Welcome to Bridgeport Academy, an elite boarding school in New York where glamorous rich kids don't let rules get in the way of a good time.
[ Based on the It Girl series by Cecily Von Ziegesar ]
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Coach Johnson ran her fingers through her hair. "You know, why doesn't everyone just hit the showers," she suggested after a moment.
Finally.
Alex felt like she'd just run a marathon, which was always how she felt after vigorously fighting with somebody. She walked slowly back to the bleachers with Robyn, neither of them speaking. But it was a comfortable silence, not a tense one. She threw her shin guards in her nylon bag and noticed her cell phone buzzing. She had a text message: Come meet me on my boat when you can. We need to talk - Michael.
She put her head in her hands. That single lingering kiss. His soft lips. The way he'd finally put his arms around her, pulling her closer to him. The way he smelled, like peppermint and lavender laundry soap. The way he'd groaned a little when they stopped. She'd felt so rejected after their kiss yesterday, but maybe he'd changed his mind? She knew it was dangerous, but wasn't life about taking risks? She only hoped Michael felt the same way.
He was sprawled on a modern white lounge chair on the boat's deck, a bag of pretzels at his side, when she arrived. He stood and brushed crumbs off his crisp pants. "Hey."
"Hey," she answered, standing at the water's edge. She'd quickly thrown on a black tee and hip-hugging jeans, hoping to look casual and unassuming, but now the outfit felt all wrong. Her shirt was too short and her pants were too low, so too much of her midriff winked up at him. It was too trashy for Michael. She tried to cover it up with her hand. It didn't help that he looked absolutely gorgeous.
"Hey." He smiled down at her.
"Hey again," Alex said quietly.
They fell silent, looking at each other from a distance. Alex felt stupid—obviously he didn't feel the same way. Her stomach clunked inside of her, irritated that he would make her come here to tell her what she already knew: that they couldn't see each other anymore, blah, blah, blah. Fine, big fucking deal. She wanted it to be over quickly. And not ever see him again. She could resign from DC. Who cared if it looked good on your college applications? There were other ways to get into Howard.
"So this is what I've been thinking," he interrupted her thoughts. "You have one more year here. And you're seventeen. I'm twenty-three. That's like, six years."
"Uh-huh," Alex responded, twisting a piece of rope lying on one of the dock's pylons.
"Six years. Like, when we're in our twenties...you'll be, say, twenty-two, and I'll be twenty-eight. And when I'm fifty, you'll be forty-four."
Alex snorted. "So what are you saying?'"
"I—" Michael started.
"No offense," Alex retorted quickly, straightening up. "But I'm not, like, holding out for you until I'm forty-four. Hopefully I'll be with a younger guy by then."
Michael stared at her intensely. "I don't think I could wait until you were forty-four."
"Oh," she replied, winding the rope around her finger so tightly that it began cutting off the circulation.
He stared at her, then sighed. "Come into my cabin?"
Alex paused. She wasn't positive, but she suspected that this was about to be the biggest, most important moment of her life so far. Standing there, in a crappy t-shirt and her crappiest jeans, on a random Sunday after field hockey practice, slightly hungover, seventeen years old, a tiny pimple on the corner of her right cheek that was covered up with MAC concealer, AP bio homework to do...Her life a boring mess, otherwise. But if she wanted it to happen, the next moments could change her life forever.
"Yeah, I guess I can do that." She smiled quietly to herself and ran her hands along the guide rails on the dock to climb aboard.
