What’s wrong with me?
I mean, I can’t actually like Thayer, can I? And I definitely can’t be seen dating him or anything like that. I have my reputation to think of. Still, though—thinking about yesterday, his skin on mine, the jokes back and forth, the easy way I felt around him, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
This is so totally not okay. There’s only one thing left to do.
I have to call the prank off, shove my feelings down into some kind of emotional lock box before they become anything more, and pretend none of this insanity ever happened in the first place.
I press my fists firmly into the ground and send all of my energy to my legs, imagining them shooting straight up into the sky. But then Thayer’s face materializes in my mind again. I wince, and my legs wobble.
There’s a soft thud beside me as Charlotte allows her legs to fall over her head in plow pose. As if she can read my mind, she whispers, “How’s it going with Thayer, Sutton?”
Here goes, I think. No time like the present.
“I don’t know, guys,” I say, working as much boredom into my tone as I can. I’m grateful that Charlotte and Madeline are both twisted up like human pretzels and can’t see my face when I answer. “I’ve been thinking, and pranking Thayer seems kind of … lame. I think it might be beneath the standards of the Lying Game.”
They’re silent next to me. Maybe they’ll be cool with it. “Besides,” I go on, “what if people actually believe that I like him? I do have my reputation to think about. No offense, Madeline,” I add as an afterthought.
Madeline doesn’t look remotely offended—in fact, her face is a mask of tranquility, her delicate features serene and open—but Charlotte looks vindicated.
“I knew it!” she crows, her voice gleeful.
“Knew what?” I ask shakily, turning my face away. My heart suddenly thuds. Is it obvious how I’m starting to feel? Does Mads know, too?
“You don’t think you can get Thayer to fall in love with you, do you?” Char asks triumphantly.
What? I break out of the pose and stare at her. I hadn’t expected her to say that. “No, I—”
Madeline cuts me off. “Oh, please,” she says, the beatific expression on her face never wavering. “He’s already half in love with Sutton. He has a picture of you in his bedroom,” she says to me, tilting her chin toward me slightly while keeping her eyes closed.
As much as I wish it wouldn’t, my pulse quickens at the thought. “He does?”
“Yeah, he’s had it since last year at least,” Madeline says. “I found it underneath one of his math books. Don’t ask me where he got it from or what he does with it”—she shudders, causing her willowy frame to waver briefly—“but this prank should be a gimme for you.”
Then she giggles. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he realizes it’s all a joke. I mean, come on. My baby brother with a hot older girl? Never. Gonna. Happen.” From upside down, her grin actually looks like a frown, filling me with a queasy foreboding.
“He deserves to be pranked just for thinking it could!” Charlotte chimes in. “It’s going to be so good, don’t you think, Sutton?”
“Uh-huh,” I say shakily. But as Alexis ushers us into shavasana, the final relaxation, the last thing I feel is calm. The leader of the Lying Game can’t be seen begging off of a prank. I can’t look like a failure in front of my friends.
I’m going to have to go through with this. It’s the only option.
But then I think what Mads just said. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he realizes it’s all a joke. I’ve said that about a lot of pranks we’ve pulled: I’m going to die laughing when she realizes we tricked her; his expression is going to be priceless; I bet they’re going to scream. Never before, though, have I thought about how those people truly felt. And most of the people we pranked deserved it for one reason or another. But did Thayer, really? So he came back from soccer camp acting like he was the man. But then I think of Thayer’s teasing smile when he gave me the Scooby, the way he seemed to see right through me in the Donovans’ yard yesterday.
I shiver. The temperature in the room has dropped, and the moisture-wicking fabric of my tank suddenly feels flimsy and thin.
A light snore from Charlotte jolts me. I elbow her less than gently as Alexis flicks the lights back on. The three of us stand, straighten our tops, and roll up our sticky mats, getting ready to leave.
“So, what’s the deal, Sutton?” Charlotte asks, adjusting her white terry headband and flashing a pearly smile in Alexis’s direction. Alexis dips her chin in a quick nod of reply. “Is Operation Loverboy a go, or not?”
I grit my teeth. This is it, I tell myself. Clarity.