Here to Stay

by Sara Farizan

  The subject read, “Granger’s New ‘It’ Couple.”

  I hovered over the message for a moment. I didn’t want whoever was sending these to have power over me. I didn’t want them to break me.

  An animated GIF appeared, but it didn’t feature me. It was a black-and-white photo of Stephanie Bergner’s face on a stick figure. Animated cartoon hearts replaced her eyes. Stephanie’s stick figure was holding hands with one that had Erin Wheeler’s face. Every few seconds, Erin’s mouth opened and a rainbow streamed out of it.

  The photoshop quality was haphazard. The caption underneath read, “#GrangerGays and #ComeOutCome OutLesbianSquashStar.”

  I waited a minute before I called Stephanie. She picked up immediately.

  “I saw it,” she said, her voice shaking with barely contained fury. “Erin’s not picking up her phone, but I texted her. I don’t know if she’s seen it yet.”

  “I’m so sorry, Stephanie.”

  “My father . . . he’s trying to get hold of someone on the faculty. Oh God! Erin’s parents! She hasn’t told them about—I mean, they don’t know.”

  “Do you recognize the photo? Where it came from?” I asked. “The one of you, is it from the directory or Instagram?”

  “No. I don’t . . .” she said, breathing heavily. “I mean, I don’t really post much of anything.”

  “Could it be a yearbook photo, maybe, or from the Gaz—” I stopped.

  I do layout for them.

  I’ve got the skills to pay the bills.

  Did you know?

  “I think I know who did it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was all anyone could talk about Monday morning. Some people refused to believe Stephanie and Erin were into each other and claimed that someone who wanted to embarrass Erin must have posted the picture. Other people wondered if Drew had been Erin’s beard all along.

  Adults flowed in and out of Headmaster Clarkson’s office. When I passed by on my way to pre-calc, I recognized the Wheelers from the photos in Erin’s house. Mrs. Wheeler kept her sunglasses on and walked ahead of her husband, who stayed in the doorway to speak with Headmaster Clarkson. Mr. Clarkson held on to Mr. Wheeler’s hand like he never wanted to let go, the way the crazy girlfriend held on to Chris’s in Get Out. He seemed to be taking this meeting far more seriously than he’d taken the one he had with my mother and me. It made sense. The Wheelers always contributed generously to Granger fund-raisers.

  Stephanie and Erin weren’t at school. But Noah was.

  I approached him in the hallway between classes and did my best to act like I didn’t know he was a scumbag.

  “Hey, Noah,” I said, holding on tight to my backpack strap so I wouldn’t grab him by the neck or punch him in the face.

  “Beej. Hey,” Noah said. He was smiling widely, in spite of dark circles under his eyes. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine, thanks. Yourself?”

  “Keeping busy,” Noah said. I’ll bet. His usually gelled chestnut-brown hair was fuzzy and unkempt.

  “Keeping busy ruining people’s lives, the snake!”

  “Now, Reggie, we’ve got to see if Majidi can keep a cool head. He’s got to be careful here and make sure Olson doesn’t suspect anything.”

  “Have you talked to Stephanie?” I asked him, though I already knew he hadn’t. Stephanie and I had been in touch all weekend, collecting information to back up my hunch that Noah was the cyberbigot.

  “Yeah,” he lied. “She’s pretty upset. It’s a shame about what happened.” He wasn’t smiling anymore, but he didn’t look embarrassed or guilt-ridden either.

  “Whoever did it is in for a world of trouble. They must think sending out those emails was really worth it,” I said, working hard to keep my voice steady. I wanted to beat the crap out of him. He’d sent that email about me and outed his best friend, but he was acting like he’d done nothing wrong. He was acting like he hadn’t made Stephanie cry, like he hadn’t made Erin afraid to come to school, like he hadn’t made my life miserable. He was acting like what he’d done to us, how we felt, didn’t matter at all.

  “I’m sure the IT department is looking into it,” Noah said. He didn’t smirk, but with a comment like that, he might as well have. “I hope Stephanie comes back for the board meeting tomorrow night. She’s worked so hard on this project. I know it would mean a lot for her to present with Elle and me.”

  “I hope she does too.” It made me queasy, pretending to be civil with a person so beneath human decency that he could crawl under a pregnant ant. “Sorry, I don’t want to keep you from class.”

  Noah waved me off. “Physics is a breeze. It’s okay if I’m a little late,” he said. I felt sorry for the sucker who was his lab partner.

  “If you talk to Stephanie again, let her know I say hi and I’m thinking of her.” Stephanie had told me when he’d be in class, but Noah didn’t need to know that.

  “Of course. She’ll appreciate your concern,” he said before he strode down the hallway. I went in the opposite direction, toward the yearbook office, checking over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t following me.

  ***

  Elle was leaning against the wall and reading something on her phone outside the yearbook office when I got there. Once I’d explained my theory about Noah to her, she was more than willing to help.

  “Hey,” she said. “We’ll be quick. I know you’re skipping Spanish right now.”

  “Whoa! You know my schedule?” I joked. She rolled her eyes but didn’t answer my question as she took out her key card. She swiped it in the digital lock on the Gazette/yearbook office door. It beeped and unlocked. The lights automatically switched on when we entered.

  The right side of the stuffy office was disorganized, with stacks of newspapers and boxes on a table. The left side was pristine and organized, no scattered papers or clutter to be seen. I followed Elle’s lead to a computer on the corner on the clean side. Yearbook for the win!

  I pulled up a chair next to Elle while she logged on. The desktop was full of tiny folders labeled by month.

  “Erin said she thought the photo of her might be from the Halloween dance. That’s what she recognized when it wasn’t vomiting rainbows, anyway,” Elle said as she clicked on a folder and scrolled down the list of images.

  “How is she?” I asked, even though I knew exactly how she was feeling. Stephanie told me Erin hadn’t picked up any of her calls or responded to any of her texts.

  “She didn’t say much. When she’s hurt, she has a tendency to isolate herself,” Elle said, clicking on image after image. “She’s like Jessica in that way. We’re going to go check on her tonight.”

  “That’s good. Tell her I’m sorry, or . . . tell her I said this sucks, or . . . I don’t know,” I said, trying to find the right words. Erin and I weren’t particularly close. Plus, no matter what happened between Erin and Stephanie, I was on Team Stephanie. If Erin tried to put Stephanie down for the sake of her own reputation, I wasn’t going to bend over backward to make her feel comfortable. “Tell her there are people at school who have her back. And I’m one of them. But you know, less sappy than that.”

  “I think what you said will do fine,” Elle said as she turned from the screen and grinned at me.

  “Okay.” I rubbed the back of my neck. Elle turned her attention back to the computer and hovered the mouse over files with the name Wheeler in them. “Did Erin tell you about Stephanie and her?”

  “Not directly. I could tell there was someone else after Drew.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “She seemed lighter? Less stressed during practice. Sometimes she was even downright giddy.”

  “Giddy is not exactly a word I’d associate with Erin,” I admitted.

  “I don’t think she would either! It was nice. I know it’s personal, but she and I have been
through so much . . . I’ve told her about the guy I like. I wish she felt like she could have told me about whom she liked.” Elle’s eyes stayed focused on the list of JPEGs.

  The guy she liked?

  “Oh. Well, maybe she didn’t want to admit her feelings to a friend yet, or even to herself,” I said, watching her lips purse as she stared at the screen. “What advice did she have about the guy you like?”

  “She said she thought it was sweet the way he blushes at the mention of my name. I think it’s sweet too. A little corny, but sweet.” As she clicked on a photo, she peeked at me from underneath her long eyelashes. “Kind of the way you’re blushing now.”

  My face was burning up like Ghost Rider’s fiery skull, but Elle kept a straight face as she turned back to study the photo in front of her. “I think this is it.”

  I glanced at the photograph of Erin and pulled out my phone to compare it to the GIF. The GIF was in black and white, but the photo was otherwise identical. “That’s the one,” I said, my face still hot. “Can you send it to me and Stephanie?”

  “Yup. And I already forwarded you two the image my friend Alan took of Stephanie for the Gazette’s upcoming issue.” Elle logged in to her Granger email and attached the file.

  Behind us, the door beeped again. Elle and I both looked up to see Jessica.

  “Hey,” she said, her eyebrows rising in surprise.

  “Hi, Jess,” Elle said as she clicked send. I waved at Jessica to be polite.

  “What are you guys doing in here?” Jessica inspected me momentarily before directing her attention to Elle. “Only members of the yearbook and newspaper staffs are allowed in the office.”

  “Elle is helping me figure out who sent those emails,” I explained.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “We think so,” Elle said. “Based on the info Erin and Stephanie gave us.”

  “You talked to Erin? How is she? Did she sound upset?” Jessica asked.

  “You can ask her yourself,” Elle replied. “I told her to expect us around six fifteen tonight, if that works for you?”

  “Yeah, that works. I’ve got lots of evenings free now.” So she and Will were definitely off again. “I feel so bad for her. Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Jessica said.

  “Thank you,” I said. She felt so bad for her. She wouldn’t have offered to help if an email about anyone else had been sent out.

  Jessica licked her lips and nodded. But she didn’t make eye contact with me.

  “I think we have everything we need now,” Elle said.

  I hoped she was right.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I was waiting for Sean in front of the auditorium. The board meeting had been moved there from the usual conference room because of the expected crowd. Sean’s moms were already inside with mine, probably in the front row. Dozens of parents filed into the space. I recognized some of them from the meeting in my living room. A cynical part of me thought the crowd was larger now because a cyberbully had gone after two white girls this time, but I was a little relieved that I wouldn’t be the sole focus of the meeting.

  “Hey!” Sean smiled when he saw me standing there. “You made it.”

  “Last-minute decision.”

  “You going to say a few words?”

  “No way.” I had made that clear to my mom when I agreed to come. Public speaking freaked me out. Plus, I wouldn’t know what to say.

  “There’s nothing good on TV, so we might as well watch this show,” he said with a shrug. “I kind of want to see Mr. Clarkson sweat a little. I don’t know if he’s physically able to do so.”

  “Let’s go find seats. Way in the back.” I didn’t know if Stephanie would show up. I had called her to make sure she got Elle’s email, but she hadn’t answered her phone or responded to my texts. Sean led me through the aisles to the back row, where we sat down. The stage had been set up for a town-hall-style meeting, with a long table and six chairs behind it for the board members. My mom and Sean’s moms stood at the front of the center aisle near a microphone.

  An angry buzz filled the room. Instead of the stuff we’d hear at games or school plays, where adults would talk about work, which kid was going to what college, where they could find the best SAT tutor or private tennis lessons, parents complained about how badly the school was handling the situation or how kids were out of control with technology.

  Not many students were in attendance. Elle sat in the middle of the theater between her mom and dad. I thought about introducing myself but decided maybe now wasn’t the greatest time.

  Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler sat in the same row, but Erin wasn’t with them. I wondered how she would handle things when she came back to school. She could just deny the rumors. Say the email was some sad joke concocted by a jealous person. She could say she was straight, and even if she wasn’t, there was no way she would be with Stephanie Bergner. People would believe her—or at least pretend to. She could avoid Stephanie like the plague and go about her life as leader of the New Crew, a little tainted until she hosted a few more parties and all was forgotten.

  Noah sat up front with his parents, who seemed oblivious to what a monster of a kid they had produced. Noah’s father stood and spoke warmly with Sean’s mom Hana.

  “If you had laser vision, you’d have burned a hole in the back of Noah’s neck by now,” Sean said.

  “Unfortunately I’m not Cyclops.”

  “Thank goodness. Scott Summers is such a crybaby.”

  “He’s not so bad in Astonishing X-Men. Plus, spending nights with Emma Frost wouldn’t be terrible. I’m more staring at Noah the way Charlie McGee would in Firestarter.”

  “Yeah, you kind of resemble a ten-year-old girl,” Sean deadpanned. Headmaster Clarkson, Mr. Thompson, and four other members of the board sat in the chairs onstage. “Looks like the cockadoodie show is about to begin.”

  “Profanity bothers you?” I asked as the board members settled in.

  “It has no nobility,” Sean answered.

  “Good evening,” Mr. Clarkson said, leaning in to one of the microphones on the table. He waited until everyone had found a seat and quieted down. “Thank you for coming. I have heard from many of you these past two weeks, and we have a great deal to discuss. I apologize if I have not responded to all of your emails and voice mails, but I will do my best to follow up once we have more information regarding the, er . . . the images. I know you all have questions for me, but I would ask that you please wait until we have given you all the information we have before coming up to the microphone.”

  He explained that the school was organizing a full-day antibullying program to take place after spring break. He assured us that the IT department was working overtime to try to identify the IP address of the computer used in the anonymous emails.

  “So you still don’t know who did this?” Mom Jane yelled from the audience.

  “Please, we can take questions after,” Mr. Thompson said into his microphone.

  “No. We don’t yet know who did it,” Headmaster Clarkson answered, in spite of Mr. Thompson’s comment. The audience groaned.

  “First we have a brief presentation from Ms. McCrea and a few students who have requested time to speak to us,” Headmaster Clarkson announced. “After their presentation we will take a short recess and come back to listen to your questions and concerns. Ms. McCrea, the floor is yours.”

  Ms. McCrea got up from her seat in the front row and waited for Elle to join her at the microphone. Noah left his parents and went to the tech booth in the back. He gave me a small wave as he scurried past our row. I didn’t wave back.

  “Thank you. I’m so glad to see so many of you here tonight. I’d like to introduce Elle Powell, who will be speaking on behalf of the students who have signed a petition to change the current school mascot.” Ms. McCrea moved away from the micro
phone and stood to the right of Elle.

  “Thank you for your time,” Elle said to the board members. She adjusted the microphone and held a piece of paper to read from. “I want to thank the parents for organizing this meeting and for encouraging me to say a few words about the school mascot. My friend Stephanie Bergner couldn’t make it tonight.” She paused to clear her throat. Everyone in that auditorium knew why Stephanie couldn’t make it. “We were going to present together. I wouldn’t be here speaking about this issue were it not for her tireless efforts.

  “As Ms. McCrea said, my name is Elle Powell, and I am a junior. I have enjoyed my time at Granger. My teachers have been incredible, the facilities are extraordinary, I love playing for the varsity squash team, and I love being on the yearbook staff. That said, when I put on my uniform for squash matches, I represent Granger, but I don’t feel our mascot necessarily represents the best of our community. Two hundred people signed our petition to change the Granger mascot. Many students and faculty agree that a change is welcome and that Granger—”

  Mr. Thompson raised his hand to interrupt. “What is it that the students object to?”

  Ms. McCrea touched Elle gently on the shoulder as she leaned into the microphone.

  “William, with all due respect, if we could wait until Elle has finished, we will be able to answer your questions,” she said. Mr. Thompson folded his arms across his chest. He had the exact same expression Will did when he didn’t get his way. His brow furrowed and he leaned back in his chair like Will did on the bench when Coach wouldn’t put him in.

  Elle stood silent for a second. Ms. McCrea whispered something to her before backing away from the microphone. Just as Elle leaned in again, the door to the auditorium squeaked open and Stephanie Bergner let herself in. Elle lifted her head and smiled.

  “Bergner makes it just in time for the double-team. What a move!”

  “The dynamic duo of Powell and Bergner are ready to rumble!”

  I turned to look at Noah, who stared at Stephanie in disbelief. I wished I had eyes in the back of my head so I could watch him and Elle at the same time, but the main action was with Stephanie.