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  On the Outside

  Siera Maley

  Copyright © 2015 by Siera Maley

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  For my brother, who wants to know when I’ll tell him my pseudonym so that he can read my books. Never, Brother. Never.

  Prologue

  It was a hot day in Jonesburg, Washington as the summer of 2012 drew closer to an end, and I felt it on the back of my neck as I peddled past the next two houses down from my own, my dark brown hair pinned to the top of my head in a messy bun to help keep myself cool.

  The heat made the trip to the creek feel longer, and I was sweating heavily by the time I finally dumped my bike in Evan’s driveway. From there, I jogged through his neighbor’s backyard. The line of trees beyond promised shade, and the knowledge that I’d soon be able to splash water over my face and neck spurned me on.

  Leaves crunched beneath my feet as I ran through the woods, and so Evan and Riley heard me coming.

  “Kayla!?” I heard Riley shout. I whistled back, long and high-pitched – a special signal we’d created when we’d first started coming here – and heard laughter when the sound faded.

  Evan was ankle-deep in the creek when I arrived, his pants rolled up to his knees and his shaggy blonde hair sticking with sweat to the back of his neck. Riley was tucked under the small shelter we’d built a year ago with her dark hair pinned up like mine. Evan’s dad helped build houses for a living, and he’d let us have the spare wood he kept in his garage in addition to a hammer and a box of nails, so we’d built something to sit in with all of it. It didn’t look great, but it did have a floor and a roof to provide shade, and that was what mattered. That, and the fact that we’d done it all by ourselves.

  I took a moment to dip one hand into the creek and then dab myself on the back of the neck with the cool water.

  “What took you so long?” Evan asked me a few seconds later as I squeezed into the shelter with Riley. She grinned at me and tangled half of our fingers together. My pinky and ring finger were linked with her index and middle fingers, and we shared a look as Evan climbed out of the creek. For a moment, I forgot he’d asked me a question. Riley squeezed my fingers with hers as Evan tried to get my attention. “Hello?”

  “Oh, I had to eat lunch,” I finally answered. I bent my legs, pulling my knees up to my chest so that Evan could inch himself into the shelter in front of me. “How long have you been waiting?”

  “Just around ten minutes,” Riley answered for him.

  Evan sighed and leaned back, resting his head at Riley’s feet. As he stared up at our makeshift ceiling, he asked, “Can you believe it? We start high school tomorrow.”

  “Everyone makes it sound so scary,” said Riley, “but I think it could be fun.”

  “Nicole likes it,” I told them. My older sister had just finished the tenth grade, and she’d loved every minute of it. A senior boy had asked her to Prom a few months ago. I wondered briefly if I’d ever be that lucky.

  “But Nicole’s pretty and popular,” Riley replied. “And she wears makeup and nice clothes. Kayla, you’re cute so you’ll do fine, but all I have going for me are a pair of Converses and a skateboard.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re both pretty,” Evan cut in, nudging Riley’s leg with his fist.

  Riley and I shared another look, and then we gasped, pressed a hand to our chests, and let out a joint, “Awwwww!”

  “Shut up,” Evan mumbled. I could see his cheeks going red. I think that was mostly because of Riley. I caught him staring at her sometimes, but his crush seemed entirely one-sided, and I was thankful for that. Our trio wouldn’t be the same anymore if two of us ever started dating. “Fine, you’re both hideous. Better?”

  “Much,” agreed Riley. She reached out to grab his hand and then pulled him up into a sitting position. “Hey, we have to agree on this, okay?”

  “On what?” I asked, and she shot me a look that told me not to interrupt.

  “We’re starting high school tomorrow. Everyone talks about how it’s super important, and the teachers are stricter, and it’s gonna decide who we are and what we do with our lives and all that. Like, it changes you and stuff. But you guys have been my best friends since I was six, and I kind of don’t want to lose that.”

  “Of course you won’t lose us,” said Evan. “We’ll probably have tons of classes together, and even though we’ll make other friends, we’ll just introduce them to all of us and we can all be friends with them. Just like we did with Remi and Vincent.”

  “But they’re not going to our high school,” I reminded him. “So we probably won’t get to see them anymore.”

  “I know,” he said, “but we can find more people we all like. And we’ll all eat lunch together. Things don’t have to change just because we’re going to a bigger school.”

  “So we all agree. No matter what happens, and no matter who we become, we’ll always be best friends,” said Riley. “Deal?” She untangled her fingers from mine and offered a pinky up in the middle of the three of us.

  “Deal,” Evan and I agreed, and then linked our pinkies with hers.

  Chapter One

  “C’mon Knights!”

  Next to me, Vanessa had both arms in the air and was shaking the pompoms gripped in her hands, trying to pump up the audience in the stands. We shared a grin and I joined her, facing the crowd as a whistle sounded. I knew that meant that the ball was back in play. There were less than fifteen seconds left on the clock, and we were down by a single point. “Knights fans, let them hear you!”

  The crowd erupted into a roar, first in response to Vanessa, but then they grew louder and several of them shot to their feet, pointing to something behind us. Vanessa and I spun around with the rest of the squad as the voice of Vice Principal Hunter – the announcer for the game that would decide the state basketball champions for the season – boomed across the gym. “And with six seconds left on the clock, Carver has stolen the ball! He’s got a clear run to the hoop!”

  Vanessa let out a squeal beside me and gripped my arm as I, wide-eyed, watched Josh sprint down the court and all the way to the basket, where he laid the ball up into the hoop. The buzzer sounded, the Knights’ score on the scoreboard ticked from a 51 up to a 53, surpassing the Sharks’ 52, and the gym erupted into cheers. The rest of the team crowded Josh, jumping up and down, and he was hoisted into the air.

  “Josh Carver has done it! Knights win! Knights win!”

  “Every girl in school is going to be jealous of you,” Vanessa said into my ear, and just as the words left her lips, Josh motioned for his teammates to let him down and then rushed over to me. Vanessa let me go and shot me a grin as he wrapped his arms around me and hoisted me into the air. I laughed and cupped his cheeks in my hands, kissing him, and he tucked his face into my neck when we broke apart.

  “Oh, man. I can’t believe I did it,” he said, his voice muffled. I squeezed him tighter. He’d talked endlessly about wanting to finally win a championship, and this had been his last chance to do it. In just a few short months, he’d be graduating and heading off to college in California. I’d hardly see him after that. I was still a junior.

  But this wasn’t the time to think about that. Now it was time to let him celebrate.

  ***

  Josh drove me home after the game rather than letting me take the bus with Vanessa, despite my arguing against it. “You should be out celebrating,” I told him in the car, and he shook his head.

  “The guys and I are going
out later tonight. Don’t worry about it.”

  “You sure?”

  “If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be driving you,” he laughed. “But are you sure you wanna turn in for the night? I could, uh, rent us a hotel room…”

  “You’re already doing that for Prom,” I reminded him, avoiding the question.

  “Yeah, I know. But I’d do it twice, if you wanted.”

  “You should be with your team. Go celebrate with them.” I prodded him in the arm. “Just don’t touch any girls. I know you’ll be a famous college player soon, but try to keep me in your thoughts until then, alright?”

  He laughed again. “C’mon, Kayla. I love you. Besides, they only aired the game on the local channel. No one probably watched it. And if they did, they were probably just like, ‘Who’s that really hot chick that guy’s celebrating with?’”

  “Shut up.” I swatted at his arm, beaming, as he pulled up in front of my house. “And come here.” I tugged him toward me for another kiss, then turned to get out of the car. “I’ll see you at school Monday, alright?”

  “Of course. Bye, babe.”

  “Bye.”

  I shut the door and watched him drive away, then retrieved my cell phone from my purse. I typed out a text and then sent it.

  Mom was waiting inside for me on the couch, and leapt to her feet to come give me a hug as soon as I walked through the door. She adored Josh almost as much as I did. “Oh, honey! I saw the whole thing!”

  “It was so much fun,” I told her. “Vanessa was freaking out afterward.”

  “I expected you to stay out late celebrating,” Mom replied. “Is everything alright?”

  “Yeah, it is. It’s just that Riley and I decided like three weeks ago, before the team ever qualified for the championship game, that we were going to have a sleepover tonight. I didn’t want to cancel.”

  “Well, I’m sure she’d have understood. You aren’t free next weekend?”

  “Next weekend is Prom, Mom,” I reminded her. “So no. Besides, I want to see her. You know we don’t get to hang out much at school anymore. I just texted her, so she should be here any minute.”

  “Okay. Well, I’m going to sleep in about half an hour, so if you need anything, let me know before then.”

  “We will.”

  Mom left for her bedroom and I climbed the stairs to my own. As I changed out of my cheerleading uniform and into a tank top and pajama shorts, I studied myself in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door.

  I’d shot up several inches since starting high school, and my awkward middle school phase had long since passed. Back then, I’d have laughed if anyone had told me I’d find high school just as easy to navigate as my older sister had. Evan and Riley were having tougher times, I knew, but it’d seemed so simple to me once I’d figured out how everything worked.

  I’d done gymnastics in elementary school, so cheerleading seemed like the best athletic outlet for me. I’d met Vanessa then. And though she was away at college now, back when I’d been a freshman Nicole had taught me how to do my own makeup and had taken me to the mall when I’d asked. And Josh had noticed me my sophomore year. After that, it’d been smooth sailing.

  Evan and I didn’t really share any classes anymore, because his classes were almost entirely advanced placement. He was also treasurer for the math team. And Riley spent a lot of her spare time at the local skate park with a couple of boys I often saw her in the hallways with. I wondered sometimes if she was into one of them, but if she was, she was lying to me about it.

  The three of us weren’t exactly distant, and I certainly still felt comfortable around them, but it wasn’t the same as it’d been before. Not for me, anyway. I knew between the three of us that I was the weak link: the odd one out. Riley and Evan made time for each other, and to an extent I made time for them too, but I was also busy with Josh and cheerleading.

  Thinking about our days at the creek back in middle school made my heart sink, and so I rarely let myself go there. I was well-liked and well-known at school now. I had a boyfriend who was going to be a hero on Monday. I couldn’t have asked for a better high school career.

  The front door opened and closed downstairs and I knew it was Riley. One thing hadn’t changed in the past few years: Riley never knocked or rang the doorbell. She didn’t need to; she was practically family.

  She peered around the doorframe and into my room, and then grinned when she saw me. “I watched the game. Come here.”

  I walked to her, smiling back, and she wrapped me up into a tight hug as she told me, “He was awesome. You could’ve canceled and I wouldn’t have been mad, you know.”

  “I know.” I pulled away to look her in the eyes. “But I wanted to see you. I see Josh all the time.”

  “He’s your boyfriend. I’m your best friend. It’s practically my job to be cool with you blowing me off for a guy, right?”

  I took in a breath as I studied her, and she stared back, an eyebrow arched like she could tell I felt a little guilty and was judging me for it. She’d dyed a purple streak into the front of her normally auburn hair a month or so ago, and it actually looked really good on her. I’d always thought she was prettier than she gave herself credit for, and I was thinking it again now as I looked at her. I vowed to see how she’d look all dolled up sometime.

  “You are, you know,” I told her. “My best friend.”

  “Duh.” She pulled away and collapsed onto my bed with a pleased sigh. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m awesome.”

  “Where’s Evan tonight?” I asked, joining her.

  “Probably asleep. I went to his math competition thing; we got back a couple of hours ago and he was exhausted .”

  “Wait, that was tonight?” I asked, alarmed. “I told him I wanted to come to that.”

  “Don’t worry, I told him it clashed. He understood. The state basketball championship is huge, and besides, you had to go because of cheerleading.”

  “Yeah, but I still feel bad.” I paused. “How did it go?”

  “They won, actually. And Evan placed second best overall. Out of like, one hundred people or something. Kid’s a genius. I don’t know how he does it. The only thing I’m good at is standing on a moving piece of wood.”

  “Yeah, right. I’ve seen you take on massive hills without batting an eye. Look at me; I just wave pompoms and do cartwheels in a short skirt.”

  “Oh, no, you do not get to have a pity party.” She rolled over onto her side to smirk at me. “Let me guess what your plans for next weekend are. You get to go to Prom for free in a dress that makes you look absolutely gorgeous with a guy on your arm that will make every girl in school hate you – other than me, of course – and you’re probably riding there in a limo.”

  “You should come, too. It’s not too late,” I insisted. “And Evan. Hey! Why don’t you guys go together?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “No way.”

  “Just as friends, obviously. Be each other’s totally platonic dates for the night. You can wear my sister’s old prom dress and borrow shoes from me, and Evan has that tux his mom bought him for his great-aunt’s funeral last year. I’ll even get you two into our prom group.”

  “It’s way too short notice. Besides, your boyfriend hardly acknowledges our existence.”

  “Sure he does. He’ll let you come along if I ask him to. Think about it? Like, talk to Evan tomorrow and see what he says. I bet he’d go with you.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Where are you guys going after? Any cool parties only the popular kids know about?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think so. Um. Josh rented a hotel room. I guess he wants—”

  “Whoa, no, I know what he wants.” She looked taken aback. “He told you he’s already rented it?”

  “Yeah.” I avoided her eyes, suddenly feeling shy.

  “Wow. I mean, I knew you guys hadn’t… but it’s kind of blatant, isn’t it?”

  “Well, he’s graduating in two mon
ths.”

  “But didn’t he get a basketball scholarship to some big school in Cali?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So how does that work?”

  I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. “We don’t really talk about it.”

  “Sooo… he wants to take you to Prom, have sex with you, and then…? No plans after that? He’s just going to school really far away and isn’t talking about how that’s gonna affect the two of you?” She looked dubious.

  “Well, I think it’s just hard to talk about. He’s probably sad that we’ll be so far apart.”

  “Still, it’s maybe something you should have a conversation about before he leaves. What if he’s—” She cut herself off, hesitating.

  “What?” I pressed. Her tone told me she thought taking Josh up on his offer was a bad idea. Truthfully, I’d been wondering myself if it was the right time. I liked Josh, but we still hadn’t worked out what we were going to do after his graduation.

  Riley took in a sharp breath. “Okay. I’m not trying to—I’m just trying to be a good friend. Maybe I’m totally off base; I don’t really know the guy. But… just make sure he’s serious about doing the long-distance thing before you have sex with him. I mean, right? If he already knows it’s not gonna work out after he graduates, then he’d be kind of an ass to do the whole hotel room thing after Prom. And it’s weird that he won’t even talk about it.”

  “No, you’re right.” I bit at my lip and stared at the ceiling, acutely aware of Riley still watching me on my left. “I mean… do you think I shouldn’t go to the room? Maybe I could just tell him to take me home after the dance.”

  I turned to face her, and her eyes snapped down to where her hand had begun to pick at my comforter. “I think you should do what you want to do,” she said. “Just be careful, is all. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken.”

  I studied her for a moment, and then gave her a small smile. Evan was smarter than Riley and me, but she always gave the best advice. “You’re always looking out for me. And I pretty much never get to return the favor because you never put yourself in a position to screw up.”