Be the Girl

He smooths a hand over his face. “Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed you to talk in the first place.”

“You would’ve found out either way, thanks to Holly.” Maybe knowing part of it, albeit skewed, helped soften the blow. “I hate the things I did, Emmett. I’m trying to get far away from that person. That’s why we moved here.” So I could start over. So I had a fair shot of becoming someone better.

His eyes wander from his shoes to the grass, to the street beyond, avoiding me at all costs, it would seem. “I looked up Julia Morrow.”

I figured he would. So has half of Eastmonte Secondary, I’m sure.

“Pretty shit thing to happen to her.”

Now it’s my turn to avoid his gaze. Is he picturing Cassie in Julia’s place right now? “She started it by making this horrible video of me around the time that my dad left us and …” My voice drifts. I won’t make excuses for what I did. Not to Emmett.

“So, when you said that you shut down your Instagram and all that because people were harassing you, was that even true?”

“Yeah. That happened. Because of what I did.” Which is why I never deserved your pity.

Uncomfortable silence settles between us. It was only this morning that we went for a run, that he had his arms coiled around me. That things were good and we were perfect and happy.

It feels like so long ago now.

He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, his voice is a touch huskier. “I’ll present the first five slides for our project and you can do the last five. We’re pretty much already done so … no need to get together again over it. And I’m sure Jen will be happy to swap desks with me.”

A painful lump flares in my throat. “So … that’s it?” I was expecting this but now that it’s happening, I don’t know that I can handle it.

He studies his shoes. “I’m gone next summer anyway, Aria. And this year is too important for me to screw it up by …” His voice drifts.

By getting mixed up with someone like me. I duck my head to hide the rim of tears that are welling, but they quickly escape, rolling down my cheeks. “What about getting to school and back?”

“I’ll still drive you. And if you still want to walk with Cassie, that’s fine. Unless you were only doing it because of me—”

“No.” I let him see my tears now, because he needs to see the sincerity in my eyes. “That’s not why.”

His jaw tightens. “Prove it. But it won’t change us.”

“I know.” Emmett and I are finished.

“So …,” he begins backing away, “I guess I’ll see you around. Good luck with regionals.”

“I got kicked off the team.”

He nods slowly. “That’s too bad. You would have done well.”

I watch Emmett disappear into his house.

And then I walk home, counting all the ways I screwed up.





“Well … on the plus side, no one’s going to mess with you.” Jen slams her locker shut, adjusting her Day of the Dead shirt in honor of November 1. It was Halloween last night—and the two-year anniversary of discovering my father’s secret family. I sat on my window ledge and watched the children stroll up our doorstep for trick or treat.

“Is that what all these weird looks are this morning?” Fear, because apparently I broke Holly’s nose?

“No, those are likely because you came in with Emmett.”

But not with him. He had the decency to not make a point of putting a twenty-foot gap between us when we walked down the hall. I felt the distance all the same.

I kept my head down as I strolled into school, after taking the back seat in Emmett’s SUV. Cassie kept asking if I was okay, the sudden change in seating arrangements—in our routine—jarring to her. Otherwise, she was the same Cassie—greeting every staff member by name, and then marching to her locker to unload her things.

The first bell goes.

“I’m sitting with you again, if that’s okay?”

“You mean, I don’t get to listen to Sleepy Steve snore in my ear anymore?” Jen smiles and softly nods. “Yeah. Of course.”

I take a deep breath and steal a glance at Emmett. He’s alone by his locker, fumbling through his textbooks. My heart aches.

This is going to be a long semester.





25





“Grab that end, will ya?” Uncle Merv juts his wobbly skinned jaw toward the burlap, flapping in the cool breeze. “Shoulda done this weeks ago.” He guides the winter wrap around Aunt Connie’s prized rosebush to help protect it from the coming snow.

I don’t have the heart to tell him that I’m afraid Murphy has killed it, if it had any hope of survival to begin with, and so I bite my tongue and quietly help feed the cloth.

“Hi, Uncle Merv! Hi, AJ!” Cassie shouts. She’s about to climb into Heather’s car.

Uncle Merv pauses in his task to offer her a smile and a wave, something he always has for her, no matter what mood he’s in.

Heather waves back, and then ducks into her car quickly. She has cooled toward me, though she’s cordial enough. But I sense her watchful eye through the curtains when Cassie and I are walking up the sidewalk after school, and when she drives us to the animal shelter for our volunteer hour.

I know what she’s searching for—any reason why she shouldn’t trust me around her daughter.

I can’t blame her.

All I can do is prove her wrong.

“That girl could talk an ear off a goat.” Uncle Merv chuckles and hands me the staple gun “You know how to use one of these?”

“I think I can figure it out.”

“Just aim and point. Down there. Not at me.”

I hide my eye roll and begin punching staples through the burlap to secure it.

“Yeah … I still remember this boy named Buckey O’Donnell, back when I was in school. Gosh, that would have been”—he scratches his forehead—“sixty-five, almost seventy years ago. He was a strange kid. A giant. Six feet by the time he was twelve, could barely read, couldn’t add pennies to make four cents for the longest time. But he was a gentle giant. Everyone had a good time pokin’ fun at that kid, myself included. Even the teachers told him he was stupid.”

I cringe. “That’s horrible.” Suddenly Ms. Forester doesn’t sound so bad.

“People didn’t understand ‘different’ back then. And Buckey, he was different.” Uncle Merv tugs on a corner of the burlap and then points to where he wants me to secure it.

“What happened to him?”

“Don’t know. But of all the people I’ve met in my life, Buckey O’Donnell is a name that sits heavy on my soul ever since Cassie came along. She’s made me regret how I treated him. Not that she’s like he was but, you know, she’s different, too.” His jowls lift with his smile. “She has a way of lighting up a room just by walking into it. I pity the person who doesn’t see it.”

“Yeah, I know. I see it.” I can’t help the tone of accusation. Why is he saying this? And why is Uncle Merv telling me stories about Buckey O’Donnell?

Cloudy eyes turn to me. “I know you do. Which is why I know you’re going to be okay, Aria.” He hobbles around to inspect my stapling job. “Now it’s your job to help other people see it.”

“How?”

“Probably by setting a good example and not breaking a girl’s nose,” he mutters, heading up the porch steps.





“Next is”—my heart pounds as McNair shifts her reading glasses to scan her list—“Aria and Emmett. Their topic is bullying.” She gives me a small nod. I’m sure she’s heard my story. Or at least one version of it. Who knows how many versions are floating around within these walls by now, weeks after Holly’s vengeful stunt put me under the school’s microscope.

Someone in the class coughs as I stand, and I catch the muffled “ironic” beneath it.