Um. Y-yeah. Pretty much. He squints at me like hes just noticed me for the first time.
Ive been looking for a doctor, I breeze on. I feel bad for Bridget, but at the same time, she deserves to know what her lame excuse for a boyfriend is up to. Its so hard to find a good one, you know? Especially one that doubles as a restaurant with a $4.99 lunch special. Thats rare.
What are you talking about? Bridgets voice is a squeak. She whips back to Alex. What is she talking about?
A muscle is ticking in Alexs jaw. I can tell he wants to curse me out but knows that would make it worse, so he just stands there glaring.
I put my hand on Bridgets arm. Im sorry, Bridget. But your boyfriend is really a slimeball.
What is she talking about?
Bridgets voice shoots up another octave, and as I walk away I hear Alex start trying to calm her down, no doubt feeding her lies as quickly as he can come up with them. I should feel good about what Ive donehe deserves it, after all, and in a weird way Im only setting things rightbut as soon as I walk away I feel strangely deflated. The feeling of control vanishes and in its place comes a tingly feeling of anxiety. I flip back through the days events like Im scrolling down a computer screen, trying to find some lapse, something Ive forgotten to do or say. Maybe I should have gone to Juliets house earlier, to check up on her. Then again, Im not really sure what I would have said. Hi. Can you verify for me that youre not going to throw yourself in front of any cars tonight? That would be great. No explosives, either. This is my life youre playing with.
The musics so loud, the notes are hardly distinguishable from one another. I fantasize about taking Kents hand and pulling him away somewhere quiet and dark. The room downstairs, maybe, or the woods, or someplace farther. Maybe well just get in the car and drive.
Sam! Sam!
I look up. In the back room Lindsays climbed onto one of the couches, waving at me over the tide of bobbing heads. Allys next to her, and several feet beyond them I see Elody whispering something to Steve Dough.
I hesitate, a sense of hopelessness washing over me. Its ridiculous for me to talk to Kent. I have no words to describe how wrong Ive been about him, about Rob, about everyone. I dont think I can explain to him how Ive been changing. And maybe its all a lie, anyway. Maybe its impossible to change.
In that moment, while Im teetering between two doorways, the people around me get all quiet and hushed, faces growing slack. Up on the couch Lindsay falters, her hand flapping uselessly to her side. Next to her, Ally begins opening and shutting her mouth like a fish. The buzzing is all through my body now, like the hum of an electrical wire.
And there she is, marching down the hallway. After all that: Juliet Sykes on a mission.
In a second the despair, the hopelessness, the sense of forgetting things or missing the point somehow, all gets transformed into rage. When she sees Lindsay she stops and opens her mouth, going straight into her youre a bitch routine, but I dont even let the first word escape from her mouth before Im charging forward, grabbing her arm, and half dragging her backward down the hallway. Shes too surprised to fight me.
I pull her into the nearest bathroomOut, I order two girls who are primping in front of the mirrorand slam the door and lock it. When I turn around to face her shes staring at me like Im the psychopath.
What are you doing?
She must misunderstand my question. Its a party, she says with soft insistence. When shes not busy freaking out and calling me a bitch she has a nice voice, musical like Elodys. Im allowed to be here like everybody else.
No. I shake my head, pressing fingers to my temples to keep them from pounding. I mean, what are you really doing? Why are you here?
Her eyes flutter to the doorknob behind me. I move over so its wedged into my lower back. If she wants to get out, shell have to move me out of the way.
Apparently she doesnt like her chances, because she takes a long, slow breath. I came to tell you something. You, and Lindsay, and Elody, and Ally.
Oh, yeah? Whats that?
Youre a bitch, she says quietly, not like an accusation at all, more like something shes sorry about.
At the same time she says it, I say it with her. Im a bitch.
She stares at me.
Listen, JulietI rake my hands through my hairI know we havent always been nice to you or whatever. And I really feel bad about itI do. I try to gauge what shes thinking, but its like something has shut down behind her eyes, a button switching off, and she just stands there staring at me dully. I rush on, The thing is, we never really meant anything by it, you know? I dont think Iwereally thought about it. Its just the kind of thing that happens. People used to make fun of me all the time. Shes making me nervous, just staring like that, and I lick my lips. All the time. And, like, I dont think its really because people are mean or bad or whatever. I just thinkI just think Im fighting to find the words. Memories are colliding in my head: the sound of people singing as I walked down the hall, the smell of ice cream on Lindsays breath the day we threw Beths tampons out the window, riding a horse through a blur of trees. I just think that people dont think. They dont know. WeIdidnt know.
I feel pretty proud of myself for getting all of that out. But Juliet hasnt moved or smiled or even freaked out. Shes so still she could be carved out of stone. Finally a little tremor goes through her, a personal earthquake, and her eyes seem to focus on me.
You havent always been that nice to me? she says dully, and my stomach sinks. She didnt hear a word I said.
Iyeah. And Im sorry about that.
Her eyelids flutter. In seventh grade you and Lindsay stole all my clothes from the locker room so I had to walk around in my sweaty gym clothes for the rest of the day. Then you called me Stinky Sykes.
IIm sorry. I dont remember that. The way shes staring at me is awful, like shes seeing in and through and beyond me to some void.
That was before you came up with Psycho, of course. Juliets voice has lost its musical quality. Its completely toneless. She raises her arm and mimes slashing a knife through the air, emitting a series of high-pitched shrieks that send chills up and down my arms, and for a moment I think maybe she is crazy. Then she drops her arm. Real funny. Psycho killer, quest-ce que cest. Catchy.
People used to tell this really dumb joke about me. Kind of sing it when I walked by. Whats red and white and weird all over Im hoping to make her laugh or twitch or something, but she just keeps staring at me with that dumb, animal look on her face, a blank.
I never sang it, she says, and then, like shes forced to keep reciting everything we ever did, continues. You took pictures of me when I was showering.
That was Lindsay, I say automatically, getting more and more uncomfortable. If she would get angry, it would be one thingbut its like shes not even seeing me, like shes just reading off a list shes looked at a million times.
You posted the pictures all over the school. Where teachers could see.
We took them down in, like, an hour. Im ashamed as soon as I say the words. As though the fact that we took them down makes it better.
You hacked into my Yahoo account. You published mymy private emails.
That wasnt us, I say quickly, feeling a rush of relief that this, at least, was not our fault. To this day Im not sure who did hack her account, and circulate email exchanges between Juliet and some guy named Path2Pain118 shed obviously met in a chat room. There were dozens of emails, all of them long rants about how much high school sucked and how awful everybody was. The hacker had forwarded the emails to almost everyone in school after giving them a new subject line: Future School Shooters of America. I shiver, thinking about how easy it is to be totally wrong about peopleto see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think its the effect or vice versa. And though Ive now been at Kents house five times in six days I feel disoriented, confused by the bright bathroom light and Juliets impassive face and the sounds of the party coming through the door.
Juliet keeps going on like I didnt even speak. You started the rumor that I lost my virginity for a pack of cigarettes.
Ally. That was Ally. I cant say it. It doesnt matter, anyway. It was us. It was all of us. Everyone who repeated the story and whispered slut and made a smokers hacking cough whenever she walked by.
I dont even smoke. She says this with a smile, like this is the funniest thing in the world. Like this, her whole life, is one big joke.
Juliet
My sister heard that rumor. She told my parents. I Finally she loses it a little, balling her hands into fists and squeezing them against her thighs. Ive never even kissed anyone. This comes out as a fierce whispera confessionand the intensity of it, the sadness and regret, makes a black well of anger break somewhere inside of me.
I know, okay? I know we did horrible things. I know weve been shitty and things are bad and I break off, the words getting tangled in my throat. Im on the verge of tears, full of blind fury that hits me like a cloud, blots out everything but a single burning point of frustration: I cant make her see, cant make her see that Im trying to make things right. I feel like Im watching both of our lives swirl down the drain, mine and hers, wrapped around each other. What Im saying is, I want to make it up to you. Im trying to apologize. Thingsthings are going to get better.
She presses her lips together, staring at me mute and white-faced, and I have to tense every muscle in my arms to keep from reaching out and grabbing her shoulders, shaking her.
I mean Im going on blindly now, groping, grabbing at words and ideas as they come buzzing up to me through my anger, trying to get through to her. You got those roses today, right? Like a whole bunch of them?
An enormous shudder goes through her. And now a light snaps on in her eyes again, but instead of gratitude, theres hatred burning there.
I knew it. I knew it was you. Her voice is so full of rage and pain I rear back like shes hit me. What was that? Another one of your little jokes?