Burn for Burn (17 page)

He seemed grateful when we pulled up.

Reeve sat in the back. “Are you sure this isn’t too much trouble?”

“Not in the slightest, Reeve. I’m just glad I’ve finally gotten a chance to meet you.” I didn’t dare turn around and look at Reeve. I was scared he’d think I was telling my mom and dad about my nickname, how mean he was to me. I hadn’t told them anything about that. Only the nice stuff.

“How about we go through the drive-through window at Scoops and get some ice cream?” my mom suggested.

I mustered up the courage, turned around in my seat, and looked at Reeve. “Do you have to go straight home?”

Reeve shook his head, but he whispered, “I don’t have any money.”

“It’s fine,” I whispered back with a smile, because I knew my mom wouldn’t let him pay anyway.

Mom got her favorite chocolate chocolate chip, and Reeve got moose tracks in a waffle cone. I usually got a scoop of peppermint patty and a scoop of peanut brittle, but this time I got a rainbow sherbet, because the flavor board said there were less calories in sherbet.

When we dropped him off, Reeve didn’t run straight into his house, even though it was pouring. He came over to my window and thanked my mom and said, “See you tomorrow!” Then he ran up his walkway.

We waited until he was safely inside, then we headed home.

I couldn’t stop smiling the whole way home. Reeve liked me. He was my friend. Everything was going to change.

Things did change after that day. Reeve stopped racing off the ferry and leaving me behind. He waited for me, and we walked to school together.

*    *    *

Three girls are sitting in front of me, decked out in Jar Island school colors. I watch one girl lean over to the others and say, “God, Reeve is so fine.”

“Is he single?” another of the girls says. “Or is he still hooking up with Teresa Cruz?”

I hold my breath.

“That’s way over,” the third girl says. “Rennie and Reeve are a thing now. I mean, at least I think they are. I heard they’ve hooked up a few times.”

That first day, Reeve was the one to console Rennie after Kat spit in her face. He even gave her his shirt to wipe her face on.

Could they be together?

I look out at the field. Rennie’s climbing onto the very top of a cheering pyramid. She’s so tiny. She probably weighs, like, ninety pounds, max. I watch her sneakers grind down on the backs of her teammates as she pulls herself higher and higher. A few of them wince.

Girls like Rennie get whatever they want. They don’t care who they step on.

It’s not right.

I let out the breath I’m holding. At that very moment Rennie stumbles as she’s rising up to the very top. The whole crowd sees it happen. Some of them gasp. She ends up falling straight backward and crashes into the arms of her spotters, who then lower her gently to the ground, unhurt. Rennie looks pissed that she didn’t make it up to the top. Pissed and surprised. The rest of the girls in the pyramid climb off each other, and Rennie screams at them for having bad form.

My heart is racing and I’m breathing hard. I know I didn’t just do that. I couldn’t have.

Even though Rennie deserved it. Even though just for a second I wanted her to fall. But just because you want something to happen, that doesn’t mean it will come true.

Or does it? That day in the hallway, when I was chasing down Reeve, I wanted so badly to get his attention. The lockers . . . did I make them all slam shut?

I inch back in my seat and sit on my hands. No. There’s no way. It’s an impossible thought.

While everyone else stares at the field, I turn and face the shed that’s at the very top of the bleachers. An old man takes a seat behind a microphone. The cord of the microphone is plugged into a mixing board, which is hooked up to speakers mounted underneath the eaves of the roof. He takes a sip of water, clears his throat, and says, “These, ladies and gentlemen, are your Jar Island Fighting Gulls!”

He opens up the folder in front of him and traces his finger down a list of names. The list Kat and I put in the announcing booth early this morning, before anyone got to the stadium.

“Let’s give a warm welcome to our seniors, who are taking the field for their last season.” As the words echo out of the speakers, Reeve, Alex, and the rest of the senior boys pull apart from the pack and face the bleachers. The senior cheerleaders step forward too and stand behind them.

“Quarterback and captain, number sixty-three, REEVE TABATSKY.”

Hearing his name, Reeve hops up onto the team bench and waves to the crowd. They scream for him rock star style. Rennie turns a bunch of back handsprings the entire length of the bench.

“Your kicker, number twenty-seven, PJ MOORE!”

Everyone cheers for PJ as he steps up onto the bench with Reeve. He pulls his leg back and then swings it forward, simulating a kick. Lillia leaps up and does a toetouch.

The applause dies down, and I suck in a breath, because I know what’s next.

“Wide receiver, number forty-six, ALEX LIMP.”

A few people clap, but mostly there’s just snickers and people whispering, “What did they just call him?
‘Limp’
?”

Alex drops his head to the side, like he maybe didn’t hear right. His face is red, redder than it is normally with his skin issue. Redder than I’ve ever seen a face get. The blond girl who’s Alex’s cheerleader has her pom-poms up over her head and, she’s about to lean into a handstand. But she doesn’t. She freezes.

I guess because Alex doesn’t climb up onto the bench, the announcer says his name once again. “ALEX LIMP!”

This time everyone hears.

Reeve pitches forward laughing. PJ too. One of the players standing behind Alex taps him on the back. When Alex turns around, everyone in the crowd sees it. The back of his jersey doesn’t say “Lind.” It says “Limp.”

Lillia’s brilliant idea. She swapped out his old jersey with this new one, bought from an athletic store online that makes jerseys in our school colors. She sent them a money order so the order couldn’t be traced to her, and then she had it overnighted.

“Oh my God,” the girls in front of me squeal. “Alex Limp? Eww! That’s so gross!”

I watch Lillia. She’s covering her face with her hands, pretending to be shocked. Her sister had started jumping around and clapping when the announcer first called out Alex’s name, but now her hands are dropped to her sides. She takes a few steps backward, and hides behind the other cheerleaders standing around the bench.

Alex starts turning in circles like a dog chasing his tail, trying to see or get his hands up on the back of his jersey. I burst out laughing, because it’s just too funny.

Reeve eventually hops down from the bench and tries to help Alex, even though he’s laughing at him pretty hard. Well, maybe that’s what Reeve wants to do. But I guess Alex just sees his friend laughing at him, because he lowers his head, drops his helmet, and rushes Reeve, wrapping his arms around Reeve’s waist. He tackles him down on the ground with a big thud.

No one in the stands is applauding anymore. The whole team swarms around the boys wrestling on the ground, and the coach puts his whistle into his mouth and blows it a bunch of times, rapid-fire. The announcer keeps announcing the names of the other senior boys, but no one’s getting up onto the bench. They’re all trying to pull Alex off Reeve, to stop him from punching Reeve in the face. I see Alex get a real good shot in, right against Reeve’s jaw. My hands fly to my face.

Kat and her friends run up to the fence, shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Kat climbs up onto the fence a few links, trying to get a better look.

Finally Alex gets pulled off. Reeve is there in the grass, lying on his back. One of his teammates holds out a hand to help him up, but Reeve swats it away and gets to his feet on his own. It takes him a second, though. His jaw is red and swollen. And his jersey is dirty.

Alex is standing a few feet away, with Derek trying his best to keep him from lunging at Reeve again. Alex is shouting something I can’t hear from where I’m sitting, and he’s jabbing his finger at Reeve over Derek’s shoulder. Reeve isn’t even listening. He turns his back on Alex and walks down the sideline. Rennie’s trying to get to Reeve, to see if he’s okay, I guess, but Ashlin is holding her arm. She won’t let her go. Two of the coaches run up, looking concerned, and check Reeve’s throwing arm. No one goes to Alex to see if he’s okay. But the head coach does storm over and scream at Alex so hard, spit goes flying out of his mouth. Derek forces Alex to sit down on the team bench before he walks away too.

“What is Alex thinking?” one of the girls in front of me cries. “Reeve is our QB. Alex could have just ruined our whole football season!”

“I bet he’s still pissed at Reeve for that Red Ribbon thing.”

“Poor limp Alex,” the third girl says, and the rest of them laugh.

The game starts shortly thereafter, and if Reeve was shaken by the whole Alex fight, he doesn’t show it. It only takes two or three plays before he lobs a touchdown pass into the end zone. By then everyone’s back to cheering for Reeve again, as if the fight never happened. Alex is on the bench, looking upset.

At halftime I get up to buy some Diet Coke, but the line’s too long. Kat’s already gone. I saw her and her friends leave not long after the fight. I wonder if I should stick around or not.

I walk past the cheering bench. The girl who cheered for Alex is a few steps away from the other girls on the squad, pleading with Rennie and Lillia.

“Come on, you guys!” she whines. “Isn’t there someone else I can cheer for?”

“Are you serious?” Lillia says, folding her arms.

“Please! Every time I do my player cheer, people are yelling ‘Go Liiimp!’”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rennie says. “He probably won’t even get to play tonight.”

The girl gasps. “What if he gets kicked off the team? I won’t have anyone to cheer for!”

At that moment Nadia comes over. Quietly she says to Rennie, “If Wendy doesn’t want to cheer for Alex, I will. We can trade. I don’t mind.”

Lillia’s mouth drops open. She crosses her arms. “No one is changing players. Rennie put a lot of thought into the assignments.”

Nodding, Rennie says, “Lillia’s right. What I say, goes. Wendy, you made a commitment to Alex. You’re going to honor that. If you don’t like it, quit.” She grabs a mirror out of her duffel bag on the bench and fusses with her hair. “There are five college scouts in the crowd for Reeve tonight, and I need to be bringing my A game for him, not worrying about this nonsense. We’re done here.”

Rennie turns and walks away from Nadia and the other cheerleader. Lillia follows her, and as she passes me, she gives me a nod.

I give one back. Mission accomplished. And not a moment too soon, because honestly, I can’t wait until we start in on Rennie.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

KAT

R
ICKY
, J
OE, AND
I
DITCH THE FOOTBALL GAME AT
halftime. Football is so unbelievably, mind-numbingly boring. We go get cheese fries and coffee from the Surf Diner, drive around for a bit more, and then I tell the guys to drop me off.

Even though it’s Friday night, I end up doing my homework just to get it out of the way. But I think a lot about Alex too.

I bet he got in trouble for the fight with Reeve. His mom probably sent him to his man cave without supper, took away his phone or some other ridiculous attempt at a punishment. The way she fawns over Alex, buys his clothes, it’s clear she wanted a girl. She’d be mad about the fighting, for sure. She’s pretty Waspy, and Alex was an animal.

I never would have thought Alex was capable of being so raw. And I definitely didn’t expect him to throw a punch at Reeve. It wasn’t graceful, that’s for sure, but he aimed in the right place, and he did hit the mark. I debated calling Alex and telling him to lean into his punches a little more next time. If he had, I bet he could have knocked Reeve out cold.

But I won’t call him. And I won’t answer his texts, or his e-mails, either. Not until I’m sure he’s learned his lesson. That I am not someone to mess with. That he was an idiot for hooking up with Nadia when he could have been hooking up with me.

That night, I come up with the idea of asking Ricky for a ride to school on Monday. Because there’s nothing like another guy in the picture to make boys wish they had you back. Or, in my case, the illusion of another guy.

It’s how my mom ended up with my dad. They dated for a few months, and when he wouldn’t get serious, she showed up at his favorite bar with her gay friend, Albert, with a roll of quarters for the jukebox. It only took one slow song before my dad tapped Albert on the shoulder so he could cut in. My mom was slick like that.

Not that I’m trying that on Alex. I’m just living my happy life, while he lives his miserable one.

It’s not hard to imagine Alex standing alone in the parking lot. No one to talk to, all his friends totally shunning him for the fight he had with Reeve. Rennie would pick Reeve over him any day. I know it. He’ll be a lost puppy, a friendless little kid. And then I’ll come roaring in on the back of Ricky’s bike. I’ll take off the helmet and shake my hair out, slow-mo.

And, boy, will he be sorry.

I bet he walks right over. Either then or when I’m at my locker. He’ll beg for my forgiveness, tell me Nadia meant nothing to him. That there’s no girl in this whole school like Kat DeBrassio. And once you go Kat, you never go back.

*    *    *

On Monday morning Ricky picks me up on his motorcycle. I’m glad it’s the Japanese import he tricked out with racing shocks so he can jump sand dunes. That’s the one I said I wanted to ride. Not his mint-green Vespa. No one’s going to think I look hot climbing off the back of a mint-green Vespa.

He flips up the visor in his helmet as I come out the front door. “Damn, Kat.”

I bound down the walk, and my hair bounces, shampoo commercial style. I curled the ends this morning. Not enough to where someone might think I was trying to look good. More like I went to bed with it wet last night and I woke up with sexy bed head. I’ve got on my skinniest black jeans, a black tank, and my mom’s black stilettos. The heels might be a touch too much, but who cares. And anyway, there’s a senior assembly today with some college admissions counselors. I could always say I dressed up for that, if anyone says anything.