Ava pressed her pencil nub into her paper. “I’m just trying to help. Too much stress can make you sick.”
Leslie moved closer to Ava in one swift movement. Ava could smell the fermented grapes on her breath. “I rush around to make things perfect because they are so imperfect. And I’m talking about you, first and foremost.” She waved her hand at Ava. “You dress like a whore.” She gestured at Ava’s skinny jeans and, yes, maybe slightly revealing top. “No wonder no one respects you. What were you really doing in that teacher’s house before you killed him, getting him off?”
Ava shot to her feet. First, she hated that Leslie knew about the rumor Nolan had passed around about Ava trading sex favors with teachers for As. She also hated that the cops had included Leslie in the conversation they’d had with her father about why she was under suspicion for killing Granger. “I didn’t touch him!” she protested.
Leslie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
Ava couldn’t believe it. Nor could she take this another second. She slammed her textbook closed, grabbed her notebook and pencil, and ran upstairs, where she threw herself onto her bed and pounded the Persian silk bedcover with her fists. It had been a gift from her parents after their last trip to Iran, not long before her mother died.
Ava missed her mom. And she couldn’t stand living under the same roof as this woman. Why did she hate Ava so much? Was she jealous?
Downstairs, she heard the muffled sounds of her father speaking to Leslie. He was probably asking where Ava had gone, and Leslie probably made up some story about how Ava had made a sassy, bitchy remark and then fled upstairs like the spoiled brat she was. After a moment, Ava heard the front door open and close, then the sound of Leslie talking nonstop in harsh tones in the driveway. There was a car door opening and closing, and then the rumble of an engine. Ava peeled back the curtain and watched as her father’s Mercedes pulled out of the driveway. They were gone.
She sighed and rolled over, staring at the ceiling. All at once, she felt suddenly and painfully alone. Who could she turn to? Not Dad, who’d been her rock for so many years. Not Alex, the boyfriend she loved—they hadn’t spoken since that night he saw her leave Granger’s and called the police on her.
Alex. She still couldn’t believe he’d done such a thing. Yeah, she knew what it had looked like—he’d seen her run out of Granger’s house, disheveled and flushed, her dress half-buttoned.
It pained her that Alex would assume exactly what Leslie did—that she’d gone to Granger’s for a booty call. Alex knew Granger had hit on her, and that he’d actually hooked up with his other students. Why couldn’t he have just asked her what was going on? She would have told him. Not the whole truth, maybe—but close to it, perhaps. Even about what they’d done to Nolan.
That was the thing, though: Alex hadn’t asked. He’d just called the police and told on her. Her boyfriend. She didn’t know whether to be hurt or angry or both. Did he really think she was capable of killing someone? Did he know her at all?
She wanted so badly to ask him why he had done such a terrible thing. Because underneath all the hurt and betrayal, she missed Alex, so badly it ached. Not talking to Alex, not seeing him—it felt so weird. It was like she’d lost half of herself.
Her phone bleated, and she jumped up. Maybe it was from Alex. She’d texted him twice asking to talk, but he hadn’t answered.
But it was only from Mackenzie. School has been weird, huh?
Ava heaved a breath. That was an understatement. Everywhere she turned, kids were sobbing in the halls. Granger’s door was festooned in flowers, and a couple of hippieish girls sat in front of it all day long, playing songs on their guitars and tambourines about flowers and meadows and Heaven—and the Beacon staff, who was usually so anal about attendance, let them. There had been several announcements for prayers around the flagpole—why the flagpole, Ava never knew, but the prayer sessions always seemed to gravitate there—and announcements had already been made that Granger’s funeral would be Thursday, and attendance was mandatory. Worst of all, kids at Beacon had to know something—maybe just that Ava was at Granger’s before he died, or maybe the whole enchilada—that she was under suspicion for killing him. Some bitch had trashed her gym locker, spilling out all the makeup, deodorant, and hair products she stashed there. She was left high and dry after running around the track and had to spend the rest of the day looking like a sweaty mess.
Weird is an understatement, she wrote back.
Have you heard from the cops? Mac asked.