I flip the light switch on, and I get a shock when I turn back.
Palmer looks awful. I mean, awful for him, anyway. His face is drawn and pale, and his eyes are shadowed and pouchy, and his lips are chapped. He looks like an extra from the middle part of a disaster movie—still beautiful but visibly rattled, worn out.
Palmer grinds his hands into his eye sockets, says, “Anna, can we talk?”
I stare back at him. “Does…Vanessa know you’re here?”
Palmer looks at me strangely. “There’s nothing going on with me and Vanessa, Anna. Figured you knew me better than that.”
“I don’t know what I know anymore.”
It comes out more harshly than I intend. When I see the look in his eyes, I plop down on my bed and open my palm for him to sit with me. We may have ended on mysterious terms, but it doesn’t erase the fact that for a couple of months, we were almost inseparable. He literally became my only friend.
“Okay,” I say finally.
“You must be pissed, Anna,” he says, still standing. “And confused by me, and you probably basically can’t stand the sight of my stupid face. And I get why. You should be. But”—turning his palms up helplessly—“I didn’t know where else to go. You’re the only person I can talk to. The only person who knows me all the way. About my…anxiety. Or whatever you wanna call it.”
Palmer lowers himself next to me on the bed. At the last second, though, he moves down to the foot—neutral territory. He’s quiet for so long, the silence turns into something you can almost hear. Finally he says, “Obviously you’ve heard…the rumors. About me and Wallace and Dylan juicing?”
I nod slowly.
“Well, they’re not true.”
“Okay.”
“They’re not true…about Dylan and Wallace, anyway.”
After another long silence, out comes the truth.
The injury happened. Rehab was slow. The season was going by fast. The deluge of calls from college coaches slowed to a stream, then to a trickle. He got scared. He wanted to play college ball. He didn’t want to let his team down. And he really didn’t want to let his dad down. Dylan knew a guy who knew a guy. Palmer knew Dylan would keep his mouth shut. But he had to break up with me because we were getting so close. Too close. I’d have asked questions. I’d have been able to sense the change in his body. The guilt. It terrified him for me—for anyone—to know him that well.
When Palmer finishes, neither of us speaks for a long, long time. Finally he says, “Please say something, Anna. Just tell me you hate me.”
“Wow” is all I can manage. Lame. And I don’t hate him, of course. Finally he’s being honest. Finally I can see in his eyes that he’s done hiding.
The real Palmer is in pain.
I touch his arm gently. It feels more like a sisterly move than anything else.
“Have you talked to anyone else about this?” I ask him finally.
He cups my hand tightly and locks eyes with me. “I’m talking to you.”
“Yeah, but, like, a therapist?”
We’ve had this conversation a couple of times. I mean, we actually had it the day we met. And every time Palmer’s given me the same answer: Meades don’t do that.
Only, tonight he says, “Did you see my search? The one on the Knock List?”
I squint, confused. “I didn’t know anything of yours was on there.”
“Man,” he says with a sad smile. “I thought you’d have seen it right away. Silver Pines anonymous.”
I resist the overwhelming urge to say, That was you?
“You want to go to SP?” I ask him. “Maybe it’s a good idea if you’re not—”
“Even before all this,” he says, “I wasn’t exactly…okay.” Now he lies back on my bed and closes his eyes. “Anyway. Cat’s out now. At least now I don’t have to worry about everyone finding out what a messed-up person I am. Everyone knows.”
“You made a mistake because you were desperate,” I say. “You’re not a messed-up person. This is just one tiny thing you did. It’s not your whole story.”
Palmer’s eyes are closed now. It feels so sad, seeing him so depleted. I can’t help feeling, though, that we’re so far away from the people we were when we were dating. Whatever pheromone-based attraction we initially shared, it’s not so powerful anymore. It might even be gone. My mind flashes back to the night we almost had sex: candles, Frank Ocean crooning, his open shirt. We started out by sitting on his bed in almost exactly the same positions we are in now.
And now, suddenly, I realize why I said no. Why I wasn’t ready with him.
I hear Jethro saying those three words, and suddenly I know—I care about Palmer, and I feel bad for him, but it’s Jethro I wish were here.
It’s always been Jethro.
Palmer might think I’m the only person he can talk to, who knows him. But he’ll never know me the way Jethro does. I don’t know if I ever wanted him to.
I pull my hand back. Palmer opens his eyes. “I know this is so stressful now, but take it one day at a time.” I’m quoting Jethro, I realize. “This story isn’t over yet. There’s so much that can happen, that can change.”
Palmer’s eyes are staring at something far away that I can’t see or understand. Suddenly they snap back to attention. He straightens up. Immediately I sense that he wants to go. Needs to go. That he feels what all boys—all of us—fear most: rejection.
He pushes himself up from the bed and moves to the window. “Thanks, A. Wish me luck on the way down.”
“We’re on the first floor.”
“Oh yeah.” He gives a chuckle, but it’s a sad one.
“You really should talk to someone about all this,” I say.
Palmer holds out a fist for a soft bump. It’s the oddest way in the world to say goodbye to your recent ex. But it’s the best we can do for now.
Seconds later he’s gone. I change into my pajamas and shove the thumb drive into my laptop. A couple of clicks on my track pad, and suddenly I’m looking at Jethro’s shaky, first-person video of one of Chuck Close’s portraits hanging in the National Gallery. Lou Reed’s intense, wrinkled, and wise face stares back at me. And suddenly music starts. Jethro not only took the video, he scored it too.
“Sweet Jane” rises and falls through the tinny speakers of my laptop.
Six-thirty a.m. My eyes shoot open to the sound of my alarm. I’m lying on top of my covers in bed. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth. Someone’s voice, midsentence, is filling my ears, coming out of my phone.
“…so we should be getting another one VERY soon.”
I groan and roll onto my side. Timmy Tepper. I forgot that I’d set my alarm to whatever was playing.
Now I hear a girl’s voice. “How many more leaks do you think we’ll get today? We’ve already got thirteen since midnight, and they’re every half hour, so by the end of the day…”
Is that Vanessa? On Timmy’s live stream? Leave it to someone as fickle as Vanessa to start cohosting this godforsaken podcast. It’s the biggest megaphone at school right now, and she’s got the bull by the horn.
“Almost fifty!” Timmy squeals. “Just think about what’ll happen!”
Vanessa starts rattling off the names of the thirteen new victims of the leak, and their significant secrets. I sit up and hold my breath, waiting to hear my name…
Meanwhile, everyone’s secrets are starting to blend together: sex, drugs, eating issues—all the usuals. What Vanessa and Timmy fail to grasp, as they rattle off one kid’s secret addiction to his dad’s prescription pills and another’s cheating with his ex-girlfriend, is that the most damaging leaks aren’t the big secrets that are being revealed or the embarrassing things people learn about us. The most damaging leaks are the tiny little paper cuts that’ll lead to the death of our friendships.
Like mine, very soon, if these continue.
But when they get to the end of the list, my name still hasn’t come.
Twelve of the new leaks ar
e about Instas and others I don’t know that well. Kyle Cherski’s the only one I’m at all friends with.
“Kyle is actually a decent digital artist,” Vanessa says. “My parents collect modern art—so I should know. These drawings of his that were leaked, they actually look a lot like the Prep kids he’s representing. Very realistic. I just hope my Instas don’t beat the shit out of him for drawing them being brutally murdered in every way possible.”
Part of me can’t help but laugh.
Timmy continues, “Before we get the next leak, on behalf of this broadcast, Jethro Stephens, I want to thank you for the tremendous work you are doing. Releasing someone’s data every half hour makes our reporting here at TTM—Timmy Tepper Media—so much easier. It gives us time to go over each new leak. A grateful nation thanks you for your service!”
So now everyone thinks it’s Jethro? Wow, these people. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Timmy doesn’t care about facts, just like Nichols. The situation’s like a comic book to them. Everyone needs their hero or their villain.
I check my phone. I texted Jethro about a dozen times last night. Thank-yous for the video and song. Check-ins about where he’s going. But there’s no response. Not even a word to let me know he’s okay. Now I’m worried more than ever.
“Please. Call me,” I text again.
I want to hear his voice so badly. Whatever doubts I had after the Torpedo Factory, whatever confusion I had, it all disappeared last night. Jethro is the one I want. When I see him, I’m going to tell him that next year doesn’t scare me anymore. Or any year. I’m going to tell him that after this mess is over, we can even take a year off school and go to all the places we’ve dreamed of going.
“As I mentioned earlier,” Timmy says now, “Jethro Stephens isn’t on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. I’m just checking a couple of Yik Yak and Whisper threads again right now, Vanessa, for the most up-to-date information. They’ve been Gamergate hot all night, as you know. Lotta people out there threatening Jethro if he ever shows up at school again. Couple of anonymous posters saying they’re gonna bomb his house or whatever school he decides to finish out the year at.”
I take my phone with me into the bathroom, set it down on the sink, and splash my face with cold water. It can’t possibly be cold enough. I wish I could jump into a frozen lake and never come back up, with what I’m hearing right now.
Vanessa pipes up. “What happened to Haven Dodd was a shame, and even if Jethro Stephens is responsible—as we now believe he is—we want to remind you all, we don’t condone trolling or SWATing or violence. As my yoga teacher says, shanti.”
It’s so, so obvious from her tone that what Vanessa is really saying is, JETHRO STEPHENS did this to you. Do what you will. I hate her.
Timmy chimes in. “We’ll be back to Jethro in a moment, Vanessa—and we will have some updates on that very question, in point of fact. In the meantime, drumroll…YES! We have another leak at the newest posting site Jethro Stephens is using, Prepforhell.com!”
A terrible feeling creeps into my stomach. Nausea.
I know it’s going to be me.
Timmy whistles loudly. “And the six-thirty leak appears to be…oh my…the editor of propaganda at the Xandria. RADHIKA MEHTA, everyone! Check. It. Out!”
I immediately stand from the toilet, hit Stop on Timmy’s live stream, and run back into my bedroom. I turn my phone OFF. Toss it on the bed facedown.
No, I will not listen to Timmy and Vanessa dissect Rad’s inner life.
No, I will not look at the website.
No, I will not judge my friend.
Should I call Rad right now and make sure she’s okay?
I need a moment to process. I jump in the shower and let the hot water run over my face, my eyes, my hair. I scrub and scrub and condition and stretch and do anything else to avoid getting out. It’s the longest shower I’ve ever taken.
Twenty minutes later I’m a prune. I get dressed and finally pick up my phone.
There’s not a word from Rad.
But I have more than thirty texts from Nikki.
—
“She told me she was sorry for Mattie a thousand times!” Nikki screams at me. “And when she was apologizing, she forgot to mention she’s a big, fat fucking liar.”
I’m sitting in Nikki’s bedroom as she rifles through her closet, pulling shoes and clothes out and tossing them onto the Anthropologie coverlet beside me.
Nikki continues, “Rad is the girl in that Kevin Spacey movie she made us watch last year—the fake deep one with the stupid plastic bag blowing in the wind. I hated that movie. What’s it called?” She stops throwing stuff on the bed and gives me an impatient exhalation when I don’t answer right away.
“American Beauty?” I finally offer, racking my brain.
“Yes! She’s what’s-her-name’s character.”
“Mena Suvari’s?”
“Did Mena Sue Whatever play the dumb skeeze who’s actually an even dumber virgin, so dumb she tries to get Kevin Spacey, who’s clearly gay, to have sex with her?”
Nikki turns back into the closet.
“Kevin Spacey might be gay in real life,” I say, “but I don’t think his character in that movie was supposed to be—” Then I interrupt myself, realizing that isn’t Nikki’s point. Finally I say, “Yes, that’s the character Mena Suvari plays.”
Nikki turns and raises her voice, even louder now. “Then that’s who Rad is. God, I could kill her! She ruined my life. You know what she did? She reverse slut-shamed me.”
Basically, Rad’s big reveal was…well, how little there is to reveal.
Yeah, Rad visited the website of a local plastic surgeon. She also bought the photo app Pixtr, which gives you an instant nose job. But those are the only two leaks of hers that are in any way titillating or salacious. Other than that, zippo. There were no sexts or dirty-talk chats or thong selfies. All her messages and photos were PG-13, even the ones she sent to Andrew, who I know she’d hooked up with. In fact, if it weren’t for the many F-bombs she dropped, the messages would be strictly PG, forget the 13. And what about all the older guys she’s busy spurning high school guys for? Those oh-so experienced men with advanced sexual techniques and superior game? Unless Rad was communicating with them via Bat Signal, they don’t exist.
Rad’s double life is, apparently, also an imaginary life.
I’m not exactly mad at her. Overall, the texts and DMs she sent to Nikki about me while I was with Palmer are a little harsh, but she didn’t say anything to Nikki she wouldn’t have said to my face. Anna has a stick of butter for a spine. She’s supposed to be some rebel artist? Georgia O’Keeffe would be so proud (sarcastic voice).
“I never would have hooked up with Mattie if it weren’t for her baiting me,” Nikki’s saying now. “And even if I did, I never would have had sex with him. You know Rad told me you should always give boys a five-minute blow job before sex? That it’s, like, a requirement? All of it. All the comments, RedTube, all the assholes who call me Two of Clubs now…none of it would have happened if Rad hadn’t lied.”
I want to remind her that the person to blame here for RedTube and “Two of Clubs” is Mattie Eizenberg, but what Nikki wants to do now is vent. She drags something from the back of her closet. One of those red Container Store letterboxes with rough felt on the outside. She rips off the lid and starts dumping the contents into her trash bin.
It’s her Rad memory box, I realize as birthday cards and tickets to shows at Wolf Trap and other keepsakes flutter into the garbage. Nikki has one for me in the back of her closet too, I know. Some girls keep boxes like these so they can remember every detail of some floppy-haired boy they once loved. Or still do. But instead of boy stuff, Nikki’s been keeping souvenirs of our decade-long friendships in her red boxes.
“I don’t think she meant to hurt you, Nik.”
Nikki looks at me. There’s rage in her eyes. “I know, with everything happening with Jethro and Haven now, it
must seem like I’m making a huge deal out of this, A. But it is a big deal. I trusted Rad. I thought I knew her. It’s not even the deck of cards, or the sex, or any of that. That I can take. What I can’t take is that I told Rad every secret I have, every insecurity, totally truthfully, for years. And she lied about everything. I don’t even have any idea who I’ve been friends with all this time. She’s a psychopath.”
Nikki takes a long breath and puts her head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry things ever got bad between us. Now I know you’re the only person I can really trust.”
—
As I push through the early-morning crowd and approach my locker, I find Rad sitting in front of it, legs sprawled out wide like a cowboy’s, her classic thinking pose.
“Did you get my messages?” I ask her when we have some privacy.
“Yes,” she says, standing. “Do you know if Nikki got mine?”
“Rad…”
“I left ten. No. Eleven.”
“You gotta understand how’s she feeling right now….”
Rad bangs her head softly against the metal of my locker. “This wasn’t some grand plan!” she says. “It started as the smallest freaking possible fib! In seventh grade I told you guys I got felt up at camp by this guy I had a crush on who was two years older and didn’t know I existed, never even looked at me. I didn’t want you to think nothing happened to me all summer. And then things snowballed. I woke up one day and my entire identity was an actual version of Emma Stone in Easy A.”
“But I mean, you really laid it on heavy with Nik.”
“The story became real for me,” Rad says. “I played the part. And, Nikki—God. I thought it was what she wanted. She asked me for help, so I told her how I played the part. I didn’t know the Hackergate extravaganza would descend on Prep. And obviously I didn’t know that Mattie would turn out to be such a scumbag.”
“Just give Nikki space,” I say. “Time too.”
“So I guess now it’s just liar me and abandoner you. Guess I’ve descended to your level.” But her voice is meek. Finally she drops the bravado and says, “Think Nikki will ever forgive me? I mean, she forgave you, right?”
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