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Chapter Two
Luke Archer
“Where do I drop you off?” she asked, climbing into the driver’s seat. The guys and I usually grab a bite to eat after school at Crusty’s Pizza, but today I didn’t really feel like doing shit.
After hearing Summer’s theatrical announcement, I took the rest of the day off, not wanting to see the pity or scornfulness on people’s faces. Paul and some of the guys had the nerve to call me after I stormed out of the cafeteria, but since the last thing I wanted to do was talk, I turned my phone off for the rest of the day.
“Just drive around, will you? I’ll tell you when to stop.”
The girl turned to look at me with a frown that questioned my sanity then returned her gaze back to the road.
“Cool truck,” I said, eyeing the interior of her red Buick. She was probably the only girl in this town that drove a truck like this.
She glowered at me, catching the sarcasm laced with my tone. “You know, not all of us can afford shiny Convertibles and Harley-Davidsons.”
I chuckled. This girl wasn’t afraid to talk back. Nice.
“So why were you wandering in the streets on foot when you have all sorts of fancy rides sitting in your garage?” she asked, hitting the brakes all of a sudden when she spotted a squirrel crossing the street three yards away. Great, so she can see something as tiny as a squirrel while she’s driving but she almost ran me over.
“I’m funny like that,” I said. What I didn’t tell her was that I spent the entire afternoon thinking of ways to get even with Summer and Paul, and I was so pissed that I left my bike at the rivercourt after getting some liquor from the store and had forgotten its existence when I took off. “So what school do you go to?” She looked to be around my age, but since I’d never seen her at school, I assumed she went to a private school in the city. Just like Summer used to.
Like I had just said something funny, she suppressed a smile. “Roseville High.”
“No kidding. I go there, too!” I said, raising my eyebrow as I scrutinized her. Straight chestnut- brown hair that nearly fell to her waist, rosy complexion, and round, green eyes that reminded me of my five-year-old cousin Mia’s… Nope. Never seen this girl before in my life. I wanted to ask her if she was sure she went to Roseville High, then I realized the question sounded mental so I kept my thought to myself.
“Are you new around here?” Roseville High was a big school, but I knew most of the upperclassmen. She had to be a transfer student; that would explain why I’d never seen her before.
“Nope. I’ve lived here since I was old enough to walk,” she said, clenching her slightly shaky fingers tightly around the steering wheel as she kept her eyes zeroed on the road. It was easy to perceive that she was a nervous and a horrible driver.
“Huh. Then we must have had no classes together,” I frowned, a little puzzled. I’d lived in Roseville all my life and there I was thinking I knew everyone in town. Where the hell did this girl come from? And what had she been doing up until today? Hiding under a rock?
Her next sentence took me by surprise. She didn’t sound pissed, or exasperated. She just said it like she was stating a fact. “I’ve been in your History class since freshman year.” History. What do I do in History classes? Ah, yes. Piss the teacher off with Bryce Anderson for putting us in the front row every year. I guess I never took the time to see who was in that class with me. Or any of my classes, for that matter.
Feeling like a dickhead, I turned to the girl apologetically. “Sorry. And now probably wouldn’t be the right time to ask what your name is.”
She shrugged, like my lack of recognition didn’t faze her, and stared nonchalantly at the road again. “It’s Jamie. Jamie Vandeviere.”
Jamie Vandeviere. Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell.
“Since you go to our school… You probably witnessed the drama today during lunch period, huh?” I sighed, chagrined by the thought of how pathetic I must have seen to the rest of the school. Poor Luke Archer. Getting screwed over by the best friend and the girlfriend. What a total high school cliché.
She glanced at me with caution from the corner of her eye, pursing her lip. “Yeah, I did. I’m really sorry about what happened.”
Emitting a scornful laugh, I shook my head. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. You’re not Summer Merrick or Paul Walden.”
She smiled ruefully and said nothing while I, at the mention of Summer and Paul, started bristling again. I pictured Paul running his hand through Summer’s hair, pictured him caressing her face and kissing her… It wasn’t jealousy that I was feeling since my feelings for Summer were long dead before the breakup, but instead it was pure indignation. No one has ever played me a fool in the past. Ever.
“I spent the entire afternoon thinking of ways to get back at them for what they did,” I gritted my teeth, not knowing why I was spouting everything out to this stranger like she gave a damn about my problems. “There’s no way I’m going to let them get away with this.”
“What are you going to do?” she said, her face crumpling in confusion.
“I don’t know. I just wish there’s a way to put Summer in her place, you know? She thinks she’s all that and can do whatever she wants. Without her designer clothes and handbags she’s freaking nothing,” I scoffed, irate at my own stupidity. I should have broken up with her sooner. Much sooner. She did so many things that pissed me off while we were together, like asking me if she looked fatter than the day before for the sake of her narcissism when she and I both knew she didn’t, bitching about people I didn’t care about to me like I was one of her girl friends every time we went out, and calling herself the It-Girl shamelessly in front of our friends. I mean, really, who does that? Those examples were just the tip of the iceberg. Overall, she was proud of being a stuck up bitch.
She was the kind of girl that made being at the top of the Roseville High Social Ladder her first priority. She did many stupid things to make sure she stayed there, like torturing kids she labeled as Geeks and Nerds when she came across them in the hall. Without those obnoxious girls kissing her ass and without the Roseville High spotlight shining on her twenty-four seven, she’d go insane. That was how shallow she was.
“Luke Archer, I think I’m running out of gas,” Jamie’s frantic voice pulled me from my train of thoughts, and at once I whipped my head to her direction. You have got to be kidding me. I leaned over to take a look at the dashboard; sure enough, the light that indicated low gas level was illuminating.I asked her how long the red light had been on, and her reply, “a while”, made me want to smack my head against the windshield. She really was the worst driver I had ever seen. Did she even have a license?
“I think there’s a gas station three blocks down. Didn’t it occur to you to fill up the tank?” I asked irritably.
“I was going to, then I forgot after I bumped into you on the road-”
“You mean after you almost ran me over on the road,” I cut her off wryly.
“Right.” Her face reddened at my correction. “And then you made me drive around-”
“I didn’t make you do anything,” I chuckled, receiving a dirty look from her when I interrupted her again. “You’re the one who begged me to get in your car.”
She scowled, and the expression on her face was so humorous that I almost laughed.
Since I’d been in this neighborhood before, I was right about the gas station being a couple of blocks away. I got out of the truck with a sigh when we pulled over and headed toward the convenience store with Jamie falling into step behind me. The guy behind the counter was some middle-aged Latino dude with Chinese characters tattooed all over his arms; he gave Jamie a nod and a yellow-toothed smile when she approached him with her wallet.
“Is that your truck over there at Number Two?” he asked, winking at her. Aren’t you the smart one? It’s the only vehicle within sight.
“Yes,” she smiled back politely, taking out a twenty-dollar bill. She gasped when I snatched the cash from her hand and handed it back to her, placing a fifty-dollar bill on the counter instead.
“What are you doing?” she asked, bewildered. “You can’t do that.”
"The hell I can’t. It’s a free country,” I countered. She cocked her head to the side, as if to get a picture of me, and frowned. “The tank isn’t going to fill itself, you know.”
Like I had just brought her out of her reverie, she shook her head and said, “I’m not going to let you spend fifty dollars on my truck.”
“It’s not a big deal so just say thank you,” I replied, shrugging. “If it makes you feel any better, think of it as a payment for driving me around.”
We stood in front of the counter, arms-crossed, without blinking. In the end, probably sensing I wasn’t going to budge, she sighed and said, “Thank you, Luke Archer. You didn’t need to do that.”
I smirked at her. “You’re welcome. And you know, you can just call me Luke because I don’t plan on calling you by your full name. The word Vandeviere is kind of a mouthful.”
She laughed as she went through the door.
***
Jamie Vandeviere
If you’d told me that one day Luke Archer would suddenly acknowledge my existence, after not knowing who I was for the past three years, and ask me to call him by his first name, I would have gone to a mental facility and checked you in. That was why I was taken by surprise when he offered- no, demanded- to pay for my gas when he clearly didn’t need to.
“Thanks for this again,” I said as we waited by the pump. Luke was leaning against my truck with one leg propped up, looking lost in his pool of thoughts.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. We both stiffened when a group of girls parked their silver Ford right behind us, their giggling voices filling up the empty gas station as soon as they got out of their ride. The blonde- the driver- shaped her lips into an O when she spotted Luke and nudged her two friends with her elbow, gesturing to our direction with a tilt of her head. I caught Summer’s name in the midst of their feverish giggling. Apparently, Luke heard it, too; he clenched his fist and drew a deep breath.
“I’m really going to kill Summer,” he chuckled wryly when the girls were out of earshot, shaking his head. “
“I’ll get the shovel, and you can dig up the hole,” I joked.
He smirked, his perfect rows of Hollywood-white teeth peeking out between the lips. “She’d probably be okay with it as long as she looks pretty in her coffin. That’s all she’s ever cared about: looking good and being popular.” He ran a hand through his hair, staring absentmindedly in my direction as I put the nozzle back in its place. When I turned back around, there was a gleam in his eyes and I raised my eyebrow when I found him eyeing me with a mischievous smile.
“What?”
“I have an idea,” he said, taking small steps toward me with the same freaky, calculating smile that made me nervous. “It’s pretty brilliant.”
“Great! Let’s hear it.”
“The best way to make Summer suffer is to remove her from her Queen Bee throne and replace her with someone who she would have never imagined taking her place. It would drive her mad to be upstaged.”
I threw him a sarcastic smile. Luke Archer didn’t strike me as a dimwit, but obviously he was one. “Excellent idea. There’s just one tiny flaw to your plan: no one can upstage Summer Merrick.”
“Not without my help,” he replied confidently.
“Luke.” It was the first time I’d ever called Luke Archer by just his first name out loud, and my heart skipped a beat when I did it. “Normal people avoid Summer or suck up to her. They don’t go against her, okay? Where are you going to find someone crazy and stupid enough to carry out your plan?”
His next words stopped me cold. “I’m looking at her.”
It took a while for me to register what he was saying. I waited for him to say something along the lines of “Haha! Fooled ya!” but it never came. So in the end, I barked an awkward laugh and mockingly punched him in the shoulder. “Very funny. Almost got me.”
“You think I’m kidding around?” He sounded incredulous. “Think about it: it’s perfect. The chances are she doesn’t know who you are since you’re… uh…”
“Invisible to the In-Crowd,” I finished his sentence with a roll of my eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, sounding apologetic. As he continued, he wiggled his eyebrow suggestively. “If you, Jamie Vandeviere, steal her spotlight…”
I wondered if I had hit his head a while ago with my truck unknowingly. Or maybe he really was crazy. Or just absurdly cocky. “We live in Roseville, Luke, not in one of the C.W. T.V. shows, okay? Be realistic!”
“I am! I can guarantee you that it’ll work,” he exclaimed, making a grab at my elbow when I tried to go around him to my truck. “I need your help, Jamie V. You have to do this.”
“I don’t have to do anything! Now let go of me because I’m late for dinner and I don’t want to be lectured by my dad.”
The aggravation was evident in his eyes as he glared at me. I thanked him sardonically when he finally removed his hands then opened the door to my truck.
Then I heard him yelp just as I was about to climb in.
“What now?” My tone sounded sharper than I had intended for it to be.
“Remember you asked me if you’d hurt my leg when you almost ran me over?” Gosh, why does he keep on emphasizing that? “I lied when I said you didn’t.”
Was he serious? He was completely fine a while ago.
“I think I have an internal injury,” he said, his eyebrow scrunched together. I gawked at him with my jaw hanging when he slowly crouched down, his face contorted with pain.”The least you can do for me after almost putting me to my death is to help me out with the tiny favor that I asked of you.”
For once, I was utterly speechless.
“You’re such a liar! You almost had me there for a second!” I exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at him when I saw him wince as he touched his left leg. My truck came in contact with his right.
Sensing no need to put up with the act anymore, he straightened up, his hair cascading over his forehead. “Fine. But think about it; you’ve got nothing to lose. I’m trying to make you popular here. Every girl’s dream-come-true.”
“Not mine, okay? Now can we please get moving?” I looked down to my watch while Luke reluctantly got to the passenger seat, scowling.
I asked him where to drop him off; he curtly told me to take him to the rivercourt, though why he’d want to go there at this hour was beyond me. We didn’t exchange a word throughout the entire way there but I could practically feel his annoyance rolling off him.
His shiny Harley-Davidson came into view as soon as I pulled into the park, looking highly out of place. Why on Earth would Luke leave an expensive bike here?
“I’ll think of some other way to make it up to you, Luke. You know, for hitting you with my truck and for the gas,” I said with a heavy sigh when he unbuckled his seatbelt.
“Give me your phone.”
I froze. My phone. What would he want with my phone? Was he going to toss it into the lake?
“You do know what a phone is, right?” His tone was thick with sarcasm. “A telecommunication device that transmits sounds?”
“I know what a phone is,” I snapped, throwing mine at him.
He smirked when he caught it effortlessly and to my utter bewilderment, punched in a couple of digits. Luke Archer’s number. How many girls at school would die to have his number? “In case you change your mind.”
I gulped and reminded myself to keep my face composed so I wouldn’t seem like one of his fan girls from school. “I won’t.”
“I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
I took that as my cue to drive away. And for some reason, the phone that I was holding suddenly felt a lot heavier than it was before.
***
“YOU HAVE TO DO IT, JAMIE! YOU HAVE TO!”
I winched when Lucy screamed from the other end of the line after I told her about my encounter with Luke and his proposition. My parents were in the living room watching The Amazing Race, their favorite T.V. show, and I could hear my mother wailing when one of the couples that she was rooting for was eliminated. I curled myself into a ball on the bean bag sitting in my room and made sure I kept my volume down, not wanting my parents to overhear the conversation.
However, just because I kept my voice down, it doesn’t mean Lucy and Clara kept theirs down, too.
“Are you insane, Lucy? There’s no way that Luke’s plan could work. I’m telling you, that guy is nuts,” I hissed. “Like I said, he’s either crazy or just plain stupid. Clara, back me up here.”
I could picture Clara biting her bottom lip in her bedroom. “Jamie, you’ve been invisible to the rest of the school except us since freshman year. Luke is offering you a chance to finally get noticed! And not just by anyone, but by the In-Crowd!”
“But-”
“Jamie,” Lucy cut me off, sounding much calmer and more reasonable than she was a moment ago. “If you really think of me as your best friend, do it for me, please? You know I’ve always hated Summer. Think of the way she’s treated me!” My thoughts traveled to the time when Summer accidently knocked down the sculpture that Lucy made the day we were supposed to turn it in as an art project. And the time Summer spread rumors about Lucy having a contagious skin disease that cleared people out of her way for months. And the time she accidently spilled cranberry juice all over the front of Lucy’s jeans on the first day of junior year. “This is our chance to take her down and get revenge. I’ve been dreaming about this moment for months, Jamie!”
I sighed and hung up the phone after telling them I would think it over again. I thought of what Clara said about me being invisible to practically the entire school; if I say it didn’t bother me, I’d be lying. After all, who doesn’t mind being overlooked by people your own age? And Lucy. I knew if the situation were reversed, she’d do it for me in a heartbeat. That was the kind of friend she was.
I spent the next hour staring at my phone, contemplating. Was I really brave enough for this? Challenge Summer Merrick? My gaze traveled to the picture sitting on my nightstand, one of Lucy, Clara and me with our arms linked together at a carnival from last summer.
At around ten o’clock, I mustered up my courage and pressed the number I never thought I’d have in my phone. My heart accelerated as his ringback tone blasted an overly loud Avenged Sevenfold song into my ear. Half of me was praying that he wouldn’t pick up, because I couldn’t image anything more awkward than calling Luke Archer.
“What’s up?” I twitched when his voice sounded from the other end of the line.
I cleared my throat, my heart beating erratically and rapidly in my chest. “Hi. This is Jamie.”
“Jamie…?”
Oh my God. I should just shoot myself and die to spare myself the humiliation. How many Jamies does he know? “Jamie Vandeviere!” I cried.
He snickered then said, “Relax, will you? I was just playing around. I knew who you were.”
Damn it. I let him fool me again. “I called to tell you that I’m in.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “Excellent. Meet me afterschool tomorrow.”
Jamie Vandeviere, you must be going crazy.
~&~
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