Her panic fades, and she slowly nods off, clutching my fingers with her own trembling, ice cold ones. Sometimes she’ll whimper in her sleep words I can’t understand or don’t want to and all I can think about is how I would’ve probably murdered the guy if I’d been there. I should’ve been there. I should’ve been with her instead of at Dad’s. I should’ve protected her, should’ve seen the signs when I visited for Christmas, should’ve –
“I’m sorry,” she whispers in her sleep, childlike and small. I wrap my arms around her and pull her into my chest, and drift uneasily into sleep with the smell of lavender and sadness in my nose.
***
School on a Monday after a party is really awkward. A lot of people know something embarrassing happened but no one can remember what exactly. Somebody used too much teeth while kissing somebody’s girlfriend and maybe someone forgot to tell someone they’d broken up and maybe someone put a Mentos in their ex-boyfriend’s coke and rum. Or maybe some guy and girl hooked up, and his dick was too small. Somebody’s dick is always too small.
“That’s what I’ll do!” I exclaim halfway through a heinously practical tuna sandwich. “I’ll spread a rumor his dick is small. That’s the only thing guys care about – their dicks. I’ll hit him where it hurts most, metaphorically and also non-metaphorically.”
Kayla raises an eyebrow and nibbles her baby carrots. “Do you really hate him that much?”
I pulled into the parking lot today and she was waiting for me, all tentative and smiley. And now she’s eating lunch with me! It’s a miracle worthy of the Book of Revelations. It’s the very first entry in my Book of Fuck-Ups-With-A-Semi-Happy-Ending, anyway. She’s as tender as a rabbit and loyal as a dog and very, very into a certain icy pig, but that can be corrected. Hopefully without firearms.
“Isis!” A totally random girl I’ve never seen before runs up to me. “Is it true? Did you and Jack make out at Avery’s party and then you punched him?”
“Uh, there was no Me and Jack, Jack macked on me,” I correct. “And drooled everywhere. It wasn’t a kiss, it was a disaster. It was so bad, I had to punch him. It was so bad my hand formed an unconscious fist and my biceps twitched forward in a defense mechanism against his suckitude. All girls everywhere need to beware of his dismal skills. Pass it along.”
The girl nods eagerly and darts off to a circle of her friends. Kayla folds her arms and ‘harrumphs’ at me.
“What?” I try to look innocent.
“Why are you spreading that rumor, anyway?”
“If I tell everyone he sucks at kissing, beautiful and kind girls like yourself won’t fall for his tricks and date him. The power of gossip will smite evil in its lair, where swords cannot reach!”
She shakes her head. “You’re so weird.”
“I’m also super excited to freeze his expression in amber and make a necklace out of it when he realizes what everyone’s saying about him. Revenge is sweet.”
“What did he say to you yesterday that’s made you hate him so much?”
I clear my throat. “Just, you know. He insulted you. Then he insulted me, which is totally not cool because there’s really nothing about me to insult, objectively. If I was less than perfect I would probably be bothered by insults. But I’m not. He still did a vaguely negative thing though, and according to the law doing vaguely negative things is sometimes bad. So I have to pay him back. An eye for an eye and all that.”
She tilts her head, a confused carrot hanging out of her mouth. I clarify.
“Shakespeare said that. The dude traded eyeballs a lot, apparently.”
Avery comes in then, flanked by two other girls I can never remember the name of, but who try and fail to look as waifish and savagely stylish as Avery. Kayla bolts up instantly, grabbing her lunch and stammering.
“S-Sorry. I have to go.”
“Uh, yeah? Sure?”
She jogs over to Avery, hemorrhaging baby carrots across the floor as she goes. The janitor in the corner makes a face that’s only slightly different from his usual ‘I-would-become-a-serial-killer-so-quickly-if-given-the-chance’ face. Kayla apparently doesn’t want Avery knowing she’s hanging out with me, which is fine, because Avery dislikes me and Kayla’s been friends with Avery way before me. So it’s logical for her to pick Avery over me, and I say that with the least amount of bitterness I’ve ever held for a person in my life. It makes honest-to-God perfect sense. I briefly entertain the thought that what Jack said the other night might be true – Kayla really hates what her friends do, and forces herself to go along with it.
I shake my head and laugh into my sandwich, spraying tuna in an elegant pattern across the table. No. Somebody that pretentious and self-absorbed has no idea how to relate to other people. Jack has no idea what Kayla - or anyone - is going through. And that includes me.
I get up and throw my lunch trash away, and head to my next class early. No sense in eating alone in the cafeteria and looking like a friendless moron any more than I already do.
The September day is crisp and chilly, but the sun is warm. East Summit High looks like any other school – white buildings, glass-walled lobbies. There’s a giant quad area made of grass and pine trees and water fountains and benches, and all the buildings are situated around that. There’s a flag in front of the office and a stadium in the back where we lose more than we win. It’s middle America at its finest, and blandest. At least at my old school we had cool banyan trees and the occasional raccoon invasion to spice things up. But here it’s just been nothing - nothing but old memories and trudging through a series of classes and homework assignments alone. Until last night, of course. Now I’m riding high on a twisted sort of false popularity with no real lasting power. It’s slightly awesome.
I’m halfway to Mrs. Gregory’s class when I see him.
Jack Hunter’s talking with Principal Evans – a balding man in a suit that always smells like a mixture of mothballs and old fish. Next to tall, effortless Jack, Evans looks like a little bumbling gnome. Jack’s nose looks fine from here, which pisses me off. I wanted a scab, or at least a little mark of some kind. They can’t see me, but I can hear both of them perfectly.
“ - you shouldn’t let that keep you here, Jack. I know it’s been hard for you, but it’s not a good enough excuse to ruin your future over,” Mr. Evans says. “Do you know how many calls from Princeton and Yale I have to field a day? They want you, Jack. You could go to any Ivy League for free! Don’t ruin that for yourself.”
Jack’s eyes remain cold, but for a second I think I see a flash of hot anger run through them. He tames it quickly, his voice even and purposefully pleasant – the kind of pleasant you reserve for grown-ups you want to get off your back.
“I’m aware of this. Thank you for your input.”
“But you’re not, Jack! That’s just the problem – you’re not. She’ll get better with or without you here –”
Jack spots me over Evans’ shoulder. He smiles at Evans, nothing about the grin sincere, and pats him on the arm.
“I should go. My friend’s waiting for me.”
To my shock, Jack walks over to me, Evans watching from behind him. Jack keeps the creepy not-smile in place.
“Hey. Sorry I couldn’t meet you for lunch,” He says.
“Uh, what?”
Jack leans in, his fingers glancing across my hair. I can smell his cologne on him – nothing strong, but a soft sweet-sweat scent beneath the smell of his sweater. Blue eyes bore into me. His voice gets so low and gravelly he sounds like a beast instead of the cheery person he was a second ago.
“Pretend you’re my friend.”
“Give me one logically sound reason why I’d even think about it.” I hiss back.
“Will Cavanaugh. That’s his name, wasn’t it?”
A bolt of pain ricochets through my chest at his name. Nameless. How the hell did Jack find out?
“Look at that horrible flinching movement. You have a physical reaction to his name. You m
ust be in terrible pain. Pretend to be my friend or I’ll say it again. Louder.”
“You wouldn’t –”
“Wil-”
“I couldn’t find you in the cafeteria!” I say loud enough for Evans to hear, but he can’t see my face. I glare fire into Jack’s eyes as he makes his voice light again.
“Come on. I’ll buy you pizza. My treat.” He slings his arm around my shoulder and leads me away. Every nerve in my body goes on point. A boy’s touching me and I gave him absolutely no permission. I’m ready to punch him out like a WWE special, but for the sake of not hearing Nameless’ name again, I’ll do anything. His ribs are pressing into mine and our steps are in a creepy sort of sync. Jack doesn’t look back once, and neither do I, and once we’re completely around G-Building, Jack lets go and I pull away like I’ve been stabbed with a red-hot poker.
“What the hell was that for?” I snarl.
“I should be the offended one,” Jack says coolly. “You’re spreading rumors about me. Punching me wasn’t enough, you bloodthirsty cow?”
“I enjoy constructing eventual social downfalls,” I say. “And cow’s really the best you can come up with? That’s cute.”
“I hope you realize how accurate it is.”
“Oh, I do. But you might want to get something a little more original. It doesn’t sting at all. I’ve heard that a thousand times before, trust me.”
“I won’t. Trust you. But I will disappoint you - my social standing is fine. I’ve spent years making it, and a few seconds of slander from a jaded little new girl won’t scratch the surface.”
“I’m jaded?” I scoff. “What does that make you? Diamonded?”
“Let’s not argue semantics –”
“Let’s.”
“No. Unlike you, I have a life to attend to. I can’t afford to waste my time arguing the fine points of what makes you an idiot.”
He tries to duck around me, but I block him with my body.
“You still haven’t apologized to Kayla.”
He scoffs. “This is far beyond just her, now. Stop using your protective instincts as an excuse to harass me. Do it normally, like all the other star struck girls in this school.”
“I’m surprised you manage to get your head off your pillow in the mornings with an ego like that. Not everything with a vagina likes you, dipshit.”
“Then why spread a rumor about how I kiss? Whether you acknowledge it or not, it’s a very specific rumor. You must’ve used it as cover at the party. Thought of it on the fly, right? It was the first thing that popped into your mind, right? There’s a very smart man named Freud I think you should read up on.”
“There’s this awesome sandwich you should try called my knuckles, but, whatddya know - you already did.”
“So that’s a no, then, to my request about not spreading anymore rumors?”
His eyes are deathly cold, but for some reason that only makes me smile brighter.
“Oh, I’m going to spread the rumor even more, now. Thanks for letting me know it was bugging you.”
I wink at him and walk off. He doesn’t show much emotion, but I caught the tiniest glimmer of annoyance flit across his face before I turned. I won this round. The bell to end lunch rings and people start streaming out of the cafeteria and I keep plotting. I’ll keep harassing him like this, until he apologizes to Kayla, at least. It’s really his fault. It’s only two words, and then I’d let him off the hook. But no – he has to be so stubborn, so conceited, so –
Someone grabs my wrist, hard. I whirl around to yell at them, or possibly fight them off, when a blur roughly pulls me in, hard hipbones pressing into my stomach and height dwarfing me in shadow. I barely register the flash of blue eyes before they tilt my face up and kiss me, a tongue tasting the corner of my mouth and a lip tracing the curve of my cupid’s bow. The kiss spreads buzzing heat from my tongue, to my throat, to my lungs, to my heart, all the way down to my stomach and even below that. Everything is on fire. I can’t breathe – the kiss has me frozen, locked in place, completely immobile. This is my first. This is my first kiss and I’m going weak in the knees, I’m making some kind of stupid little moan. How moronic am I for reacting in such a cliché way? How stupid am I for letting this person –
And it’s then I realize the blue eyes belong to Jack.
And it’s then I realize Jack Hunter stole my first kiss in front of the entire school. People are whistling, hooting. The smell of Jack’s cologne wafts up and the taste of his mouth is pepper and mint on my tongue as he leans in to whisper;
“If it’s a war you want, Isis Blake, it’s a war you’ll get.”
Forty entire seconds after Jack Hunter kisses me and walks off, I’m too stunned to move. Just like that. Just like that, my first kiss went to East Summit’s Icedouche Prince. Not to someone I really loved. Hell, not even to someone I liked. It was sacrificed helplessly, like a little ritual priestess on the altar of callous assholery.
And all of East Summit High saw. He couldn’t have picked a more perfect time for the entire lunch crowd to see, and like an idiot I stumbled into the perfect place – the only hall connecting the cafeteria to the main entrance. I set myself up, and he pounced on it like a jaguar.
As my shock wears off, two things hit me;
1. He’s good. Very, very good. Not at kissing. No – definitely not. I was just in shock, that’s all. That’s why I couldn’t breathe. No, what I meant is he’s good at the game. I started it at the party by initiating the rumor, but he just fired his first shot back, and it was a perfect ten. I couldn’t have done it better myself. I’m dealing with a mastermind. Possibly a criminal one. It depends on how many cups of baby’s blood he drinks a day.
2. He took my first kiss. Now that everyone’s seen me go weak in the knees from a kiss (weak knees run in my family, we all have to get canes, it’s nothing special) they’ll never believe the rumor that he kisses bad. That he kissed me bad. Now I’m a liar. He proved me a liar in front of everyone in ten seconds flat. My title’s expanded from New Girl to New Girl Who Lied And Said Jack Hunter Kisses Bad. He took my first kiss and ruined my reputation but most importantly he took my first kiss when I thought no one would ever take it. No one had up until now. I’d gone seventeen years without a guy once trying to kiss me. Ugly girls don’t get kissed – that’s a fact. Nameless never even tried to kiss me. I buried my hopes of ever getting kissed deep beneath the nine-billion-foot grave that contains my respect for men.
My feet start taking me to Mrs. Gregory’s class again. I hear my name on people’s lips, and I feel them staring. I need to be plotting my next move against Jack. I need to make him apologize to Kayla no matter what. I need to somehow turn this around and salvage my reputation. But all that just melds into a cacophony of faint buzzing in my head, with three huge words echoing over it.
I got kissed.
I got kissed.
I shake my head so violently to clear it one of my ladybug earrings nearly flies off. I cup the small creature and pet the enamel of it soothingly. Hush now, Mr. Ladybug. Don’t go anywhere. I still love you. You’re the only one for me. That kiss didn’t mean anything at all – it was just Jackoff’s way of making me look like a liar.
Once Mr. Ladybug is soothed and I’m in my seat comfortably zoning off while Mrs. Gregory yammers about matrix equation shit, I expertly piece together what just happened, edited to my taste, of course. I white out the entire kiss. That goes first – I don’t need to remember that ever again. Men are scum and Jack Hunter is the worst scum of all. If anyone asks, I lost my first kiss to Johnny Depp and/or Tom Hiddleston. Possibly at the same time. Note to self - verify that with your Realistic Likelihood Calculator™ before committing to it.
As for the other parts, I know I saw Mr. Evans and Jack talking. Apparently some stuck-up colleges want Jack to attend. Maybe he got good grades or something? I wouldn’t put it past him to be smart – I’d seen that much with the way he took advantage of the perfect timing in the hall. A
nd he uses big weird words, so he’s probably a huge nerd. To be fair, I do too, but that’s because I’m fabulous. Jack has no such excuse. Evans and Jack also talked about a ‘she’, as in, ‘She’ll get better with or without you here’. Who’s ‘she’? And is she somehow holding Jack back from going off to college?
It’s a huge mystery I obviously don’t have time for. I ferret the information away in my brain in case I need some really heavy-duty ammunition against Jack in the days to come, but I leave it at that. I have to plot to take this guy down, not get all weirdly concerned over his future. Unless said future involves me strangling him. Then that’s fine and I should probably concern myself with that in order to make absolute sure it gets locked down on the permanent dimensional timeline.
And how the hell did he find out Nameless’ name, anyway? It’s not like I’m in the newspapers back in Florida – that’s really private, sensitive, and particular information. And if Jack somehow found out Nameless’ name, is he capable of finding out what happened between Nameless and I?
I quickly scribble down a battle plan on the back of my hand with ballpoint pen;
1. Assess the threat
2. Pinpoint weaknesses
3. Exploit said weaknesses
4. Win
“Isis?” Mrs. Gregory snaps. “Are you paying attention to the problem on the board?”
“Seventy-two,” I say, and get out of my chair to sit beneath my desk.
“Excuse me?”
“The answer,” I call from underneath the wood. “Seventy-two.”
She looks startled, but quickly takes in the board and scribbles on a loose sheaf she thinks I can’t see. The whole class is staring at me with bated breath, wondering what the hell is going on. Mrs. Gregory finally looks up.
“Correct. But why are you sitting –”
The bell rings then, shrill and in short bursts. Mrs. Gregory tells everyone to get under their desks and remain calm. Her bug-eyed face is anything but calm. The lockdown lasts for four or so tense minutes in which I pick the black polish off my nails while everyone debates whether it’s a shooting or a drug raid. Mrs. Gregory crawls over to me and frowns.