Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always (25 page)

I should fill out that stupid Internet survey now. More interesting things have happened to me in the last month than all last year combined. I check over my shoulder, where Annika and Britney are gossiping, Britney sitting on Annika’s desk like usual. I sort of want to click over to the blog right now, to prove to myself that this part of me exists—and to check the comments on the post I put up for the sports kid on Sunday—but I don’t want Annika to see me.

As if summoned by my thoughts, Annika rolls her chair in my direction, frowning. “
You
placed the ad for that stupid Divinia Starr blog. Where did it come from, anyway?” She taps her pen against the frames of her fake glasses.

Oh god. “From the email, I think? I don’t really remember.”
It’s harder than it should be to get a full breath of air into my lungs. “So should I get your approval on the ads from now on?” I jot this down on my pad of sticky notes, nodding seriously. “I can do that.” The stick figures on the corner of the Post-it make me smile, and I take a second to riffle through them with my thumb. The kid is good at this sweet, goofy stuff.

“Not
every
ad,” says Britney, peering over the divider between her computer and mine. “Just the ones that are going to cause a shitstorm of protests about the fundamentally immoral nature of this school, this newspaper, and the Winter Carnival.”

“Right. Shitstorm.” I scribble on the Post-it. “Is that one word or two?”

“What did you do with the email?” Annika is still tapping her pencil on those stupid glasses. “Whatever. I’m sure we can track it down through accounts receivable.”

Accounts receivable? Oh god. All the ads are paid for, and accounts receivable will not have a record of the Divinia Starr ad. Will they drop it at that dead end, or will they keep on looking, trying to get to the source? Can they trace stuff on my computer? I tap my fingers gently on the keyboard, wondering if every keystroke is being recorded on some school usage report, waiting for the IT guys to follow my tracks. I spin my chair away from the computer and change the subject. “Are they really going to cancel the carnival?”

“That church is only attacking the blog so they can get more leverage against the carnival,” says Annika. “They think they can get the school to cave just to get the heat off them.” She makes a scoffing sound. “The Giant Goth Girl didn’t make matters any better by getting arrested or whatever. Good thing she’s still underage.”

“You know what I heard?” Britney’s head pops up over the divider again. “I heard she wasn’t actually driving when she was pulled over. I heard she was … otherwise occupied with a dude from one of the bands she went to see.” She giggles, her tone sharp.

“Go, Giant Goth Girl!” says Annika, laughing too. “And we all thought you were a lesbian.” She turns quickly to me and puts her hand over her mouth, acting the part. “Oh,
so
sorry, Cassie! I forgot the two of you
used
to be friends. Or was she … you know … your
girlfriend
?”

I make a face. “Whatever.” The stupid barb about Kayla being my girlfriend doesn’t hurt like the part about how we
used to be
friends. Is it true? She’s not in school today and she hasn’t answered my texts, but it makes sense she’d be grounded from her phone.

“Well, I hope you dump her,” says Britney. “I mean, it’s a bitch move to give your name to the cops like she did.”

I wish they would leave. I need some time to figure out what to do with my next blog entry, in which I’m going to tackle that awful email from Drew—writing about me, the mean girl from her youth group.

I’m not going to get into details because they’re too depressing, but I’m tired of it, Divinia. I’m tired of being alone.

The email expressed Drew’s loneliness with a painful honesty that’s lost in the rhyme scheme of her dreadful poems. I have to answer; only an unfeeling monster could ignore her.

But her cards … I did a reading for her yesterday, with Eric standing guard. Sitting there with his back against my bedroom door, he watched me shuffle with a little frown on his face, and then he blurted out, “You remember Pastor Jake, right?” His words tripped out right in a row, as though he’d been holding them in his mouth for quite some time. Sometimes, even now, it takes him a while to break a silence, especially with something hard to say.

I nodded. I’d been thinking about Pastor Jake when I pulled that card for Eric’s reading—the supportive man in his recent past.

“Well, we’ve been running together on the treadmills at the Y, and he’s looking somewhat human again,” Eric told me, smiling. “He’s been through a lot, you know? His wife dying, and he had some trouble finding his faith after that. Did you know his daughter is gay? She’s living out in California or something right now, and … I don’t know. It’s been good talking to him.”

I studied his face. “And?”

“And … it’s helping.” Eric kept his eyes on his fingertips as he raked them through the carpeting, making spiral patterns. I turned my attention back to the reading for Drew, jotting down notes so I could type up some kind of a reading the next time I was at a computer.

Which would be right now, if the mechanical girls would finally disappear. I’ve been dawdling over these fonts for almost an hour, waiting for my chance to write up my post. I keep my notebook out of the sight of Annika and Britney, trying to figure out what I could possibly say to Drew that would make up for what a jerk I’ve been.

Okay, so maybe what the blog really needs to be doing is not related to the cards. Maybe what people need is just a helpful advice column. Maybe that’s what Drew needs. And maybe, even though she won’t know it’s me, maybe somehow Divinia Starr’s reading could try to make amends, ask her to look beyond my initial failings. I don’t want to be Drew Godfrey’s best friend, don’t get me wrong. But I would like to be able to speak to her without making her face collapse.

The cards I pulled for her last night were … disastrous. I mean, seriously, how can I write to Drew—or, as she signed herself,
Alone and Betrayed
—and tell her that basically, this is as good as it gets? That her future involves something symbolized by a bound and blindfolded person among a bunch of swords? No. Drew needs some hope. And if Annika and Britney will leave me alone long enough to write this post, that’s what Divinia Starr will give her.

“Cassie.” Annika snaps her fingers in front of my face. “I said, are you coming to the carnival?”

“My brother’s doing a snow sculpture.”

Oh. I remember, I told Darin I’d help out with that. I could go now. I could forget about the blog and being Divinia and go help someone in real life, as myself, with my own two hands and a shovel.

Annika sighs as though I’m being difficult on purpose. “Cassie. We do a kissing booth at the carnival every year. Didn’t anyone tell you this?”

“A kissing booth?” Oh, no
way
.

Britney giggles and reappears over the divider. “It’s a fundraiser, Cassie. There’s a prize for the person who raises the most money.”

“And it’s going to be me,” says Annika. She takes off the silly glasses and bats her eyelashes at me.

“I’m going to be grounded.” That came out too fast.

“Cassie! Are you a kiss virgin?” Annika’s laughter is the screechy kind that carries across a room.

“No!” My face burns. I totally am.

“You
are
a kiss virgin, OMG!” Britney adds her own horse-laugh at my expense.

“Shut up, you guys.” Lamest comeback ever. God, why won’t they leave?

“
Shut up, you guys!
” Both Annika and Britney parrot me in a taunting sing-song chorus and then continue their dueling squeals of laughter.

“Seriously, my mom is super pissed at me because of the shit that went down this weekend, so … ” It’s true, one hundred percent. My dad has done nothing but glower at me and my mom keeps doing this long, wavering sigh-thing to make sure I’m aware of how deeply my actions have hurt her. “I
trusted
you,” she whispers, tragically.

“What really did go down?” Annika leans in for some gossip, done mocking me.

“Goth Girl did, from what I heard.” Britney’s still laughing.

I grit my teeth and turn back to my computer. “Okay, so … I guess I’ll get started on the ads for this week.”

Annika smiles. “Brit and I are heading out. Text me if something goes wrong.”

“And remember,” says Britney, and I hear their computer shutting down, “call us if there are any
weird
ads, you know?”

“A shitstorm of protests, gotcha.”
Just get the hell out of here.

Britney smiles. “Exactly.”

Annika waves. “Bye, Kiss Virgin!” I stick out my tongue.

At last, I’m alone with the computer. I take out my notes and type, my fingers moving across the keys with a decisive clatter. Switch a few cards. Fudge a few meanings. Create a little hope for
Alone and Betrayed
.

39. When you get nervous …

“What do you think?” Darin smiles, his face flushed from the cold and the shoveling.

“It’s a nice pile of snow.” It’s more than a pile, really. They’ve made a box thing out of wooden pallets wired together and shoveled the snow into the form so that it’s packed in solid.

Eric stands on top of the huge snow cube and points a spray bottle at me. “We start carving tomorrow,” he says.

I pick up a shovel lying in the snow. “So do you need me to do something?”

“What took you so long getting here?”

“I … uh … had some stuff to do on the computer.”

He raises his eyebrows, and I nod. Yeah, that stuff.

Darin gives me a hopeful look, but he doesn’t nag me about my damn Song of Myself, which is a good thing because I may take a swing at him with this shovel if he does.

“Hey, did you guys know the newspaper staff has to run a freaking kissing booth at the carnival?” I demand.

Eric laughs. “You know how many guys live the entire school year dreaming of the day they get to pay Annika Nielson for a kiss?”

“Are
you
going to do the booth?” asks Darin.

Does he sound concerned about that? A giddy wave of hope crashes over me, and for a moment I can’t answer. I shrug, to gain time. “I … I told them I was going to be grounded, but I dunno.” I have absolutely no intention of being a part of this kissing booth, but I kind of want to see what Darin has to say about it. Will he try to stop me?

“No way,” says Eric. He jumps down and lands beside me. “My little sis is
not
going to be mauled for money by a bunch of horny teenage boys.”

I punch him in the arm, a little too hard. “I can take care of myself, thank you very much.” It’s sort of funny and a little sweet, this protective streak he has. But I’m still going to give him a hard time about it. “Bad enough trying to intimidate Darin the instant he speaks three words to me in English class.”

Darin smiles. “It was more than three words,” he says.

“How much more?” Eric pretends to be threatening and suspicious, but it’s clear that they like each other.

“She
should
do the kissing booth,” says Darin.

The giddiness fades. “What?” I try to keep my tone light.

“What?” Eric doesn’t try.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a great fundraiser. And, you know … ” Darin shuffles his feet, examining the pattern his boots make in the snow. “I’ve got a little savings. It’s supposed to be for college or something, but I could part with it for a good cause.”

Did he just awkwardly tell me he wants to kiss me? I feel a blush creep over my face, even in the chill. “Oh.”

Brilliant, Cass. Speaking of awkward.

“I get the feeling you won’t have to break out your piggy bank,” says Eric. He’s the only one who seems to be at ease with this conversation. In fact, he seems to be finding it highly amusing, judging by the look on his face. My face burns. Cassandra the Kiss Virgin, dying of humiliation.

“No, I … I’m not doing the kissing booth,” I say.
But I do want to kiss you
. It’s silly, the way these words almost escape my mouth. Do I really want to kiss Darin? I like him. But do I—to use a middle schoolism—do I
like
him like him? I watch him toss his hair, watch the way his mouth twists into a shy grin. Certainly I like him enough to kiss him, right? I don’t want to be a kiss virgin forever.

“Well,” he says, and this time he meets my eyes with his steady gaze. “I guess I’ll have to keep waiting for my chance.”

It’s his eyes that do it. They seem to suck all the air out of my lungs, but in a good way, if that makes sense. If anything can make sense at this moment. “I … I guess you will,” I say, and then, perfectly delirious, I turn and run all the way back to school, gulping cold air through my grin.