Chapter 9
“Cash or card, hun?”
I put down the box with my burger and dig through my bag. I don’t remember grabbing money this morning. Please let there be money in here. I mutter an apology to the cafeteria cashier for taking so long.
Someone comes up next to me and I step aside a bit.
“Card, and two Cokes, please.”
I look over and make eye contact with Kayla. I finally pull out a twenty and offer it to her, but she pushes my hand away.
The cashier gives her the two sodas and her card.
“Thanks, Kayla,” I say, picking up my food and a few ketchup packets.
“Don’t mention it.”
Since Travis’s birthday dinner, Kayla has been different around me—sweeter, softer.
More like the version of herself she is around our parents.
We even watched a couple of episodes of a show together when we were both home on Sunday.
I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, or be too naive, but it really does feel like Deanna’s intervention shook Kayla out of her ice-queen state.
I see Alice waving at Kayla from the double doors that open out to the athletic fields.
“Okay, later,” I say before she has time to change her mood.
She waves back at Alice and then looks at me. “Where do you eat?”
“The library. I just do homework and stuff.” I try to make it sound less lame.
“No way, you’re coming with me,” she declares, pulling me toward the double doors. “Time to meet my friends.”
As we approach a spot behind the bleachers where a few groups of kids are eating lunch, I see Alice gesturing wildly with her hands, telling a story.
She then slides a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket, and I realize this must be where they come to avoid the administrators’ prying eyes.
I immediately feel uneasy and start walking slower.
Kayla pats my arm. “They’re really cool, just be yourself.”
I nod, even though that doesn’t make me feel any better.
“Hey, guys, this is Jasmine,” Kayla announces as we plop down on a soft blanket covering the crisp grass.
Alice abruptly stops laughing and removes the cigarette from her lips with her perfect French manicure. “We know who she is, Kayla.”
“Then say hi,” Kayla says. She pats the spot beside her, across from two other girls I’ve seen in passing, who both wave in my direction. “That’s Kenny and Mel, the twins.”
They all chuckle. Since Kenny’s white and her mom’s country club twin, and Mel could almost pass for Deanna’s sister, I assume that’s the joke and laugh cautiously in case there’s more to the story.
“You need me to introduce myself?” Alice interrupts the laughter and doesn’t wait for a response.
“I’m Alice.” She points to herself like I’d need any help remembering who she is, and I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes.
I wave. She immediately turns her attention back to Kayla. “So, you like her now?”
Kayla shoots Alice a look.
“Shut up, Alice,” Kenny says with a sigh.
Mel rolls her eyes at Alice and smiles in my direction. “I’m still jealous that you have a sister now!” she says, dramatically resting her head on her hand. “Will Travis adopt me?!”
Kayla groans. “You can have him.”
Kenny chimes in and asks if she can get on the adoption list too since her dad is being a jerk, and I let out a giggle.
Kayla leans in. “Laugh now, but soon you’ll be begging them to take him,” she warns teasingly.
“It’s all fun and games until your best friend replaces you with a fake sister,” Alice says loudly to no one in particular. Kenny and Mel both stop laughing to look at her.
“Alice, you need to chill,” Kenny says.
A light cloud of smoke wraps around us as Alice and Kenny continue to puff away. To my surprise, Kayla and Mel each draw a cigarette and start smoking too. I hate the smell of cigarettes. I spent a year falling asleep to staff chain-smoking underneath our windows at the center.
I cringe and glance behind us, making sure there are no adults nearby, but nobody else seems worried.
I could get another twelve months of detention for violating the terms of my discharge agreement.
On a long list, smoking is in spot number two, right after drinking.
Maybe they meant weed, not cigarettes, but I don’t care. I’m not planning to do either.
Alice misreads my look and pushes her cigarette in my direction.
“No thanks,” I say.
She shrugs and takes another long drag.
Mel puts hers out in a plastic cup. She must have noticed my discomfort, and I’m grateful for it. Kayla coughs and opens one of the sodas. She hands the other to me. I open it and take a sip.
“Is Deanna coming?” Mel asks the group, who all kind of shrug like they don’t know.
“Well, we should probably be done before Deanna gets here anyway,” Kenny says as she puts her cigarette out and throws it in the cup. “You know she’s preachy.”
“I’m gonna get my money’s worth!” Kayla declares, taking an extra-long drag.
Alice does the same before throwing hers in. “Better, Jasmine?” Her tone is playful, but there’s an edge to it.
“Just remind me to buy an asthma pump instead of lunch next time,” I tease, taking a bite of my burger. Nobody joins in when I laugh at my own joke.
Okay, please let the ground open up and swallow me now.
Kayla is the first to break the silence. “Buurrnn,” she says, pushing Alice gently in the arm, and they both start laughing too.
“Hi, Dee,” Kenny coos, waving.
“Hey, girls,” Deanna says. She takes a seat on a folding chair, crossing one leg over the other. She looks at me and smiles, her eyebrows rising slightly. I smile back, feeling my heart lift in my chest. I’ll have to thank her later for talking to Kayla.
“We were starting to think you got some sense and ditched us,” Mel says.
“Trust me, definitely one of these days,” Deanna shoots back, sticking her tongue out. “Especially if you guys keep letting Alice talk you into smoking those things.” She points to the cup with the cigarette butts.
Alice flicks her off and the group laughs.
“See, Jasmine? Preachy,” Kenny says as she sits on the grass next to Deanna’s chair. Deanna whines playfully about being called preachy every time she says something and how she’ll shut up from now on.
Then Kenny claps her hands and commences with what she calls “town rundown.” “Listen up,” she says.
Kenny rattles off things like the “top five creepy guys” and “what gas station food will give you bubble guts.” The rest of the group either laughs hysterically or adamantly agrees with her warnings.
I smile, thinking of how Amari did the same thing a little while after I got to the center.
She seemed to know everything about everyone.
She was the one who taught me how to survive there.
The girls’ town rundown is more trivial than Amari’s since the stakes aren’t as high, but I listen just as closely.
“What else?” Kenny asks the girls.
They all think about it for a second, and then Deanna speaks up.
“Oh, I have one,” she says. “Nothing is really a secret in this town.” Everyone nods and I look at her to see if she’s going to elaborate.
I wonder what kinds of secrets these girls are keeping and whether it’s true that they all come to light eventually.
After a beat, Kayla returns to the warning about guys. “So, Kenny, is your boyfriend a creep?” she teases.
Kenny glares at her. “Kayla!” she says, tossing a balled-up sandwich wrapper. It lands in front of Alice.
“Nothing is really a secret in this town,” Alice says, mimicking Deanna and throwing the wrapper back. Deanna and Mel glance back and forth between Kayla and Kenny, slowly realizing they’re missing something.
“Wait, what boyfriend?!” Mel asks suspiciously.
Kayla pretends to zip her lips. Kenny buries her head in her hands. Mel turns her attention to Deanna, silently begging for help.
Deanna nudges Kenny with her elbow. “Seriously, girl, spill it,” she says. Kenny groans and raises her head slowly. Alice covers her mouth to stifle her laughter.
I want to know now, too. “So, who’s your boyfriend?” I ask.
Kenny looks at me. “Only because you asked,” she says, sitting up and taking a deep breath. “It’s Leon.” The group gasps. “He’s this sort of weird kid that we’ve known since kindergarten. But guys,” she says, looking around at her friends, “I actually really like him.”
“Awwww,” Mel says. “When did this happen?”
“Look what you did,” Kenny says to Kayla.
“I swear I didn’t know it was actually true, Kenny!” Kayla moves to the bleachers to hug her. “I wouldn’t have said a word.” She sounds like she really regrets putting her on blast. Alice snickers.
“I can’t believe I really admitted that! You guys think I’m stupid?” Kenny asks, dropping her head into her hands again.
“Yes!” Alice says. Everyone glares at her. “Sheesh, I’m joking.”
Deanna, who is leaning back and staring at the clouds through the slats of the bleachers, smiles wryly.
“Why am I always the last to know things?!” Mel whines.
The group laughs as Alice slaps her leg. “You can’t hold water, Mel.”
Mel starts to protest, then throws her hands up. As the chuckling dies down, she turns to me. “Anyway, let’s change the subject before Kenny kills us. Jasmine. What’s your deal? You came here from boarding school but you’re from Lorial, right?”
I glance over at Kayla. She has the lie down pat.
But Mel’s tone is curious, not barbed, even though I know she and Kayla and the rest of the girls must’ve talked about me.
I feel some nerves in the pit of my stomach as I repeat my lie about boarding school.
Luckily, Alice and Deanna have heard my introduction already, and the twins seem eager to meet anyone who’s Kayla-approved.
The story gets easier with each telling, and I give the short version, explaining that while I liked boarding school, now that my mom has married Travis, she wanted me to come home so we could be a family.
That part, at least, is true—or seems like it, anyway.
“Well, welcome, Kayla’s sister,” Alice says with a definitive nod, and with that, the topic of my origin seems closed.
The conversation moves on to tryouts, the day’s gossip, and new clothes.
The girls discuss an incident in the locker room, but I can barely follow all the different code words and nicknames they use.
I let their conversation wash over me in a gentle wave, and it feels nice to sit outside in the sun, surrounded by the sound of their laughter.
I wonder how long this will last, though.
Yes, people seem to readily accept that I’ve been at boarding school for the last year, but what if I get too comfortable and slip up?
What would these girls think if they found out I was in a juvenile detention center?
Looking at them smoke cigarettes on school property without a care in the world, I know they couldn’t possibly understand what it feels like to constantly be walking on eggshells.
When the bell rings inside the school building, everyone sits up and checks their phones for the time.
“Hope they didn’t scare you away,” Deanna says quietly to me.
I shake my head, and Deanna says, “Good.” I let her attention mean more than it might because I think she’s very cute.
“Later, guys,” she tells the rest of the group as they begin cleaning up.
Alice and Kayla are the last to finish packing, and together we walk back to the building. “You’re not bad, Kayla’s sister,” Alice says, holding the door open for me.
Kayla nods in agreement.
“Then I guess you can call me Jasmine now?” I ask hopefully.
Alice sighs dramatically. “Fine!”
“You should come to the sleepover this weekend. It’s at Alice’s,” Kayla says.
“Umm, sure?”
She laughs and pushes me through the doorway.
I hold my excitement in and don’t start punching the air until I’m down the hall and out of their view.