by Gina Ciocca
“Unless there’s a way I can put locks on your eyelids, you know you’re gonna do it.” She twisted her lips. “What else can I do to help?”
I sighed. “Come with me to the Templeton game tonight?” She looked away, but I’d already seen the hesitation in her eyes. Being suspended from the cheerleading squad was embarrassing enough without having to sit in the stands among the people making her life hell with false accusations. But I couldn’t do this alone. “Please, Char?”
“Why are you still going?”
“I told Sara I would. She doesn’t know Reverse Cupid and me are the same person. How can I get out of it?”
Charlie fake coughed. “I think the flu is going around.”
“I can’t. One, she already paid me. Two, I need this for the Story Break essay. And three…I’m too curious not to go. But I need you with me. To be my bodyguard if Kendall is there.”
“You don’t think I’m in the same boat, Palmera? She and half the school are hoping I get expelled.”
“We can protect each other?” I offered weakly.
Charlie smiled a mischievous, Cheshire cat grin. “Not gonna lie. Knocking that wench to the ground when she came at you felt damn good, even if it was an accident. Next time, I’m drop-kicking her in the face.”
We both laughed. My world might’ve been going to hell in a handbasket, but at least I had Charlie along for the ride.
24
I must’ve been a glutton for punishment going to that game. I guess I figured it wouldn’t be that bad, going someplace where everyone’s focus would be on football and only a handful of people knew me. I should’ve stayed home with a warm blanket wrapped around me. Preferably over my head.
I felt eyes following me as soon as Charlie and I started our ascent up the hill from the Templeton parking lot.
“Everyone’s looking at me,” I whispered under my breath.
“They’re looking at me, dumbass,” she whispered back. “It’s like Kendall said. Everybody knows.”
I stopped in my tracks. “God, Char, I’m sorry. Do you want to leave? I never should’ve made you come here.” I turned on my heels. “Let’s go get ice cream and find a mov—”
She yanked my coat and spun me around, linking her arm through mine and propelling me forward. “I’m not chickening out and neither are you. Whatever these jerks think they know about me, it doesn’t even scratch the surface.”
I freed my arm and slung it around her shoulders. “Damn straight. And at least you won’t be going viral for all the wrong reasons, right?”
Charlie waved off the comment. “Marisa, people were taking videos at the promposal, and yes, every girl there had a cell phone. But why would any of them have been pointed at you and not the ridiculous display of winter formal enthusiasm?”
“Because I almost got knocked on my ass by a cute blond, who then literally got knocked on her ass by you. Oh wait,” I said wryly. “I take it back. You might be breaking the internet after all.”
She rolled her eyes. “That all happened while everyone’s attention was on the main event. You’re totally overthinking this.”
I didn’t agree, but I squeezed her arm anyway. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”
She squeezed back. “Have I told you lately that you need a new hobby? This detective gig has been nothing but trouble.”
I laughed a little. “After tonight, my cheater-buster days are over. I’m telling Kendall to take down the—” A brick of worry dropped in my stomach. “Oh God. What if she won’t take down the site now? She probably won’t even take my calls, let alone do me any favors.”
“Simple. If anyone emails you, email them back and say you’re no longer in business. You said you changed the password on the account, right?”
Yes, and thank all things holy that I had. For the first time since the promposal, my insides uncoiled a little. Charlie had a point: even if someone had caught my and Kendall’s fight on video, it was probably an afterthought. And Kendall being unable to access or keep tabs on me through the Busted emails—or worse, reply to them herself with lies and slander—was a huge load off my chest. I inhaled deeply, the first easy breath I’d taken in hours.
Maybe I could even enjoy the last bust of my so-called investigative career tonight, just a little bit.
The thought made me smile. As Charlie got in line for coffee at the Snack Shack, I almost didn’t notice the bare legs covered in blond hair angled toward me until I saw the person attached to them was smiling back at me. Then he waved.
“Damn it!” I said under my breath, averting my eyes from the Californian teleporter who, as evidenced by his shorts, had still not figured out that he was in Pennsylvania in the dead of winter. I hurried past him and attempted a casual lean against a telephone pole until I spotted Charlie heading in my direction.
“How many times can I accidentally make eye contact with that kid back there before he mistakes it as an invitation?” I said, nodding toward surfer boy.
Charlie snorted. “He’s a dude. He already took it that way. All the more reason for you to not leave my side again tonight.”
We made our way up the bleachers, waving at Mindy on the track. “I still can’t believe they suspended you from the squad,” I said.
“I can’t believe your brother asked me to the dance. And to a movie.”
“What?” I stopped midclimb.
“Yep. Somewhere in the world, pigs are shitting rainbows. Come on, you’re holding up traffic.”
We kept moving to a free space in the nosebleeds. I wanted a spot where I could watch the goings-on below inconspicuously. With any luck, Jordan wouldn’t know I was there until it was too late. But the higher we climbed, the more I felt like a sea of heads turned in our wake. There were far too many snickers, knowing looks, and exchanged whispers for my liking. Whether they were directed at Charlie or me—or both—didn’t matter. My skin crawled with the sense that we’d wandered into the belly of the beast.
“I mean, obviously I know about the dance, but when is this movie thing happening?” I asked as soon as we sat down, trying to focus on something other than my discomfort.
Charlie looked at her hands. “Um, he wanted to go tonight.”
“He did? Then what are you doing here?”
She gave a small shrug. “You needed me. Hos before bros. Literally.”
“Is…that how you think of him? Because you know he didn’t ask you to the dance as a ‘bro,’ right?”
She picked at the lid on her coffee cup, avoiding my eyes. “I like hanging out with him, even if I’ve only ever done it with you around. He’s funny, he’s loyal, and he’s definitely not torture to look at.” She nudged me. “Plus, I already know I like his family. I guess I’m willing to see where it goes.” She snuck a glance at me out of the corner of her eye. “Are you cool with that?”
“My brain is, but maybe not so much my stomach?”
We both laughed until Charlie stopped abruptly and smacked my arm. “There’s Jordan.” She tilted her head toward where Jordan stood against the chain-link fence.
“He’s alone.”
I spoke too soon. Even before I’d finished my sentence, his mother and another woman ambled up to his side.
“He’s with his mother,” Charlie growled. She started to stand. “Let me at her. I swear I’m going to impale their asses on that fence, kabob style, and let crows peck out their eyes.”
“Shh!” I yanked her arm and forced her to sit. “Making death threats against a teacher on school property is a great way to make sure you get expelled, Einstein.”
Charlie’s lips pinched together. “Fine. I won’t say it, but I’m thinking it.”
As I watched Jordan schmooze with his mom and her colleague, an idea started to form. He’d told me he’d try to talk to his mother about Charlie’s situation, to defend her. I d
idn’t trust him to do it after the way our conversation had ended. But…
“Should I go talk to them?”
Charlie’s eyebrows shot up, wordlessly asking if I’d lost my mind. “It’s not spying if he knows you’re here, Einstein.”
“I know, but what if I can convince his mother to drop the accusations against you? She always liked me—at least, I think she did. And he said himself that she feels terrible about it.”
“She might like you, and she might’ve liked me before all this happened, but it’s not going to change the fact that I was the last person to touch her computer before her tests got leaked. We need proof, not character witnesses.”
It didn’t matter. I already knew I was going to do it. My fingers curled around my purse as I gathered my nerve. I stood up.
That’s when one of the guys sitting with the giggles-and-whispers crew stood up too. He lifted his arms above his head and grinned at me. In the split second it took for me to wonder why a complete stranger would be smiling at me, I also realized it wasn’t the kind of smile anyone would want directed at them. It was condescending. Bullying. Like he was ready to attack and proud of it. It was the smile of someone who knew he had the upper hand and wanted everyone else to know it too.
Another second later, the entire campus did know it when he shouted, “Hey, it’s the Busted bitch!”
And just to be sure there was no confusion, he pointed at me with both raised hands.
My heart fell right out of my ass. At least that’s what it felt like. Shouts and catcalls rose around me as all heads turned to witness my horror. Time slowed until every second felt like eternity.
They knew. They all knew.
How did they all know?
“I hear you like leftovers!” one of the girls cackled.
That’s how. Someone’s camera had been trained on me after all.
My gaze floated down the bleachers in a daze until my eyes locked on Jordan’s. For a second, everything when silent. Then the world came roaring back in a deafening blast, and I bolted down the concrete steps and ran.
25
I ran until I reached the school’s front steps, panting for breath and crying. I sat down hard and sobbed into my knees, barely registering the sound of footfalls hot on my heels.
“Marisa? What happened?”
My head snapped up at the sound of Jordan’s voice. I’d expected Charlie to be on my trail, but there he stood, blue eyes wide with concern, chest heaving slightly from running to keep up with me. I put my head back down, pressing my knees against my eyelids to block everything out.
“Like you don’t know.”
He sat down next to me. “I really don’t. Is this about Charlie?”
I rounded on him. “Would you care if it was? Seems to me you haven’t done a damn thing to get her name cleared.” I stuffed my mittens in my pockets and produced a tissue to wipe my face.
“You really think it’s that easy? Marisa, I want to help. I do. But believe me when I tell you I can’t. I don’t go to school here and it’s in the school board’s hands now. I have zero clout with them. You’re being unfair.”
I rubbed at my eyes. Maybe it was unfair to expect Jordan to pull strings for me, for Charlie. But I needed to be angry at someone, and it was much easier to believe that he’d knowingly let me down yet again.
“If anyone knows how to be unfair, it’s you.”
I waited for the inevitable storm-off, his standard reaction when I copped an attitude. I wanted to be alone, to find Charlie and get the hell out of there, and I couldn’t do it with him breathing bullshit down my neck.
Not only did he not leave, he gathered my hands in his. The sheer shock of it stopped my tears in their tracks. He rubbed his thumbs over my knuckles.
“Listen. I never wanted to break up with you.”
My heart stuttered. I didn’t know why he’d chosen now to talk about this, but I wanted answers as badly as ever. “Then why did you?”
He looked down at the steps, still kneading my fingers in his surprisingly warm hands. “I kind of met someone.”
The lump rose in my throat again and I pulled my hands away. “So you did cheat on me.”
“No, I…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I broke up with you before anything happened. It was the one time in my life I tried to do the right thing, except I guess there was no right thing, because you would’ve been hurt either way.”
“So then you wanted to cheat on me, but in order to keep your conscience clean, you dumped me instead?”
He fidgeted and ran a hand back and forth over his hair. “Doesn’t sound so noble when you put it that way.”
“Forgive me if I don’t nominate you for sainthood.” We sat in silence, Jordan’s leg bouncing against the step, me wiping tears and snot from my face. And then something really strange happened. A giggle bubbled up in my throat. And then another. I looked at Jordan. We both cracked up laughing.
Sure, it stung to finally hear the truth, but not as much or as long as I’d expected it to. Somewhere in the midst of my obsessing over why we’d broken up, I’d failed to notice that it didn’t really matter anymore.
As our chuckles died down, Jordan and I looked at each other and cracked up all over again.
“So who was she?” I asked, wiping away tears of laughter this time. “Sara?”
Jordan shook his head. “No, no one you’d know. If it helps, she sort of broke my heart.”
“Well, I’m not going to send you flowers or anything, but I can empathize. It sucks.”
He took my hands again. “I meant it when I said our breakup had nothing to do with you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were a good girlfriend. A great girlfriend.”
We looked at each other, half smiles playing on our lips. For the first time in months, I saw a spark in Jordan’s eyes that told me the person I’d fallen for was still in there. And that beneath his indifferent swagger, he had real regret for what he’d put me through. I squeezed his hands. My smile froze in place when he responded by rotating his palms and threading his fingers through mine. The smile faded from his lips and he leaned in.
I don’t know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t heard Charlie’s voice right then. But if she hadn’t chosen that exact second to come running down the hill, I never would’ve looked up. Or across the street, where TJ stood next to his open car door, watching Jordan and me.
• • •
“Marisa!” Charlie called. I yanked my hands away from Jordan’s, my eyes darting from her rapidly approaching figure to TJ’s car pulling away from the curb. Charlie’s eyes were huge and panicked as she skidded to a stop in front of the steps. “I’ll be straight with you: it’s bad.” She doubled over to catch her breath, resting her hands on her knees. Her right hand held her cell phone. “It’s really bad. Forget drop-kicking her. I’m pulling every last hair out of her stupid precious head.” She looked at Jordan as if she’d just noticed him. “And while I’m on a roll, you’ll want to go ahead and back up off Marisa, before this phone ends up down your throat.”
Jordan scowled. “Jesus, Reiser, do you ever have anything nice to say?”
“Sure, when I’m not talking to douchebags.”
I shot to my feet and stood between them. “Enough, guys.” I turned to Charlie. “What do you mean it’s bad?”
She held up her phone and tapped the screen a few times. When she turned it toward me, she said, “Your website underwent, uh, a few changes.”
The glittery red background of the Busted website loaded on her phone. Only it didn’t say Busted anymore. A giant black X flashed over the old heading, and from its center, the word BITCH appeared like a train emerging from a tunnel, starting off small and growing larger until it swallowed the entire foreground of the fissured heart pin. Her corny tagline about not hating the player had been replaced with CAN’T
BE TRUSTED in smaller but still capitalized letters.
Jordan stood behind me. “‘Busted bitch can’t be trusted,’” he read over my shoulder. “What the fuck does that mean?”
I barely heard him. I was too busy reading what Kendall had written about me, with my full name in prominent bold letters.
Marisa Ann Palmera will pretend to be your friend. She’ll pretend to want to help. And she won’t stop until she’s taken what’s yours. The website went on to talk about how I’d betrayed her to the point where her boyfriend asked me to the dance. She’d laid on the martyrdom thick and juicy.
Beneath the blurb, the icing on the cake, she’d inserted the video of the promposal. The thumbnail displayed the frozen image of Kendall’s face, haunted and hurt, as I looked on in horror. The perfect snapshot of disaster.
“What the hell?” Jordan murmured. He reached over my shoulder and pressed play before I could stop him.
“Hey!” Charlie grabbed for the phone, but Jordan snatched it out of my hand and put his arm out to ward her off. I closed my eyes as the familiar sounds blared from the phone, seeing the whole event unfold in my mind all over again.
Charlie smacked and kicked Jordan, but it was like pummeling a statue. His eyebrows were two slanted lines as he stared at the screen, his jaw muscles locked tight. It didn’t make sense that he seemed angry as the footage played out, yet he continued to hold Charlie at bay like an adrenaline-fueled King Kong. I pulled her arms to her sides, knowing her rage on my behalf was sweet but useless. If he didn’t watch it now, he’d see the video later. No sense in delaying the inevitable.
Only when Jordan’s own cell phone rang did he let his guard down. He kept Charlie’s phone in one hand and answered his with the other, taking long, quick strides away from us, as if he didn’t want us to hear his conversation.
“What were you two doing?” Charlie hissed.
“Nothing.”
“It didn’t look like nothing.”
“Nothing, Char. Drop it. This night is shitty enough.”
Charlie pressed her lips together and wisely heeded my warning.