Chapter 16
Sixteen
Despite the upset stomach that I suspect was a mild form of food poisoning, I manage to get to school on Monday.
I spent the rest of Friday night puking into my toilet until there was nothing left to puke, and Saturday and Sunday I recovered in bed, sleeping on and off.
Wyatt never texted me, not that I was holding my breath.
I’m sure he’ll run in the opposite direction if he sees me in the halls this last week before exams. I texted Emi and Kalani and told them it wasn’t going to work out between me and Wyatt, but I didn’t give them any other details even though they wanted to know.
I was too tired to look at my phone, but I’m ready for their grilling today.
I’ve taken my stance, and I’m not swaying from my decision of stopping the dates and going to prom single like I’ve wanted to from the beginning.
As I walk to my locker, people go out of their way to avoid my path, which is weird, because usually you have to zigzag through groups of kids to get anywhere in the halls.
Girls whisper when they notice me, and boys shove their friends and point.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
Something is wrong. My legs work faster to get me to my locker, as if it’s home free and will make everyone stop being weird and staring at me.
“Hey, Pukey,” a boy says to me, though I’m not sure who it is, and everyone in his group laughs.
I shove past them without engaging. I have no idea what’s going on, but as more people notice me, more people openly stare, point, and laugh.
This has to do with Friday. Has Wyatt told everyone what happened?
Have the rumors spread already? Before the first bell of the day?
I finally reach and open my locker, but I don’t feel any better about what’s going on. I want to stick my head in it and disappear.
“Oh my God, Carina! There you are,” Emi says as she rushes over to me, panting like she’s been sprinting through the halls. Her short purple hair is sticking up all over the place.
“What’s going on, Emi?” I ask as more people look at their phones then laugh at me as they pass by.
“Don’t worry. I’m already on damage control,” Emi says. “Emmett too. When Kalani finally shows up to school, she will be too. We’ll have everything settled.”
“Damage control? For what?”
Emi’s mouth pops open. “You haven’t seen the video or heard what people are saying?”
My heart pounds in my chest. Video? “Emi, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
Emi bites her lip and cringes before she’s able to stop herself. Oh no. This is bad.
“No wonder she’s so desperate,” Elena says obnoxiously loudly to her friends as she passes us.
She’s in my math class and always swaps makeup tips and product recommendations with me.
I thought we were friends. “It’s obvious now why her friends have to pay people to date her. Did you see the video? Pathetic.”
Carly, her friend whom I’ve had every English class of my high school career with and have often shared notes with, replies, “I wouldn’t take any money to be set up with her just to get puked all over. She’s so messy.”
They laugh as they pass, oblivious to the fact that I’m standing right here and heard everything. Paying people to date me? I turn my wide eyes to Emi, who’s staring at me with the same panicked expression. She curses.
“Emi?” I ask, almost scared to know what’s going on. This has to be about what happened with Wyatt. But I didn’t puke on him, and no one paid him. Also, what video? “Tell me what’s going on.”
She chews on her lip. I’ve never seen Emi this nervous before. Not even when she borrowed her dad’s Lamborghini without asking when she first got her license and literally drove through a Tim Hortons drive-through window.
“There are . . . rumors . . . about you . . . and the blind dates,” Emi starts, pausing every few words like she’s trying to think about what to say next.
“There’s also a video circulating . . . and memes .
. . with very mean captions . . . and also video edits . . . with even meaner captions . . .”
For a few moments, Emi and I just stare at each other as I process what she’s told me.
I swallow. “What are the rumors? What’s the video?”
Emi hesitates for a brief second before pulling her phone out of her back pocket, but that hesitation makes my chest squeeze.
As she clicks something on her phone, a group of eleventh grade girls walk by, all looking at their phones. One girl who I don’t know laughs and says, “Wow, Carina’s so pathetic even clingy Arthur didn’t want her.”
Emi growls and throws her hands in the air. “Okay, I’ve been trying to stay calm and not snap on people to not make things worse, but I’ve had enough!”
She turns to march after the eleventh graders, but I grab her arm to pull her back. I can’t wait anymore. Everyone is talking about me and laughing at me and passing around a video of me, and I have no idea what it’s about. I can’t be the last person to know when it’s about me.
“Emi, just show me.”
She sighs, her chest deflating, before pressing something on her phone and passing it to me.
It’s what happened Friday night, and looks like it was taken from a car that was keeping pace beside us.
I’m leaning out the window, puking my guts out.
When I move my hair out of my face, you can clearly tell it’s me.
There’s no mistaking it for someone else.
Whoever posted the video has made edits to it.
Me puking in slow motion, the puke going out then coming back in, then out again to catchy music, words like loser and Carina PukesAlot stamped over the screen, and more.
It’s terrible. I can’t even finish watching it, never mind read the comments or watch the already high viewing number climb higher, so I pass the phone back to Emi.
“Who did this?” I ask, my voice breaking as I try to keep it together. Everyone’s still staring at me.
“I don’t know,” Emi says quietly, then mentally debates something before reluctantly adding, “There’s more. Do you want to see the memes?”
I wrap my arms around myself as if it can make everyone stop looking at me. “Do I want to see pictures of, I’m assuming, me mid-puke with mean words written around it? Let me guess, based on the gossip, something like, ‘Pays to date someone, pukes all over his car’?”
She grimaces. “Worse, actually.”
My eyes sting. Worse? How mean are people? “Then no, I don’t want to see them.”
I close my locker and hitch my backpack higher on my shoulder. Everyone pukes; this shouldn’t be that big of a deal. But this looks like it’s the biggest scandal of the year, and the rumors aren’t helping.
I can’t take the pointing and staring and laughing anymore. I need to get out of here. I take a step toward the door but freeze mid-step and turn back to Emi. “Why is everyone saying I’m paying for dates? That wasn’t even in the video? And what about Arthur?”
Emi grabs my arm and moves me over to the side of the hall, back beside my locker.
“I don’t know. Everyone’s saying that you’ve been paying people to date you and that you’re desperate for a prom date.
The memes and video comments don’t help either.
I interrogated Wyatt myself, and he assured me he never said anything about anything to anyone, and I believe him.
Plus, he couldn’t have taken the video. But Arthur’s been going around trying to use this to get himself in the spotlight, and since there’s already talk about you, people will believe anything to add to the drama. ”
Arthur’s spreading rumors about me? Why would he do that? I get that he’s upset that we didn’t work out, but to add fuel to a fire that’s already an inferno? That’s low.
As if speaking his name summoned him, Arthur walks by with a group of kids, and I catch the end of what he’s saying.
“. . . so obviously, when I found out what a loser she was, I broke up with her. I’m just grateful I didn’t get puked on.
Can’t say the same for the other guys her friends paid to date her. ”
“That little . . .” Emi starts and attempts to round on Arthur, but I pull her back before he or anyone he’s with notices.
They continue walking by, laughing and having a grand old time making fun of me.
I wonder if they would even pretend to not be talking about me if they knew I was here.
So far, no one’s cared if I heard them talking about me or not.
Most even go out of their way to let me know they are.
That’s not what happened with Arthur, and he knows it. I should say something and set everything straight. My friends never paid anyone to date me! The only person Kalani tried to bribe was Jay, and he never got the concert tickets . . . unless he told people . . .
It’s getting harder for me to breathe. The walls of the hallway are closing in on me. The laughing is just getting louder and louder in my head.
Without saying anything to Emi, I release her arm and rush through the hall to the exit. I bump into people and get jostled a bit as I run, but I don’t care. I just want to get out of here.
“Carina!” Emi calls, but I keep running. I pass Kalani, who’s walking through the halls now, but I don’t stop for her either. I run all the way out the front entrance of the school and to my car.
When I stop to catch my breath, I hear two sets of shoes hitting the pavement behind me.
“Carina!” Emi calls again, stopping when she’s in front of me. “Goddamn, I need to work on my cardio. Just . . . don’t move for a second.” She rests her hands on her knees and catches her breath as Kalani joins us.
“Where are you going?” Kalani asks.
“I don’t know. The library. Home. Somewhere that’s not here.”
“What? Why?” Kalani asks.
I glance at Emi. Did she not tell Kalani about what’s happening? “Don’t you know what’s going on? The rumors? The memes? The video?”
Kalani’s eyebrows draw together. “This is about the Pukey McBarfface thing?”
“That’s what they’re calling me?” I exclaim, sending an accusing look at Emi for not telling me that part, and she grimaces.
“What’s the big deal?” Kalani asks. “You’re overreacting. It’s not that bad.”
My backpack slides off my arm, and I catch it, holding it by the strap in my hand. “Not that bad? I’m the laughingstock of the entire school!”
Kalani’s jaw pops. “You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I? Okay, would you like to be known as Pukey McBarfface, the girl who’s so pathetic her friends need to pay people to date her?
Is that what you want people from high school to remember you as?
Would you like to know everyone you thought were your friends are having a good laugh at your expense while watching a video taken when you were at your lowest? ”
Kalani’s lips press together in annoyance. “Everything else in your life is perfect. This doesn’t matter.”
“How can you say that? This isn’t okay. I didn’t want to go on those dates in the first place, and this is literally the worst-case scenario of what could’ve happened.”
Emi steps forward. “What? Carina . . . I thought you wanted to go on the dates. You know . . . get out of your comfort zone, put yourself out there, and all that? You just needed a push . . .”
I clench my hand on my backpack strap. “No. I only agreed because Kalani had such a huge problem with me fifth wheeling you guys and not having a prom date, throwing off the numbers and making her look bad as prom queen or whatever. But it doesn’t help that you wanted me to fail.
” I turn to Kalani, the betrayal clear on my face.
“Kalani, I know you’ve purposely been picking guys you know it wouldn’t work out with or coaching them on how to make the date horrible!
How could you? You forced me on dates then purposely made them suck. ”
Kalani says nothing. She stares at me as I stare at her.
“Wait, what?” Emi asks, stepping between us. “What does she mean, Kalani?”
Kalani still says nothing, and that’s all I need to confirm her guilt.
This betrayal is even more hurtful than everything that’s going on in school.
Those kids don’t know me, not really, not like my best friend does.
Teenagers are going to talk and spread rumors and be mean to people because that’s just the nature of things.
It sucks, and I’m feeling hurt from it, but my best friend pushing me to date people just to make me fail stings way more.
No one says anything for a moment, and our face-off is only broken when Steven, a boy I’ve sat beside in history class and shared cringey dad jokes with in the halls, passes us with a few friends and yells, “Hey, Pukey! Stay away from my car, I just got it detailed!”
His friends laugh, Kalani says nothing, and Emi yells, “Fuck off, Steven! You ate your own boogers until you were sixteen!”
He lowers his head and scampers off to a chorus of his friends’ giggles, but it’s all I can take. Before any tears slip from my eyes, I open my car door and stuff my bag in before hopping in.
“Wait, Carina!” Emi calls, but I don’t give her the chance to finish.
“I have to get out of here,” I say and close my door. I’m out of the parking lot in five seconds flat, and it’s five seconds too long because tears slipped from my eyes the moment I started my car.