Crush Control Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - WORTHINGTON, GEORGIA

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Acknowledgements

  Crush Control

  RAZORBILL

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  ISBN : 978-1-101-53522-6

  Copyright 2011 © Jennifer Jabaley

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  For Chris, who hypnotized me the old fashioned way—with his charm.

  prologue

  Once upon a time there was a boy. His hair was the color of coal, his eyes the color of faded denim. His smile, carefree and inviting, was the one thing that made me brave. He lived in a whiteshingled house at the end of a cul-de-sac where we rode our bikes and played kickball. He taught me how to climb trees and how to build drums from an old oatmeal box, paper, and glue. Every adventure, every moment of childhood mischief, was because of him. Max Montgomery was his name.

  Then, the summer I was nine my mother dropped the bomb of ultimate betrayal: “We’re moving!” She beamed. “To Vegas!” She sparkled like the neon casino lights that would soon become as familiar to me as Max’s soft blue eyes.

  “Vegas?” I panicked. Sure, I had seen the real estate brochures scattered around the house. I had noticed Mom’s growing fascination with the shows on the Vegas Strip. I had endured watching the How-to-Hypnotize-Someone video series with her. But I thought it was a phase. Now we were moving? Seriously? “Mom, I can’t leave my friends!” I whined.

  “You’ll make new friends.”

  But I could never replace Max.

  Later, when I told Max about our plans to move, he reassured me. “We’ll always stay friends.”

  “Best friends,” I corrected as we rode our bikes into the entrance of Poplinger Park. We jumped off and parked the bicycles against an old oak tree.

  “Best friends,” Max agreed. “I promise.”

  I nodded in confirmation. It was a heartfelt declaration filled with the conviction only a nine-year-old could feel when leaving her best friend.

  Max reached up and began to climb the tree. In the distance, a green car came into view. “Shoot.” He froze. “Is that my mom?”

  “Uh oh,” I groaned. “Quick, help me up.” Max was supposed to be cleaning out his garage. But he decided he couldn’t spend one of our final days together doing chores. So we snuck away.

  Max reached down and hoisted me up into the tree. I positioned myself onto a grainy limb and huddled close to him. Below us, the car turned into the bank across the street and we both sighed with relief.

  I smiled at him. “Who are you going to have these adventures with once I’m gone, huh?”

  “Well,” Max said, resting against the thick trunk of the tree. “Trent and I are thinking about starting a band.”

  What? The correct response should have been: No one can ever replace you, Willow.

  “A band? Does Trent even play an instrument?” I asked, a little too snappish.

  “He just started guitar lessons at the same place I take drum lessons,” Max answered.

  Well, isn’t that nice. I’m not even gone and you already have a replacement friend. I tried to blink fast so my eyes wouldn’t well up. I grabbed a higher tree limb and pulled myself away from him but he quickly followed and finagled into a position next to me.

  “Mom said I could go up on stage with her,” I lied. “Be part of the hypnosis show.” There, I have plans for life without you, too.

  Max burst out laughing.

  “What? You don’t think I could actually do the hypnosis?” I asked, hurt. “She’s had that How-to-Hypnotize video on twenty-four hours a day. It’s not that hard.”

  Max rolled his eyes.

  “I’ll show you right now! I’ll hypnotize you!”

  “Fine,” he said. “Go ahead. Let’s see.”

  “Fine!” I said, sitting up straighter. “Close your eyes.”

  He gripped the tree limb for support, and shut his eyes.

  “You’re feeling very relaxed,” I said in a low, serious tone.

  Max started to laugh. “What’s with that voice?”

  “HUSH!” I commanded, glad his eyes were shut and that he couldn’t see my cheeks flush. I was just trying to sound like the lady on the video. I readopted my own tone. “I’m going to guide you through to deep relaxation. Take a breath.”

  Max inhaled then slowly let his breath out.

  “From this point on, you will hear what I say, feel what I ask you to feel, see what I ask you to see.” I continued through the entire sequence. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, or if it was really going to work. Then, suddenly, Max’s head flopped over to the side, resting on the tree trunk. I sat there for a minute with my heart racing. Had I done it? Was Max really hypnotized? I looked at his mouth hanging slightly open and his chest softly rising with each breath.

  I thought about what my life would be like in a few days—a new city, a new school, Mom’s new crazy job. What part of my life would remain unchanged other than my friendship with Max? But now even that was slipping away . . .

  I looked at the small amount of drool
collecting in the corner of his mouth. If Max was really hypnotized, that meant he was under my influence. “Max Montgomery,” I said with a flutter of excitement. “For as long as we live, you and I will be best friends. Even though my mom will drag me two thousand miles away to live in the desert, we will remain friends forever. We’ll talk on the phone, e-mail, and when my mom finally gives in and buys me a cell phone, we can text message all the time. Even if you become some big famous rock star and Trent is your awesome guitarist and you have a million groupies, still you’ll think, Willow Grey is my best friend.”

  Max’s grip had loosened on the tree limb and his elbow had bent in relaxation. On the street below a green Honda Accord drove up to the curb. Oh no. The car door opened and Mrs. Montgomery climbed out. Shoot. I pulled up my dangling legs and tried to nestle my body into a bunch of leaves.

  “Max!” I whispered. “Max!” But he kept on breathing heavily, the stream of drool dripping down his chin now. I tried to lean closer to him. “When I clap my hands you’re going to wake up,” I said quickly. “You’re going to feel refreshed and relaxed, like you just had a long nap.” I tried to clap my hands, but I didn’t want to release my grip on the tree limb.

  Below us, Mrs. Montgomery looked around the grassy area by the picnic tables. “Max?” she called, looking around. She walked over to a lady pushing her son on a yellow swing and asked her something. The lady shook her head and Max’s mom turned back around.

  “Max!” I whispered. “Wake up!” I used one hand to smack the trunk of the tree and Max’s eyes popped open and his shoulders retracted in surprise. His hands flailed wildly and he fell backward, his knees hooking around the tree limb like those of a gymnast on the uneven bars. But he missed his dismount, plunged through the air, and crashed to the ground.

  “MAX!” I cried.

  He yelled in pain as I quickly shimmied down the side of the tree and hovered over him. “Are you okay?” I panted. I looked over and saw his mom scurrying toward us. “Quick,” I whispered. “Do you think you can make a break for it into those bushes?”

  “I think I broke my arm,” he said.

  “Shoot,” I said under my breath, just as Mrs. Montgomery’s shadow fell over us.

  A week later we moved to Las Vegas, and I only saw Max occasionally after that. He was, and continued to be, my best friend. Not a day went by when we didn’t call or email. Sometimes I would wonder, was it because we were such good friends or had that attempt at hypnosis in the tree actually worked? And even though I never really knew if I had successfully hypnotized Max or not, that’s when my life split in two: before and after the taste of total control.

  1

  WORTHINGTON, GEORGIA

  If I had known I was going to meet anyone of significance that steamy August day, I would not have worn my old cotton shorts and a flimsy white T-shirt with two dancing M&M’s on the front. Because first impressions are everything and I’m not all long-limbed and silky like my name, Willow, might suggest. I’m not nimble and flexible like the Cirque du Soleil girls I grew up around in Vegas, and I’m certainly not exotic and alluring like my mom, the Hip Hypnotist (“The hottest show on the strip,” according to the posters). If I even attempted to act sexy, raising my eyebrows and purring at a guy, he’d probably call animal control.

  I’m just an average-looking girl who tries my best to play the hand I was dealt. And trust me, wearing a T-shirt that highlighted a Halloween staple was definitely not stacking the cards in my favor. The only mention of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate should have been the hot guy’s gorgeous, soulful eyes as I stared at him from across the basketball court—not the dancing, hard-shelled candy ironed across my chest.

  But the movers hadn’t arrived yet and the duffel bag filled with my more acceptable clothing was still jammed somewhere in the trunk of our Toyota, which was parked in our new driveway and overheated after the torturous twenty-nine hour trip. So it really wasn’t a matter of choice as much as availability. Nonetheless, at that moment, standing in the park watching this beautiful boy, I could feel a spotlight shining down from the cloudless summer sky, highlighting me in my M&M T-shirt and announcing: Alert! Alert! Dork approaching!

  For a moment, I stood there behind the safety of an oversize shrub and watched him. He was tall and lanky, shooting hoops by himself and animatedly narrating his three-point shot like he was an NBA announcer.

  “The audience waits in anticipation for his legendary half-court three-pointer,” he said, stopping to dribble the ball at the half-court mark. “He pauses, taking a moment to hear them cheer his name. Then he takes a step forward and a hush falls on the crowd. He shoots. . . .” He tossed the basketball up toward the goal. His wrist flexed in midair as the ball hit the backboard and swooshed through the net. “He makes it! The crowd goes wild! He just might be the most highly recruited high school senior the NBA has ever seen!” The hot guy turned toward his pretend audience and bowed. “Thank you! Thank you,” he said.

  He walked over to the picnic table and took a swig from his Gatorade bottle. Then he used the back of his hand to toss his tousled golden brown hair off his forehead. He looked like he could climb onto a surfboard and ride the waves in a California-cute kind of way. Only he was landlocked, stuck playing basketball in this small, sweltering Georgia town, three hundred miles from the nearest ocean. He was completely gorgeous. Completely out of my league.

  As he turned toward the shrub, I ducked. This hot guy might not give me a second glance, but I couldn’t take the chance of him seeing me like this and forever thinking of me as the M&M girl. I turned to go—I had to dig my duffel bag out of the car and change before I could cause any real damage to my image—but as I did, there was an abrupt tug on the dog leash I was holding in my right hand.

  “Sshh!” I said, squatting down to pet my Boston terrier, Oompa. He looked up at me with an irritated expression, the same one he’d worn since my mom and I deposited him into the backseat of our car two and a half days ago. Oompa turned his head in the direction of the hot guy and his ears stood up like two isosceles triangles.

  “I know,” I whispered. “He’s beautiful, right?”

  Oompa eyed me and scrunched his face up, looking maybe a smidge jealous at seeing my attention directed elsewhere. Then, all at once, he bolted like a streak of lightning, yanking the leash out of my hand as he darted from our dirt path, across the small patch of grass, and onto the steaming cement basketball court—right towards the hot guy.

  “Oompa, come back!” I whispered loudly. But I could do nothing but watch, panicking, as my dog began jumping up onto Hot Guy’s leg. Hot Guy dropped the bottle of Gatorade in surprise. Neon yellow liquid pooled on the cement around his feet. “What the . . .?” he floundered. He looked down at Oompa and shook his leg gently.

  Then, as I stood there, still hidden behind the large shrub, I watched in complete horror as Oompa velcroed his body to Hot Guy’s leg—and began to bounce against it. My dog looked back at me with a smirk across his little dog face as if to say, How dare you stick me in the car for two days, then lavish attention on someone else?

  Oh my God, my dog is humping the leg of the hottest guy I’ve ever seen! What do I do? I contemplated running away. But Oompa would never be able to find his way back to our new house. I would have to come out of hiding and coax my stupid dog off his leg. I can’t believe I worried about a stupid M&M T-shirt—because a dog humping your leg is absolutely the worst first impression ever! Ever!

  Hot Guy shook his leg again and laughed. “Wrong gender, dude,” he said. “Wrong species.” He looked around in embarrassment to make sure no one was watching.

  When the twenty-seven-pound barnacle didn’t dislodge, he reached down and tried to manually break free. But Hot Guy’s leg tripped on Oompa’s leash that was tangled around his ankle. His Reebok slid in the pool of lemon-lime Gatorade, and all at once Hot Guy and Oompa skidded up into the air. They crashed onto the hard cement with a sickening thud.

  “Oh no!”
I darted from the safety of the bushes. “Are you okay?” I offered my hand to help him up. “I’m so sorry.”

  He didn’t take my hand but eased himself up off the ground, looking perplexed.

  Oompa licked the excess Gatorade off his fur then looked up at me with provoking eyes as if to say, I’m homesick, I’m carsick, and I’m very angry with you.

  “Is that your dog?” Hot Guy asked sounding a little pissed.

  “Um . . .” I looked down at Oompa. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

  Hot Guy smiled a small smile and my stomach relaxed a bit. He shook his head. “Not likely.”

  I laughed a little. “I am so sorry. He’s all crazy.” I pointed to my temple and twirled my finger in a circle. “We just moved here. Like today. We’ve been in the car for an eternity and he’s just a little disoriented.” And please don’t judge me by my M&M T-shirt and my humping dog.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked, brushing his hair away from his eyes again. “Where did you move from?”

  But before I could answer, my mouth gaped open. “Um, ah . . .” I pointed awkwardly toward his hip, where the waistband of his nylon shorts had a darkened red spot. “I think you’re bleeding.”

  He looked down and lifted up his shirt to reveal a scrape. “Oh,” he said. He walked back over to the picnic table and rummaged through a small backpack. He found a pocket-size package of Kleenex and pulled out a tissue. He began to wipe up the blood, clumsily reaching around his waist to clean the cut. But it was at the small of his back and hard for him to reach.

  I stood there awkwardly. Should I leave? Offer to help? I watched him struggle. “Um, do you need some help?” I finally asked.

  He looked at me then looked over his shoulder toward the cut as if assessing the probability of reaching it on his own. “Yeah, okay. Thanks,” he said. “There are tissues in my backpack.” He nodded over to his bag on the picnic table.