Me & My Invisible Guy (17 page)

I whirled around. “She said ‘cheerleader,’ Liam. Think about it. How long before everyone in this school knows exactly who she was talking about?”

“She didn’t say it was someone from this school.”

“She doesn’t have to! Everyone assumed it; and since they’re right, I’m screwed.”

I wiped at my tears and turned away again.

“Mallory. I’m so sorry.”

“Just let me go.”

I heard him move. I grabbed the door handle, flung the door open, and sprinted out of the closet, then down the hallway.

I needed to get as far away from Liam Crawford as humanly possible.

But since we had the same stupid class for second period, he showed up in the room less than two minutes after I did. I refused to look in his direction. I felt my phone buzz in my bag. Mr. Petrini was writing on the board. I nonchalantly picked it up and read Tess’s text message.

was it him

I wrote back
yes
before Petrini turned around. Texting during class was punishable by death, so I didn’t try again, but Tess gave me a look of total sympathy.

It didn’t help.

Especially since every conversation seemed to be about the mystery cheerleader. I was definitely getting scrutinizing looks from people. I knew they were thinking,
Could she be the virgin?

There were about two dozen cheerleaders for fall sports. I mostly cheered for football, but sometimes I cheered for soccer when they were short. Several of the girls had long-distance boyfriends, and technically I didn’t have one anymore. Maybe that would throw people off the trail.

I was also relieved to overhear a number of kids who thought the speaker made up the story… since they doubted a cheerleader would be a virgin. It didn’t help the reputation of the sport much, but it was good for me.

By lunch I thought that maybe, just maybe, it might all blow over.

I sat down with Tess. Liam appeared at our table, no lunch in hand, and got on his knees next to my chair.

“Talk to me, please?”

“You’re an idiot, Liam. She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Tess said.

“Yes, I’m an idiot. I agree. Look, I’ve been telling as many people as possible that the story was made up. I don’t think anyone thinks it’s true, anyway.”

I hoped he was right, but I still had doubts. “Just go away,” I said.

“Don’t do this. This is good, you and me.”

My chest tightened. It
was
good. But I couldn’t trust him. You had to be able to trust people to have a relationship with them.

Liam didn’t move, and I avoided his eyes. Tess stood up, brushed off her hands, and pulled Liam up by the arm. She walked away from the table with him, talked for a couple minutes, and then came back without him.

“What did you say to him?”

“Don’t worry about it. I got rid of him.”

I glanced around to see where he went but saw no sign of him. I let out a defeated sigh. “Why’d he have to turn out to be such a jerk?” I asked. “I really liked him.”

“I know. Maybe that means you’ll forgive him.”

“He doesn’t deserve it.”

“People rarely do. But if we love them, we do it, anyway.”

I looked at Tess, who still loved her mom even with what she did every day. But a guy was different than a mom, so maybe the rule didn’t apply. Surely there were more guys out there. It didn’t have to be Liam. I tried to bolster my courage. Just because Liam Crawford was amazing and adorable and wrote me a song…

I shook my head. Liam was my first attempt at a real relationship since killing off Todd. I could try again, couldn’t I?

I stayed close to Tess as we left the cafeteria and tried to ignore the conversations around us. Teenagers bore quickly, so maybe no one would really care about it for too long. We walked into the lobby and saw Yvie and Sophie huddled by the stairs, talking. When they saw us, they turned—and scowled.

“It’s you,” Yvie said. No question. Her height made her seem all the more intimidating.

“Always had a million excuses, didn’t you? You were lying to us that whole time.” Sophie shook her head at me, making her short black hair swing across her shoulders.

Yvie crossed her arms and glared at Tess. “I guess you were in on the whole thing, too. I hate it when people make me feel stupid.” She rested her glare on me. “I’m not stupid. I trusted you, Mallory.”

Yvie started to walk away, and Tess grabbed her and pulled her back.

“Don’t you dare defend her,” Yvie said.

“I’m not. Mallory knows she messed up. But we’re friends,” Tess said.

“Not anymore.” Yvie swung around, and they walked away.

“Don’t worry. They’ll get over it.” Tess put her arm around my shoulder.

“But she’ll tell,” I said.

“Yeah. She probably will.”

If ever there was a day I wanted to disappear, it was this one. I was excused from fourth period early since I had to change for the pep rally. But I just wanted to go home. The
only thing keeping me there was that staying made me look innocent. At least more innocent than running home.

When I turned down the hallway where the cheerleaders and football players were gathering outside the locker rooms, I knew something had shifted. I’m not sure what tipped me off more, the searing looks from the cheerleaders or the grins on the football players’ faces.

I slowed my walk.
Everything is going to be fine. No one knows for sure.

Greg Paterson stepped out of the group.

“You doing okay?” He slipped his arm around my shoulder. I thought about knocking it off, but I didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to myself.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?” I hoped that my face matched my words.

“You know, a lot of people think you’re the virgin cheerleader.”

Hearing a guy say it out loud, even if it was just Greg, made my stomach turn. There was no escaping the reality of my life.

“Who, me?” I forced out a laugh. “That’s a good one.”

“Then go out with me after the game tonight,” he said.

Liam’s face drifted into my thoughts. We were over. Weren’t we? Greg was kind of a player and had dated at least a third of the squad. But I also couldn’t deny that saying yes to Greg might make this whole thing go away faster.

“Sure. That’d be great. I’ve gotta change now.”

He let me go, and I put my head down as I passed by some of the girls near the locker room door.

I looked for Tess and found her in front of the mirrors, primping.

As soon as she saw me, she grabbed me and hauled me into one of the showers, yanking the curtain closed.

“It’s all over. Everyone thinks it’s you.”

“I’m gonna be sick.”

“No, you’re not. You’re going to remember that you’re brave, and you’re gonna go out there and face them.” Tess shook my shoulders. “Mallory. We’ll laugh about this one day. Trust me. No fear.”

She shoved me out of the shower with orders to go change. No one said anything while I changed or while I worked on getting my hair up and tying my ribbons. Everyone just stared or glared until it was time for our meeting.

We gathered at the far end of the locker room. Tara stood up with her clipboard in hand but looked right at me. “So, Mallory, is it true?” she asked point-blank. As the captain, she probably only cared about the reputation of the squad, but it felt as if everyone was holding her breath, waiting to see what I’d say.

“Is what true?” I mustered as much wide-eyed confusion as possible.

“It’s a ridiculous rumor. You should know a thing or two about those, Tara,” Tess said.

“I expected you to defend her, Tess. But I want to hear it from her.”

All eyes shifted back to me, and I froze.
Lie and deny. Or come clean.
Those were my only two choices. My instinct was to lie and deny. After all, there was no proof. But this wasn’t a court; this was high school. They could prosecute, convict, and execute me with no evidence whatsoever.

I had promised to stop lying. But when I worked on Step 8—making a list of those I had wronged—I hadn’t thought
about the people in front of me. But I
did
lie to them. Over and over. Clearly, it was time to start Step 9 and make amends. I was wrong to lie to everyone. To pretend to be something that I wasn’t. Here was my chance to confess and apologize in one fell swoop.

If I could just get my mouth to work.

“Mallory, this is serious. We have a code of conduct for every cheerleader, and if you’ve betrayed the trust of the squad, we may have to cut you from the team.”

There was a collective gasp.

“You can’t throw her off the squad,” Tess said.

“I can and I will,” Tara said. “Unless she tells the truth and apologizes.”

Everyone was staring again, and I looked at Tess, who shrugged and urged me on with her eyes.

I closed mine, but I could still feel everyone else’s eyes boring into my soul.

“Come on. We have to warm up,” someone said.

“Fine,” I said. I opened my eyes and pretended it was Liam in the closet again, feeling the anger course through me. “I’m a virgin. Happy?”

I ignored the laughter and the whispers around me. Tara shifted her weight and crossed her arms, waiting for more.

“I made up a long-distance boyfriend because I didn’t want the boys right through that wall to be discussing what I did or didn’t do with them. You all know they do. My sex life—or the fact that I didn’t want to have a sex life—wasn’t anybody’s business but my own.”

“But you still lied,” Tara said.

“I know. But who in this room hasn’t lied at some point? A fake boyfriend can’t pressure you like a real one. He can’t
go running back telling stories to his friends about what you did. And he can’t convince you to do something you don’t want to do in the first place.” I had everyone’s attention. “My sister slept around in college, and it wrecked her life so much that she almost killed herself.”

“Darby? No way,” Tara said.

“Yes, Darby. I never want to go through what she did. I lied so I wouldn’t have to.”

I could tell from the look on Tara’s face that I had won. I wouldn’t be kicked off the team. But everyone was whispering around me now. I suddenly had a horrible feeling that I shouldn’t have said anything about Darby.

“Look, you guys can’t say anything about Darby. That’s in confidence.”

Heads nodded all around me, but I wasn’t stupid. That was a juicy tidbit of information.

“All right. Let’s get ready, girls.” Tara clapped her hands, and the group followed her.

Tess hung back and waited for me. “Darby tried to kill herself? Talk about secrets.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve never said that out loud to anybody.”

“Wow. Well, you’ve certainly given them something besides you to focus on.”

“You don’t think they’ll say anything, do you?’

Tess just raised an eyebrow at me and pushed open the door to the gym.

Coming clean might have a much bigger cost than I realized.

CHAPTER 14