7 Clues to Winning You (10 page)

He locked eyes with me for a few seconds. Then he knocked my hand off his chest and walked away without a word.

I stood and watched him go. He didn’t look back. He didn’t even toss me a glance when he turned the corner at the end of the hall. Now I understood why Mom never wanted me to be walked-out upon. It hurts. Even when you despise the person who walked out on you. You feel like garbage tossed aside that even
they
didn’t want.

At least I didn’t back down,
I thought.
At least I said my piece.

Except, I was wrong. I’d forgotten a few key points. Like how sorry I was for ruining
Buried Ashes
. Or how I had raced to my father’s office to try to keep that from happening. Or how my father had freaked out on me and pretty much hated me now. Or how grateful I was to Luke for showing concern earlier that day—at that very spot—when I was covered in
ketchup. How sorry I was for being so rude. How wrong I’d been about everything.

I forgot to say any of that.

I heard Jenna squeal and Cy laugh inside the bathroom. I didn’t want to be here when they came out. Didn’t feel like seeing all that happy-happy or explaining why I wasn’t that way. So I grabbed my bag and left.

Luckily, I got home before Dad did. Mom was buzzing around in a silk blouse and pearls, using a hand vac to suck up the potato chip crumbs that Zach evidently had dropped in a zigzag trail between the pantry and the couch. He sat munching a handful of them with the phone tucked under his ear, yakking about some video game. “Dude. No. The best first-person shooter is definitely
Battlefield 3
.” Bits of potato chip shot out of his mouth as he talked. The front of his shirt was littered with debris.

“Zachary!” Mom barked. “You’re getting them all over the place! That’s it! No more food in the family room until we get a sales contract. Hi, Blythe!” She waved to me with one hand, running the hand vac up and down the front of Zach’s shirt with the other. He reared back into the cushions and looked at her like she was deranged.

I knew that if I lingered downstairs, Mom would eventually notice my crying face, if not the stain on my top and the reeking stench of pot smoke. So I said a quick hello and dashed upstairs to take a shower.

When I was dry and dressed in my favorite gray pajama pants and a clean black hoodie, I fished the tunic from the bottom of my bag, grabbed the rest of my dirty clothes,
and sneaked downstairs to the laundry room. I sprayed the ketchup stain and rubbed it as well as I could. I tossed it in the washing machine with the rest of the load, hit Start, and hoped for the best.

When I walked into the kitchen, Mom’s expression of frustration was instantly replaced by one of bewilderment. “Why are you in your pajamas already? I need you to take Zach to his friend’s house!” She said it as if I should’ve known that somehow, like what an idiot I was to put on pj’s when I still had to go out. She yanked open the refrigerator and started pulling out the drawers and stacking them on the counter beside the sink. “We have a showing in an hour. I have to finish cleaning.”

“Mom,” I said as gently as I could. “I don’t think they’re going to pass on the house just because the cheese drawer isn’t spotless.”

She started slapping half-empty packages of deli meat on the counter. “Yes, they might. They might see the cheese drawer and think, Well, if they can’t take care of something as minor as the cheese drawer, what else have they neglected? You know what Marjorie said, Blythe. Now please stop arguing with me and give Zach a ride. That was one of the conditions of having your car, remember? You drive Zach when I need you to. You don’t stand there lecturing me.”

Why is it that whenever parents are frustrated or angry about something, they start bringing up every wrong thing you ever did or every right thing you didn’t do, even if those things have absolutely nothing to do with why they’re upset?

I didn’t possess my mother’s hang-up about wearing pj
pants in public, so Zach and I headed out to my car. When we were buckled in, I asked, “Where are we going?”

Zach stretched his leg out and dug in his front pocket. He pulled out a scrap of paper and flipped it onto my lap. “Kid named Brian.”

The paper had directions scribbled on it. I followed them in my mind and realized that they led to Ash Grove. “Hold on, is this a kid from your new school?”

“Yeah.” He let out a long, resonant belch. “Can we get going?”

I rolled down my window. Started the engine. Backed out of the driveway. “But we only started school yesterday,” I said.

“So?”

“So how can you two be friends already?”

Zach shrugged. “He’s got
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
. What’s the big deal?” He grabbed my CD case and started flipping through it. “Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks balls.”

The big deal, which I wasn’t about to tell my little brother, was that in two days he’d managed to transition painlessly to his new school and make friends good enough to hang out with at their house. Whereas all I’d done was antagonize my entire school, including its principal, and obliterate any hope of making a single friend there.

Luke had been right, though. It was an impressive accomplishment for only two days. Hurricane Blythe.

I dropped Zach off and realized I was only a few blocks away from our new house. I figured I’d do a little drive-by and check on it. When I got there, I thought I’d stop in the
driveway for a minute. Once in the driveway, I thought maybe I’d get out and peek through a window. After all, it was a reality, this house. It wasn’t something I’d been imagining or denying; it was real. It was happening. We were moving here and this would be my home. As foreign as that seemed, I had to get my head around it.

Outside, a damp, cold wind swirled up the street and cut right through my wet hair to my scalp. I pulled up my hood and tucked my hands inside my sleeves. I slunk up the front walk and peered through the sidelight window beside the front door. It was beveled leaded glass though, and the view was disjointed and angled like a kaleidoscope. I could barely make out the staircase.

I stepped into the front garden and shimmied behind a couple of low bushes so I could see through the front picture window. I had to stand on tiptoe, but I had a clear view inside. Maybe it was the slant of the afternoon light slicing the rooms into uneven wedges, but the house looked even emptier than it had the week before. Forlorn. A dormant shell holding nothing but unfulfilled purpose.

I started to see that there was something humble and honest about an empty house. Stripped bare of all the decoration and flair. With its flaws—chips in the woodwork, marks on the paint, stains on the carpets—all in full view. No pretty paintings hiding holes in the wall or curtains covering cracked windows. No disguise. No pretense of perfection. Fully exposed.

Looking at an empty house, its old owner would see the vacancy. The absence of everything that had made it a home.
But a new owner would see only potential. How the empty spaces could be filled. How the house’s purpose of being a home could be satisfied once again.

I realized that it’s exactly the same with people. If you meet someone and all you can see are the decorations, the trappings she’s gathered around herself, you know you aren’t seeing the real person. You aren’t seeing the flaws she’s disguised, only her version of her perfect self. You make assumptions about her based on what she has chosen to show you. Often, you presume that there isn’t any more to her than that.

But if she makes no effort to conceal her flaws, you know you are seeing the genuine person. If she’s honest and open—not weak or vulnerable, just uncluttered—you wonder what else she might be. You sense her potential. The person would find a certain security in that mystery. In fact, if she wanted it, she would find a chance to start over, just the way an empty house starts over with its new owners.

Could that happen for me?

Was it too late to undo the past two days? Was there still a chance for me to erase the judgment everyone had passed? Judgment I’d led them to all by myself? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I envied that house. I wanted people to look at me and see potential too. To wonder. To sense mystery. I wanted those things even more than I’d wanted to ruin things for everyone at Ash Grove.

In fact, that’s what I had wanted all along, I realized. I had wanted them to see the real me. Not the girl in the picture. Not the principal’s daughter. Just Blythe.

Yet I never gave them the chance. I had walked into that school pretending to be perfect. Pretending not to hate them. Hiding my scars. Trying to manipulate everyone. The only true, honest moment I’d had at Ash Grove was when I’d yelled at Luke in the hallway. Touched him and told him who I was. Of course his reaction was something less than positive.

I’d made a start, though.

I knew the next step I had to take.

I SPENT HALF THE NIGHT WORKING OUT THE DETAILS of my plan, then got to school early and waited by Luke’s locker on the senior wing. When he finally rounded the corner and noticed me, I thought I saw his eyes widen behind his glasses for half a moment before narrowing to tight, blue pebbles. I watched his shoulders heave with a forced sigh as he got nearer. When he was in front of me, I amicably stepped out of the way. He spun the combination on his lock as if I weren’t even there.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked.

“I think you’ve said enough already.” He yanked his locker open. I’d stepped to the wrong side, and now the door blocked me from his view. I skirted around to the other side of him.

“Please?” I asked. It felt foreign to say that. I’d never really had to plead or beg for anything in my life before, besides pleading with my father not to move us here. And when I begged Dad not to take
Buried Ashes
away from Luke yesterday. Actually, I was begging more and more, it seemed.

Luke shut his locker and stepped back from me. The expression of contempt on his face made my stomach lurch. “No,” he said.

He made a motion to leave, and I gently placed my hand on his arm. He froze, his muscles tightening under my fingertips. “Luke,” I said, willing myself to be open and honest. “I’m sorry. About
Buried Ashes
. About everything. I was being so selfish.” I let my arm fall to my side. It felt odd dangling there.

Luke’s face grew taut behind his glasses. The muscles in his shoulders flexed. “
Buried Ashes
was important to me,” he said. His voice was husky and deep. “It helped to get me accepted to college for journalism.
Buried Ashes
was a record of my work. It also did what a newspaper should do: expose truths and change the way people think.” He pressed his lips into a hard line. “Taking it down yesterday was … very difficult.”

“I know,” I said, “and I’m really sorry. I begged my dad to let you keep it. I tried everything I could do to get him to change his mind, but he wouldn’t. He said he couldn’t go back on his word. It would undercut his authority. That’s why I was so upset when you saw me.” I suddenly felt compelled to clear up something else. “My eyes were red because I was crying. Not from smoking pot. That was … other people in the bathroom.” I wouldn’t snitch on Jenna and Cy. They were the closest thing I had to friends.

Luke was surprised, I could tell. I hoped it was about me begging my dad, not about the pot smoking. Either way, it kept me going. “I was wrong about a lot of things.
Buried Ashes
. The Senior Scramble. All of it. I was so focused on getting back at everyone. I was angry. I was hurt. I admit it.”
Show your imperfections, Blythe,
I kept telling myself.
No disguises.

Luke stuck out his chest and crossed his arms like he
was trying to hold tight to his grudge against me. His eyes gave him away, though. They were the slightest bit softer. Understanding.

I dropped my gaze and made sure my voice was non-confrontational when I asked him the next question. “Why did you post that picture of me last year?”

Luke was quiet. I looked up at him. Our eyes locked for several loaded seconds. I felt a blush rise on my cheeks for no reason.

“I was trying to get a rise out of Principal Mac by lampooning his family,” he said. “I never intended to target you directly.” The edges of his voice had smoothed. His eyes crinkled affably. “Besides, everybody picks their nose. It really didn’t seem like such a big deal.
Then
, anyway.” Even though people milled all around us in the hallway, it felt strangely like Luke and I were alone. He said, “I apologize. If I’d known it would hurt you like it did, I never would have posted it. That’s tabloid territory. That’s not what
Buried Ashes
is about.” A knot of anger began to coil up inside me, and I wasn’t sure why. Then Luke said, “That’s not what I’m about, either,” and the knot unwound. I had wanted the integrity to be his, not just the newspaper’s. I wanted to know that posting a hurtful picture wasn’t merely something that
Buried Ashes
wouldn’t do; it was also something Luke wouldn’t do. That he wasn’t that type of person.

“Thank you,” I said softly. Before I lost my nerve or broke the delicate, newborn bond I had with Luke, I took my chance. “If you’re into it, I have an idea. About doing the Senior Scramble.”

Luke’s eyebrows shot up and he gave me his first genuine smile. “Didn’t your dad say that anyone caught doing the Senior Scramble would be suspended?”

My body vibrated with excitement, terror, and rebellion. “That’s why we’re going to have to be careful,” I said.

Luke’s eyes flashed like white sunlight on blue ocean. He leaned closer to me, looking mischievous. “We?”

“I can’t do it alone,” I said. “I’m not a senior, but you are. Plus, you know everyone. I don’t. I’m new.”

Luke laughed. It was fresh and bright. It made me think of bubbles popping. “NO KIDDING,” he said, mimicking the way I’d said it on Monday.

“But if anything happens and we get caught,” I said, “I’m taking full blame. It’s my idea and if I could do it without your help, I would.”

With his arms still crossed, Luke tipped sideways onto the lockers. I watched his eyes dance around the different parts of my face, down my body, back to my eyes. My cheeks went hot again. “Tell me your plan,” he said.