“Oh, that’s nice. Pour some salt in my open wound.”
She shakes her head and looks directly at me. “I need to talk to you about Georgia. I have to make a decision soon.”
“Not right now. My brain is too full and I’m . . . I’m angry with you. Can it please wait?” It takes all my self-control to not completely turn on her and say all the vicious things running through my head.
She bites down on her lip. Clem hates indecision, and even though I’m sure she’s already made up her mind about next year, it’s still technically an uncertainty. “Sure. Of course.”
I plop down on the couch with Grammy when she returns with a fresh basket of laundry to fold. We watch Hollywood Squares while Clem connects the doorbell to Grammy’s, Cleo’s, and Bernadette’s phones.
I know I need to hear Clem out, but right now I’ve got too much on my mind. And maybe if I never hear her out, nothing has to change.
Ten
That night, I sit down at home with Mom and Dad and show them Monica Lewinsky’s TED Talk about her scandal and explain to them that I need to disappear for two days.
“I need to wait out the news cycle,” I say.
Mom side-eyes me over her shoulder as she stirs her spaghetti sauce.
“Hear me out. Prom court will be announced first thing Friday morning. If I can stay home for two more days, this whole thing will blow over and when I go back to school, everyone will be talking about prom court.”
Clem looks up from her phone. “He’s not wrong.”
Dad looks to Mom, who eventually shrugs.
“Two days,” he says. “No more.”
“And no more fake sick days,” Mom says. “The only way you’re missing any more school after this before graduation is if you’re on your deathbed.”
“Morbid,” I say. “But deal.”
I spend the next two days trying and failing to make homemade facemasks out of eggs and avocados after reading a BuzzFeed article titled “30 Ways to Make Self-Care Happen on the Cheap.” I do, however, try and succeed in finishing what episodes I had left of The Great British Baking Show. Mom and Dad also put me to work cleaning out the pantry and organizing Mom’s extensive collection of Tupperware. It’s not the glamorous two days chock-full of indulgence and mindlessness that I’d imagined, but it’s better than the alternative. And I manage to elude Clem and her Very Important Discussion about Our Future. I’m so angry with her. I want her with me always and I want to push her a million miles away all at once.
When I finally go back to school, I walk in with my head held high, flanked by both Hannah and Clementine. I may not know Hannah very well, but I’m thankful to see her waiting for us in the parking lot.
Deep breaths, I tell myself, prepared to face Patrick Thomas at any moment, but Hannah and Clem walk me all the way to Mr. Higgins’s class without a single incident. There is some pointing and staring, of course, but by far the worst of it is making eye contact with Tucker Watson when I walk into class and remembering the sting of his disgust the other day. Like it’s not enough for someone to not like you—they have to be disgusted by you too. Is it because I’m fat? Gay? What is it, Tucker? Whatever. He’s just another person I’ll leave behind one day when I get out of this town.
I sit down, this time as far as I can get from Tucker, and moments later, Alex settles in next to me.
“Oh my gosh,” he says. “Are you okay? Kyle said you didn’t respond to his texts.”
“Is he surprised?” I ask, not bothering to hide how annoyed I am.
Alex nods and it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to an admission from him that he also thinks Kyle is a little bit awful. “Kyle can be . . . eager,” he says. “You have to know, though, that he didn’t post that video for it to get the kind of attention it did. Accidents like that happen all the time on the internet. Remember that time Jenna Martinez accidentally posted a picture of a wart on her you-know-what on Instagram? People eventually got over it.” He sighs. “Kyle was just . . . he was so excited when you said you were auditioning and . . . you know, he would kill me for saying this, but he