Smash It! Read online

  Refreshingly authentic and bold... Don’t miss this smashing #ownvoices novel from Francina Simone! Filled with heart, humor and a heroine to root for, Smash It! is a perfect read for fans of Julie Murphy, Ibi Zoboi and Ashley Poston.

  Olivia “Liv” James is done with letting her insecurities get the best of her. So she does what any self-respecting hot mess of a girl who wants to SMASH junior year does...

  After Liv shows up to a Halloween party in khaki shorts—why, God, why?—she decides to set aside her wack AF ways. She makes a list—a F*ck-It list.

  1. Be bold—do the things that scare me.

  2. Learn to take a compliment.

  3. Stand out instead of back.

  She kicks it off by trying out for the school musical, saying yes to a date and making new friends. However, with change comes a lot of missteps, and being bold means following her heart. So what happens when Liv’s heart is interested in three different guys—and two of them are her best friends? How does one smash it after the humiliation of being friend-zoned? In Liv’s own words, “F*ck it. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  A lot, apparently.

  #SMASHIT

  PRAISE FOR SMASH IT!

  “Hilarious, heartwarming, empowering, and neurotic in the best way—I loved reading this book. Smash It! smashed it.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Christine Riccio

  “Witty, laugh-out-loud funny and downright powerful.”

  —Sasha Alsberg, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Zenith

  “This novel is bold. Fearless. Powerful. Prepare to read it in one sitting.”

  —Jodi Meadows, New York Times bestselling author of My Plain Jane and the Fallen Isles trilogy

  “Francina Simone is one of the freshest new YA voices I’ve read in years. The characters jump off the page, the plot is an empowering manifesto, and the humor is as sharp as it is real.”

  —Laura Steven, author of The Exact Opposite of Okay

  Smash It!

  Francina Simone

  To the past, present, and future theater kids. Y’all are always braver than most of us. This one is for you.

  FRANCINA SIMONE believes in one thing: authenticity. She writes YA stories full of humor and hard life lessons with sprinkles of truth that make us all feel understood. Her craft focuses on stories about girls throwing caution to the wind to discover exactly who they are and what it means to love. Francina is also known for her BookTube channel, where she discusses controversial topics in books.

  Contents

  Act One

  Act One—Scene One—Here I Come

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Act Two

  Act Two—Scene Three—I’m No Angel

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Act Three

  Act Three—Scene Three—Day and Night

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Act Four

  Act Five—Scene Two—Here I Come Reprise

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Act Five

  Act Five—Scene Two—Bedroom

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Acknowledgments

  ACT ONE

  ACT ONE—Scene One—

  Here I Come

  CAST—Center stage—spotlights

  Othello:

  I KNOW THEY THINK I’M DIFFERENT

  I’M THE SAME AS THE REST

  WAS SCARED TO LIVE AND LOVE

  THEN DESDEMONA STOLE MY CHEST

  Desdemona:

  AND NOW I’M FALLING, BABY, I COULD DIE, I COULD DIE

  I’M FALLING, BABY, I COULD DIE

  YOU’RE MY HEART SONG, BABY, I CAN’T LIE, I CAN’T LIE

  I’M FALLING WHEN I LOOK IN THE EYE...

  Othello/Desdemona:

  ...OF THE ONE THAT I BELONG

  MY LOVE, OH HERE I COME

  LOVE, HERE I COME

  Iago:

  NOW IT’S MY TURN TO CONFESS

  I WANNA RISE ABOVE THE REST

  Cassio:

  THE WINDS OF CHANGE ARE HERE

  Bianca/Emilia:

  A STORM IS BREWING NEAR

  Othello/Desdemona:

  OUR LOVE CAN BRAVE THE WEATHER

  WE’LL NEVER SAY GOODBYE

  Iago:

  LEAVE IT TO ME, BROTHER

  I WILL ENSURE THAT YOU ALL DIE

  Chorus (Iago exit stage left):

  AND I’M FALLING, BABY, I COULD DIE, I COULD DIE

  I’M FALLING, BABY, I COULD DIE

  YOU’RE MY HEART SONG, BABY, I CAN’T LIE, I CAN’T LIE

  I’M FALLING WHEN I CATCH YOUR EYE

  Chapter 1

  Fuck.

  I’m an idiot.

  It’s Halloween and I’m the only one in a packed club on Teen Night not wearing a costume. Girls are jumping and screaming lyrics in cheap shiny wigs, and all the guys, dressed in a motley of cheap polyester, are scoping out the dance floor, their gazes hopping right over me. Even the bartender, slinging water bottles, has on pink bunny ears.

  This isn’t an I’m seventeen and too cool for dress up moment. I like wearing costumes. I just thought I’d look like an unintentional clown doing it. We’re at a club. Who wears a Halloween costume to the club? Apparently, everyone except this freak in an Old Navy hoodie and khaki shorts. I’m wearing khaki shorts, like a nerdy loser.

  Some girl bumps into me and does a double take at the sight of my hoodie. It’s Florida; I know October everywhere else is like that meme of the dog in a wig wearing a scarf because “it’s sweater weather,” but we’re in Florida; the leaves don’t change here. They just fall off sometime between hot-as-fuck and damn-where-that-wind-come-from? So even though this white girl has on a mesh shirt over a nude bra—I don’t know what the hell she’s dressed as—I can tell by her raised brows and attempt to act like she didn’t see me that she doesn’t know what in god’s name I’m doing right now either.

  Oh my god. Why am I like this?

  This is what I get for not doing the yes thing. My mom bought this book by Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes, and—I’m not going to lie—some rich black lady with a gazillion TV shows shouldn’t be able to tell me, some sad black girl, how to be all, Say yes to the dress! But right now, I’m really wishing I had said yes when Dré asked, Are you sure you don’t want to put on something? It’s a costume party at a club. Don’t you have something sexy? Sexy nurse? Sexy vet? Hell, cut up your hoodie and go as a sexy hobo.

  I’m wishing I had scissors or the foresight to go as Sexy Hobo, because now, while my best friends are onstage at the hottest teen club in Orlando, singing their asses off like rock gods, I look like the freak who has no social shame.

 
The truth is I have too much social shame. So much shame that it seeps out of me like fresh cut garlic on the back of the tongue.

  I make eye contact with Eli. He’s on the keyboard, belting out lyrics and twisting in and out of a rap. His voice is the love child of Sam Smith and Adele. He’s all suave and mysterious to everyone here, but I know him as the boy who shaved off half an eyebrow when we were thirteen and those Peretz Hebrew/Palestinian hairy genes started coming in. His mom and dad were on that Romeo and Juliet vibe back in the day, and even though it makes for an epic love story, with real war and faking deaths to escape their families and countries (epic as hell), their genetic combo gave Eli thick brows and hair like nobody’s business.

  He smiles at me with his dark brown eyes just under his fedora. Of the three of us, he’s definitely the broody one, writing poems about nostalgia and love.

  Dré, on the other hand—he’s got on shades. Who wears sunglasses inside at night? Dré. When we were in middle school, Dré used to hide his Spanish and pretend his name was Andrew. I don’t blame him. Our school had a lot of white kids, and they always asked dumb as hell questions. I always got, “If you can’t get your hair wet, how do you wash it?” One kid asked Dré if Puerto Rican meant legal Mexican in Spanish. The kid legitimately didn’t know. I know our education system is shit, but come the fuck on.

  High school has been a game changer for all of us. Our magnet school pulls in kids from all over the county. But now there are too many kids from way too many places. Now we have to be different to fit in—cue Dré’s flashy, Spanish-heritage-day-is-every-day evolution. He’s a self-proclaimed Puerto Rican papi, and he kind of radiates like a sunny day on South Beach.

  Then there’s me. In my hoodie, khaki shorts, and Converse, stuck in the middle of a club with hundreds of kids basking in the glory that is Dré and Eli. I look like an outcast from a bad ’90s movie. I’m not uncool, but I do these uncool things as if I’m addicted to self-sabotage.

  Mesh Girl looks at me again; she’s probably wondering why Dré keeps pointing and making steamy eyes at me while he spits some rhymes in Spanish. I know she’s thinking, How’d she get him? Girls have asked me that. They see me, with my not-slim body and my brown skin, and say, No offense, but damn, girl, how you got with Dré?

  I’m not. Never have, never will. This flashy thing that he’s doing is our signal for me to check his hair. My only job is to make sure it still looks good. I nod and sway to the music, ignoring Mesh Girl’s eyebrows, which are raised to the top of her blond head. Is it bad that I like the attention? I enjoy her envy, even though I’m not the girl she thinks I am.

  Some girl dressed like a pumpkin shuffles past me and reaches out to touch Dré’s hand. What she doesn’t know is that he’s transferring half a store’s worth of product onto her fingers. He spends so much time on his hair, we have to speed to school—which is the last thing we should do in Dré’s rusty old car, the Bat Mobile. It’s already two gearshifts away from blowing up with us inside. We call it the Bat Mobile not because it’s cool, but because it looks like a hundred bats dropped turds all over it and eroded the paint.

  Even though it’s pretty much trash on wheels, I’m so jealous. I can’t even get my mom to let me practice my learners in her car. The queen of burning out engines thinks I’ll mess something up. Then again, here I am on Halloween, the only girl in the club not having fun because of my shitty choices.

  Mesh Girl bumps me with her shoulder. “He’s hot, right?” She’s talking about Eli, and I do a weird laugh thing and nod, because I’m the worst at small talk, and it’s too much to yell, Yeah, I’ve thought that for years. I can like the way he looks, right? That’s normal, right?

  She doesn’t seem to care that my laugh was borderline psychotic. “Oh my god, we should totally dance for them. Guys love that shit.” Suddenly this girl that I don’t know from Eve is pulling me toward the stage, and I start freaking out.

  I’ve watched enough romance movies to have this scene planned in my head—but those are fantasies, and this is getting too real. People are staring at us as she starts twerking and swinging her arms around.

  She waves at me. “Come on!”

  Nope. I just smile and shrink back into the crowd. She’s clearly one of those people who really believes in herself—like, no one has ever told her she can’t do a damn thing, because, here she is, shaking her ass like she invented the booty pop.

  Mesh Girl isn’t looking at me anymore. She’s dancing and looking at Eli, and—he’s looking at her. I know I’m not supposed to care, because he’s just my best friend and he and Dré are supposed to interact with the crowd—that’s part of the gig—but he’s looking at her and smiling like he’s impressed. He thinks this girl’s half-baked dance moves are cool. He thinks she’s cool.

  I can dance better than that. I could be that cool.

  Except I’m not.

  I’m the girl who hides in the crowd. I’m the girl who isn’t even in costume. And now, the guy I maybe-sorta-like is smiling and singing to the girl who is doing the scary thing, even though she’s not that good at it.

  Fuck my life. My crush is about to go up in tired-ass flames like the rest of my dreams. This isn’t the first time I’ve passed up doing what I want because I’m afraid of looking like a clown. It isn’t even the tenth or the hundredth.

  Hell, just this morning I walked by a flyer for the school musical auditions, and when the drama teacher offered me one, I did the weird laugh, and—let’s just say she’ll probably never make eye contact with me again.

  All I had to do was say yes. All I had to do was tell myself I’d try.

  Why am I so chickenshit?

  I make my way to the bar and order a soda.

  The guy at the bar eyes me as he sprays Coke into my glass. He puts the Coke down in front of me, and just when I want him to walk away and leave me in my despair, he pulls off his pink bunny ears and puts them next to my bubbly soda. “Take these. I don’t want you to stand out.”

  I shake my head. Honestly, he’s got long hair and it’s kind of greasy, so there is no way I’m putting that on my head. “I’m cool. Don’t need pity ears, but thanks.”

  He laughs, and it’s low-key judgmental. “Yeah, because cool people don’t wear costumes, right? You must be a blast at parties.” He looks around at the club behind me. “Oh, wait.”

  Rude. “Look. I happen to be a very cool person, thank you very much.” I shouldn’t talk when I’m in my feelings, because my voice goes up an octave and I can never get my eyebrows to stay still. They’re up in my hairline now, showing the whole damn world that I have no chill.

  Dude puts his bunny ears back on and leans on the bar. “Yeah, it’s so cool sitting by yourself at a Halloween party with no costume.” He shrugs. “I’m not saying high school is going to be the best time of your life, but you should get over yourself enough to have a little fun while you can. Otherwise, you’ll be a cool adult sitting alone at a bar wondering why your life sucks.” He stands up, crosses his arms and looks proud of himself.

  Is there a sign on my head that says, I’m having a hard time. Please do pile on? I take a deep breath and hate myself, because my first reaction is to smile and nod. But I stare him dead in the eye and say, “Because being a bartender at thirtysomething is so great.” I feel a little badass for saying it, but also super guilty for being a bitch.

  “Well, one of us is having fun.” He wiggles his bunny ears. “And the other one is at a party full of kids and only has the bartender to talk to.” He pulls the white towel off his shoulder and starts wiping down the bar. “Don’t forget to tip.” And then he’s moving away and pulling out waters for a group of guys in some anime costumes.

  I drop my head to the bar, which, regrettably, is sticky. That turd of a bartender doesn’t know me, but he’s kinda right. Some girl on YouTube—the one with the minimalist white walls that look chic instead
of broke as hell—said everyone has a moment in life when there are two paths before them. The cool one where you change your pathetic ways and everything gets brighter and better. And the other one where you die sad and alone.

  She obviously knows what she’s talking about, because she manages to make millions of people listen to her talk about hacking procrastination and how to make your room over with just a succulent and a few black-and-white photos strung up on the walls.

  I don’t want to be sad and alone, or to freeze every time my moment comes to shine. I want to be the fierce inner beast I know I am. I want Eli to look at me like I’m the only one in the room.

  Something has to change, because that bartender and the succulent girl are right. If I don’t, I’m going to disappear like I was never here.

  Chapter 2

  It’s almost midnight. I’m leaning against the Bat Mobile in the E.T. parking garage of Universal Studios. Nothing like closing time at the Park to send hordes of people to their cars. The exhaust from the hundreds of cars roaring to life on our floor alone is starting to give me a headache. We get free parking because I work here—not at the garage; at a gift shop at the front of the theme park. I can’t complain. I get AC, three free tickets every quarter and flexible hours. But when I say I’d rather not spend my free time near the place I work, I mean it.

  The Grove is smack-dab in the middle of Universal’s CityWalk; it’s the only teen club that pays for gigs. But it is Halloween at Universal—Halloween Horror Night—and everyone is just now leaving. People are screaming and laughing, and cars are packed in an obscene line, trying to get out. It’s a mess.

  And just my luck, Dré is busy taking a selfie with some chick who has rotting flesh plastered on her face while Eli and I pack the car. Dré jogs over, his long legs and arms swinging with ease like he’s running off a football field for a drink of water. I can’t stand him sometimes, but whenever we make eye contact, he laughs and then I smile. It’s been that way for years.

  We’re doing it now, but then I stop, because he’s shaking his head while looking at my tragic outfit.