When I’d said as many thank yous as humanly possible, Hayden raced home to shower and have breakfast, while I bathed and blow-dried a protesting Snookums. He settled down happily once I filled his food bowl and gave him a pat.
I made it to school five minutes before the bell rang. As I walked in the school gate, a hush fell amongst the groups in the courtyard and heads began turning my way.
What was going on? Was it still the Facebook thing? I’d have thought that everyone was over it by now, but maybe not. Whatever it was, I couldn’t worry about it. I had to find Jelena. I had to let her know what had gone down on the weekend.
There she was, standing with her back to me over by the fountain. As I walked over to her, I felt even more heads turning my way. I suddenly had a very bad feeling.
‘Jelena …’ I began.
She turned around, her eyes fierce. ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
She knew. Somehow she’d heard about what had happened.
‘Please, Jelena, just let me explain —’
‘Explain what?’ she interrupted. ‘How you ruthlessly set out to steal my boyfriend?’
The crowd let out an outraged ‘Ooh’.
‘I had no idea he felt that way about me!’ She couldn’t think I’d intentionally gone after Alex! ‘Please, Jelena, if we could just talk about this privately —’
She let out a laugh. ‘You want to talk privately with me when the whole school knows about your off-the-Richter-scale kiss with him yesterday?’
‘My what?!’
‘Oh, don’t play innocent, Aurora,’ Jelena snapped. ‘How do you think I felt coming home last night to find dozens of messages about my boyfriend and my best friend kissing on her driveway?’
‘Jelena, y-you’ve got this completely wrong,’ I stammered, blown away by what she’d said. ‘The only thing Alex kissed was the ground, because I —’
‘Pushed him away?’ Jelena said scornfully. ‘You really expect me to believe you pushed away your secret admirer, the one you were destined to be with?’
‘Alex was Aurora’s secret admirer?’
I turned to see a shocked-looking Lindsay standing behind me, an even more dumbfounded Sara with her.
‘You must be the last two people in this whole school to find out the truth,’ Jelena told them loudly. ‘Besides me, of course. Yup — Alex sent the roses, and he wrote the gushing poem. And Aurora’s standing here, trying to deny the whole thing!’ She let out a sarcastic laugh.
Jelena’s words stung like crazy, but it was the devastation in her eyes that was killing me. I had to get her to believe me.
‘Jelena, somehow the truth has got mixed up,’ I said. ‘Yes, Alex came to my house and told me he was the secret admirer. But I told him that there was no way I’d go after a guy you liked —’
‘’Cause I’m your friend,’ Jelena said in a singsong voice. ‘Spare me the story.’
‘There was no kiss!’ I cried. ‘I don’t know how this whole crazy story started, but there was no kiss. I swear!’
‘Sorry, Aurora, but I don’t believe you.’ Jelena looked away. ‘And I don’t think anyone else here does either.’
I looked at the faces in the crowd. A lot of them looked confused, lost in early Monday morning haze. Others wore intrigued expressions: here was fresh gossip of the best kind — a betrayal of the code of sisterhood. Half the girls gathered in the courtyard were glaring at me already.
Lindsay took a step towards me. ‘I believe her.’
‘Lindsay, are you sure you want to do that?’ Jelena said quietly. ‘She’s stolen my boyfriend. Who’s to say yours won’t be next?’
Lindsay looked uncertainly at me.
‘Remember how insistent she was about you not taking Tyler back?’ Jelena pressed. ‘Don’t you think it might have been for a different reason? She obviously gets a kick out of this sort of thing.’
‘It was so Tyler would feel truly sorry about the way he behaved —’ I started.
Jelena cut me off. ‘You don’t want to lose him again, do you? Lindsay?’
Lindsay stepped over to Jelena’s side.
‘Lindsay, please believe me …’ But I knew it was hopeless. Jelena had hit Lindsay’s weak spot.
Sara took my arm. ‘Well, I believe Aurora. The whole story’s a bunch of crap. She would never touch anyone else’s man.’
Thank you. I smiled at her, my only ally, as the first bell sounded.
‘Come on, Lindsay, let’s go.’ Jelena swept away, a muddled-looking Lindsay in tow.
The crowd around us regretfully broke up.
‘I can’t believe everyone’s listening to this ridiculous story,’ I said as a group of girls walked by with their noses in the air. ‘I mean, I’ve never looked twice at anyone’s boyfriend and they know it.’
Sara rolled her eyes. ‘They just love the idea of a juicy rumour. Don’t take any notice of them. The whole thing will blow over. Let’s get to class.’
I sat in my maths class under the glare of accusing looks, surrounded by whispers.
‘How low can you get? Taking your best friend’s boyfriend!’
‘Now she’s a model, I guess she thinks she can have anything she wants.’
‘Please, it’s a Facebook competition. We should write some stuff on that wall about her.’
How was everyone so ready to believe that I’d do what they were accusing me of? Not only Jelena, but Lindsay AND the whole school body? If they could believe this, who was to say that Cassie — who was at a dentist’s appointment — would be on my side when she got back? Or Hayden?
I felt like crying. This wasn’t just going to blow over. I had to take action.
‘I’m going to do something about this,’ I said when Sara met me outside the classroom at break.
‘What?’
‘Talk to Alex. Somehow the story about us has got completely mixed up, and maybe he can tell me how.’
I marched outside, Sara behind me, and headed for the table where Alex was sitting with a group of guys.
One of them nudged him. ‘Ooh, Alex, look who’s coming over.’
Alex gave me a wink. ‘Hey, babe. Come for another kiss?’
I stopped short as they all laughed at me. ‘You.’ The truth dawned on me. ‘You made up the rumour.’
I couldn’t believe it. I’d thought maybe he might have mentioned the incident to someone who’d then got the story twisted, but I’d never considered the fact that he might have spread the lies himself.
‘Rumour?’ Alex grinned lazily. ‘I wasn’t aware of any rumour. Just some people discussing the mind-blowing kiss we had.’
The guys gave him high fives. I bunched my fists, struggling to keep my cool.
‘I want you to tell everyone the truth,’ I said, pointing at the gathering crowd behind me. ‘The real truth about what happened yesterday.’
Sara snickered. ‘Yeah, not the Alex-wishes version.’
The crowd tittered.
‘Alright, I’ll admit that I haven’t exactly been honest,’ Alex said, holding up his hands. ‘The truth is, Aurora kissed me.’
‘I what?’
The crowd exploded in whispers. I felt like hitting him.
‘She planted one right on me,’ Alex said, and laughed.
‘You —’
‘Don’t feel embarrassed, babe,’ he cut in. ‘I like a girl who goes after what she wants.’
‘You’re lying.’ Hayden pushed his way through the crowd and stood beside me.
Hayden believed me! I shot him a grateful look.
Alex let out a snort. ‘What would you know about it, Paris? We all know why you’re sore about it though.’
‘I know that you were in the guys’ locker room on Friday when everyone was discussing how they’d never been lucky enough to kiss Aurora,’ Hayden replied. ‘And I know that you bet some of the guys in there, including the ones sitting with you now, that you’d be the one to actually do it.’
My jaw dropped.
‘Yeah, so?’ Alex said, looking unworried. ‘I knew that I had the best chance of scoring a kiss, being the secret admirer and all. Why not make some cash out of it?’
‘Are you for real?’ Sara spluttered.
I saw Jelena join the outskirts of the crowd.
‘Okay,’ Hayden said flatly, ‘if you are Aurora’s secret admirer, why don’t you quote a few lines from the poem you wrote for her?’
I looked at him, feeling confused. How was Alex reciting the poem going to prove anything? Then I noticed that Alex’s smile had faded slightly. The crowd had gone very quiet.
‘Go on then,’ Hayden said. ‘We’re all waiting.’
‘She’s like the stars,’ Alex began loudly. ‘White, shining high in the sky —’
‘Wrong,’ Hayden said. ‘The lines are “Aurora, she’s like the stars, far above me …”’
I gasped. How was it Alex didn’t know the words but Hayden did?
Hayden continued, without looking at me. ‘“I stand transfixed. She’s my Alpha, radiating light across my world of sky.”’ He paused. ‘Care to go on, Alex?’
Alex laughed. ‘What does that prove anyway?’
‘It proves that you were lying about being her secret admirer,’ Hayden said. ‘And if you were lying about that, then I’d say it’s pretty likely that you were lying about the kiss too. In fact, I know you’re lying, because I saw Aurora push you into a puddle when you went to kiss her.’
The crowd burst into laughter. I knew no-one would believe Alex’s story now.
I felt dizzy from all the revelations. Alex wasn’t my secret admirer? That meant he was still out there somewhere …
‘I know who sent Aurora those things,’ Hayden said. ‘And it wasn’t you.’
I was going to pass out. I was going to sink down onto the courtyard stones …
‘Who is it?’ I dimly heard Lindsay ask above the roaring in my ears.
‘It’s someone who sees her as more than a fashion model who can up his status,’ Hayden said, looking pointedly at Alex. ‘Someone who meant every word of that poem and the message.’
‘Who is it?’ the crowd roared.
My own heart shouted the same question, then went into overdrive as Hayden turned to face me.
‘It’s a friend of mine,’ he said.
The bell rang and the crowd dispersed. I vaguely noticed Alex slinking off.
I stared at Hayden. ‘A friend of yours?’ I whispered. ‘Who?’
I wanted it to be you, my heart said.
‘I can’t tell you right now,’ Hayden said. ‘The whole thing will be revealed to you really soon — I promise!’ He grasped my hand briefly, then let go. ‘I’ve got to get to a Student Council meeting. We’ll talk later.’
‘But —’
He dashed off before I could say another word.
I stood staring after him, and caught sight of Jelena, ten metres away. Her gaze met mine.
‘Jelena!’
Before I could take a step towards her, she broke eye contact and rushed off.
‘Hi!’ Cassie called. She came bounding through the school gate, hand in hand with a beaming Scott. ‘I just got out of the dentist’s. Scott came with me to hold my hand — isn’t that sweet? Did I miss anything?’
