“I can’t believe Cassilyn’s going to the dance with that homo,” a voice behind me said. A familiar voice. Thad’s voice.
“Are you sure?” Milo. I glanced over my shoulder, hardly daring to move, and spotted the two of them a few tables away, sucking on frozen coffee drinks capped with whipped cream, a strange anathema to the machismo coming out of their mouths. I quickly hunched over my notebook, moving my pen as if I were deep in thought, and listened carefully.
“Esme told me. Said that Cassilyn asked him yesterday. Dude’s too much of a pussy to even ask a girl out.” Thad paused to take a sip, ignoring his hypocrisy. “If it were you, I wouldn’t be nearly as pissed.”
“Me neither, bro.”
“But that pansy-ass painter? Makes me want to punch him in the face.”
My stomach dropped. So it was true. Spencer was going to the back-to-school dance with Cassilyn. A real date.
Milo laughed. “Heh. Maybe we should.”
“Kick his ass?”
“Exactly. Teach that asshole a lesson. He needs to stay with his own kind.”
“Like Faggot Gabriel.”
I winced. Faggot Gabriel. Is that how they referred to him behind his back?
“I’d kick his ass too,” Thad added, “if it weren’t a hate crime. But whatever. When should we do it?”
I heard a sucking sound; Milo’s thought process apparently involved whipped cream and caffeine. “Are you taking Esme?”
“Yep.”
“Good,” Milo said. “Tell her that you’re driving Cassilyn and Homo too.”
Thad pounded his fist against the table. “Brilliant, dude. Then after the dance, I’ll take him to the park up on Bastanchury. You and the boys meet us there.”
“And we’ll pound him,” Milo said. “Right in front of Cassilyn.”
I sat there, my heart racing in my chest. This outweighed both Toile and my dad in terms of emergency crisis level.
I needed to warn Spencer.
I heard Cassilyn’s laughter before I’d even opened the door to Spencer’s studio. Light and joyous. I listened intently at the door, waiting for Spencer’s baritone to join her soprano. It did. His laughter was embarrassed at first, but he loosened up.
I opened the door, half expecting to see the two of them in a tangle of limbs and sweat on the sofa. Instead, they were standing in front of Spencer’s easel, staring at one of his canvases. “You’re right.” He laughed. “It does kind of look like a hair dryer.”
I froze, not quite believing what I was seeing. For years I’d been asking to see some of Spencer’s art, but he’d never shown me. And now here he was explaining a piece to Cassilyn?
“What the hell?”
“Bea!” Spencer said, clearly surprised to see me. “Where were you after school? I waited—”
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Um . . .” He glanced at Cassilyn. “Cass wanted to see what else I was working on.”
Cass? He was calling her Cass now?
“So I know what kind of style my portrait will be,” she said, as if she were the foremost expert in portraiture.
I was annoyed and hurt that Spencer valued her opinion over mine, and felt more comfortable baring his soul to her. I wanted to tell him, but that wasn’t why I’d come over. “We need to talk.”
He pulled his head back as if he’d been slapped. “Oh.”
“It’s okay,” Cassilyn said, her voice still tinkly with happiness. “I have to go. See you at school tomorrow, Spence?”
Spence?
“Yeah. Of course.”
Then Cassilyn gave him a hug that lingered longer than I felt was appropriate, and breezed past me to the door.
“Spence?” I said after the door closed behind her. “She’s using your nickname now?”
He turned away, grabbing a tarp to put over the canvas. “You call me Spence too.”
“I’ve known you longer,” I snapped.
Spencer noted my anger, which was clearly unappreciated. He turned to me sharply, arms folded across his chest. “What did you want to talk to me about, Bea?”
Right. I was here for a reason. “I was at D’Caffeinated,” I began, speaking quickly. “And Milo and Thad were there. I overheard them and . . .”
“Yeah?”
“And you can’t go to the dance with Cassilyn Friday night.”
Spencer snorted. “Why not?”
I snatched a breath. “Because Thad, Milo, and their douche brigade are going to kick your ass afterward.”
He was quiet for a moment, his jaw wiggling back and forth as he ground his teeth. “And you think I should back down? Cancel the date and run like a coward?”
“It’s not cowardice.” Why were boys so concerned with saving face? “It’s self-preservation.”
“Why don’t you just admit what’s going on here?” Spencer said.
“Huh?”
He took a step toward me. “You don’t want me to go to the dance with Cassilyn.”
“Yeah, that’s what I just said.” Was he not listening? Had the paint fumes finally gotten to his brain?
He dropped his hands to his sides. “Why can’t you just admit you’re jealous?”
The word stung like an angry wasp. “Jealous?” I said, forcing a laugh. “Of Cassilyn?” The idea was ludicrous, insulting. Cassilyn may have been pretty and popular, and rich, but that was all she had going for her, whereas I was looking forward to a glorious college career on the East Coast, full of honors and accolades and people who really understood me. Cassilyn would graduate, perhaps even do some token college classes, and then fade into my memories, just like all the kids who were living their best years right now.
I jutted my chin out in defiance. “Why would I possibly be jealous of her? Because you showed her your art?” I forced a laugh. “If you want to show her but not your friends, that’s your choice.”
He came closer, slowly, as if he were approaching an unbroken pony, and looked down at me. “You’re jealous because she’s interested in me.”
Once again, the fact that Spencer thought he knew my feelings better than I did royally ticked me off. “Hanging out with the popular kids has gone to your head, and now you just expect everyone to be in love with you, just like they do.”
“I never said you were in love with me,” he said quietly.
I rolled my eyes. “You implied it! I shouldn’t have used the Formula on you. You can’t handle it.”
Spencer’s face flushed red. “You’re sorry you used the Formula? Are you fucking kidding me? I regret ever asking for your help.”
“I saved you from getting bullied,” I yelled.
“By ruining my life!”
I gestured around the studio. “How is your life ruined, huh? You’ve got everything you ever wanted. Art, social stability, a fancy girlfriend.”
Spencer pointed to the door. “That girl who just left? She wants me. She’s the most popular girl in school, and I can barely keep her hands off me.”
I felt a wave of coldness wash over me, as if all the blood was draining from my body. It was sickening, nauseating, and only made me fight back harder. “Yeah? Then why are you trying to stop her?”
“Maybe I won’t anymore.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
We stood on opposite sides of the room, each breathing heavily, Cassilyn’s unfinished portrait witnessing the death throes of our friendship.
“Then I guess there’s nothing more to say.” Spencer turned away and lovingly re-covered the portrait. I couldn’t watch anymore, so I collected my tote bag and left.
THIRTY-EIGHT
“BEA, IS THAT you?” Sheri called from the living room as I let the front door bang closed behind me. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine.” It was all I could do to keep my voice from shaking.
“Have you heard from your dad? I’ve been texting him but haven’t gotten a—”
I closed my bedroom door, shutting h
er out. Shutting everyone out. I couldn’t take them anymore.
My world was falling apart. My boyfriend had dumped me. My best friend hated me. My entire school thought I was a joke. And don’t even get me started on my parents. Just two weeks ago, I had senior year by the balls, and now it was a complete disaster. How had it gone so horribly wrong?
Toile.
The nightmare that had become my life started the day she showed up at Fullerton Hills with her perky attitude and her I always see the bright side quips. And it was all an act, all make-believe. She’d figured out a formula and created this Toile persona to charm everyone around her. It was insidious, really. A deeply subversive plot to take control of our school, and I was the only person who saw it.
The only person who could stop her.
And someone had to. She’d already managed to practically get herself elected ASB president. Perhaps that had been her aim all along? Perhaps promoting Jesse was just a ruse so no one would see that she was plotting a landgrab? It was the perfect cover: the doting girlfriend accidentally makes herself so popular that half the school votes for her. Jesse had never seen it coming.
Spencer and Gabe would understand. In stopping Toile, I was helping everyone.
I thought of the photos I’d found online, the many incarnations of Sybille Jeffries. They were all part of the same pattern. In Texas, the cowgirl. In New England, the preppy. In Hawaii, the surfer. She’d pinpointed a specific personality type that would result in instant societal integration, and played it up. The goal? Friends, romance, popularity: the building blocks of personal power in the American high school. How many other schools had been laid to waste by her machinations? How many unsuspecting girls had had their boyfriends ripped away? How many student governments had been infiltrated and gutted by her scorched-earth policies before she pulled up her stakes and moved on to the next town? Well, I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen to my school. No way.
And yet, I paused. I remembered how I’d felt when I saw those flyers with Toile and Jesse kissing with my terrible sophomore year photo alongside. It was a punch in the gut, a cold panic at the thought of the entire school laughing at me. Was I really willing to inflict that same level of humiliation on Toile?
But if I didn’t, she would win. I couldn’t let that happen.
I fired up my iPad and started editing photos together before I could second-guess myself. A collage of Sybille was slowly taking shape, complete with a text box in the middle that said, “Will the real Toile Jeffries please stand up?” After half an hour, I sat back and admired my handiwork. It wasn’t the most brilliant composition, but it got the point across. Each photo exquisitely represented Sybille fully embracing her myriad personalities: at Bible camp, holding the softball MVP trophy, country line dancing, dressed in black, on a yacht, holding a surfboard. In each photo, despite alterations to hair and makeup, to fashion and attitude, it was crystal clear that you were looking at the same girl.
I uploaded the collage to every social media network I belonged to, blasting it to several hundred classmates. I may have lost the election, but I was pretty sure I’d just won the war.
“What did you do, Bea?” Spencer was waiting for me at my locker the next morning. I was surprised to see him, considering our blowup was still a fresh wound, but I could tell from his combative stance and glaring eyes that he wasn’t here to make peace.
“If you’ve come to tell me I’m a horrible person,” I said coldly, “or some other insight about my psyche that I’m apparently too stupid to see, you can save your breath. I’ve heard enough.”
He shook his head. “I thought you were bigger than she is.”
I opened my locker in his face. “For your information, Toile’s approximately three-point-two-five inches taller than I am.”
He whipped the door all the way open so it banged against the metal wall. “You know what I’m talking about. How could you, Bea? I know what she did to you was awful, but I thought—”
“It wasn’t just awful,” I said fiercely, all the anger of yesterday igniting again in an instant. “It was humiliating. You wanted me to sit there and take it, like it was okay that she’d ripped my heart out in front of the entire school. If she’d done that to you, I wouldn’t have told you to turn the other cheek. I’d have fired up the bazooka and helped you take aim.”
“What’s that going to do, huh? Prolong the war? Do you even know why you’re fighting with her?”
I took a deep breath through my nose. “Because I hate her.”
He shook his head. “I thought it was about Jesse.”
“It was.” I swallowed. “Is.” I rested my forehead against my locker door, suddenly exhausted. “I’m tired of arguing with you, Spencer.”
He took a deep breath. “Then why don’t you admit that this is all about beating Toile?”
It was, and I knew it. But I couldn’t say it out loud. “Why are you on her side?”
“I’m not.”
I slammed my locker door so hard the whole wall of them shook. “You’ve never defended me. Not once. All you’ve done is tell me how I’m wrong, how I’m a bad friend or a horrible person.”
“You’re right.”
I hadn’t been expecting that. I’d been revving myself up, picking up this fight where we’d left off yesterday afternoon. But I’d never thought Spencer would agree with me.
“Oh,” I said lamely, the wind taken out of my sails.
“I should have been more supportive.” His eyes drooped at the corners like a sad puppy’s. “But those photos of Toile you sent out . . .” He looked at the floor. “I’m disappointed in you.”
He might has well have stabbed me in the gut with a hunting knife. I felt physical pain as all the air was sucked from my lungs. I’m disappointed in you. They were the kind of words your parents used when you’d done something so heinous that punishment seemed inadequate, and though I still hated Toile with every fiber of my being, for a split second as I watched the sharp features of Spencer’s face harden, I regretted posting those photos and desperately, desperately wished I could take it all back.
“Spencer,” I started. But he held up his hand.
“Good-bye, Bea.”
I hadn’t gone home sick from school since I’d had the chicken pox in first grade. I prided myself on exemplary attendance, and attributed my academic success in part to the fact that I was in class every single day.
But after my conversation with Spencer, I couldn’t stand one more minute at school. Especially not first period, where I’d have to sit behind him for fifty minutes, trying to focus on Mr. Schulty’s latest lecture on long-dead English poets while my metaphorical guts spilled out onto the floor in front of me. No freaking way. So instead of the liberal arts building, I turned toward the nurse’s office.
Thirty minutes later, Sheri picked me up from the office. She looked green—clearly not over her stomach bug—and I felt horrible that I’d dragged her out of bed to come sign me out of school for the day. But she seemed more concerned with my health than with her own, and when we got home she insisted on warming me up a mug of chicken broth and putting me to bed.
I turned off my phone and tried to sleep. I didn’t want to hear from Spencer. And I certainly didn’t want to see all the comments on my social media posts with the pictures of Sybille. The thought of it made my fake nausea real.
As much as I hated to admit it, Spencer was right. I shouldn’t have embarrassed Toile like that in front of the whole school. Even if she’d deserved it. I had sunk to her level, and did that make me any better than she was? No. In fact, it made me worse because I knew what it felt like to experience that kind of humiliation and I’d gone ahead and inflicted it on her anyway.
So instead of sleeping, I just tossed and turned in bed, occasionally flipping through bad daytime television, or attempted to focus on some current articles in Mathematics Magazine.
But I couldn’t hide from the world forever. I’d have to go back to
school tomorrow and face everyone. It was my penance.
I hardly slept Thursday night, and the next morning, the world was a muted background moving in slow motion around me. I felt sluggish and exhausted when I got to first period, noting with relief that Spencer wasn’t in class. I did notice a slight uptick in chatter when I entered the room—I could only imagine the stories that had been going around between my post about Sybille and my subsequent absence from school yesterday.
Then Principal Ramos took the microphone for the morning announcements and the room fell silent.
“We have the exciting result from our runoff election.” Her voice sounded anything but excited.
The election. I’d completely forgotten.
“Your new ASB president is Trixie Giovannini.”
THIRTY-NINE
“I CAN’T SAY I’m thrilled that you’re going to be ASB president,” Gabe said for like the dozenth time that night. “But you know I’ll support you when you make your acceptance speech on Monday.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “I appreciate it.”
Our pre-dance ritual of burgers and fries at the diner had felt a little strange with just the two of us, but it was nice to still have at least one friend. Gabe was quieter than usual, more subdued, clearly still processing my election win (who wasn’t?) and had brought it up repeatedly. It made me feel horrible, to be honest. Thanks to me, he’d really wanted the gig, and thanks to me, he hadn’t gotten it. To make matters worse, I didn’t want to be ASB president. Not even for the pleasure of beating Toile or to round out my research to submit for the MIT scholarship. In fact, it seemed more of a burden than a reward: my focus this semester should have been on college applications (hey, everyone needed a safety school) and ensuring my early acceptance at MIT, and instead, I’d be spending my spare time planning pep rallies and listening to grievances about cafeteria food options and whether or not upperclassmen should be allowed off campus for lunch.
“Have you talked to Spencer?” Gabe asked as he pulled his mom’s minivan into the school parking lot.
I tensed up. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
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