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“Girls,” I said, rolling my eyes. I looked back at Ally and her mom again. They were heading toward the faculty entrance around the corner. Sha
“You coming?” Sha
“I’ll catch up.”
They exchanged another look—always needing to check the other’s reaction to everything—and then kept walking. I jogged around the corner to the front of the school, sticking close to the building, and was waiting against the outer wall when Ally and her mom got to the stairs. I clutched the strap on my backpack and waited for Ally to see me. When she did she almost tripped, then looked away. I knew it. She hated me now. The girl I couldn’t stop thinking about hated my guts. I took a few steps toward her so she couldn’t ignore me.
“Hey,” I said.
Both she and her mom paused. “Hello,” her mother said.
“Hi, Mrs. Ryan. I’m Jake Graydon,” I said. Whenever I was around parents, my ma
“A party,” Ally interrupted.
I looked at her, confused.
“You went to a party?” Ally’s mother said. “When?”
“Last night. Just for a little while. It’s a long story,” Ally said.
“You went out to a party and didn’t tell me?” her mother asked.
Great. Now I’d gotten her in trouble. This was not going well.
“Mom!” Ally said through her teeth.
“Where was this party?” her mother asked, hand on hip.
“At Co
Ally’s mother’s face lit up, and I felt momentarily satisfied. Until I saw the look of death Ally shot me. What? What had I done now?
“You went to Co
“Mom, aren’t we going to be late?” Ally said pointedly.
Ally’s mother sighed, but she seemed happy, still. “Yes, I suppose we are. Nice meeting you, Jake.”
They started to walk inside through the faculty doors. Which, I guess, meant Ally’s mom was faculty. That would explain the spiral-bound teacher’s ledger thing she had under her arm. That must suck. Having your mom work at your school.
“Actually, could I just speak to Ally for a sec?” I asked. Her mom seemed both surprised and somehow impressed that I wasn’t giving up. “It’ll only be a second, I swear.”
Ally heaved a sigh. “I’ll be right in, Mom.”
“Okay,” her mother said. Then she shot me a suspicious look. “But if I don’t see you in the office in five minutes I’m sending out a search party.”
Fu
“So, Jake Graydon, huh?” Ally said. “Nice to meet you, I guess.”
Suddenly I felt nervous. I never felt nervous around girls. Except Sha
“You were there? Could have fooled me.”
She reached around me for the door, and I had to sort of sidestep to block her way. I hesitated for a second. Where had that move come from? I didn’t think I’d ever tried to block a girl from walking away in my life. But, then, she’d caught me off guard. I’d been expecting her to laugh and blush and say, “Don’t worry about it.” That was what most girls would have done.
“Look, I wanted to say something, but what could I say? I don’t know what happened between you guys before I moved here.”
She looked me dead in the eye. Another thing most girls didn’t do. We both knew it was a cop-out. I’d been up all night thinking about all the things I could have said or done. Told Faith to back off. Cracked a joke. Just gotten Ally out of there. All night I’d been pissed that I hadn’t done those things. And now I felt a surge of anger over being called on it. It was bad enough that I was pissed at myself, but who was she to be mad at me?
“What? I barely even know you,” I said. “I mean, all I do know is that you used to live in my house and you used to be friends with my friends, yet somehow I’m responsible for defending you?”
Ally paused. She looked at her feet and laughed. “You’re right.”
I blinked. Stood up straighter. “I am?”
“Of course you are,” she said, lifting her face. “I’ve never needed a knight in shining armor before and I don’t need one now.”
“Okay. So can we just—”
“And you’re right about something else,” she said.
I paused, a
“We don’t know each other. And I think we should keep it that way.”
Then she turned and strode inside, letting the door slam in my face.
For a long moment, I couldn’t even move. Girls didn’t walk away from me. Ever. I couldn’t believe she wouldn’t let me apologize. What was she, too good for me or something? A pair of teachers approached, clutching their Starbucks coffee cups, and I turned on my heel and stormed back across the grass toward the junior/senior entrance. Fine. Whatever. Let her be a bitch about it if she wanted to. We’d pretend we’d never even met each other. It would make everything a whole lot easier, anyway.
ally
The activities board was exactly as I remembered it: a huge magnetic wipe-board right outside the principal’s office, papered with sign-up sheets for the various clubs and activities synonymous with the begi
I was not going to let them intimidate me out of doing what I wanted to do, and I’d loved being a backslapper my freshman year. I underlined my name, capped my pen, and turned around.
“Um, no.”
Faith was standing right there, completely overdressed for school in a black minidress. Walking up behind her were Sha
“Backslappers? Really, Ally?” she said with a frown. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable doing something with your people?”
My face burned at what she thought was an insult. “I’ll be fine, thanks. And since when do I have people?”
“We’re just thinking of your happiness,” Chloe said, lifting her shoulders. “Backslappers is a Crestie club.”
“And you,” Faith said, scrunching her nose, “are no longer a Crestie.”
“They’re right,” Sha
“There’s no rule that only people who live on the crest can join Backslappers,” I said, hoping they didn’t notice that my knees were shaking.
“There doesn’t have to be a rule. We don’t want you there,” Faith said bitchily. I was starting to wonder if she ever said anything unbitchily anymore. Didn’t she remember that I was the one who had taken her under my wing? If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t even be friends with Sha
“Whatever. I’m bored with this conversation,” Sha
I bristled at her use of the nickname. That was going to get old fast. As they walked away, Chloe shot me a look that I couldn’t read in all my a
All day I had suspected that people were watching me and whispering behind my back, and the cafeteria confirmed it. It was hard to explain away the gaping stares when they were coming at me from all angles at once. Keeping my chin up and avoiding direct eye contact with anyone, I moved quickly through the food line and paused at the door to the outdoor courtyard. It was su