Мэг Кэбот - Pants on Fire

“That’s a funny way to put it,” Tommy said with a laugh.

I eyed him suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

“Well, what you call being friendly, I call lying. Like how you’re still pretending to love your boyfriend, even though you’re clearly so bored by him, you’ve taken up with another guy.”

I inhaled to deny this, but he went on, “But I suppose you think it wouldantagonize too many people if you did the right thing and just broke up with him.”

“That—” I started to cry, but he cut me off.

“The thing is, telling thetruth can antagonize people. But I’m willing to take the heat. Unlike some people.”

“But there are some things people don’t NEED to know,” I cried. I couldn’t believe that after all this time, he still hadn’t realized this.

“Like that their two-time All-State first team defensive end and a number of his teammates cheated on their SATs?” Tommy asked pointedly.

And there it was.

He’dsaid it. Not me.

It was amazing. All the pain and anxiety from that day four years ago came rushing back, as if absolutely no time at all had passed since then. Suddenly, I was thirteen years old again, in braces and with a wicked case of the frizzies (I hadn’t met Marty yet, or learned about product and scrunching), begging Tommy not to do what he was so bound and determined to, no matter what the consequences.

And the consequences turned out to be far more severe than even I could have foreseen — for both of us.

“I told you not to run that story,” I reminded him, four years after the fact.

“Yes,” Tommy said, leaning back against the door to the cabin and folding his arms across his chest — an act that caused his impressively rounded biceps to bulge a little…a sight from which I resolutely turned my gaze, since it made me feel just a tiny bit breathless. “You did.”

“It wasn’t that I thought it was wrong for those guys to get busted for what they did,” I went on, trying to make him understand something that, four years ago, I hadn’t quite understood myself. “But I still don’t see why YOU had to be the person to bust them for it. You could have gone straight to the editor in chief over at theGazette. He’d have run it. Mr. Gatch has never been in Coach Hayes’s pocket, like the sports editor.”

Tommy’s expression, in the moonlight, could only be described as incredulous.

“It wasmy story, Katie,” he said. “Iwanted to be the one to write it.”

“Butwhy?” I demanded. “When you had to know how people were going to react?”

“You know why,” he said. “You know how I felt about sports…and the Quahogs in particular.”

“Right,” I said. “Which is why I don’t get why—”

“Because what they did was wrong, Katie,” Tommy explained patiently, like I was still thirteen years old. “They were tarnishing the team. I mean, who were those guys hurting with what they did? Other students, that’s who. Students who were taking the SATs that day and weren’t cheating, students who actually studied. And okay, I wasn’t one of those students, since I wasn’t exactly applying to colleges in the eighth grade. But still. What they did was wrong. And it wasn’t like I didn’t give them the chance to come forward before I ran it.”

“Oh, right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Like they were going to do that. Scholarships were at stake, Tommy! Besides, they didn’t think you’d have the guts to really do it.”

“Scholarships?”Tommy laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, that was what everyone was so upset about. That they lost their chance at getting decent scholarships. Come on, Katie. No one cared about those guys’ futures. The only thing that mattered to everyone in this stupid town was one thing, and one thing only: the state championship.”

“Which they had to forfeit,” I reminded him.

“As well they should,” Tommy said firmly. “They were a bunch of cheaters. They didn’t deserve to play.”

“Tommy.” I shook my head. I couldn’t believe, after all this time, he still couldn’t see the magnitude of what he’d done. “They wereQuahogs. Itold you not to run that article. Itold you people weren’t going to like—”

He held up a single hand to stop the flow of my words. “Don’t worry, I heard you the first time. And I don’t blame you, Katie, for choosing to dissociate yourself from me back then. You did what you had to do, in order to survive. This is Quahog Country. I understand that.”

He didn’t know. I couldn’t believe it, but it was true. Tommy Sullivan had no ideahow I’d managed to pull myself up from the quagmire of unpopularity into which I’d been afraid I’d sink because of my association with him after his story came out in theEagle. Or what I’d done to convince my friends — and more importantly, Seth Turner — that Tommy Sullivan and I were far from chums.

He couldn’t know, or he’d have said something.

So of course he didn’t blame me.

Did he have any idea how many nights I’d lain awake, beratingmyself over and over for what I’d done…orhadn’t done, to be more precise?

Well, I wasn’t about to tell him. I mean, it’s true I’m a liar, and that, yeah, I’m pretty boy-crazy — a mostly deadly combination.

But I’m not stupid.

“If you know that,” I said, “then why on earth do you want to come back here, Tommy?”

He smiled. It was a nice smile…the kind of smile I remembered seeing on his face back when we’d both moved up to tenth-grade reading level on our Scholastic Reading Counts lists…but we were still in sixth grade.

“That’s for me to know,” he said, still smiling, “and you to find out. Maybe.”

I stared at him. I did not like the sound of that. I did not like the sound of that one bit.

“You can’t possibly think,” I sputtered, trying one last time to convince him how foolish he was being — because, truthfully, I wasn’t at all sure I was going to be able to stand it if that gorgeous face of his got smashed in, “that you can just waltz into Eastport High next week and be welcomed with open arms.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tommy said breezily. “All the guys I got in trouble are long gone by now.”

“But their siblings aren’t,” I reminded him. “Like Seth.”

“You really think Seth remembers how it went down?” Tommy asked.

“Ofcourse he remembers, Tommy,” I said.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Tommy said. “Am I the only one who recalls that Seth Turner used to think trees give off cold air because when you stand in the shade it’s cooler than in the sun?”

I felt myself flushing with embarrassment. It’s true Seth isn’t the brightest bulb in the garden, but…

“That was the fifth grade!” I cried.

“My point exactly,” Tommy said. “By fifth grade, you and I pretty much knew that cold air came from fronts out of Canada. Seth, Sidney, and the rest of them? Not so much. But I guess you’d know better. They were always your friends. Though I gotta say — I think poor, dumb Seth deserves better treatment. Because, really, Katie.Eric Fluteley? That guy’s no better than the rest of them.”

“Oh, like you’re so great,” I cried dramatically. Because of course I felt guilty. Because I knew perfectly well that Tommy was right. Iwas taking advantage of Seth’s trusting, innocent nature. And I felt rotten about it. Really. “Going around,spying on people—”

“Observing the world around me,” Tommy corrected me. “It’s what a good journalist does. So…am I to take it from your reaction to all this that you, too, will be one of the people giving me the cold shoulder in the halls of Eastport High next week?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “That depends. Are you going to give me the same deal you gave Jake Turner and those guys, and letme be the one to break the news to Seth about Eric and me, before you do it?”