I didn’t want to, but I made myself go to class.
I wondered if Cait was going to be there. She looked so distressed in the hallway that it didn’t seem likely. Her dad would probably come and pick her up and take her home. God, I just couldn’t believe her…
My wish was not to be granted. Cait walked into class a mere few seconds before the bell rang. Her make-up was fixed and the only remnants that remained of her crying jag were the red in the corners and rims of her eyes. I waved to her, trying to be nice, but she didn’t even look my way. She went and sat in the back of the room next to Yuki Kasamoto, the girl to avoid from the list. I figured it was best that way, anyway. I didn’t want to deal with her.
Class was halfway over when the intercom came on and Miss Barton said: “Please excuse the interruption. Can Liz Boyer, Polly Lipinski, Candace Hoffman, Selena Lopez, Megan Laden, Quinn Ashtin, Adriana Quantico, and Kate Meyer please come to Principal Coleman’s office? Thank you.”
I didn’t think much of anything of it until during passing time when Miss Barton said again, “Please excuse the interruption. Can Jon Hudson, Norman Ulrich, Christian Lewis, Sam Aaronson, Gary Nyman, Elroy Sauren, Chad Jenkins, and Chavez Iglesias please come to Principal Coleman’s office? Thank you.”
I frowned, a light bulb suddenly coming on in my head. I pulled the list out of my binder and skimmed over the names on the freshman page. Yep. It was confirmed—the new principal, Linda Coleman, was calling the kids whose name was on the list into her office. And if she had just called all the freshman in this period…then my class was next. And the girls were going to be first. I was going to go next, sometime in the next half hour.
I made my way to my next class. I wondered if Cait had figured it out. I contemplated letting her know, but then decided she probably wouldn’t want to talk to me. I was definitely not her favorite person in the world right now. And whoever made the list was probably number one on her hate list.
So in the end I didn’t warn her.
Miss Barton called us in. “Please excuse the interruption. Can Aubrianne Gilson, Sandra Collins, Grace Johnson, Lacy Shepherd, Cassandra Martinez, Yuki Kasamoto, Roxy Prefontaine, and Cait Henry please come to Principal Coleman’s office? Thank you.”
Even though I knew it was coming, my heart still jumped when I heard my name on the intercom. I stood up abruptly, bumping the desk and making it screech across the linoleum floor. Everyone looked at me. Cait and I quickly left the classroom.
We walked to the principal’s office on opposite sides of the hallway. She kept her eyes forward, avoiding me.
“Cait,” I said. “I didn’t put myself on the list. You know that. Seniors do it.”
“It is so humiliating,” Cait snarled.
“Like it’s my fault,” I snapped sarcastically. “Quit being so butt-hurt.”
We made it to the principal’s office. Everyone else was already there. The room was crowded. It was not made for nine people to be in the tiny office space. All of the chairs were already taken so Cait and I were forced to stand awkwardly in the room.
“Hello girls,” the principal, who I had yet to actually meet, said. “You know why I called you in here, right? All eight of you were on the list this morning.”
“I don’t understand why we’re even in here,” Cassandra Martinez, who had been the girl to bang, snorted. “It’s just a stupid list.”
“It may be stupid to you, Cassandra, but you were ranked ugly, or a prude, or the worst body, or the girl to avoid,” Coleman said coldly. “You may be comfortable with that label, but not all of you are. I’m new at this school, and from my understanding, the list has been going on for years under Principal Snow’s supervision. Well, I’m not going to let the list go on. I’m going to find the senior responsible for this, and punish them severely.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Sandra Collins said. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Of course it is, Sandra,” Principal Coleman said slowly, like Sandra was mentally challenged or something. “So I’m pulling all of the students that were on the list in here to question them. So let’s get started. Does anyone know who wrote the list?”
“No,” Aubrianne Gilson said. “It’s done by seniors. At the end of the school year, two seniors will slip instructions into two juniors’ lockers. At the beginning of the school year, the juniors who are now seniors observe all of the students and decides who will be on the list.”
“So two people write the list?” Coleman prodded.
“Yup,” Cassandra Martinez confirmed. “One boy and one girl. The boy does the girls, and the girl does the boys. And at the end of this school year, those two will slip instructions into some juniors’ lockers and the list will keep going. This is more top-secret than the Mafia.”
“I’m going to get to the bottom of it, I promise you,” Principal Coleman said. “This sort of subjecting for you girls—and the boys too—is unhealthy. Sure, they’ll always slap a label on you no matter where you go. But this is announcing something big and private and personal. Your sexual activity. Your beauty. Your flaws. It’s discrimination and it’s also a horrible thing for your self-esteem.”
“I don’t feel bad about myself,” Grace Johnson said. She smiled. “Only God can judge me.”
“Good for you,” Cassandra muttered sarcastically. “Either way the whole school thinks you’re a crazy Christian, with or without the list. And…people who need to know, know what I am. I don’t care if the whole school does.”
“I do!” Cait burst out suddenly. “It’s humiliating to be on that part of the list. You know, the bad part? It’s embarrassing for the whole school to know someone thinks I have—”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Cassandra shot back.
“Cassandra!” Coleman snapped. “Enough! You go back to class this instant.”
Cassandra stood up and shouldered her designer bag. “Whatever. Later, losers.” She walked out.
Coleman looked at each of us. “It may not be today, or tomorrow, or even next week. But I vow to find them, and end this list. You girls can go back to class now.”
Gym was different.
In the locker room, the sophomore girls looked at me with mixed expressions of envy, jealousy, and hatred. It was bliss to know that they now considered me better than them because I made the list and they didn’t. I didn’t think any of them would pick on me anymore.
That couldn’t last, of course.
Laney Aaberg and her head bitches, Alison DeCours, and Jessica Lindbergh approached me in the locker room.
“You’re still a boy to us,” Laney said, acidly sweet.
“It doesn’t matter what the list says,” Alison added.
“Boy,” Jessica chirped.
“Shut your whore mouths,” I snapped. “Apparently, I’m hotter than all three of you put together if I made the list and you bitches didn’t.”
They were dumbfounded into speechlessness and I walked away proudly with my head held high. I kept a poker face until I ran into Oliver as he left the boys’ locker room, when my face burst into a big grin.
“What’s making you all smiley?” Oliver asked as he punched me lightly in the shoulder.
“I just told these girls off,” I chirped, clapping my hands together. “It was so awesome!”
Oliver looked impressed. “Who was it?”
“Laney Aaberg and all of her head bitches,” I snickered. I relayed the words that had been exchanged between the four of us while he nodded in approval and hissed, “Nice” on the occasion.
At the end he high fived me. “My little Roxy’s a bad ass!”
I laughed and shouldered him. “I know, I know.”
Science was horrible. Cait refused to sit in a ten-desk radius with me, forcing Oliver to pick: me or her. And of course, he picked her. It irritated me. Not him—her. I couldn’t believe she was being so needy and selfish that she would make Oliver choose. That alone was messed up.
At last, school was over.
Oliver met up with me at my locker before Cait showed up. “Walk with me,” he said. “Towards the gym.”
The gym was the opposite direction from the way Cait would come. She had stayed behind after class because she needed to ask the teacher a few questions about the assignment, Oliver had told me. So the two of us walked away, towards the gymnasium.
“I’m so sorry,” Oliver said, sincerity in his deep voice. “I just…she’s had a bad day. You know that.”
“I do,” I said, my voice clipped. “And I’m not mad at you whatsoever, Oli. I’m irritated at her. I can’t believe she’s doing this, that she’s making you choose me or her. It’s stupid and childish. And it’s all because of that stupid list because I was ranked better than her, which is something I can’t help.”
Oliver sighed. “I know. But I’m not breaking up with her.”
I felt like I had just walked into a brick wall face-first. My breath left me. Of course I had expected him to break up with her. It was natural for me to think he would do that, right? So he was going to pick her over me?
“I’m not picking sides here,” Oliver said. “I like her. I care about her. And you know I love you. You’re my best friend and I don’t want to lose you. But I don’t want to lose her either.”
“We can’t be King Solomon!” I snapped. “We can’t divide you down the middle and share you! She’s going to be like this all the time now. She’s going to make you choose between sitting with her and sitting with me in science. She’s going to be vying for your attention in the hallways while giving me a Death Glare. She’s going to be pissed at you every time you ‘ditch’ her to hang out with me!”
Oliver touched my arm, stopping us from walking. “I’m going to talk to her, I promise. I’m not picking sides and I’m going to spend time with both of you. And for science…well, it’s the only class I have with her. I have P.E with you so I can hang out with you in there. So is it okay for me to hang out with her in science?”
“No!” I exclaimed. “Because she’s going to demand you hang out with her every day after school, Oliver!”
“I can hang out with her, then come spend the night with you,” Oliver suggested.
I snorted, incredulous. “Ha! You think Cait’s going to fly with that? No! She’d rather you come spend, oh, an hour with me and then go spend the night at her house so you can shag all night!”
“Whoa, when did sex come into this?” Oliver demanded to know. “I. Am. A. Virgin. She is a virgin. We are a circle of virgins. At least, me and her are.”
“So am I,” I replied. “But that’s not the point. How long do you honestly expect to go with her before you do it?”
Oliver shrugged. “When we feel like it, I guess. I want my first time to be…y’know, special.” Red bloomed across his cheeks.
I sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you, Oliver. I’ve just…got a lot going on. Can you believe Principal Coleman is trying to crack down on the list-makers and get it banished?”
“I can’t say it’s a bad thing,” Oliver replied. “Look what it did to Cait. And I hear Florence Perri had an asthma attack because this is the fourth year she’s been named the ugliest on the list. So I can’t say I do want it to stay.”
“It wouldn’t be a shame,” I agreed. “But…I just feel sort of special. Don’t you? You got guy to bang. That’s good, right?”
“Yeah, until everyone realizes that I’m not the guy to bang because I’m not gonna give it up just because some girl wants me. No. And then next year, I’ll probably be named the virgin or something.”
I grabbed his arm and linked it through mine. I turned him around and started going back to the lockers so he could find Cait. “I get it, dude. Just…talk to her. Explain that it isn’t my fault, and that I getting that was probably a big joke because everyone thinks I’m a boy.”
Oliver smiled wanly at me. “Thanks for being so nice to me.”
“That’s what friends are for, right?” I said, elbowing him jokingly in the ribs.
I looked up and Cait was there, a frozen, murderous look on her face. Her text book fell from her hands and clattered to the floor noisily. Oliver left my arm and went to her. He took her hands and spoke quietly to her. I hung back, and decided just to go. I made my way for the door.
Some guy I didn’t know stepped up in front of me. “Roxy Prefontaine?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Who wants to know?”
“Griffin Peterson,” he said. “Wanna hang out?”
I scoffed. “This is because of the list! You jerk!”
He looked me up and down like I was something to eat. “Eh, you aren’t too bad. Got a nice ass, at least.”
I smacked him across the face. “Get out of my face!”
Griffin grabbed me by the arm. “What the hell is your issue, dude? I guess everyone was right—you are a guy.”
His arm was pinching me really hard, to the point of pain. “Let go of me!” I snarled gutturally, glaring deep into his eyes.
“What are you gonna do, bro?” Griffin hissed.
I reared my fist back, ready to punch him in the face.
“Hey! Hey, let go of her!”
There was a blur of motion as someone barreled by me. Ricky O’Rourke materialized, his face a frightful mask of murderous rage with his fist clenching Griffin’s shirt. Griffin released me immediately; his eyes widening in fear. Ricky’s face was red, and the veins were popping out in his neck.
“You think it’s okay to grab a girl, huh?” Ricky spat in his face. “Think it’s okay to come on to her because she was on a stupid list? If you ever come near her again, I’ll put your face to the sidewalk and curb stomp you! Do you understand me?”
Griffin’s head bobbed, and another time the sight would have been comical. Ricky shoved him away. Griffin back-pedaled before he regained his balance and walked—quickly—away.
Oliver ran up beside me. “You okay, Roxy?” He wrapped me up in a hug.
Ricky turned to Oliver. “Yeah? Where the hell were you when he was grabbing her?”
“Hey, don’t pin this on me,” Oliver said, holding his hands up defensively. He was a lover, not a fighter. “I was over there. But thanks so much for helping her out.”
“Yeah, and I’m not even her friend,” Ricky spat the word at him. Ricky looked at me. “You’re okay, right?”
I nodded numbly.
Ricky reached out and touched my arm. “Any one gives you trouble, don’t call on this clown. Call me.”
He spun on his heel and walked away. I looked up at Oliver. His face was startled, angry, and hurt.
“Don’t worry about it,” I whispered. “It’s not your fault. But Lisa should be waiting for me. I have to go.”
I walked away.
A week passed. Cait refused to do anything more than glare at me. Oliver told me he talked to her and he said he didn’t know what the real issue was. I hardly ever saw him outside of school. He was always hanging around Cait’s place, getting cozy with her dad. He went hunting with her dad over the weekend when he could have hung out with me. And school didn’t get any easier, either.
Boys would look at me in the hallways. Usually they were sophomores, but sometimes it was older kids, too, juniors and seniors. They would walk up to me, introduce themselves, ask for my number, whatever. And I rebuffed every single one. Like Oliver, I wanted my first time to be special, too.
Madonna kept trying to be my friend and I discovered that beneath her snobbiness and her heavy make-up she was actually…sort of nice. She took me shopping for clothes and didn’t even mind when I dragged her into Hot Topic. She actually picked a good Falling In Reverse t-shirt out for me, and a cute pair of sneakers. She spent at least three hundred bucks on me that day, and promised to get me a better phone since mine had a crack in the screen after I elbowed it off the kitchen table.
I spent the weekend at my mom’s. We went and picked up some more things for the baby, and Jason and I painted the spare room a nice soft yellow for the nursery. It was coming along nicely. Oliver didn’t call me once.
I called him Tuesday evening. His phone went to voice mail.
Hey, it’s Oliver. Can’t get to the phone right now, so I’ll call you back if I feel like it. Deuces.
I sighed and hung up. I stared at my phone, tracing the crack with my thumbnail. Then I opened up my contacts and scrolled to the R. I hit his name.
He answered on the sixth ring. “Hello?” His voice sounded so sexy on the phone.
“Ricky? It’s Roxy,” I said.
Ricky sounded surprised. “Oh. Hey there. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you wanted to hang out,” I replied. “I’m bored.”
“Sure,” he purred. “Want me to come and pick you up?”
A grin spread across my face. “Sure. Be here in a half hour?”
“Sure.” The phone clicked and he hung up.
I jumped off my bed and stripped out of my Bring Me the Horizon t-shirt. I got into a plain black tank-top and traded my jeans for a pair of shorts. I hoped he wouldn’t notice that I changed from the outfit I wore to school.
I bounded down the stairs. I walked up to my dad. “I’m going out, Daddy.”
“With Oliver?”
I snorted dryly. “No. With someone else.”
Dad raised a brow from the book he was reading. “Oh? Who is it, then?”
Lisa smiled at me. “It’s Ricky, isn’t it?”
“Ricky?” Dad asked.
“He’s a boy from school,” I said. “He’s super nice and we’re just hanging out. It isn’t a date. I promise.”
“Alrighty, then,” Dad said. “Be home by ten o’clock. It’s a school night.”
“I will.”
I pecked him on the cheek then jogged outside to wait for Ricky. I sat down on the end of Madonna’s car and swung my legs casually, thumping my heel on the fender. Ricky didn’t take long to show up. He pulled up in his Barracuda and threw the passenger door open for me. I jumped off the Mercedes and walked to his car. I sank into the seat and buckled in.
Ricky looked at me with a crooked smirk. “Get tired of Oliver?”
“More like he can never find time for me,” I said, rolling my eyes. “He’s always with his girlfriend. She hates me.”
“He’s dating that Cait girl, right?” Ricky asked. “Pfft, I don’t know why he picks her over you.”
I blushed. Ricky looked over at me and smiled. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I replied with a shrug. “I didn’t think that far ahead. I just wanted to get out of my house. I…don’t have any friends besides Oliver.”
“I’m your friend, or I can be, if you want.”
I smiled at him. “Yeah, you can.”
He took me out of town, to a ridge up a dirt road where we could get a perfect view of the city. It was dusk, and the lights of the town were becoming brighter as the sunlight died away. We sat on the hood of his car, close. A little closer than friends.
“It’s so pretty up here,” I breathed, looking forward at the view.
“I come up here to think, to get away,” Ricky said. “It’s quiet. No one comes up here. It’s a place for me, myself, and I.”
“And now me,” I said with a smile.
Ricky chuckled. “Yeah. You’re the only person I’ve ever showed this place to.”
“Well, I feel special.”
We laughed together for a minute. Then I did something stupid. I blurted out, “I know you’re a foster care kid.”
Ricky was quiet for so long I thought he hadn’t heard me. But then he said, “How do you know that?”
“My step dad is a social worker. I think he’s yours.”
“What’s his name?” Ricky asked. His tone was low.
“Jason Albarn.”
Ricky whistled, a low, chilled sound. “Well. Things just got interesting. Is that…going to be a problem? For me and you hanging out, I mean.”
“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “My step dad likes you. I talked to him about you…once.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “My step mom told my dad she saw you drop me off that one day, and my dad told my mom who told him.” So it wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was good enough for me. I didn’t want him to think I was crazy or stalkerish or something.
“Well, that’s good, because I want to hang out with you.” His pinky finger brushed my hand and my heart stopped beating. As if he could sense that, Ricky put his hand over mine, rubbing my hand with his thumb. “I like you, Roxy. Do you like me?”
“I do,” I replied breathlessly. “I like you.”
“Good,” Ricky purred.
He leaned towards me and pressed his lips to mine.
Twenty minutes later, we were out of breath and sweaty in the steamy backseat of his care. We continued to kiss and his hands gripped my waist tightly, drawing me against him. My arms were around his neck, my fingers knotting into the curls on the back of his neck.
I was on my back on the smooth leather seat and he was somehow balanced on top of me. His hands were on my hips, in my hair, on my face. Ricky O’Rourke was everywhere all at once. He was all I smelled, tasted, saw, and felt. It was amazing.
His hand slid up my shirt and I jerked away suddenly. “Whoa!” I cried.
Ricky looked at me. “You okay?”
“You just…surprised me.”
“Is that not okay?”
“Yes. I mean no, no. No, it is not okay.”
Ricky took my hand. “Sorry. I won’t try it again till you tell me it’s okay, Roxy.”
I nodded. “Thanks for respecting my boundaries.”
Ricky drew me against him. We snuggled down in the backseat. “I’m not gonna just treat you like some booty hoe, okay? You mean more to me than that.”
I kissed his neck, and that surprised even me. “Thanks.”
His fingers entwined with mine. “What would you say if I asked you to Homecoming?”
“You can dance?” Crap. I screwed that up. “I mean…yeah.”
Ricky laughed. “Yeah, I can dance. When I was eight or nine, my foster mom was a dance teacher. She taught me. As gay as that sounds.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “My father taught me how to dance. He said my mother couldn’t dance. She was stepping on his toes at their wedding.”
“So you’ll go, then?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
We snuggled down into his backseat, and just talked.
For a long while.