Backlash (16 page)

As I start climbing up the wooden rungs, I whistle so he knows someone is coming up. His head pops out of the doorway, and he shines the flashlight app on his cell down in my face, almost blinding me.

“Do you mind?” I complain.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says. “I was afraid it was Bree.”

I climb up the rest of the way and crawl in to join him. The tree house seems so much smaller than I remember. A spiderweb catches in my hair as I lean against the wall, breathing in the must and mold of disuse. Liam lights a candle, and it glows, flickering, showing the boy-band posters my sister and Bree had tacked up on the wall back when they were into that kind of thing. Back when they were still friends.

“So what brings you up here?” Liam asks.

“I had to get away from Lara,” I say. “And I saw you climbing up so …”

“Funny that,” Liam says with a wry grin. “I came up here to get away from Bree.”

“Remember how they always used to keep us out of here, even though it was supposed to be for all of us?”

“Oh yeah,” Liam says. “And we’d be stuck down below complaining about how not fair it was, but not knowing how to do anything about it.”

“How did they get away with being so mean to us?”

“ ’Cause they’re the older sisters?” Liam suggests. “Because that’s the way it is in families?”

“I guess. So is Bree still mean to you?”

“Not mean. Just … annoying. Seriously annoying. Sometimes it feels like the house isn’t big enough for the both of us — that’s when I escape out here. Bree hasn’t been up here for, like, two years or something.”

“It looks like no one’s been up here. It’s gross. You should clean the place up if you’re planning to hang out here regularly.”

He laughs, the candlelight reflecting on the whiteness of his teeth.

“Wow. You’re such a
girl
, Syd.”

“Duh, really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Some guys get all weird when I joke around with them. But not Liam. Even though we hadn’t hung out in a while, he definitely gets my humor. We used to play Mad Libs and do silly stuff like try to make all the words have to do with farts and poop. It made us laugh so hard our stomachs hurt. Our parents called us the little hyenas, because we were always cracking up about something.

“Why did we stop getting together as families just because Lara and Bree got all teenage girl and fell out?” Liam bursts out suddenly. “Does the whole freaking world revolve around my sister?”

Yes!
It’s as if the candle’s glow has reached to the very deepest part of me, the part that I don’t want to let people see because I’m afraid it makes me an awful person. But suddenly, the person I’m so afraid of, Deepest Darkest Syd, realizes she’s not alone.

“Tell me about it,” I say. “When you’re normal in my house, you might as well be invisible.”

“How … is … Lara?” he asks.

“Oh,
she’s
fine and being totally annoying and inconsiderate, not that my parents would ever see that. That’s why I was outside. She’s hogging the computer every night, pretending she’s doing homework, but really she’s chatting.”

“ ‘Totally annoying and inconsiderate.’ Wow. Sounds just like Bree,” Liam says.

We sit, watching the flickering candle, enjoying a moment of silent younger-sibling solidarity.

“Why didn’t our moms stay friends?” he asks. “Or our dads?”

He doesn’t say, “Or us?” but it’s there, hanging unspoken like a ripe fruit unpicked, and now that I’m sitting here with him in the candlelight, I wonder, too. Because unlike all my other friends, Liam gets it.

“Mom got all caught up in the city council stuff, I guess.”

“Yeah, she’s, like, a big politician these days, huh?”

“Ugh, I know.”

“And my mom’s determined to be the real estate queen of Lake Hills,” Liam said. “You can’t go past a bus shelter without seeing her face.”

“Tell me the truth … Have you ever felt like drawing a mustache on her poster with a Sharpie when you’ve been really mad at her?”

Liam bursts out laughing. “How did you know? That was the one secret I thought I was taking to the grave.”

“Probably because I’ve felt like defacing Mom’s campaign posters once or twice,” I admit. “But at least I only have to deal with that every two years. You have to see your mom on the bus shelter all the time.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I mean I love Mom and all, but … ‘Everything I touch turns to sold’? Cringe!”

“Well, what about
my
mom? ‘Kathy Kelley — Putting the
public
in public service.’ As long as she doesn’t have to admit that there’s anything the matter with our family in public, that is.”

Speaking of things wrong with our family, I check the time on my cell. It’s been more than twenty minutes.

“I’ve got to go. I told Lara she had to get off the computer in twenty minutes so I could do my homework, and her time is past being up.”

“Wait,” Liam says. “I … it’s just … even if our families aren’t friends anymore, do you think you and I could maybe still … you know, hang out sometime?”

Even in the candlelight, I can see him blushing through his freckles.
He means like friends, right?

“Yeah,” I say, hoping that’s what he means, because I’m not sure how I’d feel about anything more. “See you in school. G’night.”

“Careful going down. I’ll shine the light for you.”

I climb down the slat ladder bathed in the light from his flashlight app. We call good night to each other again when I reach the bottom. I crunch through the dead leaves back to my house. When I let myself in through the sliding door, my cold fingers and cheeks tingle from the warmth.

When I get into the living room, though, it’s my temper that flares when I realize Lara is
still
on the computer, giggling and typing and so obviously
not
doing homework.

“Lara, get
off
! It’s my turn.”

“Just give me two more minutes,” she says.

“I’m calling Mom,” I say, pressing her number in Favorites.

Lara’s still typing.

My mom picks up and she’s
not
happy.

“Sydney, I’m in the middle of a council meeting. What is it?”

“Lara won’t get off the computer, and I need it to do my homework. She’s not even doing work, she’s chatting.”

“You interrupted me at a meeting —”

“
Mom
, I need to do my homework!”

“Put her on.”

I hand Lara my phone. “Mom wants to talk to you.”

I can hear Mom yelling at Lara, furious that we interrupted her while she’s busy doing oh-so-important city council business at her meeting. Lara’s typing as she’s listening, but she finally says, “Okay, FINE!,” hangs up, logs off, throws my phone onto the table, and storms upstairs.

I’m fuming with anger and frustration as I start my homework.

But then I think about hanging out with Liam earlier and how that was the best part of the day. At least Lara can’t ruin that.

T
HERE ARE
pros and cons to having told Marci about Christian. In the pro column, she’s been giving me ideas on how to keep my flirtation with Lara going. I guess it helps that she’s got a lot more experience with flirting than I have. Marci’s way more advanced than I am on the guy front. She’s done stuff that I only think about — and even then I feel guilty.

When we were all talking one night at a sleepover, Marci, Jenny, and me, I lied and said I’d done stuff I hadn’t.

Afterward, I wondered why. Why couldn’t I have just said,
I haven’t done that yet
? What would have been the big deal?

I guess I was worried if I did, they might have made fun of me for
not
having done stuff, or they might think I was judging them for the stuff they’d done. What would have happened if I’d just told the truth?

Marci’s totally into the Christian deception. She checks out Lara’s dress list every day, and she judges up a storm. Marci makes the team on the show
Fashion Firing Squad
look like Girl Scouts. She texts me as soon as Lara posts something new, along with her biting review.

ZOMG, the latest one looks like a red velvet cupcake with chicken pox! Hideous!!!

The funny thing is, Lara’s getting more and more excited about a dance that I haven’t even asked her to yet. Or more accurately, Christian hasn’t. He’s been hinting that he’s going to ask her, but he hasn’t pulled the trigger. It’s kind of fun to watch Lara squirming like a worm on a fishing hook, wondering if and when he’s going to do it.

So Lara keeps herself busy picking out new dresses, and Marci gets to play Fashion Firing Squad. It’s a total win-win-win.

One evening, I’m so busy multitasking, chatting to Lara as Christian in one window on Facebook, laughing with Marci about Lara’s dress choices in another, and trying to actually get homework done in a third, that between all that and the music I’m blasting, I don’t notice that my mom is standing behind me, reading the screen over my shoulder.

“Why are you flirting with Lara Kelley?” she asks.

I jump and quickly minimize all my windows.

“MOM! Did you consider knocking?” I complain, but my heart is beating furiously because I am
so busted
.

She sits on my bed.

“Is there anything you want to tell me, Breanna?” she asks. “I know being a teenager can be … confusing, and especially with all … well, those shows on TV and … well, all I’m saying is, do you need to tell me something about your … uh … preferences?”

It takes me a second to realize what my mom’s saying, or not saying. And when I do I groan. Because, seriously? It’s like she doesn’t know me at all.

“I like
boys
, Mom, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I don’t understand. Then why are you talking about going to a dance with Lara Kelley?” My mom glances between me and the now-blank computer screen, her brow wrinkling in confusion. Well, wrinkling as much as it can after the Botox she had done before she had the photos taken for those awful “Everything I touch turns to sold” bus shelter posters.

If I’d had some warning, I could have come up with an excuse, but I’m blanking, so I go with the truth. Well, truth-ish.

“It’s a joke I’m playing on Lara, ’cause I was pissed she made cheerleading and I didn’t,” I explain, fully expecting the grounding guillotine to be lowered the minute I’m done. “I’ve been pretending to be this guy Christian for a month or so, and she’s developed a major crush on me. Well, I mean on
him
…”

I trail off, expecting Mom to start her tirade about how I’m irresponsible and such a disappointment and how I should be more like her — all the usual complaints she has about how I don’t measure up. But to my amazement, she smiles. And then she starts
laughing
.

“That’s priceless,” she says. “Lara actually
believes
you’re this guy?”

“Uh … yeah. She’s been, like, flirting with me. Well, him. She even thinks I’m going to invite her to my school dance, and she’s picking out all these really fugly dresses just in case. I’ve kind of been stringing her along and …”

“Now this I have to see. Kathy Kelley’s daughter flirting with a fake boyfriend. C’mon, show me!”

I’m totally glad she’s not mad and grounding me, but … Suddenly, I have this crazy feeling that maybe I wish that she was. Because this feels kind of weird.

Reluctantly, I maximize the Facebook chat window. Lara’s asking,
Christian? Are you still there?

Yeah sorry. Had to step away for a sec.

Oh. Thought I said the wrong thing. : )

Lara is so insecure it’s pathetic. Every time Christian shows the slightest bit of coolness to her, she thinks it’s because she did something wrong. It makes it so easy to play her.

“Oh dear. Poor Lara. She’s so needy and gullible,” Mom says. “Tell her, ‘You could never say the wrong thing, baby.’ ”

“What?”

“Go on. Type it.”

You could never say the wrong thing, baby, I type slowly on the keyboard. Just a few moments ago I felt powerful, like Lara was my puppet on a string. Now, all of a sudden, the tables are turned. Now it’s like I’m the puppet and Mom’s the one pulling the strings.

“Type how cute that picture of her is, and how just looking at it gives you the warm fuzzies,” Mom says.

“Christian wouldn’t say ‘warm fuzzies,’ Mom. That’s totally lame.”

“Just type it,” she orders.

My fingers pound the keys angrily.

Aw, you’re so sweet. : )
Lara types back. I seriously want to puke.

“Let me have a turn,” Mom says.

I stare at her. “What?”

“Come on, move over. I want to be Christian for a while.”

Okay, this has now officially moved into Beyond Weird territory.

“No. Mom …”

“Oh, come on, Bree. It’s just a little fun.”

I slide out of my chair. Mom sits down and immediately starts typing.

I feel like I’m going to throw up. It’s one thing for me to do this. It was bad enough when Marci got involved. But now
my mother
is doing it.