“Excuse me?” she says, my words catching up to her.
“I wanted to come explain it to you that I know what I did was wrong. And”—I take a deep breath—“I want to give you all the reasons I did it, but I know it doesn’t matter to you. You have all this stuff in your life that’s just as important as mine. So I’m—I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for the pain this has caused you and your family. I’m sorry I hurt Whit, too. And I know he’s miserable about all this.”
Her face is solemn. She’s not screaming or telling me I’m the worst person in the world. She doesn’t have to. “You’re going to be in a lot of trouble, Olivia.”
“I think that’s okay.” I swallow hard. Shockingly, I feel much better. “I mean it’ll suck, but it can’t be worse than this.”
“I imagine that it can’t,” she concedes. “I appreciate you coming clean.” She tilts her head to the side. “Of course I don’t appreciate you doing this in the first place. But I’m relieved to hear it from you,” she admits to me.
“Tell your daughter if she wants to be a cheerleader, I can give her some tips.” I smile sadly. “From an ex–Buckley High cheerleader.”
“I’ll do that. Good-bye, Olivia,” she says, and then she steps back and closes the door in my face.
67
While I talk, Dr. Rickards scowls and Mr. Doolittle comforts me, as if proud of this breakthrough. I can’t believe I ever had a bad thought about him.
Mom did most of the talking. It’s a relief, honestly, for her to be so deeply involved in something in my life, even when it is something this terrible. She told me what we were going to do and lined me up behind her. Something like protection. I always thought I loved the independence her standoffishness afforded me, but God, does it feel good for someone to take the load off my shoulders. To point me in the right direction and not tell me I’m an idiot in the process. To look out for me out of nothing but love. It reminds me of Ryan.
But I do have to tell my side of the story, and it’s ugly. I turn to Mr. Doolittle after I’ve listed my transgressions. “I’m sorry I used you. I know you were trying to help.”
He waves a hand. “I’m used to it. You’ll continue your SAT studies?”
“I guess.” I glance down. “With Vera.”
He nods and pats my leg. “Good girl.”
Never heard that one before.
Mom puts a hand on my shoulder as she ushers me out and squeezes right before I open the door.
I stop for a beat and release a breath. A breath I’ve been holding for the past three months.
“Thanks,” I say.
* * *
When Mom and I come out of the office, Claire is waiting by the door, biting her nails. She looks relieved when she sees me, as if she wasn’t sure I would come out alive. Mom gives me a nod when I glance at Claire and tells me she’ll wait in the car. I lean against the wall of the empty hallway before she says anything.
“Well?”
“I survived,” I tell her. I blow out a breath. “Dr. Rickards will probably call you and Whit and Adrienne and some other people in to corroborate my story.” I snort. “I thought he was going to have a heart attack.”
Claire sucks in her cheeks. “What’s he going to do to you?”
My hair catches on the cement wall behind me as I fidget around, not quite sure how to get the words out. “He said he should expel me, but given my difficulties the past few months and that Mr. Doolittle is willing to back me, he went with Mom’s plan. I’ll take all the classes I need for next semester online, and he’ll let me graduate with our class. It wasn’t the nightmare it could’ve been.” I shrug.
Claire’s face falls. “I don’t want to go to school without you. I already have to cheer without you since you punched that guy.” She laughs. “You’re the one who keeps me from losing it here.”
I tug at a strand of her hair. “Come on, Claire Bear. Everyone loves you.”
“It’s lonely.” She closes her eyes for a minute, and it hits me just how isolated Claire feels among the people of this town. People who think there’s something wrong with her, who don’t understand how she didn’t choose to be different. “I told Alex the other day—all of it.” She opens her eyes back up. “Because he’s supposed to be my best friend, and I wanted him to know that I could never feel the same way about him. I can’t. He told me it wasn’t fair. Like I picked liking girls so I wouldn’t have to like him.” She sighs.
“Why’d you tell him?” I ask.
She grins kind of mischievously. “Well, Ellie was talking to me the other day. She said she’d been thinking about all the drama going on over here, and how all this hiding is kind of bullshit. I guess things are trickling through the gossip vines at Central, and Ellie says she doesn’t really care what they think anymore.” Claire tilts her head. “It kind of sucks it all happened this way, but she thinks we should talk about this, about us—so long as Alex was aware of the situation.”
I smile at her. “That’s so good.”
“Yeah. Of course, I’m still not sure how it would work with my parents and everyone here … but only seven months till graduation, right?” she finishes with a sigh. Then she pouts. “Can I go with you? To Internet school? Please.”
“I wish,” I say, trying not to get all serious because I can tell she doesn’t want that. “I should go. The bell’s about to ring, and I’m sure Dr. Rickards doesn’t want me here when the gossip breaks.”
“Okay,” Claire says sadly. “You know Adrienne thinks I took your side.” A pause. “But she told me she was sorry about everything. She’s the only person besides you who has never thought I was a joke. I need her on my side.”
“I know,” I answer. I want Claire to let her go, once and for all, but I can’t tell her what to do. This war has always been between Adrienne and me, not her.
“I’ve been friends with her longer than I can remember. It’s—it’s safe. And I need something safe in my life right now. You get that, right?”
“Yes, Claire, I’m not mad at you. I—”
My eyes catch on something—someone—down the hall. Bent over a water fountain with a khaki-colored backpack. His eyes glance up, meet mine, and turn away.
Claire turns her head to watch Whit as he heads down a side hallway. “Do you think he’ll forgive you when he finds out what you did?”
I bite into my lip and try to ignore that crushing feeling inside my chest. “No.” I shake my head for emphasis. “He has to focus. Has to win another state championship. Has to get ready for college. He’ll be over me in a week.”
I’m staring out over the empty water fountain when I feel a punch on my bicep. I grab my arm and look down to see Claire with her hand curled into a fist. “Ow!” I yell. “What the hell was that?”
“Don’t ever say that shit again,” Claire says. “Whit DuRant is not too good for you. And I’m sick of you thinking that.” Claire’s eyes are fierce. “There’s a lot of shit and a lot of shitty people in this world, Liv, I would know, but if you think for one second that you didn’t break that boy’s heart when he found out what you did to him, you’re delusional. Why do you think he’s spending time around Adrienne?”
“I don’t know,” I admit.
In a second, Claire’s face clears and she no longer looks like a five-foot-two assassin. “Think about it.” She smiles. “And call me this weekend, okay? Be good.”
Still slightly scared, I nod and turn to go.
Good-bye, Buckley High.
68
TWO MONTHS LATER
I’m surfing through Internet pictures. Coxie had a party last night, and everyone was there. I wouldn’t have wanted to be there. All the same, I miss being important.
Here’s what I figure: Whit is either dating or not dating Anna Talbert. He has his arm around her in some of these pictures. I mean, it could be a friendly arm. There’s all kinds of touching at parties like that.
I know Adrienne is behind it. But what if he likes her anyway
?
Claire tells me nothing is going on. She said Anna likes one of the other boys who’s on the golf team with Whit so that’s why they’re always around each other. But Whit told me before about Anna’s connection to Mrs. Baker. What if … I guess it doesn’t matter.
I haven’t spoken to him in two months. And I’ve wanted to. Two agonizing months of wondering what he’s thinking and who he’s talking to and clicking through social media pictures from his college visits. I want to tell him things about my life and my therapist and being myself. I want to tell him about how stupid the verbal section of the SAT was and how I totally think I killed the math section unless I didn’t.
But he has his arm around Anna and he’s taller than she is so she probably loves him. That’s no one’s fault but mine.
My phone vibrates and I pick it up. “What’s up with Whit and Anna?” I ask Claire before I say hello.
“What?” she asks.
“I just saw pictures from Coxie’s party last night,” I say. “They’re together.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she answers unhelpfully.
Just then, an e-mail pops up on my screen. An e-mail from Adrienne Maynard. I click it open. “Watch me” is all it says. I scroll down to the attached video and inform Claire.
“Don’t open it,” Claire says firmly.
“Yeah,” I return, “and just never know what it is. I can live with that.” I jiggle my leg nervously and stare at the screen. I’m not surprised—more surprised it took her this long. After I told Dr. Rickards about our scheme to bring down Mrs. Baker and Whit, he called Adrienne in to go over her story again. Then he suspended her, on account of being sick of our shit, I’m assuming. Mr. and Mrs. Maynard pitched a huge fit and threatened to sue the school board. The school promised not to tell any of the colleges that accepted her.
I can only assume her anger has been building up all this time. It’s not like it really affected her life, but Adrienne has always prided herself on never getting caught.
Still. The video is here, right in front of me. A ticking time bomb.
“This is what she wants,” Claire tells me. I’d almost forgotten she was on the other end of the phone. There’s a slight hysterical edge that I only barely manage to make out under my own mounting panic.
Slowly, I say, “What do you know?”
Claire takes a minute to answer. “Nothing. Not really.”
“Tell me.” I watch the e-mail; it doesn’t move. “Please.”
She sighs loudly into the phone. “That party was getting a little out of hand, okay?” She doesn’t talk momentarily. “Look, I didn’t stay long, so I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s best if you don’t open it.”
“I’m going to watch it,” I say.
“Do you really think you should?” Claire asks.
“Yes.” I click the video once but before the second click, I pause. “What if they’re hooking up?”
“What?”
I am really freaking myself out now. “What if it’s a video of Whit and Anna or something? It’s exactly the kind of thing Adrienne would mastermind.” I run my hands through my hair. The room reflects against the computer screen.
“Do you really think he would do that?” Claire asks me.
I sit in silence for a moment. Close my eyes. “No,” I finally say as I open the video.
It loads up and a low-quality image pops onto the screen, all bad lighting and muffled sound. It takes a second to focus and there’s Whit, playing quarters with Daniel and Anna. He chugs his beer and laughs, and Anna smiles at him in a way that makes my skin crawl. Adrienne yells at them to wave for the camera, and they all do. It cuts away. Back to Whit sitting down at the kitchen table, looking blitzed. It reminds me of Ryan in the worst way, the glassy eyes and the stuttered speech and the loud laugh that rings hollow. I run my fingers over my mouth, watching.
Adrienne is whispering to Anna. “Ask him about O,” she says.
“What do you think O is doing right now?” Anna asks offscreen. Adrienne shakes the camera as she zooms in closer to him.
“Probably fucking up some other guy’s life,” Whit says into the camera, and I wince. I could hear the glee in Adrienne’s voice, but Whit is subdued. Drunk, but unsure. He looks wrong.
“What would you say to her?” Adrienne asks, jumping in. “If she was here right now.”
“Stop, Ade,” someone—it sounds like Renatta—mutters in the background.
“She’s right,” Whit says. “She’s not special. She’s this girl who tears everyone down because she’s got nothing of her own.” Adrienne waits for him to talk again, as he sits and brings a red Solo cup to his lips. My hands shake, and I know Claire’s there, breathing on the other side of the phone, but I can’t remember anything but the contours of Whit’s face right now, every word burning into my memory. “I still hate you, and you weren’t worth it, that’s what I’d tell her.” Then he stops, as if having an epiphany. “I’d tell her she was beautiful and she ruins everything.”
No one says anything for a second, and I can tell the entire room is listening to him, transfixed. Then I hear Adrienne whisper, “Go make out with him,” but the video feed cuts off to a black screen.
I sit still, staring at the black square for somewhere between a nanosecond and the rest of time. Then Claire says, “Liv? Liv, what was it?”
I stare at the black. “I think he hates me.”
“What?” she asks.
“I think he hates me because I’m me. Which is probably the right thing to do,” I say slowly.
“Come on, you don’t believe that. He’s hurt. Why wouldn’t he be?”
I’m silent.
“You tried to ruin the thing that matters most to him, even after he opened up to you. So if he hates you, look at yourself. Figure out how to convince him you’re not that person. Convince all of us.”
I don’t want to hear Claire say that. I don’t want her to think of me in that way, to distrust me.
But she does, even though we’re friends, and it makes a painful kind of sense. “What if I am that person?”
“Then I guess we’re all wasting our time.” A beat. Then, “You can change it all, Olivia. I know you can.”
69
The e-mail pops up at five thirty p.m. the next Sunday night.
Your SAT Scores.
My heart is going to explode out of my chest. This is the most agonizing moment of my life. I can’t look at it, not right away.
So I wait until the next day. At seven a.m., I race through the halls of Buckley High, hoping not to run into someone who will kick me out. Miraculously, I don’t. I fly full throttle through Mr. Doolittle’s open door and run up beside him. “They’re here!” I tell him.
He jumps back in shock, getting coffee in his beard. He grabs a napkin and mops it up. “Miss Clayton. You aren’t supposed to be here. You need to—”
“My SAT scores. You have to tell me what you think.”
He dabs away at his vest. “What are they?”
“I don’t know.”
He stops and looks at me. “You don’t know?”
“You have to look,” I tell him.
“What?”
I kneel next to him, leaning over his computer and logging into my e-mail. Without pausing for a moment to think about it, I finally open the e-mail.
There it is.
There it is.
We both stare at it for a few moments and then, without warning, Mr. Doolittle jumps up and hugs me, saying my name with so much pride, and I don’t know why, but I’m crying into Mr. Doolittle’s shoulder. Even if I can’t go anywhere right now, someday I can go somewhere.
I can.
“Thank you,” I say through my ridiculous tears. “Thank you,” and it’s the most cathartic moment. I worked for this and it’s good for me and everyone gets a happy ending here. Others pushed me and I can prove to them it paid off, that it was worth it.
Mr. Doolittle and I spend half a
n hour putting together a list of admissions requirements and financial aid opportunities for the colleges I picked out.
It’s amazing. Still floating on a cloud, I leave his office and run into Vera on my way out. “Vera!” I call. She turns around, her wide eyes surprised. I hug her, too, because I don’t know who I am anymore. “I did it! Better than the practice tests.”
She breaks into a genuine smile. “Congratulations!”
“God, I’m such a bitch, Vera,” I tell her even though I’m smiling. “You didn’t have to help me, but thank you.”
She looks confused.
“I have a surprise for you,” I say, walking away from her, backward. I’m planning as I go. “You’ll see—I’ll call you!” I yell, turning on my toes.
And running directly into Whit.
We both jump back. Silence fills the space between us: We both know we have to say something, but we both don’t want to. We don’t know how. It’s like we’ve unlearned knowing each other.
“I did it,” I hear myself say, and his brow furrows like duh, I know what you did, but I say, “My SATs were great. All thanks to you and Vera.” I point vaguely behind me. I don’t even know if she’s still there.
His voice is cold. “Good job.”
“It’s really funny, I was in the verbal section and—”
“Look, I’m really sorry if I gave the impression we could have a conversation,” he says. He doesn’t walk away, though, and I start to understand what Claire said.
“You won’t even listen to me.” I shake my head. “You know, if you won’t speak to me because your pride’s hurt, then Adrienne’s won.”
“You’re just a liar,” he tells me before walking away.
A liar. Who makes excuses.
Maybe I was.
But I don’t have to be.
70
Here in the South, in late fall, the cold comes out to play only at night. It assaults slowly as the sun sets, surprising you with the swift temperature drop. I pull my jacket tight around me as a breeze bites through the night, right outside the Rough House.
How to Break a Boy Page 27