* * *
Bell!
Lacey was the first one out of science lab. She kept her head down and moved, moved. Past the blue lockers. Down the staircase. Through the double doors. Into the west wing, and down another flight of stairs. And okay, finally, there was the door closest to the shortcut. Another minute and she’d be outside. Then she could sprint. Oh, God. Oh, God.
If only she hadn’t had to go to the bathroom so desperately that morning. If only she hadn’t overheard Rhonda.
“She stabbed Will in the arm with a pencil! Can you imagine?” Rhonda had said. “I mean, what about lead poisoning? That could have been serious.”
Sitting in the last cubicle, with its broken door slightly ajar and her feet drawn up—the safe way to use the bathroom, when you had to, when you simply couldn’t hold it—Lacey had tightened her arms around her knees and closed her eyes briefly. Rhonda, she’d thought. It had to be Rhonda cutting class at the only time I could sneak in here. Now I’ll have to stay until after she leaves. I’ll miss history. I’ll get in trouble.
She’d snapped back to attention when the girl Rhonda had been speaking to—Lacey thought it was Alicia Stern—asked something.
“Oh, who cares?” Rhonda replied. “You know Will. He’s always fooling around. Listen, whatever he did to her, she didn’t have the right to stab him.”
“Mm.” Alicia appeared to agree. And after a moment, she’d added: “She’s in my homeroom. And this morning? You won’t believe it. She stood at the front of the room sharpening one pencil after another. An entire box! And Will was right there, too. She didn’t look at him. She just kept sharpening.”
“Weird,” Rhonda commented interestedly.
“So weird.”
There’d been a pause. Then Rhonda had lowered her voice. “Alicia? I know something.”
Almost against her will, Lacey strained to hear. Rhonda’s voice had dropped again, and if Lacey hadn’t known her so well, she might not have been able to make out any words at all.
But she did.
After school. Will’s going to show that bitch to watch out who she stabs. She takes that route through the woods . . . Jase is going too, and Pete and Carl . . .
Lacey had hugged her knees harder. Show that bitch. Show that bitch. She’d tried, quietly, to breathe despite the new, huge lump in her throat.
Who? What bitch? Although at least it wasn’t Lacey, and that was all that mattered, really.
And then Rhonda said, “You know, I’d kill myself if I were here. She’s the ugliest girl in the entire school.”
Lacey had known then. For several long seconds she ceased to breathe at all.
“In fact, when you think about it,” Rhonda had added, “Catrine Messer would be better off dead.”