8. Vivi Comeuppance
vivi: comeuppance
I WAS DATING THE QUARTERBACK of the football team.
No, not dating him. In love with him. I was the one that, right now, as he took his helmet off and shook his hair, he winked at in the stands.
My stomach filled with butterflies. This was the first game of the season, and it was against Peachtree’s biggest rival.
I was sitting with a bunch of the girls in Tyler’s class.
Some of them were the girlfriends of the other players.
Some of them were just friends. But I was Tyler’s.
All Tyler’s. And he was all mine. And looking at him now, all six foot two of him, even broader and more handsome in his uniform, that thought could make me positively melt.
I wouldn’t have said it out loud to anyone but him, but I was going to marry him.
I was sure of it. We talked all the time about how we would go off to college, him on a football scholarship, which was a total given because he was so dominant on the field.
It would be hard because we would probably go to different colleges.
But we would make the long-distance thing work, and then we’d get married.
Maybe we’d live here. Eventually I could take over Gransley’s store, the original Sloane Emerson, and paddleboard every morning…
I had to snap out of it, get my head in the game.
The team was predicted to be undefeated this year—if they could make it past this game.
With only two minutes to go, the Panthers had the ball, the score was tied, 14–14.
I would never have imagined I would like football.
But with Tyler on the field, it was my favorite sport.
“Do you get nervous watching?” Annie, who was number forty-four’s girlfriend, asked.
I nodded. “Do you?”
“Oh yeah. Mostly because I know Sam will be in such a bad mood if we lose.”
“So true!”
All those sweaty boys got back into formation, Tyler called the play, and the players kept switching back and forth.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
Dana, the girl I had talked to earlier in the parking lot, said, “Trying to run down the clock.”
“Ah.” I still had a lot to learn about football. “Well, they need to hurry up and score! They’re running out of time.”
Finally, Tyler cranked his arm back and, looking around for his man, extended his arm forcefully.
For a split second, I searched for the ball.
That’s when I realized Tyler was sprinting down the edge of the field, his teammates pushing players out of his way.
I jumped to my feet, screaming, “Go, Tyler, go!”
Over the loudspeaker the announcer called “Touchdown, Panthers!” and the crowd went wild.
Then he did the cutest thing. He yanked his helmet off and, with the football in his hand, pointed toward me.
I did the stupidest thing in return: blew him a kiss.
He scored that touchdown for me. And he wanted the hundreds of people in this stadium to know it.
He was amazing. For a moment, it was just the two of us.
It was like no one else in the stadium existed.
Annie broke me out of my thoughts, saying, “You guys are so cute.”
“So cute,” Dana repeated.
Only, their tones were hiding just a tiny twinge of something. I had to think jealousy.
“I’m just so glad you guys made it through everything,” Annie said.
“I knew you would,” Dana said. “I’m so glad he told you and you understood.”
I wasn’t sure why yet, but I felt like hands were wrapping around my throat.
People were starting to file out of the stadium, and I felt like we should too.
I wanted to go see Tyler. Didn’t I? “Told me what?” I asked nonchalantly as I jumped off the side of the metal bleacher and onto the concrete steps.
I was walking down toward the field like I always did when Tyler had a game.
I knew he was waiting for me. “We talk so much, I mean.” I laughed uncomfortably.
“About the kiss,” Annie said. I stopped dead in my tracks. I turned around to look at these two girls who were, yes, decidedly less stylish and cool than my New York friends. But they were nice. I liked them. I was liking them less right now. Or maybe I was liking Tyler less.
“What kiss?” I practically spat.
Dana’s eyes widened and I couldn’t tell if she was sincerely shocked or enjoying my fall from grace.
The quarterback’s girlfriend, the New York City girl, gets her comeuppance.
It was like I could see the headline on their group-text string.
Did they actually even like me? Or were they just pretending this whole time because Tyler liked me?
“We thought you knew. It was really no big deal.”
“No big deal,” Annie echoed.
What were these two? Parrots?
I crossed my arms. I heard Tyler calling “Viv!” from a few feet away on the field.
“Tyler should really be the one to tell you,” Dana said, scooting past me toward her boyfriend, who she wasn’t mad at.
“Sorry,” Annie said. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” She didn’t seem sorry.
I turned to look at Tyler, who was coming up the steps toward me, dimples flashing.
He was so adorable. Maybe I could just let it go; maybe they were just stirring the pot.
I let him kiss me, smelling of sweat and grass and Tyler.
It was an intoxicating scent, one that anyone else might have been grossed out by but that I positively adored.
It was a good kiss. But it wasn’t enough.
“What kiss?” I asked.
“Um, this one?” He leaned toward me again, but I pushed him away.
The stands were clearing out, but I was sure someone—namely the pot stirrers on the field—was noticing that a tiff was brewing here.
And I didn’t want it to. I didn’t want them to affect me.
I wanted to be nonchalant and cool and not care about any of this or at least pretend not to.
Tyler looked at Annie and Dana, who were staring at us.
“Don’t look at them,” I said. “Look at me.”
“Well,” he said, “there’s nothing to tell. I was at a party a few weeks ago, and everyone was playing Seven Minutes in Heaven—”
“I’m sorry. What? No one has done that since middle school.”
“No, I know,” he said. “Everyone was just kind of goofing around. It was supposed to be funny.”
“I’m not laughing.” I could feel my face getting warm at the mere idea of Tyler in a closet with some girl.
“When it was my turn, I got Katelyn, and we went in the closet, and I was literally saying, ‘You know I have a girlfriend, right?’ ” He sighed.
“And?”
“And she kissed me anyway, and someone opened the door, and it was seriously nothing, Vivi.”
Katelyn. Ugh. She was hands-down the prettiest girl in the class.
Why couldn’t she get her own boyfriend? I mean, I knew why not.
She couldn’t because she wanted Tyler. Who wouldn’t want Tyler?
He was incredible. But not right now. Right now, he was public enemy number one.
“So if it was seriously nothing, then why didn’t you tell me? ”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want you to get upset over nothing.” He put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed. “And I guess Annie and Dana were right. They said I should have told you. But I didn’t and I’m sorry and I love you.” I didn’t say anything. “Let me go change and let’s go out.”
I shook my head.
“What?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I’m not going out with you. You’re a cheater and a liar, and I want you to take me home.”
“Vivi, come on. You’re getting worked up over nothing. You can ask anyone there. It was no big deal.”
I turned. “Oh, you mean I can ask anyone there who saw my boyfriend making out with another girl if it was a big deal? Sounds fun. Sounds like a great night. I don’t want to be around any of them to revel in my humiliation.”
He was following close behind me. “No one is reveling in your humiliation. And, if you want, we can go out by ourselves.”
Why did it have to be Katelyn? Literally anyone else would have been, like, a pity kiss.
I would have known it. Everyone else would have known it.
But Katelyn was gorgeous. She looked twenty.
There’s no way he didn’t want to kiss her, at least somewhere deep down inside.
I felt uncomfortably close to crying as I headed toward the parking lot.
And I knew Tyler should go to the locker room, should celebrate with his friends, change. But I just wanted him to take me home.
When I got to his truck, Tyler got eye level with me. “Viv, I love you. Stop being like this.”
“I’m not going fishing with you tomorrow,” I said.
He nodded. “Okay. That’s fair. We’ll do whatever you want to do.”
“There’s no us anymore, Tyler. We’re through.”
I climbed into the truck and slammed the door, leaving him standing there, crestfallen and confused.
But he shouldn’t have been. My father was a cheater.
And now Tyler was too. And I was out of patience for people who risked what they had and then tried to get it back.
My dad should have known better. Maybe Tyler was too young to have known better, but, as tears filled his eyes, I felt like the gravity was sinking in.
I’d never wanted to be a teacher. But I had a feeling that, right now, Tyler was learning a lesson he’d never forget.