“Come on, Taylor. It’s me. You can tell me.” My face must have looked as blank as my mind felt, because she added, “Tracey Allen saw Sunny at Walgreen’s yesterday. She knows, Taylor. She’s been telling people about it all day.”
I blinked back at Jenny a few times, trying to process what she’d just told me. Maybe if someone else had spotted Sunny, they would have felt a little sympathy for the situation she had obviously gotten herself into and kept it to themselves. But not Tracey Allen. No effing way. Not that I could exactly blame her for hating Sunny. Sunny was the originator of Tracey’s many skank-themed nicknames throughout the years, including (but not limited to) Rank Skank, Skank-in-the-box, Skank-enstein, and Skank-zilla. Imagine spotting your high school nemesis buying Plan B the morning after a party. Can you say opp-or-tun-i-ty?
I grabbed Jenny’s shoulder and pulled her down one of the less populated corridors. She squirmed beneath my grasp but I didn’t care. I needed to get her out of earshot.
“How many people know? Who else has Tracey told?” I said in a loud whisper, my heart hammering against my chest.
“So it’s true?” Jenny’s eyes opened wide, which gave me hope. If Jenny wasn’t sure it was true, than everyone else had to have their doubts as well. Maybe there was still time to squash the rumor before it spread too far.
“It doesn’t matter.” Irritation swelled in my voice. How could she be so calm about everything? She worshiped the ground Sunny walked on. She should have focused on helping Sunny rather than wondering whether or not the rumor was true. “Look, you have to help me run recon. Tell people it’s not true. Tell them Tracey made it up. Tell them whatever you need to tell them to stop this thing from spreading. I’ll try to get a hold of Sunny so we can figure out what to do.”
Jenny pulled away from my hands, which were gripping her shoulders so tightly my knuckles turned white. She tipped her head to the side and twirled one of her dark curls around her finger, looking at me like I just ripped one in the middle of the hallway. “Why would you need to talk to Sunny?”
“Um, because she has a right to know?” A bitchy edge entered my voice. Jenny could be a total ditz sometimes, and at that moment I didn’t have the patience to deal with it.
“Sunny already knows.” Jenny said, shifting her notebook from one hand to the other. “And I’m sorry, but it’s not my job to run recon on this.” She gave me a stern look, her finger jabbing in my direction when she spoke. “If you didn’t want people to find out, you shouldn’t have done it. I have to get to class. I’ll talk to you later.”
She turned quickly on her heel, leaving me standing there with my mouth open. What did she mean, I shouldn’t have done it? And how would Sunny already know? Did someone else call to tell her? Was that the reason she ditched school?
I picked up my cell phone and frantically dialed Sunny’s number, which went straight to voicemail.
“Sunny, it’s me. You have to call me back. It’s an emergency. Call me as soon as you get this. Please.” Then I added one more “Please,” so she’d get the urgency of the situation. Sunny had a bad habit of only calling people back when she felt up to it. You had to be very clear about the necessity of a situation to get her to call you back on your terms.
I leaned against a row of lockers and let out a long, exasperated breath. Sunny would be devastated when she found out. She was the girl who spread the rumors, not the girl the rumors were about. At least not the bad rumors, like this one. But then again Sunny was a survivor. She would know how to fix it. She always seemed to find a way out of her messes.
After school I made my way toward the water tower as usual, thinking I might be able to reverse some of the damage Tracey had already done by tackling it head-on. I was halfway there when I saw Justin jogging toward me, his dark hair flopping and his blue eyes gleaming in the afternoon sun. He gave me a big smile and waved at me to wait for him.
“Hey Taylor,” he called, “Wait up.”
I stopped walking, holding my hand in front of my eyes to block the glare of the sun so I could take in the long expanse of his body. His jeans were loose and his shirt was snug in all the right places. Warmth crept into my cheeks at the memory of Saturday night, when my head had rested against the perfect curve of his chest.
He slowed down and gave me an awkward wave when he reached me. It was cute, and made me wonder if I made him as nervous as he made me.
“Mark and some people are going down to The Fields to play a game of ball,” he said. “You wanna come? Maybe cheer me on?”
He cocked his head to the side in this hopeful way, and my stomach bloomed with the same nervous/excited feeling I had when we were on the roof together. I didn’t really like baseball, but at that moment I would have followed Justin off a cliff if it meant I could spend a few extra seconds with him. If he needed me to be a baseball fan, then I was going to be the biggest baseball fan Justin Cobb had ever seen.
“Sure, sounds fun.” I said, falling in step with him as we walked toward Mark’s quickly filling Jeep Wrangler. It felt so natural, like that was what we did. Justin and Taylor. Taylor and Justin. My Justin.
The Jeep was jammed full, so I had to sit on Justin’s lap. His arms circled my waist to hold me in place, and he nuzzled his face against my neck, the scruff of his five o’clock shadow tickling my skin. Even though I was mashed against the back passenger side door and could barely breathe, I thought it was the most comfortable seat in the car.
I watched the school disappear in the window’s reflection, shrinking back behind me until I couldn’t make the shape of the buildings out anymore. Maybe if I’d gone to the water tower like usual, I would have found out what was really going on and stopped it. Maybe none of this would have happened. But that was the beauty of hindsight, right? Or maybe it was just the way the universe worked; when something new and wonderful entered your life, you had to give up something of equal or greater value in return.
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