Chapter 15
The end of the world didn’t actually seem so bad by the end of school.
Everyone still looked at me with a bit of wariness, but I’d heard a few whispers about people not being sure who to believe now.
No one was calling “Deer Hill Dirt” the “truth tellers” anymore, and a lot more people were giving Mary Heather a major stink eye.
Finally, the last bell rang. The whole class held its breath for two long seconds (relativity!) until Mrs. Foster sighed and told everyone to leave.
“Do you need to go to your locker?” Grayson asked as we shoved our books into our bags.
“Nah. You?”
He shook his head. “Let’s get out of here.”
Together, we left the school along with the flood of other students. Mrs. Haber’s familiar SUV pulled up. Instead of watching my friend-turned-nemesis climb into the car, I pulled out my phone like I had important business with it.
Then I paused, because there was a little notification badge on the messages app.
I braced myself as I opened the first thread.
Sophia:
are you kidding??? what an awful thing to say about someone you pretended was a friend!
Okay. So Sophia hadn’t believed me earlier. Then again, one of my real texts had been about her, so maybe it shouldn’t be a shock that she was ready to believe this one, too.
I swiped to the next message.
Alexis:
okay i kind of agree with you about mh tho … i’ve also heard her say how bad she looks on days she actually looks amazing and i felt so bad about myself… .
Well, that didn’t actually make me feel good, either. Sure, she didn’t hate me for what I’d allegedly said, and that was great, but I didn’t like the feeling that she’d been bandwagoning before and now that “I” had said something she agreed with, she wanted to change teams.
No thank you.
But also … hadn’t she been at lunch? Hadn’t she heard me say I hadn’t written that text? The level of willful delusion some people had …
Grayson bumped my elbow. “You good?”
My throat was tight, so I nodded and started walking again. I wanted to tell him that some people didn’t believe me, that maybe I didn’t even deserve to be believed. But I didn’t want our whole relationship to be about my drama. We were building a good thing together at the library.
So, while we were walking—because I couldn’t think of anything to say and apparently neither could he—I put in my earbuds and fired up a fun, bouncy song. I needed to shake off the ickiness from today.
I let myself sink into the music, falling into step with the beat, bobbing my head as the singer let it all out.
It was working, and by the time the track ended, I was grinning, my shoulders bouncing as I mumble-sang along. I started the song again.
Grayson looked down at me and said something, but I couldn’t hear him over the music.
“WHAT?”
He cringe-smiled.
I peeled one earbud away. “Sorry, what?”
“What are you listening to?” He had a strange half smile, like he wasn’t sure whether to be amused or terrified.
“Oh!” I glanced at my earbud just long enough to make sure there wasn’t a huge glob of earwax on it (there wasn’t), then popped it into Grayson’s ear.
Slowly, his half smile shifted into a real one.
A little flutter surged through my chest. “Dance with me.” I threw off my backpack, then took his mittened hands in mine.
“Are you serious?” His gaze dipped to our hands clasped together. The smile was gone, replaced by pure panic. “I don’t dance.”
“For right now, you do.” I bounced side to side along with the rhythm. “Come on, Grayson! There’s trumpets. You can’t say no to trumpets!”
His throat bobbed, and just as I was about to let him go—to apologize—his hands tightened around mine. “Okay. Okay, for the trumpets!”
At first, he mirrored me, clearly nervous and self-conscious, like he was worried what someone might say if they saw us. But then he was hopping along to the beat, dancing with me. And as the music surged, he started to laugh. His self-consciousness fell away.
“You’ve got it!” I dragged him through the moves with me, shimmying and twisting, making it up as we went along.
“Now spin me!” I let go of one of his hands and—very obediently—he lifted our arms over my head and twirled me around.
Then we were both laughing, belting out the words as the music rose and rose—before it ended with a few lingering brassy notes.
My heart was racing as I let go of Grayson and nudged up my glasses. (Dancing while nearsighted was tough!)
Grayson gasped and readjusted his backpack, which he’d left on for our impromptu dance party. Probably because I’d been gripping his hands like I was testing his pain tolerance. “Should have dumped this,” he said between breaths. “Algebra weighs so much.”
“Seriously.” I gathered up my backpack again, then took out my earbud and the one Grayson held out to me. They went into my pocket. “Well. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Seems like you do dance after all.”
“Only for you.” He moved a strand of hair off his face and looked at me, eyes warm. “It was kind of fun, though.”
I flashed a smug little smirk. “I know it was. I was there.” I turned toward home and started walking. In the distance, I could see the tree I’d photographed last week.
We strolled along together until we reached the corner. “I like that we’re walking buddies now,” he said.
I looked up. “You do?”
He gazed at me for a long moment. “Yeah. I mean, I hate what’s happening to you. I don’t think it’s fair. But …” He paused, like he was weighing whether or not to say something. “Remember last week when you said I never talked to you before?”
I cringed, but nodded.
“You’re right. But you never talked to me before, either.” He flashed a tight smile. “It’s okay, though. I get it.”
I almost said that he hadn’t talked to me longer than I hadn’t talked to him, but I stopped myself before the words actually came out of my mouth.
“Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow? I’ll wait for you here?”
“I’d really like that.”
“We can go to the library after school together, too.” He grinned that heart-melting grin. “It’s fun working on the booth with you.” Then, before I was sure I’d ever be able to form words again, he swiveled and walked down his street.
I watched him for a minute—keeping just shy of creepy—then hurried the rest of the way to my own house.
My parents weren’t home yet, but Victoria was. Her door was open and she was gaming.
“How was today?” she asked as I tried (unsuccessfully) to slip by unnoticed.
I kept going, like I had somewhere important to be. (I did. My room.) “Fine.”
But she took off her headset and followed me. “I saw a new text go up on the scroll. But I don’t think you wrote it.”
I dumped my stuff on my bed and gave her a summary of the fake-text saga—from Jess’s warning to the showdown at lunch.
“Well, well, well. If they aren’t doing something that definitely violates Scrollr’s terms of service.” Victoria whipped out her phone and started tapping. “Let’s get this reported.”
She went back to her room, and I settled in to get through my mountains of homework. Although, maybe Zooms needed some petting …
I was finally about to get started (I swear!) when I noticed another text notification, one from a muted contact.
Jess:
you were really brave at lunch
but are you okay?
I let out a long breath. I wasn’t sure how to feel about Jess, but she kept reaching out. Maybe that counted for something. Maybe … even if I wasn’t ready to be her friend again, I could still talk to her.
Me:
I’m fine.
I hope people believed me
Jess:
i think a lot of people believed you!
plus i think people have caught on to the fact that we all kind of suck
look at this
The screenshot was a comment on today’s post.
Me:
Wow
Jess:
yeah i thought so too
tides are turning
I liked imagining everyone at school deciding “Deer Hill Dirt” was ridiculous—a stupid conspiracy meant to destroy me, orchestrated by self-absorbed pot-stirrers. The masses of Deer Hill Middle School were now turning their hungry gazes on Mary Heather and Kat, leaving me alone.
Me:
Thanks for sharing those screenshots.
Jess:
yeah of course
and not that you asked for my opinion, but i think what you did today was great
Me:
Thanks
My friend group was shattered. And some things I used to do for fun were no longer options. That was hard, but at least I knew who my friends were now. Or who they could be. Grayson was an excellent start. Maybe Jess and I could make things right again, too.
And for the first time, it seemed like there was a future where I could actually, you know, tell Knight who I was without him hating me for everything on Scrollr.
I mean, not yet. But … one day. After I pieced my world back together, it might be safe to let superposition collapse. We could be real best friends.
Then, like he was some kind of freaky mind reader, my phone buzzed.
Knight Errant:
How’s it going?
Still need to talk?
Me:
You know … I talked to someone at school today so I think I’m actually good?
Knight Errant:
Dang, who got there ahead of me???
I’ve been excited all day about talking to you
Me:
Really??
Well … we can if you’re okay with it!
Knight Errant:
Are YOU okay with it?
Me:
I mean, I asked you first!
Granted I was not my best self at the time I requested this and I have since started imagining all kinds of scenarios for how it might go totally wrong
But yeah I do want to talk to you.
Knight Errant:
Okay, so should I call you?
Is this going to be weird
I’m panicking a little rn
This feels like a big step!
Fortunately for Knight and his panic, I was already tapping the call button.
Unfortunately for me, my brain wasn’t really keeping up with my fingers, because sometime during the nanoseconds it took to hit “call,” I realized I didn’t know what we were going to talk about.
Maybe we should have established that. I probably shouldn’t have hit call just because I’d wanted to hear what he sounded like.
It rang once.
There was an answering click, followed by silence. About three seconds went by.
Then maybe four or five hundred seconds.
“Hello?” I said cautiously. “Are you there?”
There was a crackle, then: “Yeah. Sorry. I’m nervous.”
“Usually people say ‘hello’ when they answer the phone, but I like your creativity.” I paused, but he didn’t take the opening to respond. “It does feel like a big step.”
He hadn’t been exaggerating about his audio quality earlier.
The mic on his phone must have been damaged, because his voice sounded like it was coming through a long tunnel.
It wasn’t a surprise, though. A bunch of kids at school had phones they’d inherited from their parents or older siblings, so they weren’t always in the best condition.
“Can you believe in the nineteen hundreds, people just called each other all the time?” He said it like it was a horror story. “They didn’t have text, so they had to risk a whole conversation if they wanted to ask one question.”
“A whole conversation, with all the awkward pauses.”
“And awkward pauses could mean anything.”
I bit my lip. “Text is obviously superior.”
“Should we go back to text? I wish I’d had a backup plan, since you already talked to someone about the thing you needed to talk about. But … you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” I thought about Grayson looking at me earlier, the things he’d said about second chances, the way he’d bumped my foot with his under the table.
Him dancing with me on the way home. I hadn’t expected him to be there for me like that.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I was going to get started weaving, actually. ”
“Oh good! So you’re going to tell me about it?” He sounded relieved. Like finally we’d found a purpose for this call.
“I could,” I said slowly. “Or we could talk about your story some more. Did you figure out what your knight needs to do?”
“Oh. Uh.” He suddenly sounded nervous again. “Maybe. I mean, your advice was really helpful. I’ve been thinking about how he should try to help the princess in his own way.”
“Good!” I leaned back in my chair, thinking about the way Grayson had tried to be there for me last week …
and how I’d thrown it back in his face. “I think you were right to make the princess not want the knight’s help right away.
Sometimes people think they need to handle everything on their own, or they think they don’t actually deserve help.
But that’s something they have to learn, too—that they can get help.
And maybe your knight needs to learn how to give help in a way that’s right for the princess. ”
“I should have called you a month ago when I first ran into this problem,” Knight said. “How are you so good at this?”
“I read a lot of books.” For a moment, I considered telling him that I volunteered at the library and probably absorbed stories by osmosis, too. But that felt like too much information. “Isn’t there anyone else you talk to about writing? One of your brothers, maybe?”
“Oh, I talk about it all the time. But mostly to myself. Not, uh, other people.”
I hesitated. “Have you told anyone about it?”
There was a long moment of quiet on the other end of the line. “No. Not really.”
“Why not?”
“I guess it seems too personal? It’s embarrassing?”
“But you told me.”
“Well, before now, you were a cat in a text box.”
I snorted. “And now I’m a cat with a voice?”
“A weirdly human voice, even though everything sounds garbled on my phone.” He sighed. “I wish I could get a new one. Do you know how hard it is to watch videos like this?”
“I mean, maybe you can just pretend that every video stars robots. That’s what you sound like to me: A robot knight.”
“Maybe that’s my next book!” He laughed. “Okay. If I tell you more about this book, you have to promise not to make fun of it.”
“I won’t!” I pulled my loom onto my desk and found my threading hook. “I have a lot of fiddly work to do before I can actually start weaving. So this is the perfect time to tell me all about your story. Maybe you’ll even read some to me.”
“Read it to you?”
“And do all the voices!”
“I’m going to hang up.”
“I’ll be the best cheerleader you ever had.”
He gave a long, put-upon sigh. “You’d be the only cheerleader. But okay.”
“Okay?” I sat up straighter. “So you’re going to read it. With voices.”
“I don’t know how we got here,” he said. “I thought we were going to talk about your problems.”
“Plans change. You have to be adaptable.”
“A compelling argument!” He cleared his throat. “Okay, I guess I can read it to you. If you don’t mind. Maybe you can tell me where I mess up.”
“I’m listening.” I took a quick photo of my loom, the threads that needed threading, and my little hook, then sent it to him so he could see what I was doing while he read. As the sound of pages rustling hissed through my phone’s speakers, I hooked a piece of yarn and pulled it through the eyelet.
“All right.” Knight’s voice shook a little. “Chapter one.”