Cherry (34 page)

ALEX
was actually, technically, and completely about to run out of chances.

This was it.

Today, Friday, May 15, was the last official qualifying track meet of her high school career. It was time to “go big or go home.” Well, realistically, Alex was going to have to go home either way, but hopefully it wouldn't be empty-­handed.

Either way she knew it would be a relief. For so long she'd felt as if she had been carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Since the first day of her life, she'd been carrying part of Max and all of the things her parents had hoped for him. As she grew up, she held on to the way people looked at her. With all her speed, she'd convinced herself that she was capable of outrunning her baggage and leaving it behind her in the dust. But that wasn't what she had been doing at all. She wasn't actually leaving anything behind. Instead
she was still forcing herself to carry it all with her. Now she could see the difference between what she had and what she actually needed. It would've been too simple and trite to say that it was because of Joey—or because of the way she felt about him—or even the way he felt about her. That would've given him far too much credit and power. She knew he never would've accepted a compliment like that anyway, but she also knew that something real had happened between them. It felt so right, and they just fit together so well, that she didn't have to carry any of it. It was just there all on its own. And it was exactly what she needed.

Every track meet of her high school career Alex would stand on the same spot on the track and take a minute to visualize the race before it began. For the past few months she'd been standing in that spot trying to convince herself that she could break the record. Today, she knew that whether she broke it or not, she was going to run the race in a way it had never been run before. She was going to do her best no matter what the outcome.

As Yoda liked to say: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Today, Alex knew she wasn't trying. She was doing. She wasn't worrying. She was being. She was alive and completely in the moment . . . but she couldn't help but think that the moment would be even better and sweeter and more complete if Joey had been there too.

And then . . . there he was.

Standing on the track in front of her as if he'd just appeared out of nowhere. But he hadn't, of course. He'd bought a plane ticket and flown from Oakland to Burbank.
And Zoe had picked him up at the airport in his Ford Explorer and driven him to the track.

“You're a dream,” she said as soon as he finished the explanation.

“And you're the most real,” he said with a seemingly endless smile.

It might've been the best compliment Alex had ever received in her entire life. And this might've been one of the best moments of her entire life. She loved Joey, and he loved her, and at the very same time they both just said, “I know.”

“Okay, cool.” Alex smiled. “Now I'm gonna go do this thing.”

“You got this.”

And Alex knew that she did.

But.

She didn't break the record.

She won the track meet as she had so many times before.

And she was the fastest runner on the entire track.

But, it still wasn't enough.

Alex felt like a giant failure. And there was nothing she hated more than that feeling. It stung. And it sucked.
So much.
But the world kept spinning, and Alex didn't fall apart. Coach K insisted that all of the seniors take a victory lap around the track. Alex led the pack. A few months ago Alex might've said this last lap was just a consolation prize, but she knew now that the journey to get here—all the hours of practice and beads of sweat—was the real victory.

It wasn't until a couple hours later, sometime between
dinner with her family and ending up watching a movie on the couch in Zoe and Joey's guesthouse that Alex realized what her buddy Yoda really meant when he said “Do or do not. There is no try.” He wasn't saying that it was impos­sible to try, or that it wasn't worth trying . . . he was saying that trying
is
doing. Of course, you had to do whatever the “it” was in the right way. You had to try with every ounce of yourself, but if you did that—if you whole-­heartedly tried—then that was doing, too.

Alex could not have trained harder.

At least for now, for this moment, this really was the absolute best she could do.

And the truth was, she loved herself more in the midst of this supposed failure than she ever had before. Alex's thoughts drifted to her sex dream and Cameron and summer camp and then high school and the pact . . . at first she thought she'd been waiting to have sex until she felt the right way about another boy . . . and then she felt like she was supposed to do it together with friends . . . and both of those things could still possibly be true, but now Alex knew that what she had
really
been waiting for was the opportunity to feel that way about
herself
.

Joey made her feel like herself without even trying.

There was that “try” word again.

Even though she understood what Yoda meant, she also knew that trying to have sex wasn't the same as actually having sex. Not technically, not completely, not at all. And even though there was a time when
she
thought and wished that Cameron had been her first, clearly God or the
universe or whatever was in charge had other plans.

And those plans led her to this moment.

To this couch.

With Joey and Zoe.

After a little while, Zoe's phone buzzed. It was a text from Dylan. “I'm gonna go talk to my
boyfriend
,” she said. “Have fun with yours . . .”

It was only after Zoe left that Alex realized that she and Joey hadn't been alone together since their all-night make-out session almost six weeks ago.

They wasted absolutely no time and picked up exactly where they left off . . . but then this time all their kisses turned into so much more than that.

This time would be Alex's first time.

Technically.

Actually.

Completely.

Joey was on top, and Alex's shoes were on the floor next to the couch, and he knew to put a towel down underneath them, and she had a smile on her face the entire time—even when it got awkward and she wasn't sure where to put her hips and he wasn't sure where to put his hands—and she couldn't stop staring into his eyes, and he looked right back at her the very same way, and it was all sort of sexy and fun and—most of all—magnetic.

“Yes,” Joey said afterward. He was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling. Alex was curled on her side next to him. He turned his head to look at her. “You . . . ,” he started sweetly, but something about the sound of the word
made Alex roll her eyes. “Oh, stop with that eye roll . . . you don't even know what the end of my sentence is going to sound like yet.”

“Something about the way I look right now? The beauty of it all?”

“The beauty of it all has absolutely nothing to do with the way you look,” Joey insisted. “You're gorgeous, Alex. Deal with it. But that's not . . . I think your looks pale in comparison to the way your soul feels when I look at you.”

She felt Joey's words all over her body . . . and deep inside, too.

No one had ever talked about Alex's soul before, but she appreciated it more than any other compliment she'd ever received.

Afterward, Alex went into the bathroom to pee and wash up . . . and then she took a moment to look at herself in the mirror. She couldn't help but think that it may have been the first time she'd ever really seen herself in her entire life. Or maybe it was the first time she'd seen herself the way she'd always wanted to. Either way she snapped a sexie. And sent it to The Chat.

  *  *  *  

ZOE
had been expecting the picture, but it still made her groan into her phone.

“What?” Dylan asked.

Brotherfucker
, Zoe texted back to Alex and The Chat.

She added a smiley face to make sure the girls knew she was joking.

Well.

She wasn't
joking
,
that was a totally accurate description of the situation, but she wanted to make sure the girls knew she wasn't mad about it.

“Are you texting?” Dylan asked.

“Yes. Sorry. The girls . . .” Zoe realized that in order to explain Alex's sexie, she would have to tell Dylan about the pact. So she did. She explained everything. “So that might explain the time you called and I was . . .” She knew he knew exactly what she was talking about. The now infamous phone call.

“Yeah . . . So. Would you now?” Dylan asked quietly.

“Would I now
what
?” Zoe was pretty sure she knew what he meant, but if Dylan wanted it to happen she was going to make him say it out loud.

“Would you . . . I mean . . . Do you want to touch yourself?”

“Only if you tell me where,” Zoe said rather boldly. She could feel her entire face and all of its redness. And her entire body and all of its 
everything
as their conversation got sexy and intimate in a way it never had before . . .

The girls had all told Zoe (and she'd also read it in Layla's Sex Doc) that the key to having an orgasm was foreplay and she realized as their conversation turned ­sexual, that she and Dylan had effectively been
foreplaying
on the phone for almost four years. They'd had so many conversations and had spent so much time talking and laughing and flirting (even when they were supposedly just friends) that now, as they talked about how
hard
or
fast
or
slow
to touch themselves and exactly where and
how they wanted to touch
each other
, it wasn't much of a surprise that all of it finally—
FINALLY
—erupted into Zoe's first orgasm.

It was more than worth the wait.

And it really did feel an awful lot like fireworks.

LAYLA
, as always, sat at their usual table in the back corner of The Bigg Chill.

But.

For the first time ever.

Layla was the only member of The Crew who showed up to Sunday froyo.

Occasionally, one of the girls would be late. More rarely, someone might decide not to come at all if they were sick or had too much homework or something like that. But this had never happened before.

There's a first time for everything
, Layla thought.

She briefly considered texting The Chat to check in on everyone, maybe they were all just coincidentally running late, but ultimately Layla decided against it. She knew where everybody was. It had been a big week. First, Emma had asked Savannah to prom. She'd printed a whole photo album and presented it to her as a gift, along with
a handwritten letter. Of course Savannah said yes. Then, Dylan had asked Zoe to prom. He decided to go as big as he possibly could with it and asked her to be his date with a sign on the Jumbotron at Dodger Stadium. He knew Zoe had been insecure about his feelings for her and him showing them off in public and everything, so he decided to ask her to prom in the most pubic place possible. Of course Zoe said yes too. And then finally, just two days ago, Joey had flown down from college and surprised Alex at her track meet, which he knew was so much more important to her than prom.

Now, Alex was with Joey.

Zoe was with Dylan.

Emma was with Savannah.

And Layla was here.

By herself.

But she didn't cry, even though for a moment she thought she might. And she didn't even
really
feel sad. It felt like Layla knew this was going to happen, sooner rather than later. Not that she would've imagined
this
exactly. This aloneness. Not that she would've planned it this way. But something about the timing and the truth of it all seemed to make sense to her.

The Crew would always be friends.

Best friends
.

But being best friends and being “together” would not always mean the same thing as it did right now.

It wasn't until later,
hours
later, that Alex, Zoe, and Emma realized what had happened. Layla was right. Alex
was with Joey. Zoe was with Dylan. And Emma with Savannah. They all knew they weren't going to make it to froyo, but they each thought that they'd be the only one. They didn't realize that all three of them had the same no-show plan. And none of them texted The Chat, even though they probably all should've . . . and so, as soon as they could, Zoe and Emma and Alex showed up at Layla's front door.

Almost immediately after that all four of the girls ended up on Layla's trampoline. It was quiet for a while. No one knew quite what to say as the trampoline swayed softly beneath them.

“Layla,” Alex started, trying to find the right way to apologize.

“I am so sorry,” Zoe said, already looking like she might cry.

“Guys . . . ,” Layla said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. “It's okay. Really.”

“No, it is not,
really
 . . . ,” Emma said.

“I know you've all been busy . . . with the boys or the girl.”

“Yeah, but . . . ,” Emma said. “That shouldn't be more important than
this
 . . .”

“It's
not
more important,” Alex insisted.

“Not at all!” Zoe added.

“I know, I know,” Layla said

“Like, all those other people—
any
other people—they just don't even compare—”

“Emma, stop—”

“
No, you stop. They're all important, yes, but this isn't about them. Or at least it shouldn't be. Everyone else in the entire world is orbiting in an entirely different universe than we are. There's just no contest.”