Chapter 25
HENLEY HOUSE
When we get home, I head straight up the stairs to my room and shut the door.
I’d managed to wipe away the writing without my mom seeing it. Which was lucky, because if there were one thing that could make everything worse, it would be my mom freaking out. But my hands haven’t stopped shaking.
I don’t know who wrote it. It could’ve been Katy. It could’ve been Noelle. Hell, it could’ve been the salesclerk, for all I know. The lipstick was my own—whoever’d written on the mirror had gotten it out of my purse. My face was pale in between those bright lines on the mirror.
In my room I hang the dress in my closet. Then I pull off my jeans and pull on some sweats.
I don’t know who wrote it, but it’s finally coming home to me that it doesn’t matter who wrote it.
Whoever started this whole thing—a jealous girl, a slighted boy, a sociopath, a bored troll—they’re not driving it anymore anyway.
It’s got its own momentum now. It’s out in the world, and nothing is going to stop it.
I pace back and forth across the rug. What if it keeps getting worse?
What if the bullets in the mailbox and the lipstick on the mirror aren’t enough for someone?
I picture people hiding in the bushes outside, waiting for me to come out so they can throw rotten vegetables or shoot air rifles at me. Maybe even worse.
I can hear what my friends would say. They’d tell me I’m being paranoid.
That I’m overreacting. I can hear Sophie telling me it’s just a bunch of immature douchebags and I have to rise above it all.
The worst thing is, if it weren’t happening to me, I’d probably agree with her.
But that’s the point of all this, isn’t it?
To make things so chaotic I can’t predict what will happen next.
To isolate me and make me feel like I’m the crazy one.
Good job, Rockytruther. All it took was one little push of the dominoes.
I catch sight of the dress in my open closet again. All the magic of just an hour ago has vanished. Now I keep thinking about Noelle’s Carrie joke. What if something does happen?
And what if Jonah sees?
I sit down on the edge of my bed and pick up my stuffed narwhal, crushing it to my chest. It’s not fair. After all the pain and chaos of the last year, I just want to enjoy something sweet and simple. A cute boy that likes me. A chance to sweep around the dance floor in an elegant dress.
And that’s when I decide I’m not going to let Rockytruther, or anyone else, keep me from that.
ME
I just bought my homecoming dresssssssssssssss
JONAH
That’s a lot of esses, it must be really ssssssssssexy
ME
Are we still on for Saturday?
JONAH
I will be there. What’s the dress code again? Will my novelty cactus-themed Aloha shirt look okay with your dresssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss?
ME
It depends, are you going with the formal hemmed jorts or the informal cut-off ones?
JONAH
Come on give me some credit, I do have class. Camo-print cargo shorts.
ME
[Pause.]
ME
I do have to kind of tell you something though.
[Long pause.]
JONAH
That is an anxiety-inducing way to start. But go ahead.
ME
sorry sorry. I didn’t want to have to tell you about it but I think I have to. But it sucks. You remember about what happened last year with my boyfriend and the girl he was sleeping with?
[Long pause.]
JONAH
Yeah of course
ME
Last week someone started the rumor that i killed them both. They posted online and now everyone’s acting weird about it.
JONAH
Whoa
ME
yeah
JONAH
That must be really fucking awful for you.
ME
yeah
JONAH
Do you still want to go to this dance?
ME
Yes! I mean, my friends still totally support me, and i want to go with them. and also I don’t want everyone to think they can chase me off. And also the dresssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
JONAH
lol
ME
And also I really want to go with you.
JONAH
Yeah, me too
ME
but i wanted to warn you. In case someone mentions it. You might have to slow-dance with a total pariah
[Pause.]
JONAH
it’s cool
ME
Really?
JONAH
Yeah really. What a shitty thing to do to you after what you’ve been through. I’m sorry it’s happening.
I close my eyes and cradle the phone to my chest.
I don’t know what will happen between Jonah and me—whether it’ll stay a light flirtation or turn into something else entirely. But he’s not scared off by what I’ve been through, what I’m still going through. It’s such an unbelievable relief I could cry.
Instead, I get up and go to the bathroom, where my bag of makeup sits open on the counter. If I’m not going to worry about Rockytruther ruining my homecoming, I’d better start worrying about what I’m going to do with my hair and how to put together my look.
Another unbidden memory surfaces, this time of last year’s dance. Lynette hadn’t been kicked off the team yet—meaning that we were still friends. She’d come over to get ready with me. And miraculously, she’d been sober that night.
I can still see her, leaning close to the mirror with her lipstick in hand. We’d both decided to go “Hollywood glam” that night: red-carpet-style dresses, sideswept waves, bold lips.
“You look amazing,” I told her.
It wasn’t entirely honest. She was pale, and the fit of her dress made clear how much weight she’d lost over the last few months.
Her shoulder blades jutted out like bony wings.
Her hands trembled as she painted her lips scarlet.
But even still, I meant what I said, because I was so happy to have her with me, so happy to see her next to me in the mirror, that in that moment she was one of the most beautiful people in the world to me.
“Yeah, well, Rocky’s going to lose it when he sees that dress,” she said, turning to look directly at me. “That’s bombshell material.”
“Mom wanted to hem it,” I giggled. Mom had tried to get me into a minidress on the grounds that I should show off my legs as long as I could get away with it, but Lynette and I had chosen our dresses together, full-length column gowns, hers in forest green and mine in midnight blue.
“No way,” Lynette said. “No offense to Mom, but everyone sees our legs all day, every day. That’s the point of cheerleaders. But we don’t have to be what someone else wants all the time.”
She straightened her shoulders in the mirror and tossed her hair over her shoulder.
“You get to choose who you want to be every single day,” she said. “You’re allowed to change, if you want.”
That night I don’t know if I actually heard what she was trying to tell me. Now the words come back to me like a blade to my heart. Now it’s obvious that she was talking to herself as much as to me. That, one way or another, she was trying to change.
Maybe she’d been trying to get clean. If so, I wish she’d told me.
I wish she’d told me what she was going through, told me what I could do to help her.
Because I was too stupid—too self-occupied, too caught up in what it’d mean for me if she had a problem—to figure it out myself.
That might have been the last time I saw her sober.
By the end of that weekend she was using again.
Two weeks later I sent the note to Gloria.
Now, I hold my hair up at the back of my head, play with different ways it could frame my face. Maybe I hadn’t been able to understand what Lynette was saying that night, but now it rings loud and clear in my mind. You get to choose who you want to be. You get to change.
Does that mean I’m allowed to forgive myself, Lynette? Does that mean I’m allowed to survive?
Maybe it just means I’m allowed to try.