Darcy flushed barely pink for a brief second before slipping right back into her normal confident vibe. She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
Darcy said the last while ushering Brynna through the glass double doors of the administration office. Brynna looked around, suddenly anxious, suddenly extremely aware of her surroundings. She took in the burnt-orange, industrial-style carpet that seemed to only exist in high school offices and breathed in the slight smell of pencil shavings and office supplies. Muted music came from one of the desks, something with a cheery, Spanish beat that seemed remarkably out of place among the cubicle walls and office furniture that was all done up in shades of gray. There was a series of trophies and fading pictures of Hawthorne Hornets, going all the way back to the class of 1980. Brynna briefly wondered what happened last year, where those kids were, but immediately forgot about them as she looked away. There were the usual antismoking and antidrug posters that featured sad-looking kids from 1979 posted on either wall, plus a newer-looking antibullying one with cartoon kids ganging up on a single loner.
Brynna snapped back to reality as the double doors snapped shut and Darcy made her way behind the big desk where she pulled out a pink pad of hall passes.
“Hey,” Brynna whispered, so low she wasn’t sure if Darcy could hear her.
Darcy looked up, blond eyebrows rising and disappearing into her bangs. “Hm?”
Brynna looked around again, taking in the two boys sitting outside the principal’s office, one ripping at the bottom of his shorts, one eyeing her with a look she didn’t like. Brynna stepped closer to Darcy.
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
Darcy shrugged, giving her the universal sign for “spill it.”
Brynna paused, and Darcy took a step closer.
“Could you, like, not say anything about my record?” She felt dumb saying it, feeling the heat singe her cheeks. Really, she didn’t care if the group knew about her bad grades, but if they knew she was in therapy—that she had to see a therapist according to the Crescent County District Attorney’s office—she knew the questions would start.
“Why were you doing drugs?”
“What did you talk about in rehab?”
“Why did the police send you there?”
Though she could answer all their questions without mentioning Erica out loud, Erica always came up, always seemed to whisper in her ear. “Tell them, Bryn. Tell them what you did to me. If you weren’t guilty, you wouldn’t have needed to numb yourself…you wouldn’t have needed to get rid of me…again.”
Brynna could almost see the flash of anger in Erica’s eyes then, and it always shot a jolt of ice water through her veins.
She shrank back from mentioning anything about her past at all.
Darcy was silent for a beat, her blue eyes seeming to consider Brynna’s wish, seeming to weigh whether she wanted to side with her.
Finally, “Why? It’s not that big of a deal.”
Brynna felt a momentary flash of relief. “I just…” She fumbled with her hands. “Just want to start fresh and all.”
“Whatever. As an office aide, I’m sworn to secrecy anyway.”
“You are?”
Darcy’s smile was easy. “No. Anyone can be an office aide. I’m pretty sure the only requirements are that you have to be a student here and you have to know all the letters from A to Z. In order. Don’t worry though”—she patted Brynna’s shoulder—“your secret is safe with me.”
Brynna offered her a small smile.
Darcy wrote out the pass, and Mrs. Nunez, the head secretary, initialed it and handed it back. Darcy held it out to Brynna.
“You know where the locker room is, right?”
Brynna took the pass and tucked it in her back pocket. She nodded, her eyes never leaving Darcy’s. Darcy smiled as Brynna left the office, but Brynna wasn’t so sure the smile was kind.
There was no one in the locker room when Brynna stepped in. Its cinder-block walls were long and colorless, lending an air of inescapability to the place. There were windows every few feet, long, narrow rectangles placed high enough up the wall that any light they brought in dissipated far above the girls’ heads. The fluorescent overhead lights constantly buzzed, and the yellow light they offered seemed only to accentuate the overall gray.