CHAPTER NINE
Peace lasted until after lunch. Between classes, I overheard Kaylee complaining to someone—not Urena, since the context said she was the subject of her complaints.
“It’s just… they were never actually together,” Kaylee continued outside the bathroom stall. “A lot of them in that football group avoid the whole boyfriend-girlfriend label. Dave says they prefer situationships, which we all know is just a different way of saying they want to fuck and run.”
I blinked, feeling a disconcerting wash of grief that mixed with anger and jealousy as I tried my best not to move a muscle.
Ben had a past. Many popular kids did. I knew Ben before I knew him, so it hadn’t been a secret. In fact, it’d been the one thing he needed to reassure me about the most when we dated. My brain could never puzzle out why he’d chosen to be with me.
I sought every bit of doubt and locked it away with furious vengeance. Ben had a history. It was before us.
I couldn’t keep swinging on this pendulum. It wasn’t good for my limited sanity.
He was dead, so the point was doubly—triply—moot.
Kaylee hadn’t finished venting to her friend. “Urena’s just in an awful mood because of that rumor going around about that girl.”
“Which one?” the other asked. “There’s about a million.”
“The rumor that she and Ben were connected.”
My heart exploded, pounding loud enough that I would have sworn they could hear it outside the stall.
The unknown speaker scoffed with just a touch too much disdain, reopening Band-Aid-covered insecurities. “What? You have to be kidding.”
“No, really,” Kaylee argued. “She was missing from school, supposedly in a coma. The timing is suspicious, don’t you think? People are saying she hurt her head because she was in the truck with Ben.”
“That’s insanity!” A seed of doubt had begun to creep in. Even sequestered away like a cowardly, eavesdropping chihuahua, I could note the different tone. “I mean, was she here on the first day?”
Nope. I’d been restrained to a bed and attending mandatory group therapy sessions when school started.
What a way to rub salt in the wounds this entire conversation had so ruthlessly uncovered.
My existence was so menial that people questioned whether I’d been at school for the start of the year, or if I’d disappeared the same time as Ben.
“Is it, though? It’s not like Kolton showed up after Ben’s accident with cuts and bruises. They are always attached at the hip, even when Ben was ‘dating’ Urena, so Ben was either alone, or he was with someone else—someone he didn’t want Kolton around for.”
“A hookup!” the other concluded. “Oh my god! How did no one put this together yet? You’re a genius.”
If pounding my head against the wall wouldn’t give my presence away, I’d have done it.
“Bitch, can you keep up?”
“Bitch, yourself!”
Kaylee sighed. “Someone did come up with the rumor. No, not me. I told you. That’s why Urena is taking things way out of proportion. She heard that gossip, and now she feels like he cheated on her.”
Their voices trailed away, momentarily drowned out by the loudness of a hallway during passing period before blessed silence left me alone with my racing thoughts.
Had I really removed myself from my peers so much that they didn’t notice my absence? Sure, I’d tried to play it safe after a single disastrous school dance in middle school, but really? No one remembered I’d been gone?
The rest of the day, I couldn’t tell if the stares increased in intensity or if it was my heightened insecurity making me jumpier than normal—a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Who knew? They could just be staring at the weird, jumpy kid who failed to keep their cool any time a locker slammed shut.
Kolton tried to corner me in math class since I didn’t skirt in at the last minute today, and it was like he’d launched a torrent of gasoline on the rumor and tossed a match. Whispers rose with heightened fervor, and eyes landed on us.
It wasn’t my imagination that they whispered our names, because Kolton paused and glanced around with his tan cheeks tingeing pink.
He should have stepped away, shook it off, mumbled, “My bad,” and let me pass by.
He did none of those things.
The busy sounds of typing and shuffling slowed, and the whispers died down, even as the weight of their stares increased. From my peripherals, I saw someone nudge their buddy in front of them and point in our direction.
I wanted to say, “Nice, real subtle,” except I was at as much of a loss as Kolton seemed to be.
All at once, the situation was so absurd that a smile tugged at my lips.
“What?” Kolton asked, rolling his eyes when he caught my amusement.
“I’m just trying to remember if I’ve ever seen you speechless before.”
“Hey, I’m not the wordy one, am I?” he quipped and then winced when the girl closest to us gasped.
He rubbed his neck and shuffled. “Ah, I just… uh, you…” He had everyone, including me, on the edge of our seats—figuratively for me, of course, since I’d yet to navigate to the back of the room where I’d claimed my spot.
His hazel eyes steeled with determination.
“Fuck it. I wanted to tell you to check your texts, or we’ll have to stage another intervention.
I think the word ‘kidnapping’ might have been tossed around, but I’ll fucking do it, and you know it, so… yeah. Return our messages.”
He vacated the area so fast after that, I was left blinking, red-faced, up at the teacher who’d approached from behind and witnessed the whole exchange. Bless her soul, even Mrs. Hart couldn’t figure out how to react.
“S-Seats, class,” she stuttered out.
I scurried as quickly as I could to my pitiful facsimile of a sanctuary, pretending my desk could shield me from the world.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how you set a rumor in stone.
By the final bell, no matter how many times I was asked, and no matter how many times I denied it, no one believed I hadn’t been in some torrid love affair with Ben.
I was the other girl, since Urena doubled down, sticking to the story that she had been the one dating Ben, and that I’d been in the seat with him when he died.
At least my handwriting had improved—marginally. I forced myself to write as a distraction, so basically, I’d been doing it nonstop.
“Hey, you should check your phone,” someone teased as students filed out into the parking lot.
I turned.
Manuel.
“What? Why?”
He shrugged, leaning away from the locker.
“You tell me. That’s all anyone talked about the last period of the day.
Willa Walker needs to check her phone. Why wouldn’t she check her phone?
If I were Willa Walker, I would check any messages he sent me.
” He tilted his head, dropping the falsetto he’d adopted so I’d know they weren’t his words. “So… Who is he?”
Exhausted, I continued to pack the stuff I’d need for the night to complete my homework. “You caught the part of the rumor where I was getting messaged, but not who was messaging me? You should get your money back. That’s the raw end of the deal.”
He laughed. “So you have a sense of humor after all.”
I eyed him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “You struck me as a jumpy, mousy girl who would sooner hide in a hole than have anyone look at you.”
“Oh, that…” I shut the locker. “Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but that sounds like heaven after today. In fact, I should go do that right now.”
Instead of being deterred, he matched my pace.
“I don’t buy it.”
“Don’t or can’t? Did you invest all your money on half a rumor? The lousy half, at that. You didn’t even get the juicy details.”
“Daaay-um. See? You’ve got fire. Willahelm Walker is not some meek nobody.”
“Hey!” I hissed, shoving him, and he stumbled a step. “Watch it!”
He laughed. “What?”
“You can’t just walk around using my full name like that! What if someone overheard you?”
He arched an eyebrow. “After the last two days, I don’t think there’s a person here who hasn’t heard the name Willa Walker at least half a dozen times.”
I groaned. “You’re telling me. I can’t even use the pencil sharpener without people analyzing my every move.”
“Ah,” he intoned. “Then the problem isn’t using your name, it’s using your given name. What’s wrong with Willahel—mmph.”
My hand made a nice, satisfying slap. The pleasant warmth of his face registered beneath my palm before my brain caught up to my actions and horror crashed in. I froze, staring up at him with round eyes, as if I stared long enough, I could wake up from this dream—possibly nightmare.
The jury was still out on that one.
I stared long enough to watch Manuel’s face above my hand morph from shocked to amused, and still, I didn’t remove my hand.
What was wrong with me?
My mouth selected that time to spark into gear. “Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh!”
Manuel’s eyes were so expressive. He passed amusement, waving at it with a jaunty salute as he entered tickled pink territory. A locker slammed down the hall, and it effectively set my muscles into motion, finally yanking my hand away from where it’d all but built a nest and made a home.
“Oh, scary son of a…” I trailed off, glancing in the sound’s direction. There were shiny floors, rows of lockers in the West Windsor school colors, and strips of LED bar lights, but not a soul in sight.
“Son of a what?” Manuel asked now that I’d released his mouth from its captivity. His amusement hadn’t dimmed. If possible, it’d grown exponentially.
Chills raced up my arm. I glanced at my smartwatch, checking stats. Ninety-six point four.
Could be better.
Could be worse.
Could still get worse.
Readjusting the strap of my backpack, I angled toward the parking lot. “I need to go.”
“Need to go?”
“I mean, I should get going.”