Perfect Couple

When I arrived, the football team was out of the showers and heading to their cars. Kaye, in her workout clothes and cheerleader shoes, sat on the tailgate of Brody’s truck, talking to him. As I watched, Sawyer approached them. I couldn’t hear what Kaye yelled at him from that distance, but I could tell she was shooing him. She pointed toward his truck. He retreated and sat on his own tailgate, waiting.

I leaned my bike against a palm tree. Kaye slid off Brody’s tailgate and patted the place where she’d been. I hopped up next to Brody, looking in his eyes for some hint of what was about to come. He shook his head no. She hadn’t told him yet.

“Sooooo,” Kaye said. She’d started a million club meetings since we’d been in school together. She volunteered to give speeches in front of the class. I’d never seen her look this uncomfortable.

“Spill it,” Brody said.

She pressed ahead. “The student council made a mistake. In ninth grade and tenth grade and eleventh grade, I was in charge of counting the votes for the Senior Superlatives. This year the student council advisor—you know, Ms. Yates—wouldn’t let me because I’m a senior myself and it wouldn’t have looked good for me to count the votes for my close friends and for myself. She gave the job to some younger students. I should have found a way to do it, though. I knew they would mess it up.”

Brody put his arm around my shoulders. “What happened?” His voice was loud.

“Most of the categories include a girl and a boy who don’t necessarily have anything to do with each other. Like, Tia was the girl who got the most votes for Biggest Flirt, and Will was the guy. I was the girl who got the most votes for Most Likely to Succeed, and Aidan was the guy. That’s how the student council tallied the votes for Perfect Couple That Never Was, too. But they shouldn’t have. Because it’s a couple.”

She turned to me. “You won the girl’s side of the vote because some people were pairing you with one boy, and some people paired you with another.” She turned to Brody. “You won the guy’s side because so many people paired you with two different girls. You and one of those girls should have come in second. Harper, you and another guy actually came in third. Two totally different people were paired together the most and should have won. But nobody paired Brody Larson and Harper Davis with each other.”

16

BRODY AND I LOOKED AT each other. He must have seen something very dark in my expression, because he removed his arm from my shoulders.

“I didn’t want to tell you.” Kaye sounded almost pleading. “I explained to Ms. Yates that the two of you started dating because of the title. She said it was even more important that we tell you, then. It wasn’t fair for you to base your relationship on false information. I see what she’s saying about rules and honesty and what have you, but sometimes I think this school forgets we’re human beings, just because we’re not adults yet. They act like our relationships with each other aren’t real.

“But!” She spread her hands and looked toward the sky for strength. “That’s as far as their crusade for the truth extends. Ms. Yates insisted I tell you this, but we’re supposed to keep the mistake a secret. Otherwise there will be a chain reaction. Since each person can win only one title, they’re all intertwined. If Harper wasn’t part of Perfect Couple, she should have won Most Artistic, because she got the most votes for that. The girl who we thought won that gets booted to Most Original, and so forth. Brody should have won Most Athletic. The advisor doesn’t want any of this to get out. It would take time to photograph the Superlatives again and the yearbooks would be late.” She grinned wanly at me. “You’re welcome.”

“Well.” I swallowed against the nausea. “Who’d the senior class pair me with as Perfect Couple, then?”

Kaye eyed Brody before she turned back to me and said, “Xavier Pilkington.”

I took a deep breath and let out the longest sigh of resignation. The school had paired me with Mr. Most Academic. He might wind up the valedictorian. He might not. Kaye and some other folks were giving him a run for his money. But when the class had elected him Most Academic, what they were really calling him was Biggest Nerd. Most Repressed.

Just like me.

“And Evan Fielding,” she added.

The old man’s hat.

“Who’d they pair Brody with?” I asked. It was going to hurt. But if I didn’t ask, the curiosity would eat me alive.

Kaye glanced at Brody again, like she was asking permission, before she swallowed and said, “Cathy.”

Grace’s best friend and fellow cheerleader and beer-searcher-outer. Sure, that made sense.

“And Tia,” Kaye said.

Of course. The free spirit. The sexy chick who didn’t give a damn what anybody thought. My complete opposite. The girl Brody had a crush on in middle school.

I’d thought the senior class had gone insane when they put Brody and me together. Now that I knew they’d put Brody with Tia, I understood how smart the members of our class were, and how they’d seen through Brody’s exterior to his deepest desires. We were never meant to be together. My admiration for him was real. I’d been talking myself into thinking we were compatible. But my week as his girlfriend had been a sham.

I turned to him. “I’m really sorry.”

He frowned at me. “About what?”

About the fact that he was going to make this as hard as possible, but it had to be done. I soldiered on. “About last night. I should have known it was too good to be true.”