I just thought you should know I heard about your little silent act, and I think it’s pathetic, just like everything else about you. Don’t think you’re anyone special. No one misses having you around. Everyone only ever tolerated you because of me, and now they all know the true Chelsea Knot. I’m just sorry I ever wasted any time on you at all.
And if you think this week has been bad, just wait.
For a few minutes all I can do is stare at the computer screen, reading the email over and over like if I do that enough times it’ll somehow make sense. At first I have this weird feeling like someone just punched me in the chest, and I think I might cry, but something hard knots itself in my stomach as I read the words again. I want to grab my laptop and hurl it across the room. I settle instead for slamming it shut with more force than necessary, clenching and unclenching my hands until they stop shaking.
I leap off the bed and pace around my room, trying to calm myself down. I can’t believe Kristen is actually threatening me. I can’t believe she’s implying she orchestrated everything that’s happened to me since my return to school. Okay, on second thought, I can totally believe it—I know firsthand what she’s capable of—I just never thought I’d be on the receiving end of it.
I end up staring into my closet at the dresses from days of yore hung in their plastic dry-cleaners bags. I picked all of them out with Kristen. Actually almost everything in my closet was picked out with, or by, Kristen. It was one of our unspoken rules that all outfits were subject to best-friend approval. And Kristen tended to exercise her veto power. Excessively. Which is why, I realize, I don’t own anything I truly like. I only own clothes I think I should like.
For instance, why is there so much pink here? I don’t like the color pink. I don’t look good in the color pink. But a third of my closet is devoted to pink sweaters and blouses and skirts. All because Kristen always insisted it was “my color.”
I have red hair and pale skin. Pink totally washes me out. I look ridiculous in pink.
When I was thirteen, my dad painted my ceiling blue because that’s what I wanted. Not because someone else suggested it, or thought it should be that color, but because I liked it. The same way I was so in love with my yellow Beetle, before Kristen berated it to my face.
How did something as simple as deciding what I like become so freaking complicated?
Before I realize it, I’ve torn every article of pink clothing off the hangers and tossed it all into a pile behind me. It feels…good. Liberating. Why should I wear a color I hate? It isn’t like it’ll change Kristen’s mind, or make people like me, or make my life at all easier. These past few days I’ve tried to blend into the walls by hiding in too-big sweaters and jeans, make myself as unnoticed as possible, but obviously that isn’t helping.
So maybe it’s time to stop working around other people’s expectations.
I go through the rest of my closet and my entire dresser, pulling out anything I don’t like anymore, or never liked in the first place. Over half of my clothes end up in the DO NOT WANT heap. I don’t stop there—I sort through all my makeup, my jewelry, my shoes, the girly magazines stashed under my bed. By the time I’m done, my room looks like it was ravaged by a level-five tornado.
I throw everything I’m getting rid of into garbage bags. Most of it can go to Goodwill. The magazines I’ll dump. Clippings of articles I’ve written for the Gazette are taped up by my mirror; there are photos, too, snapshots of Kristen and Warren and Derek and our whole group, hanging out on the quad, partying at Kristen’s, group shots of us all in our formal wear for Homecoming, that I carefully peel off the wall. I stuff it all in an empty shoebox and shove it all the way in the back of my closet shelf, where I won’t have to be reminded. Out of sight, out of mind.
* * *
Mom finds me in the basement as I’m piling the garbage bags next to the dryer. She folds her arms and watches, waiting for me to acknowledge her presence. Once I’ve stacked the last bag, I turn and look at her. She has the same hair as me, red and wild, but she always pulls it back in a tight knot. A few wisps have escaped the elastic and frame her face.
Mom’s side of the family is Irish to the bone. The story goes that some great-grandmother of mine came to the States in a potato boat or something. She has three brothers, two sisters, a million cousins, and among them you’ll find all of the stereotypes: Catholicism, raging alcoholism, legendary hot tempers. It sure makes holiday get-togethers interesting. Dad’s one of those American mutts who cites about fifteen European countries as his heritage. Apparently none of them were strong enough to battle out the Irish in the gene pool.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
Crap. My whiteboard’s upstairs and neither of us knows sign language, so that leaves me limited options. I tear open one of the bags, point to the clothing, and then shake my head, trying for my best DO NOT WANT! expression. I also attempt mimicking handing a folded pair of studded jeans to a grateful jeans-deprived poor person, which my mother understands about as well as you’d expect. Meaning, not at all.
Ah, well. I can just store it all down here for right now, and if by some miracle life returns to normal, I’ll drag it all back up to my room. I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, though.
Mom exhales in exasperation. “Stop this nonsense and just talk to me!”
For a second she looks so hurt that I feel kind of bad about it. I mean, it’s not like I decided to do this to punish her. And it’s not like I can explain my real reasons to her. “You see, Mom, your darling daughter never knows when to shut the hell up and has a habit of saying things that land people in jail or in comas, or else mortifies them with what may quite possibly fall under the legal guidelines of sexual harassment, and the only way my so-called friends will listen to anything I have to say is if I kneel at their feet begging for forgiveness, which isn’t going to happen in this lifetime, so it’s easier not to say anything at all.” Please. If I said all that, she’d skip Dr. Gebhart and go directly for the straitjacket.
“Chelsea.” Mom’s arms drop to her sides, and she takes a step toward me. “Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me so I can fix it.”
I waver for a minute, wondering if I should just give in and tell her what she wants to hear. Since it seems like she just wants to hear something, anything at all. I even open my mouth, the words forming somewhere in my throat, but when I try to actually speak, it’s just…like my vocal chords are paralyzed or something. Nothing comes out.
“What I don’t understand is why you would go to that party in the first place,” she says. She sighs again and walks over to the dryer. “And then I think about everything else you must’ve been doing behind our backs. I’m smarter than you give me credit for, Chelsea. I knew things…happened, things I figured I was better off not knowing about. Like the drinking. The boys. But I thought we raised you better than that.”
I want to tell her that it isn’t like that. So I drink, sometimes, but it’s not like— It’s just a social thing. A fun thing. I’m not like her cousin who got so drunk at Thanksgiving he passed out in the driveway. And as for the boys, well, there isn’t much to talk about in that department. The most I’ve done is make out with Joey a few times, mostly because Kristen kept pushing us together. But kissing Joey wasn’t even enjoyable. It was actually a little gross. Nothing like movies make you think.
Anyway, after what happened on New Year’s, I’m never going to drink again. And probably will never k
iss anyone ever again, either. Chances are I’ll die alone. Surrounded by cats. Oh, God. I can see it all so clearly. I’ll be the crazy cat lady chasing kids off her lawn with a broom.
“I told your father this would happen,” she continues. “We should have pulled you out of that school. Those kids are barbaric.” She rearranges the fabric sheets boxes absently, and I notice the slight tremor in her hands. She’s really worried about me. I feel that twinge again, the guilty twist in my gut.
I always wondered what it’d be like to grow up in a big family like my mom did. She and Dad made a conscious decision for me to be an only child. Yeah, there are perks—like never having to share my room or toys or attention. But it might be nice, in times like these, to have someone to confide in, or at least commiserate with. Maybe an older sibling, someone who would be able to tell me that all of this high school stuff doesn’t matter. That things will get better. My parents can tell me as much as they like, and maybe they’re right, but I’m never going to fully believe it.
The thing is, despite everything going on—I don’t want to change schools. It feels too much like running away. Let the jerks that vandalized my locker and my car and harassed me think they can just run me off that easy? No. I’m not going to end up as one of Kristen’s little victims. I know the games she plays; she expects me to cave under the pressure and come begging for forgiveness, but it’s not going to happen. I’m not like those other girls she can scare into submission.
When Mom looks at me again, her eyes are a little glassy, like maybe she’s going to cry, but I can’t tell for sure. It might just be the lights down here.
“I know I can’t change your mind,” she says. The slightest of wry smiles appears on her face. “You get your stubborn streak from me.”
I smile back as much as I can, hoping it’ll tell her without words what she desperately wants to hear. That this isn’t her fault. It’s like what those cheesy action-movie heroes always say before they finish taking out the bad guys: I started this, and I’m going to finish it. Except even in the movie of my own life, I’ve never been the heroine. I’ve never been Action Girl. I’ve only ever been Kristen’s supporting character.
day four
On the drive to school the next morning, in an effort to psych myself up, I blast Eminem at full volume. I got this album when I was, like, nine. I had to beg Dad to buy it for me on the down-low, since Mom had a ban on me owning any music she deemed inappropriate. Eminem definitely fell in that bracket. But Dad’s always been a softie, and even though he’s all about Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton himself, he likes to think he still has the kind of antiestablishment streak that would allow him to procure contraband music for his only daughter.
What’s really hard is overcoming the temptation to sing along. Sure, no one would know but me, and it’s doubtful I’d hurt anyone by spitting out lyrics alone in my car—no matter how vulgar they may be—but when I said I have something to prove, I didn’t mean only to the kids at school. I have something to prove to myself. That I’m not who everyone thinks I am. That I can stick to this.
Listening to Eminem makes me feel like a badass. Or at least as though I have the potential for badassery. I mean, the way he sings, it’s like he’d probably punch out a puppy if it looked at him wrong. Obviously I’m not glorifying animal cruelty here, I’m just saying, I could use some of that attitude. It’s better than the attitude I have now of just letting everyone mess with me all the time.
I pull into my usual parking spot and leave the car on until the current song finishes, and when I walk through the school doors, I try holding on to that newfound sense of I-don’t-give-a-crap. My first test is the fresh graffiti on my locker, the word BITCH etched in black marker. For a second I flinch inwardly, stung, but then I’m just annoyed. Bitch? Really? Whoever is behind this is in dire need of a thesaurus. The level of creativity is tragic more than anything.
I decide not to bother cleaning the slur off my locker this time. I even take a red marker out of my locker and dot the I with a heart. I’ll wear it as a badge of honor. Yeah, that’s right. You think I’m a bitch now, Grand Lake High? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
“Chelsea?” Asha pops up behind me, clutching some notebooks to her chest and smiling wide. Her face falls as she notices the defacement of my locker. “Who did that?” she asks.
I snap the lock shut and shrug my shoulders. I’m not going to waste time caring about it. I lean back against my locker and level Asha with a questioning look. She still hasn’t explained why she’s talking to me.
She seems to understand the implied question. “I’m on my way to Advanced Algebra,” she explains, gesturing down the hall. “I saw you as I was walking and just thought I’d say hi.” She grins again. “By the way, I was going to ask you—”
“Excuse me.”
I look up in time to see Kristen shoulder her way past Asha, hard, sending her stumbling into the bank of lockers. Her books fall from her arms and her notes flutter to the floor.
Tessa trails after Kristen, laughing. “What reeks?” she asks, her nose wrinkled. She eyes Asha up and down. “It smells like curry.”
I instinctively put myself between her and Asha, opening my mouth to respond with something like All I smell is bitchassery and acne cream, but then I close it when I remember I cannot, of course, say anything. Still, I do a pretty mean glare, and for a moment Tessa’s smirk falters. Asha doesn’t react, just calmly bends down to collect her scattered papers. I kneel down and help, ignoring Kristen and Tessa’s looming presence. Just as I grab one of Asha’s math worksheets, Kristen steps on it, causing the paper to tear in half as I pull upward.
“Oops,” she says flatly.
I rise to my feet so we’re face-to-face. I’m so angry I’m shaking with it. The urge to haul off and punch her in the face is strong, but I swallow the temptation; I don’t even know how to throw a punch, and while it might feel satisfying in the moment, it won’t solve anything. The worst is the way Kristen stares back at me, so unaffected and smug, like she knows I can’t touch her.
“What are you going to do? Glare me to death?” she drawls. She looks from me to Asha and back again. “This is sad, even for you. Do you really have to drag the queen of the loser brigade down with you?” Her tone goes ice-cold. “Don’t you think you’ve ruined enough lives already?”
“You better watch your back,” Tessa warns Asha. “Chelsea will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat. Trust me.” She casts a bitter glare my way just in case I didn’t get the intended message. I’m itching to spill to her who was really behind the blackmailing, but there’s no way she’d believe me over Kristen anyway.
Asha tucks some loose papers inside her binder and smiles at them, big and fake. “Thanks for the super helpful advice,” she says. “I’ll take it into consideration.” She starts down the hall, barely slowing to glance back at me over her shoulder. “Coming?”
I take one last look at Kristen before turning and falling in step beside Asha. My heart is still pounding like crazy as we disappear around the corner out of their sight. When Asha stops at the water fountain, I lean against the wall with my eyes closed, taking deep breaths and trying to calm myself. I hate that I’m letting them get to me this much when I promised myself I wouldn’t. I hate that I just stood there and let them talk to Asha like that.
The worst thing is knowing they’re right. Asha might be a loser, but she’s been nice to me, inexplicably so, and she doesn’t deserve to deal w
ith what’ll come to her just by being in my orbit.
“You’re not ruining my life.”
I open my eyes as Asha wipes her mouth off with the back of her hand. She must see the uncertainty on my face, because she smiles at me, equal parts grim and reassuring.
“You don’t really believe I think the girls who just bodychecked me into the lockers, called me a loser and ripped up my homework have my best interests at heart, do you?” she says.
I dig my whiteboard and marker from my bag. They’re not going to leave you alone if they see you with me.
“So?” she says. “In my opinion, if those girls hate me, that only means I must be doing something right.” The warning bell rings, and she sighs. “I should get to class. See you later.”
I don’t run into her again until lunch. I’m holed up in the library, the easiest place to be alone without drawing attention to myself or worrying about anyone bothering me. Every computer is taken, so my genius plan to waste the hour surfing the web is dashed to the rocks. Instead I plop down at an empty table and pull out my lunch—a bag of pretzels, bottled water and a Snickers bar, courtesy of the first-floor vending machine—and my geometry book. I can’t believe this is my life now. Spending lunch in the library. Doing homework. Ahead of time. Homework I cannot even understand. Oh, parabolas, why must your formulas elude me so?
“That looks nutritious.”
I look up to see Asha sitting across from me. She has a brown-paper-bag lunch spread out in front of her: a diagonally cut peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a little bag of crackers, some apple slices and a can of iced tea, along with her knitting.
I have no idea how long she’s been sitting there. Did I really get that absorbed in my geometry homework? Wonders, they will never cease.