Chapter 4

I surveyed my reflection on the full-length mirror.

I tugged the black skirt a little lower and checked if my red top was properly tucked into it. I didn't want to exert too much effort—I didn't want Seth to get the wrong idea—but I didn't want to show up looking like I just rolled out of bed either.

While looks weren't everything, I've learned to rely on making myself look perfectly fine to fool everyone into thinking that I was.

I hadn't properly brushed out my hair, so I initially planned on putting it up in a high ponytail, but after running my fingers a few times through it, I managed to make it look like I'd kept it this way on purpose, framing my face just the right way.

People always said I looked a lot like my mom. I got her high cheekbones, which I only learned to be thankful of when I began to pay attention to how I looked, as well as her nose (while it wasn't movie star perfect, it wasn't entirely hideous either) and brown hair.

"But you got my best feature, Kid," Dad used to tell me whenever someone pointed out the resemblance between me and Mom, always claiming it was his vibrant green eyes that made Mom "fall in too deep," to which she would roll her eyes and shake her head.

Now I was looking at the green eyes staring back at me on the mirror and I knew it was the closest I could ever get to having Dad's eyes on me again.

I'd always wondered what he would have thought of Cedric. I wanted to know if he would have approved of him; if he'd try to scare him off; or if he'd tell me to stay away from him because he knew he was only going to break my heart. I wondered what he would have done to comfort me after the breakup. He probably would have whipped up a batch of (burnt) waffles, like he always did when I was a child, telling me a quote or two that he picked up from one of his favorite books.

All I could ever do now was wonder—about what he thought of me wearing this skirt, or of Seth, who was going be here any minute now to pick me up.

I never planned on letting him drive me, but if there was one thing I was quickly learning about him, it was that he was really stubborn.

I was taking something from my locker when he walked up to me after class yesterday. He leaned against the locker next to mine, casual as ever, and asked me what time he should pick me up.

At first, I couldn't tell if he was being serious, but when I figured he really was serious, I said, "I can drive, Everett."

Not only did I have a problem with not having my own means of escape, but agreeing to ride in a car with a person whose reputation with girls wasn't exactly pleasant was something that triggered countless warning flags at the back of my mind, so I told him no.

He followed me all the way to the parking lot, incessantly trying to convince me to agree, and the thing that annoyed me most was the fact that he didn't even look desperate, not even when he began to drive after me on my way home, looking as though he was hardly bothered by the chase (I suspected he might have even enjoyed it), like he knew for sure that I would say yes by the end of the day.

I managed to ignore his car trailing behind mine until the first stoplight.

I pulled into the parking lot of a bakery store, knowing he would stop as well.

"Fine," I hissed out at him. When a smug look crossed his face, it took all I had in me to resist the urge to hurl something at him. A shoe, maybe, or my phone. Perhaps even my whole bag.

By the time we said goodbye, I'd already given him my address and he was promising to pick me up at eight.

For some reason, he struck me as the kind of person who would have been late, but there was still a minute before the clock struck eight when the doorbell rang. Before going out of my room, I peeked out the window, just in case it wasn't him, but sure enough, it was his car parked in front of our house.

I grabbed my purse and ran downstairs, heading straight to the front door.

His face brightened the moment he saw me. "I was worried I had the wrong house."

"If you hadn't insisted on picking me up, you never would have had to worry about it at all."

"But then I'd worry if you'd even show up at all," he replied without missing a beat.

"Let's just go," I muttered, walking past him to get to his car.

"Wow, Evans," he said, "you don't have to sound so enthusiastic on my account."

"Oh, don't worry." I sent him a sickly sweet smile. "I don't plan to."

The car ride was, at the very least, not too awkward. I mostly looked out the window, partly so I wouldn't have to look at him and partly to make sure he wasn't trying to bring me somewhere else. One thing that annoyed me, however, was the fact that he had a knack for ignoring my sarcastic retorts and clipped monosyllabic responses. He just kept talking, trying to get me to say something, and even though I was being rude, he continued acting like he was having the time of his life.

After a failed attempt at a conversation that involved food, he let out a sigh and said, "You can at least pretend you're listening."

I was listening, actually, but I didn't tell him this. Instead, I told him that he was the one who subjected himself to this situation.

He ignored me, deciding to open a new topic altogether.

"So how come I never noticed you until this year?"

This didn't actually surprise me. I'd always known that I wasn't the kind of person people noticed. I embraced it, even. I preferred the anonymity of being invisible, of the idea that I could be anyone in the crowd.

In a way, I was polar opposites with Seth. He was one of those people everyone just knew. I wouldn't call him "popular" or anything. He was known by everyone, but it wasn't the kind of popularity often portrayed in teen flicks or books. While certain cliques existed in Rivermount High, the lines kind of blurred together.

That was the advantage of living in a small town. The people you knew from elementary will most probably be the same people you'd grow up with through high school, so while interests shifted and people drifted apart, there was always that foundation in the past that kind of connected all of us.

The friends I had back in kindergarten have all separated into different groups of their own, but we still knew everyone enough to acknowledge each other when we happened to fall in line in the cafeteria at the same time or bump into each other in the local grocery.

I couldn't remember him at all from grade school. Perhaps he used to blend in, like me, at first, but by sophomore year, he had become one of those people that everyone had probably heard of, one way or another, and I couldn't really blame him for not knowing who I was, even though we've had four or five classes together since freshman year.

When I told him this, however, he just said, "What?"

I turned to him, wondering if he was for real, but judging from his frown and the way his eyebrows creased together, I knew he was genuinely unaware of this.

 "Are you sure?" he said, turning to me after stopping at a red light. "We've been classmates before?"

"Yes," I replied, back to looking out the window. I could see my favorite coffee shop—the one Hail and I always frequented—from where we were. If things hadn't changed, I would probably be there with Hail right now, ogling the hot barista, going over some of our notes.

I quickly looked away.

"Now that I think about it," he suddenly said, "you do look kind of familiar."

I peered at him, wondering if he was only saying this or not.

Then, with a sudden burst of recognition, he said, "Hey, I do know you. You're Cedric Walter's girlfriend."

I flinched.

It didn't miss him. He looked at me, his eyes searching mine, but the light turned green and he had to look away. He shifted gears and sped away without speaking.

The silence only made the matter seem bigger than it really was, so I swallowed and forced myself to say, "I was. But not anymore."

I wasn't sure how I expected him to react, but he let the words hang in the air for a few beats before saying, "That explains a lot."

My head snapped to his direction. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, Evans." He sent me a brief sideways glance before turning back on the road. "You tell me."

Something in the air shifted. I bit the inside of my cheeks, wondering how I should answer that before deciding not to answer at all. There was something off about the conversation, about Seth. It was like there was a quality of rigidness to him, like he stripped off the traces of his usual relaxed persona. His jaw was taut and his eyes were focused on the road ahead.

It bothered me, how quickly he suddenly seemed to close himself off, and at the moment I couldn't fully comprehend why, still too rattled with the sudden mention of Cedric.

He must have felt the heaviness in the air, or perhaps he was too busy thinking of other things the conversation might have triggered for him, but in any case, the two of us stayed silent for the rest of the ride.

Twelve minutes later, we were pulling up a few lots away from Jordan Smith's house. Even from out here, I could hear each muffled thump of the booming bass and see the other cars lined up along the sidewalk and some people walking towards the house.

For a second, I hesitated, memories of the party almost two weeks ago coming back in sharp focus. I was reminded of my argument with Hail and of Cedric showing up, and for a second, I let myself feel bad about the way things turned out, but I knew I couldn't afford to show weakness now.

"Come on," Seth said, speaking for the first time after a while. He sent me a smile, once again back to his usual self, before getting out of the car.

I followed suit.

As soon as I got out, however, I stayed rooted on my spot. It was like my feet refused to move and there was nothing I could do but look at the house and all the people standing in the front lawn, one of which was wearing nothing save for something that looked suspiciously like a diaper, his hairy chest and bulging stomach on display for everyone to see.

I felt as though something  (other than the diaper-clad dude, I mean) was stopping me from going in there. Despite the fact that I'd done this before, I couldn't get rid of the voice in my head telling me that this was a bad idea, that I should just leave. I could even imagine Hail asking me to head back now, reminding me of how wrong this whole thing was.

"You all right?"

I blinked, realizing Seth was waiting for me to move.

After a moment, I said, "Yeah."

The party was already in full swing by the time we strode into the house. A couple of people exchanged enthusiastic greetings with Seth as we made our way through the crowd. Some of them were people I recognized from school and some of them were people I'd never even seen my whole life, but they all gave Seth friendly pats in the back (from guys) and kisses on the cheek (for girls).

He made an effort to introduce me to them all—something I hadn't expected of him—but I could tell only few, if any at all, actually cared.

"Is there anyone here who doesn't know you?" I asked him, finding it ridiculous how it had almost taken us fifteen minutes just to get from the front door to the dining room just because we had to stop so many times on our way.

"Hardly half the people here know me," he replied, but I merely narrowed my eyes at him.

"I find that hard to believe."

He handed me a plastic cup and motioned for me to bring it closer to the keg. "Maybe they know of me," he said as I let him fill my cup halfway. "But know me? Hardly."

"I bet all of them want to get to know you though," I said, almost absently, as he began to fill his cup too. I couldn't help but notice he didn't fill it all the way either.

He raised an eyebrow, a faint smile playing on his lips as he looked up at me. "What about you? Do you want to get to know me?"

"I think I got it figured out," I replied.

A look of genuine curiosity passed over his face. "This, I'm definitely interested to hear."

I studied him for a moment, trying to look past those startling blue eyes, and I wasn't sure where my confidence came from, but without thinking, I started to speak.

"Seth Everett. Somehow, you were blessed to have both the looks and, I suppose, the right friends to survive through high school. You pretty much know everyone in this house"—he started to protest, but I didn't let him—"and you never have trouble getting what you want.

"Undeniably charming, surprisingly witty and irritatingly charismatic. Girls often fall all over you, but you never really care, do you?" At this point, I was shaking my head almost involuntarily.

His amused smile disappeared, revealing an impassive expression that I couldn't quite read. "What do you mean by that?"

"I don't know, Everett," I said with a shrug, looking him in the eye with as much confidence as I could muster. "You tell me."

We both just stood there, daring the other to look away first. I could almost see something shift in his eyes, as though rising up to the unspoken challenge I made, and at first I was almost sure neither of us was going to budge, but then a tall blonde interrupted to refill her cup and Seth and I had to get out of the way.

 "You think you got it all figured out, don't you?" he said as we began to weave through the crowd to get to the back door.

 "Fake smiles only go so far, Everett."

He stopped walking to look at me.  "And how, exactly, would you know that they're 'fake'?"

I couldn't figure out whether he was angry or not, but judging from the tone of his voice, it didn't seem like it. In fact, when I looked at him, I could have sworn he was fighting back a smile, one that I think must have been real, and I realized I didn't have an answer to his question.

So, after much consideration, I replied, "I just do."

"Is that so?"

I squared my shoulders. "Yes, Everett."

"Want to know what I think?" he asked me in a tone that made me feel as though he was simply humoring me.  Without waiting for an answer, he took a step closer. "You're hiding under a mask of your own."

I stepped back.

"Say what you will about me," he continued. "But I can also see right through you."

He was close, too close, and suddenly there was too little space between us. I scrambled backwards, feeling exposed, like he successfully unpeeled all the layers I've been hiding under. There was no way I would let him see what was lying beneath the makeup and the clothes and the bravado I'd put on.

"Hey, watch out—"

But it was too late. I ran into something—someone—in my haste to get away. I quickly spun around to apologize, but the moment I saw who it was, the words were lost in my throat. My mind reeled back, and for a moment, I couldn't make sense of anything at all.

"Kyla?" he said, looking just as surprised as I was.

It was Cedric.