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  I can make it through an hour, right? No biggie. Nicole will get there before everything gets unbearable, we’ll laugh at the silly decorations, eat ridiculous hors d’oeuvres, and it’ll be like she didn’t miss a thing.

  “Okay,” I say. “I can handle an hour.”

  “Okay? Really?” she says, her voice rising an octave. It’s almost so high pitched only cheerleaders could hear it.

  I nod, my stomach sinking. She springs forward and hugs me, smearing her soaped-up hands all over my sailor sundress.

  “You’re the bestest best friend,” she says. “I promise, I’ll be there by seven.”

  I just nod. I’ll have to suck it up and grin and bear it until she arrives. My birthday is just one night.

  The real problem is I know that Nicole is spending more and more time with Ben, and less and less time with me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  That’s not even the worst part.

  The worst part?

  I’ve been completely and utterly in love with Ben Mackenzie for three long, agonizing years.

  And she has no idea.

  2

  I MAKE IT THROUGH the rest of biology without a meltdown and then move on to trigonometry and slide into my seat next to Ben’s empty desk. By some act of God—or maybe the devil, I still haven’t decided—the random seating arrangement ended with us next to each other.

  Three months and four days ago—June 19, to be exact—I would have died of happiness to be seated next to Ben. I mean, finally, I’d have the opportunity to talk to him.

  Of course, him becoming my best friend’s boyfriend kind of changed that.

  I never told her about my crush. If I’d only said something months ago, before she went out with him, maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess. But I didn’t.

  Oh, sure, I told her how hot he was, how amazing he looked in jeans, how beautiful his blue eyes were. But there was no way I could really be in love with a guy I’d hardly spoken six words to, right? What else could I tell her? That we’d had a connection for a long time, only he didn’t know it? That I knew, without a doubt, that he was my soul mate?

  Right. And ponies fly. So of course we would always talk about how hot Ben is, and I’d never reveal my deeper feelings, and that was that.

  Until June 19.

  Maybe June 19 was the day Nicole decided she didn’t want to be shy anymore, the moment of change. It’s easier to see now, in retrospect, that there’s the old Nicole and the new one, and June 19 is the day smack in the middle of it all.

  I know Nicole better than anyone in the world, and so I know that though she comes off shy, once she’s around someone long enough, she warms right up. And she got paired as Ben’s partner in table tennis, and they spent two weeks playing together.

  And I still have a hard time picturing it, but somehow, she got up the nerve to ask him out. She probably blurted it out and turned all red, but she did it.

  And he said yes.

  She was totally beaming when she told me, bouncing around as if she’d won the lottery.

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I was almost positive I’d been in love with him for years. And now that I know him better—through Nicole—now that Ben and I talk and joke in class and he tells me all about his dates with her, I’ve only become more sure. More sure that he and I fit together.

  Ben is that one guy for me, my perfect match.

  Except he’s already matched, and now they’re celebrating their three-month anniversary. Three months is, like, a decade in high school years. I spent most of the summer at that stupid diner, so I haven’t been forced to endure that much quality time with both of them at the same time.

  Thank God.

  For the next fifty-five minutes, I will hold my breath, my heart will beat erratically, and the hairs on my arm will stand on end. This is life inside Ben’s orbit, and it is the height of every day of my otherwise meaningless existence.

  My crush on Ben began a few years ago, the summer after sixth grade. Nicole and I were at Flaming Geyser. It’s a state park just outside our hometown of Enumclaw, a tiny cow town about an hour southeast of Seattle. The park is at the north end of the Green River Valley, and you have to drive long, windy roads to get to it. It’s surrounded by achingly tall fir trees, where the river is wide and slow and perfect for swimming and tubing. On a hot day, cars line up on either side of the road for almost as far as you can see.

  That day, I was wearing the last bikini I’ve ever owned, a teeny pink triangle top with white polka dots, the sort of thing I’d never be caught dead in now. Nicole was in a matronly one-piece—plain navy blue, the kind of thing a high school swim team would wear. By then, she was at least a C cup, and she wore a white sarong over her suit. I didn’t tell her that it just made her chest look even bigger, because I didn’t want to make her paranoid. She was even shyer back then, afraid to talk to just about anyone but me.

  Nicole wanted to spend most of the day on the shore, lying out, eating Doritos, and reading one of her romance novels. Back then she was on this acne medication that made her skin really sensitive to light, so she was slathered in the thickest layer of 60 SPF I’ve ever seen. She was paranoid about actually swimming and letting it wash off. I guess the only thing worse than a face full of acne is a sunburned face full of acne.

  I, however, could not tolerate sitting still. I guess you could say I’m a little impatient, forever ready for adventure.

  So I swam across the river and then climbed up the reddish-brown clay banks, using tree roots as handholds, my feet getting muddy and slick. Although my hair was still dripping with the icy water, the short hike made me sweat. Even in the middle of summer, Enumclaw didn’t often get hotter than ninety degrees, but that fateful day, it was ninety-seven.

  There is a cliff on that side of the river, about twenty feet high. People jump in from up there, but you have to aim for this perfect little swimming hole; otherwise you’ll slam into the rocks six feet under the surface of the water, likely breaking a leg.

  Rumor has it someone died jumping off, years ago. I heard they drank too much and jumped headfirst. It scares a lot of people and they’ll spend ten minutes up there, staring down, only to chicken out and climb back down the way they came.

  Sometimes spectators, people smart enough not to climb up there at all, will tie their tubes up to the shore and just float there, waiting to see who has the guts to actually jump, mocking those who don’t.

  That day I met Ben, he was up there with three other guys, all of them staring down at the water with eyes full of worry. I guess he wasn’t quite the daredevil yet, not the one he is now. I didn’t recognize any of them, not even Ben, but I found out later they went to Thunder Mountain, the other middle school in town.

  Once I realized they were a bunch of scaredy-cats, I wanted so badly to just walk straight up and jump over, no hesitation. Show them what I was made of. But they were so freaked out, and it leached into me, until the butterflies in my stomach were the size of seagulls. I had shivered a little, river water dripping off me, the sun blocked by the trees.

  Ben, when he saw me, sort of snorted to himself and then tried to cover it up.

  “What?” I had put my hand on my pink-bikini-clad, bony hip. I didn’t have curves. Not back then, not now.

  Ben’s hair was even lighter back then, sun streaked and longer than he wears it now. Kind of a bowl cut, almost long enough to tuck behind his ear. He had on blue-and-red board shorts, his body lean, just a hint of the muscle he would later develop.

  “Nothing.” He crossed his arms and leaned against a tree near the edge. “Nothing at all.”

  My heart skipped a beat as his intense blue eyes bored into me, daring me, pushing me, doubting me. “Afraid I’m going to show you up? You’ve been up here a half hour.” I raised an eyebrow, determined not to show him that he was making me more nervous than the jump.

  Ben didn’t say anything. He knew I had a point.

  My lips curled i
nto an enormous smile, and I stepped to the edge. The boys backed up a little, as if I was going to take them with me. Like my brand of crazy might be contagious. My heartbeat seemed to stop as I peered over the edge, looking down at that tiny little swimming hole. Suddenly I understood why they’d been standing there so long. It reminded me of those cartoons where the clowns climb up a ladder that extends into the clouds, then jump off into a tiny bucket of water.

  I could have turned around, told the boys I was just as scared as they were.

  But I didn’t. I leapt, soaring through the air, the Green River rushing up toward my feet. As I fell into the river, the cold surface of the water closing around me, swallowing me, I knew I was already falling for Ben and that arrogant, adorable smile. There was something about the way he challenged me, stared straight at me, that twisted its way around my heart.

  I spent the rest of the day watching him and his friends swim and splash and laugh, and yes, eventually they did jump off the cliff. I guess they had to, once I waltzed up there and jumped with no hesitation.

  A month later, he moved across town, and that meant going to EMS with me, instead of TMMS with all of his friends. We shared an English class. But he didn’t seem to remember me, and when I realized that, it was like a painful stab to the chest. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him when we sat so far apart, and the other girls were already latching onto him. He’d looked even better in his new fall school clothes than he had in his board shorts.

  It was as if that moment at the river, when we stared right into each other’s eyes, never happened at all. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I’ve never told Nicole about the crush. If it’s embarrassment over the fact that the moment meant everything to me and nothing to him.

  “Hey,” he says three minutes later when he slides into his chair. His blondish hair is tousled with gel, and his skin has a natural, dark tan. Even his baggy jeans and loose T-shirt can’t hide his now well-muscled body—one he’s earned through a combination of working his butt off all summer for his dad’s landscaping business and riding motocross every chance he gets.

  That’s the other thing about Ben. He races dirt bikes. He’s totally, completely amazing, and I could watch him all day. He has this bright-yellow motorcycle, and every time he launches into the air, my heart jumps right with him. It’s mesmerizing to watch. Someday he’ll probably go pro and get all these sponsors and stuff.

  “Hi,” I say, not looking up from last night’s homework.

  On an average day, we will exchange at least seventy-three words, his arm will brush mine seven times, and his knee will come in contact with mine on at least three occasions. He will look me in the eye and grin at least once, a grin that tells me in a half second that we would be a perfect couple.

  If he weren’t already one part of what is probably the perfect couple.

  I will sigh inwardly at least once per minute and accidentally sigh aloud at least a half-dozen times. I will picture Nicole’s face more times than necessary, trying to remind myself why I can’t flirt with him. I suppose I should find it ironic that the very reason I can’t date him is pretty much the only reason he knows who I am now. If he wasn’t dating Nicole, I’m not sure he’d even recognize me in a crowd.

  He leans closer to me. “Why are fish salesmen so greedy?”

  I chew on my lip and stare forward, pondering. “Not a clue.”

  “Because their business makes them sel-fish,” he says, slapping his desk.

  Ben and I share the same horrible sense of humor. We like jokes. The lamer, the better. But that one? Beyond lame.

  “I’ve got a better one. Why did the orange go to the doctor?” I say.

  “To donate vitamin C?”

  I roll my eyes. “Because he wasn’t peeling good.”

  He chuckles. “Nice. You win.”

  I grin and meet his eyes. It makes my heart twist a little. He’s too gorgeous for words. His perfect, tanned skin, the way his faded black T-shirt sort of clings to the muscles that seemed to be stretched tightly over his shoulders, the light calluses on his hands. “So you guys are going to some fancy dinner tonight, huh?”

  “Yeah. Supposedly the food is amazing, and it’s got a view of the water. It’s supposed to be a pretty fun place. Nicole was excited.”

  “Cool,” I say, turning back to my homework.

  “Is it? Cool? I didn’t know about your birthday until today. . . . We could always reschedule. . . . ” He adjusts the silver watch on his wrist, and his arm brushes mine for the first time today.

  I wave my hand in the air, as if it’s no biggie at all, even though some irrational side of me wishes Ben had known it was my birthday. His is March 6. I’ve known that for two years, since I heard one of his friends wish him a happy birthday in the hall outside the gym. “Nah, I have a birthday every year. You’ll only have one three-month anniversary.”

  I reach down and rub at the seam on my fishnets again. It’s driving me crazy. I’d rather have a hundred ants walking up my leg right now than wear these for another minute. I reach down and rip a big hole in them so that the seam isn’t rubbing against my knee anymore.

  When I look up at Ben, he’s staring at me, his perfect, dark eyebrows raised, his deep-blue eyes looking at my stockings.

  I grin, my cheeks warming. “Sorry. These things are driving me nuts.”

  He shrugs and then slides down a bit in his chair and stretches his lanky legs out in front of him. His knee bumps mine. Twice. “They’re kind of hot, though.”

  Oh no, he didn’t. Ben has never, not in a million years, paid me a compliment. He reserves those for Nicole.

  I suddenly wish I hadn’t ripped a big hole in the knee. Then I shake my head. Thou shall not covet thy best friend’s boyfriend.

  “So, did you get your homework done?” I ask, forcing myself back to safer topics.

  Ben flips open his binder and taps on the homework inside the front cover. His arm brushes mine again. “Barely. I finished the last two during homeroom.”

  Mrs. Vickers finally walks to the front of the room, a full ten minutes after the bell rang. She begins the day by writing down our assignments, and we all groan when we see that she’s giving us another thirty problems.

  Due tomorrow.

  Ben leans toward me, so close I can smell his spicy cologne. It washes over me and I have to force myself to keep my eyes open instead of closing them and taking in deep, ragged breaths. “This woman is trying to kill us,” he says. His breath is warm against my neck and minty fresh. If I turned my face, just half a turn, my lips would brush against his, and I’d finally know what it feels like to kiss him.

  Instead I just nod and stare forward at the teacher as if I am totally unaffected by being closer to him than I’ve ever been.

  Which I am. Unaffected, that is.

  Because he’s my best friend’s boyfriend.

  3

  BY THE TIME my brother knocks on my door for the third time that evening, I’ve run out of stall tactics. I have no choice but to go downstairs and face the crowd of people who have gathered for my sweet sixteen. I’ve been listening to the hum of voices, hoping my mother would be so busy with the party planning she wouldn’t even remember my presence was a required element.

  I’m not wearing the outfit she set out for me. It was too girly. She knew well enough not to buy it in pink, but the blue skirt has white Hawaiian-looking flowers and a slightly asymmetrical ruffle. And she bought me heels.

  It’s either the dress or the heels, but there’s no way I’m wearing both. I’m not in the mood to deal with a full-scale argument, so I hope she’ll settle for the fact that I’m not wearing fishnets and these stupid white heels at least match my sailor sundress. I die a little inside as I buckle them around my ankles.

  I survey the results in the mirror. The heels ruin the rebel, ironic side of my sailor dress and make me look like I actually take myself seriously. I look like I’m channeling a Ralph Lauren catalog. The kind with polo poni
es and yachts. I take my hair out of the ponytail it’s been in all day and brush out the indent from the rubber band, so now it just sort of hangs around my shoulders in big, ugly brown clumps. I never wear my hair down because I hate it. It has no shape, no color, and no curl.

  I flutter my eyelashes at myself in the mirror. In a horrible southern accent, I say, “Why, Kayla, I do declare, that is one hideous dress!”

  Then, in an accent worthy of the crocodile hunter, I add, “Crikey, but that’s an ugly pair of heels!”

  Although I usually prefer to mock other people, the voices have actually made me feel better. I sigh and flip myself off in the mirror and then decide it’s now or never. And since never will get me grounded, it’s time to give in.

  I open the door to see my brother standing in the hall, his cell phone stuck to his ear. I am guessing that he’s talking to his long-distance girlfriend. I’m not sure why she hasn’t dumped him, seeing as he’s a college dropout who now lives a few hundred miles from her.

  Plus my brother is not that cute, if you ask me. He has the same medium-brown hair I do—as in, it’s nothing exceptional. Mom has this beautiful deep-brown hair, and we have something between that and blond, which is completely blah. His is cut in a faux hawk. His nose used to be straight, like mine, but now it has a small bump in it, à la Owen Wilson, because he took a soccer ball to the face, or so he claims. I still think that’s a cover-up for getting sucker punched when he poached another guy’s girlfriend. We both have those thin, kind of boring lips, and even if I add a pound of lip gloss, mine still don’t look that kissable.

  We’re also both flat chested. I think I’ve got maybe a half inch on him in that department. Totally pathetic.

  “Mom says if I get you to come downstairs now, I can use the truck tomorrow.”

  “And that’s supposed to inspire me?”

  He tips his head to the side and gives me an I wish I was an only child sort of look. “It’s not like she’s going to let you skip the whole party, so just go downstairs and spare us all a headache, will you?”