On the Outside Read online

  “Yeah. I know.” She looked up at me, grinning smugly, and I shoved her onto her back and then pinned her arms with one hand, using my free one to jab her in the ribs. She shouted at me through her laughter, “No! Your freaking cheerleading muscles!” and when she finally managed to wriggle her way out of my grip, she retaliated by punching me in the shoulder.

  “Ow!” I rubbed at the throbbing spot as she sat up and twisted around to face me. Then I pouted up at her. “Take Evan to prom so I don’t feel bad about going alone?”

  “Yes, you will be so alone. With your cheerleading friends and their boyfriends and your boyfr—”

  “You know what I mean,” I interrupted. “I want to go with my best friends. You guys loved me even when I was twelve and lanky and awkward.” I grabbed at her hand, clasping it between mine, and raised it to my chest. “Pleeeease?”

  She heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes, something that Riley did a lot. Mostly because both Evan and I constantly gave her reason to. “Okay. I’ll ask him. And by that, I mean I’ll force him to come with me. But you better get us into that limo, because, as you know, Evan’s car is a literal pile of metal garbage and he’s also a terrible driver. If I have to ride with him, you’ll be coming to my funeral instead of Josh’s graduation in a couple of months.”

  I beamed at her and tackled her into a hug. “Thank you!”

  ***

  Josh was still on a high after the game on Monday. Everywhere he went, the students who’d seen it congratulated him, and the few who hadn’t watched it quickly made sure that they were filled in.

  As per usual, I joined him and a few of his friends at lunch, along with Vanessa, and nudged him midway through a conversation about a new video game that’d come out over the weekend. “Hey, can I talk to you about something?”

  “Hmm?” He twisted to face me, confused for a moment, like he’d only half heard me. “Oh, yeah. What’s up?”

  “It’s about our Prom group. Do we have room for a couple more people in the limo?”

  He exchanged a look with the boy across the table from him—Sean, his burly football player of a best friend—and then smirked. “Depends on who you’re asking for.”

  “Not funny,” I replied, though I smacked his arm lightly to let him know I wasn’t actually angry. “My other friends might come along.”

  He took a bite of a biscuit and then spoke with his mouth full, looking confused. “What other friends?”

  “You know…” I shifted uncomfortably when he still seemed genuinely confused. He didn’t know who I was talking about. “I’ve told you about them. I hung out with them when I was a kid.”

  “Oh, you mean the math gee- uh, guy, and the chick with the purple hair?”

  I suppressed an eye-roll at his slip up, and told him, “Riley’s hair isn’t purple, it’s like one streak, and yes, I want her and Evan to come with us.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re my friends.”

  “No, I know, but don’t they have their own group?”

  “They weren’t gonna go at all. I’m trying to talk them into coming.”

  “Why?” he asked again, and I heaved a sigh.

  “Look, if you don’t want them to come with us, you can just say so.”

  “Hey, whoa.” He reached out to rub at my back. “Chill out, Kayla. If you want them there, then they can be there. I was just asking. For thirty bucks each, they’re in, and I’ll pick them both up at your house when I come to get you. Sound good?”

  “Yeah,” I replied shortly, still a little sour. I’d never spent more than a minute with Josh, Riley, and Evan all at the same time, but it still hurt that he hadn’t remembered they existed. “Perfect.”

  ***

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into doing this.”

  “Gasp! Conformity!” I mocked Riley, motioning for her to spin around on the stool in my bathroom. “You’re gonna lose all your street cred.”

  “Don’t ever use that phrase. You can’t pull it off, cheerleader.”

  “What are your guys doing tonight, anyway? I’m guessing they’re not going?”

  “Oh, Dylan and Brett? Yeah, there’s actually this skate event happening tonight at the park. It’s a competition for two hundred bucks, I think, but you have to be able to land a kickflip to even compete, and kickflips, naturally, happen to be my kryptonite. Just my luck.”

  “Kickflips. Right. Those things I am totally familiar with.” I looked away from her to reach for an eyeliner pencil, but didn’t miss her eye-roll. “Okay, sit really, really still.”

  “Don’t you have to do this for yourself, too? You don’t have to do mine. I’ll just go like this.”

  “We have three hours, Riley. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  She heaved another sigh but obeyed my instructions, and I leaned in close to get a better look as I ran the pencil first along her lower lashes, and then her upper ones. I pulled away and grinned. “Oh, wow.” She started to turn back around to face the mirror, and I stopped her. “Wait until I’m totally done. It’ll be a bigger shock that way.”

  “Fine.” She fell silent as I added eyeshadow and then mascara, and as I reached for foundation, she asked, “So how much does your boyfriend hate you for making him bring us along?”

  “It wasn’t hard to get you guys in, actually,” I told her. “I keep telling you he isn’t as much of an ass as you think he is if you really get to know him. He’s actually really sweet.”

  “Well, of course he’s sweet to you.” She paused. “I forgot to tell you he called me ‘Barney’ last week because of my hair. I don’t think he remembered who I was; you’ve only introduced us once.”

  I was taken aback. That didn’t sound like the Josh I knew. “Are you serious?”

  “Scout’s honor. But I’m sure he’s great to the girl he’s dating. I mean, maybe that’s what’s important?”

  I was too perturbed to pretend to agree, and shook my head to myself as I covered Riley’s face with foundation. Next, I reached for blush and applied it to the apples of her cheeks. “Him respecting my friends is what’s important to me.” I pulled away to admire my handiwork, and my eyes widened, Josh momentarily forgotten. “Whoa.”

  “What?” She pressed a hand to her cheek, self-conscious. “Does it look bad? I knew I shouldn’t have-”

  “No, Riley, stop. Holy crap, you’re beautiful.” And she was. My compliment came out stronger than I’d intended, and I added, “Evan is gonna love it,” to ease the strange tension that’d filled our small room.

  It worked. She swatted at my stomach and replied, “Shut up!” while I smirked at her.

  “Look,” I demanded, and motioned for her to spin around. She faced herself in the mirror and raised both eyebrows, clearly surprised, but not quite as surprised as I’d been.

  “Wow. I’m… kinda hot?”

  “Kind of? You’re totally worthy of a first-stringer. Vanessa’s going to Prom with the backup quarterback, you know.”

  “Ah, yes, just the kind of guy I want. A jock. Don’t project your awful taste onto me.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I countered, putting both of my hands on her shoulders and leaning into her so that my cheek was pressed to hers. Together, we stared into the mirror as I asked her, “What’s your type, then? Skaters?” She rolled her eyes and I studied her for a moment, then shook my head. “No, too obvious. What about guys with tattoos? Future English majors who write poetry?” I lit up, feigning a gasp of realization. “Redheads!”

  She didn’t laugh. Instead, she just watched the two of us for a moment, and I saw her swallow hard as she shrugged me off of her shoulder. I knew before she answered that she wasn’t going to tell me. “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?” It seemed so easy to me. Once I’d seen enough boys I’d found attractive, it hadn’t been hard to find a pattern. “You know, I always thought the one thing our friendship needed was more guy talk. You never ever talk about who you like. It’s always
just been me talking and you listening.” I reached for a tube of lip-gloss as I told her, “So you talk, and I’ll listen. There must be someone you kind of deep down wanted to go to Prom with. Open your mouth.” When she shot me a weird look, I elaborated, “I mean for the lip gloss.”

  “How am I supposed to talk and also let you put that stuff on me?” she asked, gesturing to the tube in my hand.

  “This first. Boys after,” I replied simply, reaching out for her chin to steady her. She went eerily silent, then, and my gaze fell to her lips as I concentrated on spreading the gloss along her top lip. “When I’m done with this,” I told her gently, “just rub your lips together. If it still feels like too much, we can dab at it until it doesn’t.”

  I finished with her top lip and moved to the bottom one, my hand still on her chin. She had a fuller bottom lip than Josh, I noticed, and then wondered why on earth that’d crossed my mind. Maybe because this was the closest I’d been to anyone’s lips besides Josh’s lately. And the closest I’d ever been to Riley’s.

  I pulled away with a strange twinge in my chest, and shook it off with a dramatic, “Ta-da!”

  Riley looked a little out of it for a moment, like she had her mind elsewhere, and now she cleared her throat and gave me a smile I knew well enough to realize was forced. “Thanks.”

  I arched an eyebrow, surprised she was even trying to act enthused at all. “Thanks? Are you actually starting to appreciate my effort?”

  She blinked a couple of times, still distracted, and then finally managed a snappy retort. “I was just caught off-guard by my own hotness. Slight lapse in brain function.”

  “Hmm.” I studied her for a moment, pleased to see she seemed to being growing self-conscious under my gaze.

  “What?”

  “I’m trying to decide what to do with your hair.”

  “Oh, jeez,” she sighed out.

  “I’m curling it,” I declared. “And while I do it, you’re going to tell me what your type is.” She groaned as I plugged the curling iron in and grabbed a brush to get the tangles out of her hair. “Go!”

  “Alright, alright. I like… greasy hair. And yellow teeth; really poor hygiene is a must. The stronger the stench, the better.”

  “I’m serious!” I gathered her hair in one hand and tugged a little. “Don’t lie to me; I’m holding your hair hostage.”

  “Take it all but leave my purple streak! I don’t care! You’ll never get it out of me!”

  “You suck,” I shot back, and began to brush her hair out. “You know what? Just date Evan. I’m going to assume that’s your type until you tell me.”

  “You are literally the worst. Why do I still hang out with you?”

  “Because I’m adorable.” I set the brush aside and combed my fingers through her hair affectionately while I waited for the curling iron to heat up.

  She watched me in the mirror for a long moment, and then said, at last, “Brunettes.”

  I stared back at her, surprised. “Hmm?”

  “You wanted to know something about my type. I like dark hair.” She played with the hem of her shirt: a nervous habit of hers. “Evan’s blond, so.”

  “But he has a great personality,” I pointed out, kidding.

  “You would seriously want me to date Evan?”

  “I’m definitely just messing with you. I mean, unless it was what you wanted…”

  She rolled her eyes but didn’t reply. I wondered for a moment if she was just trying to throw me off with the whole brunette thing. Maybe she really did like Evan and was just embarrassed about it. I hadn’t forgotten about how he’d crushed on her when we were kids, and my opinion on Evan pairing off with either of us hadn’t changed. We were three, not a two and a one.

  I curled Riley’s hair with, thankfully, little complaint from her, creating loose ringlets that framed her face, and when I was finished, we had two hours to go until Josh’s arrival. “Done,” I announced, and unplugged the curling iron while Riley studied herself in the mirror.

  “You really think I look good?”

  “You’re prettier than me,” I told her, meaning it.

  “It doesn’t have to be a competition,” she replied with a frown.

  “You’re right.” I leaned into her from behind, squeezing her shoulders, and carefully kissed her on the top of her head. “But it were, you’d win.” I let her go without waiting for a response, and left the bathroom to go grab the dresses we’d be wearing. “My turn!” I called back, and heard her slip off of the stool and pad across the bathroom floor.

  “This night will never end,” she groaned.

  “We can only hope!” I replied.

  ***

  Evan rang the doorbell downstairs just as Riley and I were finishing getting dressed. I adjusted my ocean blue dress as beside me, Riley struggled with Nicole’s old one. The dark green looked good on her, but she was obviously having some sort of moral dilemma over it as she twisted and turned in the mirror. “Are you sure I look okay?” she asked me.

  “Yes!” I said. “You really do look great.”

  “What if I get there and people laugh? What if they think it’s sad that I’d even try? I mean, this is so clearly not anything I’d ever voluntarily wear, and people pick up on that kind of stuff, you know? I’m going to radiate insecurity.”

  “The only strange looks you’re going to get will be from people who are amazed that they never realized how attractive you are,” I assured her. “You’re that girl in the movies that shows up to Prom and everyone wonders who she is and why they’d never noticed her before.”

  “I hate that girl,” Riley mumbled. “Make-up doesn’t make girls beautiful. Confidence makes girls beautiful, and in case you haven’t noticed, I am lacking that tonight.”

  “You’ll be fine. Trust me,” I said, and reached out to grip both of her hands in mine. “You’re just stepping out of your comfort zone. If you put me in a helmet and elbow pads and made me try to ride a skateboard I’d probably freak out too, so I get it. But if you looked like an ogre, I’d tell you. If someone gets to slow dance with you tonight, he… or she will be a very lucky person.”

  “She?” Riley echoed, alarmed.

  I snickered at the look on her face. “Relax, it was a joke. You know, because you’re pretty enough to turn a few girls gay for the night?” I nudged her as I moved past her to the door. “Keep up. We should go keep Evan company; it sounds like he’s waiting downstairs.”

  “Okay,” she replied very quietly, and a moment later, I heard her following me.

  Evan’s eyes widened to the size of saucers when he saw me, and then, if possible, they grew even wider when Riley appeared. “Whoa! Riley! And Kayla, you too, duh, but… Riley!”

  “I understand,” I told him, and reached up to ruffle his hair a little. “Go messier; it suits you. You look nice.”

  “Thanks.” He grinned at me as I looked him up and down. He’d grown to be a good head taller than Riley and me, and he was wearing a pretty standard black tuxedo with a black bowtie, white undershirt, and black shoes. He was handsome in a way only Evan tended to be. He was a little awkward and a little geeky, but endearing all the same. “You guys are totally outshining me, though. How did you make Riley into a girl?”

  He laughed at his own joke, and I turned to see Riley with her middle finger in the air as she shot a glare his way. “I’m still man enough to kick your ass, Faulkner.”

  “Okay,” I cut in, motioning for them to settle down. “Try not to kill each other before we even get to the dance.”

  “Oh, you guys!”

  That was Mom, entering with her phone gripped in one hand. She raised it and snapped a photo without warning us, and I winced as the flash temporarily left spots on my vision.

  “Ouch, Mom, give us a heads up next time.”

  “I need a picture to send to your sister; she wanted to see,” Mom said. “Riley, I hardly recognize you! Nicole is going to love you in her dress.”

  “Tha
nks, Ms. Copeland,” Riley replied, tight-lipped.

  “So when’s Josh getting here again?” Evan asked me. “You said it’d be half an hour when I was on my way. I’m ready to get this thing over with.”

  “You too?” I sighed. “C’mon, Prom is supposed to be fun!”

  “Yeah, but Zombie Guts 3 came out last weekend and Riley owes me a round. We’re playing it at my house after the dance.” He glanced toward my mom and added, hastily, “As you know, since you’re coming too and we’re forcing you to watch.”

  I shot him a thankful look as Mom snapped another picture of us. “Let me go get your boutonnieres, girls,” she said, and left for her bedroom.

  “Oh, that reminds me. Here,” said Evan, offering Riley the corsage in his hand. She slid it onto her wrist distractedly, watching me.

  “I thought you hadn’t decided on the whole hotel thing yet?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven’t. All I know at this point is that our entire group is leaving the dance at the same time – eleven o’clock – and the limo is taking us back to Josh’s place. Then he’ll drive us back here to drop you guys off, and… either I’ll get out of the car too or I won’t.”

  “Seems like it’d be easy for that to go badly,” Evan said.

  “Maybe.” I shrugged my shoulders, fidgeting with one of the straps of my dress. “But at least if I back out, I’ll be home and I can just walk to Evan’s with you guys. And anyway, it’s not like it’s an ultimatum, right? I mean, he didn’t make it seem like one. He wouldn’t break up with me just because I said no to a night in a hotel room.”

  “If you say so,” replied Evan, shrugging back.

  Riley was oddly silent on my other side, and I turned to her to ask, “What do you think?”

  She shrugged, too. “Like I said: you should do what you want.”

  “Well, I know he’s not you guys’ favorite person, but he’s a better guy than you give him credit for. You’ll see tonight,” I assured them.