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THURSDAY, JANUARY 24
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SENIOR YEAR, I had one best friend: Josh Anderson. We sat at a lunch table with two other guys—Mark Crawford and Nathan Priest—both of whom I called good friends, too. Together, we navigated the choppy waters of the Heritage High School cafeteria, a place where students jockeyed for tables with the best view of the room and ate calorie-balanced lunches made by two chefs the student alumni association paid for with private donations. Of all the dangerous places in the preppy school we called home, the lunchroom was the most dangerous. Student reputations rose and fell by the events in that large, loud room located in the center of the building. What happened in the lunchroom never stayed in the lunchroom, and the social hierarchy of Heritage ebbed and flowed just from that fact, and exactly the way the popular kids liked it.
The four of us ate lunch most days at a spot in the far right corner of the room. The rectangular table sat far enough away from the lunch line to see most of the action, but close enough to check out the hot senior and junior girls. Our section of the lunchroom sat six people, but two of the chairs always stayed empty. Always.
No girls ever sat with us at lunch, despite Mark’s best efforts to convince them. Mark crushed on at least five girls during senior year, but he had no skills. Every time he talked to girls, they just wound up laughing in his face. He didn’t lose hope, though, and at least once a day he brought up his latest crush.
Nathan, on the other hand, was more interested in his latest level achievement on the Mass Effect video game. He’d turned eighteen without having even kissed a girl. Josh, meanwhile, often kept his feelings about girls and the rest of high school to himself.
I think that’s why we became such close friends.
“Dude, check out the shirt Jillian James is wearing,” Mark said at lunch one typical Thursday. He clutched his burger in one hand, and stopped it a few inches from his mouth as his eyes widened. Lettuce and tomato threatened to fall out of the bun and land on his shirt, but he ignored it. “That sweater is see-through. You can see her tits.”
“Tits.” Nathan’s eyes scrunched up behind his horn-rimmed glasses as he laughed. “You said tits. Such a great word. God, I love that word.”
“Even better when they’re up close,” I said under my breath.
“This is awesome.” Mark’s eyes followed Jillian as she walked across the lunchroom. “It’s like she doesn’t even realize people can see them . . .”
I glanced at Josh, then turned my head to see exactly what about Jillian had so distracted Mark from his food. On that day, Jillian wore a knee-length black sweater over grey leggings. The loose knit of the sweater revealed what looked like a tan camisole underneath, one that hugged her hourglass body. Her long, curly black hair tumbled down her back, and she walked across the lunchroom like it was her own personal runway. A couple of kids stopped eating as she passed. But that didn’t mean I could see her boobs.
“Well. I don’t see anything,” I said.
“You must have missed it, you idiot,” Nathan said. “They were out. It’s that sweater.”
“They were not out. She wouldn’t do it, anyway. She’s not that stupid.” I paused. “Well, she is dumb. But that doesn’t mean you saw them.”
“You didn’t see her from the front.” Nathan sounded annoyed. In fact, he sounded that way a lot when he talked to me.
My eyes stayed on Jillian as she made her way to the usual table where she sat. She reached it, placed her tray down, and I sucked in my breath a little bit. She sat right next to Laine, in the middle of the table, and Monica, a brunette, sat across from them. Even though I already knew they were all lifelong friends who sat at the same lunch table every day at Heritage, my heart still jumped from my chest to my ears.
Something about Laine did that to me every time, and not just because she had a rail-thin body and wavy blonde hair.
On that day, she looked perfect in a black turtleneck sweater and fur vest. As I watched, Laine smiled at Jillian, and then said something to her, and they booth laughed. Monica, always the wannabe, laughed, about half a second later.
People were always like that around Laine. She never went long without finding something funny, and her round, warm laugh often made other people laugh, too. She radiated happiness, confidence, and perfection.
The whole scene intoxicated me.
“Nice,” Josh said when he noticed what and who had my attention. “Good to see some things never change, including your worship of the princess.”
“Shut up. I am not worshiping her.”
“So, you do still like her?” Josh’s left eyebrow shot up.
“No. I don’t—no.”
“Whatever.” He grinned. “You could run a Facebook page about how much you like her.”
“Come on. Shut up.”
“She really is a princess. I heard her say something in the hall about how she and Evan went to some concert downtown over the weekend.” He shook his head. “Of course she had front-row seats. Snobby bitch.”
I glared at him. “She’s not a snobby bitch.”
“I’m just trying to be a good friend here.”
“Yeah, I get that.” I didn’t hide my sarcasm, because I just wanted Josh to stop talking about her.
“You can look all you want.” Josh cleared his throat and pointed his fork at me. “Laine will never look back at you, Geoff. She’ll never pay attention to anyone but Evan Carpenter.”
Ah, Evan. Damn him.
Also a senior, Evan Carpenter threw for over two thousand yards during the football season that year, and he led the team a 35–14 win over the Bowling Green High School Purples in the state championship game. For the last two weeks, he’d worn a variety of Ohio State jerseys and sweatshirts to school because he planned to play football there in the fall. I only noticed this because he sat in front of me in World Cultures, and he farted a lot. I got to smell it. Right after lunch.
No one at Heritage ever challenged or confronted Evan. The kids at school just idolized him. The class even voted him Mr. Perfect in our junior year.
“She’s super-hot though,” Mark said his eyes still on her. “I’d take that. If anyone is fuckable celebrity status in this school, it’s Laine.”
My next bite of food stopped about an inch away from my mouth. “Fuckable celebrity status?”
“Yep. Fuckable celebrity status. But I’d still take Jillian,” Mark said, still sneaking glances at Jillian and her huge boobs.
“You’d take anything,” I pointed out, but my eyes remained on that table, too. Laine took a bite of her salad. She ate salads a lot. She also only drank water, and on Wednesday, she often bought soup from the hot bar on the far side of the cafeteria. I knew these things because I watched her a lot during lunchtime, more than I wanted to admit to any of my friends.
“I would not just take anything,” Mark replied, and then he shook his head and turned back to his wilted lunch. “Laine’s one of those girls who will always have everything. But I think Jillian might be more accessible. Maybe even hotter.”
“Maybe not. She used to have that uni-brow, and all that acne,” I said. “Remember freshman year? Jillian wasn’t hot then.”
“Plus she’s stupid,” Nathan said. “She asked me if I knew the capital of England last week.”
“She did?” Mark’s lips twisted into a smile he couldn’t hide.
“Yep.” Nathan smirked. “She didn’t know if it was Berlin or Birmingham.”
We all laughed. We might not have had girlfriends, but at least we didn’t have dumb ones.
A long time ago, the library at Heritage High had hundreds of books spread across two floors. It opened at seven-thirty a.m. and didn’t close until four, thereby ensuring nerdy kids like me had a place to hide from the bullies and awkwardness of high school. And we used it for that almost every day.
But not in my senior year. The comfortable library disappeared.
By that time, thousands of dollars in private donations from the parents of Heritage High students paid for a million-dollar renovation to the library. After a summer of construction, the library reopened with only half the physical books it used to contain. They expanded the computer lab, ordered dozens of Kindles, stocked a database full of e-books, and got rid of the card catalog. Heritage High now had the library of the future. I hated it.
Hated it.
I wasn’t the kind of person to always embrace change. Change sucked. Change only brought uncertainty, and sometimes that felt worse than the annoyance of mediocrity. But it was still the only place on campus where I could go to avoid the social pitfalls of my snobby high school.
I had a ten-page paper due the following Monday in AP European History on England’s Glorious Revolution. Since I hadn’t started on it yet, I decided to go to the library that Thursday afternoon.
When I walked in the doors, three other kids sat at rectangular wooden tables spread out in the center of the main library space. Two were freshman, and one was a sophomore. I didn’t know any of their names, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they knew mine.
Over the last few years, a couple of epic falls, a science lab experiment gone wrong, and some bad T-shirt choices had cemented my reputation as “Geoff Megadeth,” and most of the kids in every grade at Heritage thought they knew all about me.
At least I had that going for my life.
Once I found a seat at one of the wide tables in the far corner, I opened up my binder for the class. My notes filled up 80 percent of the space in the binder, and we still had four more months of instruction before the big test—a test I dreaded, but knew I’d make at least a four on, and a four meant three hours of guaranteed college credit.
Flipping to the back, I found a few blank pages of loose-leaf paper before I slid my school issued iPad out of my backpack. Once I turned the device on, I opened up the McGraw Hill AP European History app and sighed so loudly that one of the freshman a few tables over turned his head in my direction.
“What are you looking at?” I asked, in my most intimidating voice.
His eyes widened, and he lowered his head. Satisfied, I turned back to my notebook and let the words of a study outline blur together on the iPad. I liked history a lot, but I didn’t find England’s seventeenth century very interesting, and the thought of creating the required outline before I wrote the paper bored me even more. Why did AP classes at Heritage have so many guidelines? Couldn’t they just let us study the topic on our own, take the test, and go home?
“Have you started on your paper yet?” Fifteen minutes later, a voice spoke from behind my left shoulder.
I jumped back in my chair and turned around. What I saw made me catch my breath. Laine stood right next to me, in the flesh. Her letterman jacket threatened to fall off her shoulders, and all the awards, patches, and pins of a celebrated high school career centered on cheerleading leered at me. She hooked her black leather backpack over one shoulder, smiled at me,
“Hey, Geoff.”
My ears waited to hear two others words, and when they didn’t, my heart fell to my feet. She actually called my name real name—not the stupid nickname? What kind of bizarre world had I fallen into? Maybe I’d wake up in a couple of seconds. Yeah, that’s what needed to happen. I needed to wake up from whatever dream this was before it turned into a nightmare.
“Hey, Laine,”
“You look really into it.”
“What? No. Yes. Into it. Yummy.” I couldn’t collect my thoughts. They rattled around in my brain like marbles, and rolled away from me when I tried to string a few together. “I mean, yeah. I’m into tit—I’m into it.”
“So you’re studying.”
“Yeah,” I still struggled to talk. “Just working on a couple of things.”
“Have you started on the actual paper yet?”
“The paper?”
“The one for English.” She paused. “Mr. Langston’s class? The one that’s due next week?”
“Oh, that one?”
She smiled. “That one.”
“Um . . . no.” I closed the textbook, and nodded at the chair across from me. “Do . . . you have a . . . you want to sit down?”
“Sure.” She bit her cherry-red lip, and watching her do it almost made me fall out of the chair. Still, she made no move to take a seat. “I wasn’t going to come over and talk to you—but, well, I just wanted to say that—well,” she broke off. “Never mind.”
“Seriously, do you want to sit down?” I asked again.
“Yeah.” She looked over her shoulder. “I just don’t want to be alone right now.”
As I hurried to move my school stuff out of the way, she slid into the metal chair and tossed her own book bag on the floor. Then I just stared at her, because I didn’t know what to say, and I couldn’t figure out why she’d sat down next to me. It just didn’t make much sense. The library had plenty of open tables, and even more computer desks. Hell, she could have had a whole section to herself if she wanted it.
So why me? Why me? WHY ME?
“Have you started the paper?” I asked when the awkwardness became too much for me to bear.
She nodded. “Yeah, last week. I’m about three quarters of the way done with the outline.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I like English literature a lot, especially that time period.”
I sat back, surprised. No one liked Langston’s class. No one. Right? And she didn’t seem like the English type, since she never talked much in that class. I had assumed she got in just because of who she was in school and the magic spell she seemed to have over everyone—even the teachers. “So, you’re telling me you like AP English?”
She gave me a blank look, as if I shouldn’t be surprised about this.
“Well, that’s awesome. I can’t get into it. At least, not that stuff we’re learning right now.”
“It’s not that bad, Geoff. Some of it is kinda romantic.” She disappeared underneath the table and came back a few seconds later with a thick green binder, a blue pen, and her own iPad. She opened up the binder and pulled the iPad out of the case as a small smirk danced on her face.
“Wait. Are you going to study here?” I paused. “With me?”
“Sure I am. This is a library.” Laine winked. “You do know how these work, right?”
“But I mean—”
“And you look so—I don’t know—lonely sitting here all alone.”
“So you just thought you’d plop down and study with me?”
“What? Don’t you want me to?” She tilted her head and frowned, as if she didn’t understand why I’d asked the question. “That’s what people do in a library. They study. Sometimes together. Of course, I could always go study with one of the freshmen.”
But even as she said this, she made no move to get up from the table we shared. Meanwhile, all the attention in the room had turned to her. Everyone in the library stared, transfixed. She was like that ring from The Lord of the Rings. My precious.
Good fucking grief. Of course I would make that kind of lame analogy.
“So, what’s the topic you are focusing the paper on?” she asked, as if she had no idea that she had this kind of effect on others. I gulped, and tried to think of an answer. When I didn’t get one out fast enough, she pressed onward. “I got the assignment to write about Lady Macbeth as an evil archetype.”
“Hamlet,” I croaked. “I’m supposed to discuss the psychology of his character.”
She looked up from her iPad. “Hmm. That’s a pretty easy topic.”
“There’s just so much to write about. I’ve been trying to figure out how I can fit it all into a ten page paper.” I pretended to sound interested in this—not easy to do when a goddess who looked like the Sugar Plum Fairy had just sat down across from me. I wondered if she tasted as sweet as she looked.
She probably did.
“I hate how we have to turn in all the work, too. I’d rather just write the paper.”
“I don’t like making the outlines, either,” I replied.
“But I like the books on the reading list,” Laine confided in a low voice. “My favorite was The Illiad.”
“Mine too,” I lied.
Who was I kidding here? What the hell was I saying?
Laine nodded, as if satisfied with my answer, and turned her attention to the iPad. I seized the further chance to study her up close. She had pulled her hair into a long braid since lunch, and it fell over one shoulder. A few strands of hair escaped, and they danced along her hairline. Close up, her skin looked almost translucent, even though I saw a faint outline of makeup along her chin. My eyes fell on her long lashes—some of which clumped together from too much mascara—her rosebud lips, and the small pearl earrings in her ears.
God, she was gorgeous. More than gorgeous. A gorgeous goddess.
How many times could I think that over and over in my head?
We studied in silence for a while, and the only sound I heard was the click of the large clock on the far wall of the library near the computers. Even the freshmen turned their attention back to their work.
I focused on the notes about England’s Glorious Revolution from the iPad app, and managed to create half my outline. Before we knew it, Mrs. McGhee, the librarian, came over the loud speaker to let us know the library would close in five minutes.
Goddamn it.
“Well,” I said as we packed up our bags, “I got some work done.”
She smiled. “Me too. Good job. Maybe I’ll get an A on this paper.”
“An A?” I almost dropped my iPad on the floor. “I... um...I didn’t know you liked school so much. Guess I’m surprised.”
She chuckled. “Of course I like school. I’m in those AP classes with you, you know.”
“No, I just—some people don’t always like—”
“What? You think I’m just some dumb blonde because I’m a cheerleader?”
“Well—no—” I struggled with a way to fix this, cursing myself inside for saying that. “I just didn’t—”
She held up her hand. “Let’s clear this up right now. I like AP English, European History, and Chemistry, too. Shock you?”
“Well, yeah . . .”
“You’re kinda judgmental, aren’t you?”
“Are you trying to psychoanalyze me?” I said, with a fake laugh.
“I don’t think I have to. I think I’ve figured you out.” She raised her index finger.“You have a judgmental side.”
“I am not. I am not judgmental.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m not. No, really—”
“I’m ranked fifteenth in the class,” she mumbled, as she stood up and zipped her bag. “Of course, that’s nothing compared to being ranked second. So I can understand why you might think I was kinda dumb.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m going to Xavier in the fall,” she said. “I haven’t told anyone.”
“Why not?”
“All my friends think I’m going down to Lexington and UK. Monica even thinks we’re going through sorority rush together. But I don’t want to do that. Just want to do something different. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I thought about my own early acceptance letter to UVA. I couldn’t wait to leave Greater Cincinnati for Charlottesville. Best of all, Blake and Bruce wouldn’t follow me. They planned to go to Bluegrass Community and Technical College for two years, and then transfer to the University of Kentucky—if they didn’t get D averages.
Losers.
We slid our backpacks around our shoulders and strolled out of the library. From there, it was just a short walk to the front of the school. I didn’t have the car that day, so I planned on walking home, and had about a twenty-minute trek ahead of me.
“Are you walking home, or driving?” Laine asked once we stepped out of the school building and into the dreary January day. Cold wind whipped around out faces, and I shuddered inside my navy wool pea coat.
“Walking.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Really? You don’t have a car?”
“Not today.” I shrugged. “Sometimes I like walking. It’s not too far.”
“No one walks.”
“Sometimes I do.”
“Whatever.” She took a few steps down the sidewalk. “Come on. I’ll drive you.”
“No—you really don’t have to.”
“Don’t be stupid, Geoff.” She motioned for me to come along with her hand.
“Well, what about—”
“Just as long as you don’t judge my car,” she said with a smile. “People always make fun of me because my parents didn’t get me a new one when I turned sixteen.”
“People make fun of you?”
She nodded. “Yep. Sometimes they do.”
“I live in the third house on the left,” I said, as we turned onto Ammunition Ridge, a long cul-de-sac in the north end of Robert Hill. The drive home took us past a couple of old churches, a small northern business district with a coffee shop, salon, and convenience store, and streets where the homes got larger with each block. Robert Hill city officials painted the tag line “Scenic City” wherever they could in town, never hesitating to drive home the fact that the town’s high taxes and stringent building codes kept the city looking more beautiful than any of the other suburbs that clustered close to Cincinnati. The ease of wealth shone in Robert Hill. Every house had a manicured green lawn, and most featured a garden or landscaped porch. Even, clean sidewalks complimented street medians that doubled as gardens. Local magazines often photographed homes in Robert Hill, and one house near Heritage High had landed a spread in Midwest Living back in 2003.
But none of that compared to glittering sophistication of Ammunition Ridge. Behind an iron entrance gate, this street had some of the largest homes in Robert Hill. Ours was a five thousand-square foot Tudor that blended right in with the others, except for the fact that it was the first home built on the street, back in 1950. A four-car garage, washed brick walkway, pool house, and unnaturally green lawn treated with special chemicals, and manicured rose bushes completed the picture. Homeowners on Ammunition Ridge threw parties all the time, and each house contributed HOA fees for an exclusive pool and clubhouse just for residents of the street. Wealth lived there, and no one wanted anyone to forget it.
For ten years, David had lived there with Blake and Bruce, and the three of them refused to move when David married Mom. The twins didn’t want to leave their fortress in the furnished basement, which included two rooms, a bathroom, games room, and a separate entrance. David insisted the home had more than enough room for all of us, and he sold Mom on that right after they got engaged. She even got a budget to redecorate the house as she desired, and for the most part I think the home made her happy. She certainly seemed to like her large walk-in closet with a separate alcove for shoes, and the master suite that took up its own wing of the first floor.
Meanwhile, I lived on the refurbished second floor of the house, just off the stairs. Mom and David almost never came upstairs, and the twins only ventured up there if they wanted to annoy me. My room and its adjoining bathroom were far enough away from the noise of the house that I didn’t have to hear my stepbrothers talk about stupid stuff, like how much back acne they had from football workouts, or how much money they’d won from bets with classmates about how much pizza they could eat in ten minutes at lunch.
“Wait. This is your house?” Laine said, as she pulled her Toyota RAV4 up to the curb in front of the house. Hearing her obvious awe made me embarrassed. I hated it when David’s wealth impressed people. He had so much money, way more than even the standard rich guy, and it came from a mix of old family money and a successful law practice in one of the glass-encased buildings that dotted the skyline of downtown Cincinnati. He had clients like Proctor & Gamble and KAO. I wondered if he treated them the same way he treated me—with a careful disdain that told me I’d never measure up to his impossible standards.
“Nice place,” Laine said.
“Don’t you live in something similar?”
Her laughter filled up the car as my face twisted. I could have cut off my lips for asking that. No, I should have cut off my lips for asking that. Way to sound like some kind of crazy stalker. Goddamn Facebook, and all its worthless information. We weren’t friends on the site, but that didn’t matter. I found out plenty about her anyway, just from all the photos people tagged her in to prove they knew her. Even the geekiest and most socially unacceptable classmates of mine wanted to show the social media world they knew her.
“My parent’s house is big, but not that big.”
“The outside is nothing. You should see the inside. Looks like a decorator vomited in it.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Lots of gold and dark wood.” I shrugged. “Supposed to give an English hunting lodge vibe.”
“Sounds awesome.”
My eyes shifted in the direction of the monstrous mansion. “You play your cards right, you just might get to see it.” I turned my head back to her and raised an eyebrow. “I overhead Blake and Bruce talking about hosting a party in their basement soon.”
“Their basement?” She flipped the SUV’s gears into park.
“Yep. They live in the basement, and they have all of it.” I leaned forward in case she didn’t quite get what I had said. “All. Of. It.”
“Nice. Do you have a wing in that place?”
“Just my room.” I paused, knowing I had to be careful with my tone. “And I like it there. I do.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Are you sure?”
“I do,” I insisted. “I like it.”
She gave me one of those looks that told me she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t press me, either. Instead, she shifted the focus of the conversation. “A party? You think you’ll be there?”
“Why would I be?” I shrugged. Didn’t everyone at school know that while the twins were my stepbrothers, they weren’t my friends?
“Might be fun . . .” She trailed off, and for a moment all I heard was the quiet wail of the Dave Matthews Band. She must have liked them. We’d heard their music on the drive home, and I knew I’d never listen to any of their songs the same way again.
I shrugged it off, and tried to stay centered. “I doubt they’d want me there, Laine.”
“They might.”
“Oh, trust me, I know Blake and Bruce. They don’t.”
I studied her for another second, taking in the way the car window shined light on her face. God, I had to get out of that car. Fast. Before I did something I’d regret, like shove my tongue down her throat, and then moan her name six thousand times.
“I’m sure they’ll invite you. And Evan.”
She cocked her head, and her eyes held mine, but she didn’t look excited to hear his name. “Evan.”
“Your boyfriend? You know, the one who eats whole trays of cafeteria pizza?”
Evan weighed at least 250 pounds, and was the size of three freshmen. The coaches had to order special pads for his football uniform. Facebook told me that, too. So did the Cincinnati Enquirer, in its annual write up about our school’s illustrious football program. People kept track of these kinds of meaningless statistics about Evan. Almost everyone in town also knew his favorite restaurant (Pete’s Grill), his shoe size (13D), and his hero (Tom Brady).
“Right.” She turned her eyes away from me, and looked at the street. It was still covered in salt from the recent snow. “Evan.” Her eyes floated to the clock on the center dashboard, and the blood rushed out of her cheeks. “Oh God. Look at the time. I should go.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Shit.”
“Shit? What’s going on?”
“I’m late.” Her abrupt rely chapped me like the winter wind. “I can’t be late.”
I know an exit when I hear one, though, and I decided to not press her.
“Thanks for the ride, Laine.” I loved the way my tongue felt when I said her name. What I wouldn’t give to just get to say it over and over again without anyone thinking I was crazy. I pulled the door handle and hopped out of the car. “Have fun writing about Lady Macbeth.”
“I’m sure your paper on Hamlet will be better.” She grinned at me, but it looked halfhearted and hurried, as if my presence suddenly annoyed her.
I shut the door and she pulled the RAV4 away from the curb without another glance my way.