It was a caring and intimate gesture. A month ago, Hannah would have melted at Noah’s words, at his touch. But today, she felt nothing. “Just thirsty.” She gave him a fake smile and pulled her hand from his. She walked back to the school, feeling his eyes on her back.
Inside, she didn’t go to the cafeteria. She walked, on autopilot, toward her locker. Hannah didn’t know what she would do when she arrived there: remove books, then put books back in, search her backpack for a highlighter or a hair elastic that wasn’t there . . . anything to fill her time, to keep her away from Lauren and Adam and Noah—and to keep her from thinking about that Facebook page.
She turned the corner and approached her locker. At the far end of the hall was a gaggle of girls speaking in hushed, alarmed voices, but Hannah paid them no attention. She moved, like a drone, toward her destination. She wanted the bell to ring; she wanted lunch to be over so she could immerse herself in French verbs and forget about the social aspect of high school. At her locker, sweaty, slippery fingers fumbled with the lock. Had they been sweaty and slippery when Noah had taken her hand? To her surprise, she didn’t care.
“Hey, Hannah.”
Hannah looked up. It was Phoebe Winslow, flanked by several of her friends from the “God squad”: Nat, Eliza, and Thea. The group was like a pamphlet on diversity: Eliza was Asian and gender fluid; Nat was overweight; Thea was petite, cute, and black; and Phoebe was tall, gawky, and outspoken. The crew had common traits, too: they all belonged to a number of school clubs, contributed enthusiastically to in-class discussions, were adored by their teachers and dismissed by their peers.
“Hey,” Hannah said.
“Did you see it?” Eliza asked.
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“Ronni’s devastated,” Phoebe said. She sounded kind of proprietary, like, all of a sudden, she was an insider in the whole Ronni saga.
“So she saw it?” Hannah asked.
“This morning.” It was Thea this time. “She came in and saw it and she ran out.”
Hannah was confused. “Who showed it to her?”
“No one showed her,” chubby Nat said, her tone rather bitchy for someone so unpopular. “It’s her locker.”
“Wait . . . you’re not talking about the Facebook page?”
Phoebe sighed. “Ronni saw that, too. Yesterday. But then her locker . . . It was the last straw.”
Hannah felt a now familiar feeling in her stomach: a toxic combo of guilt, remorse, and dread. She croaked, “What did they do?”
Phoebe led the way to the east wing offshoot hallway that housed Ronni’s locker. Of course Hannah knew where Ronni’s locker was: she’d met her there often in the last few months. But even before Hannah’s inclusion in Ronni’s universe, she had been aware of the location. Hannah would pass by on her way to class and she and Ronni would exchange a wave. Even when Ronni was popular and Hannah wasn’t, they couldn’t forget the childhood connection they’d shared: all those years at the playground or the midway, baking cupcakes or building Play-Doh landscapes while their moms stood by, so different but still friends, couldn’t be forgotten.
There were several kids standing in a semicircle around the rectangular metal box that contained Ronni’s school supplies, gym clothes, and probably some makeup, gum, and tampons. Someone had set three orange pylons on the floor around it—the custodian, most likely—to keep onlookers away as he prepared to clean up the assault. Hannah stopped a few feet behind Phoebe and her friends and read the word that ran vertically down the locker:
C
Y
C
L
O
P
S
The spray paint was red. It had trickled down in places and was drying, thick and still tacky, like blood. Like the blood that had come from Ronni’s eye that night. No one who had seen Ronni lying there bleeding and hurting could have written this. But who else would have done it? And why? Adam, Noah, and Lauren wanted to send Ronni a message, to make sure she kept quiet about that night, but would they really be this brutal?
“Horrible,” Nat said, and the other Godsters murmured their agreement. Hannah felt a ragged sob shudder through her chest. She turned away from the carnage and headed toward the bathroom.
“Hannah!” Phoebe called after her, but Hannah didn’t want her Christian comfort. It wasn’t real. Phoebe had to be nice to everyone because she didn’t want to burn in hell. Hannah didn’t believe in hell, but if she had, she’d have been pretty worried right about now.
As she hurried down the deserted main hallway, Hannah could feel her composure slipping. Her cheeks burned, her chin quivered, and tears pooled in her eyes, clouding her vision. There were no witnesses here—everyone was entrenched in their lunch cliques in the cafeteria, or lounging on the beanbag cushions set up in the foyer, or out in the sunshine perched on various benches or ledges—so she let the emotions come. Tears slid down her cheeks and her face contorted with the anguish that was inside her. People were horrible. Her boyfriend, her best friend, her own mother . . .
A sob was rising in her chest and she quickened her step. She was almost at the refuge of the girls’ restroom, when Noah appeared around the corner. “Hey.” His handsome face was concerned. “What’s wrong?”
Hannah hesitated. She should blame a failed test, or a text fight with her mom, or her period . . . but the words tumbled out. “I just saw Ronni’s locker.”
“Oh . . .” Noah said, gaze drifting to the floor. And that’s when she saw it: the tiniest hint of amusement dancing in his eyes before he turned somber. “Harsh.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really?” she scoffed. “Maybe Adam knows then? Or Lauren?” The tears and anguish were morphing into something new inside her: anger. Unfortunately, her fury was manifesting in an ugly lack of facial control and increased tear flow. Noah was going to be repulsed.
“Chill, Hannah,” he said.
She was sobbing now. “What you’re d-doing . . . to Ronni . . . is sick!” She was horrified by her loss of composure but she couldn’t stop now. “It-it’s mean . . . and it’s wrong!”
“Calm the fuck down.” Noah’s eyes skipped past her down the hallway. He was worried her outburst would alert the principal or a teacher. “I was in shop class when Ronni’s locker got spray-painted. Ask Mr. Kiewitz.”
Hannah took a calming breath and was almost able to get the next sentence out without blubbering. “How do you know when it got spray-painted?”
“I’m assuming it happened before lunch, when everyone was in class.”
“What about the Facebook page?” Hannah said, surprised by her confrontational tone. “Were you in shop class when that got made, too?”
Noah looked down at her with hard eyes, then his lips twisted into a cruel smirk. “People told me not to go out with you. They said you were a lame little virgin. A spoiled little goody-goody. I guess they were right.”