Most Likely to Succeed by Jennifer Echols
“Thank you,” I breathed as we walked down the hall.
“You’re welcome. I earned my shoulder rub.”
“You did.” I laughed and felt better, even though I had a horrible five hours in front of me, and my face was still wet with tears. “Did Ms. Malone help you? What did she say?”
“Don’t think about that right now. Until one o’clock when you e-mail this paper to Mr. Frank, your only thoughts are Dostoyevsky, Raskolnikov—”
“Okay.” I stopped in the hallway. He stopped too, in surprise. His eyes were full of concern.
I wanted to kiss him—not a show of lust, but of appreciation. I would get us both in hot water, though. I only kissed my finger and placed it on his lips.
He looked shocked for a moment. But as I pulled my hand away, he said solemnly, “I know. I feel that way too.”
And we walked to history together.
* * *
The following Friday, I skipped out of calculus even earlier than I had the previous week for the student council meeting. I waited outside Ms. Yates’s classroom. Sure enough, I’d beaten Sawyer by a hair. I watched him saunter up the hallway, walking more like the jaunty pelican than his usual cool self while he thought nobody was watching. His backpack hung heavy over one shoulder. It probably contained six different library books explaining Robert’s Rules of Order. He wore the madras plaid shirt with the blue stripe that I loved so much. When he looked up at me, his blue eyes were arresting in the blank white hall. He broke into a wide grin.
He’d been kind to me Monday while I was writing my paper, checking on me between classes. During lunch I’d e-mailed him my mostly finished draft. He’d read over it on his phone while I was still typing the end, and he suggested places I could clarify my statements or add more detail. Best of all, he told me my paper wasn’t crap. That kept me going. I didn’t have time to eat lunch, but I typed my closing statement just as the bell rang to go to Mr. Frank’s class, where Sawyer slipped me a candy bar underneath our desktops.
The way he’d treated me, and the way Aidan had acted when he found out I’d forgotten to write my paper, made me question my decision not to date Sawyer if he asked. The problem was, he didn’t ask. All week we hung out during lunch and the classes we had together. People certainly saw something between us. Tia and Harper, wide-eyed, asked me for updates three times a day. The cheerleaders and my other friends who hadn’t heard about everything that had passed between Sawyer and me demanded to know whether we were hooking up. Several of them told me they’d voted for Sawyer and me as Perfect Couple That Never Was, and they were disappointed when I was named Most Likely to Succeed with Aidan.
Me too. I hadn’t felt that way when the Superlatives titles were first announced, but hindsight was 20/20.
Maybe I should have taken the plunge and asked Sawyer out. But he was holding back with me. That was unlike him. He must have some good reason. And I was enjoying being close to him so much that I was afraid of messing things up if I pushed too fast for a change.
“Hey,” I said as he stopped beside me at Ms. Yates’s door. “I wanted to catch you before the meeting. Were you planning to sit at Ms. Yates’s desk again?”
“I don’t have to,” he said. “I only did that last week to make Aidan mad.”
“Great minds think alike.”
He didn’t laugh. He watched me carefully, as if talking about Aidan was making him as uncomfortable as it was making me.
“I don’t want to argue with him anymore,” I said in a rush. “I’m just not interested. And I think it would help us get along with him if we let him have the desk. We’re trying to get stuff done in student council, and we should pick our battles.”
The bell rang. Sawyer and I stepped back into safety against the wall as Ms. Yates’s freshmen streamed into the hall, followed by Ms. Yates, who hurried toward the teachers’ lounge. She obviously couldn’t deal with these meetings without a fresh cup of coffee. Considering the last meeting and Sawyer pulling out the rule book, I didn’t blame her.
After the flood of freshmen had passed, I walked into the room and sat in a desk in the front row. Sawyer slid into the desk behind mine. Goose bumps rose on my skin as he whispered so close that I could feel his breath on my neck. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation, turning to smile at him. “I already told you.”
He glanced up as the first reps walked in. Then he lowered his voice and asked, “Will you go to the prom with me?”
For the first time I really thought about our senior prom with Sawyer as my date. It could actually happen now. He would look dashing in a tux, a combination of handsome elegance and dangerous energy. I wanted to say yes.
Instead I said, “Prom is in April. A lot could happen before then. It’s too soon to tell.”
“Excuses, excuses,” he said dismissively. “Nothing can happen before tonight, though. Will you sit in the van with me on the drive to the game?”
“I have to,” I said, “because I owe you a shoulder rub.”
He raised his eyebrows provocatively as if I’d said something very sexy. That’s what I’d been counting on. Granted, he hadn’t asked me out in the past week, or made anything that could be called a move on me. But we’d also seen each other only in public, usually fleetingly, like touching hands as we passed in the hall. Maybe we just needed some quality time together. We wouldn’t be alone in the cheerleading van, but we’d definitely be stuck next to each other.
And I intended for something to happen.
When the classroom had filled with reps, Aidan swept in to take his proper place on the throne. As he sat down in Ms. Yates’s chair, Sawyer sent him a message by noisily unzipping his backpack and thumping Robert’s Rules of Order onto the corner of his desk where Aidan could see it.
Sawyer’s threat worked. Aidan didn’t deviate from the rules. He simply called on the committees to report about the student council’s homecoming responsibilities. That is, he called on me to report on the various committees I headed.
I told the classroom that preparations for Monday’s election of the homecoming court were going well. This meant I’d put some junior cheerleaders I trusted in charge. Preparations for the parade float build were also going well, because I’d delegated Will to handle them. He’d designed a gorgeous beach scene that he swore we could pull off with nothing but wood, chicken wire, and crepe paper, and he’d drafted Tia’s contractor dad to take off work for once and supervise construction. Finally we got around to the dance.
“The dance preparations aren’t progressing as I’d planned,” I admitted. “I did find a potential place to hold it off campus.” No need to bring up that the place was a gay bar. “But when I spoke with Principal Chen on Tuesday about moving the dance, she said we couldn’t hold it off campus for liability reasons. If the dance is an official school function paid for with student dues, it needs to be held here on school grounds unless our lawyers okay a new location, and we don’t have time to call them in.”
“So it’s dead?” Will called from the back of the room. “If we can’t have it here, and we can’t have it elsewhere, it’s dead.”
“It looks dead,” I admitted. “I hoped one of you would have a brilliant idea. Throw me a Hail Mary pass here.” I held up my hands, ready to catch the last-minute idea a rep would toss at me.
Nobody said anything. All eyes were on me, waiting for me to solve this problem myself.
“Well, y’all have my phone number,” I concluded. “Text me over the weekend if you come up with something. If we don’t have a solution by Monday, we won’t have time to get the word out to students and parents, and the dance will definitely be dead.”
The meeting progressed normally after that. Aidan didn’t make a sarcastic comment about the dance or question why I’d pursued it in the first place. He didn’t have to, because he’d already won.
But when he dismissed the meeting and the reps were filing out to the lunchroom, he walked over
I eyed him. “About student council?”
“Of course,” he said.
“About me resigning as vice president?” I asked. “I refuse to have that discussion again.”
“I don’t want you to resign as vice president,” he said soothingly. “I was angry that night.” This was as much of an apology as I ever got out of Aidan unless he also dropped his suave politician facade. This time he didn’t.
“Will Ms. Yates be there?” I snapped. “I really enjoyed the last time I tried to eat lunch with you two.”
“Just you and me,” he said.
“All right. Let me do something first.” I watched him return to Ms. Yates’s desk to gather his papers. Then I faced Sawyer.
He was watching me, like he’d heard the whole conversation and expected an explanation.
“I’m eating lunch with Aidan,” I said.
Sawyer nodded. He had no expression on his face, which was never a good sign.
But if he had nothing else to say, I wasn’t going to hang around and try to draw him out. He still hadn’t done anything to make me think he wanted us to get together. As far as I knew, the crush was all on my end.
I walked to the lunchroom with Aidan and a crowd of reps. Aidan went through the hot food line while I visited the salad bar—mainly because I was hoping for another word with Sawyer, not because I wanted salad. So much for not caring what Sawyer thought. I hadn’t lasted five minutes. But I didn’t see him anywhere.
Eventually I slid my salad onto a table across from Aidan, not in the teacher section but far away from our usual table too, in an unpopulated corner. As I sat down, he asked, “What’d you get on your Crime and Punishment paper?”
He uttered this like it was a casual question. It wasn’t. He’d asked me all about my grades when we’d dated. But looking back on our time together, I realized my shoulders had tightened and my stomach had twisted with stress every time he’d grilled me. The constant competition with him over the years had been no fun. Being his girlfriend had made it worse.
I knew from experience, though, that not answering him would lead him to accuse me of getting a bad grade. That was something my ego couldn’t withstand. I told him the happy truth: “A ninety-two.” Not a grade up to my usual standards by any means, but way better than the zero I would have received if Sawyer hadn’t stepped in to buoy me that day.
“Wow,” he said between french fries, “you should get Sawyer to write your papers for you every time.”
This was an insult meant to stab me in the heart. It didn’t, because I knew I’d written my own paper. If he’d accused me of cheating two weeks ago, I would have been upset. His grip on me was slowly slipping.
And his mention of Sawyer turned me on. What if Sawyer had written my paper for me? Sure, that would be cheating. I would never do that. I didn’t need to. But the idea suggested an intimacy between Sawyer and me that was more exciting than our tame reality.
So far.
“What did you get?” I asked Aidan.
“Are you scared?” he accused me. This meant he’d gotten lower than a ninety-two.
“All right, then,” I said dismissively. “What’s the student council business you wanted to discuss?” I took a bite of salad.
“It looks like you’re not going to get your homecoming dance after all,” he said.
I nodded without looking up.
“But if we do have one,” he said, “I don’t want you to go with Sawyer.”
As he said this, I finally spotted Sawyer across the lunchroom. He stood behind a table where a lot of the cheerleaders sat, one hand on the back of Grace’s chair and the other on the back of Cathy’s, laughing with them. It wouldn’t be long before I heard yet another rumor about his sexual exploits, as if my friendship with him was an addition to his life, not a change.
But I wasn’t about to admit that to Aidan. I said, “You broke up with me. What I do now is none of your business.”
“I didn’t break up with you,” he said, pointing at me with a french fry. “I said I wanted to take a break. I thought dating other people for a while would strengthen our relationship, but I didn’t mean you could date Sawyer!”
I put my fork down. “You said you wanted to talk about student council business. I wouldn’t have agreed to eat lunch with you otherwise.”
“This is student council business,” Aidan said. “When you and I were dating, people knew we were on the same page, president and vice president. Now people are coming up to me constantly, asking whether you’re dating Sawyer. I tell them, ‘Yeah, she’s obviously had an aneurysm or a small stroke, and suddenly she’s decided she wants to date a loser.’ ”
“Why do you say he’s a loser?” I demanded. “He’s in the upper-level classes with us.” I had no idea what sort of grades Sawyer got, but he must have tested well enough at some point to be placed in the college track. “He’s the school mascot, a student council rep, and the parliamentarian. He doesn’t sound like a loser to me.”
Aidan’s eyes were cold as ice as he said, “I don’t like him, okay? I don’t like the way he talks to you.”
I had no idea what Aidan meant. Frowning, I asked, “How does he talk to me?”
“He stands very close to you,” Aidan said, moving closer across the table himself. “He leads with his pelvis. And I don’t understand what you see in him. Of course, there are ladies who marry men in prison.”
“He’s not in prison,” I pointed out.
“He will be.”
We stared each other down across our almost untouched food. I’d had plenty of conversations with Aidan in which he lobbed witty insults at me to make me feel bad. But he didn’t usually want something from me. This time he was intense and certain. Whether or not I was a part of his life, he wanted Sawyer out of mine.
“Tell me something,” I said, acting casual by picking up my fork again and stirring my salad. “Did your dad help prosecute Sawyer’s dad when he went to jail?”
I wasn’t looking at Aidan, but his hesitation told me I’d surprised him. After a few seconds, he said, “Yeah.”
“And when Sawyer moved to town, your dad told you who he was. That’s how everybody knew on Sawyer’s very first day at school that his dad had been to jail. You made sure they knew.”
“So?”
I looked up at Aidan. “Sawyer might be a different person today if you hadn’t done that. He didn’t know a soul in town except his dad. He hardly knew his dad, I imagine. And you ensured he was teased by the entire student body the second he stepped on campus. No wonder he’s so defensive. Some school leader you are.” I shouldered my book bag and picked up my salad. Ignoring Aidan when he called to me, I walked away.
I wasn’t sure where to go, though, which put a damper on my dramatic exit. I’d almost forgotten that the last time I’d seen Sawyer, he was cozying up to Grace and Cathy. But he wasn’t sitting with them now. After a quick scan of the room, I spied him at our usual table, working through an enormous salad and speaking an occasional word to Quinn next to him.
When I approached, he glanced up at me. He looked down again without smiling, as if I wasn’t welcome. He really was mad that I’d eaten lunch, however briefly, with Aidan. As I slid into the seat across from him with my salad in front of me, he concentrated on his own food. Then he asked flatly, “Did you finish with your student council business?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve told you, I’m good at reading people. Don’t tell me you were talking about student council.”
Quinn looked at Sawyer, then at me, then wisely pretended to pay attention to a dirty joke Tia was messing up farther down the table.
I told Sawyer, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Get back with him if you want to, Kaye.” Sawyer sounded bitter. “I don’t own you. That’s your choice. But don’t lie to me about
Now Noah beside me was eyeing us too, and Brody beyond him. I glared at Sawyer, letting him know I didn’t find this public fight amusing.
He raised his eyebrows at me. He didn’t care.
“Aidan and I were together for three years,” I said. “We dated for a year before you even moved here. The way he broke up with me was ugly and open-ended. It’s hard to pretend that didn’t happen.”
The angry expression in his eyes faded. He took another bite of salad, considering. Finally he said, “I get it. But don’t expect me to be polite about it.”
I almost laughed and told him that was fair enough. But it wasn’t fair. He was acting like a jealous boyfriend, except he wasn’t my boyfriend, as far as I knew. I wanted us to be friends with bennies, but our bennies had gone missing.
I wasn’t going to point this out with ten of our friends listening, though.
Instead, watching him reach the bottom of his salad plate, I asked, “Why did you become a vegan, anyway? Are the pelicans your brothers?”
He slammed his chair backward so suddenly that everyone at the table turned toward the screech. Rising, he said, “I’m tired of people telling me I’m a dumbass for going vegan. I know.”
“I didn’t say you were a dumbass!” I exclaimed.
“You didn’t have to.” He grabbed his backpack and his empty plate and stalked away.
As he went, I finally realized what he was telling me every time he got angry with me. People at school thought Sawyer had a thick skin, but he was sensitive after all. And he was upset that I’d found out.
Near the other end of the table, Tia caught my eye and jerked her thumb over her shoulder, asking if I wanted her to go after Sawyer and smooth things over.
I shook my head and returned to my salad with a sigh. I was beginning to think whatever was wrong between Sawyer and me was something that couldn’t be fixed.
10
BY THAT EVENING, I WAS eager to try again. I watched out the window of the cheerleading van for Sawyer’s beat-up truck to appear, lumbering over curbs in the school parking lot. Just like last time he stopped right next to my car. That was no accident. He looked up at the window and saw me. I didn’t turn away.