Page 21 of You Belong With Me

I could understand why she wouldn’t be sure, since Imogen was definitely extremely outgoing, but I couldn’t say that I’d had more than one or two conversations with her. Even though more people probably knew Imogen than Ainsley, I thought I knew even less about her since she wasn’t even on the swim team with us.

“Not really,” I said.

“Well, she’s great,” Ainsley said. She stood up again and started walking toward the door. I wondered if I was supposed to get up with her, but she just threw open the door and yelled into the hall, “Imogen, we’re leaving in five minutes, okay?”

I heard a muffled “okay” through the wall, so I figured Imogen’s room was next to Ainsley’s. She closed the door again, muffling the sound of the other music in the hall.

“Have you two always had your own room?” I asked. I didn’t think the Novak house was big enough for all the kids to have their own rooms, but if there were any to share, it would be Imogen and Ainsley.

“Only since we moved Sebastian down to the basement a few years ago. We shared growing up, but it’s a tight space, you know?”

I didn’t realize Sebastian had moved down to the basement, but now that she said it, it made sense. With four kids, they were probably all tripping over each other here and I could see why Sebastian would want to have his own space and leave the girls up here. But then I remembered when I’d come by a couple weeks ago and saw Sebastian pulling Tiffany to the basement stairs, and started to feel a little queasy. I always assumed their basement was the same as ours, with an extra TV and space to hang out, but if it was his bedroom instead…

“So, I did some extra research for the public speaking project since we didn’t find much at the library,” Ainsley said, forcing my thoughts away from what Sebastian and Tiffany might have been gettingup to.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you were so on top of it. I would have done some.”

She brushed her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. We had a free period in my art class and I figured I might as well do something productive if I was stuck at school.” She dropped the folder on the desk with a loud thump. She must have printed out every article she found. “Anyway, I found some arguments for and against. I figure our argument will be mostly against school uniforms, but it’s good to know both sides.”

I nodded and started thumbing through the evidence she had found, but I only got through a couple before the door was pushed open again and Imogen stepped inside. If I thought Ainsley was dressed up, I wasn’t prepared for Imogen’s short mini dress and a way-too-big denim jacket that covered almost to her mid-thigh. She looked like she was planning to go to a modeling photoshoot instead of a high school soccer game.

Ainsley glanced at her sister’s outfit briefly and said, “You might be cold, you know.”

Imogen shrugged. “Small price to pay for fashion.” She glanced at me. “You coming with us?”

“Oh yeah, Imogen, this is Nora. She lives next door.”

Imogen laughed. “Yeah, Ainsley, we’ve met.”

Ainsley shrugged. “I just wanted to make sure. I didn’t want you to spend the whole night wondering what her name was because I didn’t introduce her.”

Imogen shook her head at her sister, then came up to me and stuck out a hand. “It’s nice to officially meet you then, I guess.”

I laughed a little too and shookher hand. “You too.”

“Alright, one last touch,” Ainsley said, walking over to her vanity and grabbing her perfume. Once again, something that hadn’t even occurred to me to do. I’d barely even done my hair or anything. At least I had some school spirit on my face now with the face paint, but that was it. She spritzed herself lightly and then glanced at me.

“Did you want some?” she asked.

If anybody else had asked that, I might have thought they were trying to tell me something, like Ineededthe perfume or something, but she sounded genuinely just curious. Strangely enough, I found myself nodding. “Sure.”

She came over and said, “Okay, chin up,” and then lightly spritzed my neck. I breathed in the vanilla-y scent and had a sudden flashback to the party on Friday night. It came so out of nowhere that it took me a second to realize that I’d smelled this perfume when I’d been sitting in the kitchen after Sebastian had left. Until this moment, I’d completely forgotten that he said Ainsley and Imogen were going to the party too.

My heart leapt into my throat as I realized what that meant.Ainsley and Imogen were at the party when I kissed Sebastian. I’d been so focused on making sure that Dean didn’t find out about the kiss that I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to how Sebastian’s sisters might react. At the time, it hadn’t seemed important—because it was before we’d started becoming friends. A lump formed in my throat as I imagined what Ainsley’s reaction to finding out about the kiss would be, if she found out now.

I cleared my throat and tried to act casual as I asked, “So, is Sebastian here?”

“Oh, here we go,” Imogen said, rolling her eyes and turning away from me. She knew. She had to know. Why else would she react like that to such an innocent question? I could just imagine the thoughts spinning around her head right now, thinking about how I was so obsessed with her brother. She probably thought I’d only befriended Ainsley so I could get even closer to Sebastian. I’d been so stupid for letting Sebastian kiss me in front of everyone like that. Even if it had been the perfect first kiss—I never should have said yes.

“Sorry,” Ainsley said, shooting a glare at her sister that Imogen didn’t see because she still had her back turned. “Imogen’s a little sensitive about people asking about Sebastian.”

People. Not just me.

“Because every time we make a new friend, all they talk about is Sebastian!” Imogen snapped, spinning back around to face us. She put on a high-pitched mocking tone: “What’s Sebastian doing? Is Sebastian here? Can I come over and see your brother?” She huffed and put her hands on her hips, her manicured nails bright against the black fabric of her dress. She raised an eyebrow at me. “It gets old really fast, trust me.”

I wasn’t sure if I was in the clear yet, but at least her anger didn’t seem to be centred on the kiss. Even if she did know about it, she was mad about more general things than just that. Maybe it shouldn’t have been reassuring, but it was.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” I cleared my throat and looked away because I understood why girls were asking about Sebastian. I understood why they were interested in him. I felt like the kiss with him had changed me, altered my brain chemistry forever—but that wasn’t the reason I was hanging around Ainsley. And I’d been careful the last few days that we’d been talking not to bring up her brother too much, because I knew exactly how annoying it was. “People are like that with Dean too. I don’t really have a lot of friends, but the ones that come around seem to only be interested in him.”

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