Pretty Little Things. Jilliane Hoffman

ask for her input on anything before turning her life upside down. The only future she’d heard her mom and Todd worry about was Bradley’s. Her and Liza weren’t even a thought. Not that Liza gave a shit. The girl was never home anyway, and seeing as she didn’t have to change high schools and all her friends drove, not getting to see them was never a worry. Plus Liza was almost seventeen – just a couple of years from getting out on her own. Lainey, though, was just plain stuck.

      ‘Hey,’ a voice said softly behind her as she unpacked a flattened peanut butter and jelly sandwich from her book bag. It was bad enough she had to brown-bag it, but her sandwich was downright embarrassing. It looked like a bled-through Band Aid. A girl she vaguely recognized stood over her, lunch tray in hand. ‘You’re in Algebra with McKenzie, right?’ the girl asked.

      Great. The whole stupid school knew she was flunking Algebra. ‘That’s me. Hope I’m not too famous,’ Lainey replied with a short, nervous laugh that sounded a lot like a whoop.

      ‘I got a shitty grade, too,’ the girl replied casually. She looked around the table. ‘You alone?’

      Lainey shrugged. Was it that obvious? God, she felt like such a loser. ‘Yeah,’ she replied, shifting in her seat. ‘Just me.’

      ‘Can I sit? I just switched to this lunch period and don’t know anyone yet.’

      Lainey moved the stack of books she’d placed in front of her to make it look like she was busy doing work. ‘Sure.’

      ‘I’m Carrie,’ the girl said, popping a straw into her juice box. ‘You new?’

      ‘Yeah. I was at Ramblewood, but we moved and now I’m zoned here, I guess.’

      ‘Your name’s Elaine, right?’

      ‘My friends call me Lainey.’

      ‘I’m new, too. My dad got transferred in August. I moved here from Columbus, Ohio.’

      ‘Wow … Ohio. Do you like Florida?’

      Carrie shrugged. ‘I never had a pool before, so it’s cool. My friends back home are, like, so jealous. They all say they’re gonna come visit when it gets cold up north. They wanna go swimming in January. That’ll be fun.’

      Lainey felt a pang. It’s not as easy as it sounds, she wanted to tell the girl. Her own friends lived less than a mile away and she practically never saw them any more. ‘My best friend still goes to Ramblewood,’ she said softly as she nibbled on her sandwich. ‘Actually, all my friends still go to Ramblewood.’

      ‘Ramblewood, is that a good school?’

      Last year Lainey probably would’ve said, ‘It sucks,’ because all schools do. But she finished a sip of disgusting warm milk before replying, ‘It’s a great school. The best.’

      They chatted about bad teachers and too much homework and riding the bus. She wasn’t Molly, but it was someone to talk to. ‘I like your backpack,’ Carrie said as she packed up her lunch, nodding at Lainey’s book bag. ‘I must’ve seen Twilight, like, fifty times. Taylor Lautner is so hot.’

      Lainey smiled. ‘I like Robert Pattinson. Can you tell?’ On the cover flap of her black-and-white shoulder book bag was a picture of Edward Cullen, the teenage vampire played by Robert Pattinson in Lainey’s all-time favorite movie. ‘What if I’m not the hero?’ was silk-screened across the front. Her mom refused to buy fancy backpacks or lunchboxes, because, she said, ‘those celebrities already have enough damn money,’ so Lainey had saved up all her birthday cash and bought it herself. She’d gotten the very last one at Target the day before school started. She’d worried at first that maybe it was too young for middle school, but Melissa had one and Molly wanted one and Liza hadn’t made fun of it when she saw it, which was definitely a good sign.

      ‘I want to see New Moon the day it comes out, like the very first show. That would be so cool. Hey, maybe we can go together!’ Carrie offered.

      ‘Sure,’ Lainey replied with a smile. ‘That’d be fun. November nineteenth. I’m so there.’

      ‘Do you think your mom would let you maybe go to the midnight show?’

      Lainey shrugged. ‘I’m not sure …’

      ‘Mine can be like that, too,’ Carrie said with a roll of her eyes. ‘She treats me like such a baby sometimes. It’s just a freaking movie.’

      ‘I got Twilight on DVD for my birthday. I’ve watched it like a hundred times already. I really love the part when Bella asks Edward how old he is and he says, “Seventeen.” And then she asks him, “How long have you been seventeen?”’

      Carrie nodded. ‘And he just answers, “A while.” And the way he looks at her when he takes her up in the tree.’ She bit her lip and sighed. ‘Those eyes … Then she pointed at the science notebook in Lainey’s hand. ‘Hey! Who’s that?’ Carrie asked suddenly.

      Taped across the cover of the notebook was the picture of Zach from her computer monitor. Lainey tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. ‘Oh, that’s my boyfriend,’ she replied quickly, as the blood 911’d to her cheeks, lighting them up, she was sure, like a Christmas tree. She swallowed the large lump that was now blocking her airway.

      Time stopped. Lainey could hear her heartbeat whooshing in her burning ears.

      ‘Oh,’ Carrie finally said, with a slow, but unsure smile. ‘He’s cute!’

      Thankfully the bell rang before Carrie could fire off another question. Lainey quickly shoved the notebook in her bag, slung it over her shoulder and waved goodbye, disappearing into the stampede headed out of the cafeteria.

      Boyfriend? Jeesh … where did that come from? The word had just totally slipped out of her mouth. She hadn’t planned on saying it. She’d never thought about saying it. She’d never even pretended it was true in the privacy of her own room when no one was looking, like she had on occasion with movie stars. She felt really embarrassed — like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t — but oddly enough, really happy. Like she’d finally been let in on the biggest secret in the world.

      She had a boyfriend.

      There it was again. After all, when you thought about it, that’s what Zach sort of was, wasn’t he? She bit back the smile as she made her way through the crowd. She suddenly didn’t feel as alone as she had all morning. Or like such a loser. Because she had a boyfriend.

      The more she thought about it, the more comfortable the word sounded in her head. Lainey had never had a boyfriend before. Unlike Molly and Melissa, she’d never been asked. But Zach was more of a boyfriend to her than Peter Edwards had ever been to Molly. All they did when they were ‘going out’ last year was talk in the hall in between classes and a couple of times on the cell phone for, what? A few minutes? True, Molly’d kissed him – but that was only ’cause Peter had jammed his tongue in her mouth as his friends were walking down the hall, just so they could see him making out with her. Molly had almost bit it off, she was so surprised and so completely grossed out. She said it was like getting frenched by Stubbs, her uncle’s bull dog. Lainey had laughed, but she’d felt so jealous of Molly when she’d said that. Not because she liked weird Peter Edwards or wanted to get tongued by him or anything, but because, well, because Molly had. And Lainey was still stuck on the other side of the fence, as usual, looking in. Waiting for her boobs to show up. Waiting for her period. Waiting to have a boyfriend. Waiting to catch up, it seemed, with what everyone else was already doing. But now, today, this past weekend, these past couple of weeks – things were different. Unlike Molly and Peter, Lainey talked to Zach every night. And even though she hadn’t met him in person yet or heard his voice, they’d sent each other pictures. Plus, Lainey knew he liked her like that. Like a girlfriend. If she wasn’t totally sure before, she definitely knew from his IMs yesterday. He wanted to see more of her. He liked pink. He liked her picture. It was better than what he’d imagined. Which meant that he was imagining what she looked like. He was thinking