It Started with a Bet

"Haley!"

"Christa, what's up?"

I pause and allow Christa to catch up with me. She chatters on and on about some party I missed and I just smile and nod. I wasn't always this way.

3 years ago, my best friend Trina died in a drunk driving accident. For the first two years I wallowed in misery, not speaking unless spoken to, trying to decide if there was any meaning to life now that she was gone. I'd known Trina since preschool. We were closer than peanut butter and jelly in one of those sandwiches.

I was content to waste my life away, but my parents were not. I went to therapy for only a year before I managed to control my new attitude. School hadn't been easy to start with, and the tales of Haley going to therapy didn't help. I didn't want to talk to people but they kept trying. Talking to me, around me, and Trina's name just spinning and spinning in the middle of their muddy words.

So I used my determination and buried Trina's ghost in my heart. Between my efforts and therapy, something new had happened. I don't feel emotions.

I smile at Christa's story and laugh in all the right parts. By now I've built my way back up. The kids were more supportive than you'd have thought. Welcoming back Haley became the school's official hobby. It was cool, apparently, to feel sorry for the girl who lost her best friend and to help her "get back on her feet." Now is the beginning of year four. I'm considered normal. Not popular by a long stretch, but in the middle. I smile and talk to everyone and they know who I am. But I don't care about any of them.

I enter art just before the bell rings, dumping my bag onto my table with a thud. The art room is enormous, with large tables scattered together near the center of the room. Closets and office dividers help separate the rest of the room into storage and studio areas.

I pull my iPod out of my pocket and grab my sketchbook from my backpack. It's one of those thick black books with white pages covered equally with notes and sketches and photocopied pieces of art. We're doing a project on nature in cultures and I picked "Asia". Not really a culture, I know, but I like the flexibility. I wander over to one of closets with the word "library" painted in flowery letters on the door. Pulling a honking enormous book on East Asian art out of a cubby, I go back to my desk and begin taking notes. The bell has already rung twice and more or less everyone is working. Some movement catches my eye and I looked up. Trevor Choi is late, as usual.

Trevor Choi runs with the "in crowd," a group of girls and guys who act as though they sleep with everyone all the time, but they're really too conservative for that. So they play other stupid games.

Trevor sits down across from me at the enormous table in the center of the room next to his friend Matt. Like all members of the crew they seem like jerks. Good looking jerks. The two joke between themselves while I stand taking notes. I don't know why, but I'm never able to do art sitting down in this class. I'm listening to some intense dance pop when I realize that the teacher is trying to talk to me. I pull an earphone out and answer, ignoring Trevor's chuckle. When the song changes to one of my favorite soft ones, Waves by Holly Miranda, I hear them speak.

"Did you hear that Eric lost the bet?" said Matt.
"For real? What a loser. I would have been able to do it in a heartbeat. No matter what the girl."
"Psh, yeah right."
"I bet you fifty bucks I can get any girl you want to go out with me." I hear a pause.
"Haley."
"What?"
"You have to get Haley to go out with you in two months."

I try not to laugh. First of all, they don't know I can hear them. Secondly, Trevor would have been right about winning the bet if Matt had chosen anyone but me. 99% of the single female population would go out with him in a heartbeat and maybe 20% of the taken female population would have dumped their guy for him. I remain as one of the 1% of the single female community that considered him a work of art but wanted nothing to do with him. Well, I was actually different from them, too. I don't care if I have anything to do with Trevor Choi.

"Haley? Why the hell'd you have to pick Haley?" I laugh to myself but didn't look up. Why, indeed?

"You don't think you can do it?"

"Psh. I sure as hell can but, I mean, couldn't you have picked someone more attractive? At least I wouldn't be embarrassed chasing them around."

"Oh, please. Anyone who matters will know it's a bet. Besides, it's not like you've ever even gone after a girl seriously."

This was true. Travis goes through girls like Kleenex. The song changes and I turn it up so I can't hear them anymore. Travis calling me ugly doesn't bother me. I haven't tried to be attractive for a long time. Why should I?

But as the dance beat echoes through my head, I think about the proposition. I haven't had fun in a long time. Why not play around a little?

***
I grab my lunch and handed the cafeteria lady the money. "Thank you," I say with a smile. I'm the only one who says that. Ever.

"Whatcha guys up to?" I ask, putting my tray down on the table. Christa jerks a thumb at the two across the table and goes back to her salad.

"Betcha I could!" says Britney.
"No way," Ashley replies.
"Yes way!"
"Oh, for God's sake, shut up!" I say, rolling my eyes and sitting next to Christa.

You may be wondering why I have friends. Didn't I say I didn't care about anyone? I still have "fun" and joke around with people. I still have "friends." I just don't have anyone I really care about. I just pretend to be like everyone else but I'm not. Because there's no one who would accept me for who I am. They'd try to "help" me. And it wouldn't help at all.

"Ashley just bet me ten bucks I couldn't stuff an entire slice of pizza in my mouth," Britney explains.

Is everyone betting today? Well, might as well join in the fun.

"Well, I bet each of you thirty bucks that I can get Trevor to ask me out sometime within the next two months," I say with a smile.

Ashley's eyes pop out of her head. "You're serious?" I pretend to sigh, a small amused smile playing on my lips.

"We can't go through life making stupid pizza bets," I say. Christa starts to grin. "We have to spice life up a little."

The girls shake on it and start questioning me. Am I planning on doing a makeover? Making out with him at a party? I just shake my head.

"I think he'll like me just the way I am," I lie. I have no intention of leading the boy on or getting him to actually want me. He needs his ego taken down a few pegs, and won't it be when he finds out I've been taking advantage of him the entire time? When he discovers that the girl he supposedly tricked had tricked him? Not that he would have a right to be upset. He's the one who started it.

That's probably the best part of this little game. I get his pride at my feet and $90 and he does all the work. After all, if he's chasing me, what else do I do but let him chase and collect the money? But I won't let him off easy. I'm not changing myself for that punk. Not like the rest of the misguided girls. He can struggle along as best he can and if we get close to the deadline and he still hasn't got the guts to ask me out, I'll just bail him out by acting flirty.

There's no way to lose.