“You think I did something to them?” I almost yell. “I kissed a lacrosse dude from another school. I wore a V-neck and some eyeliner. I talked about boys a few times. That’s not normally grounds for dismissal! But fine. We’re different. They don’t like me. Okay. But now they’re bringing you into it? Now we’re going to all pretend I’m some troublemaker?” Mrs. Drake is nodding along with my words like she is a neutral party, but her jaw is tight and her eyes are not looking directly at mine.
“So it sounds like you see what I’m saying, about your reputation and the impression you’re putting out there. I’m worried about your decisions. Sometimes when people are lonely, they do things that are out of character. It seems like maybe you have lost a little track of who you are. Does that sound right?”
My jaw literally drops. I wonder if maybe she has gone deaf and heard nothing that I said. I clear my throat really loudly to check, and she responds with an eyebrow raise, so that’s not the problem.
I remember Jemma’s face the night of the dance. And I guess she wasn’t lying. She was actually worried about me. She did want to keep me as a friend. But she wanted to keep some version of Tabitha that didn’t exist anymore.
I even know that it’s Mrs. Drake, not Jemma, who is the worst right now. Jemma legitimately thinks I needed a talking-to with the school guidance counselor, I bet. Jemma probably thinks V-necks and eyeliner are cries for help.
It’s Mrs. Drake who is making me feel like dirt.
“I mean, everyone changes?” I say, as if my ears are not screaming and my eyes are not bulging in disbelief at her response. Mrs. Drake nods, like I’ve just admitted to doing meth or something. I meant to say Mrs. Drake was wrong, not accidentally agree with her.
Mrs. Drake uncrosses her legs and leans forward like she’s ready to get out of her seat and let me out the door.
Which she does.
I spend the next half hour crying in the bathroom. And hating myself for crying. Wiping my face and blowing my nose with toilet paper. Vowing never to speak to Mrs. Drake ever, ever again.
Wishing that, like some of the LBC-ers, I’d thought to press record on my iPhone so I could post the conversation online and watch my new friends tear her apart.
Also, there are a million little details that I couldn’t tell Mrs. Drake, and I am pulsing with the desire to spill them all now. The tiny injustices. The barely visible omens telling me they were starting to hate me. The cracks in the friendship that became a crumble and then an avalanche until there was nothing left.
I log on to LBC when I get home that night, not sure what to write. I don’t want to put down an actual secret, but I want them to know something more about me, something real. I want them to send smiley faces and philosophy quotes and their own anecdotes to make me feel better.
BITTY: My best friend’s brother called me pretty once. She stopped being my friend, like, a month later. All that time I wanted someone to think I was pretty so, so badly. Then it happened, and it ruined everything.
Still. I wouldn’t change it.
That’s probably terrible.
I get goose bumps from the truth of it. The complicated, torn, two-sided truth of how it feels. It’s weird, to write something you didn’t know was true until the words are on the screen and you have pressed send.
Secret:
I hate someone for the first time.
—Roxie
Hey Tabby,
So, that was weird. Today.
Weird good.
Weird hot.
You’re hot.
Crap. What are we doing?
—Joe
Eleven.
I read the email a dozen times, hiding out in Cate’s office. I let the feelings that come with it boil inside me a bit.
He said he wants me. He wrote it down. He pressed send.
I mean, he didn’t say much else, but he said that.
I open up a reply window and watch the cursor blink. It’s like hypnotism or meditation: a half hour passes, and I’ve done nothing but watch the little line on the top of the email pulse, but at least it’s calmed me down a little. I am breathing normally, and the heat in my chest from the phrase “You’re hot” has cooled off a bit.
I type in a few words: Hey You, Hey There, Hi Joe, What ARE we doing? But none of them sound right, so I keep hitting delete. Hitting that stupid button so hard, the pad of my forefinger starts to sting a little.
I think eating might help, so I make cinnamon toast and try to read Cate’s trashy celebrity magazines in the kitchen and avoid the cold stare of the computer. I’m worried what they’ll say about my completed Assignment with Joe, or my little revelation about Jemma’s brother and the fact that I kind of like people thinking I’m pretty, even if my best friends think I’m evil.
Maybe Life by Committee will start hating me too.
For a moment, I focus only on the sound of the heat clicking on and the way silence sounds even lonelier when the sounds of the heater are cutting through it.
No sign of the parents.