Her heart sank. She wanted to like Oliver, she really did. And he’d been so nice after the make-out fail outside the Thai place, texting her casually, sending funny emoji texts. But every time she saw his name on her phone, she just felt . . . nothing. Shouldn’t she be more excited if she actually liked him? Why, instead, did Blake’s face always pop into her mind? She kept thinking of that card he’d written. The ChapStick he kept in his guitar case for a good-luck charm.
“Well, let’s go,” she said to the others, dropping her phone in her pocket without replying. She started up the walkway, eyeing a shifty-looking cat who had stopped, paw in the air, on the brown grass before slinking into a dirt-caked, deflated kiddie pool. The other girls followed behind her, and she pressed the rusty doorbell, which let out a metallic scraping sound. A shadow passed behind the curtain in the front window, but no one appeared. After a moment, Mac pushed the bell again. Still nothing.
“She has to be in there,” Ava whispered. “Her car’s here.”
They all started when the curtain flew open, yanked back by an unseen hand. Julie’s swollen, puffy-eyed face appeared in the window. She looked like she’d been crying since she left school that morning. It was as if a light had gone off in her, and now she was dulled, broken. Without a word, Julie disappeared from the window. For a second, Mac was afraid she had retreated back into her house, but then the door groaned open.
A damp, foul smell escaped the house and washed over the porch. Julie stood in the doorway wearing her bathrobe, its crisp whiteness practically glowing against the backdrop of junk, trash, and health hazards that loomed behind her. Her shoulders slumped, and her hands hung limply by her sides.
No one spoke for a moment, until Ava broke the awkward silence. “We came to take you for a mani-pedi!” she chirped, too perkily.
Julie fixed her eyes on the floor, where a small tribe of cats had gathered near her slippered feet. “Uh, no offense, but no one’s looking at my nails.”
Mac reached out a consoling hand to Julie’s arm. “Danishes at that awesome new bakery in town, then. The evening batch comes out of the oven right around now.”
Julie shook her head sadly. “Thank you. But I’m not leaving. Ever.” Her shoulders heaved up and down. “Sorry, guys. I’m just going to go back to sleep.”
“Are you sure?” Caitlin asked quietly. Julie nodded. “Well . . . call us, okay?” Caitlin added. “For anything. Even if it’s super late at night.”
There was nothing else to do but retreat down the path to their cars. Ava and Caitlin had come together—Ava had offered to give Caitlin a ride since she lived close. They called out good-bye to Mac and drove off. But Mac hesitated. Slamming her car door, she turned back to Julie, who was still standing on the porch, staring blankly out at the street.
“I know how it feels,” she said, then winced. That wasn’t exactly true. “I mean, I’ve been teased, too. Humiliated.”
Julie blinked. “Yeah?” she said, in a small voice.
Mac took a step back toward the house. “By Nolan Hotchkiss. It’s why I . . . you know. Went along with everything.” She glanced around, wondering if she should be saying this out loud, outside, but it didn’t seem like there was anyone around. The Redding house was probably the type of place most neighbors avoided walking past if they could.
Julie cocked her head slightly. Then she glanced over her shoulder into the house. “Do you want to . . . come in?” she asked, a little hesitantly.
“I’d love to,” Mac said quickly, worried Julie would change her mind.
The house smelled like mildew, cat pee, and the dead mouse that had festered under the dishwasher at the bagel place Mac worked at last summer. But Mac pretended it didn’t bother her. She kept her gaze straight ahead, trying not to gape at the towers of boxes and stacks of ripped, ugly furniture and piles of clothes that reached to the ceiling. Julie edged down the hall, turning sideways at particularly narrow points. “Cat box,” she said, pointing to a litter box in Mac’s way that was so clumped there was hardly a dry spot left. Then she opened a door at the end of the hall. “Here. This is my room,” she said, her cheeks pink with embarrassment.
Mac walked through and gasped. Unlike the rest of the house, Julie’s room smelled like perfume and fresh laundry. Two neatly made beds were side-by-side in the corner, and the books on the shelves had straight spines. It was like she’d stepped into a different house. A different universe.
“It’s so nice in here,” Mac blurted.
“Yeah, unlike everywhere else.” Julie sat on the bigger of the two beds. “You know, I’ve never had anyone else in here . . . except for Parker.” Her gaze moved to an army-green backpack across the room, then she shrugged.
“So you told Parker about . . .” Mac gestured toward the hall.
A regretful look clouded Julie’s face. “Yeah, though not at first. I should have told her sooner. It brought us a lot closer.”
She heaved a huge sigh. Mac was about to ask what she was feeling—all the Parker stuff had to have taken its toll on Julie—but then Julie said, “So what did Nolan do to you?”
Mac cleared her throat. “Oh, just pretended he was into me to make some money from his friends.”