The room suddenly felt too small, and Gemma didn’t fight the reflex to reach for Emily’s hand. At the head of the pack, Caitlin’s smile faded as she took in Gemma, and then Gemma’s fingers, which were interlaced with Emily’s. Something sharp and wounded andpissedflashed across her face.
Caitlin shouldered herself through them without a word,breaking apart their joined hands, the rest of the squad filling in the space behind her. Any hope Gemma had had for finding neutral ground with Caitlin died right there, in the locker room doorway.
SEPTEMBER WENT BY AT Asnail’s pace. Gemma had Emily’s hand to hold, Darbie to laugh with, and soccer to keep her busy. But she secretly missed Caitlin. They stayed firmly on opposite sides of high school society, and Gemma didn’t know how to fix it. She had a girlfriend, and she knew she shouldn’t care what Caitlin was up to. Sometimes, she even convinced herself that she didn’t care. But then she would round a corner and find Caitlin lip-locked with Troy, and her stomach would plummet. So much for being over her.
Gemma began switching her routes to classes so she would see less of Caitlin and her boyfriend, but it still hadn’t helped. They were like magnets. No matter how hard Gemma tried to avoid her, she’d turn a corner and there was Caitlin. Every single time, she had Troy’s lips on her. It all made Gemma feel sick. The way Caitlin had kissedherand then acted like it had never happened. The way she had run back to Troy, who Gemma assumed didn’t even know about the kiss. She felt used. Had she only been some kind of twisted experiment to Caitlin?
Gemma grew angrier by the day. She threw herself into soccer, her girlfriend, and school, anything to avoid the icy blue eyes that no longer thawed just for her.
BY MID-OCTOBER, SOMETHING HAD FINALLYshifted. Gemma wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened—maybe the day she had laughed so hard at practice that she forgot to scan the other side of the field, or maybe when Emily had surprised her with hot chocolate after a cold morning run. But sometime in the last few weeks, Gemma had stopped tracking Caitlin’smovements. The cheerleaders still practiced nearby, but Gemma found herself actually watching the ball instead of searching for a halo of auburn hair in the distance.
One crisp Sunday evening, Gemma took Emily out on a date to their local movie theater. They walked, hands intertwined, still laughing about yesterday’s soccer game. Players from the other team had crashed into each other while going for the ball, and total chaos had followed. Westmore had swooped in to score the winning goal while the others were still struggling to untangle themselves. The image still cracked her up.
Arriving out front of the box office window, Gemma’s body stiffened.
“Hey Gemma!” Troy said, walking up the sidewalk with Caitlin by his side.
“Hey,” Gemma mustered up as much of a greeting as she could. “Here to see a movie?” Trying to act casual, the words had tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. Of course they were, why else would they be outside a movie theater? She felt heat creep up her neck, but Troy only laughed.
“Yeah, the new Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore one. It was Caitlin’s night to pick.” Troy shot a wink at Caitlin, whose grip visibly tightened on her boyfriend’s arm. “What about you girls?”
“Oh, we’re just here for the overpriced popcorn,” Emily replied for them, not picking up on the tension in the air. “Just kidding, Gemma can’t resist Mandy Moore, either. I’m Emily, by the way. Gemma’s girlfriend.”
Gemma winced. She glanced at Caitlin in time to see a flash of horror cross her face at the wordgirlfriendrolling off Emily’s tongue.
“Right, sorry. Em, this is Troy and Caitlin.” She pointed toward the couple, trying to avoid direct eye contact.
They all went to school together, but it was clear that Emily had never engaged with either the lacrosse player or cheerleader, and this was about as much as Gemma could handle for one night.
“Well, enjoy the movie.” Gemma tugged on Emily’s hand, moving through the door, trying to escape the other couple.
Caitlin and Troy followed close behind. Gemma had already forgotten that they were all there for the same movie. She pulled Emily into the concessions line, hoping that Troy and Caitlin would continue straight into the theater. They didn’t.
As Gemma scanned their movie stubs, hoping to see assigned seating, she heard Troy speak up from behind her.
“Hey, why don’t we all just sit together?”
Gemma glanced over her shoulder. Caitlin’s fair skin turned bright red, clearly not pleased with her boyfriend’s invitation.
“No, no, you guys should enjoy your date,” Gemma responded quickly, taking a step forward in line.
“We’re all friends, right? It could be like a double date!” Troy looked back and forth between them, smiling like a golden retriever, totally unaware of the land mind he was standing on.
Emily shrugged her shoulders. Apparently, there was no way for Gemma to get out of this.
“Sure.” She sighed, resigned.
A few minutes later, the four of them filed into Theater Six one by one, each carrying a bucket of buttery popcorn. Gemma was hardly even shocked when she found herself suddenly wedged into a seat between Emily and Caitlin. She vaguely wondered what she had done to receive this kind of karma while pretending to be engrossed in the previews flashing across the screen.
As the opening credits ended, Gemma angled her body toward Emily, reaching for her in the dark. She focused on themovie, on the hand in hers, on literally anything except the fact that she could smell Caitlin’s perfume every time she shifted in her seat.
On screen, Mandy Moore begins juggling relationships with two men, neither of whom is aware of the other. They are worlds apart, one man predictable and well-off, the other passionate and spontaneous. Unable to choose between the two, she attempts to date them both.
Gemma squirmed, feeling the plot hit a little too close to home. Chancing a look to her right, Gemma saw Caitlin also fidgeting in her red velour chair. Sensing her gaze, Caitlin turned and locked eyes with Gemma for a heartbeat. Caitlin sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and Gemma quickly returned her attention to the screen. Why was Caitlin acting like this? If she had actually cared about Gemma, why hadn’t she even acknowledged that the kiss happened? It was driving Gemma insane not knowing Caitlin’s reasoning.
Pay attention. Diane Keaton, Mandy Moore, not Caitlin Stone.
An arm slid onto the shared armrest, Caitlin’s bare skin brushing against Gemma’s, sending an unwanted tingle through her body. Gemma did not like the involuntary reaction, so she hastily repositioned herself, leaning into Emily. Gemma laced her fingers with her girlfriend’s on the wooden surface between them. Gemma stayed in that position for the rest of the movie, refusing to give Caitlin any indication of her discomfort.
