Authors: Paula Stokes
I
clutch the steering wheel to keep from spilling out onto the pavement. My heart thuds against my rib cage. The sky is a grayish purple, like the sun is preparing to rise. Micah slams my door and walks around the front of the Civic, sliding into the passenger seat next to me. “Jeez, you’re lucky your dad didn’t find you or he would’ve called 911. You looked dead.”
I stare blankly at him, taking in his black-on-black attire. His hair is flat in places like he’s been wearing a hat. What is he doing in my car? What is he even doing awake at—I check the clock on the dashboard—5:31. Am I dreaming?
He rests the back of his hand against my face, and then rotates his wrist and slaps me gently on the cheek. “Are you in there? Do I
need
to call 911?”
Wait. 5:31? “Shit.” I pull out my phone and check my messages. None. If my mom gets up and realizes I never came home, she’ll freak. “One second.” I rattle off a quick
text message telling her I fell asleep watching movies at Kendall’s house and that I’ll be home in a little while.
Turning back to Micah I take a deep breath and blurt out the words I’ve been trying to say for almost two weeks: “I’m sorry about what happened at Beat.”
He runs a hand through his mohawk. “Me too,” he says.
“I didn’t mean those things. I meant what I said on the patio.” I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror and realize I have no makeup on and that the humidity has turned my hair into a mess of frizz. Oh, well, there’s no hiding the real me now. “I spent weeks trying to convince myself there was something more than ancient Chinese strategy between us and that night everything changed for me,” I say. “And I thought you felt the same way. But then you trotted after Amber like an obedient puppy.” I clench my hands into fists. My fingernails cut crescent moons into my palms.
“I know what it looked like, me going after her like that,” Micah says. “I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I only went because I knew you’d be there.”
“Wait. Are you saying you only brought her there to make me
jealous
?” I ask. “You tried to
Art of War
me?”
“Something like that,” he says. “I was pissed that you’d rather date no one than date me, and I figured if the strategies worked for Jason and Amber they would work for you too. But then after that whole screwed-up night, I decided you were probably right about not rushing into something new.”
So where does that leave us?
I can’t quite bring myself to ask. I glance over at him. “I still can’t believe you tried to use my own strategies against me.”
Micah rubs at the scar on his temple. “It was a shitty thing to do, and it wasn’t fair to you or Amber. I treated both of you like crap that night.”
“You did,” I say. “You, the guy who told me to stop making excuses for people’s shitty behavior.”
“So don’t make excuses. I apologized to her. And now I’m apologizing to you. I’m sorry, Lainey.” He exhales deeply.
I barely hear him. I am focused on his barely parted lips. I don’t know what this means, him being here with me, him saying these things. I know what I want it to mean, but I’m afraid to get my hopes up. “Was it all fake to you?” I blurt out. I look down at my lap and then back up at him. “At Beat, you said you liked me. Was there a
but
in that sentence? I mean, is there something wrong with me?” I whisper.
His lips curve slightly. “Oh, Glinda Elaine, there are so many things wrong with you. I don’t know where to start.”
I frown. My head is feels like the drummer of Arachne’s Revenge is practicing a new solo behind my eyes. One with lots of cymbal clashes. “How do you even remember my real name?” I fumble in my purse for some ibuprofen.
“I went to grade school with you for five years. You used to practically crawl inside your desk every time a sub took attendance.”
I shake the little white bottle of pills but I can’t seem to line up the arrows well enough to get the cap off. I curl my
fingers tight around the pill bottle and yank with all my might. “But that was forever ago. I can barely remember what I had to eat last night.”
“Well, it’s a hard name to forget,” Micah quips. Then, seeing my face crumple, he reaches out and quickly snaps the top off the ibuprofen. “We used to get along. Don’t you remember?” He shakes two pills out into my palm. “I thought you were kind of cool back then. Back when you were still Elaine Mitchell. Before you became Kendall Chase’s clone.”
I can’t dry-swallow the pills so I have no choice but to wash them down with another swig of whiskey.
Micah takes the flask away from me and caps it. “That’s probably enough of that.”
The whiskey burns my throat. “I am not Kendall’s clone,” I say. “Not anymore.”
But I was.
I made you
. She told me what to like and who to be, and I let her. Once I got popular, well, who walks away from the feeling that everyone else wants to be you? Not me, apparently. The worst part is, like a true clone, I was a lower-quality replica. Not quite as pretty, not quite as popular, not quite as good at soccer.
Micah reads my thoughts from the expressions flitting across my face. “Glad to hear it.”
I want to reach over the center console and hug him, but I’m afraid to. “I messed everything up, didn’t I?”
“With Kendall?”
“With you.”
Micah pushes a chunk of hair back from my eyes. His
touch makes me tremble. I bury my shaking fingers in my lap. “You didn’t mess things up with me, Lainey. I’m glad I found you.”
“What are you even doing here so early?”
“I couldn’t sleep so I went for a drive. I saw your car on the way home. I’ve been meaning to thank you for being so cool to Trin. She told me everything you did for her yesterday.”
“Is she okay? I could not believe she was going to walk home with that baseball-sized knot on her head.”
“Girls. No common sense.” He laughs under his breath. “She had to give a report to the cops, which was kind of scary for her, but her X-rays and CT scan came back negative, and once she got some pain medicine she said she was awesome-sauce, whatever that means.”
My lower lip wavers. I tighten my jaw and bite back a couple of tears. “I’m glad.”
“Me too.”
“Sorry I ran off at the hospital. I just saw you and Amber together and kind of lost it.”
Micah furrows his brow. “Right. Yeah, we were grabbing a bite to eat after finishing up at the Humane Society when I got the message. Trin and Amber are pretty tight so she wanted to come along.” He yawns. “But I didn’t find you to talk about my sister or Amber. I found you to apologize.”
“You did already,” I remind him. Inside I am replaying what he just said over and over. Does that mean Amber was only with him as a friend? I should just ask him, but
I can’t. I can’t handle the answer if it’s not what I want to hear. I’ll start crying. I don’t want to do that to him again.
“I’m not finished apologizing. There’s something I want to show you. Pretty sure you’re going to think it’s”—he pauses and makes his voice high-pitched and girly—“totally to die for.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yup.” He sniffs. “But we’re taking my car. This thing smells like a distillery.”
“I didn’t drink that much,” I insist. “I think I spilled some.”
“Didn’t you use that same line last week with me?” He snickers. “I’d start working up a better story for your parents.”
“No, last week someone else spilled beer on me. This time—”
“Whatever.” Micah winks. “Get your alcoholic ass out of the car.”
I feel like I lose another fifty pounds as I slide out of my brother’s car and settle into the passenger seat of the Beast. I can’t believe Micah and I are talking again. I swear if I get another chance I will not mess things up. My heart is beating so fast it’s practically vibrating.
Get a grip, Lainey.
As Micah turns out of the Denali parking lot, he fishes his phone out of the center console with one hand while he holds the steering wheel steady with the other. He hooks his phone into the stereo, swiping blindly to find his music.
“Let me help.” I reach over and skim through the options
on his phone until his music library appears. He’s got a bunch of playlists. I start to read the labels aloud. “Denali. Driving. Gym.” I snort. “Gym? Really?”
He makes a fake-offended face. “I work out every once in a while.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Okay. More like once a year,” he admits.
I keep scrolling. “Car trips. Sleep.” I pause. The next playlist is called “Dad.” I’m about to ask him if it’s his dad’s actual music when the next list pops into view.
My throat feels like I swallowed a big spoonful of sand. “What’s on this one called Lainey?” I ask, keeping my voice light.
Micah doesn’t look at me. “I made it after we went to Mizz Creant’s,” he says. “It’s stuff I thought you might like. I figured since we were going to be hanging out . . .”
“That’s awesome. I want to hear it all.” I start the Lainey playlist. The first song is by Bottlegrate. I hum along, wishing I’d gone to the concert with Micah instead of Jason’s party, wishing I hadn’t been so clueless. Micah and I could have gotten together that night, if I hadn’t been so unable to figure out what I wanted. And now I don’t know where we stand.
He navigates through the main streets of Hazelton and pulls the car into the gravel parking lot behind The Devil’s Doorstep. A can of blue spray paint rolls out from under the front seat. I cough meaningfully and point at the can with my foot. “Went for a drive, you said?”
“What?” he asks. “You’re not the only one who’s had a rough time of it lately, you know?”
“Where are we going?” I look around at the deserted parking area. “I’m assuming the club isn’t open.”
“Nope. We’re going the rest of the way on foot.” Micah shuts off the engine and opens his door. “It’s a surprise.”
I follow him past the back of The Devil’s Doorstep, down an alley, and through an abandoned lot. The lot backs up to a strip of trees that runs adjacent to the unused part of the airport. Looking up, I can see the clearing where Bianca and I stopped when we were jogging. It’s deserted. “What kind of surprise?”
Micah ignores me. Beyond the trees, a fence stands about ten feet high. A
NO TRESPASSING
sign hangs crookedly from one of the support poles. A swarm of gnats buzzes around my face.
“How are you at fence climbing?” he asks.
“Not bad, actually. My brother and I used to practice flipping over our backyard fence when we were little.” Of course that’s only about half as high as this one. Then again, I was probably half as tall as I am now. “You’re taking me to the airport? For what? Some therapeutic graffitiing?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re still on probation, aren’t you?”
“Yup.” He sticks the toe of his boot in one of the diamond-shaped holes of the chain-link fence and begins to make his way to the top. The sun starts to rise, painting the sky a brilliant pinkish color.
I point at the sign. “You know this is illegal, right?”
“Yup. I’ve already been here once today. Would you trust me if I told you it was worth the risk?” Micah drops to the high grass on the other side of the fence.
I scale the fence gracefully and land next to him. I’m suddenly glad I’m in my sweats instead of whatever dress and heels combo I would have worn to the Wash U party. “I guess, but I’m not the one on probation.”
Micah wraps his hands around my neck and pretends to strangle me. “Just stop talking for five minutes, okay?”
He leads me across a dead runway, the cracks in the cement so deep they might go all the way to the center of the earth. We pass a pair of cargo hangars as we near the wall of the abandoned terminal. It looks like Micah’s already done his painting for the day. A pair of fading nooses have been repainted in bright blue, the words
Hangman’s Joke
suspended between them.
“Micah,” I say softly. I wonder why he does it, if it’s a symbolic way for him to keep his dad alive.
He shakes his head. “Not that. This.” He ducks down against the wall of the terminal and waits for me to do the same. We hug the cold metal as we creep our way around to the other side. There are a lot of trucks and trailers parked on the adjacent runway.
“What the—?” And then it hits me. These are movie trucks and trailers.
“Flyboys?”
I practically shriek.
Micah clamps a hand over my mouth. “Shhh, they’ll hear us.”
We sneak closer and duck down behind a baggage transport truck. Black-clad Hollywood types with laminated badges around their necks mill between the rounded silver trailers. A couple bald guys are busy opening a bunch of black cases. They start building a weird scaffolding of metallic ladders and round, fuzzy things that must be microphones. I swallow hard. It’s not even seven a.m. yet, probably too early for a big star like Caleb Waters to be filming. But I swear, if he saunters out of one of those trailers I will totally faint.
“I can’t believe this,” I whisper. “I can’t believe you found this. I can’t believe you brought me here.”
“It is a risk, I guess, bringing the girl I like to see the thirtysomething washed-up athlete of her dreams,” Micah says with a teasing grin. “But I figure if you observe us side by side, it’ll be obvious who is superior.”
“I’m serious, Micah. This is amazing. I wish Bianca could be here.” I fish my phone out of my pocket. “I’ve got to get pictures for her.”
“I’m serious too. That guy is old.”
“He is not that—” I stop. “Did you just call me the ‘girl you like’?”
Micah ruffles my unbrushed, un-flat-ironed hair, and warmth surges through me. “We can talk about that later.”
Part of me wants to talk about that right this second, but we’re only a few yards away from the crew and if they get any closer they might overhear us. I lean in and brush my lips against Micah’s cheek. “Seriously life-changing
moment,” I whisper.
“I thought you might think so,” he whispers back.
I recognize a couple of the actors who play smaller roles in the movie. A truck tows a commercial plane down the runway—a smaller one with collapsible steps instead of a jet bridge. I start snapping pictures of everything. Bee is going to be sad that she missed this, but at least I can show her as much as possible. The actors take their places on the stairs leading up to the plane. And then I see him.