Chapter 10
Varda High
Outside, I meet Hayden and Sophie. They’re perched on the retaining wall that divides the parking lot from the athletic fields.
Sophie’s cross-legged, taking a sly puff off her vape pen before turning her head to exhale the other direction.
Hayden’s makeup has been carefully reapplied, but her hair is still wet.
When it’s down it hangs to her waist and it takes forever to blow-dry, so it’s always slightly damp no matter what time of day it is.
“Dude, check this out,” Sophie says, nodding toward the field.
Someone’s out there running on the track. They’re far enough away that I can’t quite make out who it is, but they’re male, dressed in green sweats. Then I see another figure, this one with a baseball cap, looking down at a watch.
“Bryce and his dad,” Hayden says.
“Bryce has had to stop and vomit twice already,” Sophie says, snickering.
I watch them in silence. Now I recognize Bryce, his weirdly skinny legs and his overdeveloped chest, his shaggy wheat-colored hair. He staggers the last few steps of the track and comes to a halt, leaning over at the waist like he’s exhausted. His dad gestures at the watch.
“Oops, too slow,” Sophie says gleefully. “That’s four more laps, asshole.”
Bryce’s dad was a big football hero when he went to Varda, twenty-plus years ago.
I remember last year when Bryce was Rocky’s alternate on the team, Mr. Sanders kept showing up at random practices to try to talk the coach into giving Bryce more playing time.
Rocky said it was really embarrassing. “Man, just accept that your kid sucks and stop showing up to rub it in his face,” he’d said.
It wasn’t the most tactful way to put it, obviously, but Rocky legitimately seemed to feel bad for Bryce.
Well, now Bryce has Rocky’s QB spot; you’d think that’d make his dad a little happier. I can just make out Mr. Sanders’s voice. “I don’t care how hungover you are. I can do this all day.”
“Almost enough to make me feel bad for him,” I say, sitting next to Hayden. “But not quite.”
“Yeah, well, you’d better keep your distance,” Hayden says. “I hear it on good authority that he wants to ask you out to homecoming.”
I make a face. The dance is this Friday and I have been firmly planning to go stag. I still can’t get my brain around the idea of dating anyone.
Well, I think, remembering Jonah’s photo, how cozy he looked next to his dog. Almost anyone.
“You guys want to go to Sunnyside?” I ask, kicking my feet against the sun-warmed stone wall. “My treat.”
Usually we hit the town’s diner, the Sunnyside Up, after a Saturday practice. But today Hayden gives an apologetic little wince.
“I can’t,” she says. “Carter’s sulking today. I don’t know what his problem is but I need to do some kind of damage control.”
“Damage control? What is he, a child?” Sophie asks with a sneer. “He’s just mad you had to drive us home before he had a chance to get laid last night.”
“It’s not like that,” Hayden says, but she doesn’t sound very convincing.
“Anyway, I have to pass on pancakes today,” Sophie grumbles. “I am somehow already behind on civics. I can’t get all carb-drowsy.”
“Maybe if you laid off the weed it’d help,” Hayden says, eager to have something to jab at Sophie about. Sophie just punches her in the arm.
“Okay, Mom,” she says.
Before the argument can escalate, someone leans on a car horn. We look up to see Carter in his F-250, idling a few feet away. He’s wearing shades. Beneath that his mouth and cheeks sag heavily. All the affable, doltish intoxication of last night is gone. Now he just looks mean.
“Shit,” Hayden mutters. She jumps up and waves. “Babe!”
He doesn’t answer. He just sits motionless as she bounces over to the car. But he’s not watching her.
He’s watching me.
A tremor works its way up through my body. I force myself not to look away, not to flinch. Hayden says something to him. When he doesn’t respond, she shoots me a nervous glance.
“Um. See you later, guys,” she says.
She waits for a moment, but when we don’t respond she disappears around to the other side of the truck to climb in. Carter’s still staring at me, his face unmoving. Then, before Hayden even gets her seat belt on, he peels out from the curb.
“What a jackass,” Sophie mutters.
But I get the message.
Carter believes the post.
Carter thinks I’m a murderer.
My phone is in my hand. I don’t even remember fishing it out of my bag; it’s such a habit by this point. I open Sekrit and scroll through the comments that have shown up just in the last few hours while I’ve been at practice.
sugarspice: she should be arrested
swifty4life: What are you even talking about? There’s no evidence but some dumb rumors.
bigmood: Bet there’s evidence they didn’t know to look for, maybe they would find it now
vernacular_girl: Doesn’t she have an alibi tho?
sugarspice: I hope she’s freaking out right now
Somehow that last one is the one that hurts most. It’s not just that people are willing to think I could kill someone. It’s the glee of it all, the fact that someone actually hopes I’m in pain.
I hit the refresh button. Force of habit, again. And there’s a brand-new comment—time stamped twenty-one seconds ago.
puma208375890: I know for a fact that she left the cheer sleepover that night. Her alibi is crap.
My breath seizes up in my throat.
“Sophie,” I whisper. She frowns, looks over my shoulder at the post. Then she rolls her eyes.
“Oh, come on,” she says. “That’s not true. They’re just making shit up to fan the flames.”
I want to believe her so badly. But the truth is, I don’t remember what happened that night. Not past a certain point, anyway. And I’m not confident Sophie, with her vape pen and whatever else she took, remembers much either.
“I was so fucked up,” I say uncertainly.
She shrugs. “Yeah, you were. Which is why I know you didn’t go anywhere. There’s no way you could’ve left that party, made it to the ranch, done … whatever … and then gotten safely back. Sorry, babe, but you can barely operate a TV remote when you’re mildly tipsy. I just don’t buy it.”
I try to let that reassure me. Besides—if someone had seen me sneak away from the party, they would have mentioned it sometime in the last six months.
Right?