05

D I S A S T E R

A WEEK PASSED, and things in my head were finally starting to calm down.

Well, kind of.

No, I hadn't told Jenny about the Ren kiss, and now that so much time had passed... I wasn't even sure if I should.

It sounded awful. I was painfully aware of that. Keeping this secret from my best friend was like carrying a boulder with me everywhere I went. But the more I got used to the idea of never telling her, the more pieces of that boulder chipped away.

It would ruin our friendship. I knew it would. Jenny was still bent out of shape over Ren, so I decided that it would be best not to tell her – at least not until she was over him. Maybe then she'd see reason. I mean, technically, I hadn't kissed Ren... he had kissed me. But I had the strong feeling that if I tried to explain that to her now, the only word she'd hear was kiss.

I held my flute case as I walked to Graphic Design. Gemma Alderson – Heather's best friend and head of the drama club – plastered something against a billboard in the hall. We didn't know each other that well so I wasn't gonna say hi, but she jumped in front of me. I jolted as I met her sea-green eyes.

"Miss Ella Volkov," she said. Her auburn hair was in a messy bun atop her head. "The Halloween play. Are you interested?"

My eyebrows tugged together. It was strange that such a dramatic, school-oriented girl was friends with Heather, who only cared about partying, cheerleading and money.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm looking for people to help with the set, and aren't you in the art program?"

"The music program, actually." I tucked my hair behind my ear. "I kinda have no artistic talent."

A heavy arm draped across my shoulder, and I almost flinched – until the oaky scent of Old Spice filled my nostrils.

Ren.

He put half of his weight on me, threatening my knees to buckle, but I stood firm.

"Ella would love to help with the play," he said.

I pushed him off of me. "I'm actually quite awful with a brush."

His dark eyes fell on me. "Well have you ever tried?"

Gemma raised an eyebrow. "You two are weird. Ella, are you helping or not?"

"She'd love to," Ren said, before he put his arm back around my shoulder and guided me down the hall.

I stepped away from him with more force this time. "What the hell, Ren? What if Jenny had seen that?"

He walked ahead of me and entered the computer lab. "Oops."

I looked over my shoulder with paranoia shaking me. In the past week of school, Ren had been more than a little friendly, which was pissing me off as much as it was giving me butterflies.

He didn't exactly hit on me, though there were flirtatious undertones in the things he said sometimes. I did my best to ignore that and not show him what he was doing to my heart. Ren and I couldn't happen. We just couldn't. The small level of "friendship" we had now was bordering on unacceptable, but what was I supposed to do? Tell him to fuck off? I wanted to keep him a secret from Jenny, but I didn't want him to hate me.

Feeling all moody and scatterbrained, I walked to the edge of the room and sat down at my usual spot. The walls of the lab were lined with computers, while a round table of them was set up in the middle. I sat against the wall while Ren helped himself to the spot beside me and dumped his bag on the floor.

Ms. Zhang wasn't in the room yet, so I logged onto Facebook. My eyes (accidentally) flitted to Ren's screen for a split second, and he was on, too. It was rude to look at other people's screens, so I focused on my own. For school computers, Lakewood's weren't all that bad – we had flat screen monitors and the loading times weren't completely awful.

I had an inbox, so opened it. It was just Max saying hey.

He'd been talking to me a lot lately. Like, a lot a lot. We chatted on Facebook during the day and at night, and he'd started sitting near me in homeroom whenever he had the chance. It was kinda weird, honestly. I wasn't conceited enough to think that he suddenly had a thing for me. Last time I checked, he liked Jenny. So maybe he wanted to use my friendship to get closer to her, because as of right now, Jenny wasn't Max's biggest fan.

"So," Ren said, "you've been talking to Max a lot, huh."

I scowled at him, but his eyes were dead on his screen.

"Yeah," I said. "Wouldn't you know?"

"Oddly enough, he hasn't mentioned it. I've only noticed by lurking your screen."

"Oh."

He said nothing. My curiosity was piqued, so I leaned my elbow over the back of my chair and faced him.

"Are things weird between you two?"

Ren's eyes sliced at me before they were back on his screen. He scrolled idly down his newsfeed as he spoke. "Why would they be weird?"

"Well... you know who Max likes, right?"

"He likes Jenny. He's liked her since the eighth grade."

A little twinge of jealousy touched my heart. "Oh. But Jenny likes you."

"Uh-huh."

"Doesn't that, like... create tension?"

"Nope. Guys aren't like girls. A chick could never get in the way of mine and Max's friendship."

I looked back at the blinking notification from Max on my screen. If what Ren said was true, I envied their friendship.

Ms. Zhang was a relatively young Asian woman with long, shiny black hair and glasses. She walked into the room and shut the door before asking everyone to quiet down. Most of the students were good – save a few idiots who liked to make noise – so the room settled quickly.

"All right everyone, well, I might as well present this to you now so you have some time to prepare."

She shuffled the overhead projector in front of the chalkboard, then pulled down the screen. She turned on the machine to show a page of instructions and a couple of graphics.

"This is our project for the semester. You're going to partner up, and together, will create your own little yearbooks." She clasped her hands together and smiled. "Well, half-year books, because they're due at the end of the semester."

A lump formed in my throat. Shit – I hated partnered projects, and the only person I knew in the class was—

Ren poked my thigh. "Dibs."

I scowled at him. "No way, Ren."

"Oh c'mon," he whispered. "Don't make me work with some rando. Jenny won't even let you be my partner for a class project? Who is she, Hitler?"

"You should be starting on the project next Monday," Ms. Zhang explained. "I want each page to be about each week of your lives. So it's like a little documentation project. You'll be required to take your own photos – we have cameras you can rent – and create your own graphic pages for the yearbook. Some of your pages might even make it to the real yearbook!"

Ren poked me again. "Be my partner, Ella."

"Stop poking me."

"There's no law that states you can't be partners with a person who rejected your friend."

"Maybe I don't want to be your partner."

Except for I totally did. I glanced around the room and had talked to a few of these kids, but I really didn't like the idea of working so closely with someone I hardly knew. Was working with my best friend's crush better?

Ren grinned. "If that's true, I'll back off, but..."

I shot him a glare over my shoulder. "Fine."

* * *

At the end of the week, I stood at my locker and piled my textbooks into my backpack. It was a tight fit, but I had loads to read this weekend. On top of that, I worked both Saturday and Sunday, so I was in for a treat.

Weren't weekends supposed to be breaks?

Well, at least I had tonight – Friday – off. Jenny, Luisa and I were going to the movies. As I stuffed another binder in my backpack, Ren popped into my head, and my heart sank.

Two days ago, he'd started acting weird. He'd stopped sitting next to me in Graphic Design and he'd actually ignored my Facebook message the other night. We didn't talk much online, but I'd been anxious that I'd somehow done something to upset him.

It was stupid. I was supposed to be happy that he was backing off, wasn't I? But his words from last week – when he'd said he wouldn't stop trying – had made my heart thump in a way it never had before. Even if there was no way I could date him, Ren made me feel special, and now, something had changed.

What did I do? Maybe he was sick of me being paranoid that Jenny would find out we were kind of friends. That must've been pretty annoying. He hadn't said much to me at work, either. Though it had only been a couple of days since he'd asked me to be his partner, I wasn't sure if it was still on.

Well, come Monday, I guess I was gonna find out, because that was when we needed to start.

I closed my locker with a heavy sigh. My heart nearly jumped right out of my skin at the person standing on the other side.

"Max?" I asked, bewildered.

He grinned, showing the dimple on the right side of his face. "Oops, did I scare you?"

I hugged myself and averted my eyes. "Well, no. What's up?"

Max and I talked online and in class, but he'd never come up to me in the hall before.

There was a pink tinge to his pale cheeks. "Are you up to anything tonight? 'Cause I was wondering if you maybe wanted to hang out."

My eyes widened and my stomach flopped. Did I hear him right?

"Sorry, what?" I asked, though felt like a total idiot right after.

"Did you wanna hang out?" Max asked again, his blue eyes twinkling in the light of the hall.

"I, uh—" Heat crawled up to my cheeks. Max was asking me to hang out. And I had no idea if I actually wanted that.

Excuse – I need an excuse!

"I'm going to the movies with Jenny and Luisa."

It was true. But then Jenny and Luisa themselves popped up behind me. Luisa firmly put her hands on my shoulders.

"Oh, Ella! I have to cancel," she said.

"Me too." Jenny grinned. "So if you wanted to hang out with Max, that's totally cool."

My heart dropped.

Fuck.

Max shifted his weight and avoided Jenny's eyes. He probably still liked her, so why was he asking me out? It wasn't explicitly a date, but...

I was cornered. I'd never been good at standing up for myself, and though the thought of hanging out with Max frayed my nerves, I nodded.

"Sure, Max."

"Okay, great." His movie-star smile widened. "I'll text you later, ' kay?"

Max walked away. I faced Jenny and Luisa with a panicked scowl.

"Um, guys?"

"Why aren't you happy?" Luisa asked. "I can't believe Max just asked you out!"

My eyes fell on Jenny. "He likes you."

"Well, he must be trying to get over it." Jenny propped a hand on her hip. "Which is good, 'cause I'm just not interested."

I truly didn't understand why. Max was a star athlete, incredibly good looking, charming, the list went on. Why wouldn't Jenny like him?

My jaw tightened. Probably for the same reason I wasn't sure I liked him.

Ren.

"I gotta go," I said.

"Text me!" Luisa shouted.

I darted around the corner and took a deep breath. It didn't make sense that Max would suddenly show interest in me after getting rejected by Jenny. I didn't trust it.

Where was Ren's locker? I think I'd seen him on the second floor before. I raced to the stairwell, dodging kids as I pushed through the door to the upper level. Ren was right there, cramming a camera bag into his backpack. I stopped in my tracks and stared. He took a double take of me before standing up and raising an eyebrow.

"Uh, what's up, weirdo?"

I took a deep breath and walked up to him, leaning against the locker and hugging myself. "Why did Max just ask me to hang out?"

Ren looked back into his locker, a peeved expression colouring his face. "How should I know?"

"You're his best friend."

He averted his stare as he slammed his locker shut. "It's none of my business what Max does."

Ren stormed away. With my pulse in my throat, I chased him.

"Is he using me as a rebound or something?"

Is this why you've been acting weird?

He scoffed. "Look, Ella, I don't know why you're coming to me with this. You said yourself that we can't be friends."

But you said that you wouldn't stop trying.

My chest hurt. I wanted Ren to care – to show me that he liked me – but he didn't. And that sent waves of frustration through me. He'd gone through the trouble of pestering me pretty much every day since the night we'd kissed, and now he didn't give a shit about me?

"Fine," I said. "Don't tell me. I'll just go out with him and find out."

Ren said nothing, just kept walking, and that was like a slap to the face. With a huff, I turned around and went back downstairs.

So, I guess I'm going out with Max tonight.

Why did this feel like a recipe for disaster?