“I—” Jemma tries, unsuccessfully, to get some more words out.
“You can’t rewrite history to make yourself feel better about what you’ve done,” I say. “I mean, isn’t that what your therapist would tell you?” Now that I’ve jumped over the line from polite to terrifically, terribly honest, I might as well stay there.
Jemma’s eyes go so wide and wild, she looks like a cartoon. She is the Donald Duck version of herself: angry, tongue hanging out, spirals instead of eyeballs, smoke whistling out of her ears. There are some barely disguised giggles.
“I’m not in therapy,” Jemma lies. She may be my personal mean girl, but she’s still pretty low on the Circle Community Day School totem pole. Plus now that’s she’s all tight with Sasha Cotton, it won’t surprise anyone to hear she’s in therapy.
I don’t respond. Like Star said one time, sometimes it’s best to let someone dig their own grave.
I feel absolutely full with new knowledge. It’s like suddenly I can do everything in a completely different way than I would have before, and the stability of the Vermont mountains and cold and my scared self are up for grabs.
My red shoes pinch my toes a little, truth be told, but they are worth it.
“I’m not,” Jemma says again. “I don’t have a therapist.” Her eyes are pooling with tears. “You should be in therapy. For your problems. With guys,” she says. With the eyes of the entire class on her, she’s getting more and more awkward. I sigh and shake my head, since I’ve heard it all before. “You want attention from all of them. People’s brothers. People’s boyfriends. It’s disgusting, what you’re doing with Joe. Like, completely. Awful. In the worst way.”
She said his name.
“Good ole Joe,” Luke says, his smirk back on his face, his eyebrows raised and jiggling when I accidentally look his way. It’s his way of confirming, for everyone else in class, what Jemma’s accusing me of. That I’m hooking up with Joe Donavetti, one half of everyone’s favorite, super-strange couple.
Girls wrinkle their noses. This tall, skinny, almost-pretty girl named Ginger tears up. Literally tears up. My mind rushes, waterfalls, with things to say in response. Denials and defenses and comebacks and distractions.
But before I can choose which one to use, Ms. Gilbert finally comes in, all flustered and red-faced and apologetic.
“I didn’t,” I say to the room. None of them are looking at me anymore. Except Ms. Gilbert, who wrinkles her forehead in confusion. “I mean, I’m not. Doing that. With whoever.”
“Tabitha?” Ms. Gilbert says. I get the feeling, from her tone of voice and the way she’s blushing and watching my classmates, that she knows about my growing reputation. I get the distinct impression that Mrs. Drake has been making the rounds with her thoughts on me, and that the most popular teachers are in on it too now. They have these group meetings to discuss Student Life every week, and I’m suddenly super sure I’ve been on the agenda.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “Rumors.” I gesture to our ethics book. Like, I don’t know, as a defense against them. As if I’m ethically right and want Ms. Gilbert to know it. I sort of give up on the gesture, though, because I don’t think I know whether I’m ethically sound or whatever.
Ms. Gilbert shakes off my awkwardness and starts a heated class discussion on the difference between ethics and morals. Jemma keeps looking at me, like I’m the example of someone with neither.
I make a note in the margin: What about your moral obligation to yourself?
I tap my pen over the note.
Zed would like that. I have to remember to post it onto the site later today.
Ms. Gilbert is saying something conclusive and diplomatic and thought provoking, and I am putting the pen back to the page. I write the Life by Committee address next to my little margin note.
It’s not exactly a safe thing to do, but it feels right.
I smile at the idea of some girl in a few years using my old textbook and needing to discover a new world, the way I needed it. Cycle of life, or something. Sort of beautiful.
Nineteen.
I curl into a couch at Tea Cozy when school is over and watch my parents make awkward paths around each other. They pass off dishes and shout out orders over the rumble of the espresso machine, but otherwise they avoid eye contact and keep at least two feet of distance between their bodies at all times, which is particularly impressive given how narrow the space behind the counter is.
It’s hard not to feel doubt at my decisions, seeing them like that. Knowing that I caused it.
Tiny, tiny seeds of doubt that Zed promises are natural, are part of the process. He’s said so over and over to other members who have struggled. I’ve seen it all over the site.
Growing pains, he calls them.