Juliana shrugged. “Carly said we could ride with one of her friends.”
“I’m not getting into a car with some senior I don’t know,” Jen said. “People get busted at the bluff all the time. My stepdad is a freaking cop.”
“It’ll be fine,” Juliana said. “Why do you have a problem with everything lately?”
Jen’s throat sealed up. Susan’s eyes were on her sneaker, retying her laces, even though they’d been done tightly a minute ago.
Juliana stood, the bleacher groaning beneath them. “I have to pee.”
When she was gone, Susan leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “I don’t get what’s happening.”
“She’s changed.” Jen fought off the sting of tears.
“Don’t you see?” Susan said. “We’re all changing.”
Jen’s lips parted, but the sound of something slamming against a locker made her clamp her mouth shut. Next to Jen, Susan jumped like a skittish cat. There was the sickening crack of a slap, followed by a yelp: “Bitch, get off of me!”
Some girl was getting her ass kicked.
Jen hopped over the bench and ran toward the shouting, never looking over her shoulder to see if Susan was following. She skidded to a stop by the lockers outside the athletic office.
Carly Amato had Allie by a fistful of her hair. Jen threw herself between them, yanking Carly off of Allie. In the fray, one of the girls’ elbows smashed into Jen’s jaw.
Jen ducked back, her eyes watering at the pain. Allie lunged at Carly, landing both hands on her shoulders and shoving her. There was a sickening crack as Carly fell backward, her blond head bouncing off the locker like a rubber ball.
Behind Jen, Susan’s voice was breathless, warbly. “Should we call someone?”
Allie turned to look at the girls, as if finally noticing that she and Carly weren’t alone. The adrenaline pumping through Jen’s veins slowed. She felt like she might puke. Jen rounded on Carly, who was slumped against a locker, massaging her jaw. A dribble of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth.
“What is wrong with you?” Jen shouted.
Carly jerked her head toward their coach and winced in pain. “She came after me.”
Every pair of eyes in the room swiveled to Allie. Up close, Jen could see that Allie had fared far better in the fight. Her ponytail had come undone, and the skin on her forehead was red from where Carly had pulled her hair, but there wasn’t a scratch or a gouge on her.
Allie’s labored breathing filled the silence, making it clear she wasn’t going to deny Carly’s accusation. Instead, she opened her clenched fist, revealing something that glinted in the light. A silver hoop earring. Allie threw it at Carly; it bounced off her chest and skittered across the locker room floor.
Jen stepped back, nearly stepping into Susan, as Allie pushed her way past them. The locker room door slammed, making Jen flinch so hard that her arm, as if on instinct, shot up to protect her face.
The room was silent as Carly picked herself off the floor. Licked the bloody drool from the corner of her mouth.
Before Jen could say anything, before any of them could part to get out of her way, Carly stormed off, in the opposite direction of where Allie had just left.
* * *
—
Sleep eluded Jen that night. She drifted off after midnight, only to wake a few hours later in a cold sweat. Jen touched her throat; for a moment she thought she was in the locker room, and Carly Amato had her hands around her neck, squeezing—
Jen tried to swallow. Her head was cottony and it felt like there were razor blades in her throat. She stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom she shared with her sister. One word broke through the haze in her head: sick.
She couldn’t be sick. Not today.
Jen blinked against the lights above the vanity mirror and opened her mouth wide. The back of her throat looked like raw meat.
The pep rally was after first period, only a few hours from now. Jen was a base; without her, Allie would have to rearrange the pyramid. An image fought through the pounding in her head. Allie, storming out of the locker room. Carly Amato sprawled on the floor, blood leaking from her mouth. There was the ghost of pain at Jen’s jaw from where one of them had rammed her with an elbow.
Jen fumbled through the contents of the vanity cabinet until she found a box of cold medicine. She popped a horse-sized pill out of the foil. Her body struggled against swallowing it.
Her mother was shaking her awake. Jen rolled over, the back of her neck and pillow slick with sweat. She didn’t remember coming back to her bed or falling asleep.
“You’re burning up,” her mother said. Jen opened her mouth to speak; her throat was gummy.
“The pep rally,” she forced out.
“Sweetheart, you’re not cheering today. I’m calling Dr. Ramdeen.”
Jen felt the fight leave her body. She drifted into a hazy sleep, groaning when her mother flipped the light on, gently coaxing her to get up.
She wore her pajamas to the doctor. Dr. Ramdeen’s hands were cool around Jen’s throat as she massaged her swollen lymph nodes.
Dr. Ramdeen stripped her gloves off and deposited them into the waste bin. “I’ll send the cultures to the lab, but it looks like strep.”
“How long,” Jen croaked, “until it goes away?”
“Homecoming is tomorrow,” her mother said from the chair in the corner of the room. “She’s on the cheerleading squad.”
Dr. Ramdeen squeezed Jen’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, love. You’re contagious, and in no shape to fly.”
I’m a base, Jen wanted to say. I can perform. I don’t need to shout the cheers—
As if sensing mutiny, Jen’s mother stood. “How long until the antibiotics are ready?”
“I’ll send the prescription in right now.” Dr. Ramdeen gave Jen’s shoulder another squeeze. She paused, seeing the devastation in Jen’s eyes. “There will be other homecomings.”
The sting of tears followed Jen to the car. After she’d buckled herself in, her mother reached over and tucked a lock of hair behind Jen’s ear. “Honey. It’s just a football game.”
“And the pep rally and the dance.”
She could sense her mother’s patience eroding. “Jennifer. You’re very sick, and contagious. Do you want to give Susan and Juliana strep?”
The sleepover at Susan’s house. Jen had forgotten; the Berrys were in Vermont for a wedding, and Jen and Jules were staying with Susan tonight after float building.
Now Juliana would be staying alone with Susan tonight. Jen should have felt sick at the thought of her friends hanging out without her. What would they say?
Instead, Jen felt a bubble of relief.
The pep rally would be over by now. Jen’s phone had blown up with texts while she was in Dr. Ramdeen’s office. Several of them were from Juliana.
Jen tapped out a reply:
There was the threat of tears again. Jen was so sick of crying, of fighting with her friends, of dancing around all of Juliana’s lies.
The little ellipsis that signaled Jules was typing appeared and disappeared. Jen thought she wouldn’t respond at all, until:
Seconds after she fired the message off, Jen started typing again, blinking away the spots of anger in her eyes. The dam had finally broken.
Adrenaline pumped through Jen’s veins. When she saw that Juliana was typing, it felt like an ice cube sliding down into her gut. She expected Jules to shoot something equally nasty back. Maybe an accusation that Jen was stalking her and Carly.
She never saw Juliana’s response coming.
The car blipped. Jen jolted; her mother climbed into the driver’s seat, holding a paper bag from the pharmacy. Jen flipped her phone over and rested it on her lap.
Even after she settled in at home, swallowing the antibiotic with a glass of Powerade, at her mother’s insistence, Jen didn’t text Juliana back. She had no intention of staying up until Juliana got home from float building. If Jules really wanted to talk, she could come to her.