I woke up the next morning with a pit in my stomach the size of the Grand Canyon, a cold, damp gust of guilt yawning through. I stared at the ceiling for a long time while I waited for Olivia to wake up, trying to think about anything but Alex, about last night in the pool. About the way he’d looked at me like I was so valuable, like I was a rare, precious thing.
It didn’t matter, I told myself firmly. It wasn’t going to happen again. I didn’t want to be the kind of girl who’d kiss the guy her best friend liked. I felt like a piece of crap. I’d tell her first thing this morning, I’d apologize like hell, and then we could move on. That would be that.
Finally, I couldn’t wait another second: “Liv,” I said softly. “Olivia, wake up. I need to talk to you.”
Olivia stirred, her dark hair a curtain across her face. “Hmm?” she mumbled into the pillow, but before she could lift her head, there was Charla’s sharp rap at the bedroom door.
“Up and at ’em, ladies! Breakfast in five!”
Olivia’s eyes popped open then, one smooth movement as she flung the covers back, stretched, and headed for the bathroom. “Morning!” she called to me over her shoulder. I flopped back onto my pillow, all my momentum lost at once. I’d tell her tonight, then, I promised myself. It wasn’t even that big of a deal, after all—just one kiss, a stupid mistake, temporary insanity.
Right?
Lucas was in a particularly crummy mood that day, the frown lines in his face so deep you could have planted a row of corn in them. For once it wasn’t just me, either—he yelled at Olivia for the way she was holding her shoulders, snarked at Kristin until she was on the verge of tears.
“Don’t worry, teacher’s pet,” I said to Olivia as we packed up our stuff and headed down the hallway toward the exit. Her mouth had gone thin and pale the way it always did when she was upset; I wanted to cheer her up. “He’s on me like that every day, and I’m still here.”
“For now,” Kristin said behind me, not quite under her breath.
That stopped me. I whirled around to face her, eyes wide. “Whoa.” It was the first time she’d said anything like that to me—and sure, I’d assumed she was thinking it, but it was a whole other thing to hear it out loud. Right away I was spoiling for a fight. “I’m sorry?”
Kristin looked like she was about to say something else—and Good, I thought, let’s get into it—but the boys spilled out of their own rehearsal just then, the whole noisy scrum of them, Mikey singing a loud, warbly version of a Sting song: “Roxanne,” he wailed, “you don’t have to put on your red dress.”
“It’s red light,” Trevor corrected, ambling down the hallway after him. “She doesn’t have to put out the red light.”
“What? That makes no sense,” Mikey argued. “It’s her red dress, you know, her prostitutin’ dress.”
“No, it’s the red—”
“Ladies,” Austin said, interrupting their argument. “How’s your day been?”
“Living the dream,” Olivia said, all smiles all of a sudden, but I barely heard her. I barely heard any of them, because Alex was looking at me—not a general look, the way one normal person would look at another normal person, but a very specific kind of look, the kind of look that could have given both of us away in half a second. His cheeks were flushed from rehearsing. My face was on fire from what Kristin had said. It was all too much, this whole entire summer was; I had to get out of here.
“Come on,” I said, slinging my arm around Olivia and steering her toward the parking lot. “I’m starved.”
“Can you believe that?” I asked Olivia when we got back to the apartment, shutting the door to our room and flinging myself onto the mattress. “When have I ever been anything but nice to that girl? To her face, anyway.”
Olivia smiled. “She didn’t mean it,” she said, sitting down on her own bed and pulling her lyrics binder out of her shoulder bag. “It’s been a rough day for everybody.”
“It’s been a rough day for her face,” I said, grimacing; Olivia laughed for real then, which was what I’d been going for in the first place. “Hey,” I said, picking at a loose thread on the bedspread. I’d spent the whole day trying to push Alex out of my mind, but seeing him made it obvious I needed to tell Olivia what had happened. “Can I talk to you a sec?”
“Yeah, of course.” Olivia nodded, tucking her bare feet underneath her. The room smelled like hair spray and body mist. “Actually, okay, I wanted to talk to you, too. I was making a list of a bunch of vocal exercises you should try.”
I snorted. “Really?”
“Yeah!” Olivia flipped to the front of her binder, pulling a sheet of paper out of the front pocket and handing it to me. “They’re stuff my voice coach had me do back at home when I was just getting started. They’re really helpful.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. I scanned the page, which was filled with Olivia’s cramped, arthritic-looking cursive. She’d divided them up into categories, each with its own underlined heading: Breathing, Pitch, Ear Training, Posture. I felt the anxiety swell up in my chest just looking at the list. “You think I need all these?”
“Yeah, no, I think you should try them!” Olivia urged. “It’ll help. Here, stand up.”
I blinked. “What, now?”
“Do you have a better time?”
I put the paper down on the bedspread. “No, but . . .” But I need to tell you something important, and I’m afraid of what’s going to happen when I do. “I’m kind of tired now, though.”
Olivia frowned. “We don’t really have time for you to be tired, Dana.”
There was an edge in her voice that took me by surprise. “Are you mad at me?” I asked, sitting up and looking at her closely.
Olivia shook her head. “No, of course not. It’s just—I know you hate Kristin, but she and I were talking, and we thought—”
My heart dropped. “You talked to Kristin about me?”
Right away, I could tell Olivia knew she’d made a mistake. “Don’t get defensive,” she said.
“Well, then don’t pick on me with some girl we just met!”
“I’m not picking on you!” She held her hands up. “But realistically, if we’re going to make this group work, we need to do everything we can to make sure everybody’s more or less at the same level, you know?”
I felt my cheeks flame. “I know I’m the worst one here, Liv. I don’t need you to remind me.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a baby,” she said. “This is work, is all.”
“Don’t be a baby?” All at once I remembered what Sarah Jane had said about Olivia being the kind of person who was used to being taken care of. I’d never been the person in our relationship who got upset.