On the Outside: an upcoming novel by Siera Maley
Prologue
It was a hot day in Jonesburg, Washington as the summer of 2012 drew closer to an end, and I felt it on the back of my neck as I peddled past the next two houses down from my own, my dark brown hair pinned to the top of my head in a messy bun to help keep myself cool.
The heat made the trip to the creek feel longer, and I was sweating heavily by the time I finally dumped my bike in Evan’s driveway. From there, I jogged through his neighbor’s backyard. The line of trees beyond promised shade, and the knowledge that I’d soon be able to splash water over my face and neck spurned me on.
Leaves crunched beneath my feet as I ran through the woods, and so Evan and Riley heard me coming.
“Kayla!?” I heard Riley shout. I whistled back, long and high-pitched – a special signal we’d created when we first started coming here – and heard laughter when the sound faded.
Evan was ankle-deep in the creek when I arrived, his pants rolled up to his knees and his shaggy blonde hair sticking with sweat to the back of his neck. Riley was tucked under the small shelter we’d built a year ago with her dark hair up like mine. Evan’s dad helped build houses for a living, and he’d let us have the spare wood he kept in his garage in addition to a hammer and a box of nails, so we’d built something to sit in with all of it. It didn’t look great, but it did have a floor and a roof to provide shade, and that was what mattered. That, and the fact that we’d done it all by ourselves.
I took a moment to dip one hand into the creek and then dab myself on the back of the neck with the cool water.
“What took you so long?” Evan asked me a few seconds later as I squeezed into the shelter with Riley. She grinned at me and tangled half of our fingers together. My pinky and ring finger were linked with her index and middle fingers, and we shared a look as Evan climbed out of the creek. For a moment, I forgot he’d asked me a question. Riley squeezed my fingers with hers as Evan tried to get my attention. “Hello?”
“Oh, I had to eat lunch,” I finally answered. I bent my legs, pulling my knees up to my chest so that Evan could inch himself into the shelter in front of me. “How long have you been waiting?”
“Just around ten minutes,” Riley answered for him.
Evan sighed and leaned back, resting his head at Riley’s feet. As he stared up at our makeshift ceiling, he asked, “Can you believe it? We start high school tomorrow.”
“Everyone makes it sound so scary,” said Riley, “but I think it could be fun.”
“Nicole likes it,” I told them. My older sister had just finished the tenth grade, and she’d loved every minute of it. A senior boy had asked her to Prom a few months ago. I wondered briefly if I’d ever be that lucky.
“But Nicole’s pretty and popular,” Riley replied. “And she wears makeup and nice clothes. Kayla, you’re cute so you’ll do fine, but all I have are a pair of Converses and a skateboard.”
“What are you talking about? You’re both pretty,” Evan cut in, nudging Riley’s leg with his fist.
Riley and I shared another look, and then we gasped, pressed a hand to our chests, and let out a joint, “Awwwww!”
“Shut up,” Evan mumbled. I could see his cheeks going red. I think that was mostly because of Riley. I caught him staring at her sometimes, but she never seemed to stare back, and I was thankful for that. Our trio wouldn’t be the same anymore if two of us ever started dating. “Fine, you’re both hideous. Better?”
“Much,” agreed Riley. She reached out to grab his hand and then pulled him up into a sitting position. “Hey, we have to agree on this, okay?”
“On what?” I asked, and she shot me a look that told me not to interrupt.
“We’re starting high school tomorrow. Everyone talks about how it’s super important, and the teachers are stricter, and it’s gonna decide who we are and what we do with our lives and all that. Like, it changes you and stuff. But you guys have been my best friends since I was six, and I kind of don’t want to lose that.”
“Of course you won’t lose us,” said Evan. “We’ll probably have tons of classes together, and even though we’ll make other friends, we’ll just introduce them to all of us and we can all be friends with them. Just like we did with Remi and Vincent.”
“But they’re not going to our high school,” I reminded him. “So we probably won’t get to see them anymore.”
“I know,” he said, “but we can find more people we all like. And we’ll all eat lunch together. Things don’t have to change just because we’re going to a bigger school.”
“So we all agree. No matter what happens, and no matter who we become, we’ll always be best friends,” said Riley. “Deal?” She untangled her fingers from mine and offered a pinky up in the middle of the three of us.
“Deal,” Evan and I agreed, and then linked our pinkies with hers.
Chapter One
“C’mon Knights!”
Next to me, Vanessa had both arms in the air and was shaking the pompoms gripped in her hands, trying to pump up the audience in the stands. We shared a grin and I joined her, facing the crowd as a whistle sounded. I knew that meant that the ball had to be back in play. There were less than fifteen seconds left on the clock, and we were down by a single point. “Knights fans, let them hear you!”
The crowd erupted into a roar and several of them shot to their feet, pointing to something behind us. Vanessa and I spun around with the rest of the squad as the voice of Vice Principal Hunter – the announcer for the game that would decide the state basketball champions for the season – boomed across the gym. “And with six seconds left on the clock, Carver has stolen the ball! He’s got a clear run to the hoop!”
Vanessa let out a squeal beside me and gripped my arm as I, wide-eyed, watched Josh sprint down the court and all the way to the basket, where he laid the ball up into the hoop. The buzzer sounded, the Knights’ score on the scoreboard ticked from a 51 up to a 53, surpassing the Sharks’ 52, and the gym erupted into cheers. The rest of the team crowded Josh, jumping up and down, and he was hoisted into the air.
“Josh Carver has done it! Knights win! Knights win!”
“Every girl in school is going to be jealous of you,” Vanessa said into my ear, and just as the words left her lips, Josh motioned for his teammates to let him down and then rushed over to me. Vanessa let me go and shot me a grin as he wrapped his arms around me and heaved me into the air. I laughed and cupped his cheeks in my hands, kissing him, and he tucked his face into my neck when we broke apart.
“Oh, man. I can’t believe I did it,” he said, his voice muffled, and I squeezed him tighter. He’d talked endlessly about wanting to finally win a championship, and this had been his last chance to do it. In just a few short months, he’d be graduating and heading off to college in California. I’d hardly see him after that. I was still a junior.
But this wasn’t the time to think about that. Now it was time to let him celebrate.
#
Josh drove me home after the game rather than letting me take the bus with Vanessa, despite my arguing against it. “You should be out celebrating,” I told him in the car, and he shook his head.
“The guys and I are going out later tonight. Don’t worry about it.”
“You sure?”
“If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be driving you,” he laughed. “But are you sure you wanna turn in for the night? I could, uh, rent us a hotel room…”
“You’re already doing that for Prom,” I reminded him, avoiding the question.
“Yeah, I know. But I’d do it twice, if you wanted.”
“You should be with your team. Go celebrate with them.” I prodded him in the arm. “Just don’t touch any girls. I know you’ll be a famous college player soon, but try to keep me in your thoughts until then, alright?”
He laughed again. “C’mon, Kayla. I love you. Besides, it was just televised in the state. No one probably watched it. And if they did, they were probably just like, ‘Who’s that really hot chick that guy’s celebrating with?’”
“Shut up.” I swatted at his arm, beaming, as he pulled up in front of my house. “And come here.” I tugged him toward me for another kiss, then turned to get out of the car. “I’ll see you at school Monday, alright?”
“Of course. Bye, babe.”
“Bye.”
I shut the door and watched him drive away, then retrieved my cell phone from my purse. I typed out a text and then sent it.
Mom was waiting inside for me on the couch, and leapt to her feet to come give me a hug as soon as I walked through the door. She adored Josh. Sometimes I wondered if she liked him even more than I did. “Oh, honey! I saw the whole thing!”
“It was so much fun,” I told her. “Vanessa was freaking out afterward.”
“I expected you to stay out late celebrating,” Mom replied. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah, it is. Riley and I decided like three weeks ago, before the team qualified for the championship game, that we were going to have a sleepover tonight. I didn’t want to cancel.”
“Well, I’m sure she’d have understood. You aren’t free next weekend?”
“Next weekend is Prom, Mom,” I reminded her. “So no. Besides, I want to see her. You know we don’t get to hang out at school anymore. I just texted her, so she should be here any minute.”
“Okay. Well, I’m going to sleep in about half an hour, so if you need anything, let me know before then.”
“We will.”
Mom left for her bedroom and I climbed the stairs to my own. As I changed out of my cheerleading uniform and into a tank top and pajama shorts, I studied myself in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door.
I’d shot up several inches since starting high school, and my awkward middle school phase had long since passed. Back then, I’d have laughed if anyone had told me I’d find high school just as easy to navigate as my older sister had. Evan and Riley were having tougher times, I knew, but it’d seemed so simple to me once I’d figured out how everything worked.
I’d done gymnastics in elementary school, so cheerleading seemed like the best athletic outlet for me. I’d met Vanessa then. And though she was away at college now, back when I’d been a freshman Nicole had taught me how to do my own makeup and had taken me to the mall when I’d asked. And Josh had noticed me my sophomore year. After that, it’d been smooth sailing.
Evan and I didn’t really share any classes anymore, because his were almost entirely advanced placement. He was also treasurer for the math team. And Riley spent a lot of her spare time at the local skate park with a couple of boys I often saw her in the hallways with. I wondered sometimes if she was dating one of them, but if she was, she was lying to me about it.
The three of us weren’t exactly distant, and I certainly still felt comfortable around them, but it wasn’t the same as it’d been before. Not for me, anyway. I knew between the three of us that I was the weak link: the odd one out. Riley and Evan made time for each other, and to an extent, I made time for them too, but I was also busy with Josh and cheerleading.
Thinking about our days at the creek back in middle school made my heart sink, and so I rarely let myself go there. I was popular now. I had a boyfriend who was going to be a hero on Monday. I couldn’t ask for a better high school career.
The front door opened and closed downstairs and I knew it was Riley. One thing hadn’t changed in the past few years: Riley never knocked or rang the doorbell. And why should she? She was practically family.
She peered around the doorframe and into my room, and then grinned when she saw me. “I watched the game. Come here.”
I walked to her, smiling back, and she wrapped me up into a tight hug as she told me, “He was awesome. You could’ve canceled and I wouldn’t have been mad, you know.”
“I know.” I pulled away to look her in the eyes. “But I wanted to see you. I see Josh all the time.”
“He’s your boyfriend. I’m your best friend. It’s practically my job to be cool with you blowing me off for a guy, right?”
I took in a breath as I studied her, and she stared back, an eyebrow arched like she could tell I felt a little guilty and was judging me for it. She’d dyed a purple streak into the front of her normally auburn hair a month or so ago, and it actually looked really good on her. I’d always thought she was prettier than she gave herself credit for, and I acknowledged that truth now as I looked at her. I vowed to see what she looked like all dolled up sometime. “You are, you know,” I told her. “My best friend.”
“Duh.” She pulled away and collapsed onto my bed with a pleased sigh. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m awesome.”
“Where’s Evan tonight?” I asked, joining her.
“Probably asleep. I went to his math competition thing; we got back a couple of hours ago and he was exhausted.”
“Wait, that was tonight?” I asked, alarmed. “I told him I wanted to come to that.”
“Don’t worry, I told him it clashed. He understood. The state basketball championship is huge, and besides, you had to go because of cheerleading.”
“Yeah, but I still feel bad.” I paused. “How did it go?”
“They won, actually. And Evan placed second best overall. Out of like, one hundred people or something. Kid’s a genius. I don’t know how he does it. The only thing I’m good at is standing on a moving piece of wood.”
“Yeah, right. I’ve seen you take on massive hills without batting an eye. Look at me; I just wave pompoms and do cartwheels in a short skirt.”
“Oh, no, you do not get to have a pity party.” She rolled over onto her side to smirk at me. “Let me guess what your plans for next weekend are. You get to go to Prom for free in a dress that makes you look absolutely gorgeous with a guy on your arm that will make every girl in school hate you – other than me, of course – and you’re probably riding there in a limo.”
“You should come, too. It’s not too late,” I insisted. “And Evan. Hey! Why don’t you guys go together?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No way.”
“Just as friends, obviously. Be each other’s totally platonic dates for the night. You can wear my sister’s old prom dress and borrow shoes from me, and Evan has that tux his mom bought him for his great-aunt’s funeral last year. I’ll even get you two into our prom group.”
“It’s way too short notice. Besides, your boyfriend hardly acknowledges our existence.”
“Sure he does. He’ll let you come along if I ask him to. Think about it? Like, talk to Evan tomorrow and see what he says. I bet he’d go with you.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Where are you guys going after? Any cool parties only the popular kids know about?”
I laughed. “I don’t think so. Um. Josh rented a hotel room. I guess he wants—”
“Whoa, no, I know what he wants.” She looked taken aback. “He told you he’s already rented it?”
“Yeah.” I avoided her eyes, suddenly feeling shy.
“Wow. I mean, I knew you guys hadn’t… but it’s kind of blatant, isn’t it?”
“Well, he’s graduating in two months.”
“So? If anything, that’s a reason not to. Didn’t he get a basketball scholarship to some big school in Cali?”
“Yeah.”
“So how does that work?”
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. “We don’t really talk about it.”
“Sooo… he wants to take you to Prom, have sex with you, and then…? No plans after that? He’s just going to school really far away and isn’t talking about how that’s gonna affect the two of you?” She looked dubious.
“Well, I think it’s just hard to talk about. He’s probably sad that we’ll be so far apart.”
“Still, it’s maybe something you should have a conversation about before he leaves. What if he’s—” She cut herself off, hesitating.
“What?” I pressed. Her tone told me she thought taking Josh up on his offer wasn’t exactly the best idea. Truthfully, I’d been wondering myself if it was the right time. I liked Josh, but we still hadn’t worked out what we were going to do after his graduation.
Riley took in a sharp breath. “Okay. I’m not trying to—I’m just trying to be a good friend. Maybe I’m totally off base; I don’t really know the guy. But… just make sure he’s serious about doing the long-distance thing before you have sex with him. I mean, right? If he already knows it’s not gonna work out after he graduates, then he’d be kind of an ass to do the whole hotel room thing after Prom. And it’s weird that he won’t even talk about it.”
“No, you’re right.” I bit at my lip and stared at the ceiling, acutely aware of Riley still watching me on my left. “I mean… do you think I shouldn’t go to the room? Maybe I could just tell him to take me home after the dance.”
I turned to face her, and her eyes snapped down to where her hand had begun to pick at my comforter. “I think you should do what you want to do,” she said. “Just be careful, is all. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken.”
I studied her for a moment, and then gave her a small smile. Evan was smarter than Riley and me, but she always gave the best advice. “You’re always looking out for me. And I, like, never get to return the favor because you never put yourself in a position to screw up.”
“Yeah. I know.” She looked up at me, grinning smugly, and I shoved her onto her back and then pinned her arms with one hand, using my free one to jab her in the ribs. She shouted at me through her laughter, “No! Your freaking cheerleading muscles!” and when she finally managed to wriggle her way out of my grip, she retaliated by punching me in the shoulder.
“Ow!” I rubbed at the throbbing spot as she sat up and twisted around to face me. Then I pouted up at her. “Take Evan to prom so I don’t feel bad about going alone?”
“Yes, you will be so alone. With your cheerleading friends and their boyfriends and your boyfr—”
“You know what I mean,” I interrupted. “I want to go with my best friends. You guys loved me even when I was twelve and lanky and awkward.” I grabbed at her hand, clasping it between mine, and raised it to my chest. “Pleeeease?”
She heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes, something that Riley did a lot. Mostly because both Evan and I consistently gave her reasons to. “Okay. I’ll ask him. And by that, I mean I’ll force him to come with me. But you better get us into that limo, because, as you know, Evan’s car is a literal pile of metal garbage and he’s also a terrible driver. If I have to ride with him, you’ll be coming to my funeral instead of Josh’s graduation in a couple of months.”
I beamed at her and tackled her into a hug. “Thank you!”
#
Josh was still on a high after the game on Monday. Everywhere he went, people who’d seen it congratulated him, and the few people who hadn’t quickly made sure they were filled in.
As per usual, I joined him and a few of his friends at lunch, along with Vanessa, and nudged him midway through a conversation about a new video game that’d come out over the weekend. “Hey, can I talk to you about something?”
“Hmm?” He twisted to face me, confused for a moment, like he’d only half-heard me. “Oh, yeah. What’s up?”
“It’s about our Prom group. Do we have room for a couple more people in the limo?”
He exchanged a look with the boy across the table from him—Sean, his best friend—and then smirked. “Depends on who you’re asking for.”
“Not funny,” I replied, though I smacked his arm lightly to let him know I wasn’t actually angry. “My other friends might come along.”
He took a bite of a biscuit and then spoke with his mouth full, looking confused. “What friends?”
“You know…” I shifted uncomfortably when he still seemed genuinely confused. He didn’t know who I was talking about. “I’ve told you about them. I hung out with them when I was a kid.”
“Oh, you mean the math gee- uh, guy, and the chick with the purple hair?”
I suppressed an eye-roll at his slip up, and told him, “Riley’s hair isn’t purple, it’s like one streak, and yes, I want her and Evan to come with us.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re my friends.”
“No, I know, but don’t they have their own group?”
“They weren’t gonna go at all. I’m trying to talk them into coming.”
“Why?” he asked again, and I heaved a sigh.
“Look, if you don’t want them to come with us, you can just say so.”
“Hey, whoa.” He reached out to rub at my back. “Chill out, Kayla. If you want them there, then they can be there. I was just asking. For thirty bucks each, I’ll pick them both up at your house when I come to get you. Sound good?”
“Yeah,” I replied shortly, still a little sour. I’d never spent more than a minute with Josh, Riley, and Evan all at the same time, but it still hurt that he hadn’t remembered they existed. “Perfect.”
#
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into doing this.”
“Gasp! Conformity!” I mocked Riley, motioning for her to spin around on the stool in my bathroom. “You’re gonna lose all your street cred.”
“Don’t ever use that phrase. You can’t pull it off, cheerleader.”
“What are your guys doing tonight, anyway? I’m guessing they’re not going?”
“Oh, Dylan and Brett? Yeah, there’s actually this skate event happening tonight at the park. It’s a competition for two hundred bucks, I think, but you have to be able to land a kickflip to even compete, and kickflips, naturally, happen to be my kryptonite. Just my luck.”
“Kickflips. Right. Those things I am totally familiar with.” I looked away from her to reach for an eyeliner pencil, but didn’t miss her eye-roll. “Okay, sit really, really still.”
“Don’t you have to do this for yourself, too? You don’t have to do mine. I’ll just go like this.”
“We have three hours, Riley. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
She heaved another sigh but obeyed my instructions, and I leaned in close to get a better look as I ran the pencil first along her lower lashes, and then her upper ones. I pulled away and grinned. “Oh, wow.” She started to turn back around to face the mirror, and I stopped her. “Wait until I’m totally done. It’ll be a bigger shock that way.”
“Fine.” She fell silent as I added eyeshadow and then mascara, and as I reached for foundation, she asked, “So how much does your boyfriend hate you for making him bring us along?”
“It wasn’t hard to get you guys in, actually,” I told her. “I keep telling you he isn’t as much of an ass as you think he is if you really get to know him. He’s actually really sweet.”
“Well, of course he’s sweet to you.” She paused. “I forgot to tell you he called me ‘Barney’ last week because of my hair. I don’t think he remembered who I was; you’ve only introduced us once.”
I was taken aback. That didn’t sound like the Josh I knew. “Are you serious?”
“Scout’s honor. But I’m sure he’s great to the girl he’s dating. I mean, maybe that’s what’s important?”
I was too perturbed to pretend to agree, and shook my head to myself as I covered Riley’s face with foundation. Next, I reached for blush and applied it to the apples of her cheeks. “Him respecting my friends is what’s important to me.” I pulled away to admire my handiwork, and my eyes widened, Josh momentarily forgotten. “Whoa.”
“What?” She pressed a hand to her cheek, self-conscious. “Does it look bad? I knew I shouldn’t have-”
“No, Riley, stop. Holy crap, you’re beautiful.” And she was. My compliment came out stronger than I’d intended, and I added, “Evan is gonna love it,” to ease the slight tension that’d filled our small room.
It worked. She swatted at my stomach and replied, “Shut up!” while I smirked at her.
“Look,” I demanded, and motioned for her to spin around. She faced herself in the mirror and raised both eyebrows, clearly surprised, but not quite as surprised as I’d been.
“Wow. I’m… kinda hot?”
“Kind of? You’re totally worthy of a first-stringer. Vanessa’s going to Prom with the backup quarterback, you know.”
“Ah, yes, just the kind of guy I want. A jock. Don’t project your awful taste onto me.”
“Oh, yeah?” I countered, putting both of my hands on her shoulders and leaning into her so that my cheek was pressed to hers. Together, we stared into the mirror as I asked her, “What’s your type, then?”
She watched the two of us for a moment, and I saw her swallow hard just before she shrugged me off of her shoulder. I knew before she answered that she wasn’t going to tell me. “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?” It seemed so easy to me. Once I’d seen enough boys I’d found attractive, it hadn’t been hard to find a pattern. “You know, I always thought the one thing our friendship needed was more guy talk. You never ever talk about who you like. It’s always just been me talking and you listening.” I reached for a tube of lip-gloss as I told her, “So you talk, and I’ll listen. There must be someone you kind of deep down wanted to go to Prom with. Open your mouth.” When she shot me a weird look, I elaborated, “I mean for the lip gloss.”
“How am I supposed to talk and also let you put that stuff on me?” she asked, gesturing to the tube in my hand.
“This first. Boys after,” I replied simply and reached out for her chin to steady her. She went eerily silent, then, and my gaze fell to her lips as I concentrated on spreading the gloss along her top lip. “When I’m done with this,” I told her gently, “just rub your lips together. If it still feels like too much, we can dab at it until it doesn’t.”
I finished with her top lip and moved to the bottom one, my hand still on her chin. She had a fuller bottom lip than Josh, I noticed, and then wondered why on earth that’d crossed my mind. Maybe because this was the closest I’d been to anyone’s lips besides Josh’s lately.
I pulled away with a strange twinge in my chest, and shook it off with a dramatic, “Ta-da!”
Riley looked a little out of it for a moment, like she had her mind elsewhere, and now she cleared her throat and gave me a smile I knew well enough to realize was forced. “Thanks.”
I arched an eyebrow, surprised she was even trying to act enthused at all. “Thanks? Are you actually starting to appreciate my effort?”
She blinked a couple of times, still not all there, and then finally managed a snappy retort. “I was just caught off-guard by my own hotness. Slight lapse in brain function.”
“Hmm.” I studied her for a moment, pleased to see she seemed to being growing self-conscious under my gaze.
“What?”
“I’m trying to decide what to do with your hair.”
“Oh, jeez,” she sighed out.
“I’m curling it,” I declared. “And while I do it, you’re going to tell me what your type is.” She groaned as I plugged the curling iron in and grabbed a brush to get the tangles out of her hair. “Go!”
“Alright, alright. I like… greasy hair. And yellow teeth; really poor hygiene is a must. The stronger the stench, the better.”
“I’m serious!” I gathered her hair in one hand and tugged a little. “Don’t lie to me; I’m holding your hair hostage.”
“Take it all but leave my purple streak! I don’t care! You’ll never get it out of me!”
“You suck,” I shot back, and began to brush her hair out. “You know what? Just date Evan. I’m going to assume that’s your type until you tell me.”
“You are literally the worst. Why do I still hang out with you?”
“Because I’m adorable.” I set the brush aside and combed my fingers through her hair affectionately while I waited for the curling iron to heat up.
She watched me in the mirror for a long moment, and then at last, said, “Brunettes.”
I stared back at her, surprised. “Hmm?”
“I mean… dark hair. I like dark hair.” She played with the hem of her shirt: a nervous habit of hers. “Evan’s blond, so.”
“But he has a great personality,” I pointed out, kidding.
“You would seriously want me to date Evan?”
“I’m definitely just messing with you. I mean, unless it was what you wanted…”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t reply. I wondered for a moment if she was just trying to throw me off with the whole brunette thing. Maybe she really did like Evan and was just embarrassed about it. I hadn’t forgotten about how he’d crushed on her when we were kids, and my opinion on Evan pairing off with either of us hadn’t changed. We were three, not a two and a one.
I curled Riley’s hair with, thankfully, little complaint from her, creating loose ringlets that framed her face, and when I was finished, we had two hours to go until Josh’s arrival. “Done,” I announced, and unplugged the curling iron while Riley studied herself in the mirror.
“You really think I look good?”
“You’re prettier than me,” I told her, meaning it.
“It doesn’t have to be a competition,” she replied with a frown.
“You’re right.” I leaned into her from behind, squeezing her shoulders, and carefully kissed her on the top of her head. “But it were, you’d win.” I let her go without waiting for a response, and left the bathroom to go grab the dresses we’d be wearing. “My turn!” I called back, and heard her slip off of the stool and pad across the bathroom floor.
“This night will never end,” she groaned.
“We can only hope!” I replied.
#
Evan rang the doorbell downstairs just as Riley and I were finishing getting dressed. I adjusted my ocean blue dress as beside me, Riley struggled with Nicole’s old one. The dark green looked good on her, but she was obviously having some sort of moral dilemma over it as she twisted and turned in the mirror. “Are you sure I look okay?” she asked me.
“Yes!” I said. “You really do look great.”
“What if I get there and people laugh? What if they think it’s sad that I’d even try? I mean, this is so clearly not anything I’d ever voluntarily wear, and people pick up on that kind of stuff, you know? I’m going to radiate insecurity.”
“The only strange looks you’re going to get will be from people who are amazed that they never realized how attractive you are,” I assured her. “You’re that girl in the movies that shows up to Prom and everyone wonders who she is and why they’d never noticed her before.”
“I hate that girl,” Riley mumbled. “Make-up doesn’t make girls beautiful. Confidence and self-respect makes girls beautiful, and in case you haven’t noticed, I am lacking at least one of those tonight.”
“Your self-respect is just fine, trust me,” I said, and reached out to grip both of her hands in mine. “You’re just stepping out of your comfort zone. If you put me in a helmet and elbow pads and made me try to ride a skateboard I’d probably freak out too, so I get it. But if you looked like an ogre, I’d tell you. If someone gets to slow dance with you tonight, he… or she... will be a very lucky person.”
“She?” Riley echoed, alarmed.
I snickered at the look on her face. “Relax, it was a joke. You know, because you’re pretty enough to turn a few girls for the night?” I nudged her as I moved past her to the door. “Keep up. We should go keep Evan company; it sounds like he’s waiting downstairs.”
“Okay,” she replied very quietly, and a moment later, I heard her following me.
Evan’s eyes widened to the size of saucers when he saw me, and then, if possible, they grew even wider when Riley appeared. “Whoa! Riley! And Kayla, you too, duh, but… Riley!”
“I understand,” I told him, and reached up to ruffle his hair a little. “Go messier; it suits you. You look nice.”
“Thanks.” He grinned at me as I looked him up and down. He’d grown to be a good head taller than Riley and me, and he was wearing a pretty standard black tuxedo with a black bowtie, white undershirt, and black shoes. He was handsome in a way only Evan tended to be: a little awkwardly and a little geeky, but endearing all the same. “You guys are totally outshining me, though. How did you make Riley into a girl?”
He laughed at his own joke, and I turned to see Riley with her middle finger in the air as she shot a glare his way. “I’m still man enough to kick your ass, Faulkner.”
“Okay,” I cut in, motioning for them to settle down. “Try not to kill each other before we even get to the dance.”
“Oh, you guys!”
That was Mom, entering with her phone gripped in one hand. She raised it and snapped a photo without warning us, and I winced as the flash temporarily left spots on my vision.
“Ouch, Mom, give us a heads up next time.”
“I need a picture to send to your sister; she wanted to see,” Mom said. “Riley, I hardly recognize you! Nicole is going to love you in her dress.”
“Thanks, Ms. Copeland,” Riley replied, tight-lipped.
“So when’s Josh getting here again?” Evan asked me. “You said it’d be half an hour when I was on my way. I’m ready to get this thing over with.”
“You too?” I sighed. “C’mon, Prom is supposed to be fun!”
“Yeah, but Zombie Guts 3 came out last weekend and Riley owes me a round. We’re playing it at my house after the dance.” He glanced toward my mom and added, hastily, “As you know, since you’re coming too and we’re forcing you to watch.”
I shot him a thankful look as Mom snapped another picture of us. “Let me go get your boutonnieres, girls,” she said, and left for her bedroom.
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Evan, offering Riley the corsage in his hand. She slid it onto her wrist distractedly, watching me.
“I thought you hadn’t decided on the whole hotel thing yet?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven’t. All I know at this point is that our entire group is leaving the dance at the same time – eleven o’clock – and the limo is taking us back to Josh’s place. Then he’ll drive back here to drop you guys off, and… either I’ll get out of the car too or I won’t.”
“Seems like it’d be easy for that to go badly,” Evan said.
“Maybe.” I shrugged my shoulders, fidgeting with one of the straps of my dress. “But at least if I back out, I’ll be home and I can just walk to Evan’s with you guys. And anyway, it’s not like it’s an ultimatum, right? I mean, he didn’t make it seem like one. He wouldn’t break up with me just because I said no to a night in a hotel room.”
“If you say so,” replied Evan, shrugging back.
Riley was oddly silent on my other side, and I turned to her to ask, “What do you think?”
She shrugged, too. “Like I said: you should do what you want.”
“Well, I know he’s not you guys’ favorite person, but he’s a better guy than you give him credit for. You’ll see tonight,” I assured them.
Mom returned with our boutonnieres, and Riley examined hers for a moment, confused. “Wait, how does this work?”
“I’ll show you when Josh gets here,” I started to say, but the doorbell rang and I lit up. “Good timing!” I went to the door and opened it.
It was Josh, as I’d expected. He offered himself up, arms stretched out to the sides, and asked me, “How do I look?”
His tuxedo was sky blue with a matching tie, and he’d put hair gel into his black hair to make it lay flatter. He looked older than he usually did. “Very handsome,” I told him and took his hand to lead him inside. “I was just telling Riley she needs to watch me pin this thing on you.”
“Hi, Josh,” Riley very clearly forced herself to say, and Evan good-naturedly offered his hand for Josh to shake.
“Hey, guys,” Josh replied, and then did a double-take as he looked to Riley. “Wait… purple hair girl?”
“The one and only,” Riley replied. I could practically see her resisting the urge to roll her eyes and held back a sigh myself.
“Nice!” Josh looked to Evan and told him, “You’re a lucky dude,” which very quickly caused Evan’s face to heat up.
“No, ah… well, thanks, but we’re friendly. Friends. Just going as friends, I mean.”
“Oh. Whoops.”
“Here, you just stick it on the lapel like this,” I told Riley, hastily redirecting the conversation. She watched me, then walked to Evan and mimicked my actions. Hers was a little crooked, but Evan straightened it once she’d stepped away.
Josh slipped his corsage onto my wrist and then offered me his arm. “Shall we go?”
“Not without pictures!” Mom interrupted. I’d almost forgotten she was there.
“Oh, sure thing, Ms. Copeland,” Josh agreed. She took a few pictures of just Josh and I, some of just Evan and Riley, and then a few of the three of us, without Josh. When we all got together for a group picture, it was with Riley and me in the center. I reached out and took her hand.
“Say cheese and smile!” Mom called out. “One, two, three…”
Riley’s hand squeezed mine tighter, and I grinned as the camera flashed.
It was a hot day in Jonesburg, Washington as the summer of 2012 drew closer to an end, and I felt it on the back of my neck as I peddled past the next two houses down from my own, my dark brown hair pinned to the top of my head in a messy bun to help keep myself cool.
The heat made the trip to the creek feel longer, and I was sweating heavily by the time I finally dumped my bike in Evan’s driveway. From there, I jogged through his neighbor’s backyard. The line of trees beyond promised shade, and the knowledge that I’d soon be able to splash water over my face and neck spurned me on.
Leaves crunched beneath my feet as I ran through the woods, and so Evan and Riley heard me coming.
“Kayla!?” I heard Riley shout. I whistled back, long and high-pitched – a special signal we’d created when we first started coming here – and heard laughter when the sound faded.
Evan was ankle-deep in the creek when I arrived, his pants rolled up to his knees and his shaggy blonde hair sticking with sweat to the back of his neck. Riley was tucked under the small shelter we’d built a year ago with her dark hair up like mine. Evan’s dad helped build houses for a living, and he’d let us have the spare wood he kept in his garage in addition to a hammer and a box of nails, so we’d built something to sit in with all of it. It didn’t look great, but it did have a floor and a roof to provide shade, and that was what mattered. That, and the fact that we’d done it all by ourselves.
I took a moment to dip one hand into the creek and then dab myself on the back of the neck with the cool water.
“What took you so long?” Evan asked me a few seconds later as I squeezed into the shelter with Riley. She grinned at me and tangled half of our fingers together. My pinky and ring finger were linked with her index and middle fingers, and we shared a look as Evan climbed out of the creek. For a moment, I forgot he’d asked me a question. Riley squeezed my fingers with hers as Evan tried to get my attention. “Hello?”
“Oh, I had to eat lunch,” I finally answered. I bent my legs, pulling my knees up to my chest so that Evan could inch himself into the shelter in front of me. “How long have you been waiting?”
“Just around ten minutes,” Riley answered for him.
Evan sighed and leaned back, resting his head at Riley’s feet. As he stared up at our makeshift ceiling, he asked, “Can you believe it? We start high school tomorrow.”
“Everyone makes it sound so scary,” said Riley, “but I think it could be fun.”
“Nicole likes it,” I told them. My older sister had just finished the tenth grade, and she’d loved every minute of it. A senior boy had asked her to Prom a few months ago. I wondered briefly if I’d ever be that lucky.
“But Nicole’s pretty and popular,” Riley replied. “And she wears makeup and nice clothes. Kayla, you’re cute so you’ll do fine, but all I have are a pair of Converses and a skateboard.”
“What are you talking about? You’re both pretty,” Evan cut in, nudging Riley’s leg with his fist.
Riley and I shared another look, and then we gasped, pressed a hand to our chests, and let out a joint, “Awwwww!”
“Shut up,” Evan mumbled. I could see his cheeks going red. I think that was mostly because of Riley. I caught him staring at her sometimes, but she never seemed to stare back, and I was thankful for that. Our trio wouldn’t be the same anymore if two of us ever started dating. “Fine, you’re both hideous. Better?”
“Much,” agreed Riley. She reached out to grab his hand and then pulled him up into a sitting position. “Hey, we have to agree on this, okay?”
“On what?” I asked, and she shot me a look that told me not to interrupt.
“We’re starting high school tomorrow. Everyone talks about how it’s super important, and the teachers are stricter, and it’s gonna decide who we are and what we do with our lives and all that. Like, it changes you and stuff. But you guys have been my best friends since I was six, and I kind of don’t want to lose that.”
“Of course you won’t lose us,” said Evan. “We’ll probably have tons of classes together, and even though we’ll make other friends, we’ll just introduce them to all of us and we can all be friends with them. Just like we did with Remi and Vincent.”
“But they’re not going to our high school,” I reminded him. “So we probably won’t get to see them anymore.”
“I know,” he said, “but we can find more people we all like. And we’ll all eat lunch together. Things don’t have to change just because we’re going to a bigger school.”
“So we all agree. No matter what happens, and no matter who we become, we’ll always be best friends,” said Riley. “Deal?” She untangled her fingers from mine and offered a pinky up in the middle of the three of us.
“Deal,” Evan and I agreed, and then linked our pinkies with hers.
Chapter One
“C’mon Knights!”
Next to me, Vanessa had both arms in the air and was shaking the pompoms gripped in her hands, trying to pump up the audience in the stands. We shared a grin and I joined her, facing the crowd as a whistle sounded. I knew that meant that the ball had to be back in play. There were less than fifteen seconds left on the clock, and we were down by a single point. “Knights fans, let them hear you!”
The crowd erupted into a roar and several of them shot to their feet, pointing to something behind us. Vanessa and I spun around with the rest of the squad as the voice of Vice Principal Hunter – the announcer for the game that would decide the state basketball champions for the season – boomed across the gym. “And with six seconds left on the clock, Carver has stolen the ball! He’s got a clear run to the hoop!”
Vanessa let out a squeal beside me and gripped my arm as I, wide-eyed, watched Josh sprint down the court and all the way to the basket, where he laid the ball up into the hoop. The buzzer sounded, the Knights’ score on the scoreboard ticked from a 51 up to a 53, surpassing the Sharks’ 52, and the gym erupted into cheers. The rest of the team crowded Josh, jumping up and down, and he was hoisted into the air.
“Josh Carver has done it! Knights win! Knights win!”
“Every girl in school is going to be jealous of you,” Vanessa said into my ear, and just as the words left her lips, Josh motioned for his teammates to let him down and then rushed over to me. Vanessa let me go and shot me a grin as he wrapped his arms around me and heaved me into the air. I laughed and cupped his cheeks in my hands, kissing him, and he tucked his face into my neck when we broke apart.
“Oh, man. I can’t believe I did it,” he said, his voice muffled, and I squeezed him tighter. He’d talked endlessly about wanting to finally win a championship, and this had been his last chance to do it. In just a few short months, he’d be graduating and heading off to college in California. I’d hardly see him after that. I was still a junior.
But this wasn’t the time to think about that. Now it was time to let him celebrate.
#
Josh drove me home after the game rather than letting me take the bus with Vanessa, despite my arguing against it. “You should be out celebrating,” I told him in the car, and he shook his head.
“The guys and I are going out later tonight. Don’t worry about it.”
“You sure?”
“If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be driving you,” he laughed. “But are you sure you wanna turn in for the night? I could, uh, rent us a hotel room…”
“You’re already doing that for Prom,” I reminded him, avoiding the question.
“Yeah, I know. But I’d do it twice, if you wanted.”
“You should be with your team. Go celebrate with them.” I prodded him in the arm. “Just don’t touch any girls. I know you’ll be a famous college player soon, but try to keep me in your thoughts until then, alright?”
He laughed again. “C’mon, Kayla. I love you. Besides, it was just televised in the state. No one probably watched it. And if they did, they were probably just like, ‘Who’s that really hot chick that guy’s celebrating with?’”
“Shut up.” I swatted at his arm, beaming, as he pulled up in front of my house. “And come here.” I tugged him toward me for another kiss, then turned to get out of the car. “I’ll see you at school Monday, alright?”
“Of course. Bye, babe.”
“Bye.”
I shut the door and watched him drive away, then retrieved my cell phone from my purse. I typed out a text and then sent it.
Mom was waiting inside for me on the couch, and leapt to her feet to come give me a hug as soon as I walked through the door. She adored Josh. Sometimes I wondered if she liked him even more than I did. “Oh, honey! I saw the whole thing!”
“It was so much fun,” I told her. “Vanessa was freaking out afterward.”
“I expected you to stay out late celebrating,” Mom replied. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah, it is. Riley and I decided like three weeks ago, before the team qualified for the championship game, that we were going to have a sleepover tonight. I didn’t want to cancel.”
“Well, I’m sure she’d have understood. You aren’t free next weekend?”
“Next weekend is Prom, Mom,” I reminded her. “So no. Besides, I want to see her. You know we don’t get to hang out at school anymore. I just texted her, so she should be here any minute.”
“Okay. Well, I’m going to sleep in about half an hour, so if you need anything, let me know before then.”
“We will.”
Mom left for her bedroom and I climbed the stairs to my own. As I changed out of my cheerleading uniform and into a tank top and pajama shorts, I studied myself in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door.
I’d shot up several inches since starting high school, and my awkward middle school phase had long since passed. Back then, I’d have laughed if anyone had told me I’d find high school just as easy to navigate as my older sister had. Evan and Riley were having tougher times, I knew, but it’d seemed so simple to me once I’d figured out how everything worked.
I’d done gymnastics in elementary school, so cheerleading seemed like the best athletic outlet for me. I’d met Vanessa then. And though she was away at college now, back when I’d been a freshman Nicole had taught me how to do my own makeup and had taken me to the mall when I’d asked. And Josh had noticed me my sophomore year. After that, it’d been smooth sailing.
Evan and I didn’t really share any classes anymore, because his were almost entirely advanced placement. He was also treasurer for the math team. And Riley spent a lot of her spare time at the local skate park with a couple of boys I often saw her in the hallways with. I wondered sometimes if she was dating one of them, but if she was, she was lying to me about it.
The three of us weren’t exactly distant, and I certainly still felt comfortable around them, but it wasn’t the same as it’d been before. Not for me, anyway. I knew between the three of us that I was the weak link: the odd one out. Riley and Evan made time for each other, and to an extent, I made time for them too, but I was also busy with Josh and cheerleading.
Thinking about our days at the creek back in middle school made my heart sink, and so I rarely let myself go there. I was popular now. I had a boyfriend who was going to be a hero on Monday. I couldn’t ask for a better high school career.
The front door opened and closed downstairs and I knew it was Riley. One thing hadn’t changed in the past few years: Riley never knocked or rang the doorbell. And why should she? She was practically family.
She peered around the doorframe and into my room, and then grinned when she saw me. “I watched the game. Come here.”
I walked to her, smiling back, and she wrapped me up into a tight hug as she told me, “He was awesome. You could’ve canceled and I wouldn’t have been mad, you know.”
“I know.” I pulled away to look her in the eyes. “But I wanted to see you. I see Josh all the time.”
“He’s your boyfriend. I’m your best friend. It’s practically my job to be cool with you blowing me off for a guy, right?”
I took in a breath as I studied her, and she stared back, an eyebrow arched like she could tell I felt a little guilty and was judging me for it. She’d dyed a purple streak into the front of her normally auburn hair a month or so ago, and it actually looked really good on her. I’d always thought she was prettier than she gave herself credit for, and I acknowledged that truth now as I looked at her. I vowed to see what she looked like all dolled up sometime. “You are, you know,” I told her. “My best friend.”
“Duh.” She pulled away and collapsed onto my bed with a pleased sigh. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m awesome.”
“Where’s Evan tonight?” I asked, joining her.
“Probably asleep. I went to his math competition thing; we got back a couple of hours ago and he was exhausted.”
“Wait, that was tonight?” I asked, alarmed. “I told him I wanted to come to that.”
“Don’t worry, I told him it clashed. He understood. The state basketball championship is huge, and besides, you had to go because of cheerleading.”
“Yeah, but I still feel bad.” I paused. “How did it go?”
“They won, actually. And Evan placed second best overall. Out of like, one hundred people or something. Kid’s a genius. I don’t know how he does it. The only thing I’m good at is standing on a moving piece of wood.”
“Yeah, right. I’ve seen you take on massive hills without batting an eye. Look at me; I just wave pompoms and do cartwheels in a short skirt.”
“Oh, no, you do not get to have a pity party.” She rolled over onto her side to smirk at me. “Let me guess what your plans for next weekend are. You get to go to Prom for free in a dress that makes you look absolutely gorgeous with a guy on your arm that will make every girl in school hate you – other than me, of course – and you’re probably riding there in a limo.”
“You should come, too. It’s not too late,” I insisted. “And Evan. Hey! Why don’t you guys go together?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No way.”
“Just as friends, obviously. Be each other’s totally platonic dates for the night. You can wear my sister’s old prom dress and borrow shoes from me, and Evan has that tux his mom bought him for his great-aunt’s funeral last year. I’ll even get you two into our prom group.”
“It’s way too short notice. Besides, your boyfriend hardly acknowledges our existence.”
“Sure he does. He’ll let you come along if I ask him to. Think about it? Like, talk to Evan tomorrow and see what he says. I bet he’d go with you.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Where are you guys going after? Any cool parties only the popular kids know about?”
I laughed. “I don’t think so. Um. Josh rented a hotel room. I guess he wants—”
“Whoa, no, I know what he wants.” She looked taken aback. “He told you he’s already rented it?”
“Yeah.” I avoided her eyes, suddenly feeling shy.
“Wow. I mean, I knew you guys hadn’t… but it’s kind of blatant, isn’t it?”
“Well, he’s graduating in two months.”
“So? If anything, that’s a reason not to. Didn’t he get a basketball scholarship to some big school in Cali?”
“Yeah.”
“So how does that work?”
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. “We don’t really talk about it.”
“Sooo… he wants to take you to Prom, have sex with you, and then…? No plans after that? He’s just going to school really far away and isn’t talking about how that’s gonna affect the two of you?” She looked dubious.
“Well, I think it’s just hard to talk about. He’s probably sad that we’ll be so far apart.”
“Still, it’s maybe something you should have a conversation about before he leaves. What if he’s—” She cut herself off, hesitating.
“What?” I pressed. Her tone told me she thought taking Josh up on his offer wasn’t exactly the best idea. Truthfully, I’d been wondering myself if it was the right time. I liked Josh, but we still hadn’t worked out what we were going to do after his graduation.
Riley took in a sharp breath. “Okay. I’m not trying to—I’m just trying to be a good friend. Maybe I’m totally off base; I don’t really know the guy. But… just make sure he’s serious about doing the long-distance thing before you have sex with him. I mean, right? If he already knows it’s not gonna work out after he graduates, then he’d be kind of an ass to do the whole hotel room thing after Prom. And it’s weird that he won’t even talk about it.”
“No, you’re right.” I bit at my lip and stared at the ceiling, acutely aware of Riley still watching me on my left. “I mean… do you think I shouldn’t go to the room? Maybe I could just tell him to take me home after the dance.”
I turned to face her, and her eyes snapped down to where her hand had begun to pick at my comforter. “I think you should do what you want to do,” she said. “Just be careful, is all. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken.”
I studied her for a moment, and then gave her a small smile. Evan was smarter than Riley and me, but she always gave the best advice. “You’re always looking out for me. And I, like, never get to return the favor because you never put yourself in a position to screw up.”
“Yeah. I know.” She looked up at me, grinning smugly, and I shoved her onto her back and then pinned her arms with one hand, using my free one to jab her in the ribs. She shouted at me through her laughter, “No! Your freaking cheerleading muscles!” and when she finally managed to wriggle her way out of my grip, she retaliated by punching me in the shoulder.
“Ow!” I rubbed at the throbbing spot as she sat up and twisted around to face me. Then I pouted up at her. “Take Evan to prom so I don’t feel bad about going alone?”
“Yes, you will be so alone. With your cheerleading friends and their boyfriends and your boyfr—”
“You know what I mean,” I interrupted. “I want to go with my best friends. You guys loved me even when I was twelve and lanky and awkward.” I grabbed at her hand, clasping it between mine, and raised it to my chest. “Pleeeease?”
She heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes, something that Riley did a lot. Mostly because both Evan and I consistently gave her reasons to. “Okay. I’ll ask him. And by that, I mean I’ll force him to come with me. But you better get us into that limo, because, as you know, Evan’s car is a literal pile of metal garbage and he’s also a terrible driver. If I have to ride with him, you’ll be coming to my funeral instead of Josh’s graduation in a couple of months.”
I beamed at her and tackled her into a hug. “Thank you!”
#
Josh was still on a high after the game on Monday. Everywhere he went, people who’d seen it congratulated him, and the few people who hadn’t quickly made sure they were filled in.
As per usual, I joined him and a few of his friends at lunch, along with Vanessa, and nudged him midway through a conversation about a new video game that’d come out over the weekend. “Hey, can I talk to you about something?”
“Hmm?” He twisted to face me, confused for a moment, like he’d only half-heard me. “Oh, yeah. What’s up?”
“It’s about our Prom group. Do we have room for a couple more people in the limo?”
He exchanged a look with the boy across the table from him—Sean, his best friend—and then smirked. “Depends on who you’re asking for.”
“Not funny,” I replied, though I smacked his arm lightly to let him know I wasn’t actually angry. “My other friends might come along.”
He took a bite of a biscuit and then spoke with his mouth full, looking confused. “What friends?”
“You know…” I shifted uncomfortably when he still seemed genuinely confused. He didn’t know who I was talking about. “I’ve told you about them. I hung out with them when I was a kid.”
“Oh, you mean the math gee- uh, guy, and the chick with the purple hair?”
I suppressed an eye-roll at his slip up, and told him, “Riley’s hair isn’t purple, it’s like one streak, and yes, I want her and Evan to come with us.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re my friends.”
“No, I know, but don’t they have their own group?”
“They weren’t gonna go at all. I’m trying to talk them into coming.”
“Why?” he asked again, and I heaved a sigh.
“Look, if you don’t want them to come with us, you can just say so.”
“Hey, whoa.” He reached out to rub at my back. “Chill out, Kayla. If you want them there, then they can be there. I was just asking. For thirty bucks each, I’ll pick them both up at your house when I come to get you. Sound good?”
“Yeah,” I replied shortly, still a little sour. I’d never spent more than a minute with Josh, Riley, and Evan all at the same time, but it still hurt that he hadn’t remembered they existed. “Perfect.”
#
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into doing this.”
“Gasp! Conformity!” I mocked Riley, motioning for her to spin around on the stool in my bathroom. “You’re gonna lose all your street cred.”
“Don’t ever use that phrase. You can’t pull it off, cheerleader.”
“What are your guys doing tonight, anyway? I’m guessing they’re not going?”
“Oh, Dylan and Brett? Yeah, there’s actually this skate event happening tonight at the park. It’s a competition for two hundred bucks, I think, but you have to be able to land a kickflip to even compete, and kickflips, naturally, happen to be my kryptonite. Just my luck.”
“Kickflips. Right. Those things I am totally familiar with.” I looked away from her to reach for an eyeliner pencil, but didn’t miss her eye-roll. “Okay, sit really, really still.”
“Don’t you have to do this for yourself, too? You don’t have to do mine. I’ll just go like this.”
“We have three hours, Riley. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
She heaved another sigh but obeyed my instructions, and I leaned in close to get a better look as I ran the pencil first along her lower lashes, and then her upper ones. I pulled away and grinned. “Oh, wow.” She started to turn back around to face the mirror, and I stopped her. “Wait until I’m totally done. It’ll be a bigger shock that way.”
“Fine.” She fell silent as I added eyeshadow and then mascara, and as I reached for foundation, she asked, “So how much does your boyfriend hate you for making him bring us along?”
“It wasn’t hard to get you guys in, actually,” I told her. “I keep telling you he isn’t as much of an ass as you think he is if you really get to know him. He’s actually really sweet.”
“Well, of course he’s sweet to you.” She paused. “I forgot to tell you he called me ‘Barney’ last week because of my hair. I don’t think he remembered who I was; you’ve only introduced us once.”
I was taken aback. That didn’t sound like the Josh I knew. “Are you serious?”
“Scout’s honor. But I’m sure he’s great to the girl he’s dating. I mean, maybe that’s what’s important?”
I was too perturbed to pretend to agree, and shook my head to myself as I covered Riley’s face with foundation. Next, I reached for blush and applied it to the apples of her cheeks. “Him respecting my friends is what’s important to me.” I pulled away to admire my handiwork, and my eyes widened, Josh momentarily forgotten. “Whoa.”
“What?” She pressed a hand to her cheek, self-conscious. “Does it look bad? I knew I shouldn’t have-”
“No, Riley, stop. Holy crap, you’re beautiful.” And she was. My compliment came out stronger than I’d intended, and I added, “Evan is gonna love it,” to ease the slight tension that’d filled our small room.
It worked. She swatted at my stomach and replied, “Shut up!” while I smirked at her.
“Look,” I demanded, and motioned for her to spin around. She faced herself in the mirror and raised both eyebrows, clearly surprised, but not quite as surprised as I’d been.
“Wow. I’m… kinda hot?”
“Kind of? You’re totally worthy of a first-stringer. Vanessa’s going to Prom with the backup quarterback, you know.”
“Ah, yes, just the kind of guy I want. A jock. Don’t project your awful taste onto me.”
“Oh, yeah?” I countered, putting both of my hands on her shoulders and leaning into her so that my cheek was pressed to hers. Together, we stared into the mirror as I asked her, “What’s your type, then?”
She watched the two of us for a moment, and I saw her swallow hard just before she shrugged me off of her shoulder. I knew before she answered that she wasn’t going to tell me. “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?” It seemed so easy to me. Once I’d seen enough boys I’d found attractive, it hadn’t been hard to find a pattern. “You know, I always thought the one thing our friendship needed was more guy talk. You never ever talk about who you like. It’s always just been me talking and you listening.” I reached for a tube of lip-gloss as I told her, “So you talk, and I’ll listen. There must be someone you kind of deep down wanted to go to Prom with. Open your mouth.” When she shot me a weird look, I elaborated, “I mean for the lip gloss.”
“How am I supposed to talk and also let you put that stuff on me?” she asked, gesturing to the tube in my hand.
“This first. Boys after,” I replied simply and reached out for her chin to steady her. She went eerily silent, then, and my gaze fell to her lips as I concentrated on spreading the gloss along her top lip. “When I’m done with this,” I told her gently, “just rub your lips together. If it still feels like too much, we can dab at it until it doesn’t.”
I finished with her top lip and moved to the bottom one, my hand still on her chin. She had a fuller bottom lip than Josh, I noticed, and then wondered why on earth that’d crossed my mind. Maybe because this was the closest I’d been to anyone’s lips besides Josh’s lately.
I pulled away with a strange twinge in my chest, and shook it off with a dramatic, “Ta-da!”
Riley looked a little out of it for a moment, like she had her mind elsewhere, and now she cleared her throat and gave me a smile I knew well enough to realize was forced. “Thanks.”
I arched an eyebrow, surprised she was even trying to act enthused at all. “Thanks? Are you actually starting to appreciate my effort?”
She blinked a couple of times, still not all there, and then finally managed a snappy retort. “I was just caught off-guard by my own hotness. Slight lapse in brain function.”
“Hmm.” I studied her for a moment, pleased to see she seemed to being growing self-conscious under my gaze.
“What?”
“I’m trying to decide what to do with your hair.”
“Oh, jeez,” she sighed out.
“I’m curling it,” I declared. “And while I do it, you’re going to tell me what your type is.” She groaned as I plugged the curling iron in and grabbed a brush to get the tangles out of her hair. “Go!”
“Alright, alright. I like… greasy hair. And yellow teeth; really poor hygiene is a must. The stronger the stench, the better.”
“I’m serious!” I gathered her hair in one hand and tugged a little. “Don’t lie to me; I’m holding your hair hostage.”
“Take it all but leave my purple streak! I don’t care! You’ll never get it out of me!”
“You suck,” I shot back, and began to brush her hair out. “You know what? Just date Evan. I’m going to assume that’s your type until you tell me.”
“You are literally the worst. Why do I still hang out with you?”
“Because I’m adorable.” I set the brush aside and combed my fingers through her hair affectionately while I waited for the curling iron to heat up.
She watched me in the mirror for a long moment, and then at last, said, “Brunettes.”
I stared back at her, surprised. “Hmm?”
“I mean… dark hair. I like dark hair.” She played with the hem of her shirt: a nervous habit of hers. “Evan’s blond, so.”
“But he has a great personality,” I pointed out, kidding.
“You would seriously want me to date Evan?”
“I’m definitely just messing with you. I mean, unless it was what you wanted…”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t reply. I wondered for a moment if she was just trying to throw me off with the whole brunette thing. Maybe she really did like Evan and was just embarrassed about it. I hadn’t forgotten about how he’d crushed on her when we were kids, and my opinion on Evan pairing off with either of us hadn’t changed. We were three, not a two and a one.
I curled Riley’s hair with, thankfully, little complaint from her, creating loose ringlets that framed her face, and when I was finished, we had two hours to go until Josh’s arrival. “Done,” I announced, and unplugged the curling iron while Riley studied herself in the mirror.
“You really think I look good?”
“You’re prettier than me,” I told her, meaning it.
“It doesn’t have to be a competition,” she replied with a frown.
“You’re right.” I leaned into her from behind, squeezing her shoulders, and carefully kissed her on the top of her head. “But it were, you’d win.” I let her go without waiting for a response, and left the bathroom to go grab the dresses we’d be wearing. “My turn!” I called back, and heard her slip off of the stool and pad across the bathroom floor.
“This night will never end,” she groaned.
“We can only hope!” I replied.
#
Evan rang the doorbell downstairs just as Riley and I were finishing getting dressed. I adjusted my ocean blue dress as beside me, Riley struggled with Nicole’s old one. The dark green looked good on her, but she was obviously having some sort of moral dilemma over it as she twisted and turned in the mirror. “Are you sure I look okay?” she asked me.
“Yes!” I said. “You really do look great.”
“What if I get there and people laugh? What if they think it’s sad that I’d even try? I mean, this is so clearly not anything I’d ever voluntarily wear, and people pick up on that kind of stuff, you know? I’m going to radiate insecurity.”
“The only strange looks you’re going to get will be from people who are amazed that they never realized how attractive you are,” I assured her. “You’re that girl in the movies that shows up to Prom and everyone wonders who she is and why they’d never noticed her before.”
“I hate that girl,” Riley mumbled. “Make-up doesn’t make girls beautiful. Confidence and self-respect makes girls beautiful, and in case you haven’t noticed, I am lacking at least one of those tonight.”
“Your self-respect is just fine, trust me,” I said, and reached out to grip both of her hands in mine. “You’re just stepping out of your comfort zone. If you put me in a helmet and elbow pads and made me try to ride a skateboard I’d probably freak out too, so I get it. But if you looked like an ogre, I’d tell you. If someone gets to slow dance with you tonight, he… or she... will be a very lucky person.”
“She?” Riley echoed, alarmed.
I snickered at the look on her face. “Relax, it was a joke. You know, because you’re pretty enough to turn a few girls for the night?” I nudged her as I moved past her to the door. “Keep up. We should go keep Evan company; it sounds like he’s waiting downstairs.”
“Okay,” she replied very quietly, and a moment later, I heard her following me.
Evan’s eyes widened to the size of saucers when he saw me, and then, if possible, they grew even wider when Riley appeared. “Whoa! Riley! And Kayla, you too, duh, but… Riley!”
“I understand,” I told him, and reached up to ruffle his hair a little. “Go messier; it suits you. You look nice.”
“Thanks.” He grinned at me as I looked him up and down. He’d grown to be a good head taller than Riley and me, and he was wearing a pretty standard black tuxedo with a black bowtie, white undershirt, and black shoes. He was handsome in a way only Evan tended to be: a little awkwardly and a little geeky, but endearing all the same. “You guys are totally outshining me, though. How did you make Riley into a girl?”
He laughed at his own joke, and I turned to see Riley with her middle finger in the air as she shot a glare his way. “I’m still man enough to kick your ass, Faulkner.”
“Okay,” I cut in, motioning for them to settle down. “Try not to kill each other before we even get to the dance.”
“Oh, you guys!”
That was Mom, entering with her phone gripped in one hand. She raised it and snapped a photo without warning us, and I winced as the flash temporarily left spots on my vision.
“Ouch, Mom, give us a heads up next time.”
“I need a picture to send to your sister; she wanted to see,” Mom said. “Riley, I hardly recognize you! Nicole is going to love you in her dress.”
“Thanks, Ms. Copeland,” Riley replied, tight-lipped.
“So when’s Josh getting here again?” Evan asked me. “You said it’d be half an hour when I was on my way. I’m ready to get this thing over with.”
“You too?” I sighed. “C’mon, Prom is supposed to be fun!”
“Yeah, but Zombie Guts 3 came out last weekend and Riley owes me a round. We’re playing it at my house after the dance.” He glanced toward my mom and added, hastily, “As you know, since you’re coming too and we’re forcing you to watch.”
I shot him a thankful look as Mom snapped another picture of us. “Let me go get your boutonnieres, girls,” she said, and left for her bedroom.
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Evan, offering Riley the corsage in his hand. She slid it onto her wrist distractedly, watching me.
“I thought you hadn’t decided on the whole hotel thing yet?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven’t. All I know at this point is that our entire group is leaving the dance at the same time – eleven o’clock – and the limo is taking us back to Josh’s place. Then he’ll drive back here to drop you guys off, and… either I’ll get out of the car too or I won’t.”
“Seems like it’d be easy for that to go badly,” Evan said.
“Maybe.” I shrugged my shoulders, fidgeting with one of the straps of my dress. “But at least if I back out, I’ll be home and I can just walk to Evan’s with you guys. And anyway, it’s not like it’s an ultimatum, right? I mean, he didn’t make it seem like one. He wouldn’t break up with me just because I said no to a night in a hotel room.”
“If you say so,” replied Evan, shrugging back.
Riley was oddly silent on my other side, and I turned to her to ask, “What do you think?”
She shrugged, too. “Like I said: you should do what you want.”
“Well, I know he’s not you guys’ favorite person, but he’s a better guy than you give him credit for. You’ll see tonight,” I assured them.
Mom returned with our boutonnieres, and Riley examined hers for a moment, confused. “Wait, how does this work?”
“I’ll show you when Josh gets here,” I started to say, but the doorbell rang and I lit up. “Good timing!” I went to the door and opened it.
It was Josh, as I’d expected. He offered himself up, arms stretched out to the sides, and asked me, “How do I look?”
His tuxedo was sky blue with a matching tie, and he’d put hair gel into his black hair to make it lay flatter. He looked older than he usually did. “Very handsome,” I told him and took his hand to lead him inside. “I was just telling Riley she needs to watch me pin this thing on you.”
“Hi, Josh,” Riley very clearly forced herself to say, and Evan good-naturedly offered his hand for Josh to shake.
“Hey, guys,” Josh replied, and then did a double-take as he looked to Riley. “Wait… purple hair girl?”
“The one and only,” Riley replied. I could practically see her resisting the urge to roll her eyes and held back a sigh myself.
“Nice!” Josh looked to Evan and told him, “You’re a lucky dude,” which very quickly caused Evan’s face to heat up.
“No, ah… well, thanks, but we’re friendly. Friends. Just going as friends, I mean.”
“Oh. Whoops.”
“Here, you just stick it on the lapel like this,” I told Riley, hastily redirecting the conversation. She watched me, then walked to Evan and mimicked my actions. Hers was a little crooked, but Evan straightened it once she’d stepped away.
Josh slipped his corsage onto my wrist and then offered me his arm. “Shall we go?”
“Not without pictures!” Mom interrupted. I’d almost forgotten she was there.
“Oh, sure thing, Ms. Copeland,” Josh agreed. She took a few pictures of just Josh and I, some of just Evan and Riley, and then a few of the three of us, without Josh. When we all got together for a group picture, it was with Riley and me in the center. I reached out and took her hand.
“Say cheese and smile!” Mom called out. “One, two, three…”
Riley’s hand squeezed mine tighter, and I grinned as the camera flashed.
