So I took one breath, two, and thought of Kian. His face sprang to my mind’s eye, steadying me. And it wasn’t the fact that he was hot that bolstered me; it was that he’d liked me before. Or so he said.
Cameron had brown hair and sparkling blue eyes, the quintessential all-American guy. He even had a nice smile—with dimples—not that I’d ever seen it before. But the minute I stepped up to the counter, he went into dazzle mode, though he had been dating Brittany King, head queen bee, for almost two years.
“You must be new,” he said.
I shook my head, pushing my list of clothing requirements across the counter toward him. It gave me a ridiculous amount of pleasure to say, “Guess again. I didn’t come to chat with the help. Could you fill my order, please?”
His smile slipped, as if he couldn’t fathom that I hadn’t immediately fallen victim to his charm. “I don’t actually work here. I’m helping the PTA because I’m a nice guy.”
“Too good to make an honest living, huh?” My mouth twisted in a scornful smile. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Do you have a problem with me?” he demanded.
Too far, I cautioned myself.
“Only that I still don’t have my uniforms.” I paused, tilting my head. “Wait, you thought I was serious? Don’t you have a sense of humor?”
I had been listening people say cruel, unforgivable things my whole life, usually to me, and then playing it off like I was the one with the problem. You gonna cry, Eat-it? Can’t take a joke? Why don’t you do the world a favor and just kill yourself already?
And I almost did. Hateful words had a way of worming beneath the skin, until they became the unbearable echo in your head. But I wasn’t listening anymore.
“Right,” he said, moving to pull my clothes from various piles.
Then Cameron used a calculator to total up a bill I could’ve done in my head. Kind of hard not to mock him, but I managed. I’d blown cold enough for this encounter. Though I’d rather tongue kiss a tailpipe, now I had to convince him I didn’t think he was the most disgusting creature ever to crawl out of the primordial ooze.
Maybe I should go out for drama.
I handed him the credit card after he gave the damage. Pausing, he said, “Mildred Kramer? Huh.”
“It’s my mom’s card.” Though I was pretty sure that wasn’t why he was wearing the I’m-thinking-hard-and-it-hurts look.
“I figured. You don’t look like a Mildred.”
“She knows I have it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Go on and make the connection, genius.
“No, it’s not that. We had a girl named Kramer here last year.”
“Oh?” Noncommittal reply. “It’s a common name.”
“I guess. Are you a junior?”
I shook my head. If I wasn’t so determined to make him pay, I could almost feel sorry for Cameron, because he didn’t have enough cerebral wattage to light up a single Christmas bulb. “Senior this year. I’m surprised you don’t remember. You used to pay an awful lot of attention to me.”
“Eat-it?” he blurted. “I mean … Edith?”
“My friends call me Edie,” I said breezily.
Not that he would ever number among them.
“Holy shit. What the hell did you do this summer?”
I just smiled. “Do you think you could run that card instead of tapping it on the counter? I still need to get school supplies.”
Mostly I wanted to get away from him before I started shaking or burst into tears. Remembering what he’d done to me—and how utterly fine with it he seemed—I could hardly breathe for the tightness in my chest. The shame washed high, higher, until it collared my throat, the spiked leather dog version. Pure inner steel kept me upright and my lips curved into a smile that swore I wasn’t on the verge of total collapse.
“Yeah. Sorry.” Now he was awkward and fumbling.
Somehow I kept it together until he gave me the ticket to sign. I was an authorized user on my mom’s card, so I scrawled on the slip and passed it back. In turn he handed me my bag of uniforms. Still have to figure out how to rock this without looking like I’m trying too hard.
“See you around,” I said.
Smooth strides carried me out of the store and then I practically ran into the restroom, where I leaned my head against the wall, trembling. Slowly the urge to barf passed, but before I straightened up, a girl came in. I recognized her as Jennifer Bishop, a peripheral member of the Teflon crew. She wasn’t as popular as Brittany or Allison, but since she was one of them, I couldn’t trust her. Jennifer had dark hair and eyes; she looked as if she had Thai heritage, though her last name didn’t reflect it.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yeah, I just didn’t eat breakfast. I’m a little light-headed.” Bending down, I splashed some cold water on my face, then belatedly realized that most girls wouldn’t do that because it would destroy their makeup.
Looking in the mirror, I saw that I had, in fact, screwed up my eyeliner. With a faint sigh, I got a paper towel and did what I could to amend the damage. Now I got why girls in the Teflon crew carried around a cosmetics studio. Apparently I still had some things to learn.
“You can use mine if you want.” She was touching up her face, but the idea of risking pink eye was enough to make me shake my head.
“Thanks, but I’m headed home now anyway.”
“It’s Edith, right?”
I was honestly surprised. “Edie. Have we met?”
“No, but I know who you are.”
After what Cameron did, that was probably true of everyone at school, to say nothing of the five thousand viewers on YouTube. “What can I say, I’m memorable.”
“I hesitate to say this, but … you had me worried toward the end of last year. You look amazing now, though. I guess summer break put things in perspective?”
“Yeah.” More than you can ever know.
“I just want you to know, I had nothing to do with what happened. And I’m really sorry.” That was the most I’d ever heard Jennifer say.
“I survived. For what it’s worth, I know it wasn’t your idea. Talk to you later.”
She wore a pained look as I pushed past her, but I wasn’t interested in her crisis of conscience. For the sake of my sanity, I needed to get away from Blackbriar and marshal my strength for school next week. Bag in hand, I jogged out of the main building and toward the gate. Guys yelled after me; there were whistles and catcalls, but it didn’t make me feel pretty or special. It just made me feel worse, knowing that it didn’t matter what kind of person I was, only how I looked.
Eventually, I collected myself enough to head for the T station. In the city, I bought school supplies, and when I got home, my parents were both out. That was par for the course. Since I turned thirteen, I’d spent a fair amount of time alone. I wished my parents had evaluated the social atmosphere at Blackbriar in addition to the academics, but stuff like that didn’t occur to them. They saw high school as a hurdle to overcome on the way to an awesome adult life, and I should ignore people who made fun of me. I tried to talk to my mom about it once, and she told me a long story about how things were worse for her growing up and I should be grateful for my advantages. That was the end of me trying to make her understand just how bad things had gotten.
Too late now.
Over the next week, I wrote back and forth with Vi, less often to Ryu. I had the impression that he was pretty popular in Japan. It would’ve made me sad if I thought he was seriously hung up on me, but his quick notes were just about back-to-school stuff. In the mornings, I took to running, mostly because it was exercise I could do with the clothes and shoes I already owned. If my parents thought it was weird that I was up at seven every day and racing through the city streets, neither my mom nor dad said a word. My new interest in fitness came partly from a desire to keep the body I’d sold my soul for—I hoped not literally—and the rest had to do with burning nervous energy.