The Rival

Chapter Eleven

I have to admit, a few days ago when Christina woke up in the middle of a micronap, sat up, and used the words “sexy” and “Shrek” in an otherwise incoherent sentence before conking out again, I had my doubts. But she had a vision, like all great misunderstood artists do, and now that she’s brought it to life I could not be more proud.

Or concerned. Because as a result, our dorm room definitely looks like the Grinch, Kermit the Frog, and Yoda got into a fight that ended badly for all three of them.

“Be honest,” says Christina, staring at herself in the mirror. She’s in a brown lace-up crop top, plaid leggings, and a pair of green ogre ears, with every inch of her exposed skin painted green. “Am I peaking sexually? Will I ever be hotter than I am right now? I’m just worried that it’s all going to be downhill from here.”

I move to pat her comfortingly on the shoulder but think the better of it. “Don’t worry. You have so many years and Alphabet Parties ahead of you. Gorgeous Gollum. Juicy Jabba the Hutt. The world is your disturbingly arousing oyster.”

Christina pretends to wipe a tear just under her greenified eye. “Thank you. That means a lot.” She turns away from the mirror to look me and up and down. “What’s your costume, anyway?”

“Oh, I’m waiting until I get there to put it on,” I explain.

Christina raises a furry Shrek-ified eyebrow. “Do I get a hint?”

“Yes. It’s my worst nightmare.”

“Hmmm.” Christina mulls it over as she grabs her purse. “Snack shortages? Slenderman? Spontaneous space storms with the power to wipe out the world as we know it?”

“Worse,” I promise. “You’ll see.”

“I hope so. But I might be running late, so don’t wait up for me if you want to bounce early,” says Christina.

I’d be concerned about the cross-country pregame she’s attending with a few teammates before the party, but apparently they’re all just chugging Gatorades and downing bagels to refuel after a week of practices so intense that Christina informed me she is drawing up her will and leaving Blorbo to me.

A few minutes later I shove the few pieces of my costume into a tote bag and head to the Alphabet Party, which this year is taking place in a student-rented house not far from Main Street. I figure I’m heading in the right direction when I pass Snow White, Sailor Moon, and Simba in one cluster, and someone who appears to be covered head to toe in Silly String across the street.

I take the opportunity to twist my hair up and hide it under my baseball cap, tape the paper I printed at the library to the back of my Maple Ride shirt, and open my Instagram app.

Once I reach the door, I flash my crumpled S-shaped invitation at the Random Acts of Chaos Club’s version of a bouncer, which is a student dressed as SpongeBob SquarePants and eating out of a pillowcase-sized bag of sunflower seeds.

SpongeBob takes in my noncostume with a hint of skepticism. “What are you?” he asks.

I show him my phone, which is open to the Adams’ Apples Instagram page, and adjust the baseball cap on my head. “I’m Sebastian.”

His head tilts, less skeptical and more bewildered. “Are you by any chance here with Sadie?”

“Huh?”

“I’ve just never seen people dress up as other students before, is the thing.”

Before my brain can catch up to those words, I see myself approaching. Or rather, myself interpreted by one Seb Adams, who is wearing a short red-haired wig reminiscent of The Parent Trap under the same baseball hat I’m wearing and a blue shirt from one of my old book clubs that disbanded two years ago, and holding a cat-shaped mug identical to the one Meowtwo “gave” me for my birthday last year.

Seb takes one look at me in my getup and immediately starts cackling. “Wait, turn so I can see what the shirt says,” he says.

I’m too busy gaping at him. He maneuvers his head to see the paper I’ve printed out and taped over the original COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT font to so it now reads ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT, FOR SOME REASON, EVEN THOUGH SADIE CAN KICK HIS ASS AT MATH .

“Aw,” says Seb. “You should keep that shirt after graduation. Make yourself more employable.”

I reach out and grab his sleeve. “How did you get a shirt and a mug that looks just like mine?” I demand.

Seb just shakes his head smugly as he steps closer. “Sadie, Sadie, Sadie. Or rather—Seb,” he corrects himself, looking me up and down. He stops once he’s half a foot from me and says, “Don’t you know by now I only play to win? These are your shirt and your mug.”

My jaw would hit the floor, but it’s already too sticky with mysterious booze to risk it. “You went all the way home to torture me?”

“Nah.” Seb bites his lower lip as if to try and contain his glee, but the grin is already bursting on his face. “I called in reinforcements. Hadley got your parents to send them.”

The mischief dancing in his eyes is electric and entirely at odds with the irritation building up in me. That he knows me so well that he isn’t just pulling details from my life but that he’s made himself welcome in it.

But the hook of his grin is so contagious that I’m smiling now, too. Like it’s pushed past the irritation to something just under it, something it’s been protecting. Something that crackles between our matching smiles, like we can touch it.

“Those traitors,” I say, just the same.

Seb takes another small step toward me, and oh my god. Christina’s lucky she finished drafting that will of hers, because I am going to end her for letting Seb use my lavender body spray.

“That’s what they thought you’d say. They also sent you some Starbursts and Skittles and Sour Patch Kids to lessen the blow.”

I take another step toward him, just close enough for him to finally notice I’m wearing precisely one small hoop earring on my left ear. It’s a callback to an incident when Seb pierced his own after losing a bet with one of his buddies—a bet that promptly stirred the small army of classmates who had crushes on Seb to such a degree that I was working overtime on my “Is Seb seeing anyone??” duties. It only stopped when the piercing got infected and the school nurse made him take it out.

The way Seb is staring at it in my ear now reminds me a little of the way our classmates were looking at him. Or maybe I’m just imagining that and pretending to be Seb has already made my ego inflate to twice its regular size.

“And where, may I ask, might those be?” I ask him.

“Who’s to say?” says Seb. “Anyway, this is your five-second warning that I’m going Method. I intend to be Sadie Brighton for the rest of the night.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, settling a hand on my hip. “And what exactly does that entail?”

The five seconds have apparently passed, because in that moment Seb stands up a whole lot straighter, frowns into his (my!) cat mug, and says loud enough for every S-costumed person in a twenty-foot radius to hear, “Does anyone have any mango White Claw I can put in here? I’d settle for lemon but I’m feeling adventurous tonight.”

Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. I fiddle with the brim of my baseball cap, slouching slightly and pushing out my hips as I shove my hands into my pockets. “Does anyone have a gallon of apple juice I can put precisely half an ounce of booze into because I have the alcohol tolerance of a baby seahorse?”

“Actually I better skip that Claw,” Seb says loudly. “I might have the sudden urge to demand the Wi-Fi password and start doing my homework in the middle of this party.”

In my defense that was one —okay, two—all right, maybe it was three or four times. Yeesh. Old Sadie needed to get a life.

“You know what, same,” I say, even louder. “I might have to take an emergency selfie to post for my fans on Instagram. Heaven forbid they go an entire five minutes without seeing my face,” I say, holding my phone up and opening the camera.

Seb swerves to get right behind me just as I take the picture, throwing up a peace sign the way Christina and I used to do during a phase in middle school. I shove him out of the frame, but he pulls my hand and says, “Come on, Seb. If you’re really committing to this there’s only one place at this party you can be right now.”

Ah. I may have miscalculated my ability to carry out Seb cosplay. Because if there is “one place” Seb Adams is going to be at a party, it’s in the middle of a dance floor, jumping up and down like everyone’s lives depend on it.

And if there is one thing Sadie Brighton is going to do at a party—well. It’s not that.

Which, come to think of it, may be my one and only way of getting out of this. “So you’re coming to the dance floor, too? That’s not very Sadie of you.”

Seb only persists in tugging me toward the stairs. “Goading Seb into doing something is extremely Sadie of me, actually. Keep up,” he says.

Not hard to do, because Seb is expertly weaving us through the costumed coeds drinking Sprite and sangria and shooters. Except Seb’s not doing a very good job of being me at all—he keeps looking back as if to check I’m still there, the grin on his face so unabashed that even over the rising pulse of the music I can feel my heart fluttering all the way up my throat, can hear that little voice is in my head again: But we could. But we might.

But we won’t. In fact, this is strategic. We’ll spend the entire night roasting each other until we’re charred and that will cure me of this, will shut up that little voice in my head once and for all. Hit the Reset button on Sadie and Seb and get us back to where we belong: safely in our three modes and safely resenting each other in every single one of them.

So really, walking into the basement full of people jumping up and down to “Scream & Shout” with Seb’s hand still wrapped around mine is just the responsible thing to do. Inserting ourselves into the middle of the crowd so packed that we’re nearly chest to chest is just pure ice-cold calculation. And continuing to hold Seb’s hand to steady myself while jumping up and down and making a complete fool of myself on the dance floor—a signature Seb style that goes as far back as our preschool days, when our dads let us jump around on the sidewalk during their eighties-themed runs—is really just part of a larger plan.

Seb, to his credit, doesn’t jump, but does commit to doing this awkward bopping thing with his head while periodically sipping from my mug.

“What is that move?” I demand.

“What, this?” Seb asks, bopping his head more aggressively. “The Sadie head groove. Whenever you study with your headphones on it’s all—” Seb pauses then to better demonstrate, looking not unlike a chicken trying to learn how humans dance.

Curse Christina’s “Low-Key Lo-Fi Bops” playlist for going so hard.

“Well, at least I don’t make this face when I study,” I shoot back. It’s not easy to rearrange my features to look like a terrified puppy while also maintaining a steady jumping pace, but I somehow manage.

Seb’s mouth drops open in amusement. “I have a perfectly ordinary study face.”

“You look like the live-action adaptation of those orphaned cartoon Disney animals,” I insist. “ Especially when you’re doing math.”

“Spin,” says Seb.

“Huh?”

And then he takes the hand he’s still holding and uses the space the girl dressed as the Starbucks siren just left to push me out and pull me back in with a satisfying spin. The sad “I’m about to sing about my tragic, adorable past” look is all but knocked off my face by the time the back of me lands against Seb’s chest, his head tilted to look down at me. Something flickers in his eyes that I haven’t seen before. Not just a potential energy but an intentional one. It hums between our joined fingers, warms the back of me pressed against his front.

“That’s uh—definitely not a Sadie move,” I point out.

Seb hums. “I dunno. Isn’t Sadie all—‘fun’ and ‘spontaneous’ now?”

I roll my eyes but don’t quite peel myself away from him. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“Not really our style,” he agrees.

ABBA’s “SOS” starts playing then, and it’s too loud to hear each other or enact any part of my “squash these feelings about Seb so far down they hit the molten core of the Earth” plan. So instead we just—dance. We dance through “Shake It Off” and “Sorry” and “Single Ladies,” boogie with someone dressed as a spendthrift who keeps throwing board-game money and someone dressed as a Stepford Wife who keeps short-circuiting as her signature dance move, and lose ourselves so thoroughly to the dance floor that I feel more than just fun and spontaneous. I feel loose. I feel carefree.

But there’s still one thing I’m all too aware of, which is that through every single song, Seb and I have something connected. He’s got a loose hand on my shoulder, or I’ve got one steadying myself on his elbow. I remind myself it’s just to keep track of each other. Keep your friends close and your lifelong academic rivals you’ve imagined kissing multiple times against your will closer. It’s all just a part of our years-long game.

At some point the noise reaches such a fever pitch that we glance at each other, both clearly in need of a break. Seb leans in and has to shout into my ear to be heard.

“Well, Seb, I’m going to go upstairs and talk to way too many people about my Pokémon Go obsession.”

He releases me, but his hand grazes my forearm as he makes his way off the dance floor, clearly expecting me to follow.

Which I will. For the purposes of destroying him, of course. I’ll get a handle on that just as soon as I catch my breath.

“That was one summer, ” I protest as we hit the stairs and can actually hear each other again. “You’re just pissed you didn’t run fast enough to get that Charizard.”

“Yo, Sadie!”

At the top of the stairs is one of my hallmates, Freddy, who extends his arms out to show me his costume—a ton of fruit-flavored cans in a portable ice bucket around his neck.

“I’m a Seltzer Sommelier,” he says by way of explanation. He looks at Seb’s hand. “Can I refresh your friend’s… cat?”

“I’m good for meow,” says Seb.

Freddy takes in my costume. “Should I know what this is?”

“Hi. I’m actually Seb,” I tell him, lifting my hand for him to shake. “I know the Wicked soundtrack well enough to understudy Elphaba, refuse to wear socks that match, and people are so allergic to not liking me that my ego is in constant danger of exploding any room I’m in.”

I turn to Seb, expecting to see him make that same jolted, determined look he makes after I tear him down and he’s about to take his turn, except—shit. That wasn’t exactly a teardown, was it? That’s okay. The night is young. I’ll regroup.

Seb extends his own hand for Freddy to shake before I can. “I’m Sadie. I bite directly into string cheese like an absolute heathen, am laughably terrible at predicting plot twists in movies, and am actually pretty cool, but only, like, two people know it because I pretend to be very boring and responsible.”

Freddy blinks at us both. “Huh.”

It’s not the first time we’ve semibroken a classmate’s brain and likely nowhere near the last, so we politely dismiss ourselves and start heading toward the snack table, which appears to be stacked with everything from snickerdoodles to SunChips to strawberries.

“Hans should rot for what he did to Anna,” I say close to Seb’s ear.

“Matching socks are for people with way too much time on their hands,” Seb counters.

“And biting is more efficient,” I add. “Maximum cheese, minimum wait time.”

Seb points a finger at me. “ Wicked is a national treasure and you should be ashamed of not knowing the words to ‘Defying Gravity’ by heart.”

We arrive at the snack table, which is disappointingly picked over.

“It’s okay,” I say. “If I’m really Seb now that means someone’s going to come by and offer me free food any second. Being irritatingly, universally beloved has its perks.”

“Plenty of people don’t like me,” says Seb candidly.

My brow furrows like Seb’s just gone rogue on a familiar script. By now we have our whole schtick down to a T: I’m supposed to say something snarky and Seb is supposed to say something cocky and I’m supposed to knock him down a peg and he’s supposed to be cheeky about it, rinse, repeat.

“Sure they do,” I say dismissively. “I’m not even going to bother citing evidence because your tens of thousands of Instagram followers already covered it.”

Seb shakes his head. His eyes are still bright from dancing, but his tone is thoughtful. “That’s not me. That’s just—you know.” He gestures at my phone. “The idea of me.”

I roll my eyes. “Right. I forgot what a burden it must be, being a celebrity,” I say. I don’t mean to say anything else. It’s just now that Seb has knocked the banter cycle off, it’s almost like I have to knock it to match him. “Not that I’d know, because I’m not ‘actually pretty cool’ by anyone’s standards.”

Seb rolls his eyes right back. “Sure you are. You’re just very selective with who you’re cool around.” He does a quick up-and-down of my ridiculous Seb outfit again, laughing to himself. “Although not so much lately.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand.

“That Christina and I aren’t getting to gatekeep you anymore. Now everyone’s going to know you’re cool.”

Damn it. I can’t tell which one of us is sabotaging my plan worse, me or Seb. Honestly at this point, the lines between which of us is Sadie or Seb are so blurred that it might be impossible to tell.

I narrow my eyes at him. “If you think you’re going to soften me up before Round Two of this competition by being nice to me, you are in for a very rude awakening.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m Sadie now. I’m more ruthless than ever,” he says, grinning with more teeth. “And just as unable to take a compliment.”

I cross my arms to distract from my face, which has in fact been burning in a way I can’t blame on the dance floor. “I can take one better than you can.”

“Always a competition with you,” says Seb, with an unmistakable affection that lands somewhere warm in my chest. “Are we going to have to out-compliment each other now?”

I take a step closer to him, never one to back down from a challenge, no matter how patently ridiculous. “Like you need anyone to wax poetic about your ridiculous beachy hair and your big brown Pixar eyes.”

Seb laughs outright, taking another step to bridge the gap between us in the process. “Good, because I had absolutely no interest in saying anything about your cute smirk or spouting any clichés about the sky-blue color of your eyes.”

Naturally we’re right up in each other’s faces now, because that seems to be the theme of my night: failing utterly and spectacularly at the one thing I came here to do. I feel a strange kind of impact at the sudden closeness, like we’ve come so full circle on our rivalry that it’s slammed into us from behind.

I can’t let it push me any further. There’s only one direction it can go.

“I’m hungry,” I blurt, stepping back so abruptly I almost stumble. I play it off by gesturing at the snack table. “And this place is snackless. So.”

Seb clears his throat, also stepping back to examine the table. When he meets my gaze again his expression is so mirthful that it’s like the awkward past few seconds never happened. I’m not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.

“Well,” he says, “I have it on good authority that there’s a bunch of candy addressed to Sadie Brighton in my dorm room, if you want to swing by and grab it.”

I pull off my baseball cap just enough to let my hair slide out of it again. “In that case, I’m Sadie again, and if even one of those bags have been compromised I am going to eat my way through your entire Chips Ahoy! stash in revenge.”

Seb smirks, pulling his atrocious Sadie wig off. He tilts his head toward the exit to leave and—shit. Hold on. This was the opposite of everything I am trying to do.

But it is my candy. And those sour patches are just kids, after all. I can’t leave them alone with a boy who can’t even be bothered to keep track of his socks. Who can’t be trusted with the aux cord on a road trip without going full Elphaba with god and everyone within earshot of the open window as his witness. Who is ridiculous enough to think people like an idea of him when he’s one of the most genuine, compelling, kind people I’ve ever met, and god damn it. There goes my brain again. Someone has got to shut her down before she gets us both in trouble, she’s been useless all night.

“You coming?” Seb asks. He shifts his weight between his feet, watching my face carefully. “Or do you have plans to meet up with someone else?”

“Christina’s with the cross-country kids,” I say, grabbing my tote bag from the couch where I ditched it earlier. Which, come to think of it, is the perfect excuse. I’ll backtrack. Say I’m going to meet up with them. Collect my candy tomorrow after I find wherever my common sense fell out of me on this campus.

But then Seb presses his lips together. “I meant—if maybe—I know you and Joey have been hanging out.”

He’s only just barely meeting my eye. He’s embarrassed. I wait for that near-primal instinct in my blood: Use this. Seize on it. Twist it to my advantage.

But I won’t. I can’t. It’s already twisting me.

“We platonically eat pie on Saturdays now,” I say. “You should come with us next week.”

Seb bursts into a grin so absurd it could stop traffic. “Yeah,” he says. “I will.”

And just like that, I’m following that absurd grin right out the door.