Cross Me Off Your List by Nikki Godwin Page B

anything, and trust me, her
family can afford it.”
    “I’m scared to find out where this is
heading,” Noah says.
    “I don’t even want to elaborate on her
collection because it wasn’t her collection – it was mine.” The
words burn my tongue when they leave my mouth, like the piercing of
the knife she rammed through my back.
    “She stole your collection?” Noah asks.
    I nod, absolutely hating reliving the memory.
I’ve convinced myself for weeks that if I don’t think about it,
eventually I’ll forget. That would be the dream anyway.
    “She replicated everything I made,” I admit.
“My sundress made of Skittles wrappers, the formal ball gown made
of Peanut M&M wrappers, everything. Her designs were slightly
different, but if we’d both sent those designs down that runway,
we’d have made jokes of ourselves.”
    Noah shakes his head. “Are you seriously
telling me you pulled out of the competition because of her? You
let her steal your designs and walk them down a runway?”
    I shrug because I don’t want to say yes. But
that’s exactly what I let her do. I let her sabotage my dream. I
didn’t stand up for myself. I cowered in the corner like a scared
kitten while she roared like a lion down the catwalk with my collection. I’ll never forget what she said to me when she unveiled
“her” designs. “I hope you don’t mind. I was just a bit
inspired.”
    “Marisol, what the hell?” Noah asks, more
sympathetic than angry.
    “What was I supposed to do?” I ask.
“Honestly? We were lined up by our last names, and her collection
would’ve hit the runway first in that order. I couldn’t face all
those critics and fashion industry icons with a replicated
collection, regardless of the truth. They didn’t know the truth.
They knew only what they saw, and they would see me as an
unoriginal copycat.”
    “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. He wraps his
arm around my shoulder and hugs me to him. “It’s hard to speak up
for yourself when someone steals your thunder, especially when you
know they’re faking it.”
    Something tells me we’re not discussing
Hilary and candy clothes anymore. I glance at Noah’s face but can’t
see his true expression through his Oakleys.
    “Who would dare steal Noah Winters’s
thunder?” I ask.
    He laughs but his smile quickly fades.
“Julian Rossi, the ‘resident bad boy’ of Spaceships Around Saturn,”
he says, mocking Jules’s title. “He doesn’t act, look, or live the
lifestyle of a bad boy. He dyes his hair because he’s naturally a
dirty blonde. He smokes as a nervous habit. He’s not a badass in
any way, shape, or form. Aralie’s the dominant one in that
relationship because he’s a…”
    He doesn’t say the word, but I can think of a
number of choices to fill in that blank. I guess Jules has the
cliché signs of a bad boy – dark hair, piercings, a few tattoos,
and a cigarette in his mouth. From my few days of Saturn stalking
online, he doesn’t seem to say much in interviews. He’s kind of
standoffish.
    “All the fans are so quick to label us, and
that just pisses me the fuck off,” Noah says. “Don’t get me wrong.
I love our fans. They’re the best, and I wouldn’t be where I am now
if we didn’t have them, but they don’t know me. I see all
this bullshit about how I’m such a bad boy wannabe because of my
tattoos, but I’m so sweet and such a great friend. What the
ever-loving fuck? I’m not friends with any of those
people.”
    The metal seat rocks in the air. I’m not sure
this is exactly the safest place for us to be while we’re spilling
our souls about ex-friends and band mates we dislike. But then
again, we may not have found the courage to say these things on
solid ground.
    “It just pisses me off,” Noah says again.
“Milo’s the mature one. Benji’s the face of the band. Tate’s the
prankster. Jules is the bad boy, and I’m just whatever they want to
say I am, but I’m so sick of being called the cute BFF