were lifted on shoulders as the boys soccer team joined the party.
And when Jake slowly lowered me to the ground, when his mouth found mine, when he kissed me twenty years after that first kiss, I felt like I was the winner.
Until they upended the cooler of ice water over me.
69
Marley
After the Homecoming that Shall Not Be Mentioned
I was simultaneously a hero and a pariah. My parents were baffled with my revenge plot and suspension. Rather than punishing me—a parental responsibility with which they were entirely unfamiliar—they took a “wait and see if she does it again” attitude.
With people Amie Jo had emotionally tortured and personally victimized—students, teachers, and the entire register staff at Weis Markets—my Homecoming stunt and subsequent suspension gave me mythical popularity.
Unfortunately, there were just as many Team Amie Jo members who felt that “poor, sweet, Jesus-loving Amie Jo” had been unfairly targeted because of her God-given popularity. Their party line was that I attacked her because I was jealous of her hair, her car, and her breasts. In that order.
Team Amie Jo numbers were growing thanks to her post-suspension goodwill tour. She joined the Culpepper Emmanuel Lutheran Church’s choir and handwrote apology notes with the I’s dotted with hearts. The pièce de résistance was a spa sleepover at the Hotel Hershey scheduled for this weekend. She invited every girl in our class.
Except me.
I suspected Dr. and Mrs. Armburger hired a publicist to spiff up their daughter’s image. And as my edge of self-righteous victimhood dulled, I was left with a low-level guilt. Revenge hadn’t been sweet. It had been a little icky. Okay. A lot icky.
Essentially, I’d stooped to Amie Jo’s level and now I was covered in mean girl cooties. Really, the only upside to the whole mess was that Amie Jo now gave me a wide berth at school. I’d bitten back, and she had to inflict her damage from a safer distance now.
I headed in the direction of my locker, accepting a high-five from Marcus Smith, whose reputation as a booger eater originated from second-grade Amie Jo after he took the swing she wanted during recess. I ignored the pointed giggles from Mindy Leigh and Leah, starters on the field hockey team and Homecoming princesses.
Today, my locker was covered in prayer requests from the Culpepper Emmanuel Lutheran Church’s youth group asking that I would recognize the wrongness of my ways. And that I would start practicing abstinence.
I sighed.
“At least they stopped with the diapers,” Vicky observed, tearing off one of the requests.
“I wish I was done with this place. No one is ever going to see me as me. I’m either going to be the biblically smited pregnant whore or the vindictive, unhinged badass.”
“I feel like you’re probably somewhere in the middle,” she mused.
“New game plan,” I decided. “I’m just going to fade into the background. Become a wallflower. I’ll become a Zen master and I won’t respond to Amie Jo’s provocation.”
Vicky’s eyebrows winged up skeptically. “Can you put the monster back in the closet after you’ve let it out?”
“Nothing is going to get to me,” I promised.
“Huh. Looks like nothing is coming this way.”
I glanced over my shoulder in the direction Vicky was staring, and there he was.
Jake Freaking Weston.
His leather jacket slung over one shoulder, jeans worn through at the knee. Scarred motorcycle boots.
His walk was more of a strut.
I hadn’t seen him since right before Homecoming. Hadn’t talked to him since he’d stuffed that stupid note in my locker. Hadn’t had the opportunity to tell him what a shithead he was. And now that I was a Zen master, I’d never have that chance.
I was cool. Cucumber cool. Ice cube cool. Vinyl seat in February cool.
“Hey, Mars,” he said with a jut of his chin.
I hated how my heart got louder in my ears. The guy kissed me, didn’t ask me to Homecoming, and then told me he wasn’t “into pregnant chicks.” What more did the dumbass have to do to prove he wasn’t worthy of my medium amount of awesomeness? Flip off a horse and buggy?
I felt stupid for expecting more from him.
“Hey, Vic,” Jake said.
“Well, would you look at the time? I need to go stand across the hall,” Vicky said, pointing at the lockers on the opposite wall. She pointed at her own eyes and then at Jake. “I’ll be watching,” she hissed.
He seemed more amused than perturbed by the vague threat.
He waited until Vicky crossed the hall before turning back to me.