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I wait for her to apologize, to wrap me in a hug, to tell me she’s so relieved I brought this up because it’s been weighing on her, too.
“It was high school,” she says with all the ego of someone who’s spent exactly eight hours as a college student. Shrugging it off, when my brain has obsessed over it for months. Years. “I’m over it.”
I’m over it.
As though what I did to her was so terrible, it was something she needed to recover from. Never mind what she did to me, instantly dropping me as a friend and siding with the rest of the school. Her boyfriend was the one who decided to cheat on that exam. I didn’t do anything except shine a light on it.
Lucie, standing in a corner with her friends, laughing about #debloomed, at the flowers spilling out of my locker.
“You’re right,” I say, my face growing warm. “College was supposed to be different, right? We’re whole new people and all that.” I snatch up a poppy-seed bagel and bite into it as angrily as I can, sending seeds everywhere, teeth sinking hard into bread that’s several hours past fluffy.
“Is there any way you could clean this up?” Lucie asks, struggling to get her bag onto her chair. “This room is small enough already. I can barely sit down.”
“Aren’t you rushing a sorority anyway?”
“I was thinking about it. How did you—”
“Lucky guess,” I say quickly. “I’ll clean it up. Don’t worry.” And then, before I can think twice about it, I change tactics. Clearly, I’m not about to make things right with Lucie—maybe I’m not even supposed to. I might as well say what I want before the universe flips over my hourglass. There’s a hitch in my throat as I charge forward. “You know—I get why you were upset with me after the article. But back in May… it had been so long, Lucie. You didn’t have to egg them on.”
She whirls around, her eyes flashing. “What?”
“After prom. With the flowers, and that—that stupid hashtag.” The rage that’s simmered just under the surface all summer, the hot, acidic thing I’ve hid from my mom and Jocelyn—it’s climbing up my throat, burning everything in its path. I stalk closer, pushing a few balloons out of my way, grateful for the three inches I have on Lucie. “You laughed right along with everyone else, like it was the funniest shit you’d ever seen.”
This is as much as I’ve ever said aloud about it. I hadn’t intended to bring it up, and now all the worst parts are flashing through my mind. The first time I was tagged on Instagram. The way Lucie was huddled with her friends when I walked into homeroom, a single rose on my desk. The look on the principal’s fucking face. I know a lot of young ladies who’d love to be in your position.
I can’t tell off everyone at Island who made me a punching bag, but Lucie is right here.
I can show her rage. What I can’t show her is everything that’s underneath it.
“If you think I’d do something like that,” Lucie says, squaring her shoulders, refusing to shrink back, “then maybe we never really knew each other at all.”
She swipes up her laptop charger, leaving me alone with all the lavender and gluten and processed cheese product. As though overwhelmed by the harshness of her reaction, one of the balloons pops as the door slams shut, making me jump.
I won’t let this break me either. Not yet.
I cling to the rage, heading for my desk and rummaging in my pencil pouch for a pair of scissors. Then I grab the nearest balloon and sink the shiny metal tips into lavender latex.
Pop.
It’s more satisfying than I expect it to be. Breathing hard, I reach for another. And another, each burst of helium making me greedy for more.
Pop. Pop-pop-pop.
Whatever Lucie might have meant—it doesn’t change anything. #debloomed still happened, and maybe she’s over high school, but I’m apparently still stuck there.
I have fully lost my mind, I think as I slice my scissors through the air like a sword, popping with giddy abandon.
It’s the closest thing to fun I’ve had in days.
DAY THIRTEEN
Chapter 17
“MY MOM HAS LUNCH HERE every day,” Miles says as we enter the elevator in the life-sciences building, with a quick glance around the hall to make sure no one spots us. “But students aren’t technically allowed.”
“You’re breaking a rule?” I let out an exaggerated gasp. “I’m impressed. Here I thought you were a run-of-the-mill boy genius. I didn’t realize you were a rebellious one too. Move over, Richard Feynman.”
Miles rolls his eyes. “I’d hardly call Feynman rebellious.”
