I hate her, I accept.
But I will not let her get the better of me.
* * *
I struggle to slow my pace as I head for what has become our usual table in the cafeteria, the dozens of eyes crawling on my skin, their whispered giggles like the menacing buzz of wasps nearby.
“Hey.” I slide into my seat, my undivided attention on my ham-and-cheese sandwich, though my appetite was smothered hours ago by the fury and fear in the pit of my stomach. Maybe eating will help.
“Hey.” Jen avoids making eye contact as she chews on a carrot stick.
“What have you heard so far?”
She and Josie exchange a glance and I suspect the rumor is already snowballing. By the time it reaches the end of the day, I’ll have infected the entire hockey team with an incurable disease.
Rumors are just tall tales that fade with time, Dr. C. would always say.
But she was also quick to point out how cutting they can be while they’re swirling around you. And in the bubble of high school—which is an entire ecosystem for a teenager—they can sometimes suck the air out of your lungs.
Swirling around a person who is already struggling for air, they can become lethal.
“She’s out to get me because of Emmett.” I tell them about the ambush at the mini-meet on Friday, and Saturday night’s fiasco.
“Heard about Saturday night.” Jen grimaces. “What a bitch.”
“Karma will get her,” Josie offers in her naturally soft voice.
And maybe dealing with Holly’s nastiness is part of my punishment from karma. My intentions for sharing that video may have been honest. But they were also selfish.
“Speak of the devil …” Josie’s eyes narrow on the cafeteria entrance. Sure enough, Holly and Mandy are strolling in, Holly’s head held high as she approaches, moving toward her usual table of friends.
She looks my way—she knows where I am—and offers me a smug smile.
My anger flares.
What would people around school think if they knew who she really was?
I could leak that video. That’s my weapon. Nobody would be able to ignore how awful she really is. How fake those smiles and waves are. They’d start to question if she’s talking about them like she did about us.
But if Cassie were to hear it, it would hurt her. And, in turn, it would hurt Emmett. Plus, it would draw attention to Jen and her weird clothing choices—today, it’s a grossly overweight cat in a T-shirt with his belly hanging out and a bib with a turkey on it. An homage to post-Thanksgiving Day gluttony, I guess. Where does she even find these? And this one is clearly old, the print faded.
I’m not going to hurt any of them for the sake of getting revenge.
The right thing to do is ignore Holly.
But in this moment, seeing her grin and listening to her laugh, I find I can’t be the bigger person. Not for her.
I wait for her to be out of earshot, and then I say, just loud enough for the nearby tables around us to catch, “Hey, did you guys hear about Holly’s gross fetish?”
* * *
“Bye, AJ!”
I wave from the top of the stairs at Cassie, standing at the front door. “Have fun swimming.”
“Okay. Bye, Emmett! See you guys in an hour!” She slams the door shut.
I venture into Emmett’s room to find him sprawled out on his bed, his chemistry textbook within his grasp, deep concentration furrowing his brow. “Hey.”
A lazy smile spreads across his lips, those deep dimples forming as he turns to watch me approach. “Hey.” His voice has a sleepy rasp to it that I feel in my chest.
“Tired?”
“Nah. My legs are sore, though. My skating coach had me doing hard laps today.”
“Skating coach?”
“Yeah. I’ve got my regular team practices and then a skating coach and a stick-handling coach, who also does shooting practice with me. That’s why I’m on the ice every day.” He shuts his chem textbook. “Ready to work on our project?”
“No.” I laugh and toss my backpack onto the floor.
“Good.” He grabs my hand and pulls me onto the bed, much the same way as on Thanksgiving weekend, on my back with my legs slung over his. He rolls onto his side to press up close to me, and lays a lingering kiss below my earlobe. I think it’s his favorite spot to kiss me.
It’s quickly becoming my favorite spot for him to kiss me, too.
“How was the rest of your day?”
“Horrible,” I confess.
“You know …,” his fingertips trail over my cheekbones, my nose, the length of my bottom lip, “this guy in my chem class asked if the rumor about Holly was true.”
I study his collarbone intently. “What rumor is that?”
“The one about how she used to beg me to let her suck on my toes. You know, because she has a weird foot fetish.”
“Wow. That’s kind of … different?” I struggle to stifle my triumphant grin. That only took one period to spread through the school.
“It gets better. She used to ask me not to shower after practice, because she liked the taste of my sweat.”
My cringe is genuine now. Someone’s been embellishing. “What did you say?”
He chuckles. “I didn’t know what to say, at first. I denied it, of course.” His forehead wrinkles. “But it got me thinking about a certain girl who has a hatred for feet.”
I feel the tips of my ears burning. “Yeah, that girl will definitely not suck on your sweaty toes, if that’s the sort of thing you like.” I cringe a second time at the thought.
Emmett laughs. At least if he suspects that I started the rumor—which he clearly does—he doesn’t seem angry about it. “She might deserve that rumor floating around after what she did to you today.”
Today, last Friday …
“Yeah, that stunt of hers worked.” Some jerk wearing an Eastmonte football jacket threw himself against a locker as I was walking by after school, as if I carried the plague.
“Don’t worry, it’ll blow over soon.”
“I know.” The question is, what will follow in its place?
Emmett trails a fingertip along my jawline. “Do you want me to say something to her?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll deal with it. You’ve got enough going on.”
He hesitates but then nods.
“You know what?” I shift my legs and roll onto my side to face him, smoothing my palm over his stubbled jaw. “I don’t want to talk about Holly anymore.”
“Me neither.” He presses his lips against mine in the sweetest kiss. “Especially not when we have the house to ourselves for the next hour.”
“What about your dad?” His car is in the driveway.
Emmett’s hand smooths over the curve of my hip. “He’s in Vancouver for a few days.”
“Oh.” Oh.
“Yeah.” His hard swallow fills the growing tension in the room. And then he’s kissing me again.
That surreal fog of “I can’t believe this is happening!” that enveloped me every time Emmett was near is finally giving way to familiarity, to an urge to explore him.
An hour isn’t much time at all.
We’re shifting, rolling, until I’m on my back again and Emmett hovers over me, propped up on his elbows on either side of my head, his body pressing against mine. I let my hands wander, sliding up his shirt, memorizing the hard ridges of muscle over his back, the feel of his hot skin, as I venture all the way to his shoulder blades.
He breaks free from my mouth long enough to reach back with one arm to yank his shirt over his head. In another deft maneuver, he has it completely off and is launching it across the room, as if not planning on getting redressed anytime soon.
My nerves flutter in my stomach. It’s the first time I’ve seen him shirtless and it is a sight. I sigh softly as I take in his bare chest, the pad of muscles begging to be touched. And I do, smoothing my palms over them, my fingertips drawing circles.
I feel
a tug against the hem of my shirt, and when I meet Emmett’s eyes, they’re bright with earnest. “Can I?”
I simply nod, and lift my arms.
He slips my shirt off and his heated gaze drifts over my white lace bra. He makes no move to unfasten it, though. Not yet.
But if he asks, I’ll let him.
I don’t think there’s anything I’d say no to right now, with Emmett.
Our lips find each other once again, this time in a heady dance of tangled tongues and bumping teeth, as his hot skin presses against mine, as his racing heart pounds against mine. “You drive me crazy,” he whispers, and those are the last words exchanged between us.
I lose track of time, caught up in this intoxicating bubble that is Emmett—Emmett’s lips on my mouth, on my neck, on my ears, along my collarbone. He doesn’t venture further and seems to be making a concerted effort to keep his hands PG-13, which only builds my frustration, until I’m whispering his own words back to him, my fingers weaving tightly through his hair.
Car doors slam outside Emmett’s window.
He peels away and rolls onto his back, exhaling slowly, his breathing ragged. “That was fun.” His puffy, red lips stretch into a lazy smile as his eyes meet mine. “I guess we should do some homework now?”
I reach for my shirt with dismay.
* * *
Dear Julia,
I know it was wrong to start that rumor. But it was a stupid, silly, immature rumor. Not a big one. Not one that would hurt Holly. And having people think you sucked your ex-boyfriend’s sweaty toes is nothing compared to having the school think you have an untreatable, highly contagious STD. PLUS, I’m sure she had something to do with drugging Cassie.
And now I think Cassie may be scarred for life. Iris came by after school with her molasses cookies and Cassie asked her if there were drugs in them. You should’ve seen the look on Iris’s wrinkled face. God knows how long it will be before that gets back to Heather or Mark. Holly has ruined cookies for Cassie for God knows how long.
AND don’t forget what she did to me at the cross-country mini-meet.
I know Holly deserved it.
And yet, it’s eating away at me.
~AJ
* * *
“Can I ask you something?” I peer at Jen over my tray of mac ’n’ cheese. It’s rainy and cold outside, and when I saw another student walk by with the cheesy, hot bowl, I quickly abandoned my bagel from home. “As your friend.”
Her owlish eyes regard me a moment before she shrugs. “Sure.”
How do I put this … “You have an interesting wardrobe.” I give her orange jack-o’-lantern sweatshirt a pointed look.
Jen grins. “I prefer to call it festive.”
“It’s definitely that.” Yesterday’s sweatshirt was all black with the word “Boo!” across the chest. “But what gives? I mean, why do you dress the way you do, which is … not exactly like a nor—like other teenagers.”
She stabs at her macaroni noodles with a fork. “They’re my mom’s shirts,” she admits, biting her bottom lip. “Remember when I said we moved to Eastmonte when I was twelve? It was because she had cancer, so my parents decided it’d be a good idea to be closer to my grandparents while she was going through treatment. We moved in with them. It made things easier.” She smiles at her plate of food. “She died two years ago, when I started tenth grade.”
“Oh.” I swallow. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.” I’ve been so focused on my own life, I don’t know much of anything about Jen at all, other than that Holly was her nemesis.
What would it have been like for Jen, to lose her mother at fifteen?
For years, my mother seemed absent—she was gone all day, and when she was home, her head was buried in work. But it’s not the same. I knew she’d come back eventually.
For Jen, all she has left are memories.
And tacky shirts.
“So, you wear your mom’s clothes?”
She rolls her eyes. “My mom had a thing for loud, fun shirts. She always used to say, ‘I might not be the most handsome woman there ever was but I’ll be the most fun.’ And she was. She turned heads wherever she went. Not necessarily in a good way, mind you, but she didn’t care what other people thought of her. It all slid off her shoulders, because she liked who she was.” Jen smiles. “She told me that the sooner you figure out how to like yourself through your own eyes, the sooner you’ll stop trying to see yourself through everyone else’s.” She shifts her pasta around with her spoon. “I miss her. A lot. After she died, I decided to wear one of her shirts to school. It was Valentine’s Day and the shirt had a giant Be Mine heart across the front. It felt good. I felt like she was still with me. And so I started wearing more of her shirts. This was her favorite one for Halloween.” She peers down at her chest and laughs. “I used to think it was so ugly but now all I see when I look at it is her.”
“That’s …” I swallow against the lump in my throat. “She sounds like she would have been a fun mom to have.” And suddenly the tacky shirts don’t seem so tacky anymore.
“She was.” Jen studies her lunch intently before shoveling in a mouthful. She nods behind me and a moment later, Josie slides into her chair, setting her red lunch bag on the table in front of her.
“Hi.” Her eyes shift to me, partially hidden behind her heavy, dark bangs. She worries her thin lips, as if wanting to say something but holding herself back.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure if you want me to tell you this,” she says in that near-whisper.
“Well, now you have to.” Wariness slides down my spine. I already know this isn’t going to be good.
Josie purses her mouth. “Okay, so I heard people talking in class about this Instagram account that someone started for Emmett Hartford’s new girlfriend.”
My stomach sinks like a rock in a lake.
“The handle is SWF Eats.” Josie’s cute face is apologetic. “And there are pictures—”
I leave my lunch where it is, barely touched—my appetite vanished—and, grabbing my purse, dash for the nearest girls’ bathroom. Ducking into the last stall, I dig out my phone.
It doesn’t take long to find the account.
My chest burns as I study the profile picture. It’s a zoomed-in candid shot of me—my face contorted as I open my mouth to take a bite from a sandwich. Holly must’ve taken it during lunch when the lunch monitors weren’t watching.
There are five pictures loaded in the feed and they’re of equally unflattering shots of me eating, three taken in the last week.
And two taken … today.
I look down at my red shirt—a shirt we bought on the weekend shopping trip. Holly hasn’t come to the cafeteria yet. Which means other people are taking pictures of me, and she’s posting them right away. They heard about the account, thought it was funny, and joined in. That’s how these things start: a funny joke at someone’s expense. It might only last a few days or a few weeks, but the damage will be done.
How long before the whole school is in on it?
My eyes sting with angry tears as I read the profile description.
Stalker. Thief. S.T.D. Advocate. Bathroom Voyeur. DM face-stuffing pics. Anon guaranteed.
There’s no doubt Holly started this, but good luck proving it. She posted the first picture last Friday night, after the mini-meet. She probably sat in her room—by herself, or with Mandy, who seems to be of like mind—and giggled as she opened a fake account using a fake email.
And there are already seventy-four followers.
I close my eyes as a wave of nausea floods me.
I don’t know what to do. If I tell my mother, she’ll storm in guns blazing and make things worse.
If I go to Mr. Keen … who am I kidding? Holly won’t admit to it. He’ll probably make things worse too. If he does anything at all.
Maybe I brought this on myself. I did start that idiotic toe-sucking rumor, after all. And I did help break them up. If I hadn
’t, I wouldn’t be a target. Maybe I deserve this.
That thought brings me no comfort.
But there’s not much I can do. I take a screenshot of the IG account, for proof, and then report the account, knowing it’s likely futile.
And then I hide out in the bathroom stall until the bell goes for the end of fourth period, because there’s no way I’m going back to the caf today.
22
Ms. Moretti cuts my path off as I’m on my way to joining the rest of the team in stretching. “How’s the knee?” She peers down at my leg, hidden by my favorite loose track pants.
“Fine. Just bruised.” I bend it as if to prove my words. In truth, my entire kneecap is an ugly and concerning mottle of purple and blue, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.
“Okay. Do me a favor and take it easy for one more day. We have two weeks until regionals. You’ll make your time back, if you let yourself heal. Pace yourself with Richard.”
“Sure.” My eyes flicker to the group, to where Holly sits on the grass, stretching her hamstrings, her ponytail swaying as she laughs hysterically with the girl beside her. About what, who knows, but I’ve come to assume it’s nothing kind.
Tension instantly courses through my limbs.
“Is everything else okay, Aria?”
I meet Moretti’s eyes, now wearing a coat of suspicion. “Yeah. Why?”
“Are you—” She stops midsentence, twisting her lips in thought. And then simply nods. “I know starting at a new school can be hard. You seem to be on the right track. But if you ever need an ear …” Her brow pinches. “If things get harder than they should be at school, I’m here to listen. You know that, right?”
I force a smile, even as my insides tighten. Did she dig into my past? Did she find records she was not supposed to see?
“Yeah. I know.” I sound like Cassie.
Her shrewd gaze wanders to Holly. “We’re not as oblivious to what’s going on as you guys seem to think we are. I hate it”—she holds a manicured hand up— “no, that’s a terrible word. I strongly dislike it when my students think they can’t come to me with a problem. Especially a problem with another student. I’m here to help, but I can’t do that if you don’t talk to me. Okay?”
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