Shut Out

Chapter twenty-eight

Being in Ellen's bedroom brought on a little déjГ vu. She lived in a nice house about a block from the high school, which made it an easy walk for the girls who wanted to support their boyfriends at the football game before heading to the sleepover.

Ellen's room sent me back to a time before all of this. Before the strike, before Randy, before the stupid rivalry began interfering with our lives. Sitting cross-legged on Ellen's floor, flipping through one of her fashion magazines, made me feel thirteen again. It felt good. Simple.

Boys had ruined that.

Plink.

"What was that?" Kelsey asked in a bored voice, pushing herself up on one elbow where she was stretched out on the floor. Ellen's room wasn't as big as Kelsey's, but it was still big enough that we had room to lounge around — especially since it was the weekend before fall break and almost half the girls had already headed out of town with their families, venturing to places far, far more interesting than Hamilton. Kelsey wasn't one of them, and I could tell she was pissed about it.

She got up and stepped over the other girls, making her way to the window as another pebble hit the glass. My body tensed as I thought of Randy and the night he'd shimmied up my drainpipe. The night I'd decided to start the strike.

"Um, Mary?" Kelsey said. "You should come see this."

Everyone, not just Mary, made their way to the window then, curious and bored and in need of some sort of entertainment.

And we got entertainment, all right.

Standing in the grass below Ellen's bedroom window was a small group of about seven boys. A few were still wearing football jerseys, and the others were soccer players — Cash among them. The sight of him made my cheeks burn — for several reasons, anger and shame not excluded.

At the front of the group, staring up at us and holding a battered acoustic guitar, was Finn, Mary's boyfriend. He wasn't the kind of guy you'd expect to see with a shy, tiny girl like Mary. Finn was tall, broad, and growing a steady beard. Normally, he looked like the intimidating beast that might beat you up and steal your lunch money. But right now, the way he looked up at us, at Mary, with this glow in his eye and the sweetest smile, he looked more like a teddy bear.

"Mary," he called up to us as Kelsey, against my protests, opened the window. "Mary, I… I miss you. I — "

"Can we get this over with, man?" Shane asked. "Come on. We came here to do this. Let's get on with it."

"Right." Finn cleared his throat. "Anyway, Mary, I have something I want to say to you, but I never get to be alone with you anymore. You won't let me, and… and I know this strike is… well, anyway." I'd never seen a boy Finn's size turn into such a blubbering fool. "You don't have to come down here," he said. "But please listen."

"Shut the window," I hissed at Kelsey.

She shook her head. "Let the boy speak."

Finn began to strum on his guitar, but before he got very far, Shane interrupted again.

"Hold up," he yelled toward the window. "Just gotta say — I did not agree to this song selection. This was all Finn and Sterling's idea, all right? I just agreed to help."

"Are you done yet?" Cash asked. Even though it sounded harsh, I could tell he was half laughing.

"Yeah. Whatever."

Finn cleared his throat and began to strum again. After a moment, he started to sing.

"It's tearin' up my heart when I'm with you…."

"Oh my God," Ellen said slowly. "Is that…?"

" 'NSync," Susan said, nodding. "I haven't heard this song since elementary school."

The thing was, Finn could not sing. He wasn't horrible or anything — not like the really, really bad people they showcase on the American Idol audition episodes. But he wasn't really talented, either. Then again, none of the boys were. They performed as backup singers while Finn strummed his guitar — something he was talented at.

Cash's eyes locked suddenly with mine as the second verse ended, and my heart thrummed in my chest. I knew this was about Mary and Finn — or, more likely, about the boys sabotaging us. But for a second, I wished he was singing to me. That he was telling me he wanted to be with me. That not being with me was killing him.

And he was killing me.

I looked away and nudged Chloe, who was crouching next to me. "Dear God," I said. "They're like sirens. We've got to close the window and stop listening."

"Lissa, look at her." She reached out her hands and forced me to turn and face Mary.

She was standing up, peering out the window with this look on her face like she might swoon. Her eyes were wide, and for a second I worried she was about to burst into tears. She slowly lifted a hand and placed it over her chest, her gaze fixed out the window. It was like a scene out of a Nicholas Sparks book.

"She hasn't kissed him in over a month," Chloe whispered in my ear. "She won't even be alone with him. Shane says Finn's afraid it's more than the strike. Like she's lost interest in him."

I turned my head back to look at her. "You talk to Shane?"

Chloe shrugged. "We're kind of friends. Like, we've hooked up enough that we're comfortable with each other. We talk."

I narrowed my eyes at her "Even when you aren't hooking up?"

Chloe gave me a fierce stare. "Yes, Lissa. Stop being so paranoid. I've stuck to the oath, but… but look at her. Mary. And Finn. Look at him, too. You remember how I told you there are some

good guys out there? He's one of them. I know I'm not an expert on romance, but they are clearly in love, and this is hurting them."

I opened my mouth to say something, but Susan turned to face me, her palms pressed against the window — her boyfriend, Luther, was one of the boys singing up to us. "Lissa," she said, "when can this whole strike thing be over? It's been, like, a month. I thought it would be done by now."

"Yeah," a few of the girls echoed. "I thought you said two weeks."

"Stop," I said, jumping to my feet — I'd been kneeling by the window. "This is what they want. They want us to give in. But we can't. We have to stay strong. We have to win." I pushed Kelsey out of the way and positioned myself in front of the window just as the song ended and the last notes of Finn's guitar were carried off by the October wind.

"Go home," I called down to them. "This won't work — and you'll wake up the neighbors."

"Mary!" Finn called, ignoring me.

I felt Mary come up behind me so she could peer over my shoulder out the window.

"I miss you," he said again. "I — "

Before he could finish, I slammed the window shut.

"Lissa!" Kelsey snapped, annoyed. "Why did you do that?"

"It's a trap." I looked right at Mary then. "You know that, right? This is just another attempt by the boys to make us give in. To make us lose. But we can't. We have to win. You know that, right?"

Mary opened her mouth, paused, then closed it again. Slowly,

she nodded and turned away, her shoulders slumped as she moved toward Ellen's bed.

Both Kelsey and Chloe were giving me the evil eye.

"What?" I asked. "I'm right. This is just a trick. Another one of their games. The same thing happened in Lysistrata."

"In… what?" Kelsey asked.

"It's this Greek play about a group of women who decide to end the war by going on a sex strike," I explained to the puzzled-looking group. "I'd never read it but, um, someone recommended it to me after the strike started. Anyway, the women take over the Acropolis and the men show up and try to lure them out. Just like this."

"And what happens?" Susan asked.

"They stay strong," I told her. "Their leader, Lysistrata, makes them stay inside — just like I'm doing. And they win. We have to win. That's the point."

"I thought the point was ending the rivalry," Kelsey said.

"It was — I mean, it is. It still is. And we will. I was wrong before, when I said we should tease them. We'll have to stop that, but if we just stay strong, keeping to the oath, they'll give up."

I could feel the unsatisfied murmur that rippled around the room, but no one argued with me. Instead, they all just exchanged glances before going back to what they'd been doing before the boys had shown up.

Chloe gave me one last glance — one full of recognizable frustration — before walking across the room and sitting next to Kelsey.

Kelsey? Of all people?

They began to talk in low voices. Like they were friends. Like it was normal for them to speak without screaming at each other. And I knew they were talking about me. It felt like a slap in the face.

But I kept my mouth shut and turned back to the window. I could just make out the boys' retreating backs as they skirted across Ellen's backyard and out toward the gravel back roads of Hamilton. The moonlight framed their silhouettes, and for a moment, one paused. I could see him turning his head back, but he was too far off for me to recognize his face as he looked at the house. At the window. At me.

Somehow, I knew it was Cash.