Brooky? Why are you hating on my mother like that? Even if she is involved in some activist stuff, you know it’s not Red Market. Plus, I mean, your great-grandfather was a Black freaking Panther! My mother was never anything but loving and kind to you and every other girl in the Hive. How do you just turn on people like that? When this is over, I’m going to write a long-ass post about friendship, and what it means, and what you should be able to expect from a person you call a friend.
Shelley Miller is the best human I know. She’s the kind who’d take off her necklace and give it to you if you said you liked it. With her friends, she was there. I mean, she doesn’t really have friends anymore, but when she did, she was the type who’d be, like, dying from exhaustion, in pain from a toothache or something, but she’d never use that as an excuse if someone needed to download a problem, maybe get a little legal advice. She never minded. Not like Sherman, who got snippy when random people asked for free legal—unless he wanted to nail them, I guess. Mommy? I’m so sorry I got you mixed up in all of this.
I don’t know why I still think this way, but I really do believe that justice will prevail. But, Jesus, everything the cable news and Internet is saying about what happened at the ball last night is just so wrong. The Internet also has no clue what happened on Oakwood Circle when Jinny Hutsall moved in next door. There’s just so much data to unload about Jinny, and Jagger, and us, and the nights in question. So I’ve decided I’m gonna set it all out here. It may be a little out of order. But consider this my deposition.
That first day, when we met her in the cul-de-sac, after she iced me in front of the Hive for being the Jewy heathen I am, Jinny invited us all over to her new house—previously owned by an extremely rich older couple who sunbathed nude in their backyard (voyeurs do not discriminate), where she said there was a pitcher of lemonade and a batch of fresh brownies. It was boiling outside, and we were bored and curious. The girls were all in. Me? Fear of missing out.
We walk into this beautiful sunlit kitchen and, sure enough, there’s this huge pitcher of lemonade with sparkling ice cubes and a massive plate of ridiculous frosted brownies that normally we’d only look at. But Jinny took one and ate it in three bites and we all just followed. We followed. Then I start thinking. Wait. What? Jinny literally just stepped out of the Town Car that drove her to her new house. There are no parents at home. So who put out the lemonade? And the brownies? And how could they know we’d come over?
So I say, “How did the lemonade get here?”
Jinny stared at me. “You ask a lot of questions!”
“It’s just, your parents aren’t here and the cubes are fresh, and—”
“Oh my gosh! What is this, interrogate the new girl?”
“It’s just—the ice cubes…”
“Oh my gosh, you really are a scream!” Jinny said, then excused herself to go to the “loo.” My gramma called the bathroom the loo and I always thought it was the cutest thing, but Jinny Hutsall saying it made me wanna hurl.
When she was gone, I whispered, “Guys. A Crusader. Seriously?”
“She’s super-nice, Ror,” Zee said.
“God, Rory, she’s just saying you’re funny!” Fee chimed in. “Seriously? That’s a compliment! What is your problem?”
“Crusader. ‘Nuff said.”
“Yeah, but so what? We don’t have to chill with her every day, but she just got here, Ror,” Delaney said.
“Jesus, Rory,” Zee added.
“Jesus? Did you just take His name in vain, Zee? What would Jinny Hutsall think?”
Zee shot me the finger.
Fee goes, “Just saying, be nice.”
I was in dangerous territory with the Hive. They’d see everything I was gonna say about Jinny as me being jealous. “I just feel like something seems off about her. You guys…you must see it too.”
But they didn’t. Or didn’t want to.
“Rory. You’re being so judge-y,” Zee said. “Like, you hate judge-y, but you can be super-judge.”
“But I’m judging the judgiest of them all. She’s a Crusader. Come on.”
Bee goes, “You’re just too much sometimes, Ror.”
“You’re okay with this too, Bee? Sincerely? Crusaders hate the Jews, and the heathens, but they’re not so fond of