Singled Out (10 page)

“What’s that?”

“I signed you up for the SATs—second Saturday in December.”

I looked out at the long road ahead and nodded.

I
put my game face on first thing Monday morning. I was determined to accomplish two things by the end of the week: get an A on my upcoming quiz in Trig and find out what Sam Barrett had lied about. But I wasn’t going to let this second goal distract me from focusing on the first. Doing better at Hazelton was, after all, my last real shot at college.

I came up with a plan for taking Barrett by surprise. I conveniently picked up his sweatshirt that he had left on one of the gym benches, then waited for him outside after practice, assuming he would come back to look for it and, I hoped, return alone.

I stood at the end of the hall next to a faculty bathroom, which was always unlocked so I could use it after workouts. I heard him approaching, so I hung the sweatshirt on the doorknob, stepped inside the bathroom, and waited. When his footsteps were close, I swung the door open quickly and pulled him inside, using the arm of the sweatshirt.

“What the—?”

I slammed the door and flicked on the light, holding the sweatshirt hostage in my arms. “Sam, thanks for coming. Have a seat,” I said, pointing to the toilet.

He looked surprised, but at the same time sort of happy. He smiled at me. “Nah, I’m good,” he said, and remained
standing. “What’s going on, Dresden? I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“Frankly, I don’t, but my curiosity got the best of me. That’s why I arranged this little meeting.”

He looked around at the small, green-tiled bathroom. “Nice choice of venue.”

“Thanks. So spill it,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Spill what?” he asked.

“You said you would tell me the whole truth.”

“I believe I said I would tell you the whole truth if you agreed to let me tutor you in Trig,” he said.

“I appreciate the offer and the good will, and I understand you feel bad about drugging me and all, but I don’t need a tutor,” I said. “So I’ll just take the truth.”

He squinted and looked up, thinking. “Nah,” he said, “I still want to do the tutoring thing. It’s the least I can do.”

“Truth, Barrett,” I said, cracking my knuckles.

“Tutor,” he said in a teasing tone.

“Truth.” I was getting annoyed.

“You are a feisty one, aren’t you?” he asked with a smirk.

“Why do you care so much about tutoring me? Honestly, if this is a part of the great Statesmen’s plot to get me thrown out of here, you’re making it way too obvious.”

“I told you I’m not doing that stuff anymore,” he said as he stared down at his shoes, like a little boy put in the corner for a time-out.

“So you quit the group?”

“I can’t quit. They’d do worse to me than they want to do to you. No one has ever quit before. So I’ve just quit mentally.”

“Well, aren’t you the noble soldier?” I said.

“Listen, if I tell you the truth, then will you at least consider
letting me help you with Trig?”

“Okay, I’ll consider it,” I lied.

He looked around. “Could we at least walk outside?”

“Aren’t you afraid to be seen with me?”

“No. People will just assume I’m setting you up,” he said with a shrug.

“Right, including me.”

“Where’s the trust, Dresden?” He held up his arms like a suspect looking to get patted down.

“Uh, it was lost somewhere between the gym and your dorm room.”

He opened the door. “Shall we?” he said, gesturing and allowing me to go first.
All right, so maybe walking with him won’t hurt anything.
Besides, it was hard to resist his gorgeous stupid face smiling at me and his perfect hands holding open a door for me.

Man, I miss Justin. This being-mean-to-Sam thing would be so much easier if I still had a boyfriend around to keep my hormones in check. I’ll just try to picture Sam as what he is—an ugly pig.

It was cold that day, so there weren’t many people around when we got outside. The leaves were gone from the trees, and I quickly zipped up my fleece jacket, bracing myself for the wind.

He took off his knit hat. “You want this?”

I pushed his hand away. “No, stop trying to be nice to me,” I said. “I don’t like you, remember?”
Yeah, that’ll show him.

He put the hat back on. “Right, sorry.”

I decided to head back toward the Richards house, since it was my territory. “Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m all ears,” I said.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “So the truth is I do know who
drugged you.”

I knew it!
“Okay, so who was it?”

“My brother Ben. He slipped something into your soda can while you weren’t looking,” he said.
Wow, he’s throwing his own twin brother under the bus.

I remembered talking to Ben by the refreshment table that night.
That jerk!
He was acting like he was Mr. Nice Guy, and I even thought he might actually be hitting on me. I was such a fool. But all I said was, “Why?”

“Statesmen’s orders.”

“But I thought you were their leader,” I said, rubbing my temple.

“I am,” he said quickly.

“So whose idea was drugging me?”

“Tuttle’s.”

“Didn’t he have to okay it with you?”

“I wasn’t at that meeting. I pretended I had to see one of my teachers, so the decision was made by the second-in-command.”

“And that is?”

“My brother.”

“Okay, but you still knew about it, right?” I said.

“Not until that night,” he said, sounding sincere.

“And you didn’t try to stop it, did you?”

“By the time I found out, Ben had already slipped the stuff into your drink.” He stopped walking and turned. Looking me in the eye, he said, “I’m really sorry, Dresden. As soon as I knew, I followed you and made sure I got you out of there so they couldn’t complete the rest of their plan.”

I had to know. “What was the rest of the plan?”

“They were going to take some, uh, pictures of you.”

“Doing what?!”

“Let’s just say they wouldn’t make your parents too proud.”

I was fuming. “And then what?” I said. “They were going to show them to the school officials, or to students?”

“Anybody and everybody.”

This was definitely the last conversation I wanted to have with Sam Barrett. But I had to hear the rest. “Still listening,” I said coldly.

“Anyway, once he drugged you, I snuck out and followed you into the hall. After you passed out, I carried you back to my dorm. I sent a text to the guys saying you had managed to stumble back to Dr. Rich’s, and they called off the rest of the plan.”

We were standing in front of my Hazleton house. A few guys were looking at us from a distance. “Well, you’re quite the hero,” I said, my arms crossed tightly across my chest. I couldn’t get out of my head the image of him carrying me.

“I’m not asking for your gratitude here, Dresden. I’m apologizing for being involved at all. I know you probably think I’m a jackass, but I truly am sorry, and if there is anything I can do for you—”

I put up my hand. “Anything you can do for me? Anything you can do?” I said, raising my voice. I stepped up toward the door. “What you can do, Sam Barrett, is leave me alone.” I climbed the first step to the house, and then turned back to him. “And one more thing. Tell your friends to watch out. Because if they ever face me on the ball field, first chance I get, I’ll take out their kneecaps.” I slammed the door in his face.

For the rest of that night, I occupied myself with homework, trying with every ounce of my brain to understand Trig. I didn’t really want to think about what Sam had told me. I decided it
would just be easier for me to be angry with him than to try to decide if he was legitimately sorry or if he was just trying to trick me. A person could lose her mind trying to figure all this out. I was only seventeen, after all. My brain was going to explode if this craziness kept up.
Focus on school. Focus on getting stronger for baseball season. Just focus.

After our conversation, whenever I saw Sam in the hallways between classes, something had changed, or switched. He looked at me, but I avoided him. He tried his hardest to make eye contact with me, and I tried my best to look anywhere but at him.

It was so hard. Part of me needed someone to trust. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could play the loner.

T
hat Friday, I truly tried to focus, but my brain let me down. On my first math quiz after the Thanksgiving break, I got a D. The following Friday, my brain failed me again, and I only made a C.

The next day was the SATs. I had worked through some test prep books that Mrs. Richards had lent me, but I figured that, by this point in my high school career, I knew what I knew and there wasn’t much I could do about it.

That Saturday, I sat in the Hazelton auditorium with about fifty other kids and finally took the SATs. They actually weren’t that bad, but I felt relieved when they were over. I was proud of myself for not running out on it, and for tackling something I had feared.

There were now two weeks until Christmas break. That meant two more math quizzes and one more test to try to make up for my previous C and D.

The Monday after the SATs, I was in the bubble working with the pitching coach. He had driven me over early on the short bus so we could get some time in before the guys came over for batting practice.

It was so cool to be on that enormous domed baseball field. You felt like you were outside on a warm spring day, even when the weather outside was cold. I liked standing on the mound
and looking up at the rafters and seeing the bright white light that made the entire bubble glow.

Coach Madison and I first worked together on some stretching exercises, and then I threw a few. We talked a lot about control and how to place the ball right where you wanted it to go. Eventually, Coach Davenport arrived with the guys. He approached Madison and asked, “Hey, Tommy, how about we do some real batting practice against some real pitching today?”

“What’d you have in mind?” said Madison.

“I got ten guys here for batting practice, and you got a pitcher, right?”

“I do,” he said, nodding in my direction. “What do you think, Taylor?”

“Fine by me,” I said. “I haven’t seen any real batters since last summer.” In fact, I was excited to try out on actual batters some of what Madison had been teaching me.

“Okay, Davenport, we’ll be out there in ten.”

I felt myself kick into pre-game mode. I walked over to the water fountain and wet my hands. I ran them through my hair, pushing it away from my face before slamming my hat down to hold it back. I didn’t have anything to tie my hair back with, so I would have to work with it down today.

Each guy would get three warm-up pitches and then three real pitches before rotating. A couple guys were in the field just to shag the balls and toss them back in. Most of the guys were sophomores and juniors, but I recognized a few seniors.

First guy up was Chan, a sophomore. I lobbed him three balls, and he connected nicely, sending each one to deep center field.

“Okay, Dresden, give him some heat,” Coach Madison said
from the first-base side.

I smiled at him and nodded. I wound up and threw.
Thwap
! I heard the ball slam into the catcher’s glove. I loved the sound of that echo. The boys in the dugout hooted. “Woo, Chan, I felt the breeze on that swing. She got you on that one. Woo!” This was going to be fun.

Chan missed the next one and didn’t even swing at the third. He hung his head and went off to talk to the batting coach.

The next two batters went down just as easily. Maybe this prep-school stuff wasn’t going to be any more challenging than my old high school team or my summer league.
Not again
, I thought.
I need a challenge.

And then, there he was, standing on the left side of the plate, digging his cleats into the batter’s box and taking a few practice swings—the captain of the team himself, Sam Barrett. A lump formed in my throat, and I looked out into center field for a moment. I tucked my glove between my legs, took off my cap, and forced my hair back with my fingers before putting my cap back on. Then I put my glove back on and played with the ball, repeatedly slamming it into my glove. Coach Madison had told me to save my curve ball. And I was glad I did, ’cause I felt like I was going to need it now.

“All right, Dresden, three warm-ups!” Coach Davenport yelled from behind the plate.

I gave Sam his three meatballs. He smacked two deep into right field and lined one up the middle.

Now the game was on. I so badly wanted to make him swing and miss. Unable to control myself, I wound up and delivered my curve ball first. Sure enough, the ball flew past his swinging bat. He backed out of the box and looked right at me. Pointing
his bat at me, he tapped his cap with it, smiling—you know, the kind of smile that said, “Oh good, a challenge,” as if he, too, had been waiting for just this moment.

But then he totally surprised me—he walked around to the other side of the plate.
He’s a switch hitter. Is righty his better side? I guess I’ll find out.
He stepped into the box and dug his feet into the dirt. One fastball coming up.

I heard the bat make contact with the ball.
Ting
! The ball sailed over second base and rolled into center field—a base hit in any league.
Barrett got a hit off me!

I stood on the mound and returned his smile. As much as it hurt to give up a hit to someone trying to ruin my life, I was thankful I had met my match. It was right to come to this school. I was going to get the challenge I needed.

Of course, now I had to beat him on this last pitch. I took my glove off and cracked my knuckles.

“Uh-oh, Barrett, now you’ve pissed her off,” Madison said with a laugh. “Get the gun on this next one, Davenport!” he said, still laughing.

On the last one, Barrett stood frozen. It was in the catcher’s glove before he even saw it.

“Seventy-nine!” Davenport yelled.

Barrett walked back to the dugout, and I danced—well, on the inside anyway.