? “Why can’t I be more like her? Why can’t I be like—why can’t I be like—why can’t I be like—”
She always turned to me to contradict her, but no matter how many times I told her the opposite, she never listened. I never lied, because what I noticed in Claire first was everything wonderful: how sharp she was, how determined, how challenging, and I used to love every aspect of her. But what did that fix? Nothing I felt could change the way she felt about herself.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Don’t bother with sorry.” She closes her eyes. Wipes the smudged eyeliner away. “Okay, we’re done here.”
“Claire—”
“And I think it’s better if we don’t talk again. I think that’ll be easier.” She leaves me to stare out the window at the morning sun, frustration building behind my sealed lips.
SECOND PERIOD TRICKLES BY, THEN THIRD, BUT MY teachers’ words don’t sink in. I look down at my hands, which seem detached from me, trembling intermittently.
I bite my nails. I bite and bite and bite. The bitter coat of polish I slather on every morning sinks into my tongue, but the taste can’t stop me today.
By fourth period, my fingers are bleeding. It’s only when I see the blood that I realize I’m furious.
I still ache, as if somebody has hit me hard enough to bruise bone. My mind keeps rewinding to what he said, and the words throb in my ears, forcing my attention.
Compare yourself to other people. That’s all you ever do.
Well, at least I never lied to him, right? At least I didn’t conceal some huge part of my identity from him. How dare he preach to me about self-esteem?
I haven’t hated anybody since elementary school. Back then, Olivia was the queen bee of South Paloma Elementary, and I hated her. I was so envious, the sight of her used to make me sick. I wanted to slap her every time she smiled. She’d get that self-satisfied look that only eight-year-olds can perfect, and I’d want to scream. But by eighth grade, I loved her so much, I would’ve told her anything. With some people, it’s all or nothing: fierce affection or total detestation, a feeling like a rubber band in your chest stretched too far, about to snap. And for the first time since elementary school, that feeling’s back.
By the time the lunch bell rings, the pent-up energy is too much for me to keep in. I shut myself into the bathroom, grit my teeth, and slam the stall door. One, two, three times. The piercing, metallic banging doesn’t help. What could? What could fix the fact that I have, for two years, loved somebody who apparently thinks I’m a jealous egomaniac?
I storm out of the bathroom, making some freshman dart away with a terrified squeak. I pass classroom doors and advertisements for school photos. Everything is a blur in my peripheral vision until I reach the main entrance. A poster hangs across from the doors, advertising the swim team regionals tomorrow. GOOD LUCK, LIONS! it reads, with a huge picture of the team. My eyes go straight to Lucas’s smile, second from the left in the second row. My fists clench.
Ridiculously, I wish I had hit him. I wish I had gone full bitchy-melodrama-ex and slapped the shit out of him. That would have been satisfying, right? Seeing his stupid, innocent, familiar face go wide-eyed with shock? Even the thought of it is satisfying.
I storm onward, gathering looks as I go, but I’m past caring. I storm by the art room, where we hid in the closet after school last March and made weird collages and kissed against the easels. I storm by the locker he had last year, where he kept lists of inside jokes we had. I storm past the guidance center.
And I slow to a halt.
A terrible thought sneaks into the back of my mind. It feels sickly gratifying, a guilty pleasure even in concept.
A thin plastic sleeve hangs on the guidance center door, filled with the questionnaires we had to fill out. Do you have any information about the identity of any party who may be involved in an illicit relationship?
Slowly, I approach the door. I take a blank form, hatred pulsing sluggishly in my veins like mud. Nothing makes me feel more disgusting than hate.
Can I do this? Can I actually . . .
My heartbeat speeds up as I take the pencil from behind my ear and scribble out five words. I slip the questionnaire under the guidance center door.
I don’t linger. I take off at the fastest walk I can manage.
Whoever’s actually screwing a teacher, I hope they’re grateful that I threw the administration off their scent.
I wonder if the school will believe me. Lucas will deny it, of course, and there’s no actual evidence. His reputation as Mr. Social Wizard, though? Good as gone.
This is the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve never felt more vindictive—or more content. Maybe I am a terrible person, and maybe I’m fine with that.
Was I looking for revenge this whole time? Did I want to find it?
It was so easy to find, in the end.