Maybe?

  “Let’s do dinner tonight, before swimming.” he says, so matter-of-factly. “Just you and me.”

  “Sure,” I say, my nerves tingling in excitement. “What ti—”

  He cuts me off. “See you at six, K. I can’t wait.”

  I look at my watch. Crap—it’s 5:45. “Where?” I ask.

  But he’s already hung up.

  I turn around and start sprinting back the other way, not sure if I’m going to make it home in time to shower and be ready for dinner in fifteen minutes . . . but the more I replay our conversation in my head, the more I realize how bugged I am James didn’t ask me so as much as tell me about our plans—he didn’t even wait to get my input, either. It’s like he expects me to drop everything and come running to him when he beckons.

  Which is exactly what I’m doing.

  I slow down, realizing I don’t have to do what he says. It’s not like he’s all-powerful. James Odera can wait for me.

  Right?

  Then why am I scared to find out what happens if I do make him wait? And why do I still feel guilty about wanting to run to him as fast as possible?

  A gust of wind tears through the trees, rattling the branches. To the left of me, the sound of footsteps crunches over the dead leaves littering the ground. I spin around, wondering if Bird Lady is about to materialize again . . . .

  Waiting.

  Armed with more questions for her as soon as she appears. A deep voice splinters the silence from somewhere inside the thickness of the trees. “Hey.”

  Not Bird Lady.

  I tense up, searching for a face belonging to the voice, afraid now that I’m about to get mugged. Or worse.

  “Hey, what?” I call back, trying to sound tough, even though my hands have started shaking.

  A tall figure emerges from behind a redwood tree, and I reach for the nearest rock, hoping my aim isn’t as bad as my luck. But I’m instantly put at ease when I see Cale Blackburn perched on his mountain bike. His sandy blond head is uncovered and his hair a giant mess—no style whatsoever going on today.

  I exhale in relief, my heart still whimpering. “Cale! What are you doing in there? Practicing your stalking skills?”

  He laughs and ducks under a branch, coming forward to meet me. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “So . . . what are you doing here? Just following me around now?”

  “Um . . . we said we’d meet in front of the yogurt store at five,” he says innocently. “You didn’t show, so I was riding to your house to find you. But it looks like someone tried to ditch me, instead.”

  “Wait, what? When did we decide this?

  “Yesterday. After class. When I told you about the album artwork idea, remember?”

  Crap. No, I don’t remember.

  He cracks a smile and jabs me in the side. “Not surprised.”

  Ouch. I feel like such a flake, standing him up like that. And it seems like that’s my MO in this life. What is wrong with me?

  I apologize a hundred times even though he’s way too unfazed by my brainlessness. How can he be so chill? “Looks like your plan didn’t work, though, cause I found you anyway.”

  “I wasn’t trying to ditch you, Cale! I just . . . forgot. I promise.”

  “Likely story,” he says, wheeling out in front of me and hopping off his bike so we’re walking side by side. Before I know it, his hand is somehow on my arm and slowly sliding down to my wrist. I don’t know why, because Cale is not James Odera, but I find myself hoping his hand will quit moving.

  But his hand ignores my wishes and keeps going and going . . . until it has slipped away from me and we are no longer attached. A burst of wind sends my hair flying into his face. He lets out an exaggerated cough, and then, “Mmmmm. You smell delicious. What kind of fancy hair product do you have going on there?”

  I’m embarrassed to admit I have no idea. Normally, it’s whatever Mom has stocked in the shower, something cheap or on sale. But my current mother doesn’t seem to be the one stocking anything in our house—including whatever non-pronounceable European hair product I used in the shower this morning. So I go with the first thing that pops in my head. “Head & Shoulders, if you must know.”

  “Oh.”

  “I guess it doesn’t take much to impress you, does it?” I laugh, easing into this banter between us, every second with him lifting my jittery mood.

  We cut across the grass to a playground buried in bark. Cale stops in front of a row of monkey bars and drops his bike before jumping up to the first bar, taking the rest two at a time. I hesitate, knowing I should keep moving, knowing I’m already late and that James is waiting for me . . . somewhere. But right this second, with Cale’s carefree attitude and the way he’s attacked the monkey bars like a kid, like nothing else matters but getting across to the other side—I decide I don’t care.

  James can wait.

  Copying Cale, I jump up and grab the opposite side of the monkey bars to face him. Cale starts coming at me fast, like this is a competition and he wants to beat me. Game on. I throw my body forward and clasp the next rung, the metal cold and greasy against my skin. He reaches the middle before me and stops, just hanging there, waiting for me to reach him. I don’t know how he can hold himself up for so long like that; my arms feel like they will tear from their sockets if I don’t keep moving.

  When I finally get to him, my breaths come out much too fast and heavy. Our faces meet, only inches apart; I can hear him breathing, which seems like such an intimate thing. He clenches his jaw and his eyes lock on mine, looking at me in a different way than before, almost like he’s trying to tell me something. I want to look away because all of a sudden I feel uncomfortable and a little embarrassed, when I know I have a boyfriend who’s waiting for me to show up any minute. But I keep my eyes focused on Cale’s—tonight they’re a mix between green and gray, the gray like a swirl of ink clouding out the color.

  Being so close to him has stupefied me, and I’m not sure what I want to do anymore. What am I doing here with him, anyway? What about James? James Odera! I try to shake loose this unexpected flux of emotion that’s racing through me right now, and just when I think I’m free, I get sucked in all over again at the feel of his breath on my neck and the musky scent of his skin. I close my eyes, his voice tickling my eardrums . . . His smile digs deep into the sides of his cheeks as he grins, as if taunting me. My arms ache and I lose my grip, the sweat from my hands betraying me.

  “I’m slipping,” I say, realizing the inevitable.

  “Don’t go.” A hint of longing in his voice, or maybe not . . . I fall to the ground. He lets go too, and we crash into the bark below, tangled up in each other, laughing. The tension evaporates, and we’re just there together like two little kids on a playground, having fun.

  “Nice move, Love,” he says, throwing a handful of bark at me.

  The rough edges of the woodchips poke into my palms as I lay there next to him, gazing up through the geometric pattern of the metal bars to the fading sky above. The whole sky is moving, filling, and then draining with color . . . finally going gray at the sun’s descent. I think I see a star puncturing its way through the void.

  The swings creak behind us.

  Cale turns on his side and jumps up, dusting off his pants and running his hands through his messy hair, shaking out any remaining bark. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to interrupt this moment with anything at all because it’s the first moment since waking up in my new life I’ve felt like myself.

  “You okay?” he asks, hovering over me.

  I smile up at him, wishing his soothing voice and his carefree attitude could wipe clean the mess in my brain and my new life, but being here with him only awakens me to the realization that nothing is as simple as making wishes and hoping they come true.

  Far from it.

  The wind picks up again, drawing a chill across my body like a silken sheet of ice. I shiver, and Cale pulls me up. He grabs his bike, and we walk side by side through the park, cutting off the creek path at Wildwood Avenue, taking it straight up the hill, toward Sea View Drive.

  I offer him one of my earbuds. “You want to share?” I ask.

  “Depends on what’s playing.”

  I laugh. “Well, then forget it,” I say, hogging the music to myself.

  Cale doesn’t seem to take well to that, though, because two seconds later he pulls the earbud out of my right ear and shoves it in his. I give him a look. He gives me one back—a wily smirk and raised eyebrows meeting me in defiance before he starts bobbing his head to the beat. I grin. He appears to take that as a go-ahead for going full-on freestyle right here in the middle of the street.

  I try to keep a straight face, but it’s impossible, especially when he attempts to moonwalk and ends up tripping over his long legs. He finally stops dancing when I won’t stop laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” he says.

  We walk the rest of the way in silence. Ten more minutes of a shared jam session while I get lost in my thoughts, wondering how I ever got here. Wondering what other surprises Bird Lady has in store for me, wondering if I can handle it.

  Wondering what Cale’s thinking. If he’s thinking anything at all, other than how to annoy me with his dance moves.

  At the bottom of my driveway, we both stop at the same time. Cale pulls out my earbud and hands it back to me. “Thanks for the tunes,” he says.

  “Sure.”

  “You sure you’re okay?” Cale’s crooked tooth peeks out at me again from the corner of his smile.

  I wish I could tell him everything, just to be able to talk to somebody about the bizarre turn of events called my life. Just so I don’t feel so alone. But he’d never believe me. Who would? How do I admit out loud that I’m a fraud parading around in somebody else’s world, that I wished on a Bird Lady’s charm and all my wishes came true except the price was I killed off my brothers and lost my best friend?

  Right. I don’t.

  We climb the driveway listening to the sound of crickets instead of music. I like the quiet, even here with Cale. It’s not awkward or stifling like silence between two people can sometimes be.

  As soon as we round the corner, bringing my house into view, I stop. There are three cars parked out front.

  “What? You didn’t invite me to your party, either?” Cale says, pretend-shoving me even though I still lose my balance. “I’m so hurt.”

  I regain my balance and keep walking, shoving him back to keep things fair. “There’s no party, Cale. I don’t know who . . . ”

  But then I remember. James. His phone call. And I realize this is where we are meeting at six. My house.

  And it’s 6:30.

  Flip.

  seven

  “So, what’s the verdict?” Cale asks, leaning his bike against the porch steps and following me to the front door.

  What do I tell him? I’m terrible at being the one stuck in between, trying to get both sides to get along like a tug-of-war. How do you make both people happy? It’s not possible! I don’t know how lawyers and teachers and moms get through life at all.

  “I don’t know, Cale. Crap. I was supposed to meet James here a half hour ago.”

  Cale leans against the doorframe. “And we were supposed to meet at five. Nice planning, Love.”

  I shrug my shoulders, avoiding the look he’s throwing my way. “Sorry?”

  “So you want me to leave then?”

  “No, I don’t want you to leave. But you and James aren’t exactly bros, either. So I’m sort of stuck here.”

  “I see.”

  I finally lift my head, hoping to find a goofy smile somewhere up there to get me off the hook. But this time he looks like a GQ model, focusing intently on something past me in the distance, like he couldn’t be bothered. I feel like a jerk.

  I reach around him for the door handle. “Cale. Really. I’m sorry.”

  He snaps out of his brooding model pose and grabs the door handle first. “Here, let me get that for you,” he says, opening the door.

  I can’t tell if he’s serious or mocking me. Still, I have no other choice but to go inside. “Can you meet Monday after school?” I start to ask, but he’s already leaping down the front steps and hopping on his bike, like he can’t get away from me fast enough.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you later.”

  “Bye,” I call, watching him coast away from me.

  I step inside and close the door, staring blankly around at the grand marble hallway in front of me. Everything is dark and quiet here. I have no clue where to start looking for James. I’m probably more lost in my own house than he is.

  My footsteps sound like ghostly echoes as I cross the hallway, past the winding staircase, toward the kitchen—it’s as good a place to start as any.

  Just as I round the corner, James emerges from the kitchen, almost bumping into me. He holds a soup-sized bowl of ice cream in his hands, drizzled with chocolate syrup. “You’re out of chocolate, K” is all he says to me. As if him wandering around my house with a half gallon of ice cream in his hands is the most normal thing in the world.

  Maybe it is?

  “Hello to you, too,” I say, following him back into the kitchen where he leans against the counter, slurping up his ice cream.

  He is such a contrast to Cale—the way he talks to me, the way he looks at me, the vibe between us. It’s almost jarring, like I need a reset button so I remember how to act. Being with James feels so much trickier, while hanging out with Cale just confuses me.

  “Sorry I’m late. I lost track of time,” I say.

  He doesn’t respond or even look up at me, so I apologize again, even though thirty minutes late isn’t that outrageous. It’s not like I ditched him completely like I did Cale.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I sort of took at detour in the park and . . .” Hung out with Cale for the last hour? No way am I telling him that.

  James still doesn’t respond. Just keeps eating.

  I try to think of something to say to bridge the silence but draw a blank. The only sounds between us come from his slurping, followed by a scraping noise when he reaches the bottom of the bowl.

  His silent treatment is turning my stomach into a twisty, raw mess. I’m in the middle of considering leaving him in the kitchen all to himself, when the sound of voices bouncing off the ceiling and walls grow louder and louder, until all at once the rest of the lucky ones have joined us in my kitchen too.

  When did they get here? Did James tell them to come?

  I try to remember if I invited them, but my memory refuses to cooperate. With my luck, I probably invited the whole school to my house some time last week, before I was me. Now the tension I thought existed only in my head is real as every pair of eyes falls on James and me, all conversation coming to a halt like a pivotal scene in a movie that ends with a loaded speech and reluctant applause.

  No such luck here.

  I don’t know where to direct my gaze—to Katie, who stands much too close to James, her shoulder brushing up against his; or to Liv, who is whispering something to Brecke; or back on James, who has abandoned his empty bowl of ice cream now that he has backup, and is all dimples and smiles again.

  Finally, movement from the pack, and then from Jared, “You too good for us now?”

  I laugh, thinking he’s making a joke. But nobody else laughs with me.

  Liv speaks up next, speaking about me like I’m not even there. “She was with that same tool from the Ball. I saw them on my way here.”

  I turn to face her, wondering what she’s talking about. “What?”

  I find James for reassurance, but he won’t look at me. Is that how things work with the lucky ones? Some kind of pack mentality where they all band together for a sneak attack on the unsuspecting? The thought makes me feel vulnerable, so naked, and I’m so confused that I’m at a loss for words . . . again.

  James finally returns my gaze, and for a second I think all’s forgiven and he is coming to my rescue. But now he is even more steel-faced and unfazed than before, the way his eyes look through me rather than at me, as if responding with a “So?”

  Tanner is the first one to change the subject. “Your dad’s wine cellar is sick.”

  Thank you, Tanner.

  I laugh, assuming he’s making a joke about this amazing, ridiculous house, but then I stop. Once again, nobody else laughs with me. That’s when I get it—I really do have a wine cellar. “Oh, thanks,” I say, waiting for somebody else to say something.

  Nobody does.

  “Anyone hungry?” I ask, looking for any takers.

  Nobody takes.

  Someone behind me snickers, and the silence sounds and feels like nails on chalkboard. I feel like I’m in pleated pants and a bowtie at the Pumpkin Ball again, the way each one of the lucky ones stares me down. I don’t get it, either. We’re in my house. Talking about my wine cellar. I’m James Odera’s girlfriend (I think). Apparently none of that matters if you break whatever mob code these guys all seem to live by. Whatever it is.

  Right now I want to run far away from the lucky ones but am paralyzed by my own confusion. Where would I run to in this life? Instead, I pull the fridge open and look for a snack, clinging to the Sub-Zero to give me something to do other than remain a target.

  Another forced laugh from behind me and then, “So, are we swimming or what?” asks Morgan. “Cause I’m dying of heat.”

  That gets everybody going.

  I feel someone behind me, a presence suddenly there. “Come on, baby. What’re you waiting for?” James says in my ear so no one can hear. He then lifts my hair off from my neck and kisses me on the cheek, lingering long enough to draw heat from my skin and ignite the nape of my neck in tingles. I can’t help but draw a sudden breath at his presence, amazed at how he still throws my heart into a tailspin whenever he comes near. How does he do it?

  I feel so weak at how quickly he can turn my knees to Jell-O. He was freezing me out just a second ago, and now acts like everything is back to normal. Confused, but pathetically won over, I smile at him, silently begging for his approval, his attention.