It felt good, like something I’d done had actually mattered. But I can’t be too enthusiastic, or these juniors will automatically peg me as a social climber.
“You should come to a practice, introduce yourself to coach before scrimmages start,” one of them says. She’s tall, broad, probably a middle hitter.
“Cool.” I nod. “I mean, I’d do it. If you need me.”
“She’s the best,” Brynn says. “Felicity’s mind is like a steel trap.” She snaps her hands together to illustrate, and I jump.
“Nice,” another girl says, and I give her the smile I tried on at home.
She smiles back. Good. My smile works on upperclassmen.
There’s a little more bounce in my step as I search for my locker. I’m scanning numbers, looking for mine as mini reunions occur every five steps. I’ve gotten about twenty hugs and twice as many once-overs from guys by the time I find it.
Right next to Tress Montor.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
The panic grabs me, instantaneous and crushing. My pulse quickens, my breath stops in my chest, and my brain goes to slush. I don’t even have language anymore, just the need to run. It’s been like this since that night; I can’t even look at Tress without having an all-out anxiety attack. Guilt rushes in, filling my whole body like it’s a helium tank and I’m a balloon . . . one that’s about to burst.
Black spots fill my vision, and I know I have to breathe, so I inhale, gulping like a drowning person. A little bit of control comes back, enough that words can be strung together again. It’s not a relief. They come in a tidal wave, like always, an attack on myself inside my own mind.
You’re the reason they left the house in the middle of the night.
You’re the one who can’t remember what happened.
You’re the last person to see Tress’s parents alive.
It’s your fault.
I’m going to lose it. Break open right here in the middle of the hallway, leaving a puddle of insecurities and guilt for everyone to slip in.
Tress turns and sees me.
She hasn’t mastered her face the way I have, hasn’t learned that emotions shouldn’t be shown. We were so close for so long that this still happens sometimes—we’ll catch each other’s eye unexpectedly, and she’ll light up, just a little bit. Tress Montor is still happy to see me.
I can’t take it. I spin on my heel and walk away.
I tell them in the office that I need a locker reassignment. The secretary gives my little jean shorts a glance and tells me that locker placements aren’t negotiable. I tell her there’s a used condom in mine, and that I’m going to call my dad—who is on the school board—if they don’t change it. Right now.
That gets her moving. She points me to a chair and goes to the inner office door, says something muffled to Mrs. Anho, the principal. I text Hugh, thumbs flashing, giving him my locker number and combo and asking him if he can put a used condom in it.
He doesn’t even ask why, just sends me a thumbs-up. He’s been protecting me from mean girls, older boys, and the occasional creepy adult ever since a senior snapped my bikini top at the pool in seventh grade. Hugh “accidentally” did a cannonball right on top of his head, which resulted in the squad being called and Hugh getting kicked out of the pool for the rest of the summer.
But Hugh can’t fix everything. He can’t save me from the past, or what I did. The secretary gives my shorts another glance, and I nervously tug on the hems. When I’m sitting down, they are way shorter than I thought. Great. I told myself what I wore today was going to announce to everyone who Felicity Turnado is. Apparently, she’s a little tramp who needs a boy to bail her out when she has panic attacks.
I lean forward, putting my head in my hands, letting my hair fall in sheets on either side of me, shutting out the world.
Shutting out Tress Montor.
Chapter 18
Felicity
“No, it wasn’t like that,” I say as Tress balances a brick in her palm. She looks at me over the edge, dubious.
“Wasn’t like what?” she repeats. “Wasn’t like you had your locker moved so that you didn’t have to be near me?”
“No, Tress . . .”
I clear my throat, thinking hard. It’s difficult when it feels like my head is spinning one direction, my gut another.
“It’s so hard,” I tell her. “I . . .”
Words are slipping, sliding away from me as my focus fades, my vision going in and out. I can’t weigh everything carefully, can’t evaluate each syllable and second like I usually would. As Tress wanted: I’m stuck with being honest.
“I can’t even look at you,” I say, and that flicker of interest that was in her face goes still and hard.
“This wall gets high enough, pretty soon you won’t have to,” she says.
She lays a brick, the wet smell of the mortar rising into my nose.
“No, wait,” I say. “I didn’t mean—”
Tress reaches for another, and I’m utterly quiet.
But she lays it anyway.
Chapter 19
Tress
Felicity is not catching on quickly.
She needs a minute after I put down the second row of bricks, so I go upstairs, listening again at the door for noises in the kitchen. There aren’t any, and when I open it even the couple from the corner is gone. The music is still on, the single speaker belting out a tune for no one and nothing. The running hum of the party is gone, too. I’m tense, listening, poised like I’ve seen the cat do when he doesn’t like something he hears.
Or doesn’t hear.
Then it comes, a wall of sound—laughter, actually—rolling from the entrance hall. I relax, square my shoulders, flick some wet mortar off my hands, and pull my hood back up before following the sound. The party isn’t over; it’s just relocated. Hugh is holding court at the top of the staircase, admirers fanned out across the steps below him as he holds a phone up to capture . . . Ribbit?
“What the fuck?” I whisper to myself, slipping behind a group of freshmen who weren’t lucky enough to score a spot on the steps. They’ve got their phones out, too, and Ribbit is neatly squared in their sights.
“Now,” Hugh says loudly, positioning his chair—a ridiculously overstuffed thing someone must have pulled from in front of the fireplace—so that he’s at an angle to Ribbit, whose chair is smaller. He sways in it, the legs wobbling with his attempts to sit straight.
“Let’s get a volunteer from the audience,” Hugh says.
“What’s going on?” I ask, tugging on a girl’s elbow.
She half shrugs, eyes red-rimmed and fever spots on her cheeks. “Dunno. They’re doing, like, a talk show kind of thing, I guess? This guy, I swear, it doesn’t even matter what you ask him, he answers it. It’s hilarious.”
Oh, shit. I’ve seen this before. Get one drink in Ribbit and he’ll do anything for you. Get two and he’ll answer anything you ask him with total, absolute, 100 percent honesty. No filter. No holds barred.
“A volunteer?” Hugh says again, and a girl stands, her arms pinwheeling wildly around her when she almost loses her balance on the stairs. It’s Maddie Anho, the principal’s daughter. Hugh gets up and comes down to her, reaching out for her fingertips and leading her the rest of the way like they’re on the Oscars or something.