What You Always Wanted (4 page)

A couple game titles are tossed around halfheartedly before Mrs. Morales thankfully skips over “Truth or Dare” in favor of “Two Truths and a Lie.”

“Sarah,” she says to the stocky girl with light brown hair on her left. “Would you start us off?”

“Um . . . I spent the summer in San Francisco.” She clears her throat. “I'm on the tennis team. I'm allergic to strawberries.”

“Okay, everyone,” Mrs. Morales says, crossing her feet at the ankles. “Which is the lie?”

A few of the girls shoot up their hands, but the one I know as Anita speaks first. “You spent the summer in your own room,” she says like a zinger. “Grounded.” No, that's the zingy part. “Everyone knows you already play tennis, and who can forget what happened with the straw—”

“How about you go next then, Rica?” Mrs. Morales jumps in. “Since you're so keen on sharing.”

I keep my outward reaction to a minimum—clearly any weakness is fair game for exploitation in here—but I inwardly wince and I'm forced to look at Rica with a different lens. Sarah may not have a good handle on how to play, but I feel terrible she got slammed on the first day. She's gripping the seat of her chair like it might try to run away. Or maybe to keep herself from running.

Rica combs her fingers through her clearly dyed ink-black hair, which rests just above her shoulders, the silver charm bracelet jingling on her wrist. She leans forward, making eye contact with everyone in the circle as if she's about to divulge a state secret. “I went to New York City over the summer. I have a verbal offer from an art school there. My grandparents are buying me a brand-new BMW convertible for my birthday.”

Crickets. The gears are turning. Nearly everyone in this room is no doubt used to what this girl dishes out, and they're all lip-zipped like she owns them. Are they afraid to guess wrong? This one's so easy even I know the answer.

Come on. What would Lauren Bacall do?

I give a little flick of my hair to show I'm in the game, and say, “They're all truths.” My voice echoes unexpectedly through the theatre. It sounds
good
out there. I'm filled with the power to continue my conclusion. “You probably spent a week in New York touring schools, rubbing elbows, eating cheese, and pretending to drink wine. You even got significant interest from a school because you actually do have some talent, but it's a school so far down your list you won't tell us which. You'll wait to see if all your other choices fall through before you claim that was the one you really wanted to attend all your life. And considering the jewelry and the legit Kate Spade purse you're rockin' on the first day of school, I'd say you even got to pick out the color of your shiny new beamer.”

All eyes shift from me to Rica. Her jaw is slack and she's doing a marvelous job testing her ability to blush. I think she got the message: this class is no longer hers.

One of the boys stands on his chair and stretches a hand out toward me. “ ‘O Captain! my Captain!' ”

The guy next to him pops right up without missing a beat. “ ‘O Captain! my Captain!' ”

The room explodes into laughter and I steal a glance at Mrs. Morales, and even she's struggling to keep a straight face. Rica's the only one unamused. She stares at the floor with narrowed eyes, probably already calculating when and where she can strike, which makes me itchy. “ ‘Thank you, boys,' ” I manage once things finally settle, and they hop down.

Sarah catches eyes with me, smiling, and it's not until that exact moment that I feel like my outburst was completely necessary. Not everyone knows how to defend themselves in situations like this. Sometimes you have to reroute a fire with an even bigger fire before everyone gets burned.

“Yes, thank you, boys,” Mrs. Morales says before she turns to me. “Maddie, how about you go next?”

I close my eyes to gather my thoughts and lift my face toward the warmth from the can lights.
You got this
.

“I don't have a car. I've taken tap dance since I was nine.” I pause, setting up for the one that will really get them. “The only man I've ever loved is dead.”

CHAPTER FOUR

As I reach my locker to retrieve the books I need tonight—have to read the first chapter in nearly all of them—a voice calls out behind me.

“That was so cool, what you did back there. With Rica.”

I turn to find Sarah and the boys who called me their captain.

“Seriously, it was awesome,” the guy with bushy, nut-colored hair says. “No one's ever had the stones to put her in her place like that.”

“Yeah, not even us, and we actually have stones,” the thicker one says. “Real ones.”

I shrug. “The words just came to my head at the right time instead of ten minutes later, when they're not useful anymore.”

“Well, I appreciated it.” Sarah moves the book she's carrying to the other arm and extends her right hand. “We wanted to introduce ourselves. I'm Sarah.”

“Maddie.” I take her hand, and each of the boys offers his too. It all feels very adult. I may have just found my people.

“I'm Ryan.”

“Brian.”

An eyebrow raised, I look from one to the other. “Wait. Your name's Ryan and yours is Brian?” They nod. “Are you related?”

Brian rolls his eyes. “Why does everyone ask that? Do we look alike? No. He's fat, I'm thin. I'm tall, he's short. The rhyming thing is just a coincidence.”

Ryan whacks him in the chest. “I am
not
short and fat. You're barely an inch taller than me and maybe ten pounds less. Stop trying to impress the new girl.”

“Ignore them. We all do.” Sarah laughs, then leans in a little closer. “So, about your truths . . .”

“Was that for real . . . ?” Brian lets his voice trail off.

The solemn expression on their faces lets on that they have heart. They're not chomping at the bit for a meaty piece of gossip. I believe they're actually concerned. Of course, they
are
actors.

“The tap dancing really was the lie. I only started about six months ago.”

“Then the only guy you've ever loved really did die?” Sarah clasps one of my hands in her stubby ones, a gesture I thought only friends would take the liberty to do. “Oh, how awful. I'm so sorry.” She encircles me with her arms and pulls me against her short frame briefly before pulling away. “Do you need to talk about it?”

I shake my head. “I can't.” And I can't imagine how cryptic all of this sounds, but I'm not explaining it yet. Let them create their own romanticized versions of my love life.

No one knows what else to say until Ryan finally tugs gently on Sarah's shoulder. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Maddie. We'll see you tomorrow.”

As I watch the trio move away, the boys on either side of her like bodyguards, my phone buzzes in my back pocket. A text message.

Ma:
So sorry I'm running late. At store getting paint mixed. Be there in 10.

I consider waiting for her in the nice air-conditioned hallway, but the place clears out quickly and there's a major creep factor in an empty, massive school I'm not familiar with yet. I shudder.

A door slams near the end of the hallway, possibly by the theatre. I glance at the approaching figure in between piling books into my arms, and as he gets closer, I realize it's Jesse. He's heading this way, boots clomping down the hallway, sounding not unlike high heels.

I play it cool like I wasn't just looking right at him, nose in my locker, book stack getting out of control. I shift my arm to make room for one more, but the hardback on the bottom pinches the skin near my elbow and I nearly cry out. The books lose their balance and I let all of them tumble to the floor, some clanging like thunder against the lockers on the way down.

“Gravity pulling pranks on you today?”

“Huh?” I take a step back and survey the damage.

“First your notebook in class”—he peeks inside my empty locker—“now everything else you own.”

“My backpack is still in a box somewhere,” I mutter, bending to pick up my mess.

“So you really are new, then? Like, just-moved-to-town new?” He adjusts his backpack so it's strapped to both shoulders, then squats and helps me collect the books.

“Just-moved-to-Texas new. Just-moved-from-the-city-to-the-country new.”

He laughs. “Fernwood is straight-up burbs. The country is a little farther north.”

“Well, a week ago I lived within spitting distance of my neighbors, and now all I see out my bedroom window are millions of squirrels in what looks like a forest, so . . . feels like the country to me.” I don't mean for it to come out quite so whiny, so I quickly try to make up for it. “But it's nice.”

Jesse makes a half-laughing, half–throat-clearing sound. “Yeah, sounds like you
love
it here.”

I'm not about to pretend that I do, but I don't want to dump all my gripes on him about how my friends dropped me before I left, or how I missed the chance to audition for a play I was really excited about. “It's just going to take some getting used to.”

He stands with nearly all my books, and a few veins rise down the length of his arm. He does have rather nice arms.

“Where are we headed with these?” he asks. “Which side did you park on?”

He's carrying my books!
I die.

“Oh, um . . . just going to the curb out front. My mom's picking me up.” I grab my notebook and the last book left on the floor. “So this is what a Southern gentleman looks like? You really don't have to carry them for me. I'm sure you're busy.”

He frowns. “Are you one of those girls who has to do everything herself?”

“What?” I hug the books I'm holding to my chest. “I just don't like to make anyone go out of their way for me.”

The corner of his mouth hitches up. “It's not out of my way.”

Jesse heads for the main entrance and I follow him out into the midday heat. Moisture beads up along my hairline almost immediately. So attractive.

“Do you see her car in line? I can put them in the backseat.”

I scan the queue. “No.” I check my phone and see I missed another text.

Ma:
10 more minutes. I'm so sorry!

“Ten more minutes, she says. Just set them down. I'll toss them in when she gets here.”

He squints up at the sky and three deep vertical lines appear between his eyebrows. “How about I just take you home?”

This could be interesting. He still doesn't know I live across the street from him, or that I know his sister and his mom.

I bite my lip. “How do I know you're not a psycho?”

Surprise colors his expression. “I promise I'm not a psycho. Plus, I'm the captain of the baseball team. Do you think I could afford to kidnap someone? That wouldn't be the best career move.”

“So you're, like, the star?”

“Well—” He cuts himself off with a shrug and directs his gaze just below my left eye. “Speaking of stars, you seem to have a thing for them.”

I'm glad to hear my beauty mark survived the day intact. I was a little worried it would end up smeared across half my face.

“It's true,” I say. “I like stars. Though typically not of the sports variety.”

“No?” He tilts his head to the side and his eyes dart down the length of my body, slow enough that it's clear he definitely wants me to notice the action. “Well, you may change your mind one day.”

I roll my eyes.
Never
.

“You really don't mind taking me home?”

“Nah, it's cool. I don't have to be at work until four thirty.”

I give Ma a call as I walk with Jesse through the parking lot. She apologizes profusely and promises to make something spectacular for dinner. She'll even pick up a cake to celebrate completing my first day at a new school. I love what a guilty conscience can do.