The S-Word (28 page)

Just like she would’ve wanted.

Yeah.

Right.

Still, I can’t steal all the pictures without the girls throwing a fit. And Marvin clearly wanted them to get out. Maybe the humiliation is supposed to assuage his guilt. I take the scissors and cut out a picture for each girl on the squad.

“That should be enough,” I say with a shrug.

Kennedy smiles like she’s my mommy. “Look at you, growing a heart.”

“Whatever. I just don’t want to alert the faculty to our dirty dealings.” I slide the rest of the photos into my purse. “We should go.”

“Fair enough,” Kennedy says, still eyeing me. Elliot and Cara are sidling up to me but my attention is across the field. I can see Drake approaching from a distance. He’s ambling along like he’s got all the time in the world.

Or maybe he’s scared.

I lean in to whisper in Cara’s ear, “I have to deal with something. Meet me in the bathroom in five?”

“Upstairs?”

“Of course.”

She skips ahead, taking Elliot with her. Kennedy glances back when she sees Drake coming. “You want me to stay?” she asks.

“I’ll be okay.”

She glances from him to me. “I’ll do it, by the way.”

“I just said you don’t have to.”

“No, I mean . . .” She rolls her eyes like I’m pathetically dim-witted. “I’ll talk to the police.”

“I’ll come with you,” I say, my chest burning as Drake reaches the fifty-yard line. Kennedy’s words should make me feel triumphant, but all I can feel is my stomach turning and turning. I wish I could ask her to stay with me.

But I wave her along. She goes hesitantly, looking back like maybe I need her. Then it’s just me, and Drake, and this big empty field between us. Soon, even the field is gone.

“What’s with the scissors?” he says in greeting.

“What?” I look down. I’ve still got Kennedy’s scissors in my hands. I’m clutching them like a weapon. I wonder if maybe I’ll need them.

“Oh, just a project,” I say. “Here, turn around.”

He does so. I slip his graduation gown through his arms and over his shoulders. He turns again and lets me zip it up. “Thank God it fits,” he says.

“I knew it would.”

“Want me to help put yours on?” He steps closer.

I jerk away. “Not yet.”

“What’s going on with you?” he demands. God, he’s hot and cold in an instant. I wonder if I should just go inside.

Instead, I say, “I’ve been thinking.”

“About me?”

I nod. “There’s something I can’t figure out.”

“What is it?” He’s close now. He thinks he’s about to kiss me. I swear, if he tries, I’ll knock him out.

“If I committed a crime and someone documented it, wouldn’t I destroy the documentation the first chance I got?”

He doesn’t know what I’m getting at, not really. But a part of him responds to the accusation and he steps back. “What are you talking about?”

I pull some papers out of my purse. Some photocopies I made yesterday.

What, like I was going to sit around all day twiddling my thumbs?

Please.

I hand the copies to Drake. “I’m talking about this.”

“Where did you get these?” He’s making this shocked face, like he’s never seen the pages before. It makes me so mad I want to scream.

But I won’t give him the satisfaction.

I steady my hand as I point to him. “You lied to everyone about what happened. You lied to me—your girlfriend. The person you were supposed to love.”

He holds up his hands. “I’ve never seen this before.”

“Bullshit.”

“Put down the scissors.” He reaches for them. I yank my hand away.

Time to regroup, asshole.

It’s almost like he hears me. “Angie, don’t you see what’s happening? Whoever wrote that stuff on our lockers is pretending to be her. It’s not real.”

“
I
wrote that stuff on our lockers.”

He stammers, “You d-did not.”

“I took Lizzie’s diary from her bedroom. I brought those photocopies to school. But there were already pages missing, weren’t there?”

“She was a friend of mine.”

“ ‘A friend of my best friend. A friend of all of our families,’ ” I say, quoting Lizzie.

His eyes are bugging out. “She
was
a friend of our families.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” I advance.

He looks behind his back. But nobody’s there to help him. “This is crazy.”

“You know what’s crazy, Drake? Lizzie’s father caught you in her bedroom the night she died.” I’m close now and he’s not backing away. “Why did you go over there that night? Did you know what she’d written? Tell me!”

I must look scary with the scissors and all, because he says, “I heard somebody tried to steal that book from her.”

“That
diary
?”

“Yeah, that.” He runs his hands through his hair. It doesn’t hide him, though, even with strands falling into his eyes. He’s still exposed. “I heard they went through her gym bag when they found out she had one. And she totally lost it. Started screaming until
they gave it back. I knew there had to be something in it, for her to react like that.”

His words are a weight on my chest. I’ve forgotten how to breathe. “When did this happen?”

“That week. The week before she . . .” He trails off. He can’t say
died,
just like he can’t say
raped.

But I can. “So you knew it was a danger to you, and you had to get it back,” I say. “Smart move, just taking the pages that incriminated you. I had to look really closely to know they were missing.”

“I just wanted to see what she said.”

“You wanted to cover your ass, in case the wrong person found out what you did. In case they found out you’re the reason she’s—”

“Don’t say it!”
he screams, and it actually scares me. I’ve never seen him like this. But the greatest dangers don’t always come when people are the loudest. “Don’t say I did that!”

“Oh, so it only matters because she’s dead? Like if she wasn’t, what you did wouldn’t be vile and evil and disgusting—”

“I didn’t do that! I didn’t cause her death.”

“But you
did
rape her.”

He’s shaking his head. I can’t tell if he’s somehow convinced himself of his innocence, or if he just can’t live with the fact that there are consequences for doing
horrible
things.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You have to.” He looks up at me, and those pale blue eyes are laced with red. Two weeks ago, I might’ve softened at the sight of them. Now I want to jab something into them and watch them bleed.

And yeah, it’s scary how much this has darkened me. But I can’t go back.

“Why should I believe you?” I ask, even though I’m very aware
that there’s danger here. “If you’re so innocent, why did you keep those pages? Why didn’t you destroy the
only evidence
against you?”

“I didn’t understand it. Why did she invite me into her hotel room?”

“It was
our
hotel room, Drake. And you knocked on the door.”

“Why did she kiss me?”

“You caught her off guard. For godsakes, Drake, it was a kiss! You can’t be that mental.”

Can he?

In a way, it’s easier to believe he’d have to be insane to do what he did. But it’s not that simple, is it? He chose to hurt her. He made that choice.

All of this is just a ploy to get me to believe him.

“You want to know what I think?” I move in closer. I’m shaking, but it just looks like I’m waving the scissors at him. “I think you kept those pages because you liked reading what she said. I think you got off on reading what you did, you sick, psycho—”

“Stop it!” He pushes me back.

I start laughing. I can’t help it. “Nice, Drake.” I pull my heel out of the grass. “Way to prove you’re not violent.”

“I didn’t mean to do that.” He’s clenching his hands. “Just—please put those scissors away.”

“Are you scared?” I snap them in his face. “Scared you’re going to get hurt? That’s ironic.”

“Please.” He reaches out. “It’s me, Angie—your boyfriend. We’ve known each other our whole lives!”

He doesn’t realize that just makes it worse. I slide the scissors into my purse. My fingers encircle the homemade pepper spray I brewed up at my mommy’s house. “All right, Drake, I’ll do what you say. If you stay back.”

But he doesn’t listen to that. He’s too busy trying to get
me
to listen. Because that’s what’s important, right? Me behaving.

“Just listen to me.” He steps closer.

“I said stay back.”

His hand goes around my wrist. It happens so easily. It just slides over my skin, and then he’s got me. “Why are you doing this?”

“See, that’s your problem.” I yank back my hand. Now he can see the pepper spray. “You don’t listen—”

“Wait—”

“When people say—”

“Stop!”

“Exactly.”

His hands go to his eyes but I’m already spraying.

THE INSIDE OF
the school is packed. Students run around like decapitated chickens, posing for pictures and peeking through the stage curtain at their seated families. I refrain from the latter—I can only imagine Mom and Dad are situated at opposite ends of the room,
if
Mom remembered to come—but I do get caught in a hail of photo fire by various members of my class. Shelby pulls me into a Drama Club photo. A couple of girls from English make kissy faces on either side of me. By the time I make it to the stairs my cheeks are worn-out from fake smiling. I wonder how I’m going to make it through the ceremony without my face muscles collapsing.

I pull on my gown as I reach the second floor. This is a mistake. Jesse’s standing between the boys’ and girls’ bathrooms.

How did he know? How does he always know?

I make sure the girls’ gowns are positioned strategically as I approach. As long as I remain facing him I should be fine.

“Hi,” he says, his voice quiet. His hair looks baby soft. He’s got on his gown too and I wish I had a picture of us together.

“Hey.” I peer at his gown like maybe I can see through it if I stare hard enough. At the very least, I can keep him from staring into
me.

“Good luck,” he says.

“What, are you naked under there?”

“Don’t you wish.”

I blush.

“How are you doing?” he asks after a minute.

“I’m doing okay.” My brain keeps telling me to stop enjoying myself. But it’s hard not to, with him. He’s so damn easy to talk to.

“You look beautiful,” he says.

“I look tired.”

He shakes his head. “You could stay up for weeks and you’d still be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

That makes me want to cry. I back away. I’m feeling unsteady. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I don’t have to say anything.”

“Jesse.”

“I want to tell you something.” He steps up to me slowly. There’s something ritualistic about it, like he’s about to go down on one knee. It seriously gives me the chills.

He lowers his head so his forehead is touching mine. “I meant what I said.”

“Yeah?”

“About loving you.”

I should not have asked. I should not have stopped to talk to him.

“But you still think you have to hide it,” I say. “I guess that’s the story of my life.” It’s not a fair thing to say. Lizzie had reasons for hiding and so does he. But I want him to leave me alone. I need him to.

“That was wrong of me,” he says, and it totally throws off my game. “I was just using that as an excuse.” He touches a piece of my hair, following it down to my chin. “I was scared.”

“Scared?” Behind me, the girls’ bathroom door creaks open. I see Elliot peering out.

“Scared of us,” Jesse says. His fingers linger on my chin. “Scared of you.”

“Of me?” I wave Elliot back inside.

“Of how I feel about you,” he says, searching my gaze. I look down. “Like I said, I’ve had crushes before. But that’s not what this is.”

“So you’re going to tell your friends?” I ask. Then, because I’ve never actually seen them talking in the halls, I add, “The people in the Gay-Straight Alliance.”

“I already did.”

I look up. I didn’t expect that. “What?”

He nods. “I announced it at our final meeting.”

“And that went okay?”

“For the most part, yeah.” He shrugs. “They weren’t thrilled I hadn’t been honest, but they want me to be able to be myself. That
is
what the club’s about, you know?”

“Well, good. I’m glad it worked out for you.”

“I didn’t do it for me. I did it for us. I’d kiss you in front of everyone if you’d let me.”

“I won’t.” It kills me to say it. But it must be worse for him to hear it. For a minute it’s like he forgets how to breathe.

When he remembers, his breath comes out in a rush. “It’s okay if you don’t like me. I can deal with it. Just don’t shut yourself off completely.” His fingers are tangling in my hair. I don’t even think he realizes it.

“What makes you think I am?”

“Open your eyes, Princess. You push all the good shit away until all you can feel is hate. I’m trying to touch you here and you keep backing up because you
know
you’ll feel something.”

“So touch me.”

He does. His arms go around me in that soft way of theirs, but they’re not wings this time. They’re just arms. He’s just a boy. And love isn’t the answer to all my problems because this isn’t a fucking fairy tale.

“I don’t feel anything,” I say, but of course I’m lying. I’m still living. I still have senses. He smells like shampoo and sweat and rain. Most of all he smells like
him:
that indefinable scent he left on my pillow and blanket. His skin is cool but it warms the moment our bodies touch. I can’t stop myself from leaning into him. I can’t stop myself from holding on.

His words drift into my ear. “I do love you,” he says, so softly. “You know that, right? I want to be your friend. But if you go through with whatever you’re planning, I can’t be a part of your life.”

“Your love knows no bounds.”

“It doesn’t,” he says, and his voice sounds so familiar. How did I get so attached to him so quickly? “But I have to love myself first, you know? It’s something that’s taken me a long time to do.”