“I kissed Joe Donavetti,” I say.
It’s not graceful. My voice cracks like I’m a twelve-year-old boy, and a drop of sweat falls from my chin to the mic, making a terrible plop that echoes in the silence. I exhale hard and try to gain control over my shaking muscles. The ones in my thighs are especially bad, trembling with such intensity I can barely stand. I am not hiding it well, that much is for sure. When I look down to gather the courage to keep going, I get a glimpse of what they are seeing: earthquakes erupting in my legs and causing aftershock tremors all the way up my torso. These are no small shakes; I am swaying from the intensity.
“Uh, Tabitha, I think maybe—” Headmaster Brownser breaks in after way too much time has passed. I shake my head and wave him away with my hand.
“I have to do this,” I say. “I kissed Joe. A bunch of times. Knowing he was with Sasha. So, yeah, some of you were sort of right. Not that I’m slutty, or whatever. But about some of who I am. Some of the things I do. They’re not great.”
Mrs. Drake clears her throat from across the room, and I’m not sure if it’s directed at me or at the now-paralyzed headmaster. “And! My dad is a huge stoner. Smokes a ton of pot. He’s trying to stop, but it might not work. He smokes at work. At Tea Cozy. He’s high when he’s making your coffee,” I say.
More teachers are moving in on me, but they’re coming at me slow, the way you see in the movies when there’s a kidnapper with a gun and everyone’s being careful not to upset the crazy person. Mrs. Drake leads the crowd with her long, awkward, slow strides and a fake-sympathetic look on her face.
“Jemma and Alison hate me now, but I still miss them. I miss Jemma. Even knowing what she thinks of me, I still wish she’d be my friend. I want her to like me. So, Jemma, you won. I’m hurt. I’m not okay with it.” I clear my throat, because now that I’ve cleared the way with the big LBC secrets, now that I’m somehow free, I want to finish the job. “I hate my unborn sister,” I say. “Or I’m jealous of her. But you know, working on it.”
Headmaster Brownser isn’t letting anyone get close to me onstage. Sort of like I’m a sleepwalker who it would be dangerous to wake up. And I guess that’s right. It would be dangerous to stop me now, in the middle of this dream.
“Um, I am falling for Jemma Benson’s brother. I’m a virgin. I know you all think I’m a slut. I consider dressing differently, but then I don’t. I hate-love my boobs. I was in love with Joe for no reason at all other than it felt really, really fucking good to be in love with someone. I was a bitch to my only friend. I read other people’s margin notes in used books. I trusted a total stranger with my life. I’m not sure yet if I regret it. I do terrible and weird things and I’m scared I’m the only one. But maybe, I don’t know, maybe someone else is screwed up, like me. Maybe.”
Then I remember to breathe. On instinct, my hand rushes to the place below my bra and between my ribs where I have been holding all these unsaid things. I want to put them back in, because when I can’t hear my own words thundering in my head and when I’m no longer lost in the adrenaline of secret spilling, I’m here. I’m some exposed girl in a weird gold dress who talks too fast and says too much and who no one really likes but now everyone really knows.
There are giggles and whispers and uncomfortable coughing and the same squeaking of chairs that haunts every single Thursday assembly. I take a step back, like somehow getting away from the edge of the stage will help anything. And just as Mrs. Drake reaches the ramp to finally get onto the stage and, presumably, carry me off in a straitjacket, Headmaster Brownser at long last does something.
“Hey,” he says. I think it’s to me, so I turn my face toward where he’s standing and start to apologize, but he’s looking at Mrs. Drake and her slow-walking cronies. “Hey. It’s okay. That’s okay. Let her breathe.” Mrs. Drake pouts and her eyebrows dance all over her face in confusion, but she freezes just as she’s ordered. “Very brave,” Headmaster Brownser says, so quiet it could just be for me, but the auditorium has fallen into utter silence, so I’m pretty sure everyone can hear his pronouncement. It feels that final, like if our wise old headmaster with his half-bald head and his sagging wrinkles and still-bright blue eyes says I am brave, then he must be right, even if right now it feels wrong.
I try it on for size: I am brave.
“Quite the speech, Tabitha,” he says, and puts a slender but strong hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for that. I think we all needed that.” He and I stand there, then. Together in front of everyone.