” she said. “Trust me, Jessie's revenge will be off the charts. This has been going on for weeks now, longer than any other time those two have broken up. Jessie won't take pity on Elle just because she's the girl who got kidnapped. She's going to
crush
her.”

“I don't get it,” I said. “What does Chip want with Elle?”

“What's not to get?” Darcy lowered her head, her bangs falling forward, and looked up at me. “Chip loves attention. Being with Elle will put him in the spotlight even more than being the star quarterback and dating the hottest hottie in school. Plus, Elle's probably pretty experienced. If you know what I mean.”

“Darcy, that's disgusting,” I said.

She shrugged. “Disgusting or not, I guarantee it's what he's thinking.”

“Oh, God,” Max said. “That's pretty sick.”

“Right.” Darcy lowered her voice and started talking really fast. “I'll never forget these identity papers we had to write when we were in the fifth grade. We were supposed to describe what we wanted to accomplish in life. Most people listed cheesy stuff like finding a cure for cancer, feeding the world's hungry, or creating world peace.”

“But Chip?” Max asked.

“His goal in life was to become famous. He didn't care how it happened, just that it did. Maybe he'd join a rock band, he said, or become a professional football player. As long as people knew his name.”

“And now he'll be seen with the most well-known person in town,” Max said.

“Okay.” I waved my hands in the air and stood, then reached into my bag for my camera. “I feel sick. I can't take any more of this.” I walked toward Mr. Hollon's desk, snatched the pass, and rushed through the door into the quiet stillness of the hall. I pressed my back against the nearest locker and closed my eyes, concentrating on a solution to the colossal mess Elle had somehow created for herself.

After wandering for half the period, I stood in a different hall on the opposite side of the school. I was hunched down a bit with my fingers wrapped around the body of the camera hanging from my neck, prepared to duck away from the window in the classroom door if anyone looked my way. I'd angled myself so the teacher, who was standing in front of the classroom writing algebraic equations on the board, couldn't see me. Only the back two rows had a chance, but no one was paying attention.

Several people stared blankly toward the front of the room. One guy wrapped a string around his pointer finger and pressed on the tip, which turned a deep shade of purple.

And then there was Elle, right between a sleeping lump wearing a hoodie and an empty seat. I had a feeling that I was more aware of her surroundings than she was. I didn't think she noticed anything, not the void next to her, not the line of drool that had to be oozing from the mouth of the guy taking his midday nap.

She was completely focused on whatever was streaming from her mind, down her arm, and through her pen to stain the pages of a spiral notebook.
The
spiral notebook, I assumed, because of the way she was writing, one hand moving at a cramping pace, the other clenched into a fist. I ached to read every last page of that notebook. To know the details so I would have a better idea of what to say, what not to say, and how to help make her feel like she was really, truly, all the way safe.

I raised the camera to my eye and zoomed in on Elle's face. Her lips moved a little, like they were testing the words as she wrote them, making sure they were true. I focused, depressed the button, and snapped. I knew the picture would be a little grainy because of the glass that separated us, but I didn't care. I had her now. Elle. Home.

I had just turned off my light and crawled into bed, hadn't even had time for the covers to get all toasty from my body heat, when my cell phone rang. Startled, I slammed against the headboard of my bed as I grabbed the phone off my nightstand. I noticed the time before the caller.

Twelve twenty-three.

Elle.

I snapped my phone open. “You okay?” I asked.

“Mmm,” Elle answered. “Juss peachy.”

“Are you … Have you been drinking?”

“A little.”

“Where are you?” I kicked my covers off and stood, reaching for the jeans I'd slung over the chair by my computer.

“Park,” Elle said. “Our tree.”

I zipped my jeans and grabbed for a notebook, flipping to a blank page. I scribbled an I'm-okay-Elle-needed-me note for my mom, just in case she woke up and found me missing.

“Don't move,” I said into the phone. The vision of Elle sitting on the bench flashed through my head. It sent a shock through my system, the thought of her alone in the dark. I didn't understand what could possibly drive her to go to that park. And I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.

“Elle, what are you doing out here?” The words streamed cloudily from my mouth as I sat on the bench, the cold from the hard wood seeping through the seat of my jeans in an instant. “It's freezing!”

Elle slumped back and stretched out her legs. “Waitin'.”

“For what?” I rubbed my hands together. “The first snow?”

I looked at the fountain, which had an internal light to fully illuminate the spray of water. Soaring up and then crashing down to the surface of the pond, the water continued uninterrupted.

Just like always,
I thought.

“Nope.” Elle chuckled and shook her head, a thick section of dark hair falling between us. “'Member that last winter, all those times we sledded down Killer Hill thinkin' we were so cool to be hanging out with people who were in high school?”

“Mm-hmm.” I smiled. “As if anyone in the crowd knew we even existed.”

“I missed that. Every time it snowed, I thought about those days. How we'd spend hours out in the cold and then run in for hot chocolate with all those melty, goopy marshmallows.”

“Or the s'mores that your mom made in the toaster oven.”

“Yum,” Elle said. She scratched her cheek, flipped her hair back over her shoulder, and looked at me. Tears glistened in the faint light that reached us from the fountain's base. “You wanna know what I missed the most?”

I nodded. Squeezed my hands together.

“My bed. And being there all-all-all alone …” Elle's voice trailed off. She tipped her head back and looked up at the sweet gum branches, spreading like a canopy above us. When I looked at her, her eyes were closed. Then her head snapped toward me, and she was staring right into my eyes. “And your nail polish! All those crazy colors you used to wear. I thought about that a lot, wondering if in that very moment you were wearing Rockin' Raspberry or Tizzy Teal. How's come you don't wear nail polish anymore?”

I shrugged. “Dunno,” I said, not sure what else to add. How could I tell her that absolutely everything was because of her?

Elle reached into her purse and pulled out her phone, flipping it open.

“I think I'm being ditched.” She kicked the grass with the toe of her shoe.

“Chip?” I asked.

“Yup.” Elle nodded in an exaggerated way. “I've texted him and left him a buncha voice mails. I'm getting nothing.”

“Maybe it's for the best.” I looked up at the bare branches clicking in a sudden gust of wind. “His ex—Jessie—she's kind of scary. I really don't think you want to be in the middle of all that.”

Elle pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and lit one. She cocked her head to the side and blew out a stream of smoke. “Don't you think I've faced worse than some stupid little cheerleader?”

“Listen,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I just want to say what I'm thinking. Once. And then I'll leave it alone, okay?”

Elle shoved her free hand in her purse and pulled out a little bottle, reminding me of the summer after fifth grade. My parents and I went to Florida that year, and Elle came with us, making the usually boring family vacation much more exciting. We were in hysterics the night she pretended to raid the hotel room minibar, walking around the room with lurching steps, speaking with a slur.

The liquid inside the bottle Elle now held was clear, like water, but I was pretty sure it was something much stronger. She took a swig and then offered the bottle to me. I held my hand up, planning to decline, but then something else took over. There we were, the two of us together after all this time, in the same quiet park, under the same old tree, next to the same roaring fountain. I grabbed the bottle and took a stinging sip. Then opened my lips and swallowed a mouthful. The fire melted me.

“Go on and finish it,” Elle said, reaching into her bag and pulling out another miniature bottle. I heard a snap as she twisted off the cap. “And by the way, I know what you're thinking.”

“Really?” I asked. “I doubt—”

“You think he's using me.” Elle tilted her head, her long hair swaying to her side. She took another drag off her cigarette and slowly blew smoke into the night. “Getting back at Little Miss JR for some indiscretion, maybe? Needing attention now that football's over? Looking like a hero for dating the dirty, broken girl? Am I right?”

“I wouldn't call you dirty or broken,” I said.

Elle rolled her eyes my way. “Am I right about the part where you think he's using me?”

“Well, yeah.” I nodded. “This is Chip Knowles we're talking about.”

“Let me tell you something, Tessa.” Elle pressed the tiny bottle to her lips and turned her face to the dark sky. I watched her throat, counting one, two, three large sips. When she looked back to me, her face was pinched tight. “I'm not stupid. And just so you know, I'm using him, too.”

I shook my head, not understanding.

“For the last two years I have been
dying
to have a totally normal, tortured-adolescent experience. Fighting over the most popular boy in school, pissing off the head cheerleader: it's absolutely perfect,” she said, her slow and calculated words causing a flash of panic to shiver through me.

“Okay, I get that.” I took in a deep, icy breath, wishing that the invisible crystals of water surfing the air around the pond could infuse me with strength. “But seriously, Elle, you don't know what you're getting into with Jessie.”

“I can handle that girl, Tessa.” Elle took another puff of her cigarette, then threw it to the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of her shoe.

Both of us stared at the glowing water shooting up toward the sky. Our backs were turned to the rear edge of the park, where the field of grass ended and miles of wooded trails began. The darkness felt heavy, pressing against my back, and I wanted to turn and face it. To make sure nothing was behind us.

“Maybe you'll get it if I share my list. Don't laugh, but I actually wrote one,” she said, tugging her butterfly notebook a few inches out of her purse so I would understand. Elle looked at me, her eyes wide, and cleared her throat. “‘All the Things I'm Getting Out of Chip.' Ready?”

“I guess,” I said. But I wasn't. I really, really wasn't.

“One: I'm having that totally normal teenage experience I've been dreaming about, in the form of a battle over some stupid boy.” Elle held one finger in the air. “Two: my first morning back to school, I was just the girl who'd been kidnapped. After lunch, when people saw me with Chip, I became the girl who broke up the most popular couple in school. One second of standing there next to Chip changed everything.” Elle popped another finger into the cold air.

“Elle, people didn't just think of you as the girl who'd been kidnapped.”

“You're totally right.” Elle gave me a crooked half smile. “Thanks to the news reports, they thought of me as the girl who'd been raped and the girl who'd been the star of child pornography. I could see it in everyone's eyes, Tessa. Not just pity, but curiosity. People wondered how many times I'd been pinned under his naked, bloated body. How many times I'd given him head. Or if he bit me or burned me or tied me up. Yes, yes, yes, by the way.”

I didn't know what to say. I was shaking all over, and my lungs felt like they would explode with one more frigid breath. I couldn't show her, though, so I kept staring into her eyes, tensing my body so my sudden shivers wouldn't give me away.

“So number two on my list is real. Between lunch and fifth period, Chip turned me into someone else, gave people something new to think of when they looked at me. Three is simple, Chip is the only person who isn't trying to fix me. He's not waiting for me to magically flip back to the person I used to be. Plus, he didn't know that girl from before, so he can't remind me of her.”

I ran my fingernails along my legs and felt the mouth of that little bottle peeking up from between my knees. I grabbed it and downed the rest of the fiery liquid in one last gulp, relieved to be sharing this moment with Elle, but nervous that she was getting into something very messy.

“And then there's number four. Chip didn't know, but tonight he was supposed to help me accomplish something very important. Again, I'm not stupid. I know I'm a mere distraction and that Mr. and Mrs. Popularity will be back together in a matter of time. So tonight, before I lost my chance, I was going to make sure Chip became my first.”

“Your first what?” I asked.

“That's good,” Elle said, looking at me. Something about my expression made her laugh. “Please tell me you're not still a virgin, Tessa.”

“Well,” I said. “I am. Still a virgin.” I wouldn't dare tell her that the only boy I'd kissed was Trevor Ryan that night in middle school, right here under this very tree.

“Oh, that's … really sweet.” Elle slapped my leg. “I mean, good for you, right?”

I felt totally out of place, uncomfortable in my body, uneasy on the bench that had once been a daily part of my life, cringing in the familiar space of our neighborhood park. I wanted to run fast and hard, until I was far away from this person my best friend had become.

Elle flattened her hand against her chest. “We all know I'm not a virgin anymore, but I never gave myself to anyone, see? Char—” Elle pressed her fingertips into her eyes and pulled them away, clasping her hands together. “
That man
took everything he wanted. Tonight, I decided I would give myself away for the first time.”

“But, Elle … Chip?”

“It doesn't matter
who
it is. Just that it happens.” Elle shivered. “I can't stand to think that
he
was the last man to touch me. I have to do something to change that. Chip's as good as anyone. Actually, better.” Elle laughed. “He's pretty freaking hot.”

Suddenly, Elle's phone tinkled a string of notes into the air, reminding me of wind chimes. When she looked at the screen, a huge smile spread across her face.

“We're on,” Elle said. “He's almost here.”

“Whoa,” I said, sitting forward. “Almost here?”

“Yeah.” Elle dug through her purse.

My body started to speed up—my pulse, my breathing—and I was suddenly hot.

“You can't go with him,” I said.

“Of course I can,” Elle said, popping a stick of gum into her mouth. “It's exactly what I want.”

“Elle, there's got to be another way.” I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Just come home with me. We have stuff for s'mores, and we'll take them up to my room and listen to—”

“Thanks, Tess”—Elle shook her head—“but I have to do this.”

I saw the headlights before she did, the white of the Range Rover sparkling in the streetlights' glow. Chip crept to a stop next to the square of sidewalk where I'd found Elle's bike that terrible summer day. To get in the passenger seat, Elle would have to walk right across that slab of concrete. I worried that she might fall through, get sucked into some vortex, and be lost to us all over again.

It's a sign,
I wanted to say. But instead I bit my bottom lip until I tasted the tang of my own blood.

“I'm glad you came out tonight,” Elle said. She squeezed my hand and then pulled away, standing and slinging the strap of her large purse over her shoulder. “See ya later.”

I sat there and watched as she jogged toward Chip's car. The driver's-side door opened, and Chip stepped out, unfolding himself to his full height. He reminded me of one of those transformers Coop used to play with. Rounding the front of the car, his legs sliced through the headlights. I was surprised when he stopped at the passenger door and opened it; the demonstration of chivalry fit nothing that I knew of him.