by Marni Bates
That’s when some of the cameras started flashing at me.
“Corey!” I yelled out. “Let me in!”
Nothing happened. Well, except that a whole bunch of the reporters started hounding me.
Do you believe he’s still dating Timothy Goff?
Why all the secrecy?
Can you comment on O’Neal’s state of mind?
So I did what any irate teenage girl would do after she has been besmirched by the press, alienated by her friends, and generally treated like crap: I whipped out my cell phone.
All I had to say on the O’Neal family answering machine was, “It’s Jane. I’m at your house, and unless you let me in, I’m telling the press everything” to get Corey’s dad to open the door and allow me inside.
The reception I received once the door slammed behind me was less than friendly. Both of Corey’s parents must have taken the day off work, just in case he needed their support. I always liked that protective streak in them, although it was harder to appreciate it now that I was on the other side of the barrier.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. O’Neal,” I said politely.
“Jane.” Coming from Corey’s dad it was more of a statement than a welcome.
“I need to talk to Corey.”
I thought they might refuse me until Corey’s mom spoke up. “He’s in his room, but let’s make this clear: If you do anything to hurt my son, I will sue you for harassment. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Okay then.”
And on that note I went to confront my ex–best friend—only to find him hanging out with Kenzie and Logan, as if it were a normal day after school. As if they hadn’t recently cut me out of their lives.
“We need to talk.”
Their heads swiveled at the sound of my voice, and all three of them looked appalled to see me standing in the doorway.
“Get the hell out of here!” Corey yelled. “Mackenzie, please make her leave.”
I stepped farther into the room and shut the door behind me. “Hear me out. Give me five minutes. After that, I’m gone. I won’t bother you again either.”
There was a long, painful silence before he finally nodded. “Fine. Five minutes.”
“Okay, here it is: I’m sorry, Corey. Something I wrote in my notebook, which I never intended to publish in a million years, was stolen and printed without my permission—and that landed you here. I’m so sorry, Corey. I never intended to hurt you. . . . I hope someday you will believe me that it was an accident.”
Corey’s expression never altered. I took a deep breath and braced myself.
“That said: All of you suck.”
Shock and disbelief flashed across their faces.
“Hey!”
“I’m not finished! I still have four minutes to explain.” I rounded on Kenzie. “Let’s start with you. Makes sense, right?” I concentrated on forcing the right words past the lump in my throat, which was trying to choke me. “We’ve been best friends since elementary school, but it never occurred to you that I was hurting. None of you gave me the benefit of the doubt. No phone calls. You couldn’t even be bothered to text me. Guess who did, Kenzie?”
She shook her head mutely.
“Chelsea Halloway. Your nemesis. The Queen of the Notables. She has been a better friend to me than any of you!”
Kenzie’s mouth fell open, but I wasn’t ready to hear any of her protests.
“Ever since you started dating Logan, our friendship hasn’t been a priority. You guys never invite me to do things. You don’t call me. You just go off and have your little shopping sprees with your new best friend, Melanie, and then conveniently forget to mention them to me.”
Kenzie reddened, and I knew that I was right. She hadn’t been planning on inviting me to go with her to whatever party she’d been shopping for with Melanie. The invitation hadn’t just slipped her mind the way I’d wanted so desperately to believe. I dug my nails into my palm and forced myself to continue instead of bawling my eyes out as I ran as fast as I could away from them.
“You act like you’re ashamed of me now. Now that you have your precious boyfriend and more glamorous friends, you don’t want me tagging along.”
Kenzie shook her head violently “Jane, that’s not—”
“That’s how it feels! That’s how it feels every single time you guys blow me off. And I can’t keep waiting on the sidelines for you to notice that maybe I don’t want to be treated as Invisible by my best friends!”
I raked back my hair, knowing that I probably sounded every bit as mentally unhinged as Tim had described me in his interview. The ache wouldn’t go away. No matter what I said, my heart continued breaking farther apart until I started to believe that soon I’d be left with nothing more than bloody goop.
Death by best friends’ betrayal. I wondered why it had never occurred to me sooner.
“Let’s look at the facts: When Kenzie became the laughingstock of YouTube, everyone supported her. I have an accident, and suddenly our friendship is terminated,” I croaked hoarsely. “Did any of you consider that this media attention is destroying my life too? My academic suspension is going to be discussed on the news tonight, along with a whole bunch of insinuations that I’m off medication that I never took in the first place! Universities might like Kenzie’s essay about becoming an overnight Internet sensation, but I doubt they will feel the same way about admitting students who have been publicly condemned as attention-seeking liars.”
I glanced down at my watch. “Thirty seconds left. I’ll leave you with this then: I can’t seem to stop caring about you guys. Even after all of this . . . crap, I can’t erase what we’ve been through together. Trust me, it would hurt a hell of a lot less right now if I could. But apparently there is something even worse than losing the three of you. And that’s losing myself.”
On that final note, I finally gave in to my instinctive flight response and made a mad dash out of the house, ducking my head until I cleared the paparazzi, as an emotional numbness began to sink in. I didn’t even realize hot, angry tears kept spilling down my face until I tasted the bitterness on my lips. The sting was nothing compared to realizing the people who had once been the very best parts of my life were gone.
But it was a cold comfort knowing that at least I had finally told the truth.
Elle didn’t say a word when I climbed back into her car. She drove me straight home in silence, while I contemplated my options. I wanted to fight this new media image of myself as a violent, publicity-obsessed psychopath-in-training. To set the record straight publicly, even if that meant writing an insider’s look into Timothy Goff and Corey O’Neal’s relationship. Now that our friendship had been terminated, there should have been nothing holding me back. It wasn’t like I had anything to lose by telling my side of the story for a boatload of cash . . . except my own self-respect. That was one trade-off I wasn’t willing to make.
The truth might set me free, but in this case it wasn’t my truth to tell.
It looked like Scott’s assessment of me was right: I wasn’t reporter material, certainly not by Lisa Anne’s standards. A true journalist was someone determined to give people the latest news with his or her name attached to the byline.
But there are some things the public just doesn’t need to know, because it is none of their business.
Still, I did know one person who might be able to help me fix what I had accidentally broken. Someone with the power to change the news cycle. Once again I pulled out my cell phone.
Only this time it was to call a rock star.
Chapter 32
The ringing of my cell phone woke me up.
“Hello?” I croaked, without bothering to check my caller ID.
“Did you put him up to it?”
Corey.
I sat bolt upright, wondering dimly whether this could be a supervivid dream, until I glanced over at my alarm clock. Not even in my worst nightmares would anyone be sadistic enough to call me at
six in the morning when I was suspended from school and could theoretically sleep as late as I wanted.
The distinct tone of wariness in Corey’s voice had me struggling to keep up.
“What are you talking about?”
“Tim mentioned that you called him.”
I rubbed my eyes, which felt like sandpaper after all my crying the day before, and fought the urge to close them again. “Uh-huh.”
“So did you put him up to this?” Corey’s obvious impatience was so familiar that it was comforting to hear.
“Uh, what exactly did he do?”
“Only the sweetest, most romantic gesture known to mankind. He painted a billboard in LA—well, I think he painted it.... It could have been done some other way, I’m not sure—”
“Let’s stay on point, Corey. What did it say?”
“He painted ‘I love Corey O’Neal’ and signed it clearly to eliminate any doubt over who did it.”
Smooth. The rock star definitely had moves.
“Then he texted a picture of himself standing in front of it to me. And he—” Corey’s voice broke with emotion. “He wrote, ‘I’m not hiding anymore. Sorry I panicked. Forgive me?’ ”
“Uh . . .” I was almost at a loss for words. “Yeah, that’s pretty romantic.”
“Right! What should I do?”
I slowly shook my head in an attempt to clear it. “Why are you asking me? I thought you wanted my head on a platter.”
There was a long pause while I instantly regretted my words. For this one brief moment, I had my best friend back—if that was a dream, I didn’t want to wake up; if it was a random accident, I didn’t want to be the one to kill it.
“There was no one I wanted to talk to more.”
I felt my throat close. “Really?”
“Yeah. That doesn’t mean everything is fine between us,” Corey added quickly. “Maybe it was an accident—”
“It was!”
“But it still hurt.”
I nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see it over the phone.
“But you were right: Even at my angriest I couldn’t erase our years of friendship either. So . . . I called you. And if you want to get back in my good graces, you better start dishing out some brilliant advice right now. What should I do?”
I laughed, and the chokehold of tension around my heart eased. “Okay, well, advice is not really my strong suit. The idea to declare his love on a billboard didn’t come from me, so you might want to lower your expectations. But . . . the guy spent an hour grilling me for information about how you were handling the split.”
“And you said that I was doing fine, so he’d have to work really hard to get me back?”
“Nope. I told him that you were a mess.” Corey made indignant choking noises, but I ignored them. “He sounded devastated.”
“He did?”
“Of course he did! The guy is completely in love with you, Corey!” I thought back to Tim’s romantic gesture. “Obviously, he wants to fix things.”
“But he dumped me and then publicly lied about us!”
“True. So here is my advice: You have to decide if you want to throw away your relationship because he panicked. I’m not saying what he did was right: It wasn’t. I’m saying that the decision is yours.”
“You really do suck at giving advice!” he groused. “You sound like a freaking fortune cookie.”
I grinned and leaned back against the headboard of my bed. “Yep. So what did you tell him after you saw the text?”
“I—I haven’t called him yet.”
“What!” I squawked. “I’m hanging up now so that you can call him. Then I’d love to hear how it goes.”
There was a slight pause before he said hesitantly, “Okay. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
My smile widened. “Sounds perfect to me.”
Maybe I hadn’t lost all my friends by taking a stand, especially since Corey definitely had the best reason to hate me. Then again, he was also probably the most forgiving person at Smith High School. And it had been an accident.
Yelling at Kenzie in his bedroom hadn’t happened by mistake though.
Since I was already fully awake, I went downstairs and began rummaging around for omelet-making supplies— cheese, onions, tomatoes, the works—in the hope that maybe some culinary groveling would lessen my grounding sentence.
I was in the midst of a chopping frenzy when my parents entered the kitchen.
“This is a nice surprise!” My mom eyed the items sprawled across the counter. “Any particular reason for it?”
“Corey called me this morning, and I think we’re going to be okay.”
“Oh, Janie! That’s wonderful!”
My dad nodded less effusively. “That’s great, Jane. I know how much his friendship means to you.”
“Yep. Now I hope you’re both hungry. Maybe later we could discuss the terms of my punishment?”
No such luck.
My dad was insisting that parents don’t negotiate with teenagers, when Elle wandered into the kitchen.
“Jane, there’s a guy at the door for you.”
I rushed out of the room, only to pull up short when I saw Miles waiting on my porch. Leaning against the side of my house, he still looked perfectly suited to play Romeo. I half expected him to quote some verse and hand me a single perfect rose . . . but I couldn’t help feeling oddly disappointed that it wasn’t Scott.
“Hey, Jane. Sorry just to drop by unannounced, but Ms. Helsenberg mentioned having homework to give you during play rehearsal . . . and I figured you could use a friend right now.”
I stared at him in confusion as I tried to figure out if he meant Hey, let’s take our relationship slow or You’ve been dumped.
“Right. A friend.”
“And I’d really like to be one to you.”
“A friend,” I repeated stupidly.
“Right.”
I rubbed my temples and tried not to jump to conclusions. “As your friend, I think I should give you a heads-up. . . . Your ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech . . . it could use a little work.”
He grinned wryly and then slung an arm around my shoulder. No sparks. Not even a tingle of awareness. “Oh no. It’s definitely you.”
I couldn’t help laughing at the blunt way he put it, especially since I felt oddly relieved at the ease with which we had moved out of dating territory. This I could handle. “Fair enough. I still had a good time hanging out with you in Portland.”
“Yeah, it was fun. We should do it again sometime—as friends. Catch a play or something.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We stood there for a moment as I tried to wrap my head around the fact that Miles inspired absolutely no desire in me to have his tongue in my mouth. The guy might be perfect, but he would never be my Romeo. And yeah, it stung to have him lose interest, although that was definitely preferable to him showing up and expecting another date.
“So . . . I’ll see you around?”
He handed me the assignments with a wink. “See you later, Jane.”
Leaving me stuck explaining to my parents that Miles was a friend (true) who had auditioned with me for the school musical (true) and only stopped by to be helpful (true, considering the way he brought over my assignments before he helpfully dumped me). I didn’t get a break from the interrogation until my parents left for work and Elle finally accepted that I wouldn’t be revealing any juicy gossip. She rolled her eyes, but left me alone to call Mrs. Blake and ask for another day off from Fiction Addiction. Which is why she missed out on hearing my excellent imitation of static when Mrs. Blake started asking questions about how my date went with Scott, before I tried to distract myself with my new assignments.
As far as diversions go, it was seriously lacking.
But I was still buried beneath a pile of handouts when I heard a tentative knock on my door.
Definitely not Elle and, since everyone else I knew was still in school, it left
me without a list of likely candidates.
“Um . . . come in?”
A painfully familiar face peered into my room but entered no farther, as if too uncertain about her reception to cross the threshold.
Kenzie.
“Hey, Jane.”
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out in disbelief. I hadn’t expected to see Miles earlier that day, but even that was less bizarre than the notion that Kenzie would skip class for any reason. Let alone for me. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“I snuck away during lunch. Logan dropped me off, but we don’t really have that long to talk before I have to leave. I—I just wanted to see you.”
“Really?” I couldn’t prevent the sarcasm from leaking out even as every corpuscle in my body began screaming at me to patch things up. To apologize, if necessary. To accept any small crumb of affection if it could get us back to how we once were. “That’s interesting. Since when? Because you sure as hell haven’t made an effort in a long time.”
Kenzie pushed the door open wider but didn’t approach me. “Look, I get that you’re mad at me. You made that really clear yesterday. And I should’ve been more supportive when the article came out, okay? I knew you would never intentionally hurt Corey, but his life was falling apart, and he needed me and . . . I’m sorry, Jane. I didn’t know what to do.”
I nodded slowly, but stopped when I realized that she wasn’t finished.
“But the way you blasted us yesterday wasn’t right either. You can’t emotionally dive-bomb somebody and then run away before they get a chance to defend themselves.”
My stomach plummeted, and I braced myself for the worst.
“Okay, fine. What did you want to say?”
“I wanted to tell you that I know that I’ve been busy lately, and it sucks—for both of us—but I’m doing the best I can!”
I forced myself to remain sitting. “Kenzie, I get it. Trust me, I’ve been repeating the excuses for a long time now. AP History classes, tutoring, a boyfriend . . . that’s a lot even before you add the sudden Internet fame. But we both know that you don’t see me anymore. That’s why somehow the invitations never extend to me!”