UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter

12

The whole world is making out. All night I’ve been watching couples go at it. Megan and Luke. Britney and Buck. Even Sam has Amanda Bell.

Amberly and I hole up in the kitchen and sip our wine coolers in silence. Our feet dangle from the granite countertops where we’re sitting. Amberly slouches against a cabinet. She blows listlessly at a stray wisp of honey-colored hair that has broken free from the loose bun piled on top of her head. She looks just how I feel. Britney planned this party so we could celebrate the end of the semester while her parents are away at their lake house. But I don’t feel much like celebrating.

“So, not having someone to kiss right now pretty much sucks,” Amberly says.

“Yeah. You know I haven’t kissed anyone since tenth grade? It’s been almost two years.”

“Aw. You win. We need to get you some action tonight.”

A hand slithers around my waist.

“Ladies. Ladies. Ladies.” It’s Jimmy, twining his creepy arms around both of us. “I hear you’re in need of my services.”

I peel away his fingers. “I don’t think I’ll ever be in need of your services.”

“Me neither.” Amberly shrugs off his other arm. “I’m not nearly that desperate. Or that drunk.”

“But when you are, I’ll be there.” He stands there with his patchy goatee and his red-rimmed eyes, looking us up and down. It makes me feel like there are worms crawling all over me.

“Creepasaurus Rex,” Amberly mutters under her breath. “Let’s go,” she says in a louder voice. “I need the bathroom.”

We check our hair and makeup, intentionally taking as long as humanly possible. But when we come out, Jimmy’s still there. Waiting.

“Let’s split up and lose him,” I whisper to Amberly.

“Meet in B’s room in twenty minutes?”

I nod. We take off in opposite directions. It seems like she’s heading outside to the hot tub, so I weave through the house toward the staircase leading to the second floor. Jimmy sticks to me like a flesh-eating bacteria. Crap. I have got to ditch Count Creepula. I leap up the stairs two at a time, duck inside the nearest door, and close it fast. Footsteps thud down the hall, and I watch the doorknob like it’s a bomb.

“Hi,” says a voice behind me. I nearly jump out of my skin.

Luke sits on the lumpy couch in Britney’s dad’s office with his elbows propped on the kneecaps of his ultra-dark-wash blue jeans.

“Hi,” I say breathlessly.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Escaping. From Jimmy.”

“I’m hiding out too,” Luke says.

“Why are you hiding?”

As my sympathetic nervous system recovers from Luke scaring the bejesus out of me, I notice his mouth is pulled down so far at the corners his dimples have all but disappeared.

“I’m having a crappy day. I wanted to talk about it, but Megan is drunk and just wants to hook up. I really need a friend who can listen right now.”

Poor guy. I remember the talks we used to have before he started dating Megan. I sink into the cushion next to him, releasing a puff of cigar-scented air. “I can be that friend.”

Luke’s eyes dart around the room like he’s searching for a way out. Like he’d do anything to not think about what he has to tell me. But also like he’ll explode if he doesn’t.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he finally says.

“I promise I won’t.” My wide eyes open even wider, something that always happens whenever I say the words I promise.

“You know how my parents get in those horrible fights?”

I nod.

“Sometimes . . . he hits her.”

Luke’s face tenses as he watches for my reaction. I’ve never had a friend with an abusive parent before. For all the problems they have, my parents almost never get angry. Everything I know about domestic violence I learned from watching Lifetime movies when I stayed home sick from school, so I don’t know what the proper reaction is.

“I’m so sorry,” I say as a reflex. “Is that what happened tonight?”

“Yeah. They were fighting because a furnace repairman came over today. Everything seemed fine, but as soon as the guy left, my dad accused her of flirting with him. It got bad. She threw a glass against the wall. And then she called him stupid.” Luke winces. “So he backhanded her.”

His hand is just a few inches away. Without thinking, I put my hand on top of it. You can’t listen to something like that and do nothing. The hand-holding is completely platonic. Mostly.

“I don’t know what to do. I have the same temper. I don’t want to be a monster like him.”

“You aren’t. You could never be like that,” I tell him—because it’s true and because his eyes are begging me for some kind of confirmation that he is not a monster.

We’re so wrapped up in each other we don’t even hear the door open.

“What the hell is this?”

Luke and I jump back from each other, startled. It is an act that makes us look guilty as sin. If I were Megan, I’d be pissed too.

“I knew it. You’ve been after him this whole time.”

“We weren’t doing anything. We were just talking,” I say.

Megan narrows her eyes. “You can leave now. I need to talk to my boyfriend.”

I slink out to the hallway, but I can’t help lingering on the stairs. Their voices echo from the office.

“Nothing happened. I just needed someone to talk to.”

“Oh. And you can’t talk to me? I’m only your girlfriend.”

“I tried to talk to you before, but you wouldn’t listen. You were more interested in getting my pants off.”

“Well, I’m listening now.”

“No, you’re not. You’re being a bitch.”

There’s a pause. I lean closer to the door. I shouldn’t be listening, but I can’t move. I have to hear this.

“I’m sorry, okay? You can talk to me about whatever it is. I can be a good listener too.”

He sighs. “It’s different with her. She gets me. Claire and I don’t have perfect cookie-cutter families like yours. You don’t know what it’s like for people like us.”

The thought of Luke and me as an us sends Megan over the edge. “I am so sick of hearing about how Claire is so smart and so funny and so freaking perfect. If you don’t want me for anything else but the way I look, we’re done.”

“Well, good, because I’m tired of your bullshit anyway.” I hear something slam, maybe Luke’s hand against the desk, and take it as my cue to leave.

As I slip downstairs I feel shocked and sad for my best friend like I’m supposed to, but buried underneath that, I feel the tiniest flicker of hope.

Kisses #10, #11, #12, and #13 xoxo

Tenth Grade

Megan grabs me by the shoulders.

“Are you sure you’re ready to do this?”

Our four-girl powwow occupies one of three bathrooms in Screaming Lemurs’s lead singer’s parents’ house. Outside, a party rages, and the knocking and doorknob jangling grow more insistent.

“Yes.” Well, maybe. Every time I think of Tanner hooking up with that chick on his couch, I think our plan is awesome. Every time I imagine myself enacting the plan, I feel a little queasy and my face turns red.

Amberly balances on the side of the tub so she can adjust the straps on her stripper heels.

“You know people are going to talk, right? You have to be prepared for that.”

She would know. No girl in school has a reputation worse than hers. But it’s just because of the way she dresses. And arches her back. And eats certain foods. She can’t walk out of a room with a boy without people assuming they hooked up.

“I can handle it. Gossip never bothers me. Plus, I’m sure it’ll all blow over in a week or two.”

“And he deserves it,” says Megan. “So everyone will totally be on your side.”

Britney looks up from her lip gloss. “Seriously. Who cheats right before a date anyway? Like, could he not wait the two hours for you to—” Megan’s elbow catches her in the ribs. “Ow, what?”

Megan rolls her eyes. “Nothing. Are you ready? Because Mission: Humiliate Tanner Walsh starts now.”

We put our hands in a pile and say “break” before we open the door, because we’re cheesy like that. We have hatched a diabolical plan of epic proportions: I will make out with all four of Tanner’s best friends and bandmates. Not the most creative plan, but it’s every girl’s revenge fantasy, and crabs was already taken.

Megan leaves the bathroom first so she can distract Tanner under the pretense of talking about my feelings. The winding line of people doing the I-have-to-pee dance glares until they see who it is. Amberly leaves next. Her job is to keep tabs on the whereabouts of the four guys I need to kiss. And Britney is making sure that if that junior girl comes within ten feet of this party, she’ll leave in mascara-stained tears.

I take a lap around the party. A few guys check out various parts of my body as I pass. I can’t blame them—my sexiness factor is dialed up to one notch below prostitute. Megan picked my outfit (a micro micro mini and a tank top that doesn’t go past my belly button), and Amberly did my makeup (my eyelids weigh about two pounds each). I subjected myself to their skankover because any time you embark on a revenge mission against your ex, you have to look eat-your-heart-out sexy, but I can’t help tugging at the bottom of my tank top and the hem of my skirt. This so isn’t me.

I don’t see Tanner, which means Megan is doing her job, so I search for Lead Singer. I find him in the living room, chest puffed out, one arm slung across the mantel, flirting with no less than four adoring fangirls.

“Come with me to get a beer,” I say, grabbing his arm and causing a flurry of vicious scowls. Oh, chill. I’ll only take him for a second and then you can go back to discussing what combination of product makes his hair so dreamy.

I drag him into a bedroom and shut the door behind us.

His eyebrows wrinkle in confusion. “The keg’s in the kitchen.”

Step 1: Get him alone. Done. I can do this. I can totally do this.

“I know.” I take a step toward him, so we’re just inches apart and I can smell his metro cologne. “I broke up with Tanner.”

“I heard. You think you guys’ll get back together?”

“Nope. But that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

I inch a little closer, thankful he can’t see my racing heartbeat. His eyes widen. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I think you’re hot. And even when I was dating Tanner, I always wondered what it would be like to make out with you.”

I hold my breath. Will he buy it? Everything hinges on him believing me.

Lead Singer is the most vain guy in the universe, and he thinks every girl is secretly in love with him, regardless of their relationship status, so of course he swallows my lie hook, line, and sinker. A cocky smile settles over his face, and he pulls me toward him by the small of my back and kisses me like the world is ending. I start to enjoy it—even though I’m on a revenge mission, even though I have no feelings for him whatsoever—because the boy is just so darn good at kissing.

When we pull away, my smug smile matches his. Step 2: Kiss him. Done. I did it! And it worked. And it was even kind of fun.

“So, what’d you think?” he asks with a look that says he already knows the answer.

“That was fun. We better get back to the party.”

“Okay. Come find me if you start wondering about anything else.”

Tool, I think, even though I’m still practically panting from the kiss. I step out of the bedroom with shaky knees and tingling lips. Time to find my next target.

Rhythm Guitar lounges in a recliner chair sipping beer and watching ESPN Classic. Why guys like to watch ten-year-old football games is beyond me. I walk right over and sit in his lap like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

“Hey. Tanner and I just broke up.”

He tears himself away from the game for a second. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

I touch his arm, and his bicep flexes in response. This is so going to work. He’s a simple creature.

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

He stares at me with equal parts interest and confusion.

“‘Kay.”

I lean into his chest and plant my lips on his. He kisses like a jock. His lips crush too hard against mine, and his tongue plunges around in my mouth aggressively. I need to put a stop to this before I chip a tooth, so I break the suction on our slurp fest of a kiss. I hop out of the recliner and ruffle his hair.

“See you around.”

“‘Kay.” He goes right back to his beer and football like nothing happened.

Two down. Two to go. This might be easier than I thought. Amberly gives me a high five. I wipe the slobber from my mouth with the back of my wrist.

She giggles. “Hot. Who’s next?”

I think for a second. “Bass.”

“He’s in the basement playing pool.”

“Awesome.”

I note Tanner is still nowhere in sight before heading downstairs to the basement, where Bass is playing pool with three other guys. There aren’t any girls around. A guy in a Halo shirt sinks the eight ball just as I walk up. I touch Bass on the shoulder.

“Hey, can you sit the next one out? I need to talk to you about something.”

“Uh, okay. Sure.” He follows me to a leather couch, twisting the hem of his T-shirt in his hands as he walks.

We sit there for a few awkward seconds.

“So, like, are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. I guess,” I say. And then, because he seems so genuine: “I can’t believe he cheated on me.”

He nods. “My last girlfriend cheated on me too. If it makes you feel any better, I think he’s pretty miserable right now.”

“It does.” I smile. “A little.”

He tells me about finding his ex sucking face with some other guy in the back of the band bus after an away game, and I tell him about walking in on Tanner. He’s not at all like his brother. This is actually difficult. Bass may be kind of nerdy, but he’s a sweet nerd who cares about my feelings, so should I really be revenge kissing him? I think of Tanner. Cheating on me. And then I put my hand on his chest.

“Thanks for being such a good friend,” I say.

I lean forward, like I’m getting up, but when I do, I kiss him. His eyes open big and he makes a choking sound. It’s too much of a shock for him. OMG, what if I kiss him into a coma or something? But then he recovers and kisses me back, and when I finally pull away, he looks happy and dopey, and maybe a little in shock still. He just sits and stares when I leave.

Three down. Which means I currently have saliva from three different guys sloshing around in my mouth. It’s a mono outbreak waiting to happen. I kind of thought kissing Tanner’s friends would make me feel, I don’t know, empowered or something, but instead I feel a little empty. It’s probably because Tanner still has no idea.

Amberly waits for me in the living room.

“One more to go.” I say.

“You need to hurry,” she replies. “I don’t think Megan will be able to keep Tanner occupied for much longer, and I have no idea where Seth is. I know I saw him earlier, but I swear I’ve searched the whole house. Maybe he’s outside?”

I head out the back door and, as soon as I shut it, realize Megan and Tanner are sitting in chairs by the fire pit not five yards away. Uh-oh. Megan sees me and her eyes get big, but luckily I’m able to dash around to the side of the house before Tanner turns his head. I lean against the wall and close my eyes in relief. A tap on my shoulder almost sends me into a frenzy. I whirl around.

“Seth!”

His shiny black hair is gelled into a faux-hawk. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, um. Avoiding Tanner.”

Seth glances in the direction of the fire pit. He gets this little frown like he’s going to try to talk to me about serious things. But I don’t want to talk. I’m tired of planning kiss-segue conversations, plus I’m super nervous, so this time I go right for the kiss. For a second nothing happens, and I worry I’m about to be seriously embarrassed, but then his lips open and his tongue finds mine. One hand winds itself into my hair. The other splays across my back, pulling me closer. I can feel the tension in each of Seth’s fingertips as they press against my ribs. There’s a passion in his kissing that frightens me. He grabs my hand when I end the kiss.

“I knew you felt the same way,” he says.

“What?”

“This whole time you’ve been with Tanner, and even before, I’ve liked you.”

All I can do is stand there with my mouth hanging open. I didn’t know he liked me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Well, anyone except Tanner. I feel guiltier by the second about making him the fallout of my kiss warfare.

“And now I know you feel the same way.” His grin falters. “Because, why else would you kiss me?”

“He cheated on me,” I say to Seth’s Converse.

I expect him to be annoyed. Or sad, maybe. I don’t expect him to wrap me in his arms and hold me.

“I know.” He kisses my temple. “And I’m so sorry. But you’re with me now. I’d never do that to you.”

Could this get any worse? I wiggle out of his embrace. “No.” This time I look him right in his kind brown eyes. “I mean, that’s why I kissed you. I kissed all four of you guys to get back at him.”

His face looks like it’s having a fight with itself.

“‘All four of you’? So, this was just . . . And you don’t . . . Damn it!” He slams his hand against the wall of the house.

“I’m sorry.” I feel like the worst person in the world.

“It isn’t your fault,” he says firmly. And with that he stalks toward the fire pit, leaving me standing by myself.

“Seth, wait. Please.”

I try to grab his arm, but he pushes my hand away and walks right up to Tanner.

“Why did you do it?” he yells.

Tanner nearly falls out of his chair in his effort to back away from Seth and stand up at the same time. “What?”

“Why did you do it?” This time Seth isn’t yelling. He’s broken. “You knew I liked her from the beginning. Things could have been great between us if you’d never gone for her. Why did you do it?”

Tanner rubs at his earlobe. “Look, I’m sorry.” His eyes meet mine. “I like her too.”

Seth looks close to tears now. “No. You don’t cheat on girls you care about. And you don’t screw over friends you care about.”

He walks away before anyone can say anything else.

Tanner turns to me. “Why is he being like this? Did something happen?”

I can’t even meet his eyes. I feel like such a jerk. “I kissed him,” I say. “I kissed all your friends.”

This isn’t how I imagined Tanner finding out at all. I thought I’d be proudly announcing that I’d kissed his best friends while he realized how sorry he was. But this is horrible. I am horrible. How could I do that to Seth?

In the days that follow, Screaming Lemurs goes through an epic breakup. After their lead guitarist walks out and takes the band’s lead singer with him, there isn’t much the other three guys can do.

In the days that follow, Buck calls me Yoko really loudly in the middle of the cafeteria. I try to explain that Yoko Ono did not make out with all four members of the Beatles, but the culturally illiterate kids at my school don’t get it and the nickname sticks.

Still, the nickname isn’t the worst part. For the girls at my high school, me breaking up the band is nothing short of criminal. On Wednesday, I walk by a lunch table and hear “That Claire Jenkins goes through boys like she goes through the laundry.” I have to force myself to keep walking and pretend I didn’t notice. Gossip rolls right off me, usually. I’m used to hearing that my boobs are tiny or that I’m a bitch, but this is the kind of thing people say about Amberly or maybe Megan, not about me. When did I become that kind of girl?

On Thursday, I talk to Sam about it while we play video games in his basement. “So how does it feel to be the school Antichrist?” he asks, shoveling another Swiss Roll into his mouth.

“Is it really that bad?”

“For now,” he says through a mouthful of snack cake. “Things will blow over, though. Eventually.”

On Friday, a pack of girls I barely know pull me aside after the last bell rings. I’m trudging down the hallway under the weight of two AP classes’ worth of books when they block my path. Four girls who are the less-hot equivalent of me and my friends glare at me with their arms crossed.

“We need to talk to you,” says the blond one, who is obviously their leader.

“Yeah,” says Amanda Bell, clearly angling to be second in command. “You just need to know that everyone hates you.”

The blonde cuts in. “Because you’re a slut. Amberly used to be the school slut, but now it’s you.”

“She is not a slut,” I say.

Amanda snorts. “Yes, she is. But you’re worse because you broke up Screaming Lemurs.”

“They were the coolest thing to ever happen to this school, and you ruined everything,” chimes in a girl with long black braids and a hot-pink shirt.

“All because you have to make out with anything with a pulse,” says the blonde. “If you weren’t such a slut, the band would still be together.”

My eyes flash. I kissed four guys. Four. And I’m a slut? The average girl kisses seventy-nine guys before she finds the one she’s supposed to marry. You’d think I’d screwed half the football team the way everyone is carrying on. I want to scream at them, Hello. I’m a virgin!

Instead I say, “How is this all my fault?” Why does Tanner get to be innocent in all this?

“Oh, we know your friends were involved. Everyone is pissed at them too,” says the fourth girl, a cute redhead who talks with a lisp.

“That’s not what I meant. Tanner—”

Amanda takes a step closer like a prowling animal. “Megan and Britney are the biggest bitches in school, and you and Amberly are the biggest sluts. And everyone is getting tired of it, so watch out.”

“Yeah,” says the blonde with a flip of her ponytail. “Y’all may not be the queens of the school for much longer.”

“I don’t care about that stuff. You’re missing the point. Tanner. Cheated. On me. This whole thing started with him. And the other guys in the band are more than capable of making their own decisions. I didn’t force them to kiss me back. I didn’t force Seth and Tanner to fight. You guys act like it’s okay to heap all the blame on the girl but let the guys off with a free pass. Don’t you get how screwed up that is?”

But they don’t get it. I can tell by their blank looks.

“Whatever,” says Amanda Bell. “You’re still a skank.”

“Ho-bag,” says Hot Pink.

I turn and stomp away, leaving their parting insults to ricochet off my backpack.

Whew. I managed to stay strong, and now I just have to keep it together until I reach Megan’s car. But when I get there, I find Megan bawling like a baby.

“Everybody thinks I’m a bitch,” she says as I plop down in the passenger seat.

“They got you too, huh?”

She nods and pours out the whole story. Amanda was right—nearly every girl in school hates us. So do the guys formerly known as Screaming Lemurs, especially Seth. It’s hard to forgive when you’ve got Buck calling you Sloppy Fifths.

“What are we going to do?” Megan asks.

“We make a pact. Starting today, we fix our reputations.”

She sniffs. “Yeah. And how do we do that?”

“I don’t know.” I bite my lip. “I guess we start by thinking about the problem. And your problem is that people, uh, think you’re a bitch.” I see the hurt flash in her eyes. “You’re not a bitch,” I say quickly.

She gives me a wry smile. “Thanks.”

But then why does everyone think she is? She’s fiercely loyal. She’s fun. She’s hilarious. She’s completely honest about the things she loves and the things that terrify her. That’s the Megan I see, anyway. I try to imagine the Megan other people see. Oh. I get it now. But if they could just see what I see—hey, wait! Maybe that’s it! “You know how sometimes you act different around me? Like, you’re not afraid to tell me how your parents make you feel dumb or how you like cooking more than breathing?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I think you should show that side to everybody else.”

Megan sucks in her breath. “I don’t know, Claire. That’s, like, really personal stuff.”

“I know, and I’m not saying you should be spilling your guts in front of everyone all the time, but you’re so much more than just the cheerleader you, and sometimes I think that’s all anyone sees. I think people would really like the real you. You could at least give it a try.”

“That sounds scary.” She starts cleaning up her makeup, which is a sure sign she’s feeling better. “I’ll think about it, okay? What about you, though? What are you going to do?”

I wrinkle my nose. “I already know what I have to do.”

For me, this pact is about more than getting the girls at school to stop whispering about me behind cupped hands. I don’t care if Amanda Bell thinks I’m a bad person. I care that hurting Seth’s feelings and kissing a bunch of guys for revenge made me feel like I was turning into a person I don’t want to be. The only way I can think of to fix things is to concentrate more on me and less on boys. Which mostly involves not flirting with guys or kissing anyone for all of junior year. Bor-ing.

It works, though. Plus, since junior year is crammed with SAT prep and every AP class under the sun, the lack of boy-like distractions helps keep my test scores high. Is it fair that I have to swear off boys while Tanner cheating on me seems to make him even more desirable? Nope. But I can only change me, not everyone else.

For Megan, it’s a little more complicated. But she manages to pull off a public-image face-lift of epic proportions. She talks to everyone in school, even if it’s just to say hi and smile, and you can tell by the way their faces light up that it makes them feel so special to be touched by Megan McQueen. She becomes the kind of popular girl that people actually like. And I couldn’t be more proud of her.