15

The last person Leanna expected to see when she got home after practice the day before the first match was Jenny. But there she was, sitting in her living room and drinking iced tea with her mother.

“Leanna! Look who’s here,” her mother said, gesturing toward Jenny with her glass. “She said she wanted to come by and wish you luck before the big match against East! I thought she could join us for dinner!”

“Hey, Lee,” Jenny said, doing her best to smile through the awkwardness. “It’s been a long time.”

Leanna wasn’t sure what to think. She was happy to have her friend back, if that’s what was actually going on—but she couldn’t help but be a little suspicious of her friend’s sudden change of heart. She had started to get used to life without Jenny, and to have her sitting in her living room like nothing had happened now seemed strange. What’s going on?

Dinner was surprisingly normal given that Leanna and Jenny hadn’t spoken to each other in almost a month. They talked about school, the next Teen Witch movie, and even a little bit about tennis without anybody getting upset. After everyone had finished eating, Jenny suggested that the two of them go for a walk.

“Sorry things have been kind of weird between us,” Leanna said as soon as they were out the door, rubbing her shoulder nervously. “I never meant for everything to get this messed up.”

“It’s okay,” Jenny said. “I know you’ve been trying to apologize, I just wasn’t ready to talk to you yet. I am now, though.” She stopped abruptly and looked Leanna straight in the eye. “Look, Leanna, it’s really great to see you again, but I didn’t just come over here to catch up. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

The evening was cool and the air was moist, as if it were about to rain, but suddenly Leanna felt uncomfortably hot. She had figured something like this was coming. Is Jenny still mad? Will she apologize? Should I? It was a conversation Leanna had been waiting for weeks to have, but now that it was about to happen, she suddenly wished she could put it off for just one more day. She wished things could just be normal, like nothing had ever happened, but she knew that was impossible.

“Yeah, I figured,” Leanna said before trailing off for a moment. She took a deep breath and felt a lump start to form in her throat. Then she blurted out, “Look, Jenny, I’m really sorry. I know that I was a bad friend, but you have to understand that I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way.”

“That’s not what I wanted to talk about, Lee,” Jenny said. Her tone was a lot colder than Leanna would have expected after what she thought had been a heartfelt apology. “I’m still mad, but I have to tell you—Kelsey is not your friend. She’s trying to sabotage you.”

Leanna felt a chill run down her spine. The last thing she wanted to talk about right now was Kelsey. All she wanted to do was clear the air. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, I just heard some of the other girls talking about it,” Jenny said, then let out a heavy sigh. “I . . . I just thought you should know.”

Leanna wanted to believe that her friend had her best interests at heart, but the timing was a little suspicious. “So all of a sudden you’re really worried about how I do on the tennis team?” She asked. Some of the anger she’d felt when Jenny disappeared after tryouts the first time started to resurface.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Jenny replied.

Leanna felt her cheeks start to redden. If Jenny really didn’t want me to get hurt, then why did she freeze me out for almost a month? Why didn’t she try to understand the pressure I was under, and why didn’t she try to see things from my point of view?

“Really, Jenny? I’m surprised. I get that you’re mad, but why are you trying to make things worse for me?” Leanna snapped. “Kelsey is actually pretty cool once you get to know her, and I don’t think she would do anything to hurt the team’s chances. She’s even getting me a new racquet. Did you really think that you could just come over and have dinner then tell me not to trust my teammates and it would somehow make things better between us?”

“I’m just trying to help, Leanna,” Jenny said, keeping her tone cold and even. “But if you don’t want to listen to me, you don’t have to. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Fine,” Leanna said, “you warned me. But it’s getting kind of late, Jen. I think I’m going to go home.” She spun on her heel and headed back toward her house without looking back.

* * *

Leanna had trouble getting to sleep that night. Part of it was that she was nervous about her match against East, but the rest was because she simply couldn’t understand why Jenny would try to make her distrust her teammates the day before her big match, especially when she was just starting to feel like she was part of the team.

I know Kelsey’s competitive, but would she really try to sabotage me? And even if she wanted to, what could Kelsey possibly do to hurt my chances of doing well? Leanna did her best to push these questions from her mind and get some sleep, but it didn’t come easily. The next morning she wasn’t nearly as well rested as she would have liked to be, but the meet was going to happen whether she liked it or not.