Breathe.
I panicked and said I was busy.
The rest is a blur. But it can’t be good, because Adam’s eyes are shooting death lasers at me. Lipton keeps glancing my way and jiggling his knee. Just like I do! Except his pant leg is tucked into his sock AGAIN. It wouldn’t be so obvious if he didn’t have such colorful taste in socks. Today he’s wearing bright yellow.
I do like his socks. Should I tell him? I like your socks, Lipton. Maybe it would fix whatever I’ve messed up. I wait until class is over and I start packing up my things. I watch him do the same, hoping he’ll look up at me again so I can smile and deliver the compliment.
But he doesn’t look at me. And then he’s leaving. I’m missing my chance!
In a panic, I blurt out, “Nice socks!” Which isn’t how I meant to say it.
He spins around, looks down at his ankles.
Jeremy Everling laughs, points at Lipton’s socks. The pant leg is tucked in. “Nice,” he says. “Very stylish.”
Lipton doesn’t reach down to fix his pant leg. He just gapes at me. His expression is even worse now than if I’d slapped him. It looks like I killed his dog or something.
“Cold,” says Adam, shaking his head.
I watch them go. The classroom empties. The roar of the vacuums quiets to a hum and I realize what I’ve done. It’s like I was trying to drive through a dense fog and couldn’t see which way to go. Now the fog’s lifted and I can see where I made a wrong turn, but it’s too late. I’ve gone off a cliff.
I’ll never find my way back to Lipton, or to Jenna, or anybody. I’m stuck here at the bottom of a ravine—alone again.
17
FOR THE REST OF THE week, I go to yearbook, select photos, remove obscene gestures and nose pickers and crotch scratchers. I crop, file, nod, smile. I listen to Marvo and Beth Ann and Marissa brainstorm ideas to make this yearbook the most memorable ever.
I don’t care if the yearbook is memorable.
Lipton doesn’t offer any more peanut M&M’s. He doesn’t nudge me when I zone out, or tell me what page we’re on. He doesn’t even glance at me in class anymore. I stop carrying the candy wrapper I saved because it only reminds me of what I’ve ruined.
I go to school. I go home. I do my homework. I eat. I sleep. I repeat.
I don’t check in on Vicurious. Don’t log in to Instagram at all. Adrian Ahn tosses a drumstick at me on purpose in the hall one day, and I don’t even realize until it’s too late. It hits me on the shoulder and clatters to the floor.
“Sorry,” I mumble, and keep walking. I should be embarrassed, but I’m not.
He calls after me, “Vicky! Hey!”
Huh. Adrian knows my name. He’s shouting it in the hall, and I feel . . . nothing. Nothing at all.
At first, it’s kind of nice, this numbness. Nothing fazes me. If people stare, I don’t care. If they laugh or think I’m weird or stupid or ugly, I haven’t noticed.
And then I find myself standing in front of Mrs. Greene’s office one day, not entirely sure how I got there or why. Before I can shuffle off, she looks up from her desk and smiles. “Hi, Vicky. Do you want to come in?”
It’s easier to stay than to come up with an excuse not to, so I shrug and sit down in one of her comfy chairs.
She gets up and shuts the door, but doesn’t say anything right away.
We sit in the quiet. My eyes follow the string of twinkly lights draped across the room. Back and forth, back and forth. It’s almost hypnotic. I wonder if she did that on purpose.
“I get the sense you’re having some trouble,” she says after a while. “Would you like to talk about it?”
I pause. This is my opening. I could tell her everything right now. Maybe it would help. But all I say is, “No, thank you.”
I prepare for a pep talk, like something my mom would say. But Mrs. Greene is true to her word, and doesn’t make me talk. She works at her computer while I sit there with my eyes closed, just breathing.
I am breathing.
Some days, it feels like that’s enough. I’m just so tired. It takes all my energy to make sure my mom thinks I’m fine, to sit upright in class all day when I really want to rest my head on the desk and close my eyes, to go through the motions of everything, to not cry when Lipton pretends he doesn’t see me.
When I finally leave Mrs. Greene’s room, Hallie Bryce is waiting outside. She says hi to me, and I stare at her, waiting for my usual panic to ensue. When it doesn’t, I say hi back, and she glides past me through the doorway but crumples into the chair as if she simply cannot carry herself erect for a single second more. And I totally understand how she feels.
Mrs. Greene gently closes the door.
I don’t move. Not right away. Because for the first time all week, I let myself really feel something. And it’s not even my own pain.
I feel bad for Hallie Bryce.
I start to feel like my old self. Not my best self, from before Jenna left, but my week-ago self, before I ruined everything with Lipton. The result is that I remember how horrible I felt before everything went numb. The pain Mrs. Greene was sensing? It’s not so raw as before, but it’s there. I’m still at the bottom of the ravine but no longer wanting to lie on the jagged rocks and suffer. I want to climb out.
I’m just not sure how to do it.
On the Saturday morning before Halloween, my mother says, “Don’t you have a party to go to tonight?”
I blink at her.
“The one you ripped your skirt apart for? Marco’s?”
And then I remember the other lie I told my mother.
“Marvo,” I say. “He canceled.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Or you just don’t want to go.”
Last week, I overheard her telling my dad that she ran into Roberta DiMarco and told her I’d had a nice time at Marissa’s party. The woman gave her a funny look and said, “Vicky was there?” And Mom said, “Yes, I dropped her off myself!” And Mrs. DiMarco apologized and said, “It was so crowded. I’m sorry I missed her.” My father said, “You know how Vicky is. She was probably standing in a corner and Roberta just didn’t notice her.”
“There’s no party,” I tell her now. Which is the truth, since I made it up in the first place.
“Then you ruined a perfectly good skirt for nothing.” She sighs. “You can wear it for the trick-or-treaters, I guess. Though I doubt the neighborhood kids will know who you’re meant to be.”
“They won’t get that I’m a punk girl? It’s generic enough—”
“No. That . . . What’s her name? She’s all over the internet.”
I freeze.
“Orange-and-purple hair, bright yellow skirt.”
I blink. Blink again.