New Girl

by Paige Harbison

  “She pulled on my arm!”

  “I tried to stop him in time, but I just couldn’t!” This time Max was looking directly at her, but she refused to look back. “I’m so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Holloway.”

  She hung her head, fake worry etched in every feature of her face.

  “It’s all right. Nick, go straight to your room and stay there. You’re not having Michael over tomorrow night.”

  “But, Dad—”

  “Your mother bought that vase in Germany when she was a teenager. You’ve been told before to be careful, and you continue to roughhouse. There is no excuse. Upstairs. Now.”

  “I should have kept a better eye.” Becca looked earnestly at Mr. Holloway.

  He put a hand up. “Rebecca, you don’t need to apologize again.”

  “Okay.” She nodded.

  “We’re going outside,” said Max, taking Becca by the waist.

  He led her to the backyard.

  “It’s freezing, what are we doing out here?” She was wearing a skimpy black dress.

  “I’m done with you. And I’d like to have this conversation away from my family. You’ve already treated them to enough of my personal life tonight.”

  “I know. I just don’t know how to keep you, Max!”

  “Did you think blackmailing me was really going to do that?”

  “It’s not! I realize that. It’s just that I feel you slipping away…you’re only with me because you feel guilty.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I have not been with you for that reason. And I don’t intend to. So just stop.”

  “Then why, Max?” Tears were in her eyes. “Why would you be with me?”

  “I’m not doing this with you.” He paused. “When’s your flight?”

  She stared back at him, her eyes wide and her heart pounding. She’d gone too far. She was going to lose him now. She considered standing here and fighting, but she didn’t want to. Not only would it end in more humiliation, but if they didn’t get back together, she’d be…free. To be with whomever she wanted....

  “I’ll change it to tomorrow morning.”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry, Becca.”

  “No. You’re not.”

  She went inside, stormed up to the guest room, and stayed there for the rest of New Year’s Eve.

  Facebook relationship status: Single. Status update: I’m sorry it had to end. But it did.

  Pfft.

  Five days later, back at Manderley

  “It’s just really difficult right now,” Becca said, hiccupping through tears she was lucky to conjure.

  Dana nodded sympathetically from her bed. “I’m sure it is.”

  “I didn’t want to have to end things with Max. But I just…we were way too serious for our age. You know, like, if we’d met—” she sniffed “—when we’re like twenty-something? Things would be totally different.”

  She looked mournfully down at a Polaroid of the two of them taken right before Christmas. He stood behind her with his arms around her shoulders. She was laughing and looking off to her left. She remembered that she’d been laughing at something Johnny said.

  She looked at Max’s beautiful face and her own. She was not attractive when she smiled for real. She never had thought so.

  Becca did not return it to the bulletin board with all the rest of her pictures. She threw it into the suitcase under her bed with all of the other things she didn’t want to think about.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Dana. You’re the only one who really seems to care.”

  “That’s not true, everyone cares.”

  “But not as much as you do.”

  Tonight was the night. She was going to do what she could to start getting Johnny for real.

  She had done her best to look good, which wasn’t as effective as she would have liked. She had ignored Max so far, even though she had felt his gaze on her more than once.

  “Hey, Becks!” Johnny shouted to her from across the boathouse.

  Her heart skipped when she saw him smile at her.

  “What?” She sipped through her straw and looked at him through the crowd of girls surrounding her. They always flocked to her. She loved it.

  “Wanna be my partner?”

  He was standing by the beer pong table she’d thought to throw together on her first night at Manderley, constructed out of wood and cinder blocks.

  She shrugged. “Fine.”

  Becca walked over to Johnny and the table, glancing at Max. He was talking to Cameron, and Blake was staring right at her. Becca narrowed her eyes. Blake smiled back.

  Bitch. If it wasn’t for Becca, she might not have Cam. How dare she be so obnoxious.

  The other team took the first shot. One miss. Two misses. Becca could still feel Blake’s eyes on her.

  “Ladies first.” Johnny handed her a ball.

  She tossed it at the triangle of red Solo cups. It bounced off a rim and into the water. She’d played enough that she should be good.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Blake shake her head and interrupt Cam and Max’s conversation. Becca wished she could hear it.

  Johnny took his shot, and made it, too. “Ha! That’s both, we go again.”

  Blake finished what she was telling Max, and he looked at her.

  “It’s your shot, babe.”

  Becca took the ball. Max walked toward her.

  “Let me talk to you for a second,” he said, walking right past Becca, and out the door.

  She rolled her eyes. “Here—um, Susan, come play for me.”

  The next second, she was out the door.

  Max jumped in, without preamble. “Do you have a thing with Johnny?”

  She stood, feeling shocked. No words came to her.

  “Just fucking tell me, Becca. I do not have any patience right now for this.”

  “Wow, you are so untrusting it’s unbelievable.”

  “If you are? If you’ve been hooking up with my best friend all along, I just need to know.”

  She smiled. “Let me guess, Blake told you that?”

  His expression told her she was right.

  “Okay, well, you know what? That’s because Cam has been coming on to me since day one.” She held up a finger.

  “Oh, shut up, that’s not true.”

  “I don’t care if you believe me. It’s just the explanation. If you want to feel like your best friend and I have been lying to you, then fine. Makes no difference to me.”

  And she went back inside. Max never followed. She marched up to Dana. She wanted to be around someone she knew liked her.

  An hour later, Becca was buckled over with her hand on her knees. She could see her breath in the air. “That was so…funny!”

  Dana was laughing, too. “Not that funny, just…” She fell into giggles.

  They walked down to the dock. “If you fall,” said Becca, “I’m going to freak out. I can’t swim, and so I can’t save you.”

  Dana waved her hand. “I’ll be fine.” But then she stumbled, almost doing exactly what they were afraid of. Becca caught her by the shoulder.

  “Oh, my God, see? You almost died!”

  They got to the end, still laughing, and sat to dangle their feet over the edge.

  “I’m…so drunk.” Dana took a swig of Coke.

  “I’m not drunk enough,” Becca responded with a sip of her bottle, which was filled with rum. “I can tell because I’m cold.”

  They laughed, and then fell silent.

  “So,” said Becca, “tell me a secret.” She loved saying this to people. They almost always had something to tell her.

  Dana squinted out into the darkness, her face lit only by the safety lights at the end of the dock. She sighed and closed her eyes. “I’m in love with Johnny Parker.”

  Becca froze, her smile falling, and then took a burning gulp of the rum. “Really.”

  Dana nodded, swaying a little in her drunken dizziness. “He’s…strong and…I don’t know, I guess
I feel safe around him.” She laughed and looked down at her knees. “It’s probably stupid.”

  “N-no, it’s not.” It wasn’t stupid at all. Becca had thought the same thing.

  “I haven’t really ever…liked a guy like I like him. I’ve… It’s been since I got here. Ninth grade. That’s when I first had a crush on him.” She looked to Becca. “And you know, I don’t think I ever would have really talked to him if it wasn’t for you. You kept throwing us together. It wasn’t on purpose?”

  “No.”

  She nodded. “I thought it was just psychic of—” she hiccupped “—of you.”

  “Nope. Luck.”

  “I couldn’t even believe he knew my name or anything. But he did.” She shook her head, and furrowed her brows at a spot off in the distance. “Can I trust you, Becca?”

  She’d been asked that before. She couldn’t say for sure that she was trustworthy. She’d only ever been out for herself. Even when that messed up everything.

  But she wanted to be better than that. She had to be. If she wasn’t, if she didn’t try to change in some way, then what was the point in running away and coming here at all?

  Woo, thought Becca, this rum is working now.

  “Of course you can trust me.”

  Dana took a few deep breaths and then took the bottle from Becca’s hands. She took another swig and then said, “I’ve never told anyone this.”

  “Okay.”

  “I… When I was in eighth grade, something happened. It’s why—it’s why I’m here at all. I didn’t tell my parents the extent of it. Just said I didn’t want to be in my town anymore. They’d always wanted me to come here anyway, so they didn’t have a problem with it.” She took another deep breath. “I was actually very popular back at home. I was the girl with the squad of girlfriends and boys being all about me. Yeah, we were all like thirteen, but whatever. I was voted Most Likely to be Prom Queen.”

  Becca listened intently. “Wow, that’s…”

  “Yeah, so…I was popular or whatever. I was happy.”

  “I’m trying to figure out how this has a bad ending.” Becca laughed, even though she knew it was headed somewhere not funny at all.

  “I was at my friend Hannah’s for a sleepover one night. She was asleep. We’d hung out with her parents and their family friend, Tom, who was like…I don’t know, late twenties maybe. It was one of the first times I ever got drunk.” She held up the bottle. “And I had a little too much. Everyone was drinking, and everyone was having fun before bed. It was a good night. I got pretty dizzy and then fell asleep. Um. When I woke up, I was in the guest bedroom, which was barely lit, and Tom was on…top of me. It took me a few seconds to realize what was happening, but…then I realized I was naked. I tried to push him off, but he wouldn’t stop. Then he put it in, or whatever. And it was… I don’t know that anything has ever hurt so badly.”

  Becca’s heart was pounding. She was in shock.

  Dana continued. “Finally he was done, and all I could do was go back into Hannah’s room and try to sleep. I woke up the next morning and he was in bed with us, with his hand on my leg.” She shook her head and chewed the inside of her lip. “The insult on top of injury was that Hannah had been all casual like, ‘Did you guys hook up?’”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. So then she told everyone I’d had sex with this older guy, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone the truth. I felt embarrassed or something. Which is so stupid, because it wasn’t my fault. But I just couldn’t. And then time passed and there wouldn’t be any way to prove it anyway. So I just gave up.”

  Becca’s breath was caught in her throat.

  “I’m so sorry.” It came out as a whisper.

  Becca didn’t even know if it was just Dana she was talking to. She was imagining that girl…the small girl with red hair. Lulu. Becca couldn’t even pretend to herself that she didn’t remember her name. It had been her fault.

  It was Becca’s first year at McDaniel High School—tenth grade. Her middle school had been seventh through ninth grades. And for her, her tenth-grade year was the year she became pretty. For the longest time, it seemed to her then, she had been too skinny with big hands and feet. She’d been pale and had straight light hair. Her skin had been clean, but her braces had made that irrelevant. Her chest had been as flat as her butt and her stomach. But now she had a clean slate, where she only knew some of the people around her, and she was completely different. Her mom finally let her get contacts. Her braces came off. Her boobs started to grow in—enough to wear a padded bra, anyway. She was suddenly tall, thin, blonde and pretty.

  She was suddenly Becca Normandy. Not Rebecca, anymore. Becca.

  It was right after the Homecoming football game, which was a week before the Homecoming dance. She didn’t have a date, but she’d certainly become more popular lately. She’d gotten her friend, Lulu, to come along to the game, even though she didn’t want to.

  “Oh, come on,” Becca had said, “it’ll be fun! I bet you’ll even get a date! What if we both do?”

  So Lulu had come. By the end of the game, they’d been chatted up by some of the Most Sought After senior boys. They invited the two girls to a party at the quarterback’s house. Everyone knew Jake Lanter hadn’t found his date yet. He’d just dumped his cheerleader girlfriend.

  Becca begged Lulu to go with her. “Please! They invited us both, there’s no way this isn’t, like, our beginning of popularity.”

  Lulu finally gave in, reluctantly lying to her mother and saying she was staying at Becca’s for the night. Becca called her mother and told her she’d be at Lulu’s. Classic.

  It was almost two in the morning, and Becca was on her fifth Smirnoff Ice. It was enough to make her loopy—she’d never had anything much before. Just sips of her parents’ merlot when they weren’t looking. And that had been just…awful. Nothing like these bottles full of sugar.

  Jake, the god of Hotness, Popularity and the ticket to Becca’s happiness, walked over to her. He was probably about five inches taller than her, and very intimidating. He smiled, his eyes narrowed.

  “You’re so hot,” he said, then biting his lip. “How come I’ve never heard of you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  She knew why, of course. It was because she hadn’t been “so hot” until recently. The braces coming off had really tipped her into the attractive zone.

  “You know, my friend Eric has a crush on your friend Lulu.”

  She looked at the guy he indicated. He was talking to a nervous-looking Lulu. She couldn’t help but think smugly that Jake was hotter.

  “Does he really?” she asked. “She probably likes him, too.”