Lizzie nodded. I waited for her to say more. She didn’t. She didn’t get up to leave the locker room either.
I wondered if I should start looking through my backpack again. Or say something about Rush. Or slink away while hoping she didn’t notice.
“Sorry if I interrupted your call,” I finally said.
“You didn’t. It wasn’t, like, private or anything.”
“Oh. Cool.”
Silence again. Why wasn’t she leaving? Was she waiting for me to leave?
“What are you doing in here?” Lizzie asked.
I figured I should make up some awesome and elaborate story that explained why I was in the locker room, rifling clumsily through my backpack. The reason would be really great, and the story would make me sound cool, and then Lizzie would respect me.
“I’m sort of hiding,” I said instead.
“From what?”
“My friends.”
Lizzie shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal at all. She seemed vaguely bored. I wished she would stop looking at me, because her gaze made me feel like I was taking up all the space in the room, sucking up all the air.
I looked down at my backpack. I looked at the locker room door. I looked at Lizzie, who was still looking at me.
“I guess I kind of screwed up,” I said, because I had to say something. “My friend Amy had this thing happen…this thing with a teacher.”
“Oh my God,” Lizzie said, her face lighting up. “You’re friends with the girl who was hooking up with Mr. Kaminski?”
“Yeah. I mean, I was. Not anymore. I was sort of the one who spilled the beans.”
“Really?” Lizzie scooted down the bench closer to me.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said.
I had no intention of telling Lizzie how I’d been pretty sure I saw Mr. Kaminski on a TV show about fugitives and thought he was the guy who bombed that bridge in Pennsylvania, and how when I saw Amy getting into his car, I assumed it was because he was trying to get her to join his rebel cause and go on a suicide mission or something.
That was the only reason I’d called Amy’s mom to tell her about it. I hadn’t imagined Amy might be sleeping with him. Which, honestly, was maybe as disturbing as her becoming a suicide bomber, because Mr. Kaminski is not an attractive man.
Later, after everything got crazy and the whole school was talking about the secret relationship, Emily asked me why, if I was sure Mr. Kaminski was a terrorist, I called Amy’s mom instead of the police. Which was a really good question. One I didn’t have an answer to.
“I heard they started fooling around in, like, July or something,” Lizzie said.
“Yeah. Amy was taking this summer class. Getting ahead with her credits.”
Lizzie laughed. “And she ending up dropping out of school instead.”
“She didn’t drop out exactly. Her mom is sending her to private school.”
“Well, you were right to say something.”
Lizzie pulled out her phone and checked her messages, which was good, because it meant she didn’t see the look on my face. The look that said I was surprised and totally thrilled that she thought I’d been right.
“I wish other people thought so. All my friends hate me.”
“So make new friends,” Lizzie said.
I glanced over to see if she was joking, but she wasn’t. As if making friends was that simple. Maybe for her, it was.
Lizzie didn’t have any idea what it was like to be a regular person. In her world, she was the one calling the shots. She got to decide what was cool and what was worth worrying about and who she’d be friends with. I wondered what it felt like to have all that power. Did she even realize she had it? Probably not. Girls like her were oblivious.
“Everyone hates me,” I said. “The whole school is talking about what I did.”
“Look, it’s not that big of a deal, OK? So your friend fucked a teacher. So you told some people. Who cares?”
“Um. It seems like a lot of people care.”
“Listen, Little Creely,” Lizzie said matter-of-factly, “none of this matters.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, hating how insecure I sounded.
“You did what you thought you had to do. Stand by it.”
I wanted life to be as straightforward as she made it sound, as straightforward as it apparently was for her.
“You’ll get through this,” Lizzie said, standing up to go.
I wanted to ask her to stay, to tell me over and over again that everything was going to be OK. Instead, I said, “Thanks for the advice.”
“It’s nothing. Anytime.”
Then she left. But her words stuck with me.
Anytime.
Though I knew it was probably just something she said to be nice, I got a weird thought in my head. Maybe Lizzie really wanted to help me. Maybe she was someone I could talk to about my problems without her judging me.