“I was joking around with you, you huge nong, because I thought you were cute!”
What? All the anger suddenly melts away, leaving nothing but confusion in its place. Wait. Hold up. I had one of my trademark stupid retorts ready, but now all thoughts disappear, and I just stand there, gaping at her stupidly.
“Did you just call me a nong?”
She shrugs. “My cousins in Australia say that a lot. I like it.”
We’re quiet for a while, both suddenly very interested in our shoes.
“So…” I mumble.
Stacey sighs. “You don’t have to be so awkward about it. I’m not expecting you to like me back or whatever. I know you’re straight. I’m used to having unrequited crushes. And anyway, I’m pretty much over it.”
“Right. Sorry, you just—I mean, I wasn’t expecting—what I’m trying to say is…” Stacey watches me warily. “You’re really bad at flirting.”
Stacey’s eyes go wide, and then we both start laughing like crazy. It’s as though a huge weight has suddenly been lifted, and I don’t even try to stop my laughter. It’s a shrill, brittle laugh, teetering on the edge of sobs, but for now, it feels good.
“I really am,” she cries, in between laughter.
“And you kept smirking at me at like, the worst times!”
“Those are supposed to be supportive smiles, like ‘hey, you got this, it’s going to be okay’ smiles!”
By this time, I’m laughing so hard, I double over and end up falling over onto the grass. Stacey slumps down beside me and buries her face in her hands. Slowly, our laughter dissipates, leaving us spent on the grass. I take a few deep gulps of air. For the first time in days, I feel like I can actually breathe.
“God, why am I so bad at it?” she moans.
I turn my head and crook a small smile at her. “To be fair, I’m half to blame for interpreting everything you did in the worst possible way.”
“Oh yeah, totally. I mean, you know how horrible you were? I’d smile at you, and you’d just give me this bitch face and look away, like jeez, woman, sorry for trying to be nice.” She rolls her eyes at me, and we both laugh again. “I even warned you about taking Mandy’s place on varsity.”
“What?” I sit up and stare at her. “I thought you were threatening me!”
Stacey raises her eyebrows. “If I were threatening you, I’d be like, ‘Don’t take Mandy’s place, or ELSE.’” She pauses. “I guess I did sort of say that, huh?”
We both cackle crazily once more.
“I don’t know why Mandy has such a hard-on for varsity—it’s not like she needs a track scholarship to go to college,” I say when we’ve calmed down a little.
“Her two older sisters attended Draycott before she did, and they were both on varsity. Won a crap ton of medals. Her parents put a lot of pressure on her to compete as well.”
I make a face.
“I’m not telling you so you feel bad for Mandy. I’m just saying that’s why she’s so desperate to stay on varsity.”
“How do you know all that stuff about her family?”
Stacey shrugs. “We used to be close. Then I came out to her, and things got really awkward. She tried to be tolerant or whatever, but it was never the same after that.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.” And I am. I’m also slightly ashamed of myself. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own problems that I never once thought that Stacey could be going through something like this. I’d just assumed that everyone else was cruising through, having the time of their lives.
“Meh. Anyway, I overheard her telling Elle that you’re in Mr. Werner’s class. Mandy was all happy about it because it meant she could get you kicked out of varsity. I wasn’t sure what she meant, and then I heard the news about you being off varsity ’cause you’d failed a class, so I hacked into Mr. Werner’s computer and looked up his test questions.”
“You what now?”
“I’m a computer genius, what can I say?”
“Holy shit. How did you hack into his computer?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Don’t be a snob. Pretend I’m not entirely stupid and tell me.”
Stacey laughs. “I am a snob, aren’t I? Okay. I used a keylogger and got his user ID and password that way. Once I got those, I could log on to his computer and all his teaching records. I could even access his local drive.”
“You used a keylogger? Like, one of those USB drive thingies? How did you keep him from finding it?”
“Dude.” Stacey rolls her eyes at me. “Not a physical keylogger. What is this, the nineties? I sent a virus to his computer. The virus automatically gathers all of his data and sends it back to me.”
“Ah. I see.” And then suddenly, I do see. And shit, it’s bad. It’s really, really bad. Because Mr. Werner is dead, killed, and the cops will find him, and they’ll probably check Mr. Werner’s belongings, which means they’ll check his computer, and if they find the virus and trace it back to Stacey, she might end up as a suspect. I may have cleaned up all evidence pointing to me and tied up my loose ends, but Stacey may end up going to prison for a crime she didn’t commit.
Chapter 18
I can’t let Stacey take the fall for something I did, especially not now that I’ve found out how badass she is. Just to clarify, I wouldn’t let her take the fall even if she were a basic bitch, but the fact that she’s cool somehow makes it that little bit worse.
We walk back to Mather together. Stacey is going to show me how her virus works, but as we walk down the hallway, Beth pops her head out of her room and grins when she sees me.
“Where’ve you been? Why haven’t you answered our texts? Oh, hey, Stace.”
“Uh.” I check my phone. Sure enough, I have about half a dozen unread texts, all from Beth and Sam. “Sorry, I forgot to turn off silent mode.”
“Come on, we’re going out,” Beth says. She opens her door to reveal that she’s all dressed up—skinny jeans, an off-shoulder top, sunglasses, and a large Louis Vuitton carry-on bag.
“I’m not really in the mood,” I say. The last thing I want to do now is go out and pretend to have fun.
Beth sighs. “Nobody is in the mood, especially after what happened to Sophie. We need this, okay? We deserve a break from all the bad vibes here.”
I’m about to reject her again when I realize it’ll make me look really suspicious. I’ve been saying yes to everything, going along with all of Beth’s crazy escapades, and if I were to suddenly sit one out the day after Mr. Werner died, it’s going to look really bad. I take a deep breath, feeling exhausted, and nod.
Beth claps and goes, “Yay!”
“I’ll leave you guys to it,” Stacey says.
“No,” I say. “Stay.”
There’s a weird pause, all charged, like all of us are surprised by what I’ve just said. Which I guess we all are. But as soon as I said it, I realize I mean it.
Beth shrugs. “Come,” she says to Stacey. “We’ve got plenty of space on the jet.”
“Yeah, they’ve got plenty of space—what?” I blink. “Did you say the jet? Is that like a new way of saying car?”
It is not. Less than an hour later, I’m clutching an overnight bag on the tarmac, staring up at a small airplane.