“Yes!” Sam exclaims. “Team Milkshake Machine for the win.” He gives me an enthusiastic high five and we both dissolve into laughter.
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll see,” Dex says with a grin. “I’ll have to shop around.” He wanders over to the register and pops it open, counting the money inside.
“That’s not going to make you any richer,” Lou says as she passes by with a pot of coffee.
“It’s not about being rich,” he says. “I just like the feel of it. Besides, I’m rich anyway. Spiritually. After all, I have you, darling.” He says darling with an exaggerated accent, so it sounds more like “dah-link.”
She rolls her eyes. “And that’s not going to get you laid,” she retorts, but when he snatches her around the waist and pecks her on the mouth, she kisses him back before shoving him off.
It’s quiet tonight, so in between dish duty and busing I finish the sweeping, mop the floor and spend a lot of time lingering around the grill, watching Sam and Dex cook. By the end of the shift, my feet ache and my hands are all wrinkled from dirty dishwater.
“Ready to go?” asks Sam after we’ve both punched out.
I nod and collect my things, waving goodbye to Dex and Lou before piling into the Cutlass with Sam and Asha. He drops Asha at home, closer to the suburban east end of town; her house is nice, two stories, all beige paint and stone, with a dark green SUV parked in the driveway. I think she told me once that her dad is a doctor.
Sam doesn’t say anything as he drives me to the student lot and pulls into the space next to my car. We sit with the engine running for a long time. I don’t know what he’s waiting for. I should go, but when I unbuckle and reach for the door handle, I think about Mom at the sink and Dad’s face and it’s suddenly the last thing I want to do.
“Well,” he says after a while, like the beginning of a thought, except then he just stops. We look at each other, each waiting for something. Finally I take out my whiteboard.
What is the deal with Asha’s mother? She told me she was sick.
Sam looks at the board and then at me. “I think you should ask her if you want to know,” he says.
So you know?
“Asha talks to me,” he says. “We’re friends. If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you herself.” He shoots me a pointed look. “You really don’t understand the concept of secrets, do you?”
Old habits die hard.
He snorts. “Apparently.”
Don’t look at me like that. I was just curious.
“There’s a difference between curiosity and nosiness,” he says. “Don’t you have any secrets? Something private you wouldn’t share with just anyone?”
I write, My dad lost his job yesterday, in tiny cramped letters.
Sam stares at it for a minute, and then at me. “Man. That’s really… I’d ask if you’re okay, but that sounds like a really stupid question.”
I smile a little, because he’s right, it would be kind of stupid.
“What did he do?” he asks.
Sales.
Sam nods. “My stepdad owns a car dealership in Westfield,” he says. Westfield is the next town over. “He might need a sales guy. Do you want me to talk to him?”
Okay, this is bordering on unreal. There is no way Sam is just that good of a guy. No one is. Not without strings attached.
Don’t you hate me?
“No.” His brow furrows. “You think I hate you?”
Do I really have to point out the proverbial elephant in the room? Apparently so, because he just sits there, waiting for an answer.
Why wouldn’t you? You know what I did to Noah.
Noah, his best friend. Noah, who makes out with guys. Noah, who almost died.
Sam looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. My heart starts pounding really fast, and I get that elevator-drop stomach again. I shouldn’t have brought this up. I shouldn’t keep sabotaging the few things that allow me to cling to my ever-dwindling sanity.
I am such a moron.
“I think about what happened to Noah—not just what happened, but what they did to him—every day. I was mad at you. I am mad. But—” He stops and sighs. “Asha told me you didn’t know what they were going to do to him,” he says. “Is that true?”
I nod. I didn’t know, but—
It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t said anything.
“Probably not,” he agrees. “But if you hadn’t said anything to the cops…who knows if they would’ve been caught. Andy never saw them. Noah doesn’t even remember.”
So he has talked to Noah about this. Or someone has, anyway.
I’m glad the police found the bloody ice scraper in Warren’s truck bed. I’m glad he and Joey both confessed. Otherwise it would just be my word against theirs—but now it’s no secret. Everyone knows. I mean, I assume there’s probably going to be a trial, eventually, though it could take months. And I’m sure I’ll have to testify, even if the very idea makes me want to throw up. I’m not really clear on how all of that is supposed to go down; Mom and Dad hired a lawyer who has been dealing with most of the mess. One they couldn’t afford before and definitely can’t afford now that Dad is jobless.
I still find it unbelievable that this happened at all. I know Warren and Joey were totally drunk, but it’s one thing to joke about that stuff and another altogether to act on it. To track a boy down like—like an animal and just kick the shit out of him because of who he is.
“Just tell me—are you sorry?” Sam asks. “And I don’t mean are you sorry for what it cost you. Are you sorry for what you did? For what happened to Noah?”
I’ve spent so much time drowning in self-pity. I’ve been acting like a total brat. Sure, I lost my friends and my status, but Noah almost lost his life. Andy almost lost his boyfriend. Sam almost lost his best friend. I wish I could go back in time and change things, but I can’t, and that knowledge will haunt me forever.
I don’t understand how Derek and Lowell can be so angry at me, acting like a damn basketball team is more important than someone else’s life. They should be angry at Warren and Joey. I am! I haven’t even fully realized it until right this second, but I’m furious. For what they did to Noah. For thinking they could get away with it. It wasn’t my business to tell them what I saw that night, but what they did with that information was their choice. It was their choice to get in that truck and chase him down. Not mine.
I’ve done a lot I’m not proud of. But that. That much I am not responsible for.
I finally meet Sam’s gaze and hold up my board so he can read what I’ve written.
More than words can say.
“Well, then,” Sam says. “That’s a start.”
day twelve
It takes only one minute to compose the email reply, but another twenty to talk myself into sending it.
Bring it.
It’s just one line, two simple words, but I still hesitate with my mouse hovering over the send button. One click and that message will go straight to Kristen’s in-box. One click and I’ll have done something I have never dared to do before: fight back against Kristen.
I’ve spent the last three days stewing over this decision. If I do this, there is no turning back. I’ll have dug myself a hole so deep I won’t ever escape it; Kristen will never forgive me, if she ever was going to at all. But I don’t want to be forgiven. I want Kristen to apologize to me—and the likelihood of that happening is nonexistent.
All this time I’ve been wondering what I can do to make Kristen want to be my friend again, and now I’m thinking maybe it’s Kristen who needs to change. And more than that, maybe I need to show her that I’m not someone she can just steamroll over. I have a backbone, dammit.
I click the send button before I can agonize over it any longer. Instead of satisfaction, all I feel is mild nausea, and when my cell phone rings suddenly, I nearly jump out of my skin and scramble to pick it up off my desk. I don’t recognize the number on the front screen, but I pick the call up anyway.
“Chelsea?” It’s Sam, the sound of dishes clattering and water running in the background. He must be at Rosie’s. “It’s me. Sam.”
I almost answer on pure instinct, but then remember and shut my mouth. Why would he call? He knows I can’t speak.
“I know you can’t talk,” he says, like he’s reading my mind, “but Dex has this errand he wants me to run for him… I don’t know, he’s in one of his moods, he’s decided he wants to redecorate and asked if I’d go out and pick up paint samples. I could use a second opinion. You want to come?” He pauses and laughs a little. “Cough once for yes, twice for no.”
Well, let’s see. It’s a Friday night, and my choices are either sit around the house on edge waiting to see if Kristen replies to my email, or go shopping for paint samples. I can’t even go downstairs to watch television because Dad is fixing the garbage disposal and making a racket. The answer here is fairly obvious.
I cough once, pointedly.
Sam laughs again. “All right,” he says, “I’ll be over in a few.”
* * *
“Oh, God, shut up! You have no idea what you’re talking about!”
Sam keeps yelling at his car radio like the hosts on NPR can hear him. I wonder if he does this all the time, or if he’s doing it for my benefit to keep this car ride from being dead silent. I’m too anxious to pay attention to his constant grumbling. I stare out the window and watch the buildings slip by, wondering if Kristen’s seen my email yet. On one hand, I’d pay to see her face when she reads it—on the other, I’m suddenly feeling like maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to antagonize her. Who knows how she’ll respond?
“Hey,” Sam says. I look over to see him smiling at me, and the knot in my stomach loosens just a little. He turns down the radio volume a few notches. “You okay?”
I plaster on a thin smile and nod, but he keeps staring at me.
“You look…serious,” he says.
As opposed to my usual brain-dead ditz look? I just shrug and turn the radio back up, pretending to be acutely invested in whatever the two hosts are discussing all the way until we reach Home Depot. We walk through the sliding doors and straight to the paint aisle, where Sam makes a beeline for the paint sample strips. He starts pulling them from the shelves at random.
“Dex didn’t say what color he wanted,” Sam explains when he catches my bemused look. “So I guess just grab whatever you think looks good.”
I wander over to the neutrals, selecting various shades of taupe and beige. Maybe a deep gold would look nice. Something warm and inviting.
“Chelsea?”
I’m so startled to hear my name that I drop the fan of sample strips onto the floor. When I kneel down to pick them back up, I’m met with the sight of a pair of purple plaid flats I distinctly remember Kristen branding as fugly. Sure enough, when I glance up Tessa is staring down at me with narrowed brown eyes.
I gather the rest of the strips and slowly rise to my feet until we’re eye to eye. Tessa frowns like she doesn’t know what to make of me. I am, admittedly, not as presentable as I usually am when I go out into public. I’m wearing a pair of dark jeans and a ribbed brown sweater, nothing fancy. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone but Sam, and it’s not like he cares how I’m dressed.
Tessa’s gaze shifts over my shoulder, and when she looks back at me, there’s the start of a smirk curling around the edges of her mouth. “So you’re here with him?” she asks. “Is he, like, your boyfriend now or something? Because if so, someone should tell him he could do better.”
I stare back, unmoving, fighting the urge to comb my fingers through my messy hair. It’s really not fair that I had to run into Tessa like this without warning, when I’m such a mess and she’s so well put-together. Her wispy light brown hair frames her perfectly made-up face; she’s learned her lesson about the bronzer, it seems. Looks like Kristen’s already started on her, grooming her to be a proper replacement.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Tessa snaps. There’s a newfound conviction in her tone I’ve never heard before, the kind that comes from having all the power at hand. “Do you really expect me to feel sorry for you, after you went and leaked the pictures of me and Owen?”
I really, really want to inform Tessa that her new BFF Kristen was the one who spread the photos. Instead I set my jaw and stare down at the floor. Times like these I wonder if this vow is worth it, but then again, it’s not like Tessa would take my word for it anyway.
Suddenly there’s a hand on my back. Sam stands beside me, looking from me to Tessa and back again. “I think I’m done here,” he says. “You ready to go?”
I nod, maybe a little more fervently than I mean to, and Sam keeps his hand placed lightly on the middle of my back as we brush past Tessa and head toward the store exit. I don’t have to look over my shoulder to know that she’s watching me walk away.
day fifteen
The next email from Kristen arrives in my in-box on Sunday evening.
The subject line is FWD: HOT MESS………MINUS THE HOT, and it takes me a minute to get past my trepidation and open it. And as soon as I do I wish I never had.
There’s no text, just a single photo. Of me. Hunched over the toilet, looking like I’m about to puke. I recognize the outfit as the one I wore on New Year’s; the plunging neckline leaves my boobs halfway out of my top, and the camera caught me midblink, my mouth open in what looks to be a gag. The flash washes out my already pale skin and catches my monstrous hair in all its bushy, frizzed-out glory.
It’s the most unflattering picture of all time, and one I don’t even remember being taken. How nice of Kristen to stick a camera in my face when I was drunk and puking into her toilet. I look so completely gross and trashed. When I scroll up to the top of the email, I realize with growing horror that Kristen has cc’ed it to everyone in her contacts list. All of my friends—ex-friends—will have this sitting in their in-boxes when they log in to check their email. Some of them have probably already seen it.
At least I’m not totally unprepared when I walk into school Monday and find a printout of it taped to my locker. Some guy walking by sees it and laughs before I can rip it off and crumple the paper into a ball. I shove it into my book bag, my face hot with shame.
There are more of them taped to the mirrors in the bathroom. And on the inside of every stall. I tear each one to tiny shreds before tossing them in the trash can.
Unfortunately destroying the evidence doesn’t stop people from talking. And pointing. And making rude comments. When I go up to Mrs. Finch’s desk to turn in my Lit test, I come back to my seat to find another copy of the printout has materialized on top of my desk. Derek and Lowell snicker from behind as I carefully fold it and cram it into my notebook.
Asha catches me at my locker after class, one of the printouts in hand and concern written all over her face. “Um, Chelsea, have you seen—” She tak
es one look at me and stops midsentence. “Oh, so you have. Are you okay?”
I shrug one shoulder without looking her in the eye. Ordinarily I’d put on a brave face and act like none of it matters, but right now I’m too tired to pretend this humiliating ordeal isn’t getting to me at all.
Kristen fights dirty. I know Kristen fights dirty. There was no way I could all but invite her to take a stab and not expect something like this. Who knows what other tricks she has up her sleeve. It’s like locking yourself in a cage with a tiger and poking it repeatedly with a stick. It’ll never end well.
As if she has some kind of psychic link with me or something, Kristen chooses that precise moment to walk by, posse in tow. She looks me up and down as she does with just a hint of a smirk, and she doesn’t say anything; she doesn’t have to. She knows she’s won this round. That pisses me off more than anything, really.
Asha watches me watching Kristen before linking her arm through mine and tugging me down the hall. “Don’t pay her attention,” she says. “She isn’t worth it.”
I know Asha’s right, logically. Now if only I could make my heart believe it.
* * *
Lou is currently obsessed with the soundtrack to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’ve never seen the movie, and when Sam rattles off the cast list like he’s the living embodiment of IMDB.com, the only name I recognize is Susan Sarandon. Still, I somehow know most of the lyrics to every song because Lou insists on playing it on repeat in the kitchen.
My favorite is “The Time Warp,” because every single time it comes on, everyone momentarily pauses in whatever they’re doing to sing along and do this orchestrated dance I assume must be from the movie. As an outsider, I am highly entertained.
Tonight the song cues up while I’m in the middle of sweeping the kitchen. Andy sings the loudest while he flips hamburger patties, and Sam mouths the lyrics into his spatula, and Lou and Asha stop busing tables long enough to participate.