The Guys Are Props Club Read online

  The adults smiled and shook their heads, amused. The Amazing Capello had wowed them, too. Yet I felt all my strength crumble as Sebastian took a bow and smiled his disarming smile, still acting as if I didn’t exist at all.

  Chapter 28

  Sebastian did a few more coin tricks, as well as some card tricks. Every time, the kids had the same reaction. He was good at magic and with the kids. At the end, he performed the best trick yet. Against all logic, he pulled a tiny puppy dog from his top hat and handed to Hunter. It looked like a Maltese.

  “I hope your parents don’t mind,” Sebastian said, winking in their direction. Hunter’s dad smiled at Jill and wrapped one arm around her. The sneaky smile they exchanged told me that this had all gone according to plan.

  “Oh . . . Mom . . . Dad . . . can I keep him?” Hunter asked, holding the puppy to his chest and putting on his most charming smile.

  Jill pursed her lips and looked dubious.

  “Pleeease,” Hunter begged.

  “Oh, all right,” his parents said in unison.

  All the kids started cheering, as if they were the ones getting a puppy for their birthdays.

  A smile rose to my lips as I watched Hunter bury his face in the dog’s white fur, while the puppy licked his fingers. When I glanced away from Hunter, I was startled to find Sebastian staring at me. My smile slowly shrank as I took in his serious expression. After a short moment, he turned back to the kids, bantering and joking with them.

  I turned away from the house and stared at the back fence. The commotion continued behind me as Jill brought out the cake and ice cream. We sang happy birthday and when Jill began distributing slices among the children, I noticed Sebastian slipping inside, unseen by all but me.

  Assuming that he was going inside to change, I decided this would be a good time for me to leave. I picked up my fruit punch bottle and mustard-stained paper plate and deposited them in a garbage bin off to the side. As I made my way back, Hunter approached and handed me a piece of cake.

  “Strawberry cake is my favorite,” he said.

  I took the plate from him. “It looks delicious,” I said. “But, um, I think I’ll be heading out, Hunter.”

  “What?!” he exclaimed. “No, you can’t go yet.”

  “Hunter,” his dad said reproachfully, coming up behind his son. “Maddie probably has homework and other things to take care of on the weekend. I remember Saturdays were big laundry days for me,” Peter said, smiling wistfully.

  I nodded, thinking of the pile of laundry I’d been neglecting for several days, although my true reason for leaving was cowardice.

  “But you haven’t even seen my room, and we haven’t opened the presents,” Hunter complained, his voice dangerously close to breaking, making me feel awful.

  “Hunter, that’s enough,” his father said, though not without gentleness.

  “It’s getting late and I need to catch a cab,” I apologized.

  “I can give you a ride back.”

  I closed my eyes and turned very slowly. Sebastian stood behind me, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. The only trace left of his disguise was the kohl under his eyes.

  “It’s okay,” I said in a weak whisper. “I should go.”

  But Hunter didn’t hear my murmured reply and said, “See, you don’t have to go. The Amazing Capello comes to the rescue. Thank you, bro.” He gave Sebastian a high five.

  Sensing something unspoken between Sebastian and I, Hunter’s dad gently interrupted. “Let’s go help Mom with the cake, son.”

  I looked at my shoes. My red toenails peeked out from the open tips.

  “It’s for Hunter,” Sebastian said to explain his offer for a ride.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “How have you been?” His hands were behind his back as he stood stiffly. I could tell he was asking to be polite.

  I forced myself to meet his eyes. “Fine, and you?”

  He answered with a sigh and a one-shoulder shrug. We stood in awkward silence for a moment.

  “How are your . . . extracurricular activities going?” he finally asked.

  “I have none,” I said, the words tasting bitter from the sting of his insinuation. He’d heard about G.A.P.

  Sebastian shook his head. “I can’t believe my luck. Of all the girls on campus, I had to find you.” His own bitterness seemed to match mine. He paused, but I was too taken aback by the sting of his comment to say anything in reply.

  “I wish I hadn’t met you,” he went on. “I thought it was bad enough that day outside the food court. Then I heard about your club. What was it? Guys Are Props? Or maybe Girls Are Players?” He gave a cynical chuckle that sounded utterly unlike the Sebastian I knew. “I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s all the same.” He looked troubled and continued with difficulty. “I suppose it was a lesson I needed to learn. I can’t be an idealist like my father. This is a different time. You can’t trust anyone.”

  On his lips were the words that I myself had uttered many times. People were not to be trusted. Suddenly, I realized that what I’d done to him was far worse than I’d suspected. I hadn’t only broken his heart. I’d also crushed his unguarded disposition toward people. He’d been so happy and carefree when I met him. Now he seemed bitter and resentful. I couldn’t let him fall into the same trap I had. He was too good to lose faith in the world, in life, because of me.

  “That’s not true,” I argued. “You can’t let what I did poison how you judge other people. Look at me,” I said forcefully.

  His eyes had drifted away, but now snapped back to mine in surprise.

  “There are good people in the world. People like you.” He frowned, but I continued. “I’m not worth any contempt you might be harboring against other girls or anyone else. I’m just a bad decision you made, that’s all. You’ll find someone good, someone who deserves you.”

  Tears brimmed in my eyes, and I knew that if I didn’t walk away immediately, he would see me cry. There was much more I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t. Not without falling apart. Without even a goodbye, I turned sharply on my heel and walked inside the house, taking refuge by helping one of Hunter’s aunts tidy up the kitchen.

  I hung around until Hunter opened his presents. Cowardly as it was, I went in the bathroom afterward, called a cab and sneaked outside unnoticed. I left without even saying goodbye, but resolved to call Hunter later to apologize. When the cab arrived, I slipped inside unnoticed. On the ride to U.C.I., I fought not to cry and succeeded. At least I had a little inner strength to feel proud of. Later that night, I called Hunter, and we spent an hour on the phone as he described every toy he’d received in vivid detail. He said he loved the Star Wars Lego set I gave him. I was glad. I smiled at his creative descriptions. When we hung up, I felt a little better. It was nice to be liked by somebody.

  ***

  A week after Hunter’s birthday, I was sorting laundry, sitting on the floor, when a knock at the door startled me. I pushed the basket out of the way, got up from the floor and went to open the door. To my shock, I discovered Sebastian on the other side.

  “Hi, Madison.” He walked in the room without waiting to be invited.

  “Sebastian? What . . . why are you here?” I stammered and wrung my hands together, feeling a sudden lump in my throat.

  “I need to talk to you. Do you have time . . . right now?” He looked pained and unsure of what he was doing.

  “Sure.” I closed the door hesitantly, then walked to the bed, sat cross-legged and pointed to my desk chair. “Take a seat.”

  He sat at the edge of the chair and ran a hand over his black hair, pushing it away from his forehead. Silence stretched between us like a huge, dividing abyss, one I knew we would never be able to bridge.

  Except . . . he was here, and a foolish hope made its way back into my heart.

  Sebastian shifted in his seat before starting. “During his long life, my father came up with many little pieces of wisdom that he made sure to share with me every cha
nce he got.” The same sadness that always visited him when he talked about his father fell over his face, stretching his lips into a rueful smile. “He always said that when you had something difficult to tell someone, the best thing to do was to start with the hardest thing you could imagine telling that person.”

  “That sounds bold,” I said, wondering what the hardest thing he could tell me was.

  “Yeah, he was that, for sure.” After a pause, he said, “But I’m not so bold, so I’ll tell you the second hardest thing.”

  He forced himself to look at me. I did the same and found myself falling into the depths of his eyes, the same way I had the first day I met him.

  “No matter how hard I’ve tried or how badly I want to,” he said, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

  I inhaled a shaky breath. The hope that had been swelling in my heart now grew rapidly. Desperately, I tried to contain it, tried not to jump across the bed and cling to Sebastian’s neck. My chest felt tight.

  It hurt so much to be hopeful.

  I wanted to tell him I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him either, but I was afraid that if I said the wrong thing he would walk out of my life again, so I sealed my lips shut, hoping that wasn’t the wrong choice, hoping my eyes were telling him half of what his eyes were capable of expressing.

  Sebastian continued hesitantly, watching my reactions very closely. “Not thinking about you became even more difficult after Hunter’s birthday party and what you said to me.” He took a deep breath. “After that, I started questioning everything, feeling very restless about the way things ended. So when I ran into Steve yesterday, I asked him why he’d decided to tell me about . . . you playing him. We share a class, but we’re not friends or anything, so his intervention seemed odd to me.”

  Unable to hold his gaze, I looked down and started picking at a hole in my worn-out TOMS. Would I ever stop feeling shame when reminded of my mistakes?

  “What did he say?” I managed to ask.

  “Well, Jessica told him that if he wanted to get back at you, he should talk to me and tell me everything that had happened last semester.”

  Perhaps I should have been surprised, but I wasn’t. It made sense. I already knew she’d told Steve I’d played him on purpose. It wasn’t so hard to imagine she’d actually prompted him to talk to Sebastian. Still, it hurt.

  I looked toward her side of the room. “I don’t really understand what happened between us. She got so angry at me for no good reason and just left.”

  Sebastian glanced around the room. It dawned on him for the first time that all of Jessica’s things were gone. He blinked in astonishment.

  “Is that why you’re here?” I asked, before he could say anything. “Because of what Steve said about Jessica?” It wasn’t clear how that had led Sebastian here.

  He nodded. “After talking to him, I haven’t been able get one idea out of my head.”

  “What idea?” I asked, trying to be brave.

  “That we were going to meet that afternoon, because you wanted to talk to me. And just before Matt punched me,” he winced as if remembering his bloodshot eye, “you wanted to explain something about what happened with Steve.

  “I’ve been so angry at you. At Jessica. At Matt. I haven’t been able to think clearly. And now that you’ve become this . . .” he searched for words, “this stubborn ache inside of me, I realize that the only way to make it better is to listen to you, to let you tell me what you wanted to tell me that day. If you still feel willing to talk to me, that is.”

  I now saw that Sebastian was here only to regain his peace of mind. As determined as the hope inside my chest was, he hadn’t come to patch things up between us so we could move forward—but so we could move apart. Even with that knowledge, I began to tell him everything, happy that I could at least give him that.

  Chapter 29

  None of the guys in my high school ever interested me. My entire childhood, I lived in the same house. Never moved. Never even went on vacation anywhere. So I attended high school with the same kids I used to beat up when they cheated at Uno, the same kids that told me that if I pulled down my panties, they would show me theirs.

  Not surprisingly, I found them all unbearable. A few of them asked me out, and some had turned out fairly cute, but I just didn’t like any of them. To be honest, for most of my junior high and high school years, I was more interested in my classes and getting good grades. I was a bookworm. I really enjoyed learning and started dreaming of becoming a doctor. Not to mention that I was scared of ending up like my mom, a single parent with a kid and a crappy job.

  Anyway, when I turned seventeen, things changed a bit. I guess it must have been hormones or something, but suddenly, when I went out with my friends to the mall or the movies, my eyes started gravitating toward older boys. Really cute, older boys to be precise. I was foolish and put too much stock in their looks. I guess I didn’t know better. My mom never told me what I should look for in a boy. She was not that kind of mom.

  Looks were always very important to her. Of course, she’s beautiful and works very hard at maintaining her looks. Her line of work requires it.

  She’s a stripper.

  Then one night, I met David at a party. I was immediately attracted to him. He was two years older than me. He was tall and muscular. He had blond hair and hazel eyes. All the girls at the party were talking about him, hoping he would notice them.

  Then he noticed me.

  He asked me to dance. He was a sweet talker, or maybe I was just naive. He complimented me on my looks, held me close, and called me beautiful. I believed everything he said. After the party, he started calling me, asking me out. I was over the moon, and my friends were so jealous, it made me happy. I had no clue what was really important.

  David started coming to my house to visit me. I thought he was so sweet and respectful. He wanted to make sure my mom was okay with us dating, especially since he was older than me. I thought that showed he cared about me. I fell in love with him and saw, not only the stars, but the entire universe in his eyes.

  My friends were sure, and I was too, that he’d be my first one. I wanted to sleep with him so badly. None of my friends were virgins. They’d all had sex with their boyfriends. I was glad that I hadn’t dated anybody, much less had sex, and David would be my first.

  One day, I cut class to come home early. My mom would be at work, and I planned to call him to invite him over and seduce him. He’d never gone further than second base. He said that he respected me, that he wanted to wait. But when I got home, I discovered why he’d never wanted to go further.

  He had been sleeping with my mother.

  I walked in on them.

  I ran out of the house, sobbing. I was devastated. I felt like such a stupid child. The signs had all been there, and I didn’t see them. But after I found them in her bed, it all became so clear. The way they looked at each other when he came over for dinner, the way he always talked to her for a bit before she handed me the phone, the way he treated me like a child.

  He was never interested in me. He’d seen my mom stripping at her club one night, and he became infatuated instantly. She’d had me when she was fifteen, and she’s still youthful and gorgeous.

  I don’t know how I survived those last few weeks of school, not to mention all summer long. I had nowhere else to go, no other relatives, otherwise I would have left. I hated my mom so much. Who does that? Who does that to their own kid? She begged me to forgive her, but it just wasn’t in me. I spent little time at home, to say the least. I was so disenchanted with my mom. Guys. Everyone. I vowed to get through college without getting involved with anyone. I didn’t want that kind of heartache again.

  The day I finally left home, I was relieved and lost at the same time. I was suddenly a college student. It was supposed to be an exciting time. Instead, it was scary. I didn’t know anybody, and I didn’t even have the support of family back home, telling me it would all be okay.


  That’s when I met Jessica. Ironically, as different as we were, I found a kindred soul in her. She was still reeling from being dumped by Taylor. We were in similar situations—heartbroken, bitter, and utterly unprepared for college life. During the first few weeks of our freshman year, all we did was mope and feel sorry for each other.

  But one day I woke up, sick of being stuck in the past. I wanted to be done thinking about David and my mom. I told Jessica that we should forget about them, that we needed to move on.

  G.A.P. was her idea of moving on.

  At first, it was therapeutic. We griped about our exes over ice cream, coming up with creative insults for them. We talked about how to spot Players, and convinced ourselves that all guys were like David and Taylor. We even came up with a playbook of rules for girls to follow. At first, it all seemed like a game, but then she found other girls who wanted to join, and, next thing I knew, we were holding meetings.

  The first semester was harmless enough. We just sat there and shared our stories. But Jessica wasn’t satisfied with that, and soon she came up with the idea of pulling Plays. She made it a requirement to remain a member.

  A few girls pulled out of the club, but she was undeterred. I didn’t agree with the changes and told her so, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was her co-founder. What would the girls think if I quit or didn’t do what was required of everyone else? I had to set a good example.

  There is no excuse for what I did. I shouldn’t have let her pressure me into Playing Steve. But it was like a snowball rolling down a mountain. Once it got started, once I let her manipulate me into something small, I couldn’t stop her. I was just so . . . weak-minded.

  After what I did to Steve, I felt low and evil. I hated myself, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything like that again.