Authors: Lisi Harrison
Magically, as if summoned from beyond, the lyrics to “Three-Second Rule” popped into her head, imploring her to move on.
Three-second rule for the heart
You lifted me up, out of the dark.
I have a second chance at a life that’s new,
A life that, maybe, might include you.
Was Allie J actually living inside her? Or was the song really playing?
Confused, she kicked off her slippers and followed the music outside and around to the side of the villa, where a patch of
green grass was surrounded by rosebushes. Her movements were slow and cautious, like a babysitter in a horror movie investigating
a mysterious noise.
Allie gasped, covering her mouth in surprise. There, under the pink cherry blossoms, was—
“Darwin!” she blurted.
“Hey.” He lifted his eyes but kept playing the guitar. The plant life swayed as if holding out invisible cell phones to the
beat.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to conceal her beaming smile.
He was dressed in uniform, shirt half tucked in, sun-kissed hair sideswept, surrounded by a breakfast picnic. Allie studied
his hazel stunners for residual signs of lovesickness. But there was nothing mopey about his flirty smile. Allie’s eyes felt
hot behind her green contact lenses. No one had ever done anything like this for her. Fletcher’s idea of romance was a
hey shorty
text message or a fro-yo shake because they were both on the Sugar Busters diet.
“You said you’d help me write a song, oh brilliant one.” He held out his guitar and lowered his head in reverence.
Allie giggled nervously.
“I can’t teach you
now
,” she managed, willing him to lower the complicated instrument. “I’m supposed to go to breakfast.”
“Why?” Darwin lifted a croissant. “Everything you could possibly want is right here.”
He had a point.
“Where did you get this stuff?” Allie marveled at the stack of pancakes, the assortment of cheeses, fruits, syrups, and what
looked like some kind of vegan wheat-meat.
“I made it.” He beamed.
“Really?” Allie squinted as if trying to discern a mirage.
What kind of idiot dumped Darwin Brazille?
“Yeah.” He popped a giant red grape in his mouth and chewed. His mole rode his lip like a jockey. “Why is that so hard to
believe?”
“I dunno.”
Um, because the only thing Fletcher ever made me was depressed!
“Come sit.” He put the guitar aside and patted the red blanket.
Allie looked around for snitches, but the street was empty. “’Kay, why not?”
“So.” He handed her a plate. “Did you get into any trouble last night?”
Allie shook her head no, wondering what he would think of her natural blond hair. “You?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged. “It was probably another one of Dingo’s stupid jokes.”
“I guess that means we can do it again.” Allie took a pancake, ripped off a piece, and stuck it in her mouth. She didn’t figure
Miss Barefoot to be one for manners.
“How come the other girl in your villa didn’t come?” Appearing lost in thought, he pressed a finger in the tread of his Converse.
Serious-leh? Did he have any idea how many germs were on there?
“Charlie Brown-nose didn’t want to break the rules.” Allie paused, a wave of prickly heat passed through her body. “Why? We
weren’t good enough for you?”
“No!” He snapped back to reality. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I was, you know, just hoping that she doesn’t tell on
you.”
“Breakfast will commence in five minutes, followed by the first class of the day,” announced the British woman.
The voice seemed to draw him back to that distant place, but only for a second.
A heart-flutter urged Allie to make a run for it. But truth be told, she hadn’t signed up for Alpha Academy to learn Italian.
In fact, she hadn’t signed up at all. She was there under false pretenses. Expressly to earn a BFA. And if becoming a Boyfriend-Forgetting
Alpha meant getting a detention or two in the process, so be it.
“So about the song.” Darwin reached for his guitar. “Can I play what I have?”
“Sure.” Allie politely reached for a link of wheat-meat. Was it supposed to be gray?
He tapped his hand on his faded jeans and began to hum. The beating of her heart matched his pace like a metronome.
When I met you I had fallen apart,
My insides on the outside, including my heart
But you listened to me and that slipped away,
You coated me in Teflon that magical day
.
He stopped and looked at her expectantly.
Allie surreptitiously whipped the
blah
sage into the bushes and applauded. “Awesome. When did you write it?”
“Last night.” He lowered his eyes shyly. “After you left.”
Allie’s stomach swooped and her lips tingled. Either the germs on her feet were seeping into her bloodstream or her crush
was getting stronger.
“How’s the cadence?” he asked. “Should I go for something faster?”
“Um, you could,” Allie tried. “But, you know, is that what you’re going for?”
Darwin stared at her, studying her face. Was he impressed with her feedback? Falling in love? Imagining what their kids would
look like?
“Hmmmph,” he grunted, his gaze holding steady.
This was it. The
I never thought I could feel this way about someone until I met you
moment.
“What?” Allie tucked her hair behind her ear and blinked her extra-long lashes at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
His lips curled into a frown. “I always thought your mole was on the left side.”
Allie tasted a little bit of pancake in the back of her throat. Had she really been so stupid? She lifted a silver knife and
checked her reflection. He was
right
. And so was the mole!
Allie rubbed the eyeliner away. “Is this what you’re talking about?” She held out her thumb.
He nodded, looking adorably confused.
“Oh, that’s just a makeup smudge. I was helping one of the girls get ready this morning.” Her ears were ringing so loudly
she could barely hear herself lie.
“Then where’s your mole?”
“Oh, I um, I put concealer on it.” She lifted her elbows to air out her pits. But the humidity was increasing by the second.
The only wind came from her mouth.
“Why?”
“I didn’t want people to know who I was, you know, in class. I want to be treated fairly. Judged like the other students.”
He nodded, considering this. She could almost feel the grass growing beneath her fingers as she waited for Darwin’s reaction.
She plucked at the spongy tips nervously. What if didn’t buy it? What if he realized it wasn’t just the mole that was fake,
but that she was, too?
“Admirable, but not necessary,” he finally told her. “Everyone here is pretty incredible at what they do. You should own who
you are. No hiding.”
Allie grinned. If only he knew how right he was.
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
He popped a cinnamon-scented toothpick into his mouth and returned to his strings. “So, back to the cadence. You’re saying
leave it?” He strummed more forcefully than before.
“Darwin, shhhh,” Allie pleaded. “Someone might hear you.”
“Who? Everyone’s at breakfast.”
There was a rustle in the bushes and then the sound of footsteps coming toward them.
“Not
everyone
,” said a familiar voice.
Allie gasped.
But for some odd reason, Darwin gasped louder.
Charlie opened the front door to Jackie O and let it slam behind her. Why had she hesitated back in Shira’s office? Her roommates
treated her like she was more invisible than an extra on
Perfect Storm
. Who was she trying to protect?
Starting up the winding glass stairs, Charlie’s aPod sounded from inside her pocket. Four gold text bubbles stared back at
her.
Taz:
broke my arm this a.m., But at least I didn’t break my bro’s heart.
Melbourne:
Your children would have been nearly as beautiful as me.
Sydney:
How could you do this to us?
Dingo:
You have been dingoed for the last time!
Charlie sniffled and selected a fresh uniform from her closet. There was a time when she would have given anything not to
be Dingoed anymore. His pranks had gotten increasingly bigger-budget, more elaborate, and more dangerous. But now she missed
the boys like a soldier misses his gangrenous foot.
Charlie leaned down and strapped on her clear gladiator sandals. She had just fastened the last strap when a song Darwin had
been composing popped into her head. Singing along with the memory, she wished he knew how much she missed him. Longed to
tell him she had done it for them, for their future. Hoped she’d prove herself to Shira soon, so she
could
tell him.
She hummed for another moment or two before realizing that the tune wasn’t in her head. It was outside the house. And that
could only mean one thing: Darwin was trying to win her back!
Charlie raced down the corkscrew staircase and bolted for the door. Technically, she wasn’t allowed to
tell
Darwin. But maybe she could explain everything by
spelling
it with twigs and leaves. Or speak in clicks like the Bushmen they’d befriended in Tanzania. If Shira was going to play dirty,
so could she.
Bursting outside, Charlie found her legs outrunning her level head. She followed the music to the side of the house, and when
she couldn’t contain herself any longer she blurted, “Darwin, I’m so ha—”
Her voice trailed off as soon as she saw that a girl was sitting behind him on the blanket. He wasn’t singing his way back
to Charlie. He was replacing her—at her own picnic.
“Darwin, shhhh,” Allie was pleading. “Someone might hear you.”
“Who? Everyone’s at breakfast.”
“Not
everyone
,” Charlie said flatly.
Darwin gasped, his face funneling through hurt, confusion, and guilt before landing on triumph. He had already moved on.
For a moment, the only sound in the garden was the fizzing glass of bubbles and pomegranate-extract on the blanket, Darwin’s
favorite breakfast concoction. The silence hurt more than a pimple, but Charlie couldn’t bring herself to pop it.
Allie J’s eyes flitted between the two of them, as if trying to decipher one of those optical illusion pictures that, after
a stare-down, reveal a hidden image. Or in this case, a clear one.
“What are you doing here?” Darwin hugged his guitar like it was his best and only friend.
“I
live
here,” Charlie snapped. She had never taken him for the kind of guy who would try to make her jealous.
“You know each other?” Allie J asked. Her mole seemed to be missing, but Charlie couldn’t be sure. Anxiety often blurred her
vision.
“This is the ex,” Darwin explained, a hint of shame in his voice.
Hearing him say the words made their breakup painfully real in a no-turning-back sort of way. She wasn’t even
his
ex anymore. Just
the
ex, drained of any personal meaning.
“Brown-nose?” Allie J sounded genuinely shocked. “Darwin,
that’s
who you were so up—” She stopped and changed course. “You dated
her
?”
“Why is that so surprising?” Charlie snapped.
“Who cares?” Darwin began packing the uneaten food. “It’s over now.”
“Clearly,” Charlie’s voice trembled.
“What was he supposed to do?” Allie J butted in. “Suffer? Just sit around and mope while you move on with your life?” Her
voice began to tremble too, as if a fresh wound was talking for her.
Yes!
Charlie wanted to answer. Darwin was
supposed
to be in mourning, just as she was, his heart cryogenically frozen the moment it broke, waiting for Charlie’s return so it
could thaw. Of course, he had no idea that she’d done it in order to ultimately keep them together. But shouldn’t their history
guarantee a future, even if the present sucked? Feelings didn’t turn on and off like aPods or transfer over like frequent-flier
miles—even when the first-class upgrade came in the form of Allie J.
“She’s right.” Darwin sided with Allie J. “You dumped me. On
Skype
!”
“Maybe she just wasn’t that into you?” Allie J joked.
No one laughed.
Two quails scuttled across the yard, like a giddy couple on their first date. Charlie willed Darwin to put the pieces together.
Her mom’s speedy exit. The boy ban. Her sudden admittance. But he just stood there, looking at Allie J like she was a Brita
pitcher—taking in all the negative and pouring out purity and rainbows.
“I better head to class.” Darwin stood.
“Same.” Charlie’s eyes clouded with a 100 percent chance of rain. She turned and ran inside Jackie O without another word.
There was only one thing left to say. But not to Allie J or Darwin.
To Shira.
After the first tear fell, Charlie grabbed her aPod and typed a name. Turned out snitching was easier than she’d thought.
Skye stretched her hammys while gazing up at the soaring glass box in front of her. The dance studio had windows where mirrors
should have been and a glass floor instead of gleaming cherrywood. A girl with strawberry blond waves skirted around Skye
and zipped into the elevator, but Skye paused outside for another moment. Straightening her lavender mesh sleeves, she tilted
her face up to the sun. The air smelled of honeysuckle and promise.
“Wait for me!” a girl with two thick black braids woven with gold ribbon called from behind Skye. Skye recalled pooh-poohing
the accessory when she was virtual shopping. Big mistake. Those strings had potential!
“I like your sleeves,” said Gold String as they stepped inside the all-glass elevator. Her bright smile carved dimples in
her cheeks.