V is for Virgin (24 page)

“I know,” Isaac grumbled. “So why does she need a movie that’s only going to make her fame problem—”

“Her fame is not a problem.”

“—and her
Kyle
problem that much worse?”

“Kyle problem!” Cara scoffed. “What’s the matter Isaac, jealous?”

“Jealous?” Isaac repeated appalled. “Of
Kyle Hamilton
?”

“Yes! Of Kyle Hamilton! Or of Val’s fame. She’s upstaged you Mr. Big Man On Campus. Deal with it!”

“You, guys, that’s enough.” I sighed. Cara and Isaac had been more and more at odds with each other lately because Cara always defended Kyle and there wasn’t a person Isaac hated more on the whole planet than Kyle.

“Cara, leave Isaac alone. He’s just worried about me. Kyle
is
a problem, and having a movie about us will only encourage him.” I turned to Isaac and gave him my sincerest smile. “But Cara’s right too. A movie would be great exposure. We’ve come a long way, but not everyone in the world is a Tralse fan and I still haven’t reached a whole lot of people beyond their fans. Do you know how many women in their thirties and forties watch cheesy made-for-TV movies? I’d be reaching a whole new demographic. An important one because it’s the moms of all the people I’m aiming to reach.”

“It might not be worth it, Val. You have limits. What if it gets to be too much for you?”

“Just because
you
can’t handle it doesn’t mean V can’t,” Cara snapped.

“Cara!” I shouted. “Shut up!” I ignored the look I got from Cara for that, and squeezed Isaac’s hand. “It’s all right. Cara’s right. I’m not looking forward to it, but I can handle it. It will do so much for the cause.”

“You sure?” Isaac didn’t look happy, but he seemed resigned.

“I’m sure,” I told him. “It’s okay. Plus,” I said playfully elbowing my very mad best friend. “I can write it in the contract that no one but Cara gets to play herself.”

Cara wanted to stay angry but couldn’t quite manage it. “The
supporting
role? Please. It’s the role of Virgin Val or nothing.”

Olivia snorted loudly, reminding me that there was a cafeteria full of other people eavesdropping on our conversation. “What’s so funny?” Cara hissed.

“The idea of you playing the gung-ho virgin.” Olivia shrugged. “Ironic.”

I turned to stare at my best friend while she returned Olivia’s insult ten fold. Once she finished she looked at me. I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed the truth before. It seemed so obvious staring at her right then.

“You’re not wearing your bracelet,” I pointed out, having no idea what else to say. Unfortunately, that was the exact wrong thing.

Cara’s face flushed with anger. “I haven’t been wearing it for
months,
Val.”

The word
months
felt like a slap in the face. Cara had done the deed. She gave up her V card. She’d had sex. My best friend had made one of the biggest decisions of her life.
Months
ago.

And she never told me.

“How could you?” I asked, so upset that my voice broke.

“Oh, no,” Cara said with a hard angry laugh. “I knew this was going to happen. Get off your high horse, V.”

“Get off my…” I didn’t understand what she was saying at first. “Cara, you had sex!”

I didn’t mean to yell, but I’d had a really bad last fifteen minutes and I was upset on so many levels now that I couldn’t tell which problem my emotions were coming from.

“Yeah, Val. I’m eighteen, I am in love with my boyfriend, we’ve been together for almost seven months now, and we had sex. Earth shattering news!”

“Yeah, but I can’t believe you—”

“You know what? Not everyone has to believe in your stupid little crusade. Just because you want to be the pointless martyr doesn’t mean the rest of us have to live the Puritan life.”

“Pointless?” I gasped. “
Stupid little crusade
?” I was so blindsided by all the pent up anger Cara was unleashing that I couldn’t feel the hurt. “All this time,
that’s
how you’ve felt?”

Cara shrugged defiantly.

“So you’ve supported me because why?” I asked. “It got you a rock star boyfriend? A role in a music video? An agent? ‘Oh, lets encourage Virgin Val on her
pointless little crusade
because every time Kyle Hamilton insults her, my boyfriend’s album goes platinum again, and I get more famous?’ Thanks a lot, C! I thought you were my friend. I thought I could always trust you to be honest with me no matter what. I bet you and Kyle have been laughing behind my back for months.”

“You know what, V? I do laugh sometimes! Because your stupid feud with Kyle is
funny
. The entire world laughs at how pointless your fight is because the sexual tension between you two is insane! I don’t know why you try so hard to deny it. You and Kyle exhaust more passion in ten minutes than you have with Isaac the entire time you’ve been together!”

“Leave my relationships out of this! This is between you and me!”

“Why, because I had sex?” Cara barked an incredulous laugh. “You know who came up with the title for the guys’ album? Me! ‘S is for Sex’ was my idea! And I’ve got another one for you. H is for Hypocrite! You preach all about making choices for yourself, but what you’re really saying is, ‘Do what I’m doing. Make
my
choice!’”

“I am not!”

“Yes, you are! You’re pissed off at me because I chose to have sex!”

I stopped and took a breath. It was my turn to be incredulous. “You think
that’s
why I’m upset? It’s like you don’t even know me. Maybe you never did. I’m not mad that you had sex with the guy you love. I’m hurt that you took such a big step and you never even told me! My
best friend
made a life changing decision and I had to hear about it over the lunch table from
Olivia Lewis
!”

“Best friend?” Cara scoffed bitterly. “Maybe that was true at the beginning of the year,” she said. “We haven’t been best friends for months. We’ve barely been friends at all. Kyle Hamilton is more of a friend to me now than you are.”

I flinched. Her words stung. Tears pricked my eyes and I retracted into myself. “How can you even say that?” I asked. My voice was weak and shaky.

“Best friends talk to each other. They spend time together.”

“How can we spend time together, Cara? You’re
always
with Tralse! You chose your boyfriend and his stupid band over me!”

Cara crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn’t yelling anymore, but all of her anger was still there. “Any more than you chose V is for Virgin over me? You chose your cause over all of us, Val. Not just me, but all the people you claim are your friends.” Cara glanced around the table and said, “Raise your hand if you’ve been blown off by Val in the last week. Hell, if you’ve been blown off by her
today
?”

No one said anything. They didn’t want to get involved in this fight, but their faces were grim.

“You blow off everyone. All the time. I bet you’ve even forgotten about tomorrow night, haven’t you?”

I thought about it really hard, and hated that she was right. I had no idea what was supposed to be going on tomorrow.

“I knew it,” Cara spat. “The Tralse kick-off concert for the ‘S is for Sex’ Tour? I got us all awesome seats and VIP passes. I told you about it months ago. I wrote it in your planner for you.”

“And I told you months ago, that I wasn’t going to go. If Kyle Hamilton was going to be there, I wasn’t going. That was my new rule. I told you that!”

“I thought you were kidding!”

“I wasn’t. Every time I’ve given in and gone out with you and them, I’ve been put on the spot, and I hate it. Every. Single. Time. I’m sorry Cara, but I’m not going to the concert. Kyle Hamilton probably just wants me there so he can make some huge spectacle and humiliate me in front of the whole world in order to sell records.”

“He won’t. I promise. He’s not that kind of guy. If you’d quit judging him for even five seconds you’d see he’s actually very sweet, and that you have a ton in common. The guys know they owe you a lot of their success and they only want to say thank you by sharing their big night with you. They’re having a big party after the show to kick off the tour and you’re supposed to be the guest of honor. I invited all of your friends so that you’d feel more comfortable. I even invited
Olivia
and you know I think she’s vile! Please, V?”

In the midst of all this I was thinking that Cara was so blinded by her relationship with Shane that she never saw what was going on around her. She was in denial about the kind of person Kyle was, and the relationship he and I shared. There was no way Kyle would let me show up to his concert, and attend his party, and not do something to land us in the tabloids again.

“These guys are my friends,” Cara said. “Shane is my boyfriend. This is a big night for them. It’s important to them, so it’s important to me. If you cared about me at all you would come.”

I wanted to support Cara, but I couldn’t handle any more drama. Especially not when that whole Zach accusation was sitting front and center on the stand of every magazine rack across the country right now. I wondered if Cara had already seen it. I wondered if she even cared.

“I’m sorry, Cara. I just can’t. And if
you
cared about
me
at all, you wouldn’t ask me to come.”

“Well.” Cara’s face turned stone cold. “I guess we’re not really friends anymore then.”

This breakup with Cara was worse than my breakup with Zach ever was. I didn’t know how she could get through it without crying. I sure couldn’t. “I guess not,” I said, choking back on a sob.

I felt Isaac’s arms came around me and couldn’t keep from crying any longer. The look on his face was heartbreaking. He was hurting because I was, and he had no idea what to do or say to make me feel better.

“It’s okay,” I whispered and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be okay.” I stood up and forced a smile to all of my stunned friends, trying my best to ignore their looks of pity. It didn’t help that I couldn’t stop crying. “Sorry, guys. I have to go. I’ve got to be in Whittier in half an hour.”

Nobody said anything as I got up except for Cara. “Hey, Val?” Now I could hear her voice shaking so I turned back to look at her. Her eyes were glossed over. I’d never seen Cara cry before. Not real tears. It made the moment infinitely worse.

“You know why I never told you?” she asked. “Because I was waiting for a time when it was just you and me. I didn’t want to tell Virgin Val about something so special. I wanted to tell Valerie Jensen, my best friend, about it. Eventually I stopped holding my breath.”

My heart broke for the second time that day. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. It wasn’t enough, but it was the only thing I could think to say.

“Please give a warm welcome to the Not Everybody’s Doing It Foundation’s very own, Virgin Val!”

This was a typical introduction given by the school’s principal. I’d been expecting it, but I hadn’t been expecting the response from the students waiting for my presentation.

Usually I was met with polite applause, mild snickering, the occasional catcall, and the inevitable “I LOVE KYLE!” screeches. Today I was bombarded with boos and profane insults.

High school students in Whittier were obviously more up to speed on their celebrity gossip than my own classmates.

The principal looked mortified and tried her best to calm the crowd with threats of detention, and, when that didn’t work, suspension.

I wanted to crawl under the podium in front of me and hide there until the nightmare ended, but I knew I couldn’t run from this problem. It was too big. It was going to follow me everywhere, possibly for the rest of my life, and avoiding it would not make it go away.