Firsts (26 page)

Faye.

The girls disappear in a cloud of hushed voices and too much perfume.

Faye chooses the stall beside me. When she flushes, I make the mistake of half sniffling, half crying into my hand.

“I know you’re in there, Mercedes,” Faye says. “I can see your dirty Converse shoes. You really should get a new pair.”

“Did you see it?” I croak. “If you saw it, you probably saw a lot more of me. You probably shouldn’t be seen talking to me. And I should probably switch schools.”

“That’s the thing,” Faye says, stopping right outside the stall door and rapping on the metal with her fist.

“What’s the thing?” I say, pushing my shoe against the toilet paper dispenser, making no move to let her in.

“I never was any good at doing what people tell me.”

And like that, her head appears under the stall door, followed by her body. She pulls herself in and wipes her hands on her jeans.

I raise my eyebrows. “You know how disgusting that floor is?” I say. “Janitorial service at this school leaves a lot to be desired.”

She cocks her head and puts her hands on her hips. She looks like what I imagine a stern parent would look like, not that I know from experience. I wonder if she got that posture from Lydia.

“First of all, you didn’t let me in, so I had no choice.”

I shrug. “And what’s second of all?”

“Second of all?” She puts her hand under my chin and tilts my face up and shakes her head. “I debated telling you this, because I didn’t want you to think less of me. But I’ve actually been there.”

I look away from her prying eyes. “You’ve been there?” I say. “You’ve been in the same situation? Come on…” My voice trails off. “Did somebody send you here to spy on me?” I whisper, defeated.

She puts her hands on her hips. “Seriously? You and Zach are the only people I like at this school. And I think you need a friend right about now.” She smiles, that heartbreakingly sweet smile she flashed in home economics on that first day.

She crouches down and puts her hands on my knees. “Look. I saw the video. Everybody saw the video. I already knew you were lying about Zach. And so what? You had sex with some guys. Who hasn’t?”

I shake my head. “I didn’t just have sex with some guys. I had sex with some guys who had girlfriends.” I swallow against a hard lump in my throat.

“Look, Mercy. I’ve been the other woman. I got myself in a mess. I ran from my problem, and you sure as hell aren’t going to run from yours. That only makes it worse. So you’re not going to hide in here for the rest of senior year. You’re coming with me, and we’re going to walk down this hall like nothing fucking happened. You got me?”

I want to hug her, to bury my face in that beautiful hair of hers and sob into her and ask her why she’s committing social suicide by being my friend when it would be so easy to be my enemy. But if I let myself be weak, I might never leave this bathroom stall.

“How can I look them in the eye?” I squeak out. “I never wanted anyone to get hurt. They were never supposed to know. I thought I was helping.” Suddenly, saying it out loud, I hear how pathetic it sounds, how completely ridiculous. I wasn’t helping anyone, myself least of all.

“How do you look people in the eye after that?” I whisper.

Faye smiles and laughs, that goddamned seal-bark laugh. Right now, it sounds like music. She extends her hand to help me up.

“Who says you have to look them in the eye? Pick a spot on the wall and stare at that instead.”

I sling my bag over my shoulder. “Where’d you learn that?”

“I told you, I made mistakes, too,” she says. “We didn’t really move here because Lydia got a better job. Let’s just say I’m pretty good at being Girl Most Hated by now.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it in hers.

And this is how we make it to chemistry. I take Faye’s advice, staring past the laughing and glaring faces, faces of everyone who has seen me naked. I tune out the jeers, the excited chatter, the judgemental expressions. I ignore the screeching cries of “SLUT!” the people trying to shove their cell phones in my face. I grip Faye’s hand so hard that I probably almost break bones. And when class ends, she’s there to hold my hand and carry my books for me, like an old-school boyfriend from the fifties. And I have never been so grateful for anybody in my life.

But even Faye can’t save me from the girl who comes out of nowhere and hits me in the face.

Her face is a twisted mask of fury. I don’t recognize her, but she recognizes me. And hates me.

“You bitch!” she screams.

My face is stinging from where she hit me, and I reel into what I think is a bank of lockers but is actually another girl, who yanks on my hair so hard that a chunk of it must come out of my scalp. Faye lets go of my hand and pushes the second girl backward with surprising force for somebody who can’t weigh more than ninety pounds. The second girl topples over and Faye pins her down. The first girl is on me again, until a strong pair of hands picks her kicking and screaming off the ground.

I recognize his smell before I see his face. It’s Zach. He’s not ignoring me. I haven’t lost him.

“Everybody needs to calm the fuck down!” he shouts.

I have never heard Zach speak with such authority before. I remember when I first met him, telling him he needs to stop being so shy. I guess he finally took my advice, at the best possible time.

But nobody else seems overly intimidated. A pack of other girls, a few of whom are vaguely familiar, are advancing on me, all of them wearing the same angry expressions, some of them fluttering pieces of white paper in their hands and pointing at what I recognize as my own handwriting. As they get closer, their faces come into view. I recognize Laura, my onetime elementary school friend, and Britney from French class, whose mouth is twisted in a scowl. They’re like a pack of wolves, advancing on their kill. I have never seen a fight in the halls of Milton High in all of my years here, and now I’m lying in the thick of one.

One that I caused.

My eyes dart to the periphery of the pack, where Jillian Landry stands by herself, her mouth open in shock. She doesn’t look mad. She’s not crying, either. She just looks heartbroken, which is the worst of all to see. I did that to her. Maybe I deserve to be left to the wolves.

“Back off, before I get Principal Goldfarb,” Zach says, extending his arms to keep the pack at bay. “Don’t think I won’t do it. You all want detention before prom?”

One of the girls starts wailing. “My boyfriend Connor was supposed to take me to prom!” She bursts into tears. “Until that little skank took him away from me!” Her friends put their arms around her and make murmuring sounds. I know they are burning holes into my head with their hateful glares.

Zach glances from me to Faye. “Run,” he says. “Meet me back at the place we meet on Wednesdays.”

Faye grabs my hand. The pack lets us go, calling out after us. I hear a slew of colorful names. SLUT. HOME WRECKER. WHORE. BOYFRIEND THIEF. TRAMP. Once we’re in my Jeep—Faye wisely doesn’t let me drive when she sees my hands shaking over the wheel—we speed out of the parking lot and back to my house. Only when we’re in my bedroom with the door locked do I let myself actually breathe.

I flop backward on my bed, feeling like all the energy has been sucked out of me. I’m dizzy and nauseous, but there’s one thing I have to say, one thing Faye has to know.

“I never slept with Charlie. I never tried to seduce him, like he’s probably telling everyone. He planned the whole thing. He wanted to ruin my life.”

Faye sits on the bed and takes my hand. “I know,” she says.

She believes me. Maybe Zach will, too. I think of his text messages from that night.
See you around
. And the way he ignored me in the hallway like I was nothing to him.

“He’ll come around,” Faye says, smoothing my hair off my face. “He just needs time.”

I don’t know how somebody who has known me for such a short time can already read my mind.

Zach knocks on the door five minutes later. “I barely made it out alive,” he says, standing with his arms crossed in front of us. “It’s fucking mayhem back there.” He clears his throat. “And I think you owe me an explanation as to why my bare ass is all over the Internet.”

He hates me
. I knew it. I sit up too fast and everything starts spinning. Zach puts his hand on my shoulder and my heart leaps, like if he can still bear to touch me he might forgive me. His familiar scent, that touch I’d know anywhere. The boy who just wanted to be my boyfriend. Maybe I should have just let him, and none of this would have happened.

“Where should I start?” I whisper.

“At the beginning,” Zach says. “Wherever that is.”

I grab his hand, the one that’s resting on my shoulder. I wait for his fingers to clutch mine in response, but they don’t.

I take a deep breath and recall one piece of advice from Kim. The only piece that ever held weight with me.
Always lift your chin up high when you did something wrong. Because you might know you did something wrong, but nobody else has to.

With my chin up, I tell them everything.

32

I tell them about the virgins, and I don’t mince details. I tell them numbers. I tell them about my white notebook. I tell them what has been really going on in my bedroom all this time. And finally, I tell them about Charlie. I can’t get through that part with my chin up. When I get to Charlie, I start to cry, which is ridiculous. Nothing happened. I know nothing happened, but that doesn’t change what could have happened.

Zach’s hands ball into fists, and he sets his lips in a thin line, which makes them appear almost colorless. “I knew it,” he says. “I knew there was something about the way he looked at you.”

Faye, who is sitting cross-legged beside me, covers her face with her hands. “He thinks he can get away with it, with ruining all those people’s relationships. They need to know the truth.”

“What truth?” I say. “I’m the one who ruined those relationships. He’s just the messenger. He told me he would ruin me if I told, and now he has. Angela won’t talk to me again.”

“Somebody has to put him in his place,” Zach says, gritting his teeth. For a second I think he’s going to punch the wall, but he stops just short of it. “I can’t believe this.”

“Please promise me you won’t do anything,” I say, standing up and grabbing Zach’s hands. “I’m going to handle this. I’ll figure it out.”

Zach pulls his hands away and stares at his knuckles.

“We could tell the truth,” Faye says. “That he tried to seduce you. People will have to believe it.” She looks from me to Zach, who doesn’t meet her eyes.

My heart sinks. An awkward silence ensues. “Do you even believe me?”

He doesn’t say anything at first, and I think I’ll die if he doesn’t believe me. I’ll disappear, cease to exist. But I know what I am. I’m a bad friend, a slut, a liar. I lied about tutoring. I lied about being sick. Zach has no reason to believe me now.

“I should have punched him in the face when I saw him leaving your house,” Zach says. “The guy looked so fucking happy. But you know what I felt when I saw him?”

I shake my head.

“Envy. I felt sick with it. You know what he did when he saw me standing there like a moron in your driveway? He winked at me. I wanted to pound him. But I didn’t, because I remembered what you said before. That I was jealous of him. And I was.”

Faye stands up quickly and makes up some excuse about making us some lunch. She slips out of the room before I can even grab onto her, cleave to her like an anchor in this mess.

Now it’s just me and Zach. I want him to touch me. I want him to hug me, because I know I would feel safe in his arms. But this isn’t just about me. This is about him, about the only guy who liked me for me. The one who ended up getting hurt.

“I’m sorry,” I say, but it sounds hollow, and I know it doesn’t mean anything.

“All this time, I knew you were holding something back from me. You always kept me at a distance. It all makes sense now, but I wish it didn’t. I thought there was a chance for you and me. That if I didn’t leave you alone you eventually wouldn’t want me to.” Zach stares at the wall, the carpet, my bed. Everywhere but at me.

I can tell he’s trying not to cry, and that makes me want to cry.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” I mumble, and it sounds ridiculous out loud, like the dumbest thing I could say.

“It would have hurt a lot less if you would have just told me you were hooking up with other guys,” he says, raking his hands through his hair like he wants to pull it out. “It would have made more sense. Of course I had to be on Wednesdays, because all the other days were taken.”

I deserved that. I deserved that, but it still feels like a slap in the face. My cheeks burn and my eyes sting and my teeth start to chatter.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he says, pressing his fingers against his forehead. “I didn’t mean it like that. I believe you about Charlie, and if I could break his nose right now I would. But I’m not sure if I can be around you.”

My breath catches in my throat. The air is stuck in my lungs. I’m about to lose Zach. He’s slipping away.

I already lost him.

“I have to go,” he says, and when he takes his hand away from his face, his eyes are red. “I need some space to think.”

He walks toward the door.

“Wait,” I choke out. “Zach, wait.”

He stops but doesn’t turn around.

“I need to know you’re still my friend. We’re friends, right?”

He turns his head ever so slightly.
Come back
, I will him.
Come back, and I won’t hurt you again
.

“I thought you didn’t want to be friends,” he says, and just like that he’s gone.

I collapse on the carpet. Zach has been all over this room. He has been in here more than anybody else besides me. I had so many chances to make him feel like I wanted him here. So many times I could have reached over and put my arm around him, or let him put his arms around me like I knew he wanted to. But I was in control. I called the shots. I told him when to arrive, when to leave. I set the boundaries.
Don’t kiss me like that. It’s too intimate. Don’t try to hold my hand. I don’t need a back massage; let’s just get down to business.