“Whatever. There’s nothing you can do about it now.” One last twirl and she wrenched her hand free, turned around, and stomped off to class.
“Laur. Lauren. Wait!” But she didn’t wait and the late bell rang. I hurried to my locker, grabbed my books, and attempted to slam the door, but a notebook was in the way. My locker mirror slipped out and clattered on the floor. I kicked the notebook in and the door shut. Shoved the mirror inside the cover of a textbook, too overwhelmed and late to reopen my lock. Then I scrambled to French class feeling like I’d had a serving of battery acid and betrayal for breakfast.
During calc I tried to get Gyver’s attention, finally poking him with my eraser when he refused to notice my waving pencil or the note I dropped on his desk. He gave me an expressionless nod, then turned back to his problem set with the note unread. Frowning, I opened my calc book and my mirror was lying there. It hadn’t broken—it was safety plastic, not glass—but the bottom corner was chipped. What punishment did that earn me: seven days of bad luck, seven minutes?
Gyver would be annoyed if he knew my thoughts, and I wished he’d scold me … because to do so, he’d have to acknowledge me. I spent the rest of the period trying to catch his eye and apologize, but he didn’t look at me once. When he left class without a good-bye, I glanced from his empty desk to the discarded note to my chipped mirror and felt lost.
Lauren hadn’t gotten over it by lunch. And I’d apologized. Three times.
“Stop sulking, Lauren, it makes you look five. She said she was sorry, what do you want, blood?” Hil sipped her Diet Coke and rolled her eyes. She was hyper today, even a little bubbly, like a caffeinated Ally clone. It made me nervous.
Even if I hadn’t decided the Big Reveal needed to wait until after Lauren removed the big stick from her butt, I’d still be uneasy around a Hil who greeted me with a hug and babbled, “Your hair looks cute. What’d you do different? We missed you at Lauren’s and Bill’s this weekend—you’re turning into quite the nerdling homebody. I was telling Ryan on Saturday that we may need to do an intervention.” She slipped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into another hug.
Ally choked on a bite of apple and studied the table. I selfconsciously touched my wig. Lauren gasped and practically stood up. “Are you kidding me, Hil? I don’t believe you! Like you can talk—have you told your best friend what you tried to do with her boyfriend Saturday night?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” My answer was automatic, but then I paused and processed the words, pulling away from Hil to ask, “Wait. What?”
Ally packed her lunch away and looked like she wanted to crawl under the table. Lauren’s face was blotchy-mad again. Hil’s was blank. The same blank it’d been right after her parents’ divorce and Keith’s breakup. “Nothing happened. Don’t worry. Lauren’s just pissy and trying to make us fight too.”
“Nothing happened, but only because he rejected your ass,” Lauren spat back.
I didn’t need to hear any more. I shoved my uneaten lunch in my bag and stood, crossing the cafeteria with my head held high but legs that felt like they might collapse.
“Hey, you.” Ryan gave me a questioning look when I sat down next to him.
“Hil,” I muttered.
He nodded and opened his mouth to say something else, but looked at Chris and changed his mind. He bumped my knee with his. “We’ll talk later.”
I gave him a sincere smile, then turned to the rest of the table with a cheerleading grin. “You guys don’t mind if I crash your table, right?”
Lauren apologized via text while I was in English and I replied with my own Really sorry. Neither of us mentioned leukemia, Hil, or telling.
But we weren’t fine yet. I had to go to her locker at the end of the day for a hug. In all of our previous fights, she’d waited at mine.
The hug was brief, like she might break me or catch cancer.
“Ryan told me about your hair. It looks good. Can’t tell.” These words were an afterthought, as she walked away, throwing a “See you at practice” back in my direction.
I had no intention of attending practice, but she didn’t wait long enough to hear my answer. Things were in flux. I’d known that all my absences, lies, and limitations would change our group dynamics, but I’d never stopped to consider how. My spot in the high school pyramid was slipping. I was losing traction and Lauren was gaining it. I should care—I should be storming down to the gym and confronting Hil, getting an apology from her and a pledge to throw me another party from Lauren. Resetting the power balance and reestablishing my place. But I didn’t.
I was supposed to be in the treatment stage when I’d feel my best—enough postchemo that I wasn’t vomiting. But I didn’t feel fine. I wanted each day to end so I could go back to bed.