IWTN Entry 9: In Between Them, YA Contemporary

Title: IN BETWEEN THEM

Word Count: 84,000 words

Genre: YA Contemporary

Query:

Being a good friend is everything to seventeen-year-old Cass Petrovsky.

All that’s required is a heavy dose of support and loyalty—two qualities that she and her best friend Alex Patton share. So when an innocent touch multiplies into dozens between Alex and Graham, the guy Cass has loved since forever, Cass shakes off her paranoia. Alex knows better. But soon Alex confesses what Cass was too trusting to consider—she and Graham hooked up. So much for loyalty.

Cass is wrecked. Her future with Graham is shot, despite that they were inseparable friends on the verge of something greater. And Alex apologized so sincerely that it’s impossible to hold on to hate. Besides, Alex is happy with Graham, and good friends do not crush each other’s happiness. Period. Losing face is better than losing them both. Forgiveness is the only option.

As Cass moves on, Graham comes forward with a confession too: he made a mistake. An impulsive kiss throws Cass into an unforgiveable role with the guy she always wanted, the guy who’s now off-limits by her own rules. The timing couldn’t be worse. With Alex desperate to find the reason beneath Graham’s change of heart, Cass sticks to the perfect best friend role—spying, sneaking, scheming to help Alex win Graham back. It’s so wrong it’s criminal. But things are no longer black and white. Love and friendship twisted the two into gray.

First 250 words:

There’s a metric assload of available methods for spying on your boyfriend.

So I remind myself not to judge as I watch Alex tug a faded Miami Dolphins baseball cap down low on her forehead and drop behind the dashboard. She lifts her ten-year-old brother Benjy’s bird-watching binoculars to eye level. Against her dark sunglasses, the plastic eyecups go tap, tap, tap. A noise like “hmmmm” rumbles from her throat. It could be a good hmmmm or bad hmmmm. I pray it’s the good kind.

She calls dibs on my last piece of gum, so I dig in my pocket for it even though doing so makes my thighs stick even harder to the vinyl seat. I’m folded in half behind the steering wheel with my left foot jammed alongside the brake pedal. It tingles so badly I could cry.

Shit. Focus, focus. Playing superspy sidekick for Alex is what’s important. Not my stupid foot or the pins and needles attacking it. Alex has a mission and I have a supporting role to play. Hiding assassin-style beside her as she stakes out Graham is absolutely the right thing to do, even if I’m fully aware of the fuck-up-able potential of this operation.

She needs me. I won’t fail her.

Because I am the perfect best friend. I’m loyal, sensitive, supportive, a good listener. I’m the cheery kid in the Eggo waffle commercial who gives the last freakin’ waffle to her friend. You know, after the whole “Leggo my Eggo” argument.