LITMIR.BIZ

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up and comes over to the bed, flopping down on her stomach next to me. “Spill,” she whines, the previous iciness dissolving into borderline desperation. This is as close as Kristen ever gets to groveling. “Otherwise I’m uninviting you from the party.”

      The threat can’t be real—Kristen knows I’ve been looking forward to her New Year’s Eve party for over a month now. She even helped concoct the cover story necessary to convince my mother to let me come over to her house despite the grounding I received after my parents saw my latest report card. Like I’m ever going to need geometry in real life anyway.

      Even though Kristen can be…touchy, she wouldn’t uninvite me from the party over something like this—but I decide it’s better to cave already than to test her on it.

      “Okay, okay,” I relent. “I’ll tell you.”

      She breaks into a grin and scoots closer to me. I like having her attention like this; Kristen is easily bored, so when I do get her full focus, it makes me feel like I’m doing something right. She is, after all, one of—if not the—most popular girls in the sophomore class, if you keep track of that sort of thing, which I do. She’s used to people fawning all over her to get on her good side. I’ve been on her good side for almost two years now, and I intend to stay there.

      I’d better make this good.

      “So I met up with Megan today because she wanted me to help her pick out new shoes, right?” I start. “She also wanted to bitch to me about Owen, because he totally blew her off last weekend and they’ve been fighting a lot, and she’s wondering if she should break up with him.”

      Kristen’s mouth tugs into a frown. “Um, yawn. I already know this.”

      “I’m not done yet,” I assure her. “Anyway, so Megan brings along Tessa Schauer, which…whatever. She’s annoying, but I can deal. We shop for a while and everything’s fine, and then I remember I need to call my mom about picking stuff up from the dry cleaners, except I’m an idiot who didn’t charge my phone and the battery’s dead. I ask Tessa if I can borrow hers since she’s right there, and she hands it off and walks away. I call my mom, and then I’m about to give it back, but I decided to look through the pictures on the phone because I’m nosy like that, and…” I pause for a moment, just to draw out the anticipation.

      “And…?” Kristen prompts. She’s totally hanging on to every word.

      “And,” I say, “the first one I see? It’s of Tessa. With Owen. Looking very…shall we say…friendly.”

      Her eyes widen. “How friendly?” she asks.

      I dig my phone out of my pocket and toss it at her. “Look for yourself.”

      I watch in amusement as she fumbles with my phone, scrolling through my text messages. “Shut up,” she gasps, looking back up at me. “You forwarded the pictures to yourself?”

      “Duh.”

      “Won’t Tessa know?”

      I’m a little insulted by the question, to be honest. Of course I thought ahead. I’m not an amateur. “I deleted the sent texts,” I explain. “She’ll have no idea.”

      “That is…” Kristen pauses, and then grins up at me. “Totally brilliant.”

      I take the phone back and look at the screen, where the high-angled self-portrait of Tessa and Owen midkiss stares back at me. So tacky. Not just the picture, or how Owen’s mouth is open so wide I can actually see his tongue entering Tessa’s mouth (gross, gross, gross), but making out with your alleged best friend’s boyfriend behind her back? That’s just classless. I would never in a million years hook up with Kristen’s boyfriend, Warren Snyder, while she’s dating him. Okay, I would never hook up with him, period, because he’s a sleaze, but that’s beside the point. The point is, some things are sacred.

      “She’s a shitty friend,” I tell Kristen. “I can’t believe she did that to Megan.” There’s no way Megan will forgive her when she finds out. She’s dated Owen for over a year, and Tessa’s been her best friend for longer than that. An entire friendship down the drain, all because Tessa couldn’t keep her hands off Owen. No boy is worth that. Not even Brendon Ryan, whom I would do a number of immoral and insane things for, and who is quite possibly the love of my life, even if he doesn’t know it yet. We’ve been caught in a wildly passionate, completely one-sided affair since freshman year.

      “Tessa Schauer is a slutty bitch. I hope Megan kicks her ass,” Kristen says. “When are you going to tell her?”

      “Tonight, probably.” Megan and Tessa will both be at the party, so I’ll have to find a way to corner Megan alone and break the news. Tessa will know it’s me, even if I erased my tracks, but whatever. Who cares? Snooping on someone’s phone is a far more minor offense than slutting around with your best friend’s boyfriend. No one will have sympathy for her.

      Kristen rolls off the bed and stands in front of her full-length mirror, fiddling with the ends of her perfect hair. “You know, you could have some fun with this,” she muses.

      I sit up. “How?”

      “If you tell Tessa you know about her and Owen, I bet she’d do just about anything to keep you from sharing that with Megan.”

      “Like blackmail?” I frown. “I don’t know…”

      “I’m just saying,” Kristen says, “I know for a fact that she has a fake ID. She was attention-whoring like crazy, showing it off to everyone who would listen in Econ last week. Maybe you could convince her to hook up the two of us with our own.”

      Interesting idea. Except—

      “What would we do with a fake ID?” I ask. Buying booze is the obvious answer, but while Kristen might pass for twenty-one with the right push-up bra and a pair of heels, there’s no way I could. I am much less…developed than her.

      “Well, I could go to Rave with Warren, for starters,” she says. “You only have to be eighteen to get in.”

      Rave is this nightclub in Westfield, the next town over. Warren turned eighteen last month and went there to celebrate, and wouldn’t shut up about it for two weeks. I have to admit, it would be interesting to see what all the fuss is about.

      And if it’s important to Kristen, then it’s important to me.

      “I’ll see what I can do,” I tell her, and by the way Kristen smiles at me, I know that was exactly what she wanted to hear.

      six hours later

      I don’t know how I’m going to talk myself out of this one.

      My phone buzzes insistently in my hand, like it knows I’m trying to avoid it. A glance at the front screen confirms my impending doom: MOM flashes there like it’s mocking me. Crap.

      Kristen nudges me in the rib cage with her elbow. “Who the hell is calling you?” she demands. “Everyone worth knowing is already here.”

      It’s true; the party is in full swing, the room filled with half of Grand Lake High’s student body—well, the half that matters, anyway—and loud music. It’s no secret Kristen Courteau throws the best parties. Absentee parents, an older brother who has no problem supplying minors with alcohol, a big house with a top-notch stereo system—it’s everything a group of rowdy sixteen-year-olds could ask for.

      On this couch I’m packed in tight like a sardine, stuck between Kristen and Brendon Ryan. Brendon Ryan, the last person I want knowing that my mother is calling to check up on me.

      “It’s my mom,” I explain, leaning my head close to hers to be heard over the racket and praying that Brendon is too absorbed in downing his beer to pay attention. “She’ll be pissed if I don’t answer.”

      “Then answer it,” Kristen says, like it’s that simple.

      “And have

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