“I guess it doesn’t really matter now, huh? The boy we were fighting about is dead.”
I had avoided looking at Rupert P., but now that Apple had mentioned him it seemed almost rude not to acknowledge him. He was still in his chair—where else would he be?—and he was privy to our conversation. This was the most pleasant he’d been all day.
“Are you okay?” I asked Apple. “I know he meant a lot to you.”
Apple was looking at him too, but I couldn’t read the expression on her face. She only shrugged. “He did. But he was also really mean, wasn’t he?”
Don’t speak ill of the dead don’t speak ill of the dead don’t speak ill of the dead. “He was an entitled little shitstain,” I said. “Mayherestinpeace.” I know that sounded bad, but it was the nicest thing I could’ve said about him.
“He called me a beached whale.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you know how much time I spent loving him?” She looked down at her chocolate, meticulously peeling back the wrapper. “I used everything I had in me. I loved him with my head and my heart. I loved him with every single nerve ending. But he wasn’t good.”
“No.”
“He got what he deserved.”
My eyes sprung to her, but she was still staring at the chocolate, her face betraying nothing. She’d said it like it was nothing, but words had meaning. “Beached whale” meant something, and so did “He got what he deserved.” But she continued to eat her Reese’s like what she’d just said didn’t mean anything at all.
I pictured her standing over his chair, a steely resolve beneath the dried tear streaks on her face. I pictured her pulling on those tights around his neck with the same force she’d used to knock him unconscious with love when she saw him in the hallway. Had I overlooked the most obvious suspect? The one who loved him most. The one who would be most crushed by his words.
Isabel stormed into the room and interrupted my thoughts with her pacing. “Where’s Erin?” she said. “She’s not answering my texts and we need her.”
“Still can’t make a decision without Erin,” I muttered.
Isabel rolled her eyes. “Rush me to the burn unit.” She whipped out her phone. “We need to act. Now. We make decisions as a group.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll be horrified to know that Erin is with Michelle Hornsbury right now, asking her how she likes her room service because she’s offered her room and board here with us.”
The extra emphasis at the end there had the desired effect. Isabel froze and looked at me. “Are you joking?”
“I think we’re way past joking right now.”
“Michelle Hornsbury is coming here?” Apple said, mouth full of Reese’s. “To stay with us?”
“If Erin doesn’t find a way to lose her, yeah.”
Michelle Hornsbury divided Rupert P. fans into two categories: girls who liked her and thought she was beautiful and perfect enough to be with their favorite boy, or girls who abhorred her, deeming her too ugly and lowly to be with their man. Apple had always belonged to the latter group. In Apple’s mind, Rupert P. did not belong with anyone but her.
I could see from the look in Apple’s eye that she still hated Michelle Hornsbury, despite the fact that she no longer liked Rupert P. anymore. And also the fact that he was dead, obvs.
“I am not spending the night in the same room as her,” Apple said.
“Michelle Hornsbury isn’t coming here,” Isabel said.
“Well, she just might, so we have to hide him. Now,” I said.
The three of us looked at Rupert P. He was still so wretched. Mayherestinpeace.
“Hide him where?” Apple said.
“I don’t know, a closet or something.”
“A closet?” Isabel said. “So that Michelle Hornsbury could just sit in the middle of the room telling us stories about life as a beard while Rupert P.’s body finally flops out of the closet? Cuz you know that’s what’s going to happen.”
A knock on the door. None of us moved.
“Open up!”
It was Erin. “I’m alone, it’s safe.”
We opened the door. “I got rid of her.”
“How?”
“I took her outside and a glob of Strepurs swallowed her up.”
Those girls outside were good for something after all.
“We still need to move him,” Erin said.
“No way,” I said. “This has gone on long enough. We need to call the police.”
“No!” Isabel said. “Griffin is already calling the police. They’ll come down here, get a real investigation going, put two and two together, and then we’re done for, for real. We need to move him out of this room. Make him someone else’s problem.”
“How can you do that?”
“Watch me.”
“Isabel’s right,” Erin said. “It’s our only option. We need to move the body.”
“And where are we going to move him?” I said. “The hallways only lead to rooms, stairwells, or elevators. We can’t just dump him somewhere.”