This choice: Stick to Kelsey as a target • Go Back...Chapter #46The Art of Getting Your Way by: Seuzz   You don't want to close the door completely on Cindy, so you temporize. "I need to get together with Kelsey after school," you tell her. "That might turn into something, but it might not. Either way, keep me posted on what you're doing? It's Friday, and if I wind up at home with my parents—"
"Hear that," Cindy says. "When Seth told me he was—" A red spot shows in her forehead, and you guess that her boyfriend's plans set off an argument. But she catches herself. "I wouldn't mind talking to Kelsey about squad stuff, you know?" Her voice softens. "Like, would she join the squad again if she could be captain?"
That's a shocking suggestion, for lots of reasons, and you can barely find the words to react. "Uh, that'd be amazing if we could do it," you stammer. "But there'd have to be tryouts, and people would have to quit, and, uh—"
"I know, but I'm not going to try figuring out a way around all that if Kelsey isn't interested." She looks at you closely.
"Well, we should all definitely get together to talk at some point," you say. So we can copy you, you add to yourself. "But we should go change now."
"In a minute," Cindy says. "See you on the floor."
There are a lot of other places you'd like to see her as well.
* * * * *
Practice goes off much better than expected. Chelsea must have gotten laid last night, or someone put drugs in her breakfast bar, because she keeps the session brusque and business-like. Only once does she erupt, but it's at you. You can't help it: you have to stare at Gloria Rea as she does a slow series of backward somersaults. Her movement are supple and graceful, and you have a sudden and inexplicable vision of yourself tied tightly to her warm body with bungee cords and ejaculating into her as she wheels with feet over her head. "Yeah, it's pretty goddamned impressive, isn't it, Jessica?" Chelsea's voice snaps you back to awareness. "You should have taken gymnastics at some point so you can learn how to do something a tenth as good." As Jessica has a shelf of gymnastics trophies—real ones, not ones for "participation"—it's a mean and wholly unmerited gibe. Kendra Saunders smirks at you from behind Chelsea's shoulder, and the next chance you get you execute a series of fast hard tumbles to remind the bitches of what you can do. Not that it makes a difference. Chelsea knows how good you are, and ignores you.
But you learned your lesson, and in the locker room afterward keep your face turned toward the inside of your locker, even as you and everyone around peels down to bare skin while changing clothes. It's enough, though, to give you an electric thrum from the base of your spine to the base of your skull as you expose Jessica's trim body in a semi-public place.
Second period is a study hall, which Jessica usually takes in the library, either doing some solitary studying or talking quietly with Rachel Burton, who also has a study hall that period. To your disappointment, though, for you'd been looking forward to some girl talk, Rachel isn't around; neither is Carson Ioeger, who is usually camped out at a table in the corner with a chess set and his iPhone. So you settle down with your own phone to tease Caleb—or whoever it is that has Caleb's cell phone.
i know why eva's not interested in you :p, you type.
A minute later comes the reply: wtf?
who's this?
me, asfaik.
caleb?
y
eva's trying to date jeremy. :x
richards?
lol, right?
where are you?
library.
meet at lunch?
ew, loser like you? :p
F U.
lol.
plan 4 2day?
i plan 2b sexy.
FFFFFFFF UUUUUUUUU
You laugh long and softly to yourself. your locker b4 lunch, ok?
ok and FFFF UUUU.
in your dreams, lol!
You send out one more text before laying the phone aside: a note to Kelsey saying you want to talk to her briefly at the start of third period, which you share. With that set, you turn your attention to figuring out what to ask her, and how, such that you can get her alone at her place.
* * * * *
It figures that you can't dodge Mr. Walberg: He teaches third period AP World History. But the classroom looks and feels different, probably because you're a different height and it is filled with a different set of students. But it's still dominated by the AP fucks, including Kelsey, who is already at her regular seat as you enter. You give Mr. Walberg a warm, simpering smile as you pass his desk—but he ignores you—and slip into the desk just in front of Kelsey.
Kelsey Blankenship and Chelsea Cooper are the alpha-est girls you know, but they are "alpha" in very different ways. They share a certain steeliness, but where Chelsea covers hers with an acidic sweetness, Kelsey swaddles hers in imperial velvet. She affects an expensive bohemian look of jeans skirts, dark blouses, sandals, and silver and turquoise jewelry. Right now, for instance, she has a pair of blocky silver earrings showing beneath her long, brunette hair. You recognize the pattern as Anasazi—
That's a racist term, Kelsey had corrected Jessica when she'd made the mistake of using it a few months ago. The correct term is 'Hisatsinom'.
Never mind that Kelsey had been using "Anasazi" only a few weeks before. She had succeeded in making Jessica feel both uneducated and begrimed with an awful social sin.
Her smile as you sit down isn't unfriendly, but it is quizzical, which makes it a lot nicer than any other smile she's ever given Will Prescott. It keeps grating on you: all these people who are so much nicer to people who aren't you, and are nice to you when they think you are someone else. But even Jessica feels condescended to when Kelsey turns her attention her way.
"Can we get together this afternoon after school?" you ask.
Kelsey's smile doesn't move. "What are we doing right now?"
"I'm trying to find out if I can get together with you for a longer talk this afternoon."
"Are you free for coffee?"
"Can we do it at your house?"
Now that smile does shift to something closer to a frown. "What's this about, Jessica?"
You grip the sides of her desk and lean in. "Eva and Hannah Westrick."
Kelsey sighs and rolls her eyes. "I don't give a shit about any of—"
"You don't give a shit about my brother?"
That gets her attention. "What does this have to do with Marc? You mean Marc, don't you?"
"He's the only brother I know of. But all this bullshit has to stop. Marc's doing stuff tonight with Seth Javits and some other guys, probably Steve and Gordon if Seth's mixed up in it, and I don't want to be home if those assholes show up at our place."
Kelsey sighs deeply. "It's his own fault—"
"Well, let's talk about it. You're the only one who can do anything about it, and I'm—"
You're very proud of the way you get the tears to spring up in your eyes on cue; you're pretty sure you've got a complexion-curdling flush to go with it as you sniff deeply and wipe your nose with the back of your hand. "I don't want to talk about it where people can see me like this."
It's a risky gambit, but it works. Kelsey seems awed by the performance, which she quickly covers with a more characteristically smug pleasure at your flattery of her as the "only person" who can solve everyone's problems. "Four o'clock?" she says.
"Just us?"
She nods, so you get up. She clasps your wrist. "It'll be okay, Jessica." You nod again, fight back the tears, and stumble back to your seat while ignoring the embarrassed glances of the others in the class.
Your nipples are hard as you take your seat.
* * * * *
"Why don't you try asking me out instead of my sister?" You flash deep, mischievous dimples at Caleb as you settle with your back against the locker next to his. You run a tongue over your lower lip. "Tell you my fantasies if you tell me yours."
He gives you a horrified, sidelong look, then turns away, probably to hide the boner you'd bet you're giving him. "I think we should have lunch with Jenny and them," you continue in a lower voice. "Jenny and Yumi and maybe Cindy'll be there too. Meet me at the doors by A wing, we'll pretend we ran into each other." You push back into the hallway and give Andrew Harding a dirty look when he jostles you.
Caleb is long in showing up at the rendezvous point. "I had to shake Keith," he says. "Oh, and we should talk about Will and Lisa. Prescott's always bugging me to bug you about her."
Touche. You've been trying hard to avoid diving into Jessica's memories of you and Lisa and her opinion of that pairing. It's enough that you get a sinking feeling every time you think of "Will Prescott."
"I set up a play date with Kelsey at four o'clock," you tell him. "Someone needs to show up there. Or I need a mask or—"
"So talk to Connor." Caleb's tone is grumpy. "He and Justin are running things now."
"What do you mean by that?"
"The slumber party. Justin's already got dibs on Eva, and Connor's gunning for Kelsey. That leaves me with a mask of Miss Alcoholic Blackout."
"You could be Marc."
"Would you fuck your own brother?"
"Eww. Then how about Geoff? Never mind, I wouldn't fuck him either. Well, shit, man, I don't know—"
Except you do. Cindy. But you doubt Connor would like you making another mask. You'd have to do it in secret.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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