Say It to My Face (Sweet Valley High Sr. Year(TM))

Senior year starts off badly for Jessica Wakefield when it seems everyone, including even her closest friends, believe she was involved with the biggest jerk in school over the summer. Original.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Conner McDermott shouted.

Elizabeth Wakefield squeezed her eyes shut.  This is a dream--a bizarrely vivid nightmare and when I open my eyes, he'll be gone.

She did, and he wasn't.  Conner McDermott, the Conner McDermott, was standing in front of her, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.  Elizabeth had to remind herself to breathe.

"I'm--I'm sorry," she stammered, sucking air.  "I need .  .  .  uh, I need .  .  ."

She trailed off, unable to formulate a coherent sentence.  Conner had been the focus of every one of her daydreams for the past few days, but she had never imagined him quite like this--beads of water dripping from his dark hair onto his glistening shoulders.  Quite a jolt to the heart for a Sunday morning.

"So you're the helpless little waif my sister brought home." Conner's green eyes were piercing.  "Shacking up with Barbie.  I can't believe it.  Don't you have some pink Malibu Dream House you can run off to or something?"

"Wait .  .  .  your sister?" she sputtered, wrenching her gaze from Conner's six-pack abs.

"I know you're not a rocket scientist, but .  .  .  my half sister? Megan Sandborn?" Conner prompted impatiently.

Sister? But their last names were--oh.  That was the half part.

"Okay," Elizabeth said hastily.  She touched her hand to her forehead.  "Yeah, Megan said I could stay here until my house was rebuilt.  We work together on the Oracle." Good.  She was making sense now.

"Oh, right, the school paper." Conner's voice seethed with sarcasm.  "What do you cover, hard-hitting news stories like whether the cafeteria should serve regular milk and chocolate milk?"

"Well, at least I do something instead of just ranking on everything!" Elizabeth's embarrassment was turning to indignation.  What right did he have to take an attitude with her? "What activities are you involved in--president of the Little Ironic Remarks club?"

Conner smirked.  "I think we have an opening for treasurer.  Interested?"

She stared up at him, too infuriated to speak.  For a moment his eyes locked with hers.  Feeling totally self-conscious, Elizabeth looked down .  .  .then realized she was staring at his chest again.  She focused on the tile wall above his head.

"I .  .  ." She came up with nothing.  Damn, he was annoying.

From the moment she first encountered Conner in her creative-writing class, Elizabeth had known that he wasn't someone she would ever even hang out with.  He was the kind of jaded-and-disheveled cynic who felt the compulsive need to tear everything down because he thought it made him look cool.  He'd made that pretty clear on the first day of creative-writing class.  Elizabeth had been explaining her reasons for taking the class when Conner had introduced himself by laughing at her, then harshing on her comments.

The fact that he'd read her essay aloud with a voice like an angel's, practically bringing tears to Elizabeth's eyes, hadn't swayed her opinion one iota.  Not one.

She was so not the kind of ditzy girl who went after those Kurt Cobain-wanna-be types.  She wasn't interested in playing mother figure to some slacker who was probably going to end up in a Zeppelin tribute band playing weddings.

So why was she still standing frozen in the middle of a steamy bathroom with Conner?


"You are one of the most obnoxious people I've ever met," Elizabeth spat after a long at-a-loss pause.

"Thanks for sharing." Conner suppressed the urge to let his furious glare splinter into laughter.  It was just too easy to get a rise out of Elizabeth.

He was beyond pissed that she was apparently staying in his house--but it was actually kind of funny to see how ridiculously embarrassed she was at the moment.  Way more embarrassed than a normal person walking in on somebody in a towel.  A normal person would have left five minutes ago.

Elizabeth was gripping the doorknob so hard, her knuckles were white.

"You know, you could get over yourself long enough to be a little civil," she went on, her voice gaining strength.  "I didn't ask to have my house totaled and have nowhere else to go."

Conner tried hard not to notice the way her blue-green eyes were flashing or the hollow of collarbone heaving just above the V neck of her T-shirt.

Oh, man.  He couldn't believe he was going to have to navigate the minefield of having Elizabeth Wakefield in his own house.  She was the first girl he'd ever met who surprised him--who busted all the stereotypes wide open.  And that meant he could never let himself get close to her.  Conner knew when to close himself off to disappointment and hurt.  He'd practically turned it into an art form.  But just the effort of not finding Elizabeth attractive was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.  Then again, maybe that was just the cold air rushing into the steam-filled bathroom.

"Point taken," Conner said curtly.  "Well, it was lovely running into you.  Now would you mind getting the hell out of here so I can shave in peace?"

"Gladly," Elizabeth shot back.  She swept from the room in a swirl of steam, leaving the door open behind her.

Conner stepped out of the shower and slammed the door shut, a little harder than was necessary.  This is all I need right now, he thought grimly, rubbing the bathroom mirror to clear the condensation away.

Conner stared at his reflection as he gripped the sides of the sink.  This was totally not cool.  He worked so hard to draw a line between his family life and his school life.  And now the one person who he had already sworn he'd never let into his world had been invited in by his own sister.  Barbie was going to have to go.

"Conner!"

The door connecting his room to the bathroom was flung open and Megan was standing there, looking all accusatory.

"God, Sandy! This was still my bathroom the last time I checked!"

"Yeah, well, it's not anymore," Megan said.  She was holding on to the damn doorknob just like Elizabeth had.  "You have to share it with Elizabeth now.  Why were you yelling at her?"

"She walked in on me," Conner said.  "Not unlike someone else I know.  What is it with you people?"

"You people?" Megan's eyebrows shot up.

"Girls!" Conner said, reaching up to wipe off the mirror again.  "You think you own the whole world."

Megan rolled her eyes.  "You sound like a five-year-old, Conner."

"Thanks, Sandy," he spat.  "She's not staying."

"Why? Do you have a problem with Elizabeth?" Megan asked.

Conner snorted.  "Where do I start?"

Actually, it was a thorny question.  Where should he start? Not with the deeply affecting essay that had...