Cherry (26 page)

“Might as well shoot for the stars, I guess,” she'd said to the girls at lunch a few days earlier. She was doing her very best to find the bright side and trust that things happened for a reason and all of that, but right now even the stars felt like they were tainted. Logan always said he loved her to the moon and back. And they'd spent oh-so-many hours out on her trampoline staring up at the moon and the stars, and she hated that even as she was talking about other boys, other boys she genuinely wanted to kiss, her thoughts were still drifting back to Logan . . .

“It'd be weird if you
weren't
thinking about him,” Emma said.

“I'm not even thinking about
him
,” Layla had tried to explain. “But he basically ruined all the stars so that's annoying.”

“Okay, no,” Alex said, her voice sounding way too reasonable for Layla's liking. “Let's not give him that much power. Or
any
power . . .”

Easier said than done, Layla had thought, but she trusted her girls, and also the power of step-by-step instructions, so she started at the top of her kiss list and texted Wyatt, and that's how she ended up sitting next to him near the edge of the Venice Beach skate park after school on Thursday.

“You
sure
I can't get you on a board?” Wyatt asked.

“
Positive. Not happening. But it's cute of you to ask.”

Layla wasn't sure she remembered how to flirt, but she was trying. Actually calling him cute seemed far too obvious, but he really
was
cute. And adorable. And uncomplicated. Right now Layla appreciated that about him most of all. There was so much complication with Logan, so much Layla didn't understand and couldn't quite explain. It was nice to sit with Wyatt and not be confused. He was attractive, and she was attracted to him. And that was it.

Wyatt was playful with his kisses, and Layla liked that.

A lot.

The only thing that Layla didn't like about Wyatt's kisses was that she couldn't stop comparing them to Logan's. She tried to cut herself some slack, considering how many thousands of kisses Logan had pressed onto her lips compared to these very first few she was now sharing with Wyatt, but she didn't like that she could still somehow
feel
Logan's kisses even though it was Wyatt's tongue inside her mouth.

And then she couldn't stop thinking about Vanessa's tongue.

And what her tongue might've felt like inside Logan's mouth.

And whether or not Logan had thought about
her
lips when Vanessa's lips were pressed up against his.

And despite the distractions and unhelpful thoughts swirling around in her head, Layla kept kissing Wyatt . . . but it felt far more like the end of a chapter than a new beginning.

ZOE
heard all of Layla's words, but she did not understand them.

“What do you mean you're
done
?” she asked sharply.

“Okay, ‘done' is maybe the wrong word,” Layla backtracked. She pushed some of the lettuce from her half-eaten salad back and forth with her plastic fork as the girls sat around their lunch table. It was a Friday, the last day of school before spring break, and tensions seemed to be running high. “I just . . . ,” Layla tried again. “I guess maybe I'm just trying to say that I don't think it's going to happen.”

“Well, I didn't either at first.” Zoe smiled. “I'm sure you'll figure it out.”

But Zoe's certainty withered as she saw a gloss wash over Layla's eyes . . .

“I don't know,” Layla said. “It doesn't feel like it's gonna work without Logan.”

“Is it too soon to say it didn't exactly work
with
Logan either?”
Alex said, which made Emma and Zoe giggle—while Layla, noticeably, did not.

Zoe got the sinking feeling that it really
was
too soon. Or maybe too late. Or both.

“Sorry, Lay,” Alex added quickly when she saw that Layla was actually upset.

“It's okay . . . ,” Layla said meekly.

“Of course it's okay,” Zoe insisted. “You've still got four more names on the kiss list. And it's not like that bullet point disappeared or anything. It's still there. There's still a due date and everything. All of the things. It's all still happening . . .”

Zoe was expecting a “right” out of Layla, even if only a tepid one . . .

. . . but instead she just got a short, clipped exhale.

And Zoe did not like the sound of it one bit.

It was off-putting and out of character and it made the little red, frizzy hairs on the back of Zoe's neck stand up straight. “Unless . . . ,” Zoe started again slowly, “ . . . ‘done' simply means you're
done
 . . . and then that's it.”

“Well that's not
exactly
what I'm saying . . . ,” Layla attempted to explain, but Zoe had heard enough. Now she really felt like an idiot. An absolute mess of a human. All of a sudden Zoe remembered the feeling she got the first time Layla had smiled at her about the pact as they sat at their table at The Bigg Chill. Right now, in this moment, she felt exactly the opposite. She could also feel a dark pit growing inside her stomach as if she already knew what Layla was going to say next. Zoe was
furious
.
She went from zero to livid in no time flat.

“That sucks,” Zoe spit out with more bite in her voice than she'd anticipated.

Zoe realized that it might've sound off-putting to Emma and Alex, as if her fervor had come out of nowhere, but Zoe could feel Layla abandoning the pact and The Crew and maybe even her, too, even though she hadn't quite said that yet . . . and she hated all of it.

“I'm just trying to be honest,” Layla said, which pissed Zoe off even more.

“Thank you, Layla, I
really
super appreciate your ­honesty . . .”

“Wait, what's happening?” Emma asked as her eyes darted back and forth between Zoe and Layla.

“Yeah. I think I missed something,” Alex added. Her eyes were darting too.

Layla and Zoe were still stuck in a silent stalemate.

Zoe didn't want to have to be the one to say it out loud, but she couldn't stand it anymore. “Layla is quitting the pact.”

“No, she's not . . . ,” Alex said.

“She is. She just said she doesn't want to do it,” Zoe exclaimed.

“It's not that I don't
want
to—” Layla tried to speak up.

“Right, sorry,
Logan
doesn't want to, so Layla couldn't possibly—”

“Hey, Zoe . . . ,” Emma spoke up, trying to lower the temperature.

“Sorry, but this is bullshit,” Zoe said to Emma before turning back to Layla. “I'm
sorry you and Logan broke up, but that doesn't mean you just have to give up on us, too . . .”

“I am not
giving up
—on anything—but can we be real clear for a minute? Logan dumped
me
. If it was up to me, we'd still be together.”

“Yeah, but you probably
still
wouldn't've had sex with him anyway . . .”

“That's a low blow, Zoe,” Layla said, raising her voice for the first time.

“I'm sorry, but I thought this was about us, all of us together. Or
together
together. Or whatever it was supposed to be . . . now I'm realizing that maybe this was just about Logan the whole time. Did you ever even care about the pact?”

“Of course I did! Zoe, you're being ridiculous!”

“Being ‘done' is ridiculous!”

“I don't want to do this if I can't do it right.”

“What does that even mean?
Right?
” Zoe asked, reaching a fever pitch.

“I don't know! I don't know what it means—but I know it's a problem! So I'm trying to tell you how I feel—or that I don't know how I feel—and apparently none of that is allowed . . .”

“Just do whatever you want, Layla,” Zoe fumed. “Clearly, I can't make you do anything you don't want to do.”

“Did I make
you
do something you didn't want to do?”

“No—”

“'Cause if you didn't want to sleep with Austin—”

“I never said that!”

“—you shouldn'
t have slept with Austin—”

“I'm not talking about Austin! I'm talking about you, Layla. You're giving up . . .”

“I tried, Zoe! I tried with Logan, I just tried with Wyatt . . .”

“Oh, okay . . .”

“Do you think I didn't? What else am I supposed to do?”

“Try again! Try harder! Eat pizza. Whatever! Just don't be a hypocrite.”

“How about if you try not to be an asshole?”

“Fuck you, Layla,” Zoe snapped.

“Should I just
pretend
I'm still in? Will that make you feel better?”

“Don't do me any favors.”

“I feel like that's exactly what you're asking for—”

“It's not, I swear—”

“Good, because this isn't just a favor. This is a big, huge deal.”

“I know
exactly
what it is, Layla. I'm the one that's actually had sex.” It wasn't just what Zoe said, but also the way she said it, the harsh tone in her voice—and all the honesty behind it—that seemed to hurt Layla so much.

And Zoe felt how mean her words were before they even came all the way out of her mouth, but it was too late for her to take them back.

And Layla didn't say anything else.

She couldn't.

Instead, she just got up and walked away.

The silence in The Chat was deafening.

It had been seven days, and still no one had texted The Chat since Layla and Zoe's fight at lunch. None of the girls had anything to say. Or maybe they all just had
too much
to say. Whatever the problem was exactly, no one seemed to know how to fix it, which had resulted in a week of complete radio silence, which was insane, considering the longest Chat silence before this one couldn't've been longer than a day or two.

The fact that it was spring break wasn't exactly helping the situation, because it meant that they weren't forced to see each other.

Or maybe the break was actually just giving the girls the time and space that they needed.

Or something.

Still nothing.

Three more days. Seventy-two more hours. And still—
still—
no one had texted The Chat, which now brought the grand total of nothingness up to ten days.

  *  *  *  

EMMA
had spent all ten of those days without cell phone service.

She'd gone camping at the national parks in Utah with her parents and sisters, but the truth was she probably wouldn't've texted anything anyway. She didn't know what to say.

  *  *  *  

ZOE
didn't know what to say either.

She'd spent the first week of spring break up in the Bay Area with her mom, visiting family. They went sightseeing, and she even got to hang out with Joey on campus. He took Zoe to her first frat party. Under normal circumstances, she would've
texted the girls all about it, but she felt like there was too much else she had to say first. She wanted to apolo­gize to Layla for some of her words at the lunch table, but she was still mad that Layla wanted to give up on the pact, and she didn't know where to start, so it all just amounted to more silence.

  *  *  *  

LAYLA
hated the sound of silence so
so
much.

Luckily, she'd had a bit of a distraction, as her family had rented a house in Santa Barbara for a week. They'd caught waves at the beach and played board games, and Layla had even managed to get a tan (and no tan lines), but it all felt like a bit of a consolation prize. The conversation had simply spiraled too far with Zoe, and Layla wished she could take back some of what she'd said, but she didn't know where to start either. Now that Layla was home, she couldn't help but miss Logan, and she missed the girls, too, and there was still another week until they'd all be back at school again.

Layla decided she needed a break from her spring break, and all the racing thoughts in her head, so she drove over to Alex's house after dinner Monday night.

  *  *  *  

ALEX
had spent all day every day of the first week of spring break on the track.

Meanwhile, Oliver had spent all night every night text­ing her—or more accurately
begging
her—for a naked picture, so she was doing her best to avoid her phone altogether.

But of course she was happy to hear from Layla, and glad to see her too, and the girls ended up on the lounge chairs in Alex's backyard, swapping stories about Layla's trip and Alex's track practices and how the closer she got to breaking the record, the farther away it actually felt.

Then, their thoughts and the conversation drifted to Zoe and the fight . . .

“Are you really done?” Alex asked, treading carefully.

Layla thought for a moment.

Alex wanted her to say no as much as she knew Zoe did, but she could see the hesitation all over Layla's face.

“I don't know.” Layla finally exhaled after a bit of time had passed. “It was my stupid idea in the first place.”

“Oh no. It is
not
a stupid idea. In fact, it might be the most brilliant idea you've ever had,” Alex teased, quoting Layla back to herself.

“Thanks,” Layla said softly.

“Hey. Don't do it if you don't want to, but don't
not
do it because of Logan.”