Where the Staircase Ends (20 page)

“Okay,” I said. She had a point. You didn’t tell Jenny something unless you wanted everyone to find out. And with the way rumors worked at our school, it would morph and twist into something worse than it really was. By the end of a day people would probably say I’d been in the room watching.
Ugh
. It was better to keep it between the two of us, assuming Logan could keep his fat mouth shut.

We went downstairs, Miss Violet Beauregard yipping excitedly at our heels, and found a very angry Jenny pounding on the locked patio door, the towel from the night before wrapped tightly around her half-naked body. She wore a miserable scowl and there were chair marks on her face.

“Open the Goddamned door!” she shrieked when she saw us come into the kitchen. “Who the hell locked me out here last night? What the crap, people!”

And just like that, everything seemed like it would go back to normal.

* * *

When Sunny didn’t show up to school on Monday, I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t completely unlike her to skip out on classes after a weekend of heavy partying. Plus my mind was on other things, like Justin. That morning he had shown up at my house, his backpack slung over his shoulder and a grin stretched across his face.

“I thought I’d stop by and see if you wanted me to walk you to school,” he said when I answered the door and my mouth dropped open at the sight of him. My hair was dripping wet and my skin clear of any makeup, so I immediately started looking for a rock to crawl under.

“Who’s this?” My mother asked when she saw him standing there with his hands in his pockets. “And why aren’t you inviting him inside?”

“Good morning, Mrs. Anderson,” he said politely, stepping across the threshold as I held the door open for him. “I’m Justin. I hope it’s okay that I stopped by so early.”

My mom raised her eyebrows at me when they shook hands, as if to say “what happened to Logan?” I gave her an “I know where you sleep so don’t you dare embarrass me” look.

“Are you a coffee drinker, Justin? I just made a fresh pot if you’d like some while Taylor finishes getting ready.”

“Thanks, that would be great,” he said as she led him away from my embarrassed makeup-less face. Normally I’d have thrown myself in front of his path to stop the inevitable grilling, but I wanted him to forget the just-out-of-the-shower sight of me as quickly as possible.

When I came back into the kitchen twenty minutes later, Justin was finishing off a plate of eggs and bacon. My mom watched him from behind her newspaper, and it was all I could do to shuffle him out the door before she could say something embarrassing like,
he’s a total Beatle.

We walked the five blocks to school with our fingers intertwined like the teeth of a zipper. I don’t even remember what we talked about. I only remember thinking that life couldn’t get much better.

Most mornings Sunny hung out on the front steps of our high school, sipping her coffee while she waited for me to show up so we could talk about whatever it was we needed to talk about before we had to separate for the day.

“Where’s Sunny?” I asked Jenny and Amber when I saw them chatting with our normal circle sans Sunny. Amber shrugged, flitting her eyes back and forth between me and Justin.

“This is new,” said Jenny, her eyes lingering on our linked hands. “You don’t waste any time, do you Taylor?”

She gave me a hard look, as though I’d done something I should be ashamed of. Normally I would have said something bitchy to put her in her place, but I was too high on Justin to bother. Instead I gave her an eye roll to let her know she sucked, then followed Justin inside.

It was some time after lunch when I started to notice the strange looks people gave me. I would walk by a circle of whispering girls and suddenly they would stop, their eyes resting on me as I passed by them in the hallway. A guy would incline his head in my direction and say something to his friend, who would laugh, shaking his head back and forth like a bobble-head wobbling on someone’s dash. A few times (although it was hard to be sure) I thought I heard my name whispered in the clusters of students that ebbed and flowed along the hallways.

It made me think of something Sunny once said: “You know you’re popular when people care enough to stare.” I’d never really thought about it until that moment, but it gave me satisfaction to think my new relationship (or whatever it was) with Justin was deemed gossip-worthy. Assuming, of course, that Justin and I were what everyone was whispering about.

I was dropping my books off in my locker when Jenny came barreling toward me, her mouth pressed into a thin white line. She looked around to make sure no one else was nearby, then leaned in and whispered, “Is it true? Please tell me it’s not true.”

I closed my locker and looked at her. “Is what true?” I flipped my hair behind my back and turned around to glare at her.

She gave me a meaningful frown and leaned in even closer, so our noses were almost touching.

“Come on, Taylor. It’s
me
. You can tell me.” My face must have looked as blank as my mind felt, because she added, “Tracey Allen saw Sunny at Walgreen’s yesterday. She
knows
, Taylor. She’s been telling people about it all day.”

I blinked back at Jenny a few times, trying to process what she’d just told me. Maybe if someone else had spotted Sunny, they would have felt a little sympathy for the situation she had obviously gotten herself into and kept it to themselves. But not Tracey Allen. No effing way. Not that I could exactly blame her for hating Sunny. Sunny was the originator of Tracey’s many skank-themed nicknames throughout the years, including (but not limited to) Rank Skank, Skank-in-the-box, Skank-enstein, and Skank-zilla. Imagine spotting your high school nemesis buying Plan B the morning after a party. Can you say opp-or-tun-i-ty?

I grabbed Jenny’s shoulder and pulled her down one of the less populated corridors. She squirmed beneath my grasp but I didn’t care. I needed to get her out of earshot.

“How many people know? Who else has Tracey told?” I said in a loud whisper, my heart hammering against my chest.

“So it’s true?” Jenny’s eyes opened wide, which gave me hope. If Jenny wasn’t sure it was true, than everyone else had to have their doubts as well. Maybe there was still time to squash the rumor before it spread too far.

“It doesn’t matter.” Irritation swelled in my voice. How could she be so calm about everything? She worshiped the ground Sunny walked on. She should have focused on helping Sunny rather than wondering whether or not the rumor was true. “Look, you have to help me run recon. Tell people it’s not true. Tell them Tracey made it up. Tell them whatever you need to tell them to stop this thing from spreading. I’ll try to get a hold of Sunny so we can figure out what to do.”

Jenny pulled away from my hands, which were gripping her shoulders so tightly my knuckles turned white. She tipped her head to the side and twirled one of her dark curls around her finger, looking at me like I just ripped one in the middle of the hallway. “Why would you need to talk to Sunny?”

“Um, because she has a right to know?” A bitchy edge entered my voice. Jenny could be a total ditz sometimes, and at that moment I didn’t have the patience to deal with it.

“Sunny already knows.” Jenny said, shifting her notebook from one hand to the other. “And I’m sorry, but it’s not my job to run recon on this.” She gave me a stern look, her finger jabbing in my direction when she spoke. “If you didn’t want people to find out, you shouldn’t have done it. I have to get to class. I’ll talk to you later.”

She turned quickly on her heel, leaving me standing there with my mouth open. What did she mean,
I
shouldn’t have done it? And how would Sunny already know? Did someone else call to tell her? Was that the reason she ditched school?

I picked up my cell phone and frantically dialed Sunny’s number, which went straight to voicemail.

“Sunny, it’s me. You have to call me back. It’s an emergency. Call me as soon as you get this. Please.” Then I added one more “Please,” so she’d get the urgency of the situation. Sunny had a bad habit of only calling people back when she felt up to it. You had to be very clear about the necessity of a situation to get her to call you back on your terms.

I leaned against a row of lockers and let out a long, exasperated breath. Sunny would be devastated when she found out. She was the girl who spread the rumors, not the girl the rumors were about. At least not the bad rumors, like this one. But then again Sunny was a survivor. She would know how to fix it. She always seemed to find a way out of her messes.

After school I made my way toward the water tower as usual, thinking I might be able to reverse some of the damage Tracey had already done by tackling it head-on. I was halfway there when I saw Justin jogging toward me, his dark hair flopping and his blue eyes gleaming in the afternoon sun. He gave me a big smile and waved at me to wait for him.

“Hey Taylor,” he called, “Wait up.”

I stopped walking, holding my hand in front of my eyes to block the glare of the sun so I could take in the long expanse of his body. His jeans were loose and his shirt was snug in all the right places. Warmth crept into my cheeks at the memory of Saturday night, when my head had rested against the perfect curve of his chest.

He slowed down and gave me an awkward wave when he reached me. It was cute, and made me wonder if I made him as nervous as he made me.

“Mark and some people are going down to The Fields to play a game of ball,” he said. “You wanna come? Maybe cheer me on?”

He cocked his head to the side in this hopeful way, and my stomach bloomed with the same nervous/excited feeling I had when we were on the roof together. I didn’t really like baseball, but at that moment I would have followed Justin off a cliff if it meant I could spend a few extra seconds with him. If he needed me to be a baseball fan, then I was going to be the biggest baseball fan Justin Cobb had ever seen.

“Sure, sounds fun.” I said, falling in step with him as we walked toward Mark’s quickly filling Jeep Wrangler. It felt so natural, like that was what we did. Justin and Taylor. Taylor and Justin.
My
Justin.

The Jeep was jammed full, so I had to sit on Justin’s lap. His arms circled my waist to hold me in place, and he nuzzled his face against my neck, the scruff of his five o’clock shadow tickling my skin. Even though I was mashed against the back passenger side door and could barely breathe, I thought it was the most comfortable seat in the car.

I watched the school disappear in the window’s reflection, shrinking back behind me until I couldn’t make the shape of the buildings out anymore. Maybe if I’d gone to the water tower like usual, I would have found out what was really going on and stopped it. Maybe none of this would have happened. But that was the beauty of hindsight, right? Or maybe it was just the way the universe worked; when something new and wonderful entered your life, you had to give up something of equal or greater value in return.

* * *

Sunny never called me back despite the additional voicemails and text messages, and on Tuesday when I arrived at school the front steps were oddly deserted.

“That’s weird,” I said to Justin, who had once again shown up at my house to walk me to school. He shrugged indifferently and pulled me through the front doors. “I’ll meet you in first period,” I added as we walked through the halls with our fingers interlaced. “I’m going to swing by Sunny’s locker to see if I can catch her.”

The hallways were congested with the usual morning mash of students. I shoved through the main hallway on my way to Sunny’s locker, even more self-conscious than I was the day before of the long, lingering looks people were giving me. Everyone gaped, eyes trailing behind me and mouths moving quickly as I passed. It was like I was in the middle of one of those naked dreams where I forgot my clothes and had to walk through the hallways with nothing but my skin to cover me. I waved at a few people from the water-tower crew and a surge of panic swelled inside my chest when they turned their backs to me, furious whispers passing between them as I walked by. What was going on?

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Brandon Blakes stepped in front of me, his hair neatly combed against his head and his books stacked tidily in hands. He was sixteen-going-on-forty in his starched shirt and sweater vest, like he was on his way to a business meeting rather than chemistry class. I really couldn’t blame people for all the names they called him when he dressed like that. Not to mention he was a total brown-nosing, grade-whoring douche.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, his voice wavering as he shifted the stack of books from one arm to the other.

“Not now, Brandon.” I rolled my eyes impatiently at him and craned my neck so that I could scan the crowd behind him for Sunny. He probably wanted to find out what I got on last week’s quiz, but I didn’t have time for his competitive crap right then.

His hand shot out and grabbed my arm. I noticed a sheen of sweat glistening on his upper lip and hairline, making him look even more awkward than usual.

“It’s about what everyone is saying about you.” His eyes flashed a conceding look of desperation. “I just wanted you to know that I know it’s not true.”

I blinked back at him a few times. “What everyone is saying about me?” I leaned against a nearby locker to steady myself.

He studied me for a few moments before realizing I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Oh, Taylor,” he started, his head cocking to the side sympathetically. He pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling, deciding where to begin. Then he let out a low whistle and started to speak.

My heartbeat roared in my ears, churning and gurgling like the Mississippi River. The world swirled around in gray and white blurs, and I was stuck standing still in the center of the colorless whirlpool, trying not to get sucked in. It was all I could do to steady myself against the lockers so I wouldn’t collapse.

Jenny was right, Tracey Allen had seen Sunny at Walgreen’s Sunday. But Sunny didn’t admit to anything. Why would she? Sunny was a survivor. Sunny was quick on her feet, pinning the blame on the first person who popped into her head.