“What is that?” Allie asked.
I shrugged, mumbled something about heading to the nurses’ station, and got out of there as fast as I could. I didn’t like the pressure of everybody’s eyes on me, hoping I’d be their excitement for the day.
Willa followed me, ignoring the jealous glances. “What do you think it is, Elizabeth?” she asked, walking so close behind me that she almost clipped my heels. “Is it from your sec—”
I cut her off fast. “I don’t know, Willa!” The last thing I needed was for the other girls to hear about Willa’s secret-admirer theory.
“God, way to be all clique-y,” Coral muttered as I walked by. She said it low, so only I could hear. Typical. If Coral had had an aura, it would have been a big black ring that darkened anything it touched, she was so sour. I didn’t know how the girls in her cohort could stand her, pro-ana celebrity or not.
“Another package?” Ray asked when I arrived. “Some girls have all the luck!”
I leaned the tube up against the wall next to his station. That’s when I noticed it didn’t have a return address. Again. I smiled a little.
He craned his neck out of the nurses’ station to check out my tube. “Looks like I better come around for this one,” he said, walking to my side of the counter. “You want to know what it is?”
And, like last time, I shook my head.
He winked. “I get that. Surprises make life better.”
I turned as he slid something out of the tube, unrolled it, rolled it back up, then slid it back in.
“All set,” he said. “You’re good. Carry on!”
When I got to my room, Willa was still on my heels. I closed the door and sat on my bed. Without asking, Willa jumped on, too. I tried not to be annoyed.
I popped off the end cap and slid out a poster. Against a black background, a terrified-looking kitten clung to a branch. Above the photo were the words HANG IN THERE.
“It’s so cute!” Willa said.
“I guess,” I said. “But doesn’t it look like something you’d find on the cover of a third grader’s notebook? And the kitten looks petrified.” I felt sorry for the poor thing. It really did look like it was holding on for dear life.
“No! Definitely not. I love it.”
I rolled it back up.
“Aren’t you going to hang it?” Willa bounced next to me.
I took a deep breath and summoned my patience. Willa was driving me bonkers. Secretly I thanked the universe for making me an only child. Then I forced myself to smile at her. “Maybe a little later. Hey, pass me the tube, will you?”
When she lifted it, something rattled. Our eyes met and Willa’s lit up. “Something else is inside!” she said. She dumped out a little plastic capsule, the kind you get from twenty-five-cent gum ball machines. It spun across the carpet and landed at my feet. My stomach dropped. No. It couldn’t be.
“Ooh, what’s that?” Willa said.
I knew exactly what it was. A plastic ring with a giant blue plastic gem glued on it fell into my hand. I knew these rings. I had three just like them, two reds and one green. They were all from the twenty-five-cent toy machine at Esterfall House of Pizza. Every time we went there, Charlie would get me one. It was a running joke between us. His friends loved to give him crap for it. They called him the plastic romantic.
It had to be him. But what did this mean? Did he want to get back together with me?
If so, that made no sense. He was with Heather now. Or should I say back with Heather, who’d been obsessed with Charlie since middle school. For a while they were together. Then they broke up. Then they were back together. And so on. Even when they weren’t going out, Heather made it clear that Charlie was hers and hers alone, and that she’d do whatever it took to keep it that way. Back in ninth grade, when a new girl named Edith said she liked him, “somebody” (Heather, of course) started a rumor that Edith had breast implants and had gotten a nose job to look more like Katy Perry. It was stupid and obviously not true, but people spread it anyway.
And last year, when Charlie and Heather were “on a break,” he asked a freshman to the winter formal. “Somebody” spread a rumor that Erin had lice she’d caught in rehab.
Heather didn’t mess around.
And then I came along. Charlie told me he’d called Heather after our first date and that she was fine with everything. And she did leave me alone—until the second we broke up. Then she’d gotten me good. But I couldn’t think about that now. I wanted to think about happy things, like the plastic ring on my finger.
Still, I wondered what she’d do to me. Visions of insults on Instagram and Snapchat ran through my mind. But Charlie was worth it. Even if I pissed off the most vindictive girl in school.
Hang in there.
Okay, Charlie, I thought. If you want me to, I’ll try.
14
The next morning, right after breakfast, reality hit. So, say Charlie sent the presents. That would be awesome. But it didn’t answer the question: What the hell was I supposed to do about it? Call him? What if I ruined it by reaching out too early? What if he wanted to call me? My fingers itched to pick up the phone, but my gut said to wait. Be sure, it said. See if he sends something else. Wait until you’ve got good news for him. That’s what he’ll want to hear. So I listened to it. I didn’t call.
Instead, I did something I’d been meaning to do since Margot’s meltdown in the dining room. I knocked on her door. I wasn’t sure why, exactly, I felt the need to reach out to her. Maybe I wanted to distract myself. Maybe I wanted see if she remembered me. Maybe it was because she felt familiar, even if we’d only been six in that ballet class. Whatever it was, I felt bad for her. It wasn’t like we were friends, but we’d known each other once. And I kept thinking about her walking alone into Wallingfield, how awful that must have been.
The door opened. Or, more precisely, I heard footsteps, saw the handle turn, and watched the door swing open a crack. Margot was already back on her bed. She hadn’t brought sheets from home, so she slept on the same generic white-and-brown bedding there was in the fishbowl. The rest of the room looked just like mine except that her enormous suitcase had seemingly exploded on the second bed. Clothes—mostly black—were everywhere, mixed with toiletries, pens, hairbrushes, and her toothbrush, which was partially hidden on the floor by a running shoe.
“Thanks for letting me in,” I said.
She didn’t respond.
“HELLO?” I said again, louder.
She took off her headphones. “You’re welcome.”
“I don’t think we ever officially met. I’m Elizabeth.” This was ridiculous. Why had I thought she’d want to talk to me? Girls like Margot never wanted to talk to me. I was never bad enough, or angry enough, or rebel enough. I studied hard. I didn’t get into trouble. I wasn’t super popular. I did sports, but wasn’t really an athlete. I was, despite my best efforts, a Goody Two-Shoes.