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Something in the tone of his voice undid me, and the tears started coming. But I didn’t want Owen to know I was crying. “You’re right,” I said. “I’m going to be fine.”

When we hung up, fatigue descended over me like a drug. I went back to the room and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened last night.

Who were those characters I had seen? Figments of my imagination? Ghosts lingering in a parallel universe, caught between my world and their own?

Why was this happening again?

Was it because I’d stood at the place where I’d been struck by lightning last year? Maybe I shouldn’t have tempted fate.

But I couldn’t help myself. It was like some sort of electricity, some unseen current, still ran through that place, attracting me to it like lightning to a lightning rod.

I grabbed my copy of
The Scarlet Letter
from my nightstand and flipped through its pages until I found the passage I was looking for:

There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime.

In my dreams, my mother haunted the beach where she killed herself. Was that what was happening to me? Was I drawn to the place where lightning had forked my life into two branches, just like it had that oak tree?

And would the split eventually kill me, too?

C
HAPTER
8

I
walked listlessly to Exeter Hall on Monday morning, feeling a knot in my stomach the size of a grenade. Michelle gave me the cold shoulder in Bio class, the actual “pretending I can’t hear you” freeze-out. As immature as this was, the reality of my best friend and lab partner blatantly ignoring me as I repeatedly called her name sent me into a brain-curdling panic.

We were starting a new lab that day, and Michelle chose to work with Elise instead of me. I suppose some mystical bonding rites had taken place during play rehearsals, or maybe she was just trying to get back at me, but I still couldn’t believe that my former best friend, not to mention Elise’s former archnemesis, was now consorting with the very devil who had sought to ruin us last year.

“You can work with me,” Jess said, an angel in black eyeliner.

I moved over to Jess’s lab table and stared at the backs of Michelle and Elise, who last year had pretty much been the physical embodiments of good and evil in my world. It was like we were living in some alternate universe, a bizarro backward world in which everything was turned inside out.

This sickening exhibition of friendship continued in History as Overbrook droned on about how Thomas Jefferson was our country’s finest and most noble president. I caught Michelle rolling her eyes at Elise. Last year I would have been the recipient of that sarcastic eye roll. And last year Michelle would have challenged Overbrook. Jefferson might have been a fine president, but he was also one of history’s most flagrant hypocrites, writing that all men were created equal while he avidly defended slavery, even suppressing the newly freed country of Haiti because he feared a successful revolution in that country might inspire American slaves to revolt as well.

I only knew about this because Michelle’s family was from Haiti; she had taught me all about her country’s history last year. I kept waiting for her to say something, to counter Overbrook’s jingoistic propaganda with her own brand of pragmatic politics, but she remained silent. I guess it was safer that way. She hadn’t had an easy time of things last year, but still, I missed the days of her fiery rebuttals in the classrooms, missed our afternoons hanging out at the stables talking about school or music or boys. Life had changed irrevocably, and I found myself desperate to return to the past when everything had seemed so much simpler.

When we got to AP English, Gallagher began his unit on
The Awakening
. The class had moved beyond
The Scarlet Letter,
but I hadn’t. Hester and Dimmesdale’s story still burned in my brain, and now I seemed to be living my own version of it.

Glares and whispers followed me as I left English class and made my way to the dining hall alone. There is no place more hellish to a teenage girl in poor social standing than a high school cafeteria. Girls sit in packs like wolves waiting for something they can sink their teeth into.

I didn’t know why I’d gone to the dining hall at all—I had amassed an impressive stockpile of microwaveable foods for just such an occasion. But I wasn’t going to run away or let myself be cast out of society just for kissing a boy. I thought back to the way Hester had stood before that crowd for three hours, looking proud and defiant. I could do that, too.

But as soon I set foot in the dining hall, my bravado waned fast. Michelle was sitting with Elise. Amber and Chelsea were at another table, gossiping. I was relieved to see Jess at a corner table, reading by herself. I speed-walked past the glares of my classmates and took a seat across from her. She looked up from her lettuce wrap, surprised.

“Is it okay if I sit here?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” she said. I set my tray down across from her, took a seat, and looked down at my meatball sub, hardly hungry. “So it’s your turn for the social pariah treatment this week?” she said.

“Apparently.”

“Because you kissed your roommate’s boyfriend?”

“Ugh, you heard?”

“Everyone’s heard. That’s pretty high on the list of high school don’ts.”

“Yeah, I’m aware. I just . . .”

“Didn’t think you’d get caught?”

I glanced up at her, defensive. “No, it’s not that. It’s more complicated than that.”

“Always is.”

“No, seriously, you don’t understand. Michelle . . .” I fell silent, realizing I couldn’t tell Jess that Michelle had cheated on Owen this summer.

“Michelle what?” Jess said.

“Nothing.”

“I’m not judging you,” she said. “It’s not like Michelle and Owen were couple of the year. I saw it coming for a while.”

“Saw what coming?”

“Their breakup. I knew it was over . . . before it really was.”

“How did you know?”

“Michelle used to hang out with us during band rehearsals at the beginning of the summer. I could see her gradually pulling away from him, but she just didn’t have the heart to tell him.”

“Did she tell you that?” I asked, feeling hurt that Michelle had never confided any of this to me over the summer. Then again, I hadn’t really given her the chance.

“Well”—Jess shrugged—“Not exactly. I just picked up on the signs.”

“But if she didn’t want to be with him anymore, then why is she so angry with me?”

“It’s the principle of it,” she said. “You don’t kiss your best friend’s boyfriend. Period.”

She was absolutely right. It didn’t matter if things were almost over between them. I had betrayed Michelle’s trust and violated our friendship.

“God, I feel horrible. I wish there was something I could do. I hate not being able to talk to her.”

“I hear you,” Jess said.

“And now it’s like she’s become best friends with Elise just to spite me. I can’t believe it. No offense. I know Elise is your friend.”

“
Was
my friend.”

“You guys had a falling-out?”

She took a deep breath. “You could say that.”

“I thought something must have happened,” I said. “You all used to have your little clique of cool, and this year . . . well, I don’t see you guys together anymore.”

She studied my face, perhaps wondering if she could confide in me. “Look, I know what people used to say about us. The Fearsome Four and all that. I know sometimes we acted like bitches.”

“Sometimes?”

She smirked. “I’d been sick of it for a long time, but I didn’t know how to get myself out. It was like I was a member of some twisted teenage mafia. And then Elise’s sixteenth birthday party gave me the out I was looking for. We all got pretty drunk and something really ugly happened—I’m not going to go into it right now—suffice it to say, we all said things we regretted. And then we went our separate ways. End of story.”

So that was why Elise didn’t have her posse around her anymore. Maybe that’s why she seemed hell-bent on befriending Michelle.

“Do you miss her?” I said.

“Who?”

“Elise.”

Jess gave me a momentary
let’s drop it
look, but said, “Elise and I have been friends since third grade. So yeah, sometimes I miss her, but . . .”

“But what?”

“Was there ever someone who knew you really well, but she only knew you in this one particular way, so you were afraid to show her this other side of you because you worried how she might take it?” I nodded ruefully, thinking of my dad and how much I worried about not remaining the perfect little girl he wanted me to be. “That’s how it was with me and Elise. Around her I always felt like I was in second place before we even started. So eventually I stopped trying, even when I wanted to. We got trapped in these roles we played, and it was like we prevented each other from growing up. Once we stopped being friends, I could finally move on and be myself.”

“So that explains the new clothes, new hair . . .”

“New me. But strangely, this is more me than I ever was before.”

I took a bite of my sandwich, unsure what to say, but grateful that she had trusted me enough to share something so personal.

When we got to PE later that day, I felt angry when I saw Elise. Angry for Jess. Angry for myself. Elise’s villainization of me for kissing Owen wasn’t fair. My punishment didn’t fit my crime. I was sick of all the slut-shaming that went on around this place, particularly as kissing a guy, even if it was my roommate’s boyfriend, didn’t exactly qualify as slutty behavior.

Since it was drizzling outside, Ms. Loughlin had us playing floor hockey indoors. Before the opening whistle, I stood across from Elise at the centerline. She glared at me with an intensity that only solidified my hatred for her. “You’re going down,” she hissed.

The whistle blew, and I slapped the puck. Jess picked up my pass and dribbled it down court, making our first goal. We returned to the centerline, and this time Elise got the puck first. She sailed down the court and scored a goal for her team. The game went back and forth like this for twenty minutes until our teams were tied. Elise was my permanent shadow on the court. At one point, I almost scored the tie-breaking goal, but Elise stuck out her leg, sending me sprawling onto the floor. From the laughter that ensued, you would have thought we were a class of socially challenged third graders. Jess came to my rescue and helped me stand up.

As I was brushing myself off, Elise strode over and said, “Told ya you were going down.”

And that was it. Something snapped inside me.

I headed back up the court, my leg aching, adrenaline surging through my body. When the whistle blew, I seized the puck and dribbled it down the court. When I saw that Elise had left the corner of the goal open, I prepared to take a shot. For a fraction of a second, I stared at the open goal as Elise moved in for the block. But as I drew my arms back, I shifted my aim ever so slightly and smacked the puck. I watched in fascination as it sailed through the air, seeming to hover in slow motion right before it connected with Elise’s exquisite cheekbone.

The whistle screeched, and Elise crumpled to the floor. Ms. Loughlin came running onto the court to make sure she was okay. When Elise finally drew her head up, her hand clutching her cheek, she glared at me and said, “You bitch!”

I was breathing heavily from exertion, but I managed to say, “Whoops, sorry.”

“Did you hear that?” Elise said to Loughlin. “She did it on purpose!”

“Girls, that’s enough,” Loughlin said.

“I think I have a concussion,” Elise said.

Loughlin bent down and examined her face. “The worst you’ll have is a black eye.”

“A black eye?” Elise said. “But I can’t! We’re having dinner with the Hilfigers this weekend.”

A few girls chuckled, including Amber and Chelsea. I tried my hardest not to smile.

“It was an accident,” Loughlin said. “Now, everyone to the locker rooms.”

“It was no accident,” Elise snarled.

But Loughlin was already shooing everyone off the court. Elise glared at me from the ground and finally got up and stalked to the locker room. I hesitated, wondering whether I could retrieve my clothes later in the day. But then Ms. Loughlin asked to speak with me privately.

I jogged over to her, and at first she regarded me with teacherly disapproval, but then her face softened, almost like she was semi-amused by what I’d done.

“What’s going on with you two?” she asked.

I was still out of breath from that last run down the court. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I shouldn’t have. But it’s like . . . everything built up inside me, and I just . . . snapped.”

“Listen, Emma,” she said. “You’re a good kid. I hate to see you giving in to your anger like this. You’re better than that.” She put a hand on my shoulder.

I knew she meant well; so many grown-ups did. But I wasn’t sure she was right. Was I really better than that? Why did I always have to take the high road? It had felt good to let go of my anger and smack that puck in Elise’s face. Whenever I did the so-called right thing, I ended up feeling like a doormat, stepped on and abused.

And since the night of the cast party, something had begun inside me. An unraveling. A loosening that made it feel as though parts of me were coming unhinged, but that this loss of control was exactly what I needed. It was freeing and terrifying at the same time, the way I imagined hang gliding would be—exhilarating until that moment when you realized there was nothing standing between you and the hard earth below.

I skipped several classes that week. School had become far too heinous to attend on a regular basis. And the next weekend, I bombed the PSAT. I knew I was blowing it even as I filled in the tiny bubbles on the Scantron, but there was no way I could sit still for three hours focusing on theoretical multiple choice questions when my real life was falling apart at the seams.