Tease(8)

And now I’ve opened my stupid mouth about it again. Twice.

He stops looking at my waistband for a second to smile up at me. “Ooooh,” he mocks. “Somebody’s jealous!”

“No, I’m not!” I squeal.

“I think it’s cute,” he says, and just like that, we’re back to kissing.

He thinks it’s cute! I’m going to stop worrying now. Besides, my problem is with Emma, not Dylan. Like Brielle said yesterday, it’s Emma’s fault she’s a slut, not my boyfriend’s.

But still, Dylan stops trying to get my jeans off after that, and I’m a little worried. Maybe Brielle is right about the party, too. . . . Maybe I need to make sure Dylan isn’t thinking about anyone but me.

“Emma Putnam called you a tease.”

“What?”

Over the phone Brielle almost sounds like she’s gloating, like she’s just won something. I wish she would’ve just texted this to me like a normal person. Then I could hyperventilate in private.

“Jacob told me. Apparently she was flirting with him again, isn’t that pathetic? He was totally laughing about it.” Brielle snorts.

“And?” I press her.

“Oh. So, yeah, Jacob asked her about texting Dylan, because I’d been asking Jacob about it—”

“You what?!”

“Yeah, you knew that! Whatever, we sit next to each other in espa?ol, it’s muy boring. So anyway, Jacob was like, ‘I heard you’re all creeping up on Dylan Howe,’ and Emma, like, giggled and goes, ‘He has a girlfriend,’ and Jacob’s like, ‘Yeah, maybe you should back off,’ and Emma goes—I’m not even kidding—‘Maybe he should go out with someone who isn’t a total tease.’”

I just sit there with my mouth hanging open for what feels like an hour.

Jacob had a girlfriend too, before Emma came along. He’s also a huge player, but that didn’t make it any less crappy for Noelle Reese when he cheated on her and then broke up with her. He didn’t even end up going out with Emma for real; it was just a couple of weeks of hooking up. And then, like, one more week. It’s weird, but Emma’s like that—guys want to hook up with her, but no one really wants to be the official boyfriend of the slutty girl.

I can’t believe she’s even talking about me. My whole head feels like it’s on fire, I’m so mad.

“I. Am. Going. To. Kill her.” My voice is very quiet. It even sounds scary to me.

“Lady, I am going to help you.”

We spend another hour on the phone and on Facebook at the same time. Brielle makes up a profile for “Fat Beyotch” and steals one of Emma’s photos for it. She gives me the password so we can both go on to Emma’s page and tag all the pictures of her with the fake name. Then I start friending everyone we hang out with. Brielle and I are laughing so hard at the image of Jacob, Tyler, and Kyle getting Emma’s picture with her new name attached.

“Send it to Dylan!” Brielle cries. “No, hang on, I’ve got it—”

“No!” I shout, but she’s still howling and I don’t think she heard me. “Brie, don’t!”

“Why? He’ll think it’s hilarious. Oh my God, why haven’t we done this before?”

But suddenly it’s not that funny anymore. Dylan is Facebook friends with basically everyone at school, but I haven’t checked to see if Emma is on there too. Up until a couple of days ago it didn’t even occur to me to check. And now . . . I don’t even want him to be friends with Fake Emma. I don’t want him thinking about her at all.

“We’re gonna get in trouble for this,” I say quietly, my stomach suddenly tight.

“God, no, we’re not,” Brielle says. “The administrator might shut it down or whatever, but no one’s gonna know it was us—and who cares? If they do, we’ll just tell them to take a stupid joke. And she started it, anyway.”

Right. She did. I think about earlier that day, messing around in Dylan’s SUV, and cringe. Am I a tease? Is that worse than being a slut? Does Dylan think it’s worse?

“She totally deserves this,” Brielle goes on, “and honestly I’m surprised no one’s done it before. Or, you know, something like it. She needs to keep her skanky paws off everybody’s boyfriends already.”

“Yeah,” I say, but I push away from my computer and flop back on my bed. Revenge is exhausting.

“Huh, I wonder if we should start a fan page, too, like a Boycott Emma Putnam thing . . .” Brielle seems to be talking to herself about this, so I just grunt noncommittally. A group page doesn’t seem like as much fun—not that this seems like that much fun anymore either. A minute ago I was really into it, but now I just feel kind of nauseous.

“But seriously,” Brielle is saying, “what’s going on with you and the D-Bag?”

“Don’t call him that!” I wail, but it’s never any use—Brielle thinks her nickname for Dylan is extra hilarious. She’s laughing about it right now, in fact.

Finally she gets over herself and goes, “Okay, okay, Dyyyllllan. You gonna rock his world tomorrow, or what?”

I haven’t told her about that afternoon in the back of Dylan’s car, but now I think about that feeling I had. The feeling that it’s basically now or never, that I can only keep pushing his hands away for so long. And maybe I’m ready too—I mean, if I don’t do it with Dylan, who am I waiting for? He’s going to graduate and go to the university an hour away and meet college girls and I’ll just . . . I don’t know. Be a virgin forever?