I was dully aware that I was reading way too much into it, but my lack of sleep coupled with the stress of everything else made my mind go to some interesting places. Interesting, but not productive.
I was pretty much a zombie all day, but during the middle of calculus, something finally woke me up.
“Did you hear about Vikki McPhee?”
“About how she’s totally knocked up? Yep. Heard this morning.”
My head snapped up from the problem I was halfheartedly attempting to solve. Two girls sat side by side in the row ahead of me. I recognized one of them as a junior cheerleader.
“God, what a slut,” the cheerleader said. “No telling who the father is. She sleeps with everyone.”
I hate to admit it, but my first reaction to this was pure selfish fear. I thought of Wesley. Sure, he’d rejected Vikki in the hallway a few days ago, but what if something had changed? What if that letter had been a joke? A game to mess with my head? What if he and Vikki had…
I forced the thought away. Wesley was careful. He always used a condom. Besides, it was like that girl had said—Vikki slept with everyone. The chances of Wesley being the father were slim. And I didn’t have a right to worry about that, anyway. He wasn’t my boyfriend. Even if he had pretty much professed his love for me in a letter. I was with Toby, and whatever Wesley decided to do wasn’t any of my business.
My second thought was of Vikki. Seventeen, on the verge of graduation, and, if the rumors were true, pregnant. What a nightmare. And everyone knew. I could hear people buzzing about it in the hallway when I left calculus. In a school the size of Hamilton, it didn’t take long for gossip to spread. Vikki McPhee was the girl on everyone’s mind.
Including mine.
So when I walked out of a bathroom stall a few minutes before English and found Vikki standing at the sink, reapplying her dark pink lipstick, I had to make an effort to avert my eyes.
But I had to say something. I mean, we weren’t close or anything, but we did eat lunch together every day. “Hey,” I mumbled.
“Hey,” she replied, still tracing the lipstick across her lower lip.
I turned on the faucet and stared at my reflection in the mirror, trying hard not to sneak a peek at her. How far along was she? Had her parents found out yet?
“It’s not true, you know.”
“What?”
Vikki capped her lipstick and dropped it into her purse. She was watching me in the mirror, and I could see now that her eyes were a little red.
“I’m not pregnant,” she said. “I mean, I thought I was, but the test was negative. I took it two days ago. But I guess someone overheard me telling Jeanine and Angela and… whatever. But I’m not pregnant.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.” Yeah, probably not exactly the right thing to say, but I was kind of caught off guard.
Vikki nodded and tugged at one of her strawberry-blond curls a little. “I was relieved. I don’t know how I would have told my parents. And the guy never would have made a good father.”
“Who?”
That was such a selfish question.
“Just this guy… Eric.”
Thank God, I thought. Then, of course, I felt incredibly guilty. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about myself.
“He’s just this stupid frat boy who gets a kick out of fucking high school girls.” She looked down, so I couldn’t see her eyes in the mirror anymore. “And I didn’t even give a shit. I just let him use me, and I never thought… even when the condom broke…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Anyway, I’m glad it was negative.”
“Right.”
“It is scary, though,” she said. “I freaked out when I was waiting for the test. I just couldn’t believe I was in that situation, you know?”
“I’m sure,” I said, but I didn’t find it all that surprising. It was Vikki, after all. Hadn’t she been setting herself up for that kind of thing for a while? Sleeping with people she didn’t care about. Forgetting about the consequences.
Just like I did…
Okay, so it hadn’t been people. Wesley was the only guy. And I did care about him… now, after I’d stopped sleeping with him. But that was just… well, I didn’t know what you’d call it. Not quite luck. Maybe coincidence? Either way, I was smart enough to know that it didn’t happen often.
But I had forgotten about the consequences. And it suddenly hit me how easily Vikki and I could trade places. I could have been the girl everyone was talking about. I could have had a pregnancy scare. Or worse. I mean, I was on birth control, and Wesley and I were always safe, but these things fail sometimes. It could easily have failed for us. And yet there I was, judging Vikki for pretty much the same thing. I was a hell of a hypocrite.
“You are not a whore.” I had a sudden flash of Wesley that last night in his bedroom, telling me exactly who I was. Telling me that the rest of the world was just as confused as me. That I wasn’t a whore, and I wasn’t alone.
I didn’t know Vikki that well. I didn’t know what her home life was like or anything that personal aside from her boy issues. And standing there in the bathroom, listening as she told me her story, I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been running away from something, too. If I’d been judging her, thinking of her as a slut all this time when, in reality, we were living scarily similar lives.
Calling Vikki a slut or a whore was just like calling someone the Duff. It was insulting and hurtful, and it was one of those titles that just fed off of an inner fear every girl must have from time to time. Slut, bitch, prude, tease, ditz. They were all the same. Every girl felt like one of these sexist labels described her at some point.
So, maybe, every girl felt like the Duff, too?
“God, I’m late,” Vikki said as the tardy bell rang. “I should go.”
I watched as she gathered her purse and textbooks off the counter, wondering what was going through her head. Had all of this made her realize the consequences of her choices?
Our choices.
“See you around, Bianca,” she said, moving toward the door.
“Bye,” I said. Then, without meaning to, I added, “And, Vikki… I’m sorry. It’s really messed up the way people are talking about you. Just remember that what they say doesn’t matter.” Again, I thought of Wesley and what he’d said to me in his bedroom. “The people who call you names are just trying to make themselves feel better. They’ve fucked up before, too. You’re not the only one.”
Vikki looked surprised. “Thanks,” she said. She opened her mouth like she might say something else, but then closed it again. Without another word, she left the bathroom.
For all I knew, Vikki might go out and hook up with another guy that same night. She might not have learned anything from this experience. Or maybe she’d change her behavior altogether—at the very least, she might be more careful. I might never know. That was her choice. Her life. And it wasn’t my place to judge.
It was never my place to judge.
And as I walked down the hall, five minutes late for English, I decided that I’d think twice before calling Vikki—or anyone else for that matter—a whore again.
Because she was just like me.
Just like everyone else.
That was something we all had in common. We were all sluts or bitches or prudes or Duffs.
I was the Duff. And that was a good thing. Because anyone who didn’t feel like the Duff must not have friends. Every girl feels unattractive sometimes. Why had it taken me so long to figure that out? Why had I been stressing over that dumb word for so long when it was so simple? I should be proud to be the Duff. Proud to have great friends who, in their minds, were my Duffs.