17 First Kisses Page 17

  She giggles. “Hot. Who’s next?”

  I think for a second. “Bass.”

  “He’s in the basement playing pool.”

  “Awesome.”

  I note Tanner is still nowhere in sight before heading downstairs to the basement, where Bass is playing pool with three other guys. There aren’t any girls around. A guy in a Halo shirt sinks the eight ball just as I walk up. I touch Bass on the shoulder.

  “Hey, can you sit the next one out? I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Uh, okay. Sure.” He follows me to a leather couch, twisting the hem of his T-shirt in his hands as he walks.

  We sit there for a few awkward seconds.

  “So, like, are you okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah. I guess,” I say. And then, because he seems so genuine: “I can’t believe he cheated on me.”

  He nods. “My last girlfriend cheated on me too. If it makes you feel any better, I think he’s pretty miserable right now.”

  “It does.” I smile. “A little.”

  He tells me about finding his ex sucking face with some other guy in the back of the band bus after an away game, and I tell him about walking in on Tanner. He’s not at all like his brother. This is actually difficult. Bass may be kind of nerdy, but he’s a sweet nerd who cares about my feelings, so should I really be revenge kissing him? I think of Tanner. Cheating on me. And then I put my hand on his chest.

  “Thanks for being such a good friend,” I say.

  I lean forward, like I’m getting up, but when I do, I kiss him. His eyes open big and he makes a choking sound. It’s too much of a shock for him. OMG, what if I kiss him into a coma or something? But then he recovers and kisses me back, and when I finally pull away, he looks happy and dopey, and maybe a little in shock still. He just sits and stares when I leave.

  Three down. Which means I currently have saliva from three different guys sloshing around in my mouth. It’s a mono outbreak waiting to happen. I kind of thought kissing Tanner’s friends would make me feel, I don’t know, empowered or something, but instead I feel a little empty. It’s probably because Tanner still has no idea.

  Amberly waits for me in the living room.

  “One more to go.” I say.

  “You need to hurry,” she replies. “I don’t think Megan will be able to keep Tanner occupied for much longer, and I have no idea where Seth is. I know I saw him earlier, but I swear I’ve searched the whole house. Maybe he’s outside?”

  I head out the back door and, as soon as I shut it, realize Megan and Tanner are sitting in chairs by the fire pit not five yards away. Uh-oh. Megan sees me and her eyes get big, but luckily I’m able to dash around to the side of the house before Tanner turns his head. I lean against the wall and close my eyes in relief. A tap on my shoulder almost sends me into a frenzy. I whirl around.

  “Seth!”

  His shiny black hair is gelled into a faux-hawk. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, um. Avoiding Tanner.”

  Seth glances in the direction of the fire pit. He gets this little frown like he’s going to try to talk to me about serious things. But I don’t want to talk. I’m tired of planning kiss-segue conversations, plus I’m super nervous, so this time I go right for the kiss. For a second nothing happens, and I worry I’m about to be seriously embarrassed, but then his lips open and his tongue finds mine. One hand winds itself into my hair. The other splays across my back, pulling me closer. I can feel the tension in each of Seth’s fingertips as they press against my ribs. There’s a passion in his kissing that frightens me. He grabs my hand when I end the kiss.

  “I knew you felt the same way,” he says.

  “What?”

  “This whole time you’ve been with Tanner, and even before, I’ve liked you.”

  All I can do is stand there with my mouth hanging open. I didn’t know he liked me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Well, anyone except Tanner. I feel guiltier by the second about making him the fallout of my kiss warfare.

  “And now I know you feel the same way.” His grin falters. “Because, why else would you kiss me?”

  “He cheated on me,” I say to Seth’s Converse.

  I expect him to be annoyed. Or sad, maybe. I don’t expect him to wrap me in his arms and hold me.

  “I know.” He kisses my temple. “And I’m so sorry. But you’re with me now. I’d never do that to you.”

  Could this get any worse? I wiggle out of his embrace. “No.” This time I look him right in his kind brown eyes. “I mean, that’s why I kissed you. I kissed all four of you guys to get back at him.”

  His face looks like it’s having a fight with itself.

  “‘All four of you’? So, this was just . . . And you don’t . . . Damn it!” He slams his hand against the wall of the house.

  “I’m sorry.” I feel like the worst person in the world.

  “It isn’t your fault,” he says firmly. And with that he stalks toward the fire pit, leaving me standing by myself.

  “Seth, wait. Please.”

  I try to grab his arm, but he pushes my hand away and walks right up to Tanner.

  “Why did you do it?” he yells.

  Tanner nearly falls out of his chair in his effort to back away from Seth and stand up at the same time. “What?”

  “Why did you do it?” This time Seth isn’t yelling. He’s broken. “You knew I liked her from the beginning. Things could have been great between us if you’d never gone for her. Why did you do it?”

  Tanner rubs at his earlobe. “Look, I’m sorry.” His eyes meet mine. “I like her too.”

  Seth looks close to tears now. “No. You don’t cheat on girls you care about. And you don’t screw over friends you care about.”

  He walks away before anyone can say anything else.

  Tanner turns to me. “Why is he being like this? Did something happen?”

  I can’t even meet his eyes. I feel like such a jerk. “I kissed him,” I say. “I kissed all your friends.”

  This isn’t how I imagined Tanner finding out at all. I thought I’d be proudly announcing that I’d kissed his best friends while he realized how sorry he was. But this is horrible. I am horrible. How could I do that to Seth?

  In the days that follow, Screaming Lemurs goes through an epic breakup. After their lead guitarist walks out and takes the band’s lead singer with him, there isn’t much the other three guys can do.

  In the days that follow, Buck calls me Yoko really loudly in the middle of the cafeteria. I try to explain that Yoko Ono did not make out with all four members of the Beatles, but the culturally illiterate kids at my school don’t get it and the nickname sticks.

  Still, the nickname isn’t the worst part. For the girls at my high school, me breaking up the band is nothing short of criminal. On Wednesday, I walk by a lunch table and hear “That Claire Jenkins goes through boys like she goes through the laundry.” I have to force myself to keep walking and pretend I didn’t notice. Gossip rolls right off me, usually. I’m used to hearing that my boobs are tiny or that I’m a bitch, but this is the kind of thing people say about Amberly or maybe Megan, not about me. When did I become that kind of girl?

  On Thursday, I talk to Sam about it while we play video games in his basement. “So how does it feel to be the school Antichrist?” he asks, shoveling another Swiss Roll into his mouth.

  “Is it really that bad?”

  “For now,” he says through a mouthful of snack cake. “Things will blow over, though. Eventually.”

  On Friday, a pack of girls I barely know pull me aside after the last bell rings. I’m trudging down the hallway under the weight of two AP classes’ worth of books when they block my path. Four girls who are the less-hot equivalent of me and my friends glare at me with their arms crossed.

  “We need to talk to you,” says the blond one, who is obviously their leader.

  “Yeah,” says Amanda Bell, clearly angling to be second in command. “You just need to know that ever
yone hates you.”

  The blonde cuts in. “Because you’re a slut. Amberly used to be the school slut, but now it’s you.”

  “She is not a slut,” I say.

  Amanda snorts. “Yes, she is. But you’re worse because you broke up Screaming Lemurs.”

  “They were the coolest thing to ever happen to this school, and you ruined everything,” chimes in a girl with long black braids and a hot-pink shirt.

  “All because you have to make out with anything with a pulse,” says the blonde. “If you weren’t such a slut, the band would still be together.”

  My eyes flash. I kissed four guys. Four. And I’m a slut? The average girl kisses seventy-nine guys before she finds the one she’s supposed to marry. You’d think I’d screwed half the football team the way everyone is carrying on. I want to scream at them, Hello. I’m a virgin!

  Instead I say, “How is this all my fault?” Why does Tanner get to be innocent in all this?

  “Oh, we know your friends were involved. Everyone is pissed at them too,” says the fourth girl, a cute redhead who talks with a lisp.

  “That’s not what I meant. Tanner—”

  Amanda takes a step closer like a prowling animal. “Megan and Britney are the biggest bitches in school, and you and Amberly are the biggest sluts. And everyone is getting tired of it, so watch out.”

  “Yeah,” says the blonde with a flip of her ponytail. “Y’all may not be the queens of the school for much longer.”

  “I don’t care about that stuff. You’re missing the point. Tanner. Cheated. On me. This whole thing started with him. And the other guys in the band are more than capable of making their own decisions. I didn’t force them to kiss me back. I didn’t force Seth and Tanner to fight. You guys act like it’s okay to heap all the blame on the girl but let the guys off with a free pass. Don’t you get how screwed up that is?”

  But they don’t get it. I can tell by their blank looks.

  “Whatever,” says Amanda Bell. “You’re still a skank.”

  “Ho-bag,” says Hot Pink.

  I turn and stomp away, leaving their parting insults to ricochet off my backpack.

  Whew. I managed to stay strong, and now I just have to keep it together until I reach Megan’s car. But when I get there, I find Megan bawling like a baby.

  “Everybody thinks I’m a bitch,” she says as I plop down in the passenger seat.

  “They got you too, huh?”

  She nods and pours out the whole story. Amanda was right—nearly every girl in school hates us. So do the guys formerly known as Screaming Lemurs, especially Seth. It’s hard to forgive when you’ve got Buck calling you Sloppy Fifths.

  “What are we going to do?” Megan asks.

  “We make a pact. Starting today, we fix our reputations.”

  She sniffs. “Yeah. And how do we do that?”

  “I don’t know.” I bite my lip. “I guess we start by thinking about the problem. And your problem is that people, uh, think you’re a bitch.” I see the hurt flash in her eyes. “You’re not a bitch,” I say quickly.

  She gives me a wry smile. “Thanks.”

  But then why does everyone think she is? She’s fiercely loyal. She’s fun. She’s hilarious. She’s completely honest about the things she loves and the things that terrify her. That’s the Megan I see, anyway. I try to imagine the Megan other people see. Oh. I get it now. But if they could just see what I see—hey, wait! Maybe that’s it! “You know how sometimes you act different around me? Like, you’re not afraid to tell me how your parents make you feel dumb or how you like cooking more than breathing?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “I think you should show that side to everybody else.”

  Megan sucks in her breath. “I don’t know, Claire. That’s, like, really personal stuff.”

  “I know, and I’m not saying you should be spilling your guts in front of everyone all the time, but you’re so much more than just the cheerleader you, and sometimes I think that’s all anyone sees. I think people would really like the real you. You could at least give it a try.”

  “That sounds scary.” She starts cleaning up her makeup, which is a sure sign she’s feeling better. “I’ll think about it, okay? What about you, though? What are you going to do?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “I already know what I have to do.”

  For me, this pact is about more than getting the girls at school to stop whispering about me behind cupped hands. I don’t care if Amanda Bell thinks I’m a bad person. I care that hurting Seth’s feelings and kissing a bunch of guys for revenge made me feel like I was turning into a person I don’t want to be. The only way I can think of to fix things is to concentrate more on me and less on boys. Which mostly involves not flirting with guys or kissing anyone for all of junior year. Bor-ing.

  It works, though. Plus, since junior year is crammed with SAT prep and every AP class under the sun, the lack of boy-like distractions helps keep my test scores high. Is it fair that I have to swear off boys while Tanner cheating on me seems to make him even more desirable? Nope. But I can only change me, not everyone else.

  For Megan, it’s a little more complicated. But she manages to pull off a public-image face-lift of epic proportions. She talks to everyone in school, even if it’s just to say hi and smile, and you can tell by the way their faces light up that it makes them feel so special to be touched by Megan McQueen. She becomes the kind of popular girl that people actually like. And I couldn’t be more proud of her.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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  Chapter

  13

  Megan must be crushed after the breakup. But I don’t call or visit. If she hasn’t called, she’s got to be mad at me. I don’t know if our usual ice-cream-eating, picture-burning, revenge-plotting session is a good idea. So when her home phone number pops up in my cell window, I’m relieved.

  “Hey. Is this Claire?”

  “David?” Why is Megan’s brother calling me?

  “Yeah. Um, can you come over?”

  I assume this has something to do with the Luke-Megan semipublic breakup. “Does Megan want me to come over?”

  An awkward silence follows.

  “She’s barricaded in her room. She dropped the bomb about culinary school this morning, and things got ugly, and she hasn’t come out since. She needs you.”

  If David is calling me because he’s worried about Megan’s feelings, things must be serious. David doesn’t do feelings. Getting straight As since the beginning of time, research on quantum dots, forgetting how to speak English in front of girls—these are things David excels at. Not feelings. I’m knocking on the front door of the McQueen house before we hang up the phone. David answers, his eyes big and scared.

  “I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t know what to do.”

  He watches me, helpless, as I run upstairs to Megan’s room. I knock but don’t hear an answer, so I go in anyway. Megan sits in a nest of pillows in the middle of her bed, listening to music so loud I can hear it through her headphones. I look at her iPod. It’s some scary death-metal song. On repeat.

  “That bad?”

  “It was horrible.” She pulls off her headphones. “They’re horrible. They keep trying to figure out ‘why I am this way.’ Like if they could figure out the sequence of events that spun me on this path, they could fix me. Like there’s something horribly wrong with me. Well, there isn’t. I like cooking and cheerleading and being popular. And I’m tired of being treated like that makes me defective.”

  I hop into her pillow nest and hug her. “What happened?”

  “I told them about going to culinary school and how being a chef is my dream. They blew up. Just because I don’t want to go to college. Mom even said I’m setting women back and solidifying gender stereotypes by wanting to work in a kitchen for the rest of my life. I tried to tell them most chefs
are men and the schools I like are super prestigious, but they wouldn’t listen. And they won’t pay. So I don’t see how I can go.”

  “They’re brain-dead if they can’t see how talented you are. You’re a badass chef.”

  Megan giggles. “You just said ‘badass chef.’” Then a new fountain of tears begins. “This is the worst week ever.”

  She pours out the whole story of the fight with her parents—every unfair detail. We throw around ideas about how to change their minds: maybe Megan could introduce them to a standout local chef, maybe she could make them an extravagant dinner, maybe she could pull a David and do a PowerPoint presentation on why she wants to be a chef so badly. It’s tough. We’re much better at concocting schemes against boys.

  Eventually we get around to the breakup too. She tells me what I already heard through the door but mostly cuts out the parts involving me. It sounds like she blames him completely and not me, which makes me feel the strangest combination of guilt and relief. I feel heavy on the walk home. But also glad Megan and I are still friends.

  Mama jabbers into the phone with her elbows propped on the kitchen table. She hangs up when I walk through the door, an ear-to-ear smile lighting her face.

  “We have to plan a fabulous Christmas dinner this year. It’s been too long,” she says. “What do you want to make?”

  “We can make anything you want,” I reply.

  This is awesome. Oh, how I’ve missed Christmas dinners. Honey-glazed ham. Squash casserole. Four kinds of pie. Yum.

  “And guess who’s coming for Christmas!”

  “Who?”

  “Sarah. And she’s bringing her boyfriend.” Mama looks like she might burst from the excitement.

  “That’s great.” It’s been forever since I’ve seen Sarah. And I can’t believe she’s bringing her boyfriend. She talks about him all the time (or she used to back when we talked more), but I’ve never actually gotten to meet him.

  A week later, Sarah and Boyfriend arrive on our doorstep, looking so trendy and perky it almost makes me sick. The University of Georgia alums, Sarah with an exciting new job in the fashion industry, Boyfriend with a position at an advertising agency, are blissful as can be. He’s very handsome, even if he does look like the kind of guy who plays golf in seersucker shorts. He and Sarah never stop touching. His arm around her waist. Her fingers gently scratching the back of his neck. You’d need Crisco and a crowbar to separate them.