Second to No One (12 page)

Gross. I felt my stomach roll over inside of me. The last thing I wanted right now was to discuss what had happened between Trace and me and our lips. “Now’s really not a good time. I’ve got to get to class.” I got my book out of my locker, closed it back up, side-stepped past Trace, nodded a good-bye to Lauren and Drew, and escaped down the hall.

Every ounce of solace I had felt that morning about being at school was shredded to pieces by the fact that Trace was out there, somewhere, in the classrooms, in the hallways, by the vending machine, waiting for me to explain my views on what happened between us. How did I explain to him that I was using him to get back at Jess? That the only reason I kissed him, the only reason I even gave him a second look on Friday night, was because I was angry that Jess had moved on without me? At the end of each class, I found myself watching the clock above the door like it was a ticking time bomb. Would I see Trace? And if I did, what would I say? By the time third period rolled around, I was physically exhausted from hurrying through the halls between classes like a fugitive hiding from the police. The only thing that kept my mind off of his endless pining was the attention I was getting from all the other students.

“What happened to your head?”

“I heard you were in an accident?”

“Did you really go to jail?”

These were questions I had answered way too many times to count by the time the lunch bell rang.

I carefully stepped into the cafeteria, scanning my surroundings for a looming Trace waiting to pounce all over me with questions about our love life. I found Drew and Lauren at our usual table next to the windows on the far side of the cafeteria. I tossed my slice of pizza on the table and plopped myself easily on the bench behind it. Drew was directly across the table from me, twisting the tab off her soda can, and Lauren was situating herself next to her. I reached for my pizza. All the running and hiding from Trace had made me hungry.

Drew looked up at me with interrogating eyes. “I can’t wait another second to know what you’re thinking.”

I picked off a single pepperoni and stuck it in my mouth. “What are you talking about?”

“You and Trace. You were all over each other Friday night. What’s going on?”

The gash on my head suddenly began to pulsate behind the gauze. “Nothing is going on. I mean we kissed…”

“You kissed?” Lauren and Drew shouted it simultaneously and so loud that heads turned three tables down.

“Shhhh,” I demanded.

Lauren snickered. “So that’s where you two snuck off to, I was wondering.”

“So do you like him?” Drew demanded.

“Can we
not
talk about this?” I dropped my head forward and pressed at the gauze.

They begrudgingly complied with my wishes, and after shifting in her seat, Drew turned to Lauren and said, “What about you and Kit? It looked like you two hit it off.”

I knew that both Drew and I were wishing with all we had that she had already moved on from Jess. But Lauren only shrugged her shoulders. “Kit’s nice.”

Drew and I shared a suspicious glance. “Kit’s not that nice,” Drew pointed out.

“I don’t know. He’s cute, but,” Lauren picked at the crust of her pizza, “I like someone else, remember?” Lauren looked at Drew and me with conscientious eyes, begging us to validate her crush on Jess.

“Oh right.” Drew forced a smile. “Have you talked to him since Friday?”

Lauren’s shoulders fell. “No. I saw him from a distance, but I don’t think he saw me. But he was totally flirting with me on Friday. Don’t you think? I mean, he asked me about my waffle seven times. That’s got to mean something.” She looked straight at me, and I knew she was seeking validation. But how could I give it to her? This was Jess. And what, she moved here from some famous little town in Iowa all tall and new and beautiful, and she expected to be able to just sweep him off his feet? Who did she think she was?

When neither one of us said anything, Lauren sighed heavily then pushed herself up from the table. “I’m going to get a drink. You girls want anything?”

Drew and I both declined, and the second she was gone Drew leaned forward and clenched my arm. “What are you doing?” she said forcefully.

“Ow.” I pulled my arm out of her tight grip.

“Why didn’t you tell Lauren about you and Jess on Friday night?” I was still rubbing my arm where Drew’s fingerprints were imbedded into my skin when she leaned even closer. “I saw the way you were watching her at the diner. You’re going to start hating her, you know. The more she talks about him, the worse it’s going to get.”

“So what do you want me to do?” I met Drew’s glare. “Don’t you think she’s going to hate me if I tell her that he’s my best friend and my ex-boyfriend, who I’m still in love with and that I forbid her from dating him? And anyway, what if I did say that and she was a good enough friend to just stay away from him. What then? What if he likes her back? What if they want to be together, but I’m standing in their way? I won’t be that girl, Drew.”

Drew shook her head. “I don’t get it. You’re not telling her about Jess because that will stop them from being together? And that’s a bad thing?”

“It is if they
want
to be together but they’re not because of me. Look, I know it doesn’t make sense, and I know that Jess doesn’t even like me anymore, but I can’t stand the idea of Lauren being that girl that he wishes he were with. It’s hard enough to get dumped by him. I can’t sit here and watch another love story unfold between him and Lauren.”

“But she likes him, and she’s perfect. What if they end up going out? What then?”

“I already talked to Jess about it. He said it would be weird to date her since she’s my friend. In time, she’ll see that it’s never going to happen. She’ll move on.”

Drew backed off and chewed at her pinky nail. “So you think if you try to stop Lauren from dating him, then she’ll just want him more, but if you push her into it, then it will happen so fast that Jess won’t want to be part of it and it will flop?”

I nodded quickly as I spotted Lauren coming toward us again from the other end of the cafeteria. “I know it’s weird, but I really think its better this way. Just go with it, okay?”

Drew reluctantly agreed just moments before Lauren returned and sat on the bench innocent and glowing. “You’re never going to guess what just happened.” Her voice was bouncy and an octave higher than usual.

I popped a french fry in my mouth. “So tell us, what just happened?”

“Jess just asked me out.”

Jess walked into fourth period a few seconds after the bell rang. I was already in my seat near the door, and it was impossible to look him in the eyes knowing that just minutes earlier he asked one of my closest friends out on a date. Ms. Delrose never started class on time, and she was still in the back sorting through old slides so Jess stopped at my desk.

“Hey.” He nudged my arm with his hand that was holding a textbook. “How are you feeling?”

“Not so good,” I said flatly while staring at the blank chalkboard in front of me.

“I hear bruised ribs can be really painful. You should probably ice them when—”

“Look, I’m grounded for the next three months, so we probably shouldn’t be talking.”

Jess shifted his weight. “You’re grounded at school?” He looked around him dramatically. “Did your mom set up cameras in the halls or something?”

“I just…I don’t feel like talking right now.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I still couldn’t look at him. I felt like I didn’t know him anymore.

“Gemma,” he said more seriously. “What’s going on? I thought we were going to try to be friends. Things were so good Friday night, and now—”

“And now you’re going out with Lauren.”

Jess pursed his lips and pulled his textbook into a tighter grip. “You told me to.” He looked around the room self-consciously.

“You said you wouldn’t date her. That it would be weird.”

“And then you told me that I should.”

“So what, you suddenly do everything that I tell you to?”

“You didn’t care. You’re with Trace. That’s what you said.”

“No.” I shook my head. “This isn’t going to work. This whole ‘friends’ thing where we sit around and talk to each other about other people that we’re dating just isn’t going to work.”

“So what, we can’t be friends now? Because I’m going out with Lauren?”

“No.” I said curtly, “We can’t be friends because we kissed and we dated—sort of—and now we’re not, and it’s weird, and it’s not going to work.”

Jess took a step backward as if examining me and being disgusted with his findings. “You’re not like this, Gemma. You’re not the type of person who just throws a friendship away over something like this.”

Something like this? He said it like what happened wasn’t a big deal at all. Like the 5.8 earthquake that shattered my world on the first day of school hadn’t even moved his hair out of place. Ms. Delrose walked to the front of the class. When she cleared her throat and tapped her chalk on the table, Jess angrily stepped around me and made his way to his desk. How dare he be mad at me? He was the one that kissed me. He was the one that dumped me. He was the one who just asked out my best friend. If anyone should be disgusted, it should be me. And I was.

I kept my distance from Drew and Lauren in fifth period. I couldn’t bear Lauren’s annoying, high-pitched voice that was drenched in giddiness from being asked out by the boy of our dreams. When the last bell of the day rang, I headed straight out to my dad’s car without stopping at my locker. I had to get out of there. I had to escape. If only there was a way for my parent’s to ground me from school too. I was almost to my car and just searching for my keys in the side pocket of my bag when I heard footsteps racing toward me.

“Gemma, wait.” I turned toward the voice. Trace was walking swiftly toward me.

When he reached my side, he caught his breath and carefully took my keys out of my hand. “Please don’t go. We have to talk.”

My heart broke for Trace. Through all of this mess, he was the one person who was on my side. The one person who hadn’t hurt me, hadn’t betrayed me in one way or another. Yet he was the one person that I couldn’t force myself to have feelings for. The huge crush I once had, the feelings, the attraction—they were all gone. He was just a friend now. But how could I tell him that?

“Trace,” I began. “I know I owe you an explanation about what happened at Drake’s Peak.”

He shook his head bewildered. “You don’t owe me anything. But anyway, that’s not what I need to talk to you about.”

“Oh.” Now I was bewildered. “What is it?”

“Well, you were sort of unconscious through all of this, but I thought you’d want to know that there were no charges against us for what happened. I just got a ticket for reckless driving.”

I grimaced. “I’m sorry. Is it expensive?”

“Don’t worry about it. But here’s the thing. Since they let us off easy, they want us to do twenty hours of community service.”

“Twenty hours?”

“Look, I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but one of the cops that caught us is my uncle. He’s trying to help us but we really need to do this, okay? I promised him.”

I nodded slowly. I had been so caught up in the accident and Jess and being grounded for three months that I hadn’t even considered the fact that my permanent record could have and
should
have been affected by all of this. Had charges been pressed I could have been explaining the stupid chicken room night in job and college interviews for the rest of my life. “Yeah, of course I’ll do it. Thank you. I mean, tell your uncle thank you.” I took a deep breath as I became more aware of how lucky we were. “So um…what do we do for community service?”

“Anything we want. I looked into it over the weekend, and I’m going to help out at a boy’s ranch for a couple of weekends. You can do anything. Like I said, there’s no one to report to. It’s just up to us.” Trace looked around us at the other students talking and climbing into their cars. “And hey,” he continued, “I’m serious about you not owing me an explanation. I mean, I really liked everything that was going on up until the cops showed up.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I really like you, Gemma. But I know things in your life are tough right now, and I don’t want to be another difficulty. So don’t worry about it, okay?”

I allowed a small smile to press against my lips. “Thanks Trace, that means a lot.”

With that, Trace squeezed my arm and turned in the direction of his own car. But as I watched him walk away, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was wasting my time and my emotions on entirely the wrong guy.

Chapter 10

T
he horrible part about being
grounded for three months was being sentenced to the four walls of my house with little to no social interaction with anybody besides my parents, and since Mom was the last person on earth I wanted to socialize with these days, that meant a lot of time in my room alone or on the couch watching
The Cosby Show
reruns with Dad. There was an upside, however, to the whole being grounded thing. I didn’t have to spend hours after school listening to Lauren going on and on about her date with Jess and how perfect he was or wondering when he was going to ask her out again. And I didn’t have to feel rejected when Drew chose to go out with Bryce on the weekends instead of hanging out with me.