How It Ends Page 4

  I held up my brainstorming page for her to see. So far, all it contained was the word Brainstorming underlined twice.

  Our assignment was to write a short story that turned an idea on its head. “Give me the unexpected,” Miss Donaghue had enthused. “Make me see the world in a whole new way.”

  It had sounded exciting in English class. But trapped here in my room on a Saturday afternoon, it was becoming a nightmare.

  I pulled out my laptop and opened my documents folder, scanning its contents for inspiration. I’ve started dozens of stories in the last year. Started being the operative word. I can’t seem to finish any.

  I stared hard at the long list of half-written documents lined up accusingly on my screen. I can’t figure it out. Every teacher I’ve ever had has raved about my writing. I can start stories all day long, and they all begin with such promise. I get high off the potential of it all. There always comes a point, though, where everything falls apart and I’m powerless to put it back together.

  Basically, I suck at endings.

  No. That’s not quite right. I’m incapable of endings.

  “You know what we need?” Annie asked, pulling me away from my gloomy thoughts. “Retail therapy.”

  I snorted and turned back to my laptop. “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m serious. We need to get out of this room and clear our heads.”

  I felt my shoulders tensing up. “I can’t go anywhere,” I said. “This assignment is due Monday. That’s the day after tomorrow.”

  “Thank you for the days-of-the-week lesson, Einstein. We still have tonight and all day tomorrow to finish. And you have to admit, we’re just wasting time in here. We’ve been working for two hours, and all we have to show for it is a shitty werewolf idea and a blank brainstorming page.”

  Annie grabbed her bag off the floor. “C’mon. Live a little! Come out of your room and step into the real world. Inspiration might be waiting for us at the mall.”

  “The mall is the least inspiring place in the world,” I squeaked out unconvincingly. “And I planned to have this finished by tonight.”

  “It’s not due till Monday, freakshow. You need to calm your shit down. There are no bonus points for finishing a day early.”

  My stomach started to churn. I don’t do last-minute. I always have my assignments finished, printed, and stapled together in the front pocket of my binder at least the day before they’re due.

  I looked at the clock and did some quick calculations. It was two o’clock. If we left right away and made it back by four, I could still put in at least a few hours of work before bed. “You’re really not worried about this at all?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “I’ll pull an all-nighter if I have to. I do my best work under pressure.”

  “An all-nighter?”

  “You’re kidding me, right? Are you telling me you’ve never stayed up all night to finish an assignment?”

  I blinked at her, feeling the full weight of my uncoolness.

  “You haven’t! My God. Okay. This will be your challenge . . .”

  I started shaking my head before she could even finish her sentence.

  Annie put her hands on my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “Breathe,” she told me. “You’re starting to wig out, and I haven’t even given you your mission yet.”

  “I don’t want a mission.”

  “Oh yes you do. It’s my duty as your best friend to introduce you to the joys of the slacker lifestyle. It’s not like I’m making you hand in the assignment late or anything.”

  I could feel my eyes bugging out of my head, and Annie burst out laughing. “This’ll be good for you,” she said, handing me my bag. “We’re going to go buy makeup we don’t need, eat fried food on a stick, and then, if you’re really lucky, we’ll hit the bookstore.”

  That perked me up. “Really?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, slinging an arm around my shoulder. “But the catch is, no homework for the rest of the day. I don’t care if you start your assignment at the buttcrack of dawn tomorrow, but you have to promise me you won’t type a single word today.”

  “I will not type a single word,” I promised, smiling brightly.

  “Correction. You will not write a single word.”

  “Ugh. Fine. You win. But I’m calling you tomorrow when I’m in tears because I’ve left it till too late.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She propelled me toward the door.

  “And you’ll explain it to my mom if I get an incomplete because I don’t finish on time.”

  “Mmmhmmm.”

  “And—”

  “Shut it, Jess.”

  “Right.”

  Two hours later we were at a sticky food-court table, polishing off a disgustingly fantastic bowl of cheese fries and taking quizzes from the magazines Annie bought at the pharmacy. So far, we’d learned that Annie’s ideal boyfriend is a rebel, she was born to be an artist, and she’s destined to live in New York City. I, on the other hand, have a geek as an ideal man, was born to be a writer, and am destined to live out my days in my hometown. I can’t believe they paid someone to come up with that stuff. Although . . . it might make a good fallback plan if I flunk out of school for not finishing my homework.

  I held up a limp fry coated in fluorescent-orange cheese sauce. “You know, this is the first time I’ve ever eaten these.”

  “Shut up!”

  “No, really. My mom is convinced that artificial cheese will kill brain cells or something.”

  “That explains my science mark, then. I practically live on these things.”

  “Let the record show that you are the one who brought up school on slacker day,” I pointed out.

  Annie rolled her eyes. “You are a true inspiration to slackers everywhere. Clearly, the cheese sauce is doing its job.”

  She picked up our tray and headed for the garbage cans. “C’mon, rebel. Let’s go hit the bookstore.”

  I jumped up and skipped along after her. “This is the best day ever.”

  Or it was. Until we rounded the corner and I saw Courtney and Larissa sitting on a bench outside the bookstore.

  I stopped in my tracks and pulled on the strap of Annie’s bag. “Never mind. I . . . Let’s just go.”

  “Go where? What’s wrong?” She followed my gaze to the benches and sighed. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going to the bookstore.”

  I put my head down and followed Annie, my heart thundering in my chest. Please please please don’t notice us.

  “Hey,” Courtney called out as we passed.

  “Hey,” Annie answered, slowing to a stop and smiling at Courtney. My anxiety reared up like a frightened animal, clawing away at my insides.

  “You’re in my science class,” Courtney said, getting up and walking slowly toward us. “The infamous Annie Miller. Tough girl from the city, right?”

  Annie crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her chin up in the air. “And you’re the infamous Courtney Williams. Queen Bee of suburbia. Right?”

  My heart liquefied and my brain screamed at me to run. Courtney would blame me for the Queen Bee comment, I just knew it. Who else would have planted that idea in Annie’s head?

  Before I could make a break for the bookstore, though, Courtney laughed. And not a mean, mocking laugh. It was a real, genuine, appreciative laugh. “I like you,” she told Annie before turning around and heading back to the bench.

  “Lucky me,” Annie muttered, looping her arm through mine and steering us into the bookstore.

  I made it to the middle of the store before the dizziness hit. “Hang on,” I said, trying to sound casual. I leaned against the closest shelf and took slow, even breaths.

  “What’s wrong?” Annie asked, narrowing her eyes at me. “Are you freaking out?”

  “No,” I scoffed, grabbing a random book off the shelf. “I just wanted to check out this book.”

  “I see,” Annie said in a mock-serious voice, one side of her mouth twisting into a smil
e. She plucked the book from my hands and turned the cover to face me. “We’re reading erotica now, are we?”

  I could feel the heat radiating off my face. “I just . . . those girls don’t . . . we don’t get along.”

  “They’re just girls, Jess. You don’t have to be scared of them.”

  I nodded, blinking back tears. “I know.”

  “But you were going to miss out on book shopping just to avoid them.”

  I shrugged, willing her to stop talking about it.

  “Don’t do that, okay?” she said gently. “Please don’t do that. You’re amazing. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re not.”

  I forced a smile onto my face. “I won’t,” I said, wanting to believe it.

  I love how Annie didn’t back away from Courtney. I’d give anything to be that kind of girl, but I’m not. Whatever protective shielding girls like Annie and Courtney have, I was born without it.

  Annie

  I stop halfway down the stairs and hold my breath, listening hard. Nothing. The house is that kind of intense quiet that almost seems loud.

  I creep down the rest of the stairs and ease into the dining room. It’s two thirty in the morning and I should be asleep. That’s not why I’m sneaking around the house like a criminal, though. I’m on a mission, and I don’t feel like explaining myself to anyone.

  I sit cross-legged on the floor and pop open the bottom door of the china cabinet. I know it’s in here. A big black memory box all about me. My dad stores everything in there—school photos, report cards, drawings, and souvenirs.

  My fingers close around it, and I pull it onto my lap. It’s so heavy. The weight of my fifteen years.

  I hear footsteps upstairs, and then the click of the bathroom door closing. I’d like to stay down here and spread everything out on the floor, but I don’t want to get busted studying pictures of myself in the dead of night. I’m pretty sure that trips some kind of weirdness alarm.

  Back in my room, I set aside the report cards and newspaper clippings. It’s the pictures I’m after.

  I’m obsessed with old photos.

  It started with the book about Sylvia Plath that Miss Donaghue lent me. She’d read my essay about The Bell Jar and thought I might like to learn more about the author. I inhaled the book in a day and then bought my own copy, mainly because of the photos in the middle. There’s this one picture of Plath that I can’t stop staring at. As stupid as this sounds, I’d never really thought of her as a real person before. It’s like . . . it’s like she was too much to be contained in such a simple-looking package. The picture in the book looks like someone you might see at the bus stop or in the mall. No matter how long I stare into her eyes, I can’t see any sign of the tormented genius who wrote The Bell Jar. I can’t see the person who decided to kill herself. She doesn’t look like a ticking time bomb to me. She looks like a regular person.

  So I started thinking about pictures of me. How do I look to other people?

  I lay my school pictures out on my bed, sorting them by grade before scanning through them. I’m looking for some essence of me. Something that shines through from an early age. But if it’s there, I can’t see it, because all I can see when I look at those pictures of me is my mom.

  When I had a mother, my hair was always done in a special way for picture day. Mom would put curlers in sometimes, or get up super early to put in French braids. I loved those mornings. When I look at the pictures from kindergarten, grade one, and grade two, I see a smiling Annie who looks happy in her skin. And that had everything to do with my mom. It’s the third-grade picture that gets me the most, though.

  The memory of third-grade picture day is so vivid I can almost touch it. That morning Mom set the alarm for seven thirty to give us lots of time. She woke me up giggling, and when I look at the picture, I can feel my heart beating fast, just the way it did that morning. Seeing my mom happy was like staring into the sun . . . it was almost too much to take.

  She washed my hair under the bathtub faucet while I bent over the tub. She always remembered to put a towel over the edge so it wouldn’t be cold and hard against my skin. That morning, she used her special shampoo on me. It smelled like the salon where she got her hair cut, and I remember feeling very grown up. Then she towel-dried my hair and sang silly songs while she wove two French braids on either side of my head.

  The best part, though, was that once she finished my hair and helped me into my new dress, she knelt beside me and pressed her cheek against mine while I looked in the mirror. “You’re so beautiful, Annie,” she told me. “I’m so proud of you.”

  I wish she were here now. I can’t see myself the way she saw me anymore. I don’t know who I am without her.

  Jessie

  I am in love with Scott Hutchins.

  In a staggering sign that the universe is not really as against me as I thought, Scott is my new lab partner in science class. I started the semester as Annie’s partner, but Mr. Donaldson separated us last week. Apparently our constant chatter was getting in the way of our academic success. Annie lost out in the deal. She’s now stuck next to Courtney, while I get to share space with Scott. Or perhaps I lost out, because she got an A on her plant cells quiz while I failed miserably. My first failure ever in school. I don’t even remember answering any of the questions. I spent the whole quiz fighting the temptation to write my name down as Jessica Hutchins.

  It’s pretty much impossible to concentrate on Mr. Donaldson’s voice with Scott sitting beside me every day. I keep catching myself contemplating the muscles in his forearms when I should be thinking about chloroplasts.

  Scott is basically the hero from every book I’ve ever read. It’s almost funny—like the gods took all my thoughts about what makes the perfect guy and combined them to form Scott Hutchins. He’s tall and built, with arms that make my stomach swoop. He’s one of those naturally athletic guys who live for sports. He walks in these great loping strides and has wavy brown hair that flops across his eyes in a way that makes you want to smooth it back for him. Add that he wants to be a veterinarian and that he famously cried during an animal cruelty video in class last year, and I could die from how perfect he is.

  Up until today, I was pretty sure he was merely tolerating my presence as his lab partner, so I’ve been doing my best to keep my drooling over him as discreet as possible. Today, though . . .

  I was trying to copy notes off the board while pretending that Scott’s arm wasn’t inches from mine, when he leaned over and whispered into my ear, “Do you get any of this stuff?”

  All I could think of was the bag of Doritos I’d devoured before class. The heroine is supposed to have sweet-smelling breath, not smell like nacho cheese when her Romeo finally leans in.

  He pulled back and looked straight into my eyes. He’s so unbelievably beautiful. He has the kind of eyelashes a girl would kill for. I smiled at him and leaned over to aim my whisper at his ear, hoping that if my breath was bad, it would blow past his face and he wouldn’t notice.

  “I failed the plant cells quiz miserably. I need a serious study session,” I said.

  “Me too! Want to study together?”

  Yes, it’s true. The one and only Scott Hutchins asked me to study with him. Let me say that again because I can hardly believe it’s true: Scott Hutchins wants to spend time with me. Outside of class.

  Of course I right away went and did something stupid to humiliate myself.

  As I was sitting there, no doubt smiling the world’s goofiest happy smile, Mr. Donaldson tragically caught sight of me. “Miss Avery,” he boomed. “Would you like to define the term biology for the class?”

  My textbook was miraculously open to that page, so for a split second I was convinced the universe really did love me. “Biology is the study of living orgasms.”

  Oh. My. God.

  The laughter was swift and punishing. I have never wanted to die so badly in my life. Scott’s shoulders were shaking, and even Mr. Donaldson was fighting
a losing battle with a smile.

  And then the emotional roller coaster continued, because as I was sitting there willing myself not to cry, Scott leaned over and said (in the lowest, sexiest voice you can imagine), “Hey, don’t be upset, Jess . . . It was funny.”

  I nodded, looking down at my lap to hide my tears.

  He reached across me for my notebook and then pulled it over between us.

  Don’t be embarrassed, he wrote. It was a great joke!

  It was the perfect solution to my I-can’t-talk-to-hot-Scott-Hutchins problem.

  I wish I could say I did that on purpose, but it turns out I’m just a dork. As soon as I wrote that, I freaked out that it was all wrong. Did it look like I was begging for compliments?

  I need your dorky brain to rub off on me. If I flunk this class, I’m off the basketball team.

  So we’re on for that study session?

  Yeah! Library at lunch?

  Sounds good!

  Thanks, Jess.

  I’m going to laminate that page. I’ll tack it to my wall so I can marvel at its beauty. Hell, I’ll sleep with it under my pillow.

  By the time the bell rang, I felt weightless. It hardly even bothered me that I needed to wait for Courtney to finish whispering a story to Annie before we could leave class together.

  Annie knows me so well. The second she saw my face, she knew something was up. She raised her eyebrows at me and commanded, “Spill it! What’s going on?”

  “Nothing . . . I just made some lunch plans with my lab partner. I hope you don’t mind if I take off after we eat.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “Are you shitting me?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I assured her. “We’re just both really behind, so we’re going to meet in the library to go over some stuff together.”

  “You like him.”

  “Of course I like him. He’s my lab partner.”

  “Yeah, right. I mean, you like like him.”

  “Are we really having this conversation?”

  “Don’t get all pissy with me! I can tell you like him!”