“I have to go,” I say.
“Wait.” Henry lifts his body off the steering wheel and turns to me, his eyes red and his cheeks puffy.
But I can’t. It’s too much to see him like this. Too awkward. Too grotesque. I shake my head and push myself out, leaving Henry alone in Bruce. I slam the door behind me and don’t look back. The parking lot buzzes with chatter and muffled sharp words. I force myself to breathe in, then out, to swallow the screams I so desperately want to unleash. I hear Shaila’s voice in my head, the line she repeated when we needed it the most.Don’t let them see you hurt.
The bell rings and I know that nowhere will be safe today. So I keep going, my head down, my skin on fire, and dash through the front door, past the senior lounge, and into AP Physics.
When I get there, my usual place next to Nikki is already taken. Amos Ritter, a pimply-faced junior on the baseball team, leans back in the swivel lab chair and makes himself at home, pulling out two binders and a graphing calculator. He’s not a Player, but he’s well-liked enough that he gets invitations to parties, slaps on the back when he chugs a beer fast enough. He’s a warm body to keep the party going. Nikki only knows him because she made out with him after Spring Fling last year.
I try to make eye contact with her but her dark hair blocks her face from my view. Her skin looks perfect from afar. I wonder if the blackhead she was freaking out about last week is still there. When I take the only empty seat—it must be Amos’s usual place—I flip open my notebook and try to focus, recording everything Dr. Jarvis says, even though it just doesn’t matter.
For fifty-two excruciating minutes I imagine all the things that Nikki is thinking about me, all of the horrible, cruel thingsshe must believe, that I’m aloser, a traitor, that I’m not a friend worth keeping.
I imagine her screaming at me, saying the worst things I think about myself out loud, and press my pencil into my palm, nearly breaking flesh. Her unwillingness to even look at me stings more than if she were to stand up and say, “I hate you.”
I already lost one best friend. I can’t stomach the fact that I’ve lost another.
When the bell rings, I want to run to her table and pretend like everything is okay. I want to describe the look on Henry’s face when I broke his heart and ask her why the fuck did I not feel any single sliver of remorse? I want my best friend. But instead I’m sluggish to pack up my bag, terrified of an encounter here in the lab. She is gone by the time I look up.
I can’t bring myself to enter the caf for lunch, to see my empty seat at the Players’ Table, now home to five. Instead, I find a carrel in the back of the library and rest my head on the wooden desk. I’m hidden here and I finally close my eyes, letting the tears fall in silence. The lunch period ticks by, but it’s excruciating to sit without purpose. I pull my phone from my pocket and tap on the nondescript app, the one that holds the keys to everything, the one that will save me from Mr. Beaumont’s English test this afternoon.
“It’ll only be true or false, guys,” he’d said last week. “Gotta prepare you for the AP exam.”
The screen loads and I type in the password from muscle memory. A spinning wheel turns and then turns again and a message I’ve never seen appears.
Wrong password. Try again. A sad face blinks below the cursor and stares back at me.
There’s nothing to do but laugh. Of course. I should have expected this. I don’t deserve this massive, bullshit database. None of us do. All the time and effort and dignity I sacrificed to get access... it all means nothing.
Then it dawns on me who made this choice. The only person who could change the password. Nikki.
My hands shake and my vision blurs. I try to picture her lying on her canopy bed with her laptop sitting on her chest, making the decision, loading the page, clickingConfirm. Smiling with glee at my presumed failure. She had become a monster.
For the first time since Road Rally, I wonder,Was it all worth it?
I try to stop myself. I really do. But my fingers fly over my phone screen faster than I can stop them.
Henry and I broke up. I hit send before giving myself time to reconsider.
Shit, Adam types back almost immediately. My breathing steadies.U ok?
I will be. It was my choice.
Never liked that kid anyway.
I laugh into my sleeve and avoid a nasty look from Mrs. Deckler. I type the words that are scarier to say out loud.I quit the Players, too.
Double shit.
I want to say I’m sorry, to say he didn’t make a mistake when he chose me three years ago. That I’m still on his side. But another text comes in, churning my insides into a jammy, gooey mess.
You’re still my favorite. That’ll never change.
—
I straight-up fail the English test. I bomb it like I’ve never bombed anything in my life, earning a 65, a number I’ve never evenseenwritten in red. Mr. Beaumont drops the marked-up exam on my desk with a note, also in red.SEE ME.I stuff the piece of paper, along with my pride, into a ball and shove it deep inside my backpack.
When class is dismissed, I try to sneak out behind the others and escape. But I have to wait a beat for Nikki to leave first. The awkward dance leaves me vulnerable and Mr. Beaumont seizes the opportunity.
