by Barry Lyga
Cassie frowned and sucked on a pretzel. For the next few minutes, Sarah asked her a steady stream of questions that Cassie deflected. No one needed to know the reason they’d moved here, Cassie decided, and Sarah was approaching dangerous territory, the kind of stuff only friends would ask. Cassie’s gratitude for her “buddy” was wearing off. And there hadn’t been much of it to begin with.
It disappeared entirely at Sarah’s next line of questions.
“What’s your family like?” she asked between bites. Cassie’s fingers curled up, her hands becoming fists.
“Nothing special,” Cassie said coldly, her limbs tightening.
“Oh, come on,” Sarah continued, chuckling. “Brothers, sisters?”
Cassie glared. Sarah met her eyes, her expression earnest.
“This is a weird conversation.” Cassie dropped her empty pretzel bag and glugged half her water. “Hey, what happened to your friends?”
Sarah shrugged. “It’s not weird to talk about families. It’s, like, the most important thing to talk about, actually. Don’t you think?”
Cassie didn’t answer. She couldn’t — her tongue had suddenly grown too thick for her mouth. The back of her neck grew damp. She picked up her apple, her hands looking for something to do that didn’t involve hitting the person across the table.
“I think someone’s family reveals a lot about them … like me, for instance.” Sarah leaned forward, her sandwich forgotten, and trained her eyes on Cassie. “I lost my mom when I was a sophomore. It really changed me.”
Cassie froze, her apple midair. Sarah reached out and patted Cassie’s arm.
“There’s this amazing club here at Westfield. Well, not even a club. Just a group. It’s a bunch of us who’ve experienced trauma in some way. I think we could really help you, Cassie.”
There was a piece of apple lodged in Cassie’s throat, blocking her airway. Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears. “Wh-what did you just fucking say?”
“No, it’s OK, I swear!” Sarah straightened up. “The support group is literally life changing. And it’s all confidential — what happens in group, stays in group. So you don’t have to worry about that.”
“I d-don’t have to worry …” Cassie stuttered, willing the stuck bit of apple to move out of the way or else be burned in the line of fire that was threatening to explode from her lungs. “What exactly do you think you know about me?”
“Cassie,” Sarah said softly. Her eyes darted around, checking to see if Cassie’s heat had been picked up by anyone around them. “Listen, I get it. I was angry for a long time. I was just like you.”
Cassie threw her apple onto Sarah’s tray. It landed hard, shooting up crumbs of the chips she’d left behind. Sarah leaped back, looking shocked.
“Who. Fucking. Told. You,” Cassie spat, her voice barely contained.
Sarah’s eyes widened, but then she took a deep breath, nodded once and visibly relaxed. “Westfield’s registration form asks if the incoming student has any extenuating circumstances the school should know about. Your mom said you’re grieving the sudden loss of your dad. And since I’m in the trauma group, and I lost my mom, I was assigned to be your buddy. I’m here to help.”
Cassie felt like someone had sliced open her skin and poured in a scalding liquid. Her mother’s name was a curse. Once again, Rachel had to go and fuck up her life. She couldn’t even let Cassie have a fresh start.
Sarah, oblivious, continued. “There’s no one else in group who’s lost a parent … someone lost a sister to suicide, and then a bunch of people have family members who are alive but are facing addiction problems, and then of course there’s a couple of kids dealing with their own PTSD. But until now, I was the only one who lost a parent.” She gave Cassie a sad smile. “I’ve been waiting for someone like you for years.”
For years? Cassie couldn’t see anything around her — not the caf, not the shining sky outside, not even her own hands in front of her. “What you just said is supremely insane.”
Sarah cocked her head and nodded thoughtfully. “This rage you’re experiencing? It’s totally normal. It’s what you’re supposed to feel.”
Cassie knew from Dr. Gillen that anger was one of the stages of grief. She didn’t need Sarah — little white Sarah, blond and well-meaning but so completely out of her depth — to explain it to her. Cassie felt the heat, the anger, rise from her limbs.
Sarah continued. “I told my friends to give us some space today, for a few minutes at least, so I could talk to you privately about group. But if you don’t want to talk about it right now, we can do it later. I’ll text them now, tell them we’re ready for them.”
Cassie stood up. Anger existed for a reason, she realized: it felt good. It was better than sadness, smarter than denial.
“I’m sorry you lost your mom.” Cassie’s voice, low and thick, somehow managed to attract the attention of the people sitting around them, who were watching, waiting, phones out. Ready to BLINQ or hashtag whatever happened next. “But if you think I’m interested in bonding over a dead parent, you can fuck right off.”
Sarah blinked. She opened her mouth but Cassie didn’t stay to hear the words that came out of it next.
She bolted.
As she tried to storm through the caf, she couldn’t go very fast or very far. Tables and chairs and people blocked her at every turn. Her breathing was heavy in her ears. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Lunch wasn’t over for another fifteen minutes, and no one was allowed to leave the caf.
Which was just as well, she thought, dropping into the first empty seat she could find, as far from Sarah as possible. Without her buddy, she had no clue how to get to any other place in the building.
Cassie fumbled for her phone, desperate to distract herself from her anger. It wasn’t until she heard someone clear their throat that she realized the table wasn’t empty. She looked up.
There was Rowan, her eyes fixed on Cassie, wearing an incredulous expression. With her were a clutch of girls Cassie recognized from the mob, which included Glasses Girl.
Cassie looked up at the ceiling. “Fuuuuuuuuck,” she whispered. Just what she needed — a verbal assault from the cool crowd.
But instead, Rowan chuckled. “Tell me about it.”
“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” Cassie started to say, but Rowan held up a hand.
“Why? Stay. Curse some more. We’re bored.”
Cassie eyed each girl, sussing them out. She suddenly felt incredibly exposed, and a hot, fast pang made her wonder what she was even doing here.
“Cassie,” Rowan purred, and Cassie knew there were a hundred ways she could have learned her name. She was curious which one Rowan had used but didn’t let it show. “Cassie McKinney. I’d actually been hoping you’d join us. Are you as badass as your father?”
For God’s sake. Had Westfield texted every student about her dad? Were there banners hanging in the hallways? “You don’t know anything about my father,” she said, her voice low and tense.
“I know enough,” Rowan said. “Enough to be curious about his daughter.”
“What do you want?” Cassie spat.
“Sweetheart …” Rowan reached across the table and patted Cassie’s hand. “This is your chance to make some friends. Some important friends. Maybe crack a smile?”
Cassie glanced around. She wasn’t imagining it … everyone in the lunchroom was watching. Watching her. The new girl, who’d plopped herself down at the popular table without an invitation.
She took a breath. Lunch was over in ten minutes. She couldn’t change tables again. She’d never live it down. And she was running out of tables.
She studied Rowan again. Everyone posed in high school — even Cassie — but Rowan and her friends had taken it to a new level. Every move they made, every shift in posture, every tap on their tablets suggested they belonged
on a highly produced reality show: glossy, confident, BLINQ-ready. And the other kids at Westfield were tuned in. Watching. Waiting to be entertained. Or maybe just taking notes on how to be.
Cassie was pretty well known at her old school; that was what happened when Harlon McKinney was your father, and when you’d managed to hack your way around the school’s security and grading systems a few times. But no one had looked at her the way Westfield’s students were looking at Rowan and her friends. And she’d never preened the way they did. Were these her only options here? To watch or be watched?
“What am I, your new charity case?” she asked, keeping her head down. “Adopt the new girl, build her up, then tear her down for your own amusement?”
Rowan chuckled, followed by the others. “Wow, are you a pessimist or what? I’m making an effort here. Oh, and this is Madison, Indira and Livvy.” Each girl waved, and Indira — the girl with the glasses from the courtyard — offered her plate of fries, as though food could convince Cassie of their harmlessness.
After a thought of the sad apple she’d eaten, she grabbed a handful of them.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Rowan said brightly. “You’re thinking, ‘Oh, these are the hot, popular girls and they look down on everyone else and spend their days perfecting the highest form of bitchcraft.’”
Despite herself, Cassie chuckled.
Rowan grinned appreciatively at the reaction. “I won’t lie to you. There’s a little bit of that. But look — we’re just trying to get through all this crap like everyone else. It’s high school, not the real world, and there’s safety in numbers.”
Cassie skipped her eyes around the table. It was a collection of gorgeous specimens, and then there she was — hair in a topknot, nonexistent makeup …
“I’m sure I’ll fit right in,” she deadpanned.
Rowan giggled. “Hey, look, if you don’t want to be ready for your social media moment, then that’s your funeral. But …” She pointed at each girl in turn, ending with herself. “Math. Science. History. English. We’re missing tech.”
“It’s tough to Homework Coven the comp sci final when there isn’t a tech-head in the group,” Madison offered.
Underneath her hot anger, still boiling because of Sarah and Rachel, an understanding began to brew. Cassie put the pieces together. Homework Coven. Rowan’s crew was gorgeous and popular, yeah, but that wasn’t their goal. The four of them were cruising through high school by lending each other a hand, missing only one subject area.
The one subject Cassie could cover for them.
“It’s your call,” Rowan said with a shrug. “You can muddle through on your own and actually do all the work —”
“Or you can hang out with us and breeze through,” Indira finished.
“We’re hot and smart,” Livvy said with absolutely no trace of ego. Just plain facts. “Deadly combination, right?”
With a snort, Cassie shook her head. She didn’t want to admit how tempting the idea was. To coast through this last, miserable year at this miserable new place …
“What’s the catch?” she asked.
The four girls all exchanged a look and, of course, deferred to Rowan.
“You’re part of the group. You don’t embarrass the group. We do everything we can to Trend Positive, so you do, too, if you’re with us.” Rowan hesitated for a moment. “You don’t have to glam it up, but if you don’t, you probably won’t get onto our social and ride the trend with us.”
Cassie didn’t give a damn about trending positive or going viral. She just wanted to be left alone. Still … If she had even just the illusion of a posse, that would keep most other people away, right? And while she was an excellent student, she could think of better things to do with her time than, well, all of her schoolwork.
“One last thing,” Rowan was saying. “We have a pact. If one of us Likes or Dislikes or Condemns something, we all do.”
Cassie suppressed a bark of laughter. A total of five votes in any one scenario hardly made a difference, she figured, and Rowan’s earnestness was hilarious.
It was like Rowan could read her mind. “When we speak as a group, we have more power than you’d think,” she said. “It’s about consistency. We get people who want to curry favor with us to vote the same. And when the numbers are all pretty small to begin with …” She shrugged to communicate the idea of a fait accompli. “Last year, we got three football players kicked off the team for making lewd comments at the cheerleaders.”
Cassie shrugged right back. “OK, but … why put so much effort into something that doesn’t matter? You think hashtagging a kid in biology for looking up your skirt really changes anything? Try punching up. Maybe go after administrators or the school board or —”
“Disruption,” Rowan said, using air quotes.
“Exactly,” Cassie said. “If you spend so much time haggling with people on your own level, you never get a chance to get at the people really in charge.”
“Oh, honey,” Rowan said. “That’s where you’re wrong. Because we’re the ones in charge.”
“No,” Cassie said emphatically. “The system is just set up to make you think that.”
“You’re taking this all a little too seriously,” Indira said.
“It’s just high school,” Madison added.
“That’s my whole point,” Cassie said. “It’s just high school.” She thought of the previous day, of the unhappy husband, and her temper flared again. That guy had humiliated his wife and children. That actually mattered, not like these squawking high school spats. “This is a microcosm of society. The way we operate Hive Justice now is how we’ll handle it out in the real world, too.”
“I promise you, Cassie,” Rowan said, again patting Cassie’s hand and again making her feel like screaming. “It’s just something to pass the time. And the high you get from trending positive? Well … it’s worth it. I mean, I see your point. It makes sense. But this is the way the system is set up, and there’s no reason not to take advantage of it. As long as you’re careful enough — smart enough, especially — to not give an opening to let people do it back to you.”
Cassie shook her head so hard that a curl of hair fell out of her topknot. “You’re taking this thing that’s supposed to be affirmative and empowering and you’re just … It’s like you’re just using it to get out of class. The internet lives forever. Big stuff, sure, go for it. But you’re convicting people for stupid things, and it will be with them forever.”
Rowan burst out laughing. “Girl, you’re so wrong. The internet gets erased every damn night.”
One by one, each of Rowan’s friends nodded in agreement. Cassie’s throat felt swollen, like it couldn’t get any words out. Luckily, she didn’t have any.
“No one remembers anything from last week, let alone last year,” Rowan assured her. “You think Skylar will, what? Be denied a job because of this? Get rejected from colleges?”
Indira snorted, while Livvy threw her head back, her beautiful curls dangling halfway down her back, and yelled, “Imagine a world where that would happen!”
The idea was seductive and easy. And she knew that it was true, to a degree. Her dad had once called the internet “a perpetual motion machine that runs on outrage.” Some new offense would captivate Westfield tomorrow — or even by the end of the day — and no one would remember #DumpSkylar.
Well … except for Skylar.
And except for the BLINQs and posts and pics and gifs, all of them tucked neatly away into searchable databases …
Rowan smirked at Cassie, and Cassie tried to read deeply into her eyes to see if Rowan really believed what she was claiming. It was hard to tell, though. Rowan’s eyes were bright and shining and brimming with a certainty Cassie herself had never possessed.
“We all get a do-over,” Rowan said, and Cassie felt herself nodding, even if sh
e still wasn’t sure she believed her. “Every day is a new life for each of us.”
“As long as you’re not galactically stupid,” Madison added, and Rowan nodded.
“Right.” She popped a cherry tomato in her mouth and grinned. “And that’s the beauty of the Hive.”
*
After lunch, Cassie peeled off from Rowan’s group and headed to the girls’ bathroom. It was empty, and she slammed the door a little harder than necessary when she stepped into a stall.
The echoing clang and the vibration of the metal around her felt good. She slammed it again, then again, then again. Over and over. The bathroom tiles resounded with the clamor of metal on metal, feeding her anger and her ire, jacking them up higher and higher.
She didn’t know who she was angry at. Or why. Was it Rowan and the others, because they were just barely deep enough that she couldn’t dismiss them? Was it herself, for contemplating going along with it and joining their stupid little clique? Was it her mom, for moving her here, for excising her from where she’d been known and comfortable?
Or was it her dad? Because everything eventually came back to him. Because he went away, goddammit.
Cassie rubbed her eyes. Harlon used to tell her to be herself, to know herself. He — and, to a degree, Rachel — tried to explain how just being born biracial would sometimes mean that people would disregard the rest of her. That sometimes people wouldn’t be able to see beyond the color and into the individual. She had a tall order: she would have to know her history, those who came before, but she would also need to remain steadfast in who she was and what she believed. And she thought she had.
So why did she suddenly feel like a fraud?
She kicked open the door to the stall and stalked out to the sinks. The girl in the mirror stared at her with a rage that was frightening and glorious.
*
Sarah caught up to Cassie at the end of the next period. Apparently being told to fuck off just didn’t take. That was OK — Cassie felt the tiniest bit of guilt at blowing up like that.
“Look at you,” Sarah said, her voice a mixture of awe and caution. “Day one and you’ve already managed lunch with Rowan.”