Mara Purnhagen - Tagged

“Pouring liquid into a cup is not a talent,” I muttered.

“There’s got to be something you love.”

I thought about all of the things I had tried to do in my life. There was ballet, but I wasn’t graceful enough and it killed my toes. I took a ceramics course with Lan once, but painting chubby little animals didn’t excite me. I tried music, but everyone told me I was tone-deaf. I couldn’t draw a circle to save my life and any time I tried to help Mom decorate a cake I just made a huge mess.

“There’s nothing I’m really good at,” I said finally.

“Except precalculus,” Eli said. “You really helped me out, you know?”

“Then why did you—” I stopped. Maybe I didn’t want to know why he had changed around Trent. Maybe he didn’t want to be associated with me, the sheriff’s daughter. Maybe it was better to let it go and not think about it.

“Why did I what?” Eli looked puzzled. I had a hard time looking away from him. His eyes were the color of dark, polished wood.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

“Tell me.”

I sighed. How do you ask a question when you don’t want to know the answer? I tried to think of something clever, then blurted out the first thing that popped into my head.

“Lan likes Trent.”

I immediately regretted my revelation. Lan would kill me if she knew. Eli looked both confused and shocked.

“Lan likes Trent?” he repeated.

“Please don’t say anything to him,” I begged.

Eli raised an eyebrow. “That could be a problem.”

ON FRIDAY I DISCOVERED a shiny silver envelope in my locker, the corner edge peeking out from the grate where it had been slipped. My name looked like it had been laser-printed in a fancy font on the envelope. “Katherine Morgan” it read. On closer inspection, I realized that it was calligraphy, written by hand in deep blue ink.

I felt a surge of excitement, despite the fact that my name was wrong. It was an invitation to Tiffany’s birthday party. I had just assumed there was no way I would be invited. She was still at war with my best friend, which I thought pretty much killed any chance I had of going. Tiffany and I had worked as lab partners during our sophomore year, but she barely spoke to me the entire semester except to inform me that she would not be cutting into dead frogs. Maybe the fact that I had completed the dissection lab by myself counted for something and she was paying me back with an invitation.

I grabbed the silver envelope and the books I needed for class, slammed my locker shut and hurried off to first period history.

“Guess what was in my locker this morning?” I said to Lan as I slid into my seat.

“Guess what was in everyone’s locker this morning,” Lan grumbled.

“You were invited? That’s great!” I exclaimed happily.

“Look again. It’s not what you think.”

I carefully opened the envelope. The metallic pearl-colored paper was heavy in my hand, the exact opposite of the delicate cream-colored stationery folded inside. I read over the paper several times and then looked at Lan in confusion.

“It’s an invitation to the invitation?”

Lan nodded. “She wants the entire school to show up in the parking lot next Tuesday just to see if they’ve been invited to her little soiree.”

“What makes her think anyone’s that desperate?”

“Well, the camera crew will be there, so I’m pretty sure she’ll get a crowd.”

I rolled my eyes and shoved the pseudoinvitation into my backpack. I looked around the room and saw other people examining their own silver envelopes, furrowing their brows and trying to make sense of them.

I hadn’t told Lan yet that I had revealed her crush to Eli. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. Eli had sworn he wouldn’t say anything to Trent, but he’d also said there was a problem.

“The thing is, Brady kind of likes Lan,” he’d admitted.

“I thought Brady was dating a sophomore.”

“He was. They broke up.”

According to Eli, Trent would never date a girl if one of his friends liked her. It was some kind of loyalty code among guys. I told Eli I would try my best to get Lan to see the better qualities of Brady, but I wasn’t making any promises.

“She really likes Trent,” I said. “A lot.”

“Well, Brady really likes her. A lot.”

I decided that we needed to do whatever we could to make our friends happy, but Eli wanted to stay out of the way and let fate take its course.

“But what if fate needs a little nudge?” I asked.

“Fate never needs a nudge,” Eli responded. “It only needs time.”

I was still thinking about what Eli had said— Fate only needs time —when Tiffany stormed into class. She didn’t look as happy as I would have expected the most incredibly popular girl at school to appear. In fact, she looked downright mad.

“Principal Carter is a complete moron,” she announced to the class as she slammed her purse onto her desk. Mr. Gildea hadn’t arrived yet, which was a good thing because there was no way he would tolerate her bashing the principal in his class, even if the complaint was remotely true.

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