Twelve

“Carrie! Carrie!”

I bolted upright. Realizing I must have dozed off, I stood up and began to brush leaves and dirt off of myself. I wondered how long I had been sitting behind that rock. Unfortunately, it looked like I was about to find out.

“There she is! I found her!” screeched Genevieve's voice.

“Thank God,” Jack's voice said sarcastically.

Gen ran over to me and immediately threw her arms around me. “Carrie, we were so worried! We've been searching for over two hours! I thought you might have gotten hurt or something... But honestly, I don't blame you for running at all. Seth acted like a jerk. In fact, I think when we get back, you should just go ahead and slap him.”

“Gen, calm down,” said a bored-sounding Jack. “I think this is all being blown out of proportion. I’m sure if we all just forget about it, everything will be fine.”

Forget about it? Was he serious?

“I can't believe you, Jack!” snapped Gen. “You're siding with Seth? That's just typical boy behavior. I thought you were better than that.”

“Well, you overreacting like this is typical girl behavior!” Jack shot back. “Seth wasn't trying to insult Carrie; he was just saying that he didn't want to go out with her. Is there a problem with that? I thought you didn't like him anyways, Carrie, so what's really the issue here?”

Gen gave a disgusted snort. “Whatever. Think what you want. Carrie and I are going back to camp, and then we're going to bed. And in the morning, we're heading back to the mainland and going home!”

“You don't have a car!” Jack called as Gen grabbed me and began to walk away.

“I have a cell phone and parents who love me!” Gen retorted.

Soon, we had left Jack in the dust.

“Carrie, you have every right to be mad with every single one of those boys,” she told me. “You don't even have to talk to any of them if you don't want to. Christine is on your side, too. We'll take over one of the tents and we won't let any of the others in.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, still unable to fathom why Gen and Christine were giving me so much support when I hardly even knew them. “Um, I'm sorry if I caused that fight between you and Jack.”

“Oh, it isn't your fault,” Gen assured me. “It was a long time coming. I've tried to overlook Jack's inconsideration for others up until now, but that was the last straw. Now, he has to change his ways or it's 'bye-bye, boyfriend'.”

“...Oh,” I said.

“So don't think you did anything wrong,” Gen told me. “You are the victim here, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. Okay, camp is just up ahead here, so we should be able to - ”

“Gen! You found Carrie?”

Great. The last person on earth I wanted to see – Seth.

“Not now, Seth,” Gen said sharply. “You've already caused enough trouble. Go to bed.”

“Hey, wait!” said Seth.

We turned around to face him. Surprisingly, he looked awful – tired, pale, and covered in dirt. For one second, I had some compassion for him. But only for one second.

“Look, Carrie, I can explain,” he said.

“Explain what?” I cried, almost involuntarily. “How you lied to me about everything? Well, I don't care. If you don't really like me, then leave me alone.”

I turned around and stalked off towards the tents. I must have left Seth bewildered, because he didn't try and follow me. Gen, on the other hand, caught up to me a few moments later.

“Good for you,” she said approvingly. “Let's use this tent. I'll just throw Jack's stuff out and you can take over his spot.”

I realized that I was exhausted, especially from all of the rowing earlier in the day, so I gratefully sunk down onto a random sleeping bag.

“Go ahead and try to get some sleep,” she told me. “I'll take care of everything else.”

Without protest, I laid my head down and shut my eyes. I was ready to escape into dreamland, where freakish things like this never, ever happened.

“You're coming home early?” cried my mother. “But why?”

I sighed into Gen's cell phone. “Some of the other girls wanted to go back, too, so I thought I might as well go with them. I had enough, anyways.”

My mother paused before saying, “Well, that's fine, but I was really hoping you'd have a good time on the trip.”

“I did,” I lied. “I was just ready to be done, that's all.”

Gen, Christine, and I had woken up early and packed up all of our things before piling into one of the canoes and heading off to the nearest dock. We hadn't even seen any of the boys, and it was definitely better that way. Gen and Christine had rowed, leaving me to sit and stare at the calm, peaceful water. Watching the lake definitely helped me settle down. After about an hour of canoeing, we ended up on the mainland and Genevieve had called her father. He was about an hour and a half away, so we had some time to kill before we got away from the wilderness.

“Then I trust your judgment,” my mother said. “See you soon.”

“Bye,” I said.

I hung up and handed Gen her phone. “Thanks for letting me use it.”

“No problem,” she said.

“Hey, guys, this rest stop place has a diner,” Christine said. “I was just inside checking out the menu. I have some cash, if anyone's hungry.”

“What do you think, Carrie?” Gen asked.

My stomach was complaining, so I decided to take advantage of Christine's generosity. “I guess I could eat a little something.”

The three of us entered the rest stop, which was designed like a log cabin, and were quickly seated. The place was mostly empty and quiet, save for the sound of something sizzling in the kitchen. My mouth watered at the thought of some hot food.

“What can I get for you ladies?” a bored waitress asked us after we'd been examining the menu for several minutes.

“Coffee and toast, please,” Gen said.

“Eggs, bacon, and tea,” Christine said.

“Uh... I'll have the pancakes,” I decided. “And some milk.”

The waitress wandered off to put our order in.

“So Evan was snoring all night last night,” Christine said. “I could hear him all the way from our tent. If I hadn't been so exhausted, I would have gone over and slapped him. I hate it when people snore!”

“Me too,” Gen agreed. “Jack always falls asleep during movies and starts snoring. It sounds like there's a chainsaw in his throat or something.”

“Ew,” Christine said. “My older brother snores, too. Usually, he's gone because he's at college, but now that it's summer, he's back and worse than ever. It's like there's a suffocating pig in his room.”

Gen laughed. “That's nothing. My ex-boyfriend was the worst of all...”

For two girls who had hated each other the day before, they were definitely getting along pretty well. At least my unfortunate plight had done some good for someone.

An hour later, we were done eating and began perusing the rest stop's souvenir shop. I considered buying my mom a key chain featuring the Adirondacks, but then I remembered I had no money and I was already indebted to Christine. So much for that.

The doorbell jingled, and I thought maybe Gen's father had arrived, so I turned my head slightly to see who had just come in. To my horror, it was not a middle-aged man, like I had expected, but the scum of the earth.

Yes, it was Seth, and he looked almost worse than he had yesterday, with bags under his eyes and numerous mosquito bites. Once again, I felt a small inkling of pity, but not enough to make me change my mind about anything. I quickly hid behind a rack of postcards and prayed he didn't see me.

It was only thirty seconds before a disgruntled Christine cried, “What are you doing here, Seth?”

“Where's Carrie?” he asked. “I need to talk to her.”

“Well, she doesn't want to talk to you,” Christine retorted. “Not after what you said about her. I really can't believe you, Seth. I thought you, unlike the others, weren’t a mindless jerk who used girls.”

“You don't even know the whole story, Christine,” Seth said, sounding exhausted. “Please, just tell me where Carrie is. I just need to talk to her for five minutes. Then I'll be gone.”

“I'll never understand why boys are so insensitive,” Christine grumbled. “Well, I'll leave it up to Carrie to decide whether she wants to talk to you or not. She's around here somewhere.”

Part of me wanted to know what Seth had to say for himself. After all, it must have meant something that he'd rowed over here so early in the morning, just to come after us. Suddenly, I felt a bit guilty. Maybe it was the right thing to forgive Seth. At least that way, we could go our separate ways on good terms.

“Seth?” I said tentatively, stepping out from behind the postcards.

Both Seth and Christine looked at me with wide eyes. But I knew that if I didn't talk to Seth now, he'd keep bothering me until I did. I might as well get it over with.

“Carrie,” said Seth.

“If you want to talk,” I said, hesitating, “that's okay.”

He bit his lip and shot a glance at Christine.

“Be careful,” she said warningly. “I’ll be right in here if you need me.”

She walked off, presumably to find Genevieve.

“Want to go outside?” Seth asked.

“Okay,” I agreed.

We sat down on the front steps of the shop. I looked down at my feet and kept myself occupied by playing with the bottom of my shirt. I silently prayed that this would be over quickly.

Seth took a deep breath. “Listen, what I said was not cool. I should not have said it. In fact, I didn't even really want to say it. I was just being stupid and saying the first thing that popped into my head. But just because I didn't mean it doesn't mean it was right for me to say it in front of those guys. So I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.”

“You didn't mean it?” I asked, almost unbelievingly. “Or are you just saying that now because you don't want me to be mad at you?”

Seth didn't say anything for a moment. I took that to mean that the answer to my last question was 'yes.'

“Okay, this is going to sound strange,” he said finally. “But there's been this thing with me and the guys for as long as I can remember. In the beginning of high school, they all began going through girls so quickly that I couldn't even remember most of the girls' names. And I was never into that, just because most of the girls in our grade were just not my type. Everyone thought I was strange because I never wanted to go out with anyone, especially considering that my friends were all the exact of opposite of me, so I gave myself an infamous reputation. It's almost as though I had expectations to live up to.”

He paused, giving me a chance to wonder where he was going with this.

“Anyways,” he said, “the guys automatically assumed, since we started to become friends, that there must be something going on. And as we both now, there's nothing going on, and you don't want there to be anything going on. So I only said what I said so they would get off both of our backs. Because I have such a reputation, they would make fun of both us endlessly if they thought we were the slightest bit interested in each other. And I'm not going to do that to you, Carrie. I'm not going to let my friends make your life a living hell just because I like hanging out with you. I know what I said came out the wrong way, and I shouldn't say things like that anyways, but I didn't want them to bother you.”

“Well, it's hard to know if you're lying or not,” I blurted out. “You could've thought this answer up last night for all I know.”

“I'm not lying, I swear,” he told me. “I'm not that good of an actor, Carrie. Ask anyone. I wasn't nice to you just to trick you. What did I have to gain, anyways? You're the first girl I've met who is actually interested in some of the same things I am. I thought, what's the harm in getting to know each other? I even thought about asking you out, but I knew you would say no. That's because you're just like me. You want to be careful before you just commit to someone like that, which is completely understandable and actually very smart.”

I had been right all along. Seth was trying to seduce me. Well, okay, that was the wrong word for it. But he liked me. He actually liked me. I could feel myself turning red already.

“Well, then why did you invite me on this trip with your friends?” I cried. “You knew we were all going to meet.”

“I don't know,” Seth said. “I thought maybe we could all be friends. I thought if they adjusted to you now, maybe later... They wouldn't be so annoying about us, if we, you know, got together.”

Later? Got together? What did that mean? That Seth expected me to warm up to him eventually and agree to go out with him? It was almost as thought he was entitled to going out with me or something.

“Look,” I said, mustering up all of the courage I could, “I accept your apology, if that's what you want me to do. But I... Well... I just don't think I wanted to be involved in this anymore.”

“You mean,” he said, “you don't want to be involved with me.”

I sniffled. Great, I was tearing up. Again. I could probably create an ocean with the number of tears I'd cried in the last month alone.

“It's not that I don't like you,” I cried defensively. “I just... I'm not ready for any of this. Besides, you don't want to get to be with someone like me. I'm quiet and boring and oversensitive, and you're going to college in the fall, and you'll meet lots of girls there and you'll forget all about me.”

“I don't think you're boring,” he retorted.

“Well,” I stammered, “Your friends do. And it seems like you really care about what your friends think. So... It's just better if we stop, you know, hanging out like this. It would be really nice if you didn't come visit me anymore. Or call me. Or anything like that.”

I could hardly believe what was coming out of my mouth. Was I really demanding that Seth stop bothering me? The look of shock on his face told me that I was. I wondered what he would do after he regained his composure. Would he beg for another chance? Would he agree whole-heartedly? And what did I want him to do?

Just then, a car pulled into the gravel parking lot. I knew it was Genevieve's father immediately, since she'd described the car as a blue BMW, and here one was. My suspicions were confirmed as Gen and Christine burst out of the front door.

“We really have to go, Carrie,” Gen told me, gathering up her things. “My little brother has a big game this afternoon, and my dad wants to be back in time for it.”

I nodded. “I'm ready.”

And so I walked away from Seth without even waiting for his answer. He was still sitting on the steps, unmoving, as we pulled out of the parking lot and jetted off down the quiet streets surrounding the Adirondacks.

It was strange how life went on after The Fallout. It was almost as though I'd never met Seth and my summer was going on as I had originally planned it. Save for the fact that Hayley was gone and my mother was increasingly worried about me.

“You seem down, honey,” she had said at dinner the night I'd returned.

“I'm fine,” I'd lied. “I'm just tired.”

She didn't ask any more questions about what had happened, but I could tell she know something was going on.

I returned to work at Angelo's on Monday. Things were chaotic because news had just come in that Caterina, Angelo's pregnant sister, had just gone into labor. Unfortunately, this did not keep Angelo from noticing that something was wrong with me.

“What happened?” he asked after I'd glumly given a customer two slices and a Coke. “Did that boy break your heart?”

“No,” I said tiredly. “He just played with my head.”

Surprisingly, Angelo did not pursue the matter further. Instead, he simply nodded knowingly.

“Well, don't let it dampen your spirits,” he instructed me. “Stupid American boys aren't worth the trouble. We have the big Pizza Wars coming up in two weeks, and we don't need anyone being depressed and slowing us down.”

“Pizza Wars?” I asked. “What's that?”

“It's an annual event held at the high school,” Angelo explained, his face hardening with bitterness. “We have never been invited until this year, since apparently, we were not important enough until we started stealing business from Pizza Hut. It is our chance to prove that true Italian pizza is far superior to the garbage they serve across the street!”

The pizza at Pizza Hut wasn't all that bad, but I didn't think that Angelo had ever actually tried it, so he wouldn't know.

“All of the pizza is put out anonymously, so everyone will vote based on flavor rather than loyalty,” Angelo continued. “I will be busy here making the pizza, and I will need Giuseppe and Alberto's help, so you and Teo must go to the actual competition to represent us.”

“Teo?” I asked disappointedly.

Of course, Teo was about as reliable as a flat tire, so that meant I would be the sole representative of Angelo's. And it sounded like I would pretty much have nothing to do except stand around and avoid taunts from the Pizza Hut employees.

“He will definitely be there,” Angelo assured me. “That stupid girl he was drooling over broke his heart, just like I told him she would. He has nothing better to do. And he needs the money. I ordered special t-shirts for you that should be here by the weekend. I hope you will not disappoint me.”

It dawned on me that winning Pizza Wars would mean triumphing over Pizza Hut once and for all. Suddenly, I had the great urge to watch them lose. Maybe then, Angelo would be so happy he would raise my paycheck, and I could buy more books, which would effectively drown any bad feelings left over from all of the things that had happened.

“I won't,” I promised him.

Okay, so maybe it was weird to use Pizza Wars as a way to resolve my personal vendetta against Seth. But seriously... He'd played me completely. Sure, maybe he thought he liked me, but he'd rationalized the whole thing in his head to the point where liking me wasn't as important as all of the other excuses for having me hang out with him.

Well, I would show him that what he had done to me had not ruined my life or sent me into depression like he probably thought it had. No, I would show him that I had risen from the ashes stronger than before, and ready to kick his sorry little butt.

The war was on.