Robin Wasserman - Envy

“Are you going to the championships?” Darcy repeated on behalf of her best friend. “You heard the student council got together enough funds to pay for a bus to take us all up to Valley Glen, right?”

“Yeah, I heard.” Beth smiled, remembering how delighted Adam had been when she told him she would finally be there to see him swim. And hopefully, win. This year’s regionals were being held at Valley Glen High, a huge school up north, and a school bus had been chartered to take half of Haven High along to cheer on the swimmers. (Given the football team’s 0-9 record-three years in a row-Haven fans had plenty of time and energy on their hands.) It would be a long day, but Beth wouldn’t miss it for anything. She knew how important it was to Adam. And seeing how much he wanted her there had just reminded her how much he loved her. And how much she loved him. Not that spending five hours on a bus with Marcy, Darcy, and the rest of the Haven High cheering section sounded particularly appealing to her-but it would be worth it to get to see Adam in action again, to show him that she cared. Besides, she’d promised him. She was, after all, his good luck charm. “I’m definitely going,” she answered, grinning. “I can hardly wait.”

“Looks like you won’t have to,” Marcy said.

“What do you mean?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Darcy asked. “We were just talking about how great it is that they rescheduled the championships for this week.”

“This week?” Beth asked in alarm. “But the SATs are on Saturday!”

“Exactly, that’s what’s so great-you know they’re giving the seniors Thursday and Friday off.”

“So we can study ’” Beth pointed out.

Darcy laughed. “Yeah, but who’s actually going to do that? No, it’s perfect-we’ll ride up on Thursday morning, watch the meet, do some victory partying, and then ride back late that night. And we have all of Friday to sleep it off!”

“Are you sure about this?” Beth asked, her throat tightening.

“Yeah, Kyle just told me.”

Kyle was Darcy’s boyfriend, and the swim team’s cocaptain. If he’d said it, it must be true.

Shit.

“I can’t do that, I can’t go away two days before the test,” she cried. “That’s insane.”

“Breathe, Beth. It’s no big deal. It’s just…”

But Beth tuned out the rest of the prattle, her mind frantically racing to find a way around the problem. There wasn’t one. She was just going in circles, always coming back to the same basic certainty.

She was going to have to back out-and Adam was going to freak.

As the rest of the girls filtered out of the locker room, Harper lingered. Once she was on her own, she snapped open her cell and quickly flipped through the images she’d captured. Perfect. She’d gotten everything she needed-and more. This swim meet development was quite the windfall.

That had been the only flaw in Kaia’s ruthlessly brilliant plan-the when. And now Beth had supplied them with the perfect solution. If Adam went out to Valley Glen and Beth stayed here… Well, if she’d had any doubts before about whether this was the right thing to do, they were gone now. Why else would all this good luck be raining down on her if this weren’t exactly what she was meant to do? Why else was everything working out even better than expected?

It would be the ideal setup, but it would mean they had to move fast. And Kane, who was on the swim team too (at least when he felt like going to practice) would have to give up a shot at athletic glory-somehow, Harper was pretty sure he wouldn’t care. Why would he want to go all the way to Valley Glen for a pathetic plastic trophy, when the real trophy would be right here, conveniently close to home?

She slipped out of the locker room and sprinted down the hall to e-mail Kane and Kaia. They needed to know that step one was taken care of and step two needed to happen ASAP. Beth had just dumped a giant gift in their laps. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.

Beth steeled herself all day for the inevitable. But when the moment came, she still wasn’t ready. She sat in the car next to him, looking out the window as the familiar scenery whizzed by, nodding absently as he filled her in on the details of his day at school. She was too nervous to pay much attention, instead plotting out the conversation in her mind, striving for some angle that wouldn’t cause an eruption. She’d yet to find one-but a couple miles from her house, she realized she just couldn’t wait any longer.

“I’ve got bad news,” she blurted out, interrupting some story about his history teacher’s toupee.

He flicked his eyes off the road for a quick second, flashing her a look of concern. “What is it?”

“It’s your swimming championships.”

“Oh, right, I’ve been meaning to tell you, there was some kind of scheduling screw-up, so they changed the date and-”

“I can’t go,” she said flatly.

“What?”

Something suddenly occurred to her-and she didn’t like it. “Adam, if you knew they’d changed the date, why didn’t you tell me?” she asked suspiciously.

“I was about to,” he said uncomfortably.

“It’s two days before the SATs-you knew I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Yeah-wouldn’t want to do that.”

“Wouldn’t want to blow the test, no,” she agreed. He could be such a baby sometimes. “Look, I’ll come see you some other time, I promise.”

“Some other time? This is it , Beth, this is the time. It’s the end of the season-it’s the championships, for God’s sake. I thought you understood that this was important to me.”

“And the SATs are important to me ,” she retorted. “Look, it’s not like I’m asking you not to go.”

“No, you’re just saying you can’t be bothered to come along,” he countered.

“Don’t do that.” She was getting so sick of having the same conversation again and again. Was she supposed to plan her entire life around him? “Don’t try to make this about you and me. You know this test means everything to me.”

“And I don’t?”

She was running out of patience-if she wanted to spend the afternoon dealing with a whiny child, she’d be home babysitting her little brothers.

“Adam, it’s not that I don’t want to be there for you-but this is my life we’re talking about here. I can’t throw everything away for some stupid swim meet.”

“Right,” he muttered. “When it’s something you care about, it’s important. When it’s something I care about, it’s just stupid.”

Beth sighed. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I wish I could go, Adam, I do,” she said desperately. “I just can’t -I mean, if it were some other weekend. Any other weekend. This just isn’t the time.”

He gripped the wheel tightly. “It’s never the time. You just don’t get it, do you? You and me, we need-I need-can’t you just make the time?”

“ You just don’t get it,” Beth cried, as all the anger and frustration she’d been suppressing for the past few weeks bubbled to the surface and burst through. “Why do you have to be like this? Why can’t you understand that this is my future we’re talking about? It’s your future too,” she pointed out, even though she’d promised herself she would never bring this up, wouldn’t try to force him to see what he was missing out on. “It wouldn’t hurt you to do a little studying of your own. I mean, even Kane-”

She cut herself off, realizing as soon as his name came out of her mouth that she’d made a serious mistake. But it was too late.