TJ looks at me with regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry this sucks so bad for you. For what it’s worth, I think Jake’s being a jerk. But I didn’t tell anybody.” He puts a hand over his heart. “Swear on my granddad’s grave. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you but it does to me.” I finally nod, and he lets out a deep breath. “Where are you going?”
“Home. I can’t stand being here. All my friends hate me.” I’m not sure why I’m telling him this, other than the fact that I don’t have anyone else to tell. “I doubt they’ll even let me sit with them now that Jake’s back.” It’s true. Cooper’s out today, visiting his sick grandmother and probably, although he didn’t say so, meeting with his lawyer. With him gone nobody will dare stand up to Jake’s anger. Or want to.
“Screw them.” TJ gives me a lopsided grin. “If they’re still being assholes tomorrow, come sit with me. They wanna talk, let’s give them something to talk about.”
It shouldn’t make me smile, but it almost does.
Chapter Twelve
Bronwyn
Thursday, October 4, 12:20 p.m.
I got lulled into a false sense of complacency.
It happens, I guess, even during the worst week of your life. Horrible, earth-shattering stuff piles on top of you until you’re about to suffocate and then—it stops. And nothing else happens, so you start to relax and think you’re in the clear.
That’s a rookie mistake that smacks me in the face Thursday during lunch when the usual low-grade cafeteria buzz suddenly grows and swells. At first I look around, interested, like anyone would be, and wondering why everyone’s suddenly pulled out their phones. But before I can take mine out, I notice the heads swiveling in my direction.
“Oh.” Maeve is quicker than me, and her soft exhalation as she scans her phone is loaded with so much regret that my heart sinks. She catches her bottom lip between her teeth and wrinkles her forehead. “Bronwyn. It’s, um, another Tumblr. About … well. Here.”
I take her phone, heart pounding, and read the exact same words Detective Mendoza showed me on Sunday after Simon’s funeral. First time this app has ever featured good-girl BR, possessor of school’s most perfect academic record …
It’s all there. Simon’s unpublished entries for each of us, with an added note at the bottom:
Did you think I was joking about killing Simon? Read it and weep, kids. Everyone in detention with Simon last week had an extraspecial reason for wanting him gone. Exhibit A: the posts above, which he was about to publish on About That.
Now here’s your assignment: connect the dots. Is everybody in it together, or is somebody pulling strings? Who’s the puppet master and who’s the puppet?
I’ll give you a hint to get you started: everyone’s lying.
GO!
I raise my eyes and lock on Maeve’s. She knows the truth, all of it, but I haven’t told Yumiko or Kate. Because I thought maybe this could stay contained, quiet, while the police ran their investigation in the background and then closed it out from lack of evidence.
I’m pathetically na?ve. Obviously.
“Bronwyn?” I can barely hear Yumiko over the roaring in my ears. “Is this for real?”
“Fuck this Tumblr bullshit.” I’d be startled at Maeve’s language if I hadn’t vaulted over my surprise threshold two minutes ago. “I bet I could hack that stupid thing and figure out who’s behind it.”
“Maeve, no!” My voice is so loud. I lower it and switch to Spanish. “No lo hagas … No queremos …”
I force myself to stop talking as Kate and Yumiko keep staring at me. You can’t. We don’t want. That should be enough, for now.
But Maeve won’t shut up. “I don’t care,” she says furiously. “You might, but I—”
Saved by the loudspeaker. Sort of. Déjà vu seizes me as a disembodied voice floats through the room: “Attention, please. Would Cooper Clay, Nate Macauley, Adelaide Prentiss, and Bronwyn Rojas please report to the main office. Cooper Clay, Nate Macauley, Adelaide Prentiss, and Bronwyn Rojas to the main office.”
I don’t remember getting to my feet, but I must have, because here I am, moving. Shuffling like a zombie past the stares and whispers, weaving through tables until I get to the cafeteria exit. Down the hallway, past homecoming posters that are three weeks old now. Our planning committee is slacking, which would inspire more disdain if I weren’t on it.
When I get to the main office, the receptionist gestures toward the conference room with the weary wave of someone who thinks I should know the drill by now. I’m the last to arrive—at least, I think I am, unless Bayview Police or school committee members are joining us. “Close the door, Bronwyn,” Principal Gupta says. I comply and sidle past her to take a seat between Nate and Addy, across from Cooper.
Principal Gupta steeples her fingers under her chin. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why you’re here. We’ve been keeping an eye on that repulsive Tumblr site and got today’s update as soon as you did. At the same time, we’ve had a request from the Bayview Police Department to make the student body available for interviews starting tomorrow. My understanding, based on conversations with police, is that today’s Tumblr is an accurate reflection of posts Simon wrote before he died. I realize most of you now have legal representation, which of course the school respects. But this is a safe space. If there’s anything you’d like to tell me that might help the school better understand the pressures you were facing, now is the time.”
I stare at her as my knees start to tremble. Is she for real? Now is most definitely not the time. Still, I feel this almost irresistible urge to answer her, to explain myself, until a hand under the table grasps mine. Nate doesn’t look at me, but his fingers thread through mine, warm and strong, resting against my shaking leg. He’s in his Guinness T-shirt again, and the material stretches thin and soft across his shoulders, as though it’s been through hundreds of washes. I glance at him and he gives a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
“Ah got nothin’ more to say than what ah told ya last week,” Cooper drawls.
“Me either,” Addy says quickly. Her eyes are red-rimmed and she looks exhausted, her pixie features pinched. She’s so pale, I notice the light dusting of freckles across her nose for the first time. Or maybe she’s just not wearing makeup. I think with a stab of sympathy that she’s been the hardest hit of anyone so far.
“I hardly think—” Principal Gupta begins, when the door opens and the receptionist sticks her head in.
“Bayview Police on line one,” she says, and Principal Gupta gets to her feet.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
She closes the door behind her and the four of us sit in strained silence, listening to the hum of the air conditioner. It’s the first time we’ve all been in one room together since Officer Budapest questioned us last week. I almost laugh when I remember how clueless we were then, arguing about unfair detentions and junior prom court.
Although to be fair, that was mostly me.
Nate lets go of my hand and tips his chair back, surveying the room. “Well. This is awkward.”
“Are you guys all right?” My words come out in a rush, surprising me. I’m not sure what I intended to say, but that wasn’t it. “This is unreal. That they—suspect us.”
“It was an accident,” Addy says immediately. Not like she’s positive, though. More like she’s testing a theory.
Cooper slides his eyes over to Nate. “Weird kind of accident. How does peanut oil get in a cup all by itself?”
“Maybe someone came into the room at some point and we didn’t notice,” I say, and Nate rolls his eyes at me. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but—you have to consider everything, right? It’s not impossible.”
“Lots of people hated Simon,” Addy says. From the hard set of her jaw, she’s one of them. “He ruined plenty of lives. You guys remember Aiden Wu? In our class, transferred sophomore year?” I’m the only one who nods, so Addy turns her gaze on me. “My sister knows his sister from college. Aiden didn’t transfer for the hell of it. He had a breakdown after Simon posted about his cross-dressing.”
“Seriously?” Nate asks. Cooper runs a hand back and forth over his hair.