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Reminding myself this is the same girl who has held me while I cried more times than I can count is the only way I manage to keep it together. I want to scream at her—call her every nasty name I can think of—but when Dad left and Mom locked herself in her room for over a week, Nicole made sure I didn’t completely fall apart. When I couldn’t sleep, she stayed up with me. And when I wouldn’t eat, she plied me with Thin Mints from her personal stash and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos so I didn’t starve to death.
Less than two months later, when Lucas humiliated me in front of the entire Greek community, Nicole became my personal Secret Service detail as I walked through campus. Her death-glare kept even the most obnoxious bullies at bay. She’s always been more like a sister than a friend. The mere idea of her betraying me cuts deeper than any physical wound I can possibly imagine. And yet, in the back of my mind—in my heart—I know she’d never hurt me on purpose.
A million and one questions swirl through my brain, but I ask only one. “How?”
“I lost it.” Nicole starts crying for real this time. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how or where, but when I got home that afternoon, it wasn’t in my bag anymore. At first, I thought you took it—to leave it at your mom’s where she’d see it. You know, to get her off your back. But then you told me to burn it and flush the ashes, and I didn’t know what to do.”
“Damn it, Nicole.” I slide down the bathroom door and sit on the cold tile with my knees in my chest. “That was a week ago. Why didn’t you tell me? Is that why you disappeared on me? You left me out here to deal with this and didn’t even tell me what was coming!”
“I’m sorry! I wanted to tell you, but I kept thinking I’d find it, and then I would’ve worried you for nothing.” The rest of her confession comes out between sobs. “I couldn’t face you until I’d shredded the freaking thing. And when I realized someone found it, I thought for sure I could figure out who and get it from them before they spread any rumors. I wanted to fix everything before it got out of control. But that asshole—”
“Wait . . . what?” I shriek. “Who found it?”
“Believe me, if I knew, I would’ve beaten the shit out of them and gotten it back.”
“How do you know someone actually has it? Maybe somebody overheard us talking—”
“I thought you’d already seen . . .”
The hair on the back of my neck prickles to attention. “What are you talking about?”
“Kennedy!” Nicole shouts my name like it’s a curse word, and her voice ratchets up an octave. “I thought you were joking when you said you gave up social media for Lent.”
“I was . . . kind of. I did give it up, but that’s not why.” I let out a breath. “It’s a long story.”
She doesn’t need to know I logged out of everything just to avoid my father.
“We don’t have time for another long story. This one will keep us busy for a while. You’d better break whatever vow you made and open Instagram.”
My hands tremble as I put Nicole on speaker and open Instagram on my phone, logging in for the first time in a month. My alerts go off as every missed message and tagged post pops up on my screen. It’s like a Fourth of July finale of little red pop-ups. “Okay, I’m logged in. Now what?”
“Pull up the search bar.” She hesitates, and I hear her swallowing on the other end of the line.
“What am I typing, Nicole? Spit it out.”
She lets out a ragged breath. “Kennedy Beaman’s Get Laid List.”
With a tiny cry of horror, I fumble my phone, nearly dropping it onto the hard tile. Once I have it securely in hand again, I complete the search and stare frozen at the picture at the top of the page. It’s me, standing in the middle of the quad, smiling at something or someone. It’s not a bad picture, but it grosses me out that someone took it without my knowledge. I continue scanning down the page, and my stomach plunges to my toes. Every other image is another view of the list—my list. When I realize how many likes the post has, I nearly faint. “Noooo . . .”
“Kennedy.” Nicole whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
“They posted it on the internet?” I scroll through the photos, each more mortifying than the one before. “Did you see the hashtags? God, Nicole, they made sure everyone on campus would see it!”
“I’m so—”
“Oh my God! No wonder Jordan Keller hates me. Why did you write all those horrible things about him?”
“You were beside me the whole time!” she snaps.
“I wasn’t watching over your shoulder! I didn’t think I needed to.” Horror turns to panic as I read the litany of brutal personal attacks Nicole levied against Jordan in my name. “He doesn’t stink! Why would you say that? And I don’t hate everything about him. I’ve never even met his mother. Nicole . . . none of this is true!”
“To be fair, you did hate that soul patch.”
A stab of guilt lances through my midsection, and sounds I’ve never made before leak out of me like air from a balloon. If I were him, I’d hate me, too. “You think he shaved because of the list?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t ditch the gross fishtail, the piercings, or the stupid guy liner, and it says right there on the list—”
“I can read. God, you ripped him apart.”
