Put It Out There

Things still felt odd between us. I wasn’t sure how to handle it and ended up sounding awkwardly formal. “Thank you for the ride, Trevor. Have a good day.”

“I’ll be done work at four-thirty if you want a ride home.”

“Sure. I’ll meet you back here.”

After I stepped out and shut the door, the window rolled down.

“Hey.” He grinned with his chin tilted in a cocky way. “Do you really think I’m good-looking like that guy in Kailyn’s magazine?”

And there it was. We were back to normal. The teasing was going to be relentless. I shook my head and made a snarky face. “Don’t let it go to your gigantic head.”

“Too late.” He waved and drove away.

At least our relationship felt familiar and easy again. Which was good, since I had a feeling going back to my old school was going to be way harder than I had anticipated.

CHAPTER TWO

My best friend Sophie Sakamoto wasn’t hard to spot in her black-and-white-striped knee-high stockings, black micro-mini skirt, and fluorescent lime-green tank top. She lounged on the front steps of the school with her boyfriend and some of the guys from their band. Her boyfriend Doug was in grade twelve and they’d been dating for almost two years. They came down to Vancouver almost every weekend to hang out with me when I lived there, thankfully. The loneliness would have been unbearable if they hadn’t. Doug had shaved his dark faux-hawk into a buzz cut since I last saw him. It suited the dark-rimmed punk glasses he wore. Most people got the wrong impression about Doug because he was a musician who wore leather and had tattoos up his neck—well, maybe it wasn’t entirely the wrong impression.

“Hey, guys,” I said, loud enough for them to hear me, but quietly enough to not make a huge scene. At least, that was the goal. I should have known Sophie wouldn’t let my re-initiation to the school slide without a bit of a scene.

She shot up and squealed as she lunged over to hug me. “Oh my God. Welcome back. You are not allowed to leave me ever again. The boredom was torture.” She turned to the boys. “No offence.”

They all laughed, knowing full well it was intended to be an insult. She leaned back to check out my outfit. Normally, she was the one up on fashion, and I couldn’t have cared less. The suede boots were one of the expensive items my mom had bought for me while I was living with her.

“Damn, Derian, you look stylish.” She tickled my waist. “All we need now is to get you a boyfriend.”

I glared at her and whispered, “I’m happily single. Thanks. You want to keep your voice down a little? Please.”

“Why are you turning all red?” she teased. She was going to take it as far as she could, just to amuse herself. And maybe also to get back at me for leaving her alone for a whole year. “Hey, Doug,” Sophie called over to him. “You think Derian looks hot with her new look?”

Doug laughed. “Is that a trap?”

“Nope.”

To my horror, Doug and a couple of other guys on the steps all checked me out. Doug pushed his glasses up, studied my suede boots, then moved his gaze up my legs, over my skirt, paused for a second at my pink button-up sweater, and finished at my face. “Yup,” he said.

“Smokin’,” another guy added.

“See,” Sophie encouraged.

I turned sideways and folded my arms across my chest. “You can stop humiliating me. I’m sorry I left you for a year. It’s not like I wanted to.”

Her expression changed into sympathy before she hugged me again. “I understand why you didn’t come back last year. I’m not mad at you, and I wasn’t kidding. You look beautiful. But you’ve always been beautiful—even in worn yoga pants and muddy hiking boots.”

“Thank you.” I sighed and tugged down the hem of my skirt. It wasn’t about the clothes. The look was only supposed to be symbolic of a fresh new start. I thought a new image would help me move on and leave the pain of losing my dad in the past. I hadn’t done it to please my mom, or get attention, or pretend to be someone I wasn’t, but if it was going to seem like that, I would prefer for everyone to treat me like the old Derian and pretend like nothing had changed. The only problem was, everything had changed. And it had nothing to do with how I dressed.

Sophie slapped my hand to make me stop fidgeting. Then she gasped, dug her fingers into my arms, and spun me around. A guy I’d never seen before closed the driver’s door of a black Mercedes coupe. He ran his left hand through his caramel-coloured hair as he turned to look at the school. Then he lifted the tan leather strap of his bag over his head, adjusted it across his chest, and glanced at all the students milling around on the grass and the front steps. “Holy shit. Who is that?” Sophie whispered.

I didn’t respond. I just watched him. He walked smoothly and confidently for a few steps, then looked down at the ground for a step—as if what he was doing was the last thing he wanted to be doing. His grey trousers, light blue-grey shirt, and expensive-looking black dress shoes were not the typical look for our high school. His skin was tanned like he’d just gotten back from the south of France or something, and his shiny silver watch must have cost a fortune. When he got close enough that I could tell he was over six-feet tall, and his eyes were the most intoxicating shade of blue, he smiled. It was a shy smile. His chin was down, but he glanced up briefly before flashing his insanely white and perfectly straight teeth at Sophie.

She and I both stared at him as he continued towards the front door of the school and disappeared inside. “He’s beautiful.” Sophie sighed.

“And he smiled at you,” I whispered, as I checked to see if Doug was listening. He wasn’t paying attention.

“He didn’t smile at me, you geek.” Sophie smacked my arm with the back of her hand. “He smiled at you.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Ya, he did. I’ll get the 411 on him for you.” She jiggled around excitedly.

“What? No. I don’t want you to do that.”

“Hi Derian,” a male voice interrupted us before I had a chance to axe her scheme.

I jumped a little because I hadn’t even noticed Steve Rawlings walk up. He was a friend who sat on student council with me the year before I left. He looked different. He’d grown about six inches and got his braces off. His hair was cut really short—probably because it was the first day of school. He was kind of a keener like that. He actually looked cute.

“Hi Steve.”

“Welcome back, Deri. Are you coming to peer mentoring?”

“Oh, I didn’t sign up to be a mentor.”

“I know, but I remembered you said you wanted to be a mentor in junior year. So, when I heard you were coming back, I signed you up. Hope that’s okay. Mr. Orton said he was going to send you an email. Sorry. He must have forgotten. I would have told you, but I don’t have your email or phone number. It’s cool if you have other things you need to do.”

“I did, I mean, I do want to be a mentor. Yeah, thanks.”

Sophie grabbed my elbow to hold me back. “She’ll be right with you,” she said to Steve, then whispered in my ear, “I’ll fill you in on the new guy by lunch.”

“What? No. Don’t embarrass me,” I hissed back.

She giggled in a maniacal way, held up two fingers in a peace sign, and moved to lean against Doug. Doug draped his arm over her shoulders and kissed her neck. There wasn’t any way to stop her once her mind was set on something, so I didn’t bother to protest more before I walked away.

“Do you want me to carry your bag?” Steve offered.

“Oh, it’s basically empty. But thanks for asking.”

He smiled in a nervous way that made me feel vicariously awkward.

It took a while, but I eventually came up with something to say to break the silence. “You grew a lot since I saw you last.”

His face winced slightly, maybe wishing I hadn’t reminded him he used to be smaller than me. “A bit.”

“And have you been working out or something?”

His cheeks definitely went red at that point, which wasn’t the effect I was going for. “I’ve been coaching tennis at the community centre.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you played.”

“I’ve been on the school tennis team since grade eight.” He looked a little hurt that I didn’t know.

“Right, I knew that,” I scrambled. Truthfully, football was the only sport I paid attention to since it was what Trevor had played in high school.

Steve chuckled, “I was on student council with you too. My name’s Steve. Do you at least remember that?”

I squished up my face and squinted exaggeratedly. “You look vaguely familiar,” I joked, and we walked into the students’ lounge, where the grade eights were all huddled around, chattering.

The chairs were set up in two rows facing each other. Our principal yelled for the mentors to sit along one side. Steve and I sat beside each other and talked as we waited for our buddies to be assigned. A tiny girl with strawberry curls sat down in the chair in front of Steve. She grinned shyly and her cheeks turned pink as if she thought Steve was one of the celebrities in Kailyn’s magazine.

“Hi. I’m Steve Rawlings.” He reached his arm out and shook her hand.

She scanned the room, as if she hoped her friends could see that she lucked out and got a hot guy as her mentor. My buddy was as small as the girl and even a little skinnier. He had dark hair and very pale skin. His eyes were hard to see because he wore wire-rimmed glasses, and he hadn’t looked up since he sat down.

“Hi. I’m Derian. What’s your name?”

He glanced up. His eyes were big and brown. He focused back down at his lap and said, with an adorable cartoon-pitched voice, “Nikolai.”

“Nice to meet you, Nikolai. Do you have any questions about high school so far?”

His head tilted up, but he didn’t speak.

“That’s what I’m here for. If you need anything at all, just ask me.”

He shook his head—not like he didn’t have any questions, more like he was too afraid to ask them.

“When I was in grade eight I wanted to know lots of things.” I pulled out the map from his student agenda and showed him where all the important things were. “This is where my locker is.” I marked it with a circle on the map. “If you need anything just come find me.”

He smiled a little and looked around nervously, as if he expected someone to spring on him or something. At that point, the principal shouted instructions again.

After we walked our buddies to their lockers and pointed them in the right direction for their first classes, I asked Steve, “Were we that cute in grade eight?”

“You were. I definitely wasn’t. What’s your first class?”

“Um,” I opened my binder and read my schedule. “English with Mrs. Tookey.”

“Kooky Tookey. Me too. May I have the honour of escorting you to class, Miss Lafleur?” He presented his arm so I could hook my arm around his elbow like a Jane Austen character.

“Certainly, my dear sir.”

We sat beside each other halfway down the aisle of desks in Mrs. Tookey’s classroom. She really was kooky. She breezed in with a trail of rainbow scarves twisting behind her. Her hair was clumped into long dirty-blonde dreads and tied into a ponytail with a red shoelace. It was a style that matched her long peasant skirt, Birkenstock sandals, and pink socks. I chuckled a little as she took in a deep breath and smiled at us lovingly. “Namaste,” she said.

The entire class stared at her, not sure how to respond.

She pressed her palms together in a prayer position and bowed. “All right, before we jump right into work I would like everyone to take a moment to set an intention for this year.”

Lisa Alvarez, who acted like a teacher’s pet and got away with things because of her looks, shot her hand up and asked, “Intention for what?”

Mrs. Tookey smiled adoringly. “Whatever you wish—the sky is the limit. If you want something to be, just think about it happening. The universe will provide it for you when the timing is right.”

Lisa glanced at Steve, he looked at me. A bunch of guys at the back of the class laughed. I could only imagine what types of things they were going to wish for. Steve shot a quick look at the guys behind him and smiled. Then he looked back at me and tried to appear serious again.

“Think of something in this world you wish would become a reality for you,” Mrs. Tookey continued. “All right, everyone close your eyes. Rest your feet firmly on the ground. Relax. Feel your breath flow in and out. Think about what you wish would come true for you—something that will bring you supreme happiness. Now put it out there.”

The guys at the back snickered again. Mrs. Tookey cleared her throat, annoyed. I thought about what I wanted my intention to be. The only thing I wanted with all my heart was for my dad not to be dead. There weren’t enough intentions in the world to make that true. Wishing for my dream car made me seem kind of materialistic since other people had way less than I did. Straight As were achievable without intervention from the universe. Hopefully, getting kissed for the first time was a milestone I could also achieve on my own accord. I clenched my eyes shut and set an intention that meant something: I will find a way to earn enough money to do the renovations so Granddad will be able to keep the Inn.

I opened my eyes. Steve stared at me eagerly. “What intention did you set?”

“Isn’t it like a wish? If I tell you, it won’t come true.”

He waved his hand to dismiss my concern. “Nah, the more people you tell, the stronger the intention will become.”

“What’s yours?”

“That you’ll go out with me on Saturday night.” He smiled and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“Oh,” I muttered, totally unprepared for that.

His smile faded.

CHAPTER THREE

Thankfully, Mrs. Tookey lectured for the entire class, so Steve and I couldn’t finish the conversation about going out on Saturday night. I was not experienced at all in the world of dating. I needed to consult with Sophie before I gave Steve an answer. When Mrs. Tookey dismissed us, Lisa Alvarez grabbed Steve’s elbow to ask him a question. She did things like act dumb with guys to have an excuse to flirt, even though her grades were at least as good as mine. I took the opportunity to shoot out of my seat and rushed to disappear into the crowd of people in the hall.

I bit my fingernails through my next two classes, watching the clock impatiently. When lunch finally arrived, I pretty much sprinted to the lounge to check in with Nikolai. He still looked shell-shocked, but he had hooked up with another boy who he must have known from elementary school. They were sort of glued to each other. “How’s it going, Nikolai?”

“Um, okay,” he said as he glanced at his friend.

I smiled because his cartoon voice was ridiculously cute. “I’ll be sitting over there if you need anything.” I pointed to the table where I always met Sophie. Then it occurred to me I’d been gone for a year and actually had no idea what Sophie and the guys did for lunch anymore.

“Okay,” Nikolai said again, almost as if he was embarrassed I was hovering. He sat down with his friend at a table full of grade eights. Obviously, he didn’t need my help. I was the one who needed help. No one was at our old table yet, and Steve had already walked in with his friends. If he cornered me before I had a chance to talk to Sophie, I wouldn’t know how to act. Well, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t rocket science—say yes or no. The problem was, I didn’t know which to say.

I almost went back to sit with Nikolai and his grade-eight friends just so I wouldn’t be alone. I glanced around the students’ lounge, hoping to spot Sophie or Doug. Instead, I saw the new guy walk in surrounded by a bunch of grade-twelve girls, who had obviously offered to show him around and have lunch with him. My nose squished up and my lip curled unintentionally because they were the snottiest girls in our school. He sat down at a table squeezed between Corrine Andrews on his right and Paige Peterson on his left. When he glanced up, our eyes accidentally met, so I quickly stared at the floor. I covered my mouth with my hand in case I still had the snarled-lip thing going on. The next time I checked, he was smiling—I couldn’t tell why. Corrine might have said something funny, not that she was known for her wit.

Steve sat at a corner table with a bunch of guys. He scanned the room and stopped at me. My heart raced like a baby gazelle separated from the herd.

“Hey, Derian,” Lisa Alvarez said as she put a tray with an apple and water on the table next to me. Her smile and tone weren’t exactly genuine when she said, “Welcome back.”

“Thanks.” When did she start sitting at the table with Sophie and the guys? Had she been my substitute? If they were trying to replace me, I would have preferred if they had chosen someone with a sliver of integrity.

She sat down and said, “I saw your brother drop you off this morning. Is he dating anyone?”

“Trevor’s not my brother. He’s my neighbour.”

Surprised, she said, “Really? He acts like he’s your brother. Is he single?”

Her eyes were gorgeous, big, with long lashes. And her lips were famous. She’d been every guy’s fantasy girl since her figure developed in grade seven. But Trevor didn’t date insecure girls, girly girls, or girls younger than him. None that I knew of. Even if Lisa Alvarez miraculously gained self-respect, she didn’t have a chance with him. “You’re not Trevor’s type.”

She flipped her long, shiny, brown hair over her shoulders and laughed. “I’m everyone’s type.”

I couldn’t argue with that, if all they were looking for was someone to get lucky with. Thankfully, Sophie, Doug, and the guys from their band had showed up. Sophie leaned in to speak closely to Lisa’s face in an intimidating way, “Trevor likes classy girls, Lisa. You haven’t got a snowball’s chance in hell.”

“Why don’t we let him be the judge of that?” She bit into her apple and looked pretty cocky.

Sophie pointed and said, “Sit over at that table. Don’t make me tell you again.”

Unfazed, Lisa stood with an arrogant grin and wandered over to sit with a different group of grade elevens. If Sophie did that to me, I’d be bawling, so either Lisa was made of Teflon, or she was a master at burying the humiliation. I grabbed Sophie’s arm and dragged her out of the lounge before she had a chance to cause more trouble.

“Wow, you’re eager.” Sophie laughed. “Okay, his name is Mason Cartwright. He’s in grade twelve and just moved to Squamish from Ottawa. His dad owns some sort of import company, and they’re filthy, stinking, disgusting, crazy rich. Apparently his dad commutes to work in a damn helicopter.”

“What? That’s not what I want to talk about. Wait, how did you find all that out so fast?”

“I called Julie at the hair salon. She gets the low-down on everyone. What did you want to talk about?”

“I think Steve asked me out on a date for this Saturday night.”

“You think?”

“He didn’t actually ask. We did this thing in English class where you set an intention and put it out there so the universe will make it come true. His intention was that I would go out with him Saturday night.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing, yet. Tookey started talking and then I ran out of the classroom before he had a chance to ask for real.”

“Well, your answer should be no, simply on the grounds that he used Kooky Tookey’s kooky exercise to ask you out.” She made a pouty puppy-dog face. “Besides, you have to come to our gig on Saturday night. It’s our first real paid show and we need Dirty Deri there.”

Oh God, no. Dirty Deri was a one-time thing when I was going through a bad time right after my dad died. I was willing to go to their gig, but Dirty Deri was staying home, locked in a closet. “If I say yes to Steve, I’ll insist on going to watch you guys play. I just don’t know if I should say yes.”

“What is your Spidey-sense intuition telling you?”

“Nothing about boys. But some random girl is going to suffer a head injury, apparently.”

“Warn me if she’s Japanese. I have no problem rocking a helmet as an accessory.”

“She had blonde hair, so unless you have plans to bleach yours out, it wasn’t you.”

She leaned her back against the wall and crossed her arms as she considered my dilemma. “Do you like Steve?”

“I don’t know. He kind of talks a lot, but he’s really nice and smart. Apparently he plays on the tennis team.”

“And he got cute over the summer,” she pointed out.

“Yes, yes he did.” I contemplated. “But I want to focus on school. And I promised to help out at the Inn. I don’t really have time to date.”

“Deri, you need to at least kiss a boy before you go to college.”

“So, I should say yes?”

“Actually, I think you should wait and see if anything happens with Mason Cartwright.”

“Hardly.” An involuntary snort caught in my throat from the ridiculousness of that. I needed to crawl before I could qualify for the Olympics. “He’s sitting with Corrine and Paige already.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. Tell Steve you’ll go out with him as friends so you can still leave your options open.” She patted me on the shoulder and leaned in to add, “And since he’s walking over here right now, I’ll leave you to that.”

My palms immediately got sweaty. Sophie left, and I slowly turned around to face Steve. I couldn’t exactly read his expression as he walked along the path with his hands in his pockets, but I assumed it was some variation of insulted. “Hey,” he said quietly once we were face to face.

“Hi. Sorry I had to run off after class.”

“No problem.” He looked into my eyes. “I was wondering —”

I cut him off, “Did you mean you want to go out Saturday night as friends?” I smiled enthusiastically, as if I loved the idea. “Or, did you mean you want to go out on Saturday night for a date?” I wrinkled my nose and angled my eyebrows together to imply I wasn’t quite ready for that idea, which was true, so wasn’t hard to produce.

He hesitated for a second before he said, “Friends. Maybe we could go to the party Sophie’s band is playing at.”

“Oh, okay, sure.”

“Great.” He smiled and handed me a key chain. “I know this is kind of lame, but I went to Arizona over the summer. There is this famous architect place there —”

“Taliesin West.”

“Yeah, the Frank Lloyd Wright school. My dad made me go with him for a tour. I remembered when we did that career day in grade eight, you said you wanted to be an architect. And I know you’re always sketching buildings, so I thought you might like it. The key chain is the logo or emblem or something.”

“Wow. Thanks.” I honestly was impressed that he remembered my interest in architecture and was thoughtful enough to get me a souvenir.

“I’m glad you’re back. Things weren’t the same when you weren’t here last year.”

Aw, he was being so sweet. “Thanks. It feels good to be home again.”

He shifted his weight a couple of times. “Okay, well, um, I have a tennis team meeting, so, I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Okay, I’ll see you around.”

He headed towards the gym, and I walked slowly back into the students’ lounge, still processing what just happened. A boy asked me out. A cute, smart, super-nice boy, who obviously doesn’t mind my geek side. I had never thought of Steve in that way, but then again, I had never really thought of any guy as more than a friend. If there were such a thing as romantically stunted, that was me. Dating was a foreign concept to me. Everything I knew about boys was either from Sophie, who started dating when we were twelve. Or from observing Trevor, who had a different pretty girl hanging around him monthly. I didn’t actually have any hands-on experience, but there was no reason why the new Derian couldn’t have a boyfriend if I wanted her to.

Sophie sat up with a hopeful look on her face as I approached the table. “So, do you have a date with Steve for Saturday night?”