UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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ARE YOU SICK OF BLAKE DAWKINS AND HER CONVENTIONAL BEAUTY? (not to mention her snottiness?) ME TOO. SO WHY NOT VOTE ME, GRETA FLEMING, AS HARRISON’S 10.0 BEAUTY. GRETA FLEMING: A NEW KIND OF PRETTY.
That was the sign Goth Girl held up near the entrance to the cafeteria the next afternoon.
“Don’t say anything,” I hissed to Joanna and Jolene. I wanted to rip the cardboard from Goth Girl’s hands, but I couldn’t do it with everyone watching, and that wasn’t the way to win high Pretty scores. Public was announcing the winners today, and I was trying to lie low until voting was over and my top spot was secure.
Next to Goth Girl stood Nina Carlyle, who glared at me. Her boyfriend, Max Laudano, held a Twizzler between two fingers like a cigarette. Nina had almost made it to the Olympics for luge, which is basically just sledding, and when I’d pointed that out she’d acted like I’d insulted her very reason for living. Which maybe I had. That started an insult war between us, and let’s just say the girl still had it out for me.
Nina smirked as Joanna, Jolene, and I got closer, and then she tipped over Max’s black cello case so that it fell near my feet. The noise scared me, even though I saw it coming, and I flinched.
“My cello!” Max cried. He knelt down and put his head next to the case, like how they teach you to check for breath sounds in CPR.
Joanna rolled her eyes. I grabbed her and Jolene and steered them past Nina and Max. “Let’s eat in the courtyard,” I whispered.
“But don’t you want to be in the cafeteria in case they announce you as the Prettiest?” Jolene asked.
“When they announce you as the Prettiest,” Joanna said smugly.
We got in the lunch line. The vegetarian option looked like throw-up and smelled like wet earth. It made me think of Nic.
“Not really,” I said, steering us toward the roast turkey. I’d been feeling weird ever since I’d seen Sara Oaks that morning. She’d seen me walking into Harrison and had bolted in the other direction. She looked like she’d been crying, which meant she had probably seen the Ugly Page Joanna and Jolene had undoubtedly made. I found myself wanting to tell her I didn’t make that stupid page, but she was gone before I had the chance.
Joanna, Jolene, and I each got turkey and potatoes and made our way through the cafeteria. I hated when we were running late, like today, because it meant the cafeteria got packed before we could make it to our seats. There were so many kids bumping into each other, so many bodies touching, making me feel anxious. It’d been like this for me with crowds—even small ones—ever since I was five and my dad lost me at the Indiana State Fair.
“You’ll be fine once you sit down,” Joanna said softly, which meant I looked about as good as I felt.
Jolene pushed open the door to the courtyard and cool fresh air kissed my face. I gulped it down until it burned my lungs, and I felt normal again. “Much better,” I said, starting along the stone trail that lead from the cafeteria’s door to an oversize oak tree.
My heart sank when I saw them sitting at the base of the oak with their brown-bagged lunches and vitamin D–deprived skin.
The Trogs.
I stopped. Stared at them.
Audrey’s almost-black pixie hair was spiking in twenty different directions, all of them wrong. Her thin fingers held an apple out to Aidan like she was Eve or something. Lindsay wore a metallic silver top with a futuristic collar that made her look like a robot, but in an awesome way. Nigit, Aidan, and Mindy were hunched over a tablet that sat on a flat stone between them.
It took me a second to register that Leo wasn’t with them.
“Do you want to eat in the cafeteria instead?” Jolene asked.
I didn’t want to retreat from the Trogs like we’d done at the mall, but I didn’t want to sit there eating so close to them. I just wanted to relax—why was I always so on edge at this stupid school?
Nigit looked up from the tablet. “Congratulations, Blakey,” he said. He looked back down at the shining white screen, but I couldn’t see what he was looking at. My heart leapt with the possibility that he was talking about the Pretty App Contest.
“For what?” Joanna asked, and I knew she was thinking the same thing. She crept along the stones to get closer to Nigit’s tablet.
My phone buzzed and I tried to balance my tray on my hip. If I could just check the app—
“Congratulations!” boomed a deep voice behind me.
I turned and my tray slid down my arm. I caught it seconds before my turkey took flight. Leo stood there holding a tray with the vegetarian dirt-food piled high next to a burger. He saw me looking at it and said, “Sometimes I think the wheat berries cancel out the soda and the lard.”
I laughed—I couldn’t help it—and forgot about the Pretty App for a split second.
“Are you here to celebrate with us?” Leo asked, nodding toward the Trogs. He looked into my face and studied me like he could read my thoughts. “You don’t know?” he asked, smiling. “That’s cute.” Then he moved past us and settled himself on the lawn next to Mindy. He cracked a can of Coke and started slugging away like he’d forgotten I was there.
“You won the contest, Blake,” Audrey said. She even sort of smiled.
“The Pretty App contest?” I blurted.
Aidan looked up. He generally ignored my existence, but this time he said, “Yeah. The Pretty Contest. Now maybe you can take down that page you made about Sara Oaks.” He took a bite of Audrey’s apple. “Or we can,” he went on, “But that would take us longer because we’d have to hack your accounts and figure out your passwords, which we could later use against you.”
“Is that a threat?” Joanna growled.
I’d won the contest?
“Yeah,” Aidan said. “I guess it is.”
Leo started laughing. “People, calm yourselves.” He took the bun off his burger and loaded the vegetarian crap on it. Then he put it back on and took a huge bite, smiling in my direction as he chewed. “Let’s break bread together and toast Blake’s victory,” he said.
I couldn’t help it. I started smiling at the Trogs. I’d won something! I never usually won anything. It’s not like I entered beauty pageants as a child. Everyone knows that only leads to substance abuse.
“Okay,” I said, giddy. “Let’s celebrate.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Jolene asked, not bothering to whisper.
I shrugged. I wasn’t really sure what had gotten into me. I moved across the stone trail and sat next to Audrey. Joanna followed a beat behind me. She stood with her tray balanced over Nigit’s head, and for a second I was worried she’d drop it on him, but she finally sat, and then so did Jolene.
“Nice day for March in South Bend, right?” Leo said, smiling at all of us.
Joanna was wearing a short skirt, and she tugged at it, clearly annoyed, as she tried to arrange herself on the grass.
“Gorgeous,” I said. Just like you. I broke our stare and pulled my phone from my pocket. I needed to see it for myself; I needed to know the Trogs weren’t pulling one over on me.
I clicked the Pretty App and there it was.
Results are in! Public Pretties announced here!
Seeing my name spelled out on the screen gave me an odd little thrill.
Mindy looked over my shoulder. “You deedn’t believe us?” she asked, her speech disorder only slightly improved since she started talking again last semester.
“Should I have?” I meant it as a genuine question, but Mindy looked uncomfortable, and she didn’t say anything. She busied herself wiping a fleck of dirt from her ankle boots.
“So what’re you going to do to celebrate?” Leo asked, devouring his burger like he hadn’t eaten in days. It annoyed me how sexy I found his caveman-like food manhandling.
“I’m not going to celebrate,” I said quickly. I picked at a blade of grass near my feet. “It doesn’t really mean anything.”
“Sure it does,” Leo said. “It means you’re the prettiest girl in your high school as voted by your peers.”
“But she already knew that,” Audrey said, holding something so fancy and French-looking that I was sure her mother had cooked it. “So what does it change?”
Leo thought for a minute. He swallowed another bite of his burger and said, “It could change everything. If she’s selected to compete on the reality show, she could gain fame and fortune.” He winked at me and my stomach went fluttery.
“Or notoriety,” Lindsay said. “Like that girl you two liked from The Bachelor.”
I bit my bottom lip and tried to avoid Audrey’s eye, but she laughed first, and then I couldn’t help myself, I started laughing even harder than she was.
“Remember?” she asked, barely able to catch her breath as the rest of them stared at us.
Audrey and I used to watch every episode of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette together. During the winter of eighth grade, less than a year before everything had gone wrong between us, Audrey was sure this one girl who was kind of cheesy was going to win, but I was positive it would be the other girl, so we made a bet that whoever was wrong had to wear an outfit inspired by the cheesy girl to school. I lost, and Audrey made me wear super-short cutoff sweatpants with a glittery heart on the butt, a half-shirt she made by cutting the bottom off a white Hanes tank top, a fake belly button ring, and sequined stilettos. And the rule was that I couldn’t tell anyone at school that I’d lost a bet. Audrey and I couldn’t stop laughing that entire day. Every time we saw each other we’d just lose it. My ribs hurt by the time we got back to her apartment and I tore off the clothes.
Tears pricked Audrey’s eyes now, just like they always did when she really got laughing. I knew the Trogs were her best friends, but I never saw her laughing with them like she used to with me. I was still giggle-breathing when Nigit raised his water bottle and said, “To Blakey.”
The other Trogs raised their drinks, too, even Aidan. Joanna rolled her eyes, but Jolene half-heartedly raised her seltzer.
“We knew she’d win,” Joanna said snottily, not bothering to join in the rest of us clinking our water bottles and sodas. “She’s the most popular girl in school.”
“She’s not,” Nigit said as he tapped his Coke to my Evian. “I mean, no offense, Blake, but everyone pretty much hates you.”
It felt like a slap. Silence descended on all of us like a hot, itchy blanket. No one said anything for what felt like hours. Not even Leo.
Lindsay turned to look at Nigit. “Sweetie,” she said. “We’ve talked about the difference between your inside voice and your outside voice.” She smiled at me like maybe I’d laugh, but I couldn’t—not even a fake one.
Somewhere behind my eyes went hot, and it took every ounce of effort I had not to cry. I wanted to say something, but I knew if I started talking my voice would give away how upset I was.
Joanna opened her mouth to do it for me, but Audrey spoke first.
“Not everyone hates you,” she said softly. She uncurled her legs and leaned closer. “I don’t.”
I met her eyes with mine. It was the first time I’d felt comfortable holding her gaze in a long time.
“Me neither,” Lindsay said, shaking her platinum blond head. “I think you add some spice to Harrison, though you have acted in a questionably moral manner in the past. Also, I think your fashion choices are daring and forward, but cohesive.”
“I hate you a little,” Aidan said, but he was smiling, and his timing was perfect, and everyone—including Joanna, Jolene, and me—laughed.
“Should we sing ‘Kumbaya’ right now?” Leo asked, and Mindy playfully elbowed him, and for a split second I thought about her liking him. The jealousy that spiked through me caught me so off guard it made me stop laughing, and I was pretty sure Audrey noticed my reaction before I could compose myself.
I looked down at my plate and cut a piece of turkey. I busied myself eating for a few moments, until Leo asked, “So seriously, what are you going to do to celebrate?” The corners of his eyes crinkled, and I had to pry my glance away from his perfect face.
“This is sort of celebrating,” I said, gesturing around at all of us sitting on the grass.
Leo laughed. “Oh, come on. This can’t cut it for a girl like you,” he said.
I took a sip of my water. “A girl like me?” I said, my words lilting up at the end. “What does that mean?”
Leo’s gray eyes were intense, but then he smiled, lightening up his face. “I’ll show you what I mean,” he said.
I felt my eyebrows arch. “Oh really? How?” I asked. There was a challenge in my voice.
Audrey cleared her throat, and I was acutely aware of everyone’s gaze on me.
Leo laughed that low, gravelly laugh of his. I felt my face get hot, and I knew Leo saw it too. His voice was even when he said, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at eight.” He paused for just a beat. “A.m.”