Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always (11 page)

I shrug. “Maybe it’s stupid,” I say. “Maybe it’s a bad idea.”

But Kayla smiles. “No, it’s a perfect idea, and you’re the perfect person to write it. Give your blog some personality and nobody will ever guess it’s you.”

Okay, so you know what? That’s a crappy thing to say, and I wish I had the guts to tell her so. Instead I glare at the clock and say, “Time for homeroom.” I want to leave her there, to walk away angrily, but my feet won’t walk away. “Let’s
go
, Kayla.”

I badger her to hurry. She takes her time. I wait for her. She gets her stuff out of our locker first. I wait for her. Is this seriously how it is every day? It is, isn’t it?

“You could be totally evil,” she says, checking her makeup in the mirror on the locker door. “Every reading could be, like, a complete dream-crusher.” There’s a gleam in her eye. “I’ll help you break their hearts, if you want.”

“But what if the cards are good?”
Like
the reading I did for Eric
. I think of his black eye, the yellow snow. Either I read the cards wrong or God’s vengeance is fast-acting and unjust. I must have done it wrong.

“Good is boring.” She takes one last look at her reflection and walks off, leaving me to scramble for my stuff and get to homeroom.
Good is boring
. So now I’m boring? So because I’m not mean, I have no personality?

I wonder how everything changed, how the two of us writing movie scripts and making animated music videos on her dad’s computer slowly morphed into painting our nails black while Kayla rants about how stupid everything is and I try to get her to crack a smile. I miss that boring goodness, you know? When we could be creative and silly instead of always being darkly satirical or whatever Kayla’s deal is now.

I take three or four steps down the hall after her, trotting like usual with my back curled around the books in my arms, when it occurs to me: I don’t
have
to follow. I straighten, look around. The halls are starting to empty—a knot of blond hair and perfect legs in skinny jeans and mini-skirts lingers by Annika and Britney’s locker, but I’m pretty sure those girls have some kind of permanent tardy-immunity or something.

“Cassie!” The squeal emerges from the huddle of breathy voices. I look at them, startled. I’m so used to passing these girls with my head down. Annika giggles. “You look like a deer in headlights,” she says.

I am, pretty much. I feel myself curling up again, hunching over my books. “Um, hi, Annika.” Throwaway words in a barely audible voice. I hate myself for this meekness, but I can’t seem to find my real voice. If I even have one.

“Are you coming to work during lunch again today? Please, please, Cassie?” Britney moves closer and puts her arm around me and I try hard not to wince, my still-sore rear end reminding me of what happened the first time I was mauled by these girls. Britney laughs. “Are you scared of me, Cassie?”

“Aw, don’t be scared,” says Annika. “We like Cassie, don’t we?”

The girls around her laugh, and it’s not exactly mocking, but it’s not exactly friendly either. It’s sort of … automatic. Like the girls are some kind of mechanical friends, programmed with a built-in laugh track and maybe a few different modes of squealing, cooing, and gushing.

“I can come in at lunch today, but not after school,” I say. I have church and youth group every Wednesday, but I’m still not going to tell them that. I try to disentangle myself from Britney’s arm. “Or at least, I’ll be able to make it at lunch if I get to homeroom on time. If I’m tardy, I’ll be spending my lunch in detention.”

“That’s cute,” says Annika with a laugh. “Let her go, Brit. Hurry, Cassie! We need you to get the file to the printer by Thursday.”

They need me. Annika and Britney and their stupid little newspaper need me in order to get to press. I don’t know whether to feel powerful or sick at the prospect of being all muddled up with them. I’ve spent most of my middle school and high school years wanting nothing to do with this group at all, and I know, okay? I know they’re not real friends.

But they need me.

“I’ll see you at lunch, then,” I say. My voice is stronger than before.

“See you, Cassie!”

Cassie. I hate that nickname, and I always have. It sounds like a brain-damaged cow’s name. A flash of daring, and I speak up. “Cass,” I say.

“What?” Britney raises an eyebrow. The mechanical girls turn as one, their faces blank, waiting for their cue.

I clear my throat. “Cass. I like to be called Cass.”

Her eyes grow round with surprise, and then she turns slowly to Annika. They burst out laughing, and the whole group follows suit. “Byyyyye, Cassieeeeee!” They all say the hated name in unison and then dissolve into giggles. It stings, a burning shame on my cheeks, but I keep my head up.

“Cass?” Everyone stops laughing and looks at the source of the voice behind me. I turn around slowly. Drew Godfrey.

“Don’t you hate it when you smell something really horrible but you can’t figure out where it’s coming from?” says Annika.

“I smell it too,” says Britney. “Maybe a sewer backup?”

“Maybe.” Annika squeezes my arm, pulling me away from Drew. “Cassie, walk with us to homeroom?”

I hesitate. Drew’s face is pink from the exertion of hiking up the junior stairs, and I can see a light sheen of sweat on her upper lip. “Cass, can I talk to you a minute?” she says. So earnest. Maybe she doesn’t hear their comments.

“Come on, Cassie. It stinks over there.” Annika tugs me away.

“Or … maybe it’s you?” Britney raises one of her perfectly plucked brows, a smirk on her face.

“I—” I look back, and Drew waves her hand. She hears them.

“It’s okay, Cass. I’ll … tell you at youth group,” she says. “No big deal.”

I let Annika and Britney steer me away, but I’m torn. I can’t quite figure out what happened, what I should have done, how I could have fixed the situation. I don’t even like Drew, but I don’t like being a part of something hurtful, either. It’s one thing to call her the Shrew when I’m talking to Eric or Kayla, and it’s another thing entirely to make comments about how she stinks when she’s standing right there. Her sad little mud eyes follow me down the hall. I look back twice. Of course I do.

“Youth group? You go to youth group with that mess?” Britney gives me a fake-sad look. “I’d say
her
prayers aren’t working.” There’s something in her voice—some little tone that I don’t quite catch at the moment but that works in my head for hours afterward. Something that makes me suspect that Britney can’t quite figure out why she’s saying the mean things she’s saying, either. Like she’s scared of the idea of being a mechanical girl, squawking in concert. But maybe she’s more scared of the alternative, of being a girl without a personality. Without a crowd.

The tardy bell rings. Damn it. “Now I’ll be in lunch de-tention instead of newspaper,” I say. I don’t know why I have the one homeroom teacher who treats homeroom like it’s an actual class.

“Tell her you were helping me,” says Annika. “Tell her it was for the newspaper.”

“She doesn’t care.”

“Trust me.” Annika’s voice has a final sound of authority, and I can see how she gets what she wants around here. “See you at lunch,
Cassie
,” she says with a sly smile.

17. If you could
see into your future …

“Mom is pissed. Family meeting, right now.” Dicey’s brown eyes twinkle with mischief—both at the prospect of getting me in trouble and at daring to say the word “pissed”
almost
within the hearing of my parents. And on a Wednesday right before church, at that.

I’m not going. Neither is Eric, and this is most certainly the topic of discussion at this impromptu family meeting. Not that you could call what goes on at our family meetings a “discussion.” Okay, so occasionally we’re allowed to ask questions, but it’s very clear that Mom and Dad are a united front, and any disagreement is quickly quelled by open displays of “Because I said so.”

I don’t care. I’m not going. Eric can give in, but there’s no way I’m going to go. Not tonight, not after the stupidity in the hall this morning with Drew—I can’t face her. What if she tries to give me more poetry? It’s not my fault she can’t write. It’s not my responsibility to stick up for her when the stupid mean girls insult her. I didn’t laugh like the wind-up girls. I didn’t say anything to hurt her. It’s not my fault, and I’m not going to be the next one they target either. I’m going to keep my mouth shut, mind my own business, and try to get the most out of this opportunity to be a part of the newspaper. For my college applications. For my Song of Myself, maybe, I don’t know. Do I have to justify everything?

You know what? I didn’t get a tardy from Franklin today, and it was all because I said I was helping Annika and Britney on the newspaper. See? Even the teachers play by their rules.

Okay, so I have to come up with a good reason to skip church. None of this anxiety headache crap like Eric tries to pull. What’s making him so anxious every Wednesday and Friday night? So far, he hasn’t figured out a way to wiggle out of Sunday morning services, but at least there’s only fellowship and Bible Study Luncheon afterward, no youth group.

“I have homework,” I say, failing at the creative work of excuse-making. “It’s a huge assignment, and I’ve fallen behind on it already.” It’s a complete lie, unless you count that stupid Walt Whitman assignment, which I’m definitely not doing. It’s not due until Friday. I’m not going to youth group, and I’m not writing poetry.

“So I can’t go,” I say. A zing of something daring lurches through my chest cavity, a tingle at the back of my neck. I don’t think I’ve ever refused to do anything before, not like this. Sure, I’ve resisted passively—listening to family prayers without participating, forgetting my Bible—but I’ve never actually said no.

Dad sighs. It’s clear he’s frustrated by this pretense of democracy and wishes he could order me to get in the damn car. “What’s the project?” he says.

“Yes, and what do you mean, falling behind?” says my mother. “You’re perfectly aware of your responsibilities as a member of this family, and one of those responsibilities happens to be attending church services. You should be able to schedule your homework well enough in advance to make all of your commitments.”

The tiny thrill of my defiance keeps me from caving in, keeps my shoulders straight and my eyes firm. “I need to stay home.”

“Leave Cass alone,” Eric says, surprising me. I figured he’d save his defense for himself. “She’s only missed, like, twice in the last five years.” He sighs. “Look, I know you’re upset with me, but you don’t have to take it out on her.”

“And you!” Mom moves seamlessly from one target to the next. “Eric, this is the third time this month you’ve been too sick to go to youth group. What am I supposed to say? What do I tell people when they ask about you?”

“Tell them to mind their own damn business.” I can’t help it. The words come out before I can filter.

Dad slaps his hand down on the dining room table, making the salt and pepper shakers jump and clatter together. “Fine,” he says. “I’ve had enough of this. We’ll all be late if we keep this up.” He points at me. “You. Get your priorities clear. Got it?”

I nod, but I wonder what happens if my priorities are different from his. What if my priorities are all my own?

“And you,” he says, turning to Eric. “You get yourself to bed and don’t come out for anything. Friday evening you
both
will be coming to church, no excuses. As a
family
.” Dad brushes his hands together and stands up. He looks at Dicey. “Get your Bible and get in the car.”

I sneak a sidelong glance at Eric. His eye has swollen almost all the way shut and the bruise is a colorful mass of tender-looking flesh. It looks like a fist hit him, not a branch. Does the fist belong to someone in our youth group?

The moment they’re out the door, I log into the family computer in the kitchen and pull up one of the blogging sites I researched at school today. I type in the name I chose—Divinia Starr—and settle on a theme that has a dark blue background with little gold stars all over it. The blog set-up is easy compared to the crap I’ve been doing with the stupid newspaper, and now I’m ready to start. But how?

I guess I need to do some readings, so it’ll look like there are already people who need my help. I set Mom’s timer for one hour, which is plenty of time to get everything hidden away before everyone gets back from church, and then I go into my room for the cards, trying to think of the kind of problem or question a person might ask about.

Eric’s standing there when I get back, looking at the screen. Reading my profile. “
Divinia?
” He makes those stupid air quotes when he says it. “Cass, what is this? Divinia Starr?” He lowers his voice. “The tarot? You aren’t seriously doing this, are you?”

I shrug. “I’m making something up.”

His eyes stray from my face to the cards in my hands. “Can I see them?” He bites his lip when I hand the cards over. “Not going to burn me, are they?” His smile is too thin to show his dimples. Eric has two of them, twin divots that make it almost impossible to keep a straight face when he grins at you. I only have one dimple, on my right cheek, which just makes me look lopsided.