Chapter 5
Over the weekend, I had so many chances to bring the mentoring up to Mom.
While we waited for the game to start Friday night.
While we drove to brunch with Mrs. Jasper and her family Saturday afternoon.
While we sat in front of the television for our Sunday night Netflix binge.
So many opportunities and chances, but each time I opened my mouth, I couldn’t find the words.
Or, really, other words filled my head, ones that stirred my stomach like a sickness.
You don’t have to tell your parents everything. Morgan’s annoyance streamed perfectly clear.
Hudson’s condescension, impossible to miss. We both know you’re going to tell Mommy everything Principal Oliphant said and get us out of it.
And, of course, his line that had been playing on a loop in my brain ever since he first muttered it.
Grow a backbone, Sophomore.
Each time I started to tell Mom about the truth of the mentoring, those words had me shutting up.
In the end, they made my decision for me.
I’d show him, and I’d show Morgan. I could stand up for myself on my own.
I could grow a backbone. I could show them I could make my own decisions.
Monday after school, I’d walk straight into the office and tell Principal Oliphant that I wasn’t doing this, without anyone’s help. Without anyone’s persuasion. All me.
And the morning had been off to a good start.
My alarm had gone off at six-fifteen and I’d woken up refreshed, which was strange for a Monday.
Mom hadn’t tugged on my hair too hard when she braided it, and Landon even saved the last banana for me this morning.
He’d left for school early to lift weights again, so the house was extra quiet until I left for the bus stop.
Jaden walked with me, and even he wasn’t as chatty this morning. As we waited for the bus, he looked like he was about to nod off standing up. I didn’t look up when Hudson climbed on, both of us ignoring the other’s existence.
The morning was normal, until lunch.
My lunch table was filled with people whose names I wasn’t entirely sure of.
Most everyone at my table was a freshman or a new transfer.
Brentwood High was big enough that it needed two cafeterias, A and B, and mostly freshmen and sophomores ate in Cafeteria A since it was the closest to our classes.
Cafeteria B was fuller than A, though, since the Top Tier and other populars at Brentwood High ate there.
My table was peacefully eating until an array of chimes and rings lit up the cafeteria, startling me enough to nearly drop my water bottle as I brought it to my lips. One of the alarms had come from Morgan, who sat beside me, and she pulled her phone from her pocket.
“Oh my gosh,” she breathed, eyes bugging wide. “The Most Likely To list is out!”
And just like that, everyone at the table dove for their own phones.
“Wait, what’s the Most Likely To list?” a girl across from us asked. I was pretty sure her name was Rosie. She was new this year, and another sophomore. Her brown wavy hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, exposing her array of earrings along her cartilage. “I haven’t heard of it.”
A boy who sat on the other side of her with a buzzcut, Hector, nudged her shoulder. “It’s a list the popular people make every year. They put students’ names down to gossip about. It’s super embarrassing to get on. Like, if you’re voted Most Likely To: End Up Alone or something.”
Rosie put her hand over her mouth. “That’s horrible! And they do this every year?”
“Every year,” he confirmed with a nod, though his eyes were lit up with excitement. “Jaden needs to hurry up from the bathroom. He loves the MLTs.”
“Isn’t that, like…bullying?” Rosie glanced around the table, but since everyone else’s head was turned toward their phones, I was the only one she locked eyes with.
Morgan nodded, though, scrolling on her screen. “I guess kind of, but no one takes it that seriously. I’m excited to see if I know anyone on it.”
“Freshies and sophomores aren’t usually on it,” Hector added, leaning close so Rosie could look at the list. “What with them being too new and all, no one would recognize them. It’s more shocking when people know the names on it, you know?”
I smiled along with the conversation, hoping I looked at least somewhat on the same page as them even if I didn’t feel like it.
It was kind of how I felt when Mom lugged me around to her afternoon brunches or when Dad had me at his side, chatting with a few of the football dads at a game.
Head down, mouth shut. I didn’t want to talk about the list anyway, or all the people who might’ve been on it, because unlike them, I thought the list was stupid.
This was only my second year experiencing the flood of excitement it generated, but I always felt bad for anyone who’d been put on it.
I had been hoping they wouldn’t do one this year.
“Gemma,” Morgan said in a soft voice, one filled with caution. When I looked over, she had her phone pressed to her chest. “Don’t freak out, okay?”
Well, that was a sure-fire way to get someone to freak out. My pulse skipped. “What?”
She didn’t tell me; she showed me.
It took my eyes a second to adjust to what I was looking at, a whole slew of names on a webpage that seemed to blend together. I scrolled down them, but jerked to a sharp halt at the sight of one familiar name with a tag that made my stomach sink.
Most Likely To: Stay A Prude
Gemma Settler
“Oof.” Hector hissed from his side of the table. “That’s kind of rough. But hey, think of it this way, at least it isn’t the opposite.”
“What is the actual definition of a prude, anyway?” I asked as I stared at the label. “It sounds like something someone would’ve said in the eighties.”
“Don’t know,” Morgan said, continuing to scroll down the list. “Look it up.”
Rosie piped up. “It’s someone who’s shocked by nudity and sex.”
Color burst across my cheeks in an immediate response and my jaw dropped. That was what it meant? I blinked, starting and stopping a sentence several times before finally getting it out. “I—I’m not shocked by any of that. When have I ever acted shocked about that stuff?”
“You did cover your eyes during that one Titanic scene,” Morgan pointed out.
I ignored her. “Where is their proof, anyway?” I went on, voice sounding higher and higher as I spoke. “Who’s to say I’m shocked by those things? Maybe I like those things!”
Hector looked up from his phone with renewed interest.
Morgan gave me a slightly sympathetic shoulder raise. “Maybe it’s because you’re, like…covered up.”
“Covered up?”
Morgan set her phone down and finally gave me her full attention. “Remember how in eighth grade, Dakota Murphy asked when you were joining a convent because of your skirts and long hair?
I did remember it, because it was the first time I’d snapped at someone.
He’d made the comment at lunch, and everyone around him had laughed, but my reply had been, “I’ll go when you actually come up with an original insult.
” I could remember it clear as day because I’d cried my eyes out in a bathroom stall while afraid for the rest of the day that I’d get called down to the office for bullying.
“I was put on the list because of my outfits?” I looked down at my skirt and oversized sweater, suddenly self-conscious. Mom was the one who laid out this outfit, and all of my other clothes. Was I really on blast because of her?
“I think it’s part of it,” Morgan admitted, but wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I think it’s the image you put off, Gemma. Even in the summer, you wear clothes that cover you up. You don’t go out much, and you’re pretty shy, too. You’re just…under your parents’ wing.”
Hector pointed a finger at me. “You’re like a good girl. Like a goody-two-shoes.”
Each of their bullet points hit me like actual gunshots, and I curled my fingers into fists to keep from flinching. Shy. I didn’t feel shy. I wasn’t a dictionary, but shy always seemed like such a negative thing. Like being a prude. I was quiet, sure, and kept to myself, but shy… It sounded worse.
A good girl. Why, when attached to the Most Likely To label, did it sound like a bad thing?
“You need to get out of your shell more.” Morgan reached over and patted my knee. “It’s like I said the other day, Gemma. I really think you should try to do more things for yourself.”
Much like it hadn’t felt supportive then, her suggestion didn’t feel supportive now. “You mean stop being codependent on my parents?”
The look she gave me was like well, I mean… “I just think you need to let your hair down a little. That’s all, okay? No more, no less.”
Rosie and Hector both looked at me, gauging my reaction, but I couldn’t hold their gazes for long.
I stared at my packed lunch in front of me, the one with little star-shaped sandwiches with no crusts.
Mom had even cut my grapes in half. It never seemed childish before, but now as I stared at the bread, I couldn’t help but feel like a toddler she packed lunch for.
Prude. Codependent. Shy. Words that didn’t feel like me, but apparently, they were.
In the eyes of everyone else, that was who I was.
I wanted nothing more than to prove them wrong, but I had no idea how.
How did you prove to someone that you weren’t a prude?
And besides, who was I going to prove it to, anyway? Morgan? The Top Tier?
Grow a backbone, Sophomore.
I spiraled so deep into my thoughts that the rest of the lunch period passed by in a blur, and the bell rang before I had a chance to even touch my star-shaped sandwiches. Without remorse, I dumped them into the trash, wishing I could dump my stupid label along with them.