eighteen
#1 on the Billboard Chart:
“Truly Madly Deeply”—Savage Garden
Rae West
“Do you think she’ll end up here?” Marilyn asks, glancing over her shoulder. “I mean, I’d vote her into the Club for sure.”
“Nah,” Lexi says, biting into her tepid, paper-thin hamburger and watching three girls head for their table. “The Crows will take care of her.”
The girls slide in next to the North twins, and I focus in on who they are. The girls in their Murder of Crows. A stab of jealousy goes through me. Not that I’ve tried to prove myself or done any extraordinary feats to get into their gang. I don’t want to be a Crow.
I just hate feeling left out, like I’m an outsider they’re keeping at arm’s length. Since the night on their living room floor, I’ve felt too awkward to go over. They never came over to get me, either. Of course not. Lee would kill us all if they tried.
“Who?” I ask, prying open my burger so I won’t look too interested. A film of the bun remains on the brown, bumpy meat substance. I drown it in ketchup and mustard, so I won’t taste the nasty cafeteria fare.
“Mariana,” Lexi says. “She’s pregnant.”
“I wonder who the father is,” Lola muses. “Think she knows?”
“She’s been with Reggie Thomas since before Christmas,” Lexi says. “I bet it’s his.”
“Wait, the Crows date?” I ask.
“Obviously,” Lola says with a grin.
“I thought they just passed the girls around.”
“Yeah, but if they get interested in a girl, they’ll call off the others,” Lexi says. “Billy says they all respect that, if one of them gets attached and wants a girl for himself.”
“Huh,” I say, watching the Crows’ table. “How’d Billy get in anyway? He doesn’t live in our neighborhood.”
“He did when he joined,” Lexi says. “Before his mom and him moved in with us.”
“Of course, we don’t know how far along she is,” Marilyn says, still focusing on Mariana. “She was all over Maddox last fall, and he always shares with Lennox. But if Reggie dumps her and she needs a place to hang, I say we take her in. You know people are going to talk.”
My stomach turns, and I drop my burger and push my tray away. Is it one of my boys’?
And when did I start thinking of them as mine? I have no right to them. They’ve already done far more for me than I deserve. And I know they’re experienced, that Maddox sleeps around and Lennox at least hooks up with crew girls. It’s not like I expect them to become monks because a dumb little virgin moved in next door.
But the thought of either of them getting a girl pregnant… That’s permanent.
Even if he doesn’t marry her, he’d be off limits in some way. I’d lose him forever. I’m not sure which one would devastate me more, if I lost one of my Crows.
Which is stupid. They’re not mine. I’m not even sure we’re friends. I haven’t talked to them since the night in their living room, a night that feels like it happened in a dream, under the cover of darkness. It’s like it never happened, that impossibly filthy thing we did together. If none of us ever acknowledge it, and the only witnesses are Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard, did it really happen at all?
The day after I spent the night at the Norths’ house, Mom went to get Lee from the hospital in the middle of the day. She never told him I was gone all night. Maybe she didn’t even notice, having bigger things to worry about. Lee came home with both arms in full, white casts bent at the elbows. The first sight of him made my stomach turn. Maddox did that.
But then I thought how he’d done it for me, and my belly filled with warmth, and I could hardly keep from smiling at the perfect, poetic justice he dealt out.
Unable to use his hands for much of anything, Lee’s been a nightmare, but he can’t even feed himself, let alone beat the shit out of us. I still have no idea how Maddox pulled it off without getting shot or arrested.
I waited for him to come check on me, for one of them to. Which is dumb, since I snuck out on them. I’m the one who should have gone back, thanked them for taking me in, for what they did for me. But I felt way too awkward about it, and I didn’t want to look needy and have them make fun of me or treat me the way they treat Scarlet. I hoped that, since they’re experienced and they knew I wasn’t, that they’d check in. Even after the weird note the night ended on, I expected… Something.
But that’s expecting them to be boyfriend material, and everyone knows they’re not. They’re not going to get attached after one kiss, one hookup where we didn’t even go all the way. That’s my problem to deal with.
So, I sat in my window seat during Christmas break, readingThe Green Mile,which I’d been waiting to read since it came out, but it was always checked out from the library. I finally got it, which gave me an excuse to sit up there and feed Poe and spy on the neighbor’s house like a complete stalker.