A tittering chatter was reverberating through the Hawthorne High students when Brynna stepped on campus the following morning. Immediately, unease pricked out all over her, and she shrank back into her hoodie. The weather had made a quick shift from mostly blue to all gray over the last night, and the manic shift caught half the students still hanging on to cut-off shorts and tank tops, while the other half cuddled into chunky sweaters and knee-high boots.
Brynna liked the fall. She relished the gray, the constant spit of moisture in the air. Nobody thought of the ocean in the fall. It was all toasty cocoa and holiday shopping, and Brynna could blend in with it all. She started down the hall, her heart thundering with every step. It had already been a week. Why did people still care? How much did people know? People were shifting, turning to look at her, and Brynna was vaulted back to those first days, returning to Lincoln without Erica.
Everyone is blaming me, everyone is judging me.
Her ears strained, listening to the familiar refrains “total druggie,” “overdosed,” “suicidal,” “crazy,” and Brynna tried to steel herself against it. When she saw Lauren cutting through the crowd, a lightness went through her. Lauren knew what happened; Lauren didn’t judge her. Lauren was her friend.
She stopped in front of Brynna, her dark eyes glazed in fury. “I can’t believe you.”
A crowd of students chattering around them went immediately silent, all eyes turning toward Lauren and Brynna.
Brynna blinked, genuinely shocked. “What are you talking about?”
Lauren’s eyes narrowed to dagger-thin slits, and every inch of her oozed hate. “How could you do that to my brother?”
Her voice cracked on the last word and something peaked in Brynna. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with Evan? Is he okay?”
Lauren rolled her eyes and huffed at Brynna.
Darcy walked up alongside, and Brynna turned to her, her eyes imploring. “Darcy, please tell me what is going on. I have no idea. What’s wrong with Evan?”
A sputter of laughter came from down the hall then the unmistakable sound of a body crashing against metal as someone was shoved up against a locker. Brynna craned her neck to see. “What’s going on?”
“Fag!” The word cut down the hall and cut Brynna in two. It was Meatball—the letter-jacketed thug that Brynna had met her first day of school—and his gang, and they were striding forward, cutting through the kids, yanking the papers that were taped to the fronts of nearly every locker.
“What are those?”
She could see the hard press of Lauren’s jaw as she gritted her teeth. Her eyes were beginning to water, tears building up on her lower lashes. Darcy leaned over and carefully removed one of the full-color flyers, handing it to Brynna. She held on to the edge, shooting a look of pure disgust at her.
“Oh my god,” Brynna breathed. “Who did this?”
It was a mock-up of a magazine cover, and someone had photoshopped Evan’s face onto the body on the cover. He was surrounded by meaty men in underwear looking up longingly at him, pawing across his chest. The title of the magazine was written in with a thick black marker: Today’s Gay. There was a fat black arrow pointing to Evan, and a myriad of horrible slogans written around him.
“This is awful. Who would do this? Who did this?”
The last thing Brynna remembered was looking from Lauren to Darcy, whose eyes were wide, blank orbs, before she felt Lauren’s hands on her collarbones. Her balance was thrown off as Lauren lunged, and Brynna stumbled over her own feet, her leg crumpling as she fell to the ground. Her elbow struck first and then her hip as she gripped Lauren’s fingers, trying to rip them from her shirt.
“You told the whole fucking school he was gay! He trusted you!”
Lauren was yelling and huffing, and Brynna was trying to process the spiderweb of pain shattering her elbow, Lauren’s fingers digging into her flesh, the throb of students chanting “fight, fight, fight!” around them.
“I didn’t say anything. I didn’t do that,” Brynna tried to manage, tried to roll Lauren from her, but the girl was bigger and her thighs were clamped hard around Brynna’s waist. She winced when she felt Lauren’s nails dragging across her face.
Someone stepped on her hair.
The chant had gone from a throbbing, single-voiced rhythm to screeches and yells.
“What the heck is going on here?”
And then it was over.
Brynna was still lying on the linoleum floor, breathing hard, when Mr. Fallbrook yanked Lauren off her. The surrounding students scattered like roaches in light. The only two faces that remained, looking down at her with a combination of pity and hate, were Darcy and Teddy’s.
“Where’s Evan?” Brynna winced at the fresh blood that flooded her mouth from a cut lip but climbed to her feet anyway.