“Thank you, Maggie,” she says before we hang up. “A ny time.”
On Tuesday, I wake up with an enormous zit on my nose. My hair decides to puff out on one side of my head and lie greasily flat on the other. When I walk down the school hall, I’m suddenly self-conscious about my shirt. I bought it at a thrift store, and its colors thrilled me—shades of violet that melt into one another like a watercolor—but nobody else has a shirt anything like it.
I’m not sure about these shoes, either.
I remind myself that Sylvie told me bright colors look good on me, especially blue and purple. And I remember seeing it myself, in the dressing-room mirror on a shopping trip with her. Even if all I can see today is the zit and the crazy hair.
At lunch, Sylvie and Nick have to go to a student council meeting. I sit alone with a book, trying to ignore the girls giggling at the table behind me. I can’t hear what they’re whispering about, but my mind supplies the script: Have you ever seen a huger, redder zit than the one on Maggie’s face? And what’s with that shirt? How can Nick Cleary stand to kiss her without gagging? Vanessa says he knows how to kiss—why’s he wasting his time with Maggie Camden? She washes her hair in the toilet, remember?
At practically every table in this cafeteria, there’s someone who laughed at me in junior high, who shoved me or tripped me, who forwarded those texts and contributed to the We Hate Maggie sites.
Most of them have forgotten by now.
The girls at the table behind me could be laughing about anything. I assume it’s about me because I always assume it’s about me. Because once upon a time, it was.
But we’re not in junior high anymore.
Not everyone is intent on hunting me down.
Raleigh Barringer floats into the room and heads for her usual table. She hasn’t reactivated her troops against me, and I don’t believe she’s going to. Is it because I stood up to her, as Nick said? Or is it just that we’re older now? I stare at her and when she looks my way, for the first time ever, I don’t need to drop my eyes.
Vanessa’s at her old table, ignoring me. Nick called her last night to tell her he didn’t want to get back together. When I told him I was afraid she was gearing up for war with me, he said no. That no matter how angry she was yesterday, she has too much pride to start a public feud.
But even though he knows Vanessa better than I do, and even though I always did respect her more than Raleigh Barringer, I’m not so sure.
All of which makes the apology I owe Vanessa even harder to deliver.
I’d love to hide under my table instead, but I want to get this over with. Especially after the scene with Sylvie yesterday, I never again want to assume I’m the only person with problems, the only one who gets hurt.
I rise on shaky legs and cross to Vanessa.
“What?” she says. Her voice is cold and hard as steel, but I would swear I see a flash of fear in her eyes. Does she think I’m going to gloat about Nick? Does she actually believe I have that in me?
“I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.” I wish I could calm my quavering voice, but I plunge ahead. “I should’ve been honest with you and Nick. And I never meant for you to get hurt when—”
“I’m fine.” Her words rush over mine; her eyes narrow. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
“I wasn’t, I didn’t mean that, it’s only that I—”
“Maggie, stop it. If you don’t mind . . .” She flaps a hand, dismissing me. “I’d like to get on with my life. Which doesn’t include you.”
I flee back to my own table, trembling so badly I can barely hold my book. I would rather grind tinfoil between my teeth than go through that again. But at least I’ve said what needed to be said.
My phone vibrates with a message from Nick, who’s still in his student council meeting.
i’m dying of boredom. class treasurer being grilled over 5-cent mistake. let’s go back to crystal. okay with me, I type back. i need to find my knife anyway.
what’s with you and that knife? you seem overly attached to it.
i really like the guy who gave it to me.
There’s a pause. Then: he’s not so great. i hear he doesn’t even know how proteins fold.
I answer: that doesn’t bother me. i don’t know how proteins fold, either.
The bell rings. Nobody rushes to walk with me, but that’s okay. I join the crowd of kids streaming into the hall without shrinking away from them, without trying to make myself invisible. As if I have a right to be here.
Table of Contents
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two
three
four
five
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seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
Jennifer R. Hubbard, Until It Hurts to Stop
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