Mel and Beth are together. Like, actually doing the whole boyfriend-and-girlfriend thing together. I found out in English, when they walked into class holding hands. Corn Syrup came in right after they did. She looked fine. We broke into our groups and she argued with Mel and totally ignored me. She would have ignored Patrick too, if he’d been there, but he wasn’t.
It was like yesterday and the stuff she said never happened. Was it all an act? Or—wait—maybe some sort of plan to—oh, forget it. I have no friends, no life, nothing.
Beth wouldn’t waste her time trying to get me. I’m not worth noticing. And Corn Syrup certainly wouldn’t do anything on her own. Yesterday was . . .
Yesterday, she was probably just high from the fumes of her hair products or something.
Caro really did seem fine about the Mel and Beth thing. Mel was acting kind of weird though. He ignored me except to ask if I knew where Patrick was (like I’m his keeper) and spent all of class arguing with Caro and giving her these looks, like he was trying to ask her a question without saying anything.
Beth walked by just as Caro looked like she was going to say something to him, and ran her fingers along the back of his neck. Mel immediately got that stupid glazed-152
over expression guys get when they’re thinking about getting laid.
I glanced at Caro, and she was just smiling away, grinning at Mel and Beth like they were adorable and not nauseating. I suppose if they’d started going at it she would have offered up her desk for them to use.
Beth said—to Corn Syrup, obviously, and not me, “So, what about Friday? Did you ask about Joe?”
“Not yet, but it’s been, like, all I’ve been thinking about since you told me,” Caro said, and if her smile had gotten any wider her face would have cracked. She turned to Mel. “Can you find out if Joe’s going to be at Tammy’s party?”
“Joe Regent?” Mel sounded shocked. Joe was this honors guy who somehow managed to make the foot-ball team. He was a big deal for them, but to me he’d always be the guy who told Julia her eyes were “like velvet” and then got all teary-eyed after she laughed at him.
Caro nodded. “He’s hot, and I want to know if he’s coming because . . . you know.”
Mel frowned, and when the bell rang, he bolted into the hallway. Beth looked so pissed that I laughed out loud.
She didn’t even glance at me, of course, but Caro did. Her eyes were narrowed and unhappy-looking.
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“He probably went to look for Patrick,” she told Beth.
Her eyes were wide and happy again.
“Yeah, I know that, Caro. I don’t know why Mel still hangs out with him. What are you wearing to the party?”
“I don’t know. I totally need your help.” She smiled, jammed her book in her bag, tossed her hair back, and walked out with Beth. Still the perfect follower except her left hand, hanging by her side, was curled up tight, an angry silent fist. I walked behind her and Beth all the way down the hall, and Caro’s hand never unknotted.
That’s when I knew why yesterday happened.
Yesterday, when Caro followed me, when we hung out, Mel and Beth were already together. They must have hooked up after the movie, and I’ll bet anything that yesterday morning was when Caro found out. It would be just like Beth to wait and tell her at school. To say,
“Oh, I thought I told you! I mean, everyone totally knows already,” and then give her every single detail so she could watch Caro’s face. So everyone could see Caro’s face.
Caro came after me to get away. That’s why she was so upset. It wasn’t because of what I said and later, us hanging out—it wasn’t about me. It was about her wanting to pretend she wasn’t going to go along and act like everything was fine. I was safe to talk to, safe to vent at. It was 154
middle school all over again, except this time she didn’t even have to worry that Beth might find out. The thing is—
The thing is, I thought Caro maybe wanted to be friends. Not hang-out-in-school friends or anything like that, but just . . . I don’t know. That maybe we might talk sometime or something. I thought—I thought we did talk yesterday. I thought we talked for real.
I am so stupid.
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124 days
J,
I swear, today has actually been three days. Every day has been like that lately.
Things with my parents are horrid. We’ve talked about me skipping school (How’s it going now? Do you think you know why you skipped?) so much I almost want to tell them about Corn Syrup to get them to shut up. But I don’t want their pity, J. I want them to just stop trying. They keep looking at me, smiling these brittle, scared smiles, and I can’t stand it. I want them to stop acting like . . . I want them to stop acting like they want to be around me. I want to tell them I haven’t forgotten what I told them about what I did to you and I know they haven’t either. I want to ask 156
them why they won’t mention it. I want to scream at them to call me what I know I am and get it over with.
I just called your house. A fake female voice answered, the phone company politely telling me, sorry, the number I was trying to reach had been changed. The new number wasn’t given.
Before, when I called, at least I knew the phone would be answered, you know? I’d hear your mother’s voice. I could pretend. Now I don’t even have that.
I want to go downstairs and stand in front of my parents as they sit nestled together on the sofa. Why can’t they be like normal parents and drift through a room without noticing the other person is there? Why do they always have to be so together? Why is it when they look at me I want to scream until my voice is gone?
I want to force their mouths open, make them say the word murderer.
Why won’t they say it? Why can’t they just get it out there? I keep thinking about that. The why. Why they won’t say what we all know is true. Why I did what I did.
Why I thought getting you to see Kevin cheating on you was a good idea. Why, when you got so upset, I thought getting in your car and leaving was a good idea. Why I 157
took your hand and smiled at you, said that everything would be okay. Why did I do it? Why?
I don’t know, J. I don’t. All I know is this: You never should have been my friend.
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F O U R T E E N
TODAY STARTED OFF OKAY—for it being a school day, for it being 125 days without Julia—but in English, things started sucking because Beth smushed herself into our group. She must have given the teacher, Ms. Gladwell, some crap story—I wasn’t listening—but when I looked up from my copy of Huckleberry Finn (way less boring than The Scarlet Letter) she was there, grinning at Mel and saying, “Caro, can you squeeze a desk in for me?”
It had better not be a permanent thing, because what followed was pure torture. Beth giggled. She swished her hair around. She whispered to Mel. She whispered to Caro. She did the “we have mysterious hand gestures that make us giggle” thing.
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She has a brain in that rotten head of hers—whenever Mrs. Gladwell came around to check on our discussion, Beth would say something about the book that was pretty smart. That’s the nicest thing I can say about her. She’s evil, but she isn’t stupid.
Beth should have some redeeming characteristics. At least one, anyway, because she is theoretically human. But there isn’t a single good thing about her. If anything, she’s even more of a troll than I remembered. For instance, every time Mel said something to Caro, she’d give Caro a look, an “I can ruin you in thirty seconds if I want or if I’m bored” smile.
So of course Caro never did more than mumble, “I don’t know” or “I haven’t really thought about that part of the book yet.”
After a while, Mel gave up and tried to talk to me and Patrick. I said I hadn’t done the reading even though I had (no way did I want to get sucked into a conversation with Beth). Of course it didn’t work because Beth said,