They Wish They Were Us

by Jessica Goodman

  For fifty-two excruciating minutes I imagine all the things that Nikki is thinking about me, all of the horrible, cruel things she must believe, that I’m a loser, a traitor, that I’m not a friend worth keeping.

  I imagine her screaming at me, saying the worst things I think about myself out loud, and press my pencil into my palm, nearly breaking flesh. Her unwillingness to even look at me stings more than if she were to stand up and say, “I hate you.”

  I already lost one best friend. I can’t stomach the fact that I’ve lost another.

  When the bell rings, I want to run to her table and pretend like everything is okay. I want to describe the look on Henry’s face when I broke his heart and ask her why the fuck did I not feel any single sliver of remorse? I want my best friend. But instead I’m sluggish to pack up my bag, terrified of an encounter here in the lab. She is gone by the time I look up.

  I can’t bring myself to enter the caf for lunch, to see my empty seat at the Players’ Table, now home to five. Instead, I find a carrel in the back of the library and rest my head on the wooden desk. I’m hidden here and I finally close my eyes, letting the tears fall in silence. The lunch period ticks by, but it’s excruciating to sit without purpose. I pull my phone from my pocket and tap on the nondescript app, the one that holds the keys to everything, the one that will save me from Mr. Beaumont’s English test this afternoon.

  “It’ll only be true or false, guys,” he’d said last week. “Gotta prepare you for the AP exam.”

  The screen loads and I type in the password from muscle memory. A spinning wheel turns and then turns again and a message I’ve never seen appears.

  Wrong password. Try again. A sad face blinks below the cursor and stares back at me.

  There’s nothing to do but laugh. Of course. I should have expected this. I don’t deserve this massive, bullshit database. None of us do. All the time and effort and dignity I sacrificed to get access . . . it all means nothing.

  Then it dawns on me who made this choice. The only person who could change the password. Nikki.

  My hands shake and my vision blurs. I try to picture her lying on her canopy bed with her laptop sitting on her chest, making the decision, loading the page, clicking Confirm. Smiling with glee at my presumed failure. She had become a monster.

  For the first time since Road Rally, I wonder, Was it all worth it?

  I try to stop myself. I really do. But my fingers fly over my phone screen faster than I can stop them.

  Henry and I broke up. I hit send before giving myself time to reconsider.

  Shit, Adam types back almost immediately. My breathing steadies. U ok?

  I will be. It was my choice.

  Never liked that kid anyway.

  I laugh into my sleeve and avoid a nasty look from Mrs. Deckler. I type the words that are scarier to say out loud. I quit the Players, too.

  Double shit.

  I want to say I’m sorry, to say he didn’t make a mistake when he chose me three years ago. That I’m still on his side. But another text comes in, churning my insides into a jammy, gooey mess.

  You’re still my favorite. That’ll never change.

  * * *

  —

  I straight-up fail the English test. I bomb it like I’ve never bombed anything in my life, earning a 65, a number I’ve never even seen written in red. Mr. Beaumont drops the marked-up exam on my desk with a note, also in red. SEE ME. I stuff the piece of paper, along with my pride, into a ball and shove it deep inside my backpack.

  When class is dismissed, I try to sneak out behind the others and escape. But I have to wait a beat for Nikki to leave first. The awkward dance leaves me vulnerable and Mr. Beaumont seizes the opportunity.

  “Jill,” he says. “Wait up.” He stands with his arms crossed, like a disappointed big brother, and walks toward me to close the door. “Take a seat.”

  “I’m gonna be late for next period,” I mumble.

  “Jill, you’re one of my most promising students. You just failed. I think we need to have a little chat.”

  “A little chat?” I scoff. But when I look at him, he’s not joking. His eyes are wide with concern and his hands are clasped in a little steeple in front of him. His cardigan is done up wrong so one button sticks out at the bottom, and another, shiny and round, pokes out at the top, knocking his collar askew just slightly. Dark circles sag under his eyes, like he had one too many whiskeys the night before, and the middle of his brow needs a good tweezing. He looks so different than he did that night at the gas station three years ago. So much more worn down. Back then he was tickled, amused that he had caught his “firstborns” doing something so outrageous.

  Now he just looks rumpled. There’s no way he was a Player, no way they would have let him in. Maybe under all this, at some point, he had something, but the man in front of me isn’t special. Maybe I’m not either.

  “What happened?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Forgot to study, I guess.” I cross my arms, defiant and childish. It feels wrong to talk to authority like this, but after years of sucking up to teachers to throw them off our scent, it also feels like a victory.

  Mr. Beaumont sighs and leans back in his chair so the front legs lift off the ground. I wonder if he’ll fall backward. “Look, Jill, I’m not an idiot. You know I went here, right?”

  “I’ve seen the yearbooks.” I picture him then, strong and lean, with thicker hair and a varsity jersey. It was only ten years ago. He and Adam would have missed each other only by a few years.

  “Listen, Jill. I know what goes on.”

  Now I wonder if this is an admission, an acknowledgment of that moment at the gas station and all the other little ones in between. What else has he seen from afar? How much does he know about what we’ve done? For a second, hope creeps into my chest. At least that would mean someone else understands.

  “You kids have to deal with a lot,” he says slowly. “More than I did when I was your age. I know how much pressure can be placed on you here. And after everything with Shaila . . .” He trails off and I can’t tell if his words are coded, if he’s trying to tell me something. “I know how close you two were. I miss her, too.”

  Beaumont leans forward, causing the front legs of his chair to knock against the floor. I can smell his breath. Mint trying to mask tobacco. Menthol maybe. He places his hand on top of mine and his skin burns. I can feel the calluses on his fingertips. It’s too close. I want to run.

  But instead, I wait a beat for him to finish, for him to say what I need him to say. That I was right to walk away. That things will be better after I’m out of here. But he doesn’t. That’s it.

  “I’m okay,” I say, wriggling my hand out from under his. “Just forgot to study. That’s all.”

  “Okay, then,” he says, bringing his hands to rest on his knees. “Why don’t you retake the test on Monday? I know you’re better than this.” He stabs the blood-red 65 in front of me with a thick finger.

  “Thank you.”

  Beaumont smiles wide, pleased with how all of this has gone, that he’s played the helpful, supportive teacher so well. “You’re so welcome.”

  * * *

  —

  I force myself to make it through my after-school Science Bowl and Math Olympiad meetings, and when I finally arrive home, it’s a sweet relief. I shut the front door behind me and lean my head against the wood, never more grateful to be away from everything. Safe. Finally. But not for long.

  “Jill. Get in here right now.” Mom is sitting at the dining room table with a glass of red wine. Dad stands behind her with his arms crossed over his chest. The rumpled sleeves of his button-down are rolled up to his elbows and his tie is loose, hanging limp around his neck. “Something you want to tell us?” Mom says before turning her mouth into a straight
line.

  “Just tell me what you want to hear. I can’t do this today.” I drop my bag and slump into a seat next to her.

  She sighs and pats my head. “I knew this school would be a lot for you.” Mom takes a long sip and sets the glass back down. Dad wipes his face with his hands and I can tell he’s exhausted—that he didn’t need this tonight. A wave of shame passes through me. “I know how hard you’ve worked, how you’ve thrived and excelled beyond our wildest dreams.”

  My heart sinks with the fraud of it all, the cheating, the grades. I’m exhausted by all the effort to pretend.

  “But failing? Jill, this isn’t like you.”

  “Mr. Beaumont called?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, her dark bob swinging from side to side. “Headmaster Weingarten.”

  He only calls when shit gets real. This can’t be good.

  “He’s overreacting, Mom. Everything is fine. It was just one bad test. Mr. Beaumont is letting me retake it on Monday.”

  “Is there something going on, honey?” Dad asks. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Are you sure?” His eyes are pleading. He wants me to know I can tell him anything, but . . . I can’t. I don’t think that’s what they really want, anyway. No parent really means that. They just want me to be perfect. A little trophy they can celebrate and fawn over when things go right. They don’t want a cheater, someone who inflicted pain on others without a second thought. They don’t want to know how I’ve corrupted Jared beyond repair, or how I’m terrorized at night wondering who really killed Shaila—and if everything we know is a lie. They can’t know the dozens of ways I let them down.

  “Everything is fine,” I say again.

  “Okay, then,” Dad relents.

  Mom’s shoulders tense and she takes another sip, smacking her lips together. “Look,” she says. “I don’t have to tell you how hard we’ve worked to keep you and your brother at Gold Coast, how much we’ve sacrificed. You’ve done so well under all this pressure and you’ve already gotten into Brown. You’re so close. You’ve made us so proud. Let’s just keep it up, you know?”

  She tries to relax, offering a sad half smile, but her eyes betray her. Worry. Doubt. I know they’re both thinking about the Women in Science and Engineering scholarship and how I desperately need to earn it in order to actually go to Providence. It’s not over yet and we all know it.

  The lines around Mom’s mouth are deeper than they’ve ever been and I try to think of all the things they didn’t have because they decided to send us to Gold Coast. To find the money for uniforms and field trips and fancy meal plans and Science Bowl dues. To make us feel like we belong. To give us the world.

  I used to think that by getting tapped to be a Player, I had earned a golden ticket, been given entry into the upper echelons of society. I did what my parents wanted. I became the trophy. I became worthy.

  But I didn’t. It was all a lie. Fake grades. Fake friends. Dead friend.

  I have to make this okay.

  “I know,” I say softly.

  “Good.” Mom picks up the wineglass and brings it millimeters from her mouth. She inhales deeply then drains the whole thing.

  FIFTEEN

  I MANAGE A 93 on my English makeup test and a small burst of pride flames in my chest when Mr. Beaumont drops the paper on my desk. Better, he wrote in his thick red pen. Much better. I smile to myself, knowing that this time hardcore studying actually paid off. I earned this one on my own and no one can take that away from me. Maybe I can actually nail Brown’s scholarship test. My brain begins plotting a study guide, spinning through figures and equations I’ll need to memorize.

  I pass Henry in the hall and resist the urge to reach out and grab his wrist, to share the good news. He keeps his eyes straight in front of him, nodding to the undies as he makes his way to the locker room. I wonder if he’s hurting, if he’s really wearing armor just to make it through the day, too. He disappears into the gym with his lacrosse gear and I turn the corner, gunning for the front door.

  January wind whips my hair around my face. Being so close to the water makes winters here unbearable. It’s why so many people escape to Palm Beach or the Caribbean for spring break. Only 4 p.m. and the sun’s almost gone.

  I rub my hands together in the front seat of Mom’s car—she let me take it this morning—and wait for the heat to kick in before I start driving. Then my phone buzzes.

  Please let it be him, I think. It’s been a week since I heard from Adam. He went to some school-sponsored writer’s retreat in Oregon where, he warned me, he didn’t have Wi-Fi. He should be back already. He should have texted.

  But it’s not Adam. It’s Rachel.

  So . . .

  It’s a menacing word, unrelenting with a million possibilities.

  Last chance . . . I’m going to visit Graham this weekend. I think you should come.

  I inhale sharply. I shut my eyes and try to imagine Graham wherever he is, his angled chin, his sandy hair. He was always broad, not muscly like Henry or soft like Quentin. Just kind of solid, like a wall or a couch. His confidence was in his walk, the cocky way he held his head. He played football in the fall because he said he liked to hit people and see the fear in their eyes when they saw him coming. Lacrosse in the spring, for the same reasons. He wanted to check kids hard in the chest with a metal stick and watch them writhe. But he was always jovial after games, relentless in his need for people to tell him they were okay. “It’s just fun,” he’d say, shoving Henry a little too hard in the shoulder.

  Mr. Calloway never showed up to any Gold Coast game, not a carnival nor a fundraiser, even though he was a student here himself. That school stuff was for his wife, Muffy Calloway. She was the ultimate society woman, turning her nose up at my mom for being a sculptor and a teacher, for not being a member of the Gold Coast Country Club, for being Jewish. She had such a fantastically absurd name that elicited the kind of lewd jokes you’d expect Graham to make. But anytime someone tried—Robert once—he’d ball his hand into a fist and feign a stomach punch. Fire in his eyes and a crooked smile on his face, Graham wouldn’t take that shit. Better to be inside the joke than out of it.

  In the middle of freshman year, I learned that Muffy Calloway wasn’t always a white-blonde sad sack who only wore monogrammed cashmere, pearls in her ears, and a thick strand to match around her neck. She was once Monica Rogers, just another Mayflower chaser from somewhere outside Philly.

  Graham revealed that to me one night at his house when his parents were out of town. Shaila was gone, in another room, somewhere else entirely, and Graham had snagged a bottle of sake from the good liquor cabinet. His breath reeked of pepperoni and I wondered if mine did, too. “Let’s split this,” he said, laughing. “Quick, before anyone finds out.”

  I giggled and followed him into the study. A few sips later, we had entered some weird alternate universe where our brains had melded and it was normal to share secrets with each other. I confided in him that I was worried Shaila and I were drifting.

  “She has you,” I said sheepishly.

  Graham bumped my shoulder with his fist. “I’ll never replace her friends.” He took a sip straight from the slim bottle. “You know our Hamptons friend, Kara Sullivan? She said the same thing.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “But she’s jealous of you.” He jabbed a thick finger in my direction. “I told her Shaila can have more than one best friend.”

  I thought of Nikki, too. How we were all just orbiting around Shaila, vying for her affection and interest. How did we determine she was the most deserving?

  “You know she couldn’t live without you guys.” Graham turned and looked me in the eye. “For real.”

  The thought comforted me in ways I didn’t know I needed. I wondered if Nikki had ever talked to him
like this.

  The conversation shifted to our families, Jared and Rachel, mostly. Then Graham took another sip and started talking about Muffy. “You should see the hellhole my mom had to claw out of to get her flat, bony ass all the way to Gold Coast. Pathetic.”

  “She’s not so bad,” I said, trying to recall a time I hadn’t seen her wearing a matching sweater set.

  “Only reason she got out is because she met my dad at a Buffalo Wild Wings when he was on a business trip.” Graham took another sip. “She could smell his Goldman Sachs business card, I bet. Started calling herself Muffy. Murdered Monica and all her ‘trash’ relatives, as she calls them,” he said, using air quotes. “Ridiculous.”

  I let out a nervous giggle, but Graham shook his head. His tone had changed.

  “Not funny, Newman,” he said, staring me dead in the eyes. “Now she walks on eggshells all the time, so scared of making one wrong move and becoming Monica again. We’re all just hanging on by a thread.”

  At the time his words were whatever—weird. I chalked it up to the alcohol, mostly. Now they seem like a premonition.

  What do you think?

  Rachel’s texts beckon me and the little blue cursor blinks over and over.

  You in?

  I think about the people here, the people I thought were my home. Now Nikki and Quentin avoid me at every turn. Marla’s barely made eye contact with me, even though I know she’s curious about Graham’s innocence, too. Henry keeps flashing his puppy dog eyes at me in the hallway, even when Robert gives me the middle finger. Mom and Dad are disappointed in me, scared I won’t deliver on their investment. Jared sneers at me every time he sees me, breathing fire through his nose. Adam’s been MIA. What else do I have to lose?

  I’m in.

  * * *

  —

  Rachel’s a good driver, better than I remember or expect. Assured. Gentle. She lets the silence sit between us as bare trees whip by on the Merritt Parkway and the speedometer climbs past seventy. Snowbanks have frozen over into little mounds of ice, and we’re the only car on the road as far as I can see. Saturday, 8 a.m., in the dead of January must be an unpopular time to hightail it to western Connecticut.