Her heart hammered and a ribbon of fear skidded down her spine. “What do you want?”
“I hear you’re gunning for me,” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She looked right and left, but the halls held no one else and were silent as a tomb.
“You’re asking questions. Spreading rumors.”
“What if I am? Asking questions, I mean. What rumors am I spreading?”
“You’re saying I did the fireworks stunt. Why are you telling people that?”
“It’s what I heard. I want it confirmed.”
“Why didn’t you come to me and ask?”
Her heart slowed and her fear morphed into anger. “Like you would have told me the truth.”
“You’ll never know now, will you?” He was leaning in toward her. His peppermint-candy breath felt warm on her cheeks. “The fireworks business is old news. Give it a rest.”
“Digging up dirt takes time.”
He searched her face, managed a beguiling smile. “And you don’t have anything better to do than dig around in old dirt?”
She knew with the next beat of her heart that he absolutely had pulled the prank. She pressed hard into the wall to put space between them. Her pulse was racing. “I don’t think what you did was funny. And I can still report you.” If her threat bothered him, he didn’t let it show.
“So now you’re judge and jury? You say I’m guilty, so I am? Where’s your proof?”
He had her there. She had no real proof, just rumors. “Your stunt was a bad joke. And in case you missed it, no one laughed.”
“So what does make you laugh, Morgan Frierson?” He leaned so close that his full mouth hovered inches from her own. His hair was damp, as if he’d just come from the gym showers.
An emotion unrelated to anger or fear shot through her, making her knees go weak. She said, “Back off.”
Slowly he straightened, dropped his arms loosely to his sides, flashed a smile. “I don’t want a fight with you, Morgan. Can’t we agree to forget ancient history?”
She glanced downward, not wanting to meet his eyes. She let out a breath and fought to regain her composure. At the moment a vendetta against him seemed futile and childish. Too much time had elapsed. What was she going to do, rat to the principal and the cops at this late date? “If anything like that happens again, I will nail you to a wall.”
Looking unruffled by her threat, he inclined his head graciously. “I accept your terms.”
His cavalier attitude only made her angry again. “Go away,” she said.
He glanced down at the posters she’d dropped when he’d captured her. He bent to pick them up. “Want me to help you put up the rest of these?”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Well, I asked,” he said, shrugging. “I volunteered to help my president. Put it in the record.” He stepped backward. “Later,” he said.
Never, she thought.
As he handed her the posters, she saw that his black hoodie was only partially zipped. No shirt beneath it. On the area between his collarbones, she read a single word tattooed in blue ink into his skin.
Wicked.
Roth banged on Liza’s front door.
She opened the door, looked surprised to see him.
“You going to invite me in?”
He looked cross. She stepped aside, letting him pass. Her home was in its usual state of disarray. Both her parents worked and neither one seemed to care about housework, at least not to the naked eye. “My room,” she said, leading him to a familiar destination. Her room was in no better shape than the rest of the house. The bed was littered with abandoned clothes. Roth sat on the floor, his back braced by the bed.
He hadn’t been around in weeks and Liza had missed him. She settled cross-legged in front of him. “So what’s up?”
“Had a run-in with our school president on Friday. She was putting up homecoming posters.”
Liza’s radar went up. “How nice for you. Did it make your day?”
“Not so nice,” he said.
“Are you asking me to the big dance?” Sarcasm dripped from her voice.
“You know I don’t go for that crap.”
“And yet you’ve mentioned it to little ol’ me.”
“Knock it off, Liza. I mentioned it because Morgan and I had a little talk.”
Liza raised her knees, locked her arms around them. “Again, how nice for you.”
Roth ignored her sour tone. “She accused me of the fireworks prank. Said she heard a rumor about me doing it.”
“So?”
“So you were the only person I told. How did she hear about it?”
Liza’s face reddened. “I have no idea.”
He leaned forward. “Come on. You had to have been the source.”
She shrugged, capitulated. “Sue me.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why did you say anything to anyone? It was my secret and I shared it with you only. Nobody else had a clue it was me.”
“People suspected. You’ve got a rep for doing stuff,” she said defensively.
“Suspecting and knowing are two different things. What if she tells her jock friends? Or goes to Simmons? Or the police?”
Liza hadn’t thought about that. She’d just been pissed off at him, jealous that he was so caught up in Morgan that day in the cafeteria. He wanted Morgan, an overachiever who got everything she ever wanted while girls like Liza got nothing. Liza had seen it coming for over a year in the way Roth cast covert glances at the red-haired girl when he thought no one was watching. Roth and Liza had been friends since sixth grade, when he’d been a scared, rebellious kid, lashing out at the world. She understood him, accepted him without judging him. He was the only boy who’d ever paid her any attention and she’d given herself to him completely. She’d thought they would be together always. But lately she’d felt him pulling away.
“Why, Liza?” Roth pushed her to confess.
Liza stood, walked to the window and fiddled with the wand on the blinds, fought off tears. The late-afternoon sun made slat marks across her body. “I didn’t mean to out you. I was just talking with one of my friends and … and it slipped out. I told her to keep it to herself.”
“But she didn’t.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” She turned to face him. She looked contrite. “I never thought it would go so far. I thought everyone would forget about it after a few days.”
Silence descended. Roth stared up at the ceiling.
Liza asked, “Do you think Morgan will blab?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? But she’s got something on me, and I don’t like that hanging over my head. I promised Max I’d graduate. I won’t if I’m expelled.”
“I could talk to her—”
“No. Stay away from her,” he commanded.
Liza stiffened, stung by the sharpness in his voice. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“I can when it comes to me and my business. I trusted you, Liza.”
Liza shut the blinds, darkening the room. “It’s Morgan, isn’t it? You’ve got a thing for her, haven’t you?” Painful as she knew it would be, she wanted to hear him say it.
Roth stood up. “I said what I came to say.”
She wanted to hurt him like he was hurting her. “She already has a boyfriend. She won’t give you the time of day. Look at you … with your tats and studs and attitude. You’re a loser to a princess like her.”
He started for the door. Liza realized she’d gone too far, said words she couldn’t take back. She hurried and grabbed his elbow. “Hey, don’t go. I’m sorry about everything.” Desperate to keep him from walking away, she slid her gaze to the rumpled bed. “My parents won’t be home for hours. I can prove to you how sorry I am. Stay with me.”
Roth heard the invitation but broke free of her grip. “I trusted you. You blew it. Now stay out of my life, Liza. I mean it.”
“Don’t punish me,” she cried. “Don’t leave.”
/> Without a backward glance, he closed the door behind him. Liza stood stunned. She had lost him in the way she wanted him most, as his girl. Roth was through with her. His excuse of betrayal was just that—an excuse. He wanted what he wanted. And it wasn’t Liza.
• • •
“You two look awesome!” Her mother snapped yet another picture of Morgan and Trent.
Morgan rolled her eyes. “Mom, I think we have enough photos on the memory card to qualify you for Paparazzo of the Year.”
“Your mother’s right,” her father said. “You’ll be the best-looking couple at the dance.”
“Just one more,” Paige said, reaiming her camera. “I have the homecoming queen and king standing in my living room. You bet I’m going to record the event for posterity.”
Morgan and Trent had been crowned the night before, during halftime of the football game. Tonight the dance was being held in the school gym. Morgan had spent the day decorating the space, then stopped at the beauty salon. The stylist did her hair in a sophisticated French twist with long springy tendrils surrounding her face. The upsweep would show off her glittering crystal earrings. Her dress bared her shoulders and was a deep, vibrant green that set off her pale skin.
Trent, who was wearing a dress jacket and blue jeans, looped his arm around Morgan’s waist and said, “Okay, one more.” He leaned in and mugged for the camera and Paige pushed the button.
“Oh, that’s a good one. I’ll put it on Facebook.”
Morgan shook her head impatiently. By the time she and Trent were out the door, the sun was setting. “We’re going to be late.”
“Not with me driving.” They were almost to the car when Trent pulled her short. “Wait a minute.”
“We need to go now—”
“I want to give you something first. They can start the dance without us.”
She snapped his letter jacket under her chin against the October chill and let him pull her toward their special tree. The leaves shimmered with fall colors against a sky that gleamed with a rising harvest moon. Once under the tree he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Her heart thumped eagerly, as it always did when Trent held her. “That’s worth being late for,” she said in his ear.
He laced the fingers of his left hand with hers. His face looked sweet and serious, part small boy, part grown man. “Hope this is too,” he said. He reached into his pocket, withdrew a small box.
Morgan’s eyes widened. “What’s this?”
“Open it.”
She eased off the lid, saw a ring nestled on top of a wad of cotton. Her gaze flew to his face.
“A promise ring,” Trent said. “I promise to replace this one with an engagement ring one day.”
She just stared at the ring, set with a single glowing white pearl. “We—we have college—”
“I know that,” he said, plucking the ring from the box. “But when college is over, we’ll come home and we’ll have forever. I’ll never love anyone like I love you.”
Forever. With Trent. Morgan couldn’t take a breath. Her mind whirled. She’d been so caught up in the here and now, with her grades and homecoming and college applications, she hadn’t thought about “forever.”
“You like it, don’t you?” His face clouded. Her heart swelled with tenderness and tears misted her eyes.
“It’s beautiful. I love it.”
“And you’ll wear it?”
“Yes.”
A grin broke across his face. He fisted the air. “Yes!”
She laughed, let him slip the ring onto her shaking hand. She was reeling, heady from the intoxication of the moment. She threw her arms around his neck. “I love you so much.”
“Now we can go to the dance,” he said. “I want to show you off.”
Laughing, holding hands, they ran to the car and chased the moon all the way to the gym.
Morgan’s big disappointment at the homecoming dance was that Kelli didn’t show up. Even as late as yesterday, Kelli had told Morgan she was coming. They’d talked about makeup and hair and which shoes would look best with Kelli’s pink off-the-shoulder dress. Yet when Morgan and Trent arrived and caught up with their group of friends inside the gym, Kelli wasn’t with them.
Morgan went straight to Mark. “Where’s Kelli?”
“She didn’t want to come.”
“Since when?”
“Since September.”
His words took Morgan by surprise. “She said the two of you were coming together. She told me so.”
Mark jammed his hands into his pockets. “Then she lied. She never planned on coming. At least not with me.”
Incredulous, Morgan got the bottom-line message. Kelli had lied to her—to Morgan, her supposed best friend! “Why?” she asked. “What’s going on between you two?”
Mark’s jaw tightened. “Nothing. It’s over between us.”
“Since when?”
“For a while now.”
Morgan felt like an idiot. Why was she hearing this from Mark and not Kelli? She recalled Kelli crying on the phone and saying that Mark had someone else, another girl. Was that true? “So who did you bring?”
“I came alone. Be sure and tell her that.”
Morgan had a million questions, but just then Trent slipped his arms around her from behind, nuzzled her neck. “Am I going to have to spend the night refereeing you two?”
“Game over,” Mark said, walking away.
“Wait!” Morgan called. Mark kept moving. She turned to Trent. “Do you know what’s happening with them? Kelli won’t tell me anything. She lied to me about being here tonight.”
Trent threw up his hands. “Don’t want to know.”
“But—”
He dipped his head and kissed her, stopping her words. From the corner of her eye, Morgan saw two chaperones eyeball them. She ducked. “Let’s not get thrown out.”
Trent led her to the dance floor. “Then let’s not talk about Kelli and Mark. This is our night, not theirs.” He took her into his arms while lights from an overhead spinning machine threw a sea of sparkle and color over the dancers flowing around them.
One of the cheerleaders spotted Morgan’s ring and shrieked. Girls clustered like a bouquet of spring flowers to admire the pearl. “Engaged?” one girl asked.
“Promise ring,” Morgan said. “College first.”
“Boy, I wouldn’t let him get far away from me,” another girl said. “Why risk him getting picked off by some babe?”
Morgan felt self-conscious about the attention they were giving the ring. Sure, she loved Trent, had loved him for almost three years. And yet the promise ring represented a commitment that she found strangely unsettling. What if she didn’t want to get married right after college?
Trent broke into the circle. “Hey, babe. Me and some of the guys are going out to the parking lot for a minute.”
Code for “Having a smoke and a sip of something eighty-proof.” Her stomach knotted. “What if you’re caught?”
“Won’t be. We’re going way off campus. To the mall parking lot.” The mall was half a mile away. “We’ll be back in a while.”
She wished he wouldn’t leave, but she knew it was a male ritual she couldn’t fight. “What if they check your breath when you come back in?” The chaperones were hugging the doors, their eyes darting everywhere suspiciously.
“Gum and mints. A guy’s best friend,” Trent said.
Morgan watched Trent and his buddies slip away, staggering their exits so as not to be noticed. She sighed, feeling deserted. She missed Kelli. If her friend had been here, they would have hunkered down and commented on every girl and dress in the gym. But there was no Kelli. And to compound her absence was Morgan’s knowledge that Kelli had told her a bald-faced lie.
All of a sudden the air seemed stale. Morgan eased over to the table where she and Trent had placed their belongings. She picked up Trent’s letter jacket and headed toward the bathroom, slipping on the wool-and-leather coat emblazoned with the
letter E as she walked, nodding to Mrs. DeHaven as she passed through the door into the hall. She paused at a side exit door, looked both ways, saw no one watching her. She eased outside into the cold night air, which stung her lungs but also felt refreshing after the closed air of the gym, thick with scents of perfume and hair spray and perspiring bodies.
Morgan needed to think. She needed to figure out what was going on with her feelings. Why had Kelli not come to her with the truth about her and Mark? Morgan had sensed something was wrong between the two of them, yet she hadn’t pushed Kelli for answers. What kind of a friend let something as important as a breakup get past her without pressing for answers? Morgan felt guilty.
The moon was overhead now, brilliant and bright. She walked slowly, deep in thought, and ended up at the football field. The carpet of grass looked blue in the moon’s white light; the bleachers were slivers of silver, the goalposts glowing rods rising out of the ground. She walked onto the field, her heels slipping in the manicured grass. Her shoes would be a mess, but at the moment she didn’t care. If it were warmer, she’d take off her shoes and feel the sharpness of the turf on her bare feet.
She stopped in the center of the field, stretched out her arms and lifted her face to the moon. Its light had swallowed the dimmer light of distant stars. Her mind tumbled over thoughts like water over stones—Kelli, their friendship, the promise ring, her college dreams, her future with Trent. She held out her arms like a worshipper, letting the moonlight wash over her. She closed her eyes, hoping to wash away the jumble of confusion rolling through her.
She stopped when she heard somebody clapping over near the bleachers. Her eyes popped open and she saw Roth coming toward her across the field, dressed in black—boots, jeans, hoodie. “What are you doing out here?” she asked, shocked by his sudden brooding appearance. She wasn’t afraid of him. She felt infringed upon, but not afraid. He stopped in front of her, his hands shoved into the kangaroo pocket of his sweatshirt.
“Watching you in the moonlight.”