The Insider's Scoop
Three Scoops of Insider-ness on The Boyfriend App’s Mean Girl Blake Dawkins
1) I secretly love my mean-girl antagonist Blake Dawkins.
2) I came up with an entire storyline about Blake having experienced oxytocin poisoning as an infant, thereby causing her narcissitic-bordering on-psychopathic behavior. But early test-readers pulled me back. Sometime I can’t help my wild imagination: It takes over! Thank goodness for test -readers and editors who know when to take it down a notch.
3) I wrote many pages from Blake’s perspective because I was so fascinated by her. Here’s a excerpt taking place after her breakup with Xander:
Just one last taste.
“I mean it, Xander. This is the last time. We have to stop.”
I was whispering lies like these to my ex-boyfriend as his hands slipped over my waist. I’d angled my body just right, so that his fingertips could trail the flat plane of my stomach. Guys are highly visual. So is the rest of the world.
It’s crucial to remember that.
Xander’s fiery, hazel eyes melted as he took me in. “Blake,” he said softly, right before his lips found mine. His hands were moving higher when a shrill bell sounded.
No.
“Your dad?” Xander blurted. I didn’t need to shove him off me. He was already yanking his t-shirt from my bedroom floor and fumbling with a dark brown leather belt.
Ding Dong. Ding Dong.
“Can’t be. Probably some useless girl scout,” I said, trying not to sound scared. But Xander knew me too well. And even if he didn’t, I couldn’t keep the shake from my fingers as I buttoned my jeans.
Ding Dong.
“Hide. Just in case!”
Xander moved toward the closet and I raced down the stairs. My dad wouldn’t ring the doorbell to his own house. Unless he’d lost his keys? Or been robbed by a disgruntled former employee. Would that make him more or less pissed to find Xander here when neither he nor my mom were home?
I skipped the final step and unlocked the bolt. The metal rang out. I flinched and swung open the door.
My sister. She stood on our white-brick front porch looking pissed.
“Nic?” I said. I hadn’t seen her in months. Her hair was dyed a few shades lighter than mine—a deep chestnut—and it was pulled into a low, messy ponytail. She’d stopped wearing makeup, too. Like she’d try anything not to look like me. To separate her from us.
But there was no way. Our clear complexions were identical shades of olive. Our noses were the natural version of the tiny, perfect kind girls try for at the plastic surgeon’s office. Our eyes matched, too. Dark like coffee beans and curved like almonds. The only difference now was the purplish crescent moons stamped beneath Nic’s.
My sister wore a baggy gray cashmere sweater. She used to wear snug-fitting stuff during high school. Not anymore. The wide neck fell over her slender shoulders and draped loose around her waist, tighter on the hips.
“Don’t look so happy to see me,” Nic said, pushing past me with a worn leather bag I’d never seen before. She stared as I stood immobilized next to the coat rack. “Good for you, Blake. You’ve put on some weight,” she went on, even though I hadn’t. “Where’s dad?”
“Probably on his way home,” I lied. The threat of Dad usually made Nic nicer.
My sister surveyed the living room and I tried to see what she did. Glossy interior design books that no one read were stacked beside a potted orchid on a mahogany coffee table. Framed photos of Nic and me fake-smiling on a skiing trip to Vail sat on a mirrored glass armoire. The violet velvet sofa with gold armrests was new: One of our mother’s late night internet purchases. A wave of embarrassment washed over me. But Nic gave the sofa an approving nod. Then she turned to me and said, “Why is Xander’s car parked at the end of the block?” which meant she’d circled the cul-de-sac before coming home. Which was weird.
I opened my mouth to lie again but then Xander was on the stairs.
“Hey, Nic,” he said, stopping on the bottom step to tie his sneakers.
Nic was all smiles. She loved Xander. She loved my ex-best friend, Audrey, too. Maybe other people who left me made her feel better about what she did.
“Are you two back together?” Nic asked, clasping her hands and being sweet for the first time since Christmas, when she convinced me to pee in a plastic cup marked NICOLE DAWKINS.
“No,” we both said. Then Xander mumbled something about watching Friends reruns (my favorite. I’m in love with pretty Rachel and smart Ross and the weird 90s haircuts and outfits.) Nic gave Xander a look that said she didn’t believe him so I changed the topic. “Aren’t you supposed to have midterms this week?” I asked. Notre Dame’s webpage made it easy to keep up with Nic’s schedule and other school stuff. I went to every single play on campus because Nic was usually in two each semester, and she always forgot to tell us which ones.
Nic waved her hand. “No midterms for my kind of classes,” she said, and I wondered if that was true. Nic was a Film, Television and Theater major. Notre Dame was five minutes from our house, but Nic lived in a dorm and didn’t come home except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Next week was her spring break, but she usually stayed at school for breaks, too. She told us it was because she got so much done while the other kids were back home with their families.
I stood there and tried to think up something interesting to say. Nothing came. So we just stared at each other. Nic was beautiful even if she did look tired. Last year she told me I was the second prettiest girl in South Bend. It was the nicest thing she’d said to me in years, even if it was meant to be about her.
“I just thought I’d stop by and see what you all were up to,” she finally said. She had a funny look on her face. Nic was a terrible liar, which was too bad for her, because she lied all the time. But this lie made me smile. Tomorrow was my eighteenth birthday. She’d deigned the event important enough to show up.
Xander and I exchanged glances and I knew he was thinking the same thing. “Cool,” I said to Nic, even if she was one of the only three people on the planet who could make me feel anything but.
