she grabs my arm. Hard. “What the…?”
“Tell them,” she says wildly, pushing her face up to mine. “You’ve got to tell them.”
“What are you talking about?” I try to pull away, but she grabs my other arm too, like she wants to shake me. Her face is red and splotchy and she has an all-over sticky look. It’s obvious she’s been crying.
“Tell them I didn’t do anything wrong.” She jerks her head back over her shoulder. We’re standing directly in front of the main office, and I see her in that moment the way she was yesterday, hair hanging over her face, tearing down the hall.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, as gently as possible, because she’s freaking me out. She probably has biweekly visits with the school psychologist to control her paranoia, or OCD, or whatever her issue is.
She takes a deep breath. Her voice is shaky. “They think I cheated off you in chem. Beanie called me in…. But I didn’t. I swear to God I didn’t. I’ve been studying….”
I jerk back, but she keeps her grip on my arms. The feeling of being caught in a whirlpool returns, but this time it’s horrible: I’m being pulled down, down, down, like there’s a weight on me.
“You cheated off me?” My words feel like they’re coming from a distance. I don’t even sound like myself.
“I didn’t, I swear to God I—” Lauren gives a shuddering sob. “He’ll fail me. He said he would fail me if my grades didn’t get better, and I got a tutor and now they think I—he said he’d call Penn State. I’ll never go to college and I—you don’t understand. My dad will kill me. He’ll kill me.” She really does shake me then. Her eyes are full of panic. “You have to tell them.”
I finally manage to wrench away. I feel hot and sick. I don’t want to know this, don’t want to know any of it.
“I can’t help you,” I say, backing away, still feeling like I’m not actually saying the words, just hearing them spoken aloud from somewhere.
Lauren looks like I’ve just slapped her. “What? What do you mean you can’t help? Just tell them—”
My hands are shaking as I go to pick up my phone. It slips out of my grasp twice and lands back on the floor both times with a clatter. It’s not supposed to be like this. I feel like someone’s pressed the Reverse button on a vacuum cleaner and all of the junk I’ve done is spewing back onto the carpet for me to see.
“You’re lucky you didn’t break my phone,” I say, feeling numb. “This cost me two hundred dollars.”
“Were you even listening to me?” Lauren’s voice is rising hysterically. I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes. “I’m screwed, I’m finished—”
“I can’t help you,” I say again. It’s like I can’t remember any other words.
Lauren lets out something that’s halfway between a scream and a sob. “You said I shouldn’t be nice to you today. You know what? You were right. You’re awful, you’re a bitch, you’re—”
Suddenly it’s like she remembers where we are: who she is, and who I am. She claps her hand over her mouth so quickly it makes a hollow, echoing sound in the hallway.
“Oh, God.” Now her voice comes out as a whisper. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
I don’t even answer. Those words—you’re a bitch—make my whole body go cold.
“I’m sorry. I—please don’t be mad.”
I can’t stand it—can’t stand to hear her apologize to me. And before I know it I’m running—full-out running down the hall, my heart pounding, feeling like I need to scream or cry or smash my fist into something. She calls after me, but I don’t know what it is, I don’t care, I can’t know, and when I push into the girls’ bathroom, I throw my back against the door and sink down against it until my knees are pressed into my chest, my throat squeezed up so tight it hurts to breathe. My phone keeps buzzing, and once I’ve calmed down a bit, I flip it open and find texts from Lindsay, Ally, and Elody: What? Dish. Spill. Did u make up w Rob?
I throw my phone into my bag and rest my head in my hands, waiting for my pulse to return to normal. All of the happiness I felt earlier is gone. Even the Otto and Winters situation doesn’t seem funny anymore. Bridget and Alex