The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back Read online

  I didn't respond, squeezing my eyelids together. I was finished crying. I decided there would be no more tears for Jake Kingston.

  "Do you want me to get your dad?"

  For a second I actually wanted to laugh. "No." I started wiping old tears away with the back of my hands. He would be totally useless. He'd say there were plenty of other fish in the sea or time heals all wounds or any of those other meaningless things parents say when they have no idea how to help you.

  "Then tell me. What happened?"

  A short bark of laughter came out. "I can't tell you. You're like the one person I can't tell."

  "I'm your sister. You can tell me anything."

  Stepsister, I mentally corrected. "Not this."

  "Tilly." Ella sounded determined. "Look at me." This time her hand wasn't gentle and she forced me to turn over. "Tell me."

  Suddenly I wanted to tell her. It probably wasn't fair to unburden it on her, to let her know how I'd betrayed her, but I so wanted to tell someone what I felt, all the things I'd been dealing with on my own. I'd never told a single soul and I thought maybe if I told Ella, it might not be so hard to cope with.

  I explained how I had had detention, and gave her all the gory details of how Jake came in and what he said and what I'd said.

  "Wow." Ella sat thoughtfully for a moment. "He was out of line, but I don't understand why it would make you this upset. It sounds like you held your own."

  The moment had come. The one I'd been avoiding for so very long. I never thought I would have to tell Ella how I felt about Jake. I quickly sat straight up and looked down at my hands.

  This was it.

  I was going to just say it.

  It couldn't be that hard, right?

  Finally, I let out a long breath. "I was so upset because… because… I'minlovewithJakeKingston." The words came out as fast as I could force them out.

  Ella blinked several times. Then she said, "What?" Only she managed to take that one word and stretch it out to like six syllables.

  I nodded to let her know she'd heard me right. It had been easier than I thought. And it helped that her hands weren't wrapped around my neck choking the life out of me, which is most likely what I would have done had our situations been reversed.

  "You're in love with Jake?" she clarified. I nodded again. "For how long?"

  "Since I was nine."

  She looked thoughtful. "And you've never been interested in any other guy?"

  "I've never even kissed…" Suddenly realizing what I was admitting to, I looked down and could feel my cheeks turning hotter.

  "I mean, Spin the Bottle yes, but not for real." I risked glancing at her face. She seemed stunned.

  "How could I with a mouth full of metal?" I said in my defense. That made Ella smile. I had certainly needed those braces. My dad once said that we have the Austin Powers gene when it comes to teeth, which I didn't get and had to go to YouTube to understand. "But now that those suckers are off, I make no promises about retaining the virtue of my lips."

  Ella giggled, and the awkward moment was over. Until she said, "I can't believe that you and Trent have never kissed."

  "Me and Trent? Seriously? Ugh. It would be like kissing a brother." I mean, I can sort of see the appeal. I know there had been girls who have liked him, but he never seemed to notice anyone in return. It was sort of what made us friends. We both hated everyone.

  We sat in silence for a little while. I started to sniff and Ella got up to grab me some tissues. She handed me the box and said, "I don't think I've ever seen Jake mad about anything before."

  "Apparently, I'm the only one who gets to see that delightful side of him."

  She watched me with a weird expression on her face. "No, it just reminds me of that saying about there being a fine line between love and hate."

  I couldn't help it. I snorted. She was so very delusional. It was just like Ella to take a bad situation and try to spin it into a fairy tale.

  "It makes sense. Boys like girls like me in high school. They like girls like you once they grow up. The good ones do, anyway."

  I didn't feel like again explaining to Ella about how the real world works for those of us who don't look like supermodels. Prince Charmings were only interested in Cinderellas.

  "This must have been really hard on you." She gave me a little hug and then said, "So now all I have to do is break up with him."

  Of all the responses I'd imagined Ella having to my confession I can honestly say that was the only one I hadn't ever considered.

  Now it was my turn to say, "What?" in disbelief.

  She just smiled at me.

  "Girl slash Stepsister Code says that even if you break up with Jake I can't date him," I said. A tiny flutter of hope started up in my stomach, and I knew from past experience it was best to squash it as soon as possible.

  Her smile got bigger. "I absolutely promise you I won't be jealous or care if you two date. It won't hurt me to let him go."

  "How can you say that?" I couldn't fathom how such a thing was possible. It was actually beyond my comprehension. "You're acting like you don't even like him all that much."

  Ella shrugged, as if she agreed with what I said. "Don't get me wrong—he's a nice guy. But we never had much in common or anything to talk about. I mean, it was fun to be seen with him the few times we went out. And I guess he's cute and everything."

  Cute? Cute? I was insulted even though I was still mad at him. Jake Kingston was insanely hot. Like, God's gift to women hot. And fun to be seen with? There was so much more to him than that, but I realized in that moment that Ella didn't see him the way that I did.

  Then it occurred to me that Ella never really had a chance to get to know Jake very well. I didn't like to ever think about the two of them as a couple, but what Ella said made me think about everything in a new light. He had traveled the entire summer with his family at some chateau in France. Since he had returned, with her volunteering, schoolwork and job, and with his extracurriculars, they never spent much time together. Jake had started his pursuit of her last fall, and I thought Ella was just playing hard to get, but now it sounded like she had never been interested in him. He finally got her to agree to go out with him at the end of the year, where they were oh-so-predictably and nauseatingly crowned Queen and King at Malibu Prep's version of the prom. They were not the PDA type. You would never have even guessed they were dating if you didn't know better. Everyone at school always speculated and gossiped about it. I had been approached a few times for intel, but I honestly knew nothing. Ella and I never talked about Jake. She had tried once or twice, but I'd always shut her down. I couldn't bear it. Now I wondered what she would have told me had I ever let her talk. If she would have admitted to how things actually were between them.

  If she would have explained why their relationship had been even weirder since he got back. Since around the time of the Bathroom Incident.

  Even if it gave me some hope and made my long-standing guilt melt away, I couldn't do it. "I don't want you to break up with Jake for me."

  "It would have happened anyway. You just gave me the excuse I've been looking for. And I'm not breaking up with him for you. I'm doing it for me." Ella turned her head to study my manga wall. She suddenly sounded unhappy. "There's a boy I've been sort of interested in, and I've wanted to go for it and I realized I didn't know how so I just stayed in something that felt comfortable which was dumb." She turned back to face me, and took both of my hands in hers. "If I'd known it would hurt you, I never would have even dated him in the first place."

  I realized that I might have to reassess the Ella situation. I might even have to cross off some numbers on my List of Grievances. No wonder everyone loved Ella. She was pretty awesome, even if I had been blindly jealous over something that I apparently didn't need to even worry about.

  "Why did you date him?" I know I had my no-Jake rule with Ella, but I wanted to understand.

  She shrugged again. "I guess because everyo
ne expected me to date the quarterback."

  "It's very high school cliché of you."

  "I know," she said.

  I guess since I was being such a miserable cliché by crying over a boy, Ella might as well be one too. "And if I'm being honest, it was in part because he wanted me to."

  Of course Jake Kingston got everything he wanted whenever he wanted it.

  "So what do we do now?" Ella asked.

  It royally irritated me that Jake always won. He wanted Ella as a girlfriend, and he apparently wore her down until she finally said yes. He was the star of the football team, probably on track to become valedictorian, and had everything in his life handed to him on a silver platter.

  Well, maybe I could take something away from him. Ms. Rathbone and Trent had been right. I needed to take some action in my life. It was time for the ugly stepsister to strike back.

  "What are we going to do now?" I repeated with a small, sly smile as I squeezed her hands tightly. "I'll tell you what we're going to do now. I'm going to run for senior class president."

  Chapter 6

  Ella enthusiastically agreed with my crazy plan, and assigned herself the role of campaign manager. I didn't know how she planned on doing this in addition to the 3,467 other things she had to get done every day, but she insisted. I had often wondered how Ella accomplished everything that she needed to. I suspected that Ella got by on four hours of sleep. I needed like twelve.

  She grabbed her laptop and started brainstorming campaign ideas with me when the doorbell rang. Trent. I had forgotten he was coming over to hang out. After promising to talk with Ella about the campaign later, I went to answer the door.

  I realized that I hadn't washed my tearstained face given Trent's alarmed expression. "Uh, are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," I said.

  He looked relieved. I realized the extreme disadvantage of only having guy friends. They weren't all that interested in your emotional well-being.

  I excused myself to splash water on my face and saw that things were worse than I had imagined. Dark black circles from my mascara ringed my eyes. I looked like the bedraggled love child of a sad clown and a raccoon. Loud music exploded from another room and I knew what Trent had decided to do today.

  When I came back to what my dad calls the "entertainment room," I saw that Trent had already settled in on the couch in front of the enormous flat screen TV my dad insisted was necessary even though, other than Dodgers games, I'd never actually seen him watch television. My dad had also insisted on buying a set of Alexandria speakers that had cost him about a couple hundred thousand dollars. My dad took his music very seriously, as did Trent. Trent and I typically either watched my movies or he listened to his emo music on those speakers. He kept talking about stuff like the tonal quality, but all I could hear was the loud.

  I also noticed that he wasn't alone. Ella sat on the couch with him, with her eyes closed She leaned her head back and forth as it bobbed to the beat. They were what my dad would call a study in contradictions. Blonde, tiny Ella with her hair knotted on top of her head, wearing her glasses, dressed in a pink hoodie and matching sweats, looked like the total opposite of Trent with his black spiky hair, piercings and his black T-shirt and ripped jeans.

  The song ended and Trent got up to retrieve his iPhone from the docking station attached to the speakers.

  "I really like this live version," she said.

  "Me too," Trent agreed as he sat back down next to Ella. I noticed he sat much closer to her than where he had started out.

  "You'll have to text me what other songs you recommend from the new album."

  "I don't have your number," he said.

  "Here." Ella pulled out her phone and handed it to Trent so he could put himself in her address book.

  A loud crashing sound came from the kitchen. Carlotta had the night off, which meant my dad was attempting to make dinner. Attempting being the operative word. Ella saw me standing behind the couch. We exchanged looks, and she said, "I'd better go check on him." Ella handled my dad better than I did.

  I flopped down on the couch next to Trent. He had entered his details into the phone, and then called himself to get her number. He glanced toward the kitchen and then returned to the main screen on Ella's phone. He found her music folder and opened it. He started scrolling.

  "What are you doing?"

  He gave me a withering look, like I should have known better than to ask. "I'm looking at her playlist."

  Trent had this theory that you could tell everything you needed to know about a person just by looking at the music they have downloaded.

  "Nice," he muttered more to himself than to me. I attempted to take the phone back but he jerked it out of my reach. "Just a second. Let me finish."

  I folded my arms and glared. He shouldn't be going through Ella's phone, but I couldn't get worked up enough over it to stop him.

  "Look at this," he said with more excitement in his voice than I'd heard in years. "She has Saves The Day, The Smiths, and Sunny Day Real Estate on here. She's the only girl I've met whose playlist doesn't include at least ten crappy songs. Do you know how rare that is?"

  He was talking about me. "Your theory is deeply flawed."

  "Says the girl with ten Justin Bieber songs on her phone."

  "There is no need to take the name of The Biebs in vain. You leave him out of this."

  This time when I grabbed for Ella's phone I got it away from him. I put it on the coffee table. I didn't need yet another reminder of how inadequate I was.

  "So, I was planning on going to this poetry reading next week over at Pepperdine. Interested?"

  "Blech," I said. "Listening to a bunch of pretentious wannabe college beatniks reading what they think is great literature? Pass."

  "I just thought, maybe you and me and Ella could…"

  So he had invited me solely to get access to my stepsister. He was supposed to be my best friend. A burst of anger flared up.

  And then, weirdly enough, it went away as quickly as it had come. Would it really matter if Trent tried to pursue Ella? Despite what she said, Ella had just given Jake up in order to give me a shot with him. The least I could do was share some of Trent's attention. Obviously, nothing would come of it. He'd realize it was pointless soon enough. It might take him longer to catch on though, because Ella was so nice to everyone.

  Not to mention that I knew how much Ella would actually enjoy the reading. "You should ask Ella to go. She loves all that crap."

  He looked surprised. "Seriously?"

  "You've never noticed those books she carries around by that guy who didn't believe in capitalization?"

  "Are you talking about e.e. cummings?"

  I had no idea. "Sure."

  Ella came back into the room. "Crisis averted." She sat down on the overstuffed armchair right next to the couch.

  "Trent's going to a poetry reading next week at Pepperdine. You want to go?"

  "I'd love to," Ella said excitedly. "I'd heard about the reading and wanted to go but Jake would never…Anyway, it'll be fun. I'll just have to change my work schedule."

  "Cool. Do you want to meet me there at 7:00?"

  I smacked his shoulder. "Way to be a jerk. The least you could do is give her a ride." I leaned to the side to look at Ella. "He'll come over here at 6:30 to pick you up."

  Ella's phone rang. She looked at it with a funny expression and said, "I need to take this. Be right back."

  As soon as she left the room, I hit Trent again. "What's wrong with you?"

  "Stop doing that." He pulled his shoulder out of hitting range. "What are you talking about?"

  "You'll meet her there?"

  Trent shrugged and looked in the direction Ella had gone. "I didn't want her to think I was asking her on a date or something. She has a boyfriend."

  "Not for long," I said, ignoring his bewildered expression. "Besides, Ella's so far out of your league you're not even playing the same sport. And you're acting like you're read
y to propose or something."

  "Whatever," he scowled at me.

  My dad called my name and I yelled back, "What?"

  A few moments later he came in the room, drying his hands on a dishtowel. "Dinner's done. Where's your sister?"

  Stepsister. "Phone call."

  "Trent! You joining us tonight?" my dad asked. Trent's father was a workaholic doctor, and his mother was one of those never home socialite types, so he rarely had dinner with them. If he was over, he always ate with us.

  Except tonight, apparently. "Thanks for the invite Mr. Lowe, but I have to get home." He picked up his backpack, threw it over his shoulder and without even looking at me said, "See you tomorrow."

  After the front door shut, my dad said, "I've never known Trent to turn down food before."

  "Me either." This was turning out to be one weird day. I got up and followed Dad back into the kitchen where he handed me plates and silverware to set the table.

  "Ella!" my dad yelled. And instead of yelling back like I had, she replied, "Coming!"

  "So much for you slaving away in the kitchen," I pointed to the opened Chinese food containers as I sat down in my spot.

  "It's hot, and it's much more edible than anything I could make." To give him some credit, he was chopping up some lettuce and tomatoes. I think he was going for a salad, and I decided not to tell him that salad didn't really go with wontons.

  "Where's Trent?" Ella asked when she reached the kitchen and slid into her chair next to me. "Went home," I replied.

  She looked a little put out. "I wanted to tell him I got someone to cover my shift."

  "Why don't you quit your job?" I asked as I dumped a bunch of cashew chicken on my plate. "My dad's got plenty of money. You don't need to work."

  "Your dad's done enough for me." Ella glanced up at my father, who hummed while he chopped. "I'm grateful to him for taking me in, but I have to make my own way. I need to get in to UCLA, and I need to get a scholarship."

  "Is that why you work so hard?" I thought of all her volunteering and studying and working.

  She nodded as she offered me a pair of chopsticks, which I refused. I never, ever used chopsticks on principle. My fork worked perfectly fine, thanks.