“And that is?”

“I want to be the Snow Ball queen. You had your turn last year. Now it’s mine.”

I couldn’t care less about the Snow Ball or that ninety-nine-cent crown Jenna was after. As far as I was concerned, Jenna could have every one of the plastic crowns hanging from Maddy’s mirror. I’d box them up and give them to her tonight if that’s what she wanted.

“Last I checked, voting ends tomorrow. Maybe you should step up your game,” I said. I might not have been interested in her popularity contest, but there was no way I was going to let her know that.

“Nope. You’re going to find a way to back out. I don’t care what you say or what lie you come up with, just do it.”

“And if I don’t?”

She leaned in as if afraid somebody in this completely empty bathroom would hear us. “You think Alex loves you enough to go to jail for you? He’s got a full scholarship to Syracuse to play soccer. You think he’s going to risk that to defend you?”

“Alex didn’t do anything!” I yelled. Or at least I thought he hadn’t.

“He knew what you were planning to do and covered it up for you afterward. Always protecting his precious Maddy. The way I see it, that makes him as guilty as you. So yeah, you’ll do as I say, because if you don’t, I’ll bury you, then him.”

35

The thin newspaper clipping in my back pocket was like a dead weight that slowed me down and consumed my thoughts. I’d done nothing but think about what it meant. I wondered how I was going to figure it out without Josh, and I was curious as to whether Jenna’s threat had anything to do with it.

I walked into the cafeteria. Everyone was sitting in their usual spots—Alex on top of the table, Jenna to his left vying for attention. Molly was at the end, three empty seats between her and the rest of Maddy’s friends. She had her Physics book out, a pencil in her hand and a notebook open next to it, seeming completely uninterested in the conversations going on around her.

Alex saw me and hopped down, waving me over. I should’ve walked over to him, sat down in my assigned seat, and pretended to be interested in whatever he and Jenna were talking about. But Molly looked so distant, so removed from everyone around her.

“Hey, why are you sitting by yourself?” I’d always wondered why she never tried to make new friends, why nobody, including Josh and me, never once thought to include her.

She looked up from her book, her eyes drifting to Alex before settling back on me. “It’s easier. I tried to make other friends, but eventually they had questions that I didn’t want to answer. Besides, I don’t mind sitting by myself so much anymore.”

I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. She reminded me of myself those first few days of school after Maddy had made her friends and I was still fumbling my way around. And right now, I could use a little dose of me.

“You know they are both staring at you,” Molly whispered to me.

“Who?” I asked, pretty sure I could guess.

“Alex and Josh. They’ve been watching you ever since you sat down here with me.”

I was almost positive Josh had been watching me for longer than that. I’d caught him looking at me when I walked in. He’d held my gaze for a second before shaking his head in disgust and turning back to Kim. Alex, well … he didn’t want me talking to Molly.

I leaned in, hoping Alex wouldn’t hear my hushed words. “Alex is a bit overprotective these days,” I explained. “And Josh, well, he was close to Ella, so he blames me for a whole bunch of things.”

“I’d like to say that things get easier, that after a while people will stop treating you like damaged goods. But as you can see,” she said, gesturing toward herself, “that’s not the case.”

She giggled at her last words, and I joined in, happy to hear the brutal honesty that everyone else was afraid to give me. “Yeah, well, I don’t mind being ignored. Kind of a nice change of pace.”

“Ignored, huh? I guess that’s one way to put it.” She went back to her homework, her attention shifting every so often to me. I guess she thought I was going to leave, that I’d get up and take my normal seat by Alex. Little did she know, I liked it next to her. I was comfortable there.

She flipped the page and gnawed on the top of her mechanical pencil as she mouthed the words to the next problem. I watched as she worked it out, erasing and rewriting the equation three times.

“You’re doing it wrong,” I said, and reached for her notebook. I copied the problem on a clean line, then solved it, making sure to show my calculations so she could see how I’d done it.

“It’s easy,” I said as I nudged the notebook back in her direction. “You gotta follow the same steps every time.”

She looked at my answer, then flipped to the back of the book to make sure it was correct. “How did you do that? I mean, you’re failing Physics.”

“Was,” I corrected. As far as I was concerned, Maddy was never failing another class again. “And besides, I’m not as dumb as everyone thinks.”

“Nobody thinks you’re dumb,” Alex said as he reached around me and yanked the notebook from Molly’s hands.

“The answer is right,” Molly said. “I already checked it.”

Alex glanced at the problem, then at me as if trying to figure out how I’d done it. Muttering something under his breath, he tossed the notebook onto the table. I swear I caught a glint of suspicion in his eyes, one that had me simultaneously filled with hope and fear—hope that he’d realize who I was and let me out of the confines of my lie, and fear of the rain of crap that was going to pour down on me if he did.

“Ella was helping me,” I quickly said, praying that he’d buy my excuse. “If I fail Physics, I’ll get kicked off the field hockey team, so she was tutoring me at home, teaching me how to do it.”

“You could’ve asked me,” Alex said. “I would’ve helped you.”

I’d forgotten he was a decent student and could pull a B in the regular college prep course without too much effort. He could’ve helped Maddy, and I found it odd that she hadn’t ever asked him to. Instead, she always came to me to bail her out.

“I could’ve done a lot of things differently,” I said.

36

Dad was sitting at the kitchen table when I got home, his entire focus on the small cup of coffee he had in front of him. He looked up when he heard me come in and tried for a smile, but it was small and filled with exhaustion. Wherever he was last night, it was obvious he hadn’t slept.

“Hey,” I said. “When did you get home?”

“Couple of hours ago,” he replied. “I had some things to catch up on at work, then I went to your grandmother’s for dinner.”

I’d assumed he’d gone there … was hoping he’d gone there, but the confirmation was still nice.

“Your grandmother sends her love,” Dad said as he pushed the spoon around his coffee. “I wanted to bring you with me. I thought maybe some time away from school and this house would do you good.”

We had spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s growing up. She used to let us eat our dessert before dinner and never worried about the amount of dirt we tracked into the house. Even as a teenager I loved going there, loved the way she doted on me and made my favorite foods.

She used to draw like me, except she was better. She could paint, too. I never seemed to be able to master that—the whole color thing. I still preferred my charcoal pencils to acrylics and oils. It was my grandmother who gave Maddy and me our first sketchbooks. They were actually old ones of hers that she’d tossed aside. Didn’t matter. To us, they were massive sheets of clean paper that we wouldn’t get in trouble for writing on.

“I texted you a few times, but you didn’t respond,” Dad said.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my texts. There were three from Dad. I remembered my phone chiming in Spanish class. The teacher gave me a stern glare, and I’d turned it off without checking to see who the text was from. I had no idea it was Dad or I would’ve responded.