In the Spotlight (13 page)

And then…“Hi, Josh.”

My stomach dropped.

“This is Jenny, silly,” she giggled. “I just had to call you. I’m sitting here in my bath all alone thinking of you. Want to come keep me company?”

Josh said something and Jenny flushed red either from frustration or embarrassment. Then she said, “Well, if you change your mind, you’ve got my phone number.”

There were peals of giddy laughter as Jenny looked smugly around the room. My stomach fell further, until I got distracted by my phone vibrating. I flipped it over and grinned.
What was that?
I tried not to laugh. Careful not to attract any attention, I texted back.

Truth or dare.
My fingers actually tingled with excitement from texting Josh.
Girl’s sleepover?
I knew I shouldn’t keep texting or else someone might notice . It could totally come back to haunt me in this truth or dare game. Still, I couldn’t help myself.
You know it.

I was temporarily distracted by the fact that it was Claudia’s turn. She was sitting up completely straight with, like, the best posture I’d ever seen. I swear Claudia really did live for being the center of attention.

“Claudia,” Kaylee said. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Claudia replied with utmost confidence. “Ask me anything.”

Kaylee smiled a smug smile. “How many guys have you slept with?”

Several girls gasped, but Claudia just laughed. “Is that all you’ve got? I’ll only tell you about this year, though.”

Excited smiles flitted around the room.

“Does anyone want to take a guess? Okay, okay. It’s…Kyle!”

The gasps and squeals that filled the room were deafening. I felt sick to my stomach. Without being noticed, due to the chaos Claudia’s announcement caused, I slipped out of the choir room and made my way to the bathroom just in case I puked.

I pressed a cool paper towel to my forehead and neck and felt slightly less nauseated, but almost more sick in my heart. Just as I felt tears prick my eyes again, my phone vibrated.
Wish I was
there to be with you.
I was going to be okay.

Chapter Fourteen

The auditorium was packed with the junior class. I took a seat in the back, mainly because I didn’t care about prom, but also because I had homework to do. My backpack slid nicely under my seat, so I had a little leg room to stretch out as I grabbed my book and slumped down to read. I’d only read a few pages, when I felt someone take the seat next to me. Glancing up, I saw Josh grinning at me. Kaylee dropped into the seat on the other side of me.

“Can you believe that Maggie joined the prom planning committee?” Kaylee asked with disgust, watching Maggie flitting about at the front of the room.

“What’s wrong with prom committee?” Josh asked.

“Don’t ask Kaylee,” I warned.

Kaylee shook her head. “All I’ll say is that those girls who run it are more interested in getting laid after a glamorous night than giving the seniors a memorable last hurrah.”

I rolled my eyes. “Maggie just wants the good gossip. You know that’s why she joined.”

“Whatever,” Kaylee said as the meeting began. “They better not mess with any of the play stuff,” she muttered, “or heads will roll.” I tried to go back to my book, but Josh’s elbow was too close for me to concentrate, so I sat up a little straighter and bent down to shove the book into my backpack. Upon doing so, I bumped into Josh’s knee. I sat up fast and scooted closer to Kaylee. Josh laughed softly, but I didn’t know if he was laughing at me or at the committee in the front.

Our class president, Lexie, was outlining the big prom fundraiser. “It’s going to be totally awesome, but only if we all participate,” she said. “We’re going to host a cheesecake drive in!”

There were excited applause and gasps of joy. Josh leaned over to me. “What’s with this town and cheesecake?” He asked.

I smiled. “People just really like it, I guess.”

“You don’t?” Josh asked.

“Sure, I love cheesecake. Who doesn’t?” I shrugged. “I mean, why not capitalize on what people like?”

“There will be a sign-‐-up sheet coming around,” Lexie continued. “You can sign up to be a carhop or to help bake the cheesecakes. Everyone is required to have ten hours. It counts as your homeroom project for this quarter.”

“Ugh,” Kaylee groaned. “Being forced to work on the prom with them? Cruel and unusual punishment.”

“I know you want to go to prom,” I told her. “So why complain?”

“I want to go to prom, not work on it,” Kaylee emphasized.

“What shifts will you sign up for?” Josh asked

“Um, don’t know,” I replied. “Sunday afternoons, I guess.

No play rehearsals. Plus I always have to work a long shift at Jimmy’s on Saturday.”

“Good point,” Josh nodded. “I’ll do Sunday afternoons too.”

I gave him a surprised glance. “You don’t work on Saturdays, do you?”

“No, but you do,” Josh said. Like that explained anything.

Kaylee snickered in her seat.

Maggie suddenly appeared next to us with a sign-‐-up sheet on a clipboard. “Here, first choice guys,” she grinned.

I grabbed it and found the nearest Sunday afternoon slot and signed up for a three-‐-hour shift. Josh took the clipboard from me and signed his name next to mine. When I saw that he had signed up to serve with me, I giggled.

“What?” He asked, slightly confused.

I giggled. “If you serve you have to wear roller skates. You know, like the carhops did in the fifties.”

Josh winked. “Maybe I’ll impress you with my stellar roller skating skills.”

“This I have to see,” Kaylee laughed, signing up for the same slot as us.

****

Later that night when I booted up my laptop after the world’s tenth longest rehearsal, I automatically logged on to Facebook to check my wall before I started getting ready for bed.

Kaylee had left a dumb message about popcorn and cheese logs.

Ever since she had eaten Grandma’s appetizers at our annual Christmas party, she’d been obsessed with the combination of popcorn and cheese logs. Ew. I refused to eat anything Grandma made.

Claudia had left me another BFF message. Kaylee and Maggie were getting irritated by it. I knew I should respond on her wall, but I just couldn’t bring myself to waste the energy. The moment I thought it, I felt bad because Claudia really did like me.

There was nothing from Josh, which, while it disappointed me, didn’t surprise me. Josh was sort of old-‐-fashioned in his use of technology. I mean, he had a Facebook page but he barely ever bothered updating it.

The last message was from Kyle. It was cryptic enough that people wouldn’t be able to infer anything that happened between us at his house, but it was still blatant and taunting. It read: I think you left something at my house. Want to pick it up this weekend?

Tears pricked my eyes. My leg throbbed. I turned my arm over, pulled my sleeve up, and stared at the angry bruise that was starting to turn purple and green and yellow. Poking it to make little shivers of pain run up my arm, I finally started to cry. Other than crying in Josh’s arms, I hadn’t let myself cry about the entire Kyle situation. And I needed to cry. Seeing Kyle’s comment, I just couldn’t handle it anymore.

The tears rolled down my face. My nose got all runny and drippy. I shoved the computer off my lap, buried my face in my pillow, and sobbed. I had no idea how long I’d been crying, but eventually I felt a hand stroking my hair. When I looked up, there was Hayley, petting my hair, waiting patiently for me to finish.

Taking a deep breath, I flopped onto my back and swiped at my nose with my sleeve. Hayley grabbed some Kleenex off my nightstand and lay down beside me. We were quiet for a few minutes.

Finally, Hayley said, “Do you know what Mom told me tonight? She said they almost named me Harley, like the bike.

Thank goodness Dad realized that having a Harlow and a Harley would get confusing.”

I burst out laughing, and hiccupped. “Are you serious?”

“Totally,” Hayley grinned. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Sure. I think Harley would have been a terrible name for you. I doubt you’d have been a cheerleader with a name like that,”

I joked, staring up at my ceiling. I loved the way the patterns looked like clouds swirling.

“We don’t have to either,” Hayley assured me. And that’s when it all spilled out. I showed her both my leg and my arm. She wrapped her arms around me and just hung on until I was done.

“I was just so sure he was the one for me,” I said. “And look where it got me.”

“You couldn’t have known that,” Hayley said. “Everyone thinks Kyle is the drama club golden boy. I mean, I always thought he was a little pompous, but I never imagined he’d do something like this.”

“Yeah,” I said. We stared at the ceiling in silence for a while before I continued, “And when he started paying attention to me, I just figured he was finally starting to fall in love with me. Stupid, huh?” “Not stupid,” Hayley insisted. “Very human. Everyone wants to be in love.”

“And there was this day a while ago that Kyle was humiliating this freshman in our drama class, Kevin,” I paused.

“I know Kevin,” Hayley jumped in. “He’s a nice guy. A little intense but nice.”

I nodded. “Yeah, he is nice. But Kyle and Adam were just completely set on humiliating him. I watched the whole thing and did nothing. What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing,” Hayley said, smoothing back the hair on my head. “You just wanted Kyle to like you. And you couldn’t stand up to him.” Hayley paused. “Can I ask a stupid question?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Do you still like Kyle?”

The question hung in the air. I had been thinking a lot about that the past week or so. At first, it had been a resounding no, but then the old, familiar feelings started to creep back in. So then, I hadn’t been so sure. And then I really hadn’t been able to figure out what was wrong with me. How could I like a guy who would hurt me? After a lot of nights laying awake thinking about this very subject, I’d searched the depths of my heart. And at the end of it all, I was pleased to find that Kyle was gone, all feelings for him were appropriately disgusted, but surprisingly tolerant and almost forgiving. And in Kyle’s place, I’d been happily surprised to find warm, burgeoning feelings for Josh. I still wasn’t sure how to deal with them, but they did make me happy.

“No,” I replied. “I don’t like Kyle anymore, although I was pretty close.”

Hayley nodded. “I’m glad, but I totally get how hard it would be to turn off three years of feelings.”

“All I have to do is look at my arm or even just feel my leg, and it pretty much reinforces all my feelings about Kyle. Besides, you know, he really is a jerk. I don’t know how I missed that before,” I sighed.

“Blinded by love?” Hayley suggested taking my iPod from the nightstand and scrolling through my playlists.

“I haven’t told anyone else about Kyle,” I admitted. “So if you wouldn’t mind not mentioning it, I’d really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Hayley promised.

I pushed myself off the bed to start getting my pajamas on and getting ready for bed. Suddenly I was exhausted. “It’s funny,” I said. “I almost told Josh about it that night, but at the last second I sort of chickened out and didn’t tell him Kyle’s name.”

“Josh was with you that night?” Hayley asked, looking up with interest.

“I called him,” I confessed, pulling my pajama shirt on. “He was the first person I thought of. And he was the only person I wanted to see.”

“Oh?” Hayley raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah, I know. But he was great. It just made sense.” I shrugged, turning away from her so she couldn’t see my face. I picked up my brush and swept it through my hair a few times.

Hayley nodded like she understood. “And?”

“And… nothing,” I said. “We’re just friends right now.”

“Right now,” Hayley repeated with a grin. She tapped the screen of my iPod. “So you do like him!”

“Maybe a little,” I said.

“And do you think he likes you?” Hayley’s eyes glittered.

“Maybe,” I replied.

“I think he’s a great match for you,” Hayley said.

I smiled at her. There was the little sister I knew and loved.

Her maturity was starting to freak me out a little. She got up to go back to her room.

“Hey, Hayley?” She stopped and looked at me. “Thanks,” I said. “This really helped.”

“Anytime,” Hayley replied as she headed back to her own room. She paused in the doorway. “Listen to the playlist I made you last summer. It’ll make you feel better.”

As I pulled on my pajama shorts, I realized that Hayley and I had the relationship I had always wanted with Harlow. Thank goodness Mom and Dad had decided to have a third kid. And thank goodness that child had been a girl.

Chapter Fifteen

The P.A. crackled to life, and everyone in the auditorium stopped, waiting expectantly for what would happen next.

“What’s going on?” Josh whispered, folding his script carelessly in half.

“Just wait,” I murmured, trying not to fixate on the way he was creasing the pages.

After what sounded like a slight tussle, a male voice started to sing “
I Want You to Want Me”
. Every girl in the auditorium excitedly exchanged glances, hoping, praying this was for her. Josh tapped me in the arm with the script, and raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Well?”

“Just wait,” I whispered back.

Finally, the singing, which was quite atrocious I should say, stopped, and the guy said, “Sara James, will you go to prom with me?” Sara, a freshman in the chorus for our show, let out an ear-‐-

piercing squeal and started jumping up and down. The other girls frowned, and I heard someone whisper, “Who would ask a freshman?”

Someone else answered in an angry whisper, “I bet she’s easy.”

Josh still looked confused, so I rolled my eyes at him.

“Welcome to prom season,” I said, sarcastically.

“Wait, what?” Josh said.

“Being asked to prom is just under wedding proposal big around these parts,” I explained. “The bigger, the better. Just wait and see. It gets truly gag-‐-worthy.”