Being Jamie Baker (4 page)

“What the freak?” Tamika grumbled as she tried to wipe the sticky beverage off her arms. “It’s a good thing this is your shirt, Paige.”

“Jamie Baker—are you crazy?” Paige hissed at Ryan, instead of apologizing to, or even answering Tamika. “What if she comes over here?”

Ha! Even with the pout Ryan was giving me there was no way I was ever going to join them.

“Well, considering that’s kind of the point of the invitation,” Ryan said, “I hope she does.” I suddenly had all of the most popular kids in school staring at me. It was the only time in my life I was glad I am the only freak with deathly powers, because I’m sure any one of those girls would have loved to go supervillain on me just then, especially when Mike laughed and told them all to take pity on his poor horny friend. “Aw, cut the man some slack. Did you see what Baker did to him? I’m jonesin’

for her myself after that kiss.”

All the guys at the table roared with laughter, and Ryan draped his arm around Mike. “Amen, Mikey,” he said. “Who knew the Ice Queen could be so incredibly hot?” I guess I’m not the only person with superpowers after all. Mike apparently has the ability to lower Ryan’s IQ. Morons.

Anyway, I knew Paige, being scary in love with Ryan, wouldn’t like that answer, and I was sure Tamika was going to have to catch her when the poor thing passed out from heartbreak. But Paige had a little more attitude than I gave her credit for. Instead of going into shock when Ryan waved at me again to come over, she actually gave me a look three times more evil than the glare Becky was burning into me.

That’s when I turned my attention back to my lunch. Or at least I turned my eyes away. I couldn’t really tune them out completely, and even if I could, it was kind of hard to ignore Paige’s next comment.

“You can’t possibly want to hook up with that slut?”

I found it ironic that Paige was calling me the promiscuous one, when everyone knew she’d been with pretty much the entire football team at one point or another. I didn’t have time to get mad, though, because just as soon as the word escaped her lips Ryan defended me. “Jamie’s not a slut. It was just one kiss, and she only did it because I asked her to.”

“Was mounting you in front of the whole school part of the plan?” Paige asked. “The freak practically ripped your clothes off!”

Okay, I knew that was going to haunt me. And when Paul Warren said, “I’d let her mount me any day,” making all jocks present laugh and high-five one another, I cringed inwardly. I didn’t really care if every girl in the school thought I was easy, but the last thing I needed was more guys trying to hook up with me.

Again, though, I didn’t have any time to worry about it, thanks to Ryan. “Hey, that wasn’t really her fault,” he said. “She didn’t know how irresistible I was when she agreed to kiss me.” I couldn’t believe he’d said that, but I think he only did it to bug Paige because he smirked at her and said, “Besides, if one little kiss makes her a slut, I’d hate to know what that makes you.” I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought the pot was calling the kettle black. Ryan’s comment shut Paige right up, and I’d have kissed him again for that one had I been standing there, but Becky and Tamika didn’t appreciate it the way I did. They pulled Paige to her feet and called Ryan a not-so-nice name before making a very dramatic exit from the cafeteria.

When I finally glanced over at Ryan, my heart just about stopped because he was staring right at me. He was confused but intrigued, and I realized that I was laughing along with Ryan’s dumb jock buddies. He’d just caught me following a conversation I technically shouldn’t have been able to hear.

I instantly wiped the smile from my face and went back to eating my lunch, cursing myself for being such an idiot. I was so upset that I didn’t notice when Ryan got up and made his way across the cafeteria to me. I actually wasn’t pulled from my panic attack until his voice was right behind me.

“Jamie, if you heard that back there, I’m really sorry. Why don’t you come over and eat lunch with me? I’ll introduce you to everybody and give them a chance to redeem themselves. The guys are all just as curious about you as I am, you know.”

He didn’t seem to wonder how I heard him, he just felt bad that I did, so I started to calm down a little. “Of course they’re curious. They all think they can get into my pants now.” The look on Ryan’s face made me feel bad for saying that, so I added, “I really don’t care if everyone thinks I’m a slut.”

“Well, I do. I asked you to kiss me. It’s my fault Paige said that about you, and I don’t want the whole school thinking it.”

That surprised me, and it was kind of sweet, so I couldn’t stop my face from softening a little, no matter how much I wanted to stay mad.

Oddly enough, the cocky smile Ryan gave me when he realized that he was getting to me made it a lot easier to keep focused when he tried to get charming on me again. He was standing there with this cute little hopeful pout and said, “Whether you’re upset or not, I feel bad, so how can I make it up to you?”

“You really want to make it up to me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then stop talking to me before other people start to think it’s okay. Please. I don’t want to have to get mean.”

I grabbed my things and walked out the door before he could argue with me. I didn’t even wait to see him frown. I couldn’t—I was too weak around him.

I didn’t want to have to live up to my reputation this time because shockingly enough, Ryan actually seemed to be a pretty decent guy. He shouldn’t really have to be punished for wanting to get to know me. And to be honest, had our kiss been a normal one, I might have considered letting him talk to me occasionally.

But the fact that he was charming and I was mildly attracted to him only made us a hopeless case.

We couldn’t have a relationship, and I couldn’t have him asking why that was, so I didn’t see how any kind of friendship was going to work.

Ryan didn’t speak to me the rest of the week. We made eye contact quite a bit, but I’m not sure if I caught him looking at me, or if maybe it was the other way around this time. Either way, I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to show up at my house, and I was surprised that I felt almost as much disappointment about that as I did relief. I think that’s why, come the day of homecoming, I decided to go to my first school sporting event since I moved here.

I didn’t actually go to the game. I watched from a hilltop just about a mile away, but that may as well be a seat on the sidelines for me. I don’t have eyesight quite like Superman because I can’t see through things, but it’s definitely more than your average twenty-twenty vision. I think of it as having built-in binoculars with super zoom control. Even at a mile away I could see the cute little excited smile Ryan got on his face every time he threw a good pass.

Our team won the game, and even though I was happy for Ryan, it proved to be just as unexciting for me as I thought it would be. Pretty much the only good thing I got from going was hearing an interesting conversation between Becky, Ryan, and Mike. I was about to go home when Becky asked Ryan about the dance, and I couldn’t help but listen.

“Are you riding in the limo with us tonight?” she asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” Ryan replied.

“Who are you going with, anyway?”

“I’m actually dateless tonight.”

“You’re going stag? Why?”

“Well, I knew how much Mike wanted to go with you, so I took one for the team.” The flirty little “Aw” he got from Becky made me want to puke, but it was worth it to see the look on her face when Mike said, “Plus, he wanted to take Jamie, but she turned him down.” I couldn’t tell if Becky looked disgusted or insulted, but she didn’t try to hide her horror as she gasped, “You asked
Jamie Baker
to homecoming?”

I waited for Ryan to deny it or defend himself with some BS excuse about feeling bad for me or something, but he didn’t. He just smiled as he slumped his shoulders in a guilty shrug and said, “Twice actually. But don’t worry, she told me to get lost.”

“Yeah, rejected him like he was a fat guy in a Speedo,” Mike added, laughing hysterically as he elbowed Ryan.

Becky was far too concerned for her friend to share Mike’s laughter. “You’re not seriously trying to hook up with that girl, are you?”

“I don’t know, maybe. I think I’m still trying to decide if she would be worth the hassle.” I answered “No” every bit as forcefully as Becky did, and, sadly, our depictions of me weren’t that different. Basically, she said I was a freak with issues, but in not such nice words. She was right, though, and Mike seemed to agree, but Ryan defended me. Well, sort of. “I’m sure there’s a decent human being buried under all that hostility somewhere,” he said.

“Are you kidding?” Becky asked.

“Nope,” he replied cheerfully. “I think she may have a bit of a soft spot for me too. Why else would she have kissed me like that? I bet I could break her down eventually.” That cocky little…

I thought about smacking him upside the head for that—I’m fast enough that he’d never know what hit him. But on second thought, the boy did get me to kiss him, invite him home, and go to my first football game in more than a year, without even breaking a sweat.

Apparently I had quite the little crush, and as I stood there asking myself what was with me and quarterbacks, Becky went all soap opera with a big cheesy sigh. “Oh, Ryan,” she said, shaking her head as if she were so much older and wiser than him. “You want my advice? Stay far, far away. Not only would she kill your reputation, but you could do so much better.”

“I don’t know, man,” Mike disagreed. “I say go for it. Jamie Baker’s hot and basically impossible to crack. If you could get with her, you’d be a legend around this place.” That was the point in the conversation where I started to get mad. It wasn’t the fact that Mike was telling Ryan he should nail me for bragging rights, but Ryan laughed with him about it, which meant he either liked the idea of nailing me, or the idea of being revered as some sort of high school god for it.

Knowing him? Both.

Whatever the reason, I’d learned my lesson. Ryan Miller might be charming, but he certainly would not be “breaking me down” anytime soon.

I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of that conversation. I was angry, so I went somewhere I could think in peace. There are a lot of spots in the country that work well for that, and this time I went with the Grand Canyon. I like it there because even though it gets a lot of foot traffic, it’s big enough that I can still find a spot far enough off the beaten path that I don’t have to hear tourists the whole time. Plus, the beauty of the Grand Canyon at sunset makes it hard for me to stay in a bad mood, and I was especially grumpy now.

I don’t know what made me think Ryan was different. I should have known by the sheer fact that he was charming enough to break me. He was just like any other hormonal high school boy on the planet, only he was better at playing the game, which made him dangerous.

I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up in the first place. It’s not like I could ever tell him the truth about myself, and I can’t exactly be his girlfriend when I have to constantly lie to him about myself.

Apparently, I can’t even kiss him, so it’s not like he would stick around long even if I could be honest.

I sat there thinking for a long time, long after the sun went down. When I finally decided to go home, I told myself there would be no more wasting any energy on Ryan Miller. Of course, it took me almost as long to tell myself I wouldn’t think about him anymore as it did to get home, and the stupid boy was at my house when I got there, so I kept my promise to myself for only like half a second.

I heard his laugh from down the street and stopped dead in my tracks. It was just after nine thirty now, so theoretically he could have been there for half an hour already, and judging from the conversation he was having with my parents, he probably had been. The picture he was laughing at was the last one taken of me before my accident, and knowing my mother, she started with the baby pictures.

“She’s a beauty queen too?” Ryan asked, full of surprise, and then giggled as he read the title.

“Miss Sweet Corn?”

“You laugh, young man,” I heard my mother say, “but that’s a big deal in Illinois. People come from all over the Midwest to go to that festival, and Jamie worked very hard to win that crown.”

“And she looked every bit as beautiful as her mother did when she won the crown in high school,” my father added. I didn’t need supersight to see the proud look on his face; he was always looking at my mom that way.

It got quiet for a second, and I thought about interrupting the party, but then Ryan said something that made me stop. “She looked so happy,” he said in this really pensive voice. “What happened to her?

How come she’s not like this anymore?”

I wanted to run inside and put a stop to this invasion of privacy, but my mom answered his question before I could make myself open the door. “Jamie was in a car accident.” Car accident isn’t exactly the right term for what happened, but it still cut through my heart.

Painful memories flooded my mind as my mom continued her very watered-down explanation. “Her boyfriend was killed,” she said hesitantly.

If Ryan reacted to the news at all, he didn’t do it vocally. He didn’t make a single sound. I wish I could have seen the look on his face or known what assumptions he was making as he tried to justify the way I act, but I could hardly breathe, much less keep myself composed.

“Jamie won’t talk about it much,” my father said. “The accident changed her, and she’s had a really hard time dealing with it. She blames herself.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. They may as well have told him I was now a superpowered freak. How could they be so cavalier about it? What if he started asking questions they didn’t have answers for?

“We moved here, hoping that a fresh start might help,” my mom explained, breaking the awful silence that was now in the house. “But she’s just not the same girl anymore. She won’t get close to anyone. In fact, I’m really surprised she invited you over. You must be pretty special.” As angry as I was, I was kind of relieved to hear the hint of a laugh in Ryan’s response. “Not special, just stubborn,” he said. “I think she only caved because she thought I wouldn’t come. Tonight’s the homecoming dance.”