Hannah Harrington - Speechless

“Duh.”

“Won’t Tessa know?”

I’m a little insulted by the question, to be honest. Of course I thought ahead. I’m not an amateur. “I deleted the sent texts,” I explain. “She’ll have no idea.”

“That is…” Kristen pauses, and then grins up at me. “Totally brilliant.”

I take the phone back and look at the screen, where the high-angled self-portrait of Tessa and Owen midkiss stares back at me. So tacky. Not just the picture, or how Owen’s mouth is open so wide I can actually see his tongue entering Tessa’s mouth (gross, gross, gross), but making out with your alleged best friend’s boyfriend behind her back? That’s just classless. I would never in a million years hook up with Kristen’s boyfriend, Warren Snyder, while she’s dating him. Okay, I would never hook up with him, period, because he’s a sleaze, but that’s beside the point. The point is, some things are sacred.

“She’s a shitty friend,” I tell Kristen. “I can’t believe she did that to Megan.” There’s no way Megan will forgive her when she finds out. She’s dated Owen for over a year, and Tessa’s been her best friend for longer than that. An entire friendship down the drain, all because Tessa couldn’t keep her hands off Owen. No boy is worth that. Not even Brendon Ryan, whom I would do a number of immoral and insane things for, and who is quite possibly the love of my life, even if he doesn’t know it yet. We’ve been caught in a wildly passionate, completely one-sided affair since freshman year.

“Tessa Schauer is a slutty bitch. I hope Megan kicks her ass,” Kristen says. “When are you going to tell her?”

“Tonight, probably.” Megan and Tessa will both be at the party, so I’ll have to find a way to corner Megan alone and break the news. Tessa will know it’s me, even if I erased my tracks, but whatever. Who cares? Snooping on someone’s phone is a far more minor offense than slutting around with your best friend’s boyfriend. No one will have sympathy for her.

Kristen rolls off the bed and stands in front of her full-length mirror, fiddling with the ends of her perfect hair. “You know, you could have some fun with this,” she muses.

I sit up. “How?”

“If you tell Tessa you know about her and Owen, I bet she’d do just about anything to keep you from sharing that with Megan.”

“Like blackmail?” I frown. “I don’t know…”

“I’m just saying,” Kristen says, “I know for a fact that she has a fake ID. She was attention-whoring like crazy, showing it off to everyone who would listen in Econ last week. Maybe you could convince her to hook up the two of us with our own.”

Interesting idea. Except—

“What would we do with a fake ID?” I ask. Buying booze is the obvious answer, but while Kristen might pass for twenty-one with the right push-up bra and a pair of heels, there’s no way I could. I am much less…developed than her.

“Well, I could go to Rave with Warren, for starters,” she says. “You only have to be eighteen to get in.”

Rave is this nightclub in Westfield, the next town over. Warren turned eighteen last month and went there to celebrate, and wouldn’t shut up about it for two weeks. I have to admit, it would be interesting to see what all the fuss is about.

And if it’s important to Kristen, then it’s important to me.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I tell her, and by the way Kristen smiles at me, I know that was exactly what she wanted to hear.

six hours later

I don’t know how I’m going to talk myself out of this one.

My phone buzzes insistently in my hand, like it knows I’m trying to avoid it. A glance at the front screen confirms my impending doom: MOM flashes there like it’s mocking me. Crap.

Kristen nudges me in the rib cage with her elbow. “Who the hell is calling you?” she demands. “Everyone worth knowing is already here.”

It’s true; the party is in full swing, the room filled with half of Grand Lake High’s student body—well, the half that matters, anyway—and loud music. It’s no secret Kristen Courteau throws the best parties. Absentee parents, an older brother who has no problem supplying minors with alcohol, a big house with a top-notch stereo system—it’s everything a group of rowdy sixteen-year-olds could ask for.

On this couch I’m packed in tight like a sardine, stuck between Kristen and Brendon Ryan. Brendon Ryan, the last person I want knowing that my mother is calling to check up on me.

“It’s my mom,” I explain, leaning my head close to hers to be heard over the racket and praying that Brendon is too absorbed in downing his beer to pay attention. “She’ll be pissed if I don’t answer.”

“Then answer it,” Kristen says, like it’s that simple.

“And have her hear all this?” I shake my head. “She’ll kill me!”

“Fine, then don’t answer it.” Kristen rolls her eyes and knocks back the rest of her drink. Somehow she manages to look good doing even that. “I’m getting more beer,” she informs me, peeling herself off the couch and dancing her way across the room to the cooler and abandoning me to resolve this problem on my own. Sometimes Kristen can be such a bitch. If she wasn’t my best friend, I’d probably hate her.

Next to me, Brendon curls his hand over the cap of my shoulder and leans in close to my ear. Normally I’d be thrilled because a) Brendon Ryan is touching me, b) his near proximity means I can smell him, and c) BRENDON RYAN IS TOUCHING ME OH MY GOD (!!!), but I can’t even savor the moment because I’m too panicked. Also, tonight he reeks too much of beer and cloying cologne. This is a disappointment because I always assumed that a perfect creature such as Brendon would smell of spring rain and mountain breezes and other heavenly aromas.

“Hey,” he says, his breath warm against my ear, and oh, yeah, that’s enough to send my already racing pulse into overdrive. “I bet if you go down the hall it’ll be quieter.”

It’s a no-brainer suggestion, really, but in that moment, I feel like Brendon is a certified genius for coming up with it. Maybe it’s due to the fact that when I’m anywhere within a six-foot radius of Brendon I lose all ability to think coherently. Well, okay, the Jell-O shot I kicked back ten minutes ago probably isn’t helping matters.

“Yes,” I finally choke out once I realize I’ve spent the last several seconds staring into his brain-melty hazel eyes with my mouth hanging open like the love-struck idiot I am. “Good idea.”

I push myself off the couch, stumble past the cluster of barely clothed freshman girls writhing to some electro dance remix—nasty—and don’t stop until I’ve reached the end of the hallway. Of course, even down here I can feel vibrations from the stereo’s pulsating bass. My phone stopped ringing a while ago. Great. Now I need to come up with an excuse to explain why I didn’t answer Mom’s call right away. One that does not involve divulging that I’m at a New Year’s Eve party with a bunch of intoxicated minors.

It’s so stupid. One lousy grade and my parents act like it’s the end of the world. A D- in geometry is not going to ruin my entire life. But of course they don’t see it that way. The only reason I was allowed over to Kristen’s at all was under the pretense that we’d be babysitting her younger cousins. If Mom finds out what’s really going on, there’ll be hell to pay.

I open the hall closet and lock myself inside; at least the door blocks some of the sound from the raging party. My phone starts ringing again—Mom, of course. I push aside a broom handle and answer it with the most nonchalant hello I can muster.

“Chelsea,” she says, and by the way she says my name alone, I can perfectly picture the pinched expression on her face. “Why didn’t you pick up before?”