Shut Out(63)

“Go home,” I called down to them. “This won’t work—and you’ll wake up the neighbors.”

“Mary!” Finn called, ignoring me.

I felt Mary come up behind me so she could peer over my shoulder out the window.

“I miss you,” he said again. “I—”

Before he could finish, I slammed the window shut.

“Lissa!” Kelsey snapped, annoyed. “Why did you do that?”

“It’s a trap.” I looked right at Mary then. “You know that, right? This is just another attempt by the boys to make us give in. To make us lose. But we can’t. We have to win. You know that, right?”

Mary opened her mouth, paused, then closed it again. Slowly, she nodded and turned away, her shoulders slumped as she moved toward Ellen’s bed.

Both Kelsey and Chloe were giving me the evil eye.

“What?” I asked. “I’m right. This is just a trick. Another one of their games. The same thing happened in Lysistrata.”

“In… what?” Kelsey asked.

“It’s this Greek play about a group of women who decide to end the war by going on a sex strike,” I explained to the puzzled-looking group. “I’d never read it but, um, someone recommended it to me after the strike started. Anyway, the women take over the Acropolis and the men show up and try to lure them out. Just like this.”

“And what happens?” Susan asked.

“They stay strong,” I told her. “Their leader, Lysistrata, makes them stay inside—just like I’m doing. And they win. We have to win. That’s the point.”

“I thought the point was ending the rivalry,” Kelsey said.

“It was—I mean, it is. It still is. And we will. I was wrong before, when I said we should tease them. We’ll have to stop that, but if we just stay strong, keeping to the oath, they’ll give up.”

I could feel the unsatisfied murmur that rippled around the room, but no one argued with me. Instead, they all just exchanged glances before going back to what they’d been doing before the boys had shown up.

Chloe gave me one last glance—one full of recognizable frustration—before walking across the room and sitting next to Kelsey.

Kelsey? Of all people?

They began to talk in low voices. Like they were friends. Like it was normal for them to speak without screaming at each other. And I knew they were talking about me. It felt like a slap in the face.

But I kept my mouth shut and turned back to the window. I could just make out the boys’ retreating backs as they skirted across Ellen’s backyard and out toward the gravel back roads of Hamilton. The moonlight framed their silhouettes, and for a moment, one paused. I could see him turning his head back, but he was too far off for me to recognize his face as he looked at the house. At the window. At me.

Somehow, I knew it was Cash.





chapter twenty-nine


The next morning, Ellen volunteered to drive me home. Logan had texted and asked me to be back by noon because he had something to tell Dad and me over lunch, so I accepted Ellen’s offer because, while Chloe would usually give me the lift, I got the vibe that she was still upset with me about last night. Though I wasn’t sure what I’d done to upset her so much.

“So,” Ellen said slowly as we drove away from her house. The other girls had left only a few minutes before us, sneaking out as quietly as possible so as not to wake up Ellen’s mom, who really liked to sleep in on the weekends. “We need to talk about this whole strike thing.”

“What about it?” I asked.

“Lissa, I—Look, it was a good idea. Really, I’m glad we did it because… Well, honestly, I’ve learned a lot. About what people expect of me and what I expect from myself. And because it brought us back together.” She gave me a quick smile before focusing her attention on the road again. “But… I think it’s time to end it.”

“What? Why? We haven’t won yet.”

Ellen sighed and switched on the turn signal. “What are we winning, exactly?” she asked.

“We… The rivalry has to end. That’s the point.”

“Is it?” she asked, her voice very serious but not accusatory. “Think about this, Lissa. Is the rivalry really what the strike is about? Because I don’t know if you noticed, but the boys aren’t fighting anymore. The group at my house last night was made up of football and soccer players. They were working together.”

I didn’t say anything.

Didn’t know what to say.

But I did know what Ellen was thinking. And then she confirmed my suspicions.

“I think this is about Cash,” she said. “I think… Okay, don’t get mad at me for saying this, but I think you’re using this to get back at him for how he hurt you. It didn’t start that way, obviously, but now… Lissa, we all see the way you look at him. All of us. Even Kelsey mentioned it to Chloe and me.”

“Wait, you guys talked about me? Behind my back?”

“Not in a bad way,” Ellen said quickly. “But we’re worried. This strike was a great idea, but it’s going too far. They asked me to talk to you about it. They thought you’d listen to me.”

I stared out the window, refusing to look at Ellen. I was more than pissed. I was hurt. Angry. Betrayed. I thought these girls were on my side. They’d been on my side from the start and now, suddenly, they were against me. Talking about me when I wasn’t around. Trying to think of ways to overthrow me.