Ex-Factor (Diamond Girls) (11 page)

Erin rolled her lips together after applying a fresh coat of gloss, then found my gaze in the mirror and proceeded to drop a bomb on me. “So, I’m thinking it’s time to take my relationship with Eli to the next level. I’m gonna… I’m gonna have sex with him tonight after the dance.”

Holy hell.
My eyes grew wide, and I stood quiet for a moment, unable to find my words. Part of me had feared this was coming, especially after her worried text earlier. Erin was smart and had a good head on her shoulders, but she was also a girl, and we girls tended to do stupid things when in love. And Erin, in my opinion, was head-over-heels in love with Eli.

“Jesus, Erin,” Claire snapped. “I can’t believe you just said that out loud.” She glanced over her shoulder and frowned. “And in a crowded girls’ bathroom, no less. Now everyone is going to know.” She gave me a hard look and jabbed a finger toward Erin. “Say something, Nev. Please. Help me talk her out of this. Tell her what a bad idea it is to get sexy with jerky Slut Boy.”

Erin’s expression turned grim, and she poked Claire in the sternum with the tip of her nail. “Stop it right now, C. I mean it. You are in no position to lecture me about sex. I seem to recall a certain horny exchange student popping your cherry last year.”

Claire crossed her arms over her chest and sucked in a shocked “how could you” breath. “Those were extenuating circumstances, Erin, and you know it. Finn Grueger was mega hot, and he was leaving. You know my weakness for hot guys with accents, especially Australian.”

Their heated squabble in forced, tense whispers temporarily faded away as reality hit me.
This is it
. Claire had publicly denounced Erin’s over-sexed love interest. She’d called him out as a slut and a jerk first, which meant, technically, it was safe for me to agree. I could finally tell my sweet new friend what I thought of her obnoxious love interest, and hoped in doing so she’d reconsider her decision and opt to keep her cherry intact.

“Okay, enough you two,” I said, stepping between Claire and Erin. I glanced toward Tayla, then nodded toward the small cluster of freshman girls crowded in front of the other sink and mirror, hoping she’d take the hint and clear them out.

With a roll of her eyes and a scowl, she ushered the jabbering group of girls from the room, ignoring their high-pitched and whiny protests. “I’ll try to keep people out as long as I can, but try to be quick,” she hollered before stepping through the door and closing it behind her.

I grasped Erin by the shoulders and spun her around to face me. “Hey,” I said, searching her eyes. “Have you thought this plan through? I mean, really thought about it? Because with sex, there’s no going back. Once your virginity is gone, it’s gone forever. No take backs. No do overs.”

“Exactly,” Claire piped in. “Do you really want your first time to be with the biggest man whore in school?”

“Oh, my God, Claire,” Erin shouted. “Enough! Things are different now. Eli’s different. He’s through with trolling for tail and wants to settle. He said he’s been looking for ‘the one’ and he thinks I may be it for him.”

My stomach rolled as I thought back to my conversation with Eli before the game earlier. He’d straight up told me he’d been looking for “the one” while flirting with me. The creep was totally lying to her in a pitiful attempt to get her to sleep with him.
Dog!

Claire slapped her forehead with a groan then gripped the side of the shiny porcelain sink alongside us, only to push off of it in apparent anger seconds later. “Oh, my dear God!” She raised her hands above her head and shook them about wildly. “And you believe his bullshit?” She shook her head and glanced down at the slate-gray flooring before eyeing Erin with concern. “I can’t do this. I can’t. I’ve kept my mouth closed where Eli is concerned out of respect for our friendship, but enough is enough. I can’t keep quiet any longer.”

She stormed over to the exit and turned to face us, hand gripping the door handle. “You’re gonna be pissed at me for saying this, but I don’t care. Eli is a total douche, and sleeping with that creep will be the biggest mistake you’ll ever make. Seriously, Erin. If you go there with him, you will regret it.” With a sigh and a scowl, she tugged open the door and disappeared into the horde of pissy teenage girls who’d been impatiently waiting to get into the bathroom.

“Hey!” one girl called out over her shoulder. “There’s no flood in here. What the hell?”

In no hurry to share my thoughts with anyone but Erin, I grabbed her by the wrist and led her out of the bustling restroom, grabbing a handful of brown paper towels on the way out. The rough towels tended to chafe and reminded me of brown paper bags, but would serve to soak up the spattering of tears currently running down her face.

I’d no clue where Tayla or Claire had gone, and had only a vague recollection of the layout of the gym. Careful to keep to the shadows so no one would see Erin upset and crying, I led my friend out a set of double doors into a dark, empty hallway.

“Here.” I handed her the paper towels.

Sniffling, she took the industrial tissue and dabbed at her cheeks. “I don’t understand why Claire is so mad at me. I just…”

“Claire’s just trying to be a friend,” I said, taking a seat against the wall. The tile floor felt cool against my legs. The loud music from the gym pounded a steady, muffled beat through the nearby doors. “She’s trying to look out for you.”

“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” Erin slid down the wall and sat beside me, expression grim. “I don’t know what to do, Nev.” She sniffled. “I think…” She shook her head. “No. I know I love him. And I know he has feelings for me.” She turned her body toward me, the weight of her stare a heavy burden on my already tired shoulders. “I’m scared he’ll lose interest, or get bored if I don’t show him how I feel. What should I do?”

She stared at me as though she was suffocating, and I held the last bit of oxygen in the room. I knew what I had to tell her, what I should tell her. Eli was a player who’d repeatedly propositioned me since the day I’d started school. He was working her hard, playing with her emotions in hopes of getting into her pants. I also knew if I was too blunt with my answer, I’d crush her. Real friends were a rare thing in my world. I wasn’t about to destroy the first true friend I’d come across in ages. I went with Plan B.

“My mom’s in a special home.”

Throwing the crazy card into a conversation tended to shock people into silence.

Erin sat back and scrunched up her nose, confusion painted clear as day across her face. “Your mom’s… wait. What?”

It was now or never. I hadn’t told Erin—or anyone other than my aunt and Livvie, for that matter—the reasons surrounding my transfer into Grant High. My past, my reality was a tangled mess of loss, anger, and despair I spoke of only when forced to by my therapist. That being said, if what I was about to say would make her think twice about sleeping with Eli, then I was all for sharing. My therapist was always telling me how cathartic it is to purge myself of the past. Maybe this would help me too.

“My mom has early-onset Alzheimer’s. She hasn’t been able to take care of herself for a few years now, and she doesn’t know who I am.”

Erin gaped at me in silence, the familiar look of pity most people wore when they learned about my mother shining clear as day behind her blue eyes. Her lower lip quivered—which wasn’t a huge thing; she’d already been crying—and she clutched her T-shirt at her chest. “God, Nev. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.” She hesitated for a minute, then searched my eyes, clearly confused. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but what does your mom have to do with me and Eli?”

Here goes nothing.

“My mother was my world.” I felt my breath catch, the familiar lump that always formed in my throat both present and accounted for. I ignored the heavy weight that threatened to crush my lungs and pressed on. “I spent most of my childhood in a gym. Kids who train at an elite level tend to homeschool, which was the case with me. I didn’t have friends outside the gym. It was always just me and my mom. She taught me. She carted me around to all my practices and meets. She was my best friend.”

Erin shook her head. “What about your dad? Where was he?”

A nervous chuckle escaped before I could stop it, and the floor began to sway beneath my butt. I closed my eyes for a moment and focused on my breathing, willing myself to calm down. “My dad spent most of his time working to pay for my sport.”

Erin mouthed a silent “oh” and nodded. Cheer was expensive, and I could only assume her dad spent most of his time working to pay for her passion, as well. Either that, or her family was independently wealthy or had a money tree growing in their back yard.

I cleared my throat, desperate to finish this painful conversation as quickly as possible. “Anyway, I kind of lost it when we had to move her to the home. Everything I’d ever known had changed, disappeared. My dad enrolled me in public school, and things just spiraled from there. I quit going to gym, started hanging out with the wrong crowd, and well, uh, that’s when I met him.”

Erin narrowed her brows and tucked her knees into her chest. “Him?”

“Nate Lansing.” His name tasted like bitter poison on my tongue, and I fought the urge to wretch for having dared spoken it aloud. “He was, I mean is, a year older than me. He was über hot, loved to party, and being with him, well, it made me forget about missing my mom. I lost all sense of reason when I was with him, became irrational—stupid.”

Images of the past flashed behind my eyes. Nate’s house. The goddamn basement with the raggedy couches and ugly green blankets, the raging parties, and the constant flow of booze.

I shook my head, the lump in my throat threatening to choke the life out of me. There was no need to reveal what a total jerk I’d been just a short time ago. My point could be made well enough without sharing all of my demons. “Long story short, he fed me a crap story about how I was his ‘special girl’ and how we had a ‘deep connection’ he’d never experienced before. I handed my virginity to him on a silver platter, and the douche broke up with me a week later.”

“Jerk,” Erin whispered, grim-faced.

“That’s putting it mildly,” I said. “I later found out he’d been sticking it to some other girl the entire time he’d been schmoozing me.”

Erin shook her head and swiped a wayward tear from her cheek. Her porcelain skin was blotchy and red, and she fanned her face in a desperate attempt to cool herself off. “So you’re saying you think Eli is playing me? That I shouldn’t move forward with him—have sex?”

I leaned forward a bit and chose my words carefully. Telling her the guy of her dreams was an impossible flirt and a player was one thing. Revealing he’d been chatting me up behind her back and I’d failed to tell her was another. I’d been tight-lipped to protect her feelings and maintain our new friendship. Regardless, I was fairly certain that if she found out I’d kept Eli’s flirtation from her this long, she’d get mad, or even worse, drop me as a friend. I couldn’t let that happen.

Jaw tight, I grasped her hands and squeezed while looking her straight in the eye. “What I’m saying is that the decision to have sex with someone is huge. It’s not like trying to decide what to have for breakfast. You know what I’m sayin’?”

Erin nodded, her expression sober and thoughtful.

“Look,” I said with a sigh, hating the fact that I was about to tell her a half-truth. “I’ve only been at Grant for a few weeks. And while Eli seems like a friendly enough guy”—
ugh, total lie—
”he does kinda project a player vibe.”
That’s putting it mildly
.
“
And I’m not gonna lie. I’ve heard some pretty detailed rumors about his past, and all the girls he’s been with. Is that the kind of guy you want to be with? Are you sure he’s past all that?”
I’m sure as hell not.

Erin sniffled, then rested her chin on her knees. “I don’t know. I think so. He’s so… God, Nev, he’s just so sweet when we’re together. He holds actual conversations with me, seems genuinely interested in what I’m saying. And holy hell, the boy can kiss. My skin lights up every time he gets near me. I’ve never felt such an intense attraction for a boy before. That’s got to mean something, right?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I lied. In truth, I was pretty sure hormones could jack up your perception and make you believe things that weren’t necessarily true. I’d watched enough daytime talk shows to know girls associated sex with love and boys, well, they just liked sex and would take it any way they could get it. Even if it meant allowing the girl they were with to believe they were in love with them. That had certainly been the case with me and Nate, and I felt sick just thinking about it.

“I just know I’d hate to see you go through what I did. I was pretty damn sure about Nate, and he ended up destroying me.”
In more ways than one.
“And seriously, you shouldn’t give yourself to Eli out of fear he’ll lose interest. If that’s the kind of guy he is, you don’t want to have sex with him. If he thinks you’re the one, if he knows it deep down, he’ll wait until you’re ready, and he won’t make you feel bad about it either.”

Erin sat quietly for a moment, as if deep in thought, then pressed her lips together and nodded. “Thanks, Nev.”

I winced on the inside, sad that Eli was playing her, and disgusted with myself for not being one hundred percent truthful. The entire situation couldn’t be over soon enough as far as I was concerned. “I didn’t really do anything,” I said, pulling myself up to my feet. I glanced over my shoulder toward the double doors leading into the gym, hopeful, oddly enough, that Erin would be ready to brave the dance, thus putting an end to this awkward conversation.

Erin was on her feet and drawing me into a tight embrace before I knew what was happening. “Yeah, you did. You talked to me without yelling, and you shared a tough part of your past. That helped a lot. Gave me a lot to think about.” She pulled a mirror from her bag and huffed at her appearance, quickly doing what I could only assume she thought was damage control. Erin had nothing to worry about. Even after a serious bout of tears, she looked fabulous.