The girls clapped and squealed with such enthusiasm, Myla thought they would break into an
impromptu chorus of "Kumbaya."
The manicurist had just removed Myla's practically fresh violet coat of OPI Caffeine Fix when
someone tapped her on the shoulder. Ash. He'd found her. Maybe all the pieces of her
jigsawed life were going to be put back together tonight. She looked up, anxious to be staring
into Ash's teddy bear eyes.
Instead, she got Jojo's violet eyes, peering down at her. Jojo's gaze shifted to Talia, seated in
the manicure chair next to her. Talia smiled perkily but resumed giving orders to her manicurist.
Jojo shrugged, and rolled up another manicure chair between Talia and Myla.
She plopped down, spinning the chair so she could have a private audience with Myla. All of
Myla's fair-weather friends had returned, Jojo noticed. After all this time of having Myla all to
herself, Jojo wasn't crazy about suddenly having to share her.
"You will never believe what just happened," Jojo whispered, raising one eyebrow. She knew
Myla would be surprised at first to hear that she'd dumped Tucker, but proud of Jojo for not
putting up with a complete ass. "I dumped Tucker."
"You did what?" Myla's face was not the curious, bemused one Jojo was expecting. She just
looked confused. "Why?"
Jojo shook her head as if to say, Why not? She looked seriously into Myla's eyes, ignoring
Talia and the girls, who were already talking in hushed tones about Jojo and Tucker's split.
"One, I don't know if he was ever really right for me. And two, about twenty minutes ago he
decided this party needed a wet T-shirt contest. It almost cost me my Prada." Jojo gestured to
her cream sundress.
"Is that seriously why you dumped the second-most popular guy in school? Why didn't you
consult me first?"
"You're joking, right?" Jojo said, her eyes flicking to Talia, Billie, and Fortune. They watched
with casual detachment, like Jojo was a minor character on a teen soap who was about to be
killed off.
Myla rolled her eyes and patted Jojo's arm in faux sympathy. She wasn't planning to exile Jojo
or anything, but she also didn't want her friends to see she'd formed a serious bond with Jojo in
the short time they'd spent apart. Besides, for the girls to know she'd made a faulty Jojo-Tucker
match was no good at all. To her friends, Myla's blessing a relationship was more powerful
than the pope on Easter.
"Look, if you can't control your boyfriend, it's not my problem," Myla said, turning back and
extending a hand so the manicurist could keep working.
Jojo felt her whole body quake. She scanned the seats on either side of Myla, where Billie,
Talia, and Fortune sat placidly, looking at her like they weren't sure what she was doing here
now that the Fantastic Four had been reunited.
It dawned on Jojo that they knew better than she did. All the time, she had been nothing more
than a project for Myla, a way to pass the time while her friends' attention was elsewhere.
Myla hadn't been helping Jojo . She'd been helping herself. She'd made Jojo dress like her, talk
like her, walk like her. She'd made her squelch her feelings for a guy she actually liked--Jake-and pimped her out to a guy she didn't. And Jojo had gone along with it. Thinking about how
willingly she'd gone along with Myla's scheme, Jojo hated herself almost as much as she hated
Myla right now. She'd lied to Willa, her best friend in the world. The only true friend she'd ever
had. Who didn't even want to be her friend anymore.
Jojo felt words pile up in her throat, like those last few moves on a Tetris game when the
shapes are falling so fast you know you're going to lose.
"You know what? This is it. Thus endeth the lessons," Jojo said, hovering over Myla in the
four-inch heels that were killing her. "I'm not some experiment. I'm not some robot you can
dress like you and teach to talk like you and to act like you." Jojo cast a meaningful look at
Talia, Billie, and Fortune, who looked like shelved marionette puppets with their mouths
hanging open.
Myla sighed, as though bored, but wrenched her hand out from under the nail tech's cotton ball.
She stood up, straightening her back so she was nearly Jojo's height, wishing Jojo were in
flats.
Jojo's ungrateful tirade. "If it weren't for me, you'd still be Miss Sacra-demento who can't hold
her liquor. How could you be so ungrateful?"
Jojo cocked her head bitchily to the side, a move Myla recognized as one of her own. "Should I
be thanking you?" Billie was texting wildly, probably live-blogging the showdown. "Shouldn't
you be thanking me? I was fun for a while, right? A little project to keep you busy while you
waited for your loyal subjects to come running back. 'Oh, Jojo will be so happy to have her life
hijacked while I wait for my BFFs to get bored with Amelie Adams.'"
Myla took a step forward, so that she and Jojo were mere inches away. Jabbing her sister's
chest with her polishless index finger, she spat out her words. "Whatever, BarfBarf. I didn't
hear you complaining when I lent you my shoes, or took you shopping, or taught you how to
walk upright instead of like some Central California cavewoman. Yakking on YouTube is
about as entertaining as you'll get."
Jojo shook her head, willing herself not to stammer in front of the crowd that had gathered.
Myla's friends, the manicurists, and dozens of other students were staring.
"You just don't get it, do you?" Jojo said. "You should appreciate all the people in this world
who see enough in you that they're willing to put up with your shit. Instead, you think they're
worthless unless you can make them do anything you want them to. As if having you pull the
strings and call the shots makes them the luckiest people on earth. You know your rule, 'It's not
you, it's them'? Myla, in your case, it's all you. You screw up the only things worth having, for,
I don't know what, popularity? Power? You probably don't even know. But you can have it."
Jojo yanked off the painful Stuart Weitzman platform heels Myla had lent her and dropped
them at her sister's feet. "And you can have your shoes back."
Myla stared at the shoes like they were a pair of dead rats. She couldn't believe Jojo had the
nerve to take her on in front of the entire school. And she couldn't believe she was letting it
happen. But worst of all, what if what Jojo was saying was true? She pursed her lips and
fanned her gaze around the nosy onlookers. Glaring at Jojo, she said, "You have no idea who
you're messing with. You're over."
Myla expected tears. But instead, Jojo shook her head, looked over Myla's shoulder, and
grinned.
"Okay, Myla," Jojo said, in a sincerely sweet voice. "Good luck with that. And good luck with
Ash." Then she winked, and spun on her bare heel, striding out of the party.
Myla took a deep breath, hoping the oxygen would purify her. That was done, at least. For
now. She should have known better than to reach out to Jojo. She'd created a monster.
But she didn't have the chance to breathe for long, because coming toward her was Ash.
With Daisy Morton. Holding hands.
Make that two monsters.
Ash caught her eye and whispered in Daisy's ear. Myla strode
in their direction, too wobbly to
look any of her friends or classmates in the eye. There was an explanation for this. There had to
be. Maybe Daisy was wasted again, and the hand-holding was just a maneuver to keep her
from passing out.
"Hi, Ash," Myla said, trying to control her shaky voice. She examined Daisy, expecting to find
a trail of dry drool layered over caked-on makeup. She was a collage of odd: strands of hair
dyed green and hot pink, shiny bright blue eye makeup, and a bizarre ruffled T-shirt dress
worn over knee-high athletic socks and sequined Chuck Taylors. But Myla could tell she was
pretty beneath the makeup, with silvery eyes and surprisingly clear skin. She glowed, even as
she let go of Ash's hand and smiled faintly at Myla.
Ash seemed to glow, too. His shaggy hair was in its optimal default mode, a fringe of amber
falling over his left eye. Right now, Myla was the center of attention, a position she'd never
occupied as unwillingly as she did tonight.
"Can we talk?" Ash said, his voice more sympathetic than apologetic. Myla already knew what
was coming. The void in her stomach was the same emptiness she'd felt when she was seven
and Lailah had convinced her to give one of the poor kids in India her favorite American Girl
doll, Izzy. She'd done it, hoping to feel good, but instead had felt Izzy's absence for months
afterward. And now she'd given Ash away too. She'd hoped to put them on even ground, only
to find that the ground had been ripped out from under her.
"You don't have to explain," Myla said, quietly at first, steeling herself to fight back the tears.
All along, in some faint and ignored part of her, she'd known this was coming from the second
she'd told him to kiss someone else. But she'd listened to the other part, the part that told her
that having a plan was better than letting life keep you waiting. This was Ash's fault. If he had
just believed her that the Lewis night was meaningless, she would have never had to make this
idiotic bargain with him. And he'd been the one to tell her how disgusting Daisy was. With the
world watching as hers fell apart, Myla summoned a memory.
"I thought you stood for something," she said, remembering what he'd told her on his birthday.
She smirked into Ash's face, watching his eyes widen in panic as he recalled what came next.
"Didn't you say you liked musicians who were about integrity?" She ticked off the words on
her fingers, gleefully noticing Daisy's confused look. "Quality? Actual musical skills? So you
cleaned her up, but is she talented enough for you? Or are you just like everyone else,
captivated by a train wreck?"
She paused for a second. Everyone was silent. The perfect time for the knockout blow. "What
else was it you said? You were stuck with her against your will? But look who's holding hands
with a train wreck. Go ahead and ride that train all you want."
She took her eyes off Ash, raising an eyebrow at Daisy. She knew it was cruel. Daisy hadn't
technically done anything wrong. But she wasn't going to let another girl take away her favorite
thing without a fight.
Daisy's smile melted, her gray eyes narrowing--but not at Myla. She stared at Ash like he was
a stranger. And then she backed away from him.
Daisy stormed off, using the same beaten path as Jojo. Ash bit his lip, looking at Myla coldly.
The way he'd looked when he saw her kissing Lewis had been bad, but this look... this look
had unforgivable written all over it.
"If you think that just because she won't have me, you can, you're wrong," Ash said, as he
moved in the direction Daisy had gone. "Maybe when we were going out, you could manage
my life for me. But we're over, and if anyone's gonna screw my shit up, it's going to be me."
With that, he walked off too.
Myla tallied herself as 0-for-2 in the last words category. And 0-for-1,000,000 in the chance
that she'd ever be happy again.
PLAY IT AGAIN, ASH
Jake trudged toward his car, feeling more tired than he had in days. Maybe it had been the
movie, or having a girlfriend, or being the star of his own life for once that had made him
impervious to fatigue. But now, with the movie over and Kady gone--really gone--he felt every
ounce of energy draining out of him.
Maybe he just needed to eat some carbohydrates, though. Because, weirdly enough, he wasn't
brokenhearted about Kady dumping him. If anything, he felt kind of like a normal guy for
once--he'd actually been with a girl, and it hadn't worked out. It was like a badge of honor. He'd
high-fived with football players, sneaked out of his house, and gotten dumped, all in the space
of a day.
He arrived at the visitors' parking lot, seeing his Corolla crammed into a spot between two
monster Escalades. Sitting on the curb near the valet turnaround was Ash Gilmour, his head in
his hands, his hair tufted into spikes of frustration.
It was oddly quiet, the party noises muffled by the high hedges that surrounded the parking lot.
"Hey, dude," Jake said, looking down on his next-door neighbor. Ash looked like he'd lost his
dog, his best friend, and a bet. Maybe he had.
Ash looked up at him, his face registering surprise. "Jake, hey, you're leaving early."
Jake chuckled. "Yeah, well, I have one weekend to catch up on two weeks of homework."
"Oh, the movie," Ash said, grateful to talk about anything but the fact that Daisy had run out on
him. He'd followed her to the parking lot, but she was gone. He needed to go home and think.
Hearing Myla say the awful things he'd said had made him feel like a shitty, judgmental prick.
And it had cost him the girl he liked, one who made getting over Myla seem like a distinct
possibility.
"Yeah, the movie," Jake said. "The teachers don't care if I'm Jake or Tommy Archer. Deadlines
are deadlines. So, do you want a ride home? I'm going that way."
"Cool," Ash said, heaving himself off the curb. He walked toward one of the Escalades.
"Um, no, the Corolla is me," Jake said sheepishly, wondering if Ash would decide to just wait
instead of going home in his powder blue Dorkmobile.
Ash grinned. "Keeping it real, Goldsmith," he said. "Nice."
Sinking into the passenger seat, Ash toyed with the tape deck as Jake pulled away from the lot.
As they drove through the Transnational gates, Ash ran his hands over the tape deck controls.
"Retro. Kinda cool. I sort of think iPods are killing albums. Well, I didn't think it. I read it in
Rolling Stone. But still. Is it cool if I turn it on?"
"Yeah, sure," Jake said, praying he didn't have some lame Duran Duran cassette in there.
Ash punched play, and after a few seconds of silence the sound of Queen's "You're My Best
Friend" poured out.
Even though the song was about a girlfriend, or one of Freddie Mercury's boyfriends, Ash
smirked at the memory of him and Jacob singing along to the song together as kids.
"Remember how we thought this was, like, a best-friend song? And not a love song?" Ash
said, staring at the looming semitruck rumbling up the freeway entrance in the next lane.
Jake laughed, merging into traffic. "Remember how when we hung out, we didn't like girls?
I'm thinking that we should bring that back."
Ash sighed, his eyes on the hills misted with clouds far on the horizon. "Yeah, tell me about
it."
"I know that was rhetorical, but I'll tell you anyway," Jake said, sighing. "Kady dumped me to
go film a new movie overseas. I have no skills. I guess just because you play big man on
campus doesn't mean you are one." He wondered if school would really be any different on
Monday, or if he'd go back to being lame Jacob PG again. Or worse, lame Jacob PG who got
dumped by Kady Parker.
"Hey, supposedly I'm some kind of big man on campus. Which actually sounds like a totally
douche bag thing to be. And it didn't help me. The girl I liked just found out the asshole remark
I made about her before I got to know her. And she ran off."
"Wow, we sound like an episode of Dr. Phil, huh?" Jake said.
"Next on Dr. Phil: 'How to Be a Douche Bag,' with Ash Gilmour and Jake Porter-Goldsmith,"
Ash said in an announcer's voice.
Jake laughed. "No, but seriously, that sucks, dude," he said, trying not to look up as he drove
beneath a billboard for Kady's next horror movie, The Unwanted. "If it makes you feel any
better, Kady's going to Prague. She better be in that movie, or I'm going to think she dumped
me in the most elaborate way possible."
Ash smirked, opening the glove box to check for other tapes. "She wouldn't make that up. At
least you can tell yourself she left because she had to, not because she thinks you're a total piece
of shit." And because your ex is a complete psycho who wants your life without her to be
absolute misery, Ash thought.
Jake squinted sideways at Ash. "A total piece of shit? Three-quarters, maybe, but not total." He
worried for a split second that Ash would think the joke was lame. But Ash laughed.
"What's more than three-quarters?"
"Seven-eighths," Jake said automatically.
"Then I'm that," Ash said. "I said that I had to hang out with her against my will. Which was a
little true, at first. But then I started to like her." Ash swallowed as he imagined what Daisy
was doing now. He'd wanted so badly to protect her, and then he'd been the one to hurt her the
worst, after all her ex-boyfriend drama with that punk musician. He just couldn't seem to get
girls right these days.
"You can't not have first impressions," Jake said, pressing the brake as they got caught behind
another snarl of traffic. He smiled at the memory of Kady calling him perfect. Not perfect