by Katie Wismer
Lurching forward, I empty my stomach into the toilet. My body tries to heave three more times, like it can purge the last twenty minutes straight out of my system, before finally relenting. I fall back against the toilet paper dispenser and kick the door shut, gasping for air.
The bathroom suddenly feels too quiet, the only sound my shuttering breaths.
But I don’t move. I can’t.
This can’t actually be happening. Things like this don’t actually happen.
As the first bell echoes through the bathroom, I lean my head against the door and close my eyes. I never miss class, but there’s no way I’m getting myself off this floor. And the second everyone sees my empty desk, they’ll know all the rumors are true.
The flyers I’d ripped from lockers I’d passed are scattered in a heap around me. I paw through them, crumpling them into balls as I go, scanning for Johanna’s name, but they all seem to be my copy of the contract. So maybe it was just me.
I send her a text, telling her to call me. When first period comes and goes, filling the bathroom with the sound of the bell for a second time, I send her another, this time telling her it’s an emergency and she needs to respond to me right now.
I flinch as footsteps enter the bathroom and two voices fill the space with careless conversation, but remain in my spot on the floor. If they can see a pathetic lump of a human huddled on the ground beneath the stall door, so be it. Honestly, I don’t see how this could get any worse.
When the end of third period rolls around and Johanna still hasn’t responded, I take a few calming breaths and climb to my feet. Maybe she got her phone confiscated in one of her morning classes. All I know is, I need to talk to her, and the one class I know she’d never miss is Mr. Graham’s fourth period. I stumble out to the sinks, bracing myself against the counter with shaking hands.
The mirror is unkind. Puffy cheeks and swollen eyes stare back at me, my mascara smeared into my hairline. After splashing cold water on my face a few times, I figure this is about as good as it’s going to get.
So I grab my backpack from the floor, pop in a piece of gum to cover the smell of vomit on my breath, and head out of the bathroom before I can talk myself out of it.
As I walk into Mr. Graham’s classroom, I try to ignore the stares and whispers and head straight to my desk. The voices crawl like microscopic bugs burying deep into my skin, where I know they’ll linger and bide their time, waiting to resurface and torment me all over again in the silence of my room. As I near my seat, Ashley and her friend move out of the way so I can pass without so much as a look in my direction.
There’s a paper on my desk. At first, I think it’s just another photocopy of the pact, but upon further inspection, I realize there’s an old photo of me at the top. Probably dating back to middle school, complete with side-bangs that hang in my eyes and clumsy lines of eyeliner on my lower lash line. It’s cropped awkwardly with a chunk of my face missing, probably to cut Johanna out. As if the picture itself weren’t embarrassing enough, it’s photoshoped onto a body that definitely did not belong to me when I was thirteen—heck, I still don’t have those curves now.
The woman’s body is scantily clad and pointing toward the camera with a propositioning finger. It looks like it was taken straight out of a porn magazine or something.
How many copies of this version are plastered around school?
“You know.” Ashley twists around in her seat and smirks at me. “I’m no religious expert, but doesn’t the church generally frown upon whores?”
My entire body flares with heat so intense, nausea bubbles in my stomach. I crush the paper in my fist and keep my eyes trained on my notebook. I can feel the gazes of my classmates burning into my face, but I don’t look up. I can’t.
The bell rings, signaling the start of class, and I glance at Johanna’s empty desk beside me. She’s never late. Not to Mr. Graham’s class.
My heart stutters to a stop. Between worrying about Squirt last night and all of this with the pact, I forgot about Jo’s session with Mr. Graham. Yesterday was the day. I glance at her empty desk, then up at Mr. Graham, who is writing something on the whiteboard. Did something happen between them? Is that why she isn’t here? But if it was something good, she would have called me straight away, eager to share the news.
If she didn’t even show up today, then something must have gone very, very wrong.
I feel like I’m going to throw up again, and then suddenly I’m standing up. All heads turn toward me—at least, the ones that weren’t already turned in my direction to begin with.
Mr. Graham looks up, but he won’t quite meet my eyes.
Great. Even my teachers know about the pact. If I wasn’t so worried about Jo, this would probably send a whole new wave of humiliation through my system.
“Is everything okay, Meredith?” he asks.
“I’m not feeling well. I need to go to the nurse.” I grab my bag from the floor and hurry toward the door.
“It’s probably herpes,” someone mutters.
“You dropped this!” Ashley calls. I glance back to see her waving a folded piece of paper, probably just another copy of the pact. I keep walking.
As soon as I reach the hallway, I pull out my phone and dial Jo’s number. My hands are shaking so badly that it takes three tries. It rings and rings as I head for my car, but she doesn’t pick up. I try again, but it goes to voicemail.
“Jo, it’s Mare. Call me back. Please. I’m coming over.”
It’s still pouring when I step outside, and even with my hood, my hair is soaking wet by the time I reach my car. I turn the wipers on, but the rain is coming down so hard that they just move the water around instead of doing any good. But I drive anyway. Both because I’m worried about Johanna, but also because I need to get the hell out of here.
I ease out of the parking lot at five miles per hour, squinting and leaning over the steering wheel trying to see.
Herpes.
Slut.
What would God say about this?
I’d be more than willing to help you out…
I tighten my hands around the wheel until white splits across my knuckles.
I told Harper the rumors about her at school would blow over once the next big scandal hit, so I guess if nothing else, at least my humiliation takes away from hers. That, or it will only get worse for her when the kids start teasing her about having a slut for a sister.
I turn onto the country road that takes me out to Johanna’s house, which is basically in the middle of nowhere, and flip my windshield wipers on to the highest setting. It still doesn’t help. Water splashes up from the road, mingling with the heavy drops falling from the sky. The entire world outside my car is gray and dark. I can’t even see the road in front of me.
The sign signaling the turnoff for Johanna’s street pops up on my left earlier than I expect, and I slam on my brakes.
But the car doesn’t stop.
The car swerves, and water splashes up against the windshield. I vaguely remember learning about hydroplaning in drivers ed three years ago, but I don’t remember anything useful about what to do when it happens. Gripping the wheel, I try to gain control of the vehicle, but the more I try to fix it, the worse it gets.
Then the car is spinning, and water is everywhere. The car lurches, rocks forward, and then I’m falling. Mon Dieu, I must be going down the hill on the opposite side of the road. I pump the brakes and grip the wheel, but the car just keeps barreling downward. I squeeze my eyes closed and brace myself, envisioning all of the trees at the bottom that poor little Stew won’t stand a chance against.
The car whips to the side, spins around, and stops. The rain continues to hammer on the roof, and my heart pounds in sync. I’m still gripping the wheel so tightly, my hands are beginning to cramp, but I can’t force myself to let go. Tremors start in my arms and branch out to the rest of my body until I’m shaking and gasping. The wipers still whip ba
ck and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I feel tears drip down my cheeks.
With a shaking hand, I fish my phone out of my bag on the passenger seat. I have service, but just barely. I try Johanna’s number again, but it just rings and rings and rings.
“Fuck,” I moan, the tremors of my voice filling the car.
I stare at my contacts list. I can’t call my parents. I can’t deal with them right now, not after what happened at school. They’ll be angry I ditched, yes, but they’ll be more concerned why, and knowing them, they won’t stop pushing until they get an answer. And they can’t find out about the pact. About any of this. And they’ll hear it in my voice if I call. They’ll know something’s wrong.
And I can’t talk to—
I can’t even think his name right now. Because whatever we had, I just ruined it. Completely and totally ruined it.
I don’t know how long I sit there, blankly staring out the window, but the rain never lets up. If anything, it starts coming down harder. After a while, I turn off the car, and the wipers freeze halfway across the windshield.
I squint up the hill, where thick, twisting lines of mud are carved into the side from my car’s descent. Before I can talk myself out of it, I throw the door open and plunge into the rain. It’s freezing and heavy and the ground is sheer mud, but I just take a deep breath and start climbing.
16
Johanna opens her front door, and the moment her eyes land on me, they widen to twice their usual size. Mud covers me from head to toe since I tripped coming up the hill and face planted in the muck. I still have a gritty, sour taste in my mouth. I stand there shivering, the cold now engrained all the way down to my bones.
Johanna isn’t looking much better. Her hair is greasy and thrown back in a ponytail. Her face is completely free of makeup, revealing the acne scars she never lets anyone see, and she’s wearing a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt that hangs past her butt. She doesn’t seem to be wearing a bra either, but that’s not really anything new.
“I’d ask you to take off your muddy stuff before coming inside, but I’d rather not watch you strip, so come on.” She nods and steps aside to let me in.
I kick off my shoes by the door, but that doesn’t make much of a difference. Brown-tinted water drips from every inch of me. On the plus side, the freezing rain seemed to snap me out of it, because around halfway up the hill, I managed to stop crying.
Johanna eyes the mud dripping off me with pursed lips. “Come upstairs and I’ll try to find you something to change into.” She pauses, eyes flickering from me to the carpeted stairs. “On second thought, you wait there, and I’ll be right back.”
She disappears to the second level and returns a few minutes later, carrying an old pair of sweats and a hoodie with an eagle and Northfield High printed in big block letters across the front.
Once I’m dry and clothed, she leads me through the glossy hall to the kitchen. “Hungry?” she asks.
Johanna carefully avoids my gaze as I perch myself on the barstool across the counter. She busies herself, straightening a stack of papers.
“What happened, Jo?” I ask quietly.
“I think I should be asking you that,” she deflects, giving the papers one final tap against the island before setting them down.
I wait.
She sighs and leans over the counter, putting her face in her hands. “You were right, as usual.” She runs her hands up and fists them in her hair. “And I’m a complete idiot, also as usual.”
“You’re not an idiot,” I say softly.
“I threw myself at him.” She shakes her head. Her voice wobbles, but she looks away before I can see her face. “I must have looked like such a fool.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing! Fucking nothing!” She finally looks up at me, and her expression is torn between mortified and angry as hell. “I kissed him, he pulled away—actually he backed away, like several steps.”
“And he didn’t say anything?”
“I don’t know. I bolted.” She presses her fingers to her temples. “God, I can’t go back and sit in his class for the rest of the year. How humiliating. How could I have been so stupid?”
“Jo.” I get up and come around to her side of the counter. “You’re not stupid.”
She narrows her eyes at me, as if just now seeing me for the first time. “You’ve been crying. What happened to you?”
I rub at my cheeks, but they’re dry. “It was just the rain.”
“No, it’s not. You’re puffy, and your eyes are red. What happened?”
Now it’s my turn to avoid her gaze. Sighing, I lean my back against the counter and pick at my nails. “Ashley kind of made photocopies of our pact and spread them around the school.”
What little color was in Jo’s face disappears.
“Just mine,” I clarify. “Don’t worry. I don’t know how, but I don’t think she got her hands on yours.” As pissed as I am that she got her hands on mine, at least she didn’t plaster Jo’s everywhere. Especially not after what happened with Mr. Graham—that would just make her situation so much more awkward.
“Don’t worry?” Jo grabs me by the shoulders. “That doesn’t make it any less horrible. Mare, I’m so sorry! How bad was it?”
I just shake my head, look away, and lock my jaw. I refuse to cry about this again. “It’s not even the rest of the school I’m worried about. I’m more worried about Harper. And what am I going to tell my parents?”
What am I going to tell Sam? is what I don’t say, because I still can’t even bring myself to think of what his reaction will be.
“Do they know?” Jo demands.
“Not yet, but you know it’s just a matter of time.”
“And Harper? Do you think she’ll tell them?”
I shake my head, but a hint of doubt tickles the back of my mind. “I don’t think so, but I’ll try to talk to her first.”
“Ugh!” Jo stomps to one end of the counter and whips back around. “Ashley is not going to get away with this. That bitch is not going to win. Not this time.”
“Honestly, Jo, getting back at Ashley is the last thing on my mind.”
“How are you not pissed at her?” she demands.
“I am.” I’m more than pissed. Honestly, I’m shocked. Ashley has always been horrible, but this seems so low, even for her. This isn’t some petty prank for a good laugh. This almost feels…vindictive. “I just have too much damage control to worry about to even think about Ashley.”
“You know everyone at school isn’t going to just move on from it,” Jo says.
“Trust me,” I grumble. “I know.”
Johanna walks over to the living room and plops herself on the couch, facing away from me.
I pad over to the chair across from her and sink into the leather with my feet crossed beneath me. “Do your parents know? About Mr. Graham?”
She snorts. “Hell, no. I told them I had cramps so they called me out sick.”
“Maybe it wasn’t as bad as you think,” I offer. “Sometimes when you’re embarrassed, at the time you blow it up in your head to be something bigger than it was. Maybe he won’t even remember it.”
“I kissed him and then ran—literally ran—out of his classroom. I highly doubt he’s going to forget that.” Knees tucked to her chest, she covers her face with her hands and rests her forehead against her thighs. “I have never been this embarrassed in my life. Which is bullshit.” She looks up at me. “Your problems are way worse than mine, and here I am bitching about it.”
“My problems aren’t worse than yours. They’re just different. I don’t think you can really rank shitty situations. They’re just shitty.”
“That would definitely be the word for it.” She leans her head back and rubs absently at a scar on her cheek. “I’m really sorry about the pact. I know she must have gotten it out of my room because I was the only one with a copy. This is my fault.”
“I don’t blame you. There’s no way you could have known she’d take it!”
She sniffles and turns away.
“Jo, I know this sucks, but are you really going to let one guy—no matter who he may be—get to you like this? You are Johanna fucking Palmer. If he wasn’t into you—and I’m guessing it was more about being afraid of getting in trouble than not being attracted to you—then screw him. Not literally, obviously.”
She glances at me and smirks. “I am Johanna fucking Palmer,” she agrees.
“Yes, you are.”
“And I can do way better than a wannabe male model with a teacher’s salary.”
“Yes, you can.”
She gets up, comes over to my chair, and folds in beside me. “You’re pretty much the best best friend ever.”
I lean my head against hers. “Yes, I am.”
She clasps my hand in hers. “So, what are we going to do about this damage control?”
I sigh. “I have no idea.”
✦✦✦
By the time I get home, I can almost pretend this morning never happened. I can almost forget about what I’ve done, what everyone now knows about me. There are no whispers or giggles or narrow-eyed glances—and yet, my muscles can’t quite relax, and I keep catching myself grinding my teeth.
Especially when I reach the front door, only to find a large poster board with the word slut smeared across the surface. I quickly tear it down and enter the house, thankful I got home before my parents. If they had been the ones to find that…
I stand in the empty foyer for a long time, slowly ripping the poster apart with my hands.
It doesn’t matter.
Rip.
I don’t care.
Rip.
It’s not true.
Riiiip.
I don’t stop until the tears clouding my eyes spill over and drip onto the paper in my hands. The house is quiet. I peer into the kitchen. Empty. The TV room, empty. I head upstairs and pause in front of Harper’s door. The light’s on.
Wiping the evidence of tears from my face, I knock softly. The door cracks open immediately, but just an inch. Harper’s gaze is piercing through the crack. “Go. Away.” She slams the door shut, and I hear the lock latch.