Читать книгу Here Lies Bridget - Paige Harbison - Страница 7

The next day, I showed up to Mr. Ezhno’s class on time. Frankly, it wasn’t in reaction to his threat of suspension, but more just needing to escape my house and Meredith’s sobbing. If I didn’t hate her so much, I might have asked her what was wrong. I couldn’t stand it when other people cried around me. I always felt guilty, even when I hadn’t done anything wrong.

But seriously, who wakes up at seven o’clock in the morning to cry?

As soon as I sat down, Jillian, my other, more gossip-appreciating best friend, passed me a neatly folded note (she’d been the first one in fourth grade to be able to make origami and paper footballs).

I looked up at her.

“You can’t just say it? We have to pass notes?”

It sounded kind of mean, but come on, everyone was talking and class hadn’t even started yet.

Jillian made a face and mouthed, “Just read it.”

I opened the note and started to read the rounded, funky handwriting I’d never been able to copy. Instead, I had total boy handwriting.

Michelle told me about everything that you told her about Mr. Ezhno. Is it true?

I nodded and made a gagging face. Her eyes widened, along with her mouth. Finally someone appreciated how irritating the situation was. I felt a wave of fondness for Jillian, as I saw how commiserative she was.

As class started, I wrote back, asking her what else had been going on in school. She had some decent gossip, as usual. It was really the main reason I kept her around. Jillian had an amazing ability to remember just about everything. She didn’t use her memory to score high on tests and do well in Spanish class—obviously, if she was talking to me all through class, she couldn’t hear that information to memorize it. She used her memory exclusively to collect and archive everything about everyone we went to school with.

Jillian was going on about the colleges everyone was interested in applying to, and the boy who’d just gotten kicked off the soccer team for having a 1.9 GPA. I had just been about to say something about “getting to the good stuff” when she mentioned that there was a new girl.

“… 1.9 GPA, which is so sad, because it’s only like point-one away from being acceptable. Oh! And that new girl is in my gym class, speaking of soccer. She was actually really good.”

I thought of Liam and the girl I hadn’t recognized the day before.

“So, wait, did you talk to her?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s so nice. Her name is Anna Judge, and she moved here from Maine. It’s actually kind of funny, I kept running into her and Liam yesterday. Seriously, like, all day.”

My opportunity.

“Liam?”

I spoke too quickly. Super casual. But thankfully, Jillian never noticed that kind of thing and simply answered my question.

“Oh, right, he was showing her around yesterday. You know how the office, like, assigns you a buddy or whatever on your first day when you’re new?”

“Yeah, go on.”

SPIT. IT. OUT.

“Well, Liam was her buddy. I mean, he was assigned to do it, but I heard he volunteered. He was apparently in the office picking up some form for football when she came in. He dropped her off at each class, picked her up, ate lunch with her, all that normal stuff that the buddy guides do—”

Or all that stuff that he used to do with me every single day.

“—except he drove her home, too, which they don’t always do.”

No, they didn’t.

They never did that.

I spent the rest of the period prodding her for information about Liam and Anna. She spoke delicately, in accordance to my sensitivity on the subject of him. My best friends knew it was a hot button for me. But once she told me she didn’t know anything else, I knew she was telling the truth. Jillian was honest, always. Which was the reason she was the wrong person to tell a secret to, but an excellent person to leak them from.

She did keep talking about how super-nice Anna had been.

Not so delicate.

When the bell finally rang, I was more than ready to leave. I was the first one out the door, tossing an “Oh, bye!” back to Jillian. I had thought that getting out of the classroom and away from Jillian would be enough to relieve me of having to think about the new girl and her friendship (or whatever it might become) with Liam. But as I walked down the hallway, it seemed like her name was on everyone’s lips. Maybe it was all in my head, but even if it was, it was pissing me off.

I ducked into the bathroom, hoping to renew my self-confidence with the reapplication of lipgloss. And there she was.

Miss Anna Judge, the Super-Nice, Surprisingly-Good-Soccer-Player from Maine. Washing what looked like ink from her fingers.

What could be more awkward for me than to stand elbow to elbow with the girl who I had only seen from a hundred yards away but had already devoted so much thought to? Not awkward for her, of course; she didn’t even know who I was.

Oh, my God, she didn’t even know who I was.

I felt the petty, obsessive, desperate-to-be-liked feeling that had been living in my stomach since I was in elementary school. That was always ready to jump out and whine, But what about me? Whenever I felt it, I’d usually try to say or do something to draw the attention to myself.

And keep it there.

I walked to the other sink, next to her, and started to dig through my bag for my NARS lipgloss.

There was no one at the school who didn’t know who I was. I’d worked hard to make it that way. At this point, half the guys were trying to get with me, and half the girls were jealous of that fact or trying just as hard to be part of my inner circle.

I had parties all the time, and everyone knew I only invited the people I wanted to. It didn’t hurt that I had the best pool in Potomac Falls.

Though my dad and Meredith were strictly against alcohol at the parties, we usually managed to spike the punch. Then we’d just claim it was a slumber party, and that’s why no one drove home ‘til morning. Meredith would spend days planning the decorations, themed music, (temporarily) virgin drinks and anything else she or I could think of. It was pretty cool of her—not that I could ever get over my issues with her enough to tell her so.

It was even cooler that she would then spend the whole time in her room or out with my father, out of our way.

I redirected my thoughts back to figuring why Anna simply must know whom she was standing next to. Surely she’d heard someone talk about me, or something. Maybe someone had pointed me out to her while I was too busy to notice. I pulled out the lipgloss and started applying it, still considering other probable reasons why she simply must know who I was. She was just pretending not to.

I risked a glance at her reflection.

She had short, silvery-blond hair, which seemed to me like an obvious effort to look spunky and fun. She had long eyelashes, and the smooth skin I had always assured myself was just airbrushing in magazines and pictures of celebrities. Her arms were thin, just like the rest of her. She was wearing a dress that was bound to be “in” soon. She was still scrubbing her hands.

Then she spoke, taking me off guard. It was like I’d forgotten she could see me, too.

“Pen exploded. I didn’t kill a squid or anything.” She smiled, exposing straight, white teeth.

“I’m Anna, by the way.”

I nodded curtly and smiled back.

“Hi, Anna.”

I didn’t tell her who I was. I had to see if she already knew. Had to.

“And you are … Bridget Duke?”

My mind eased. What had I been worried about?

“Yes, I am.” I waited a moment before deciding that, yes, I needed validation.

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, sorry, that must seem creepy. I saw the name on the corner of the paper sticking out of your bag. I’m new here.”

I paused as the disappointment set in.

“Okay, then.” I turned back to my mirror and started fussing over my eye makeup.

I tried desperately to think of something cool to say while she nonchalantly applied ChapStick to her lips (which didn’t seem to need it).

“Actually,” Anna started, still not looking at me, “I think Liam mentioned your name. Do you know Liam?”

I mused over the simplicity of the question, and the understatement that would be my answer.

“Yes, I know him.”

“Hmm. He told me to look out for you.” She glanced at me, smiled again and waved goodbye.

My face was frozen in shock as I stared at the doorway until she was gone and her footsteps faded. It felt like she’d just pulled the pin out of a grenade, and I had no idea how to stop it from exploding.

I LEFT THE BATHROOM—the scene of the crime—in a daze.

I was analyzing, picking at and utterly disassembling what Anna had told me Liam had said. I’d done this many times with things he’d said to me, each time shredding his words so thoroughly that I worked myself into a fit. Sure, this was she-said he-said, but it didn’t matter. Liam said a lot of cryptic things, seemingly not on purpose.

I’d particularly agonized over what he’d said when he broke up with me. He’d said that of course it wasn’t what he wanted, and that maybe sometime in the future.

Oh, he’d given me plenty to mull over that night.

So, there I was, putting on the familiar thinking cap specifically designed for figuring out what the hell Liam meant by what he said.

He told me to look out for you.

Because she should get to know me, or because I am someone to avoid?

I decided I would definitely have to use one of my other favorite techniques: bringing Liam up into every single conversation and asking what everyone else thought he might have meant.

I had just decided to go to the nurse’s office because of imaginary cramps and say that I was really not able to stay the rest of the day when Brett popped up out of nowhere.

“Hey, Bridget—ready for this test in NSL?” I always hated small talk about classes, particularly National, State and Local Government. Blech.

“Ugh, Brett, what are you—” Wait.

“What test?”

“What test?” He repeated my words with an entirely different inflection, one that implied that I was very, very stupid.

“The midterm, Bridget. You studied for it, right?”

“No? When is it?”

“Today, in like—” he looked at his watch—which, incidentally, looked like it was taken from the personal wardrobe of Inspector Gadget “—forty-six minutes.”

He was still looking horrified at my unpreparedness.

“How much is it worth?” I asked, feeling a little breathless. Today sucks, I thought.

“Thirty percent, just like the final, and then the other forty percent is homework and the other quizzes and stuff.”

Oh, no. I had gotten a D on the last quiz and forgotten about three homework assignments. On last week’s progress report I’d had a seventy-two percent in the class. I had to pass.

“Brett, there’s no way I can study enough during this lunch period. You have to help me.” I said this last part like it was obvious.

“I can’t help you study, Bridget, I have no time—” “No, not study, Brett, you have to help me during the test.”

Technically, I was asking for a favor and, really, one shouldn’t treat the person she wants a favor from like he’s stupid. But Brett didn’t seem to notice. His expression just turned from worry for me to worry for himself.

He understood exactly what I was saying.

“I can’t, Bridget. If we got caught, I’d fail this test, then my grade would drop down to a sixty-six percent. I have to work really hard to keep my grades high enough to get into college.” He shook his head.

“There’s no way.”

“Oh, my God, we’re not going to get caught.” I had no idea if we’d get caught, but I tried to sound confident.

“This’ll be so simple, she’ll never notice. Okay, are you right-handed?”

“Yes?”

“Okay, then you sit to my left, and I’ll sit behind Walco, he’s huge, Mrs. Remeley won’t be able to see me look at your paper. All you have to do is write really clearly and keep your paper diagonal toward me. It’ll be no problem, it’s how most people write, anyway.”

He looked firm on his refusal. And then the obvious struck me.

“Michelle. I’ll trade you Michelle!” I said it like I’d figured out the Da Vinci Code or something.

Brett had had a totally annoying crush on Michelle since, like, first grade. She and I hadn’t really been friends yet at that age, but my mom knew her mom, so we played with each other. She used to get secret-admirer cards and letters. A fact I teased her about because I was positively green with envy, and resentful that no one sent any to me. Except for that one I’d written to myself once, and claimed it was from resident cutie J.R.

We didn’t know for sure who was writing them to her until one day in fifth grade, when I caught Brett in the cubby room writing one while everyone else was playing Heads Up Seven Up. I’d been cold and going to get my jacket when I found him.

There he was, sitting in the corner with a piece of pink construction paper on his lap, writing in the boyish handwriting I recognized from all the other valentines over the years.

Lying on the floor next to him were several failed attempts. I remember the validation of my suspicions that it was he who had been writing them feeling like a victory.

Snatching the card from his lap, I ran out of the cubby room shouting “Brett loves Miche-elle” in that singsong voice strictly used in this particular brand of torture. Everyone’s head had shot up, and I read the poem aloud.

Though my love goes unrequited I’ll love you beyond when the pigs are flighted.

Though I may be a snowball, and you the heat I’ll melt with you if you stay as sweet.

You are Michelle, my belle,

And without you, this place would be …

Brett would later insist that he hadn’t intended to put hell at the end of the poem, but was going to somehow rhyme dwell. But to us, it might as well have been written there.

None of us knew the real meanings behind the words. Even so, the class got what the poem meant: it meant that Brett wanted to be K-I-S-S-I-N-G Michelle. Sitting in a tree, if you went by our prediction.

Brett had stayed in the cubby room the entire time I read it, and the only other person, besides him and our dimwitted teacher, not joining in the roar of laughter was Michelle. She had turned a deep shade of red and then run to the bathroom. Brett went to the office and got picked up early that day.

All the while, our teacher handed out bags of heart-shaped candies, an uncomprehending smile on her face.

A few years later, when we all entered middle school, Brett had come in with a seriously misguided attempt at dyed black hair, which had come out a sort of awful, metallic blue, and a newfound interest in all things rebellious. He didn’t start dressing normally again (i.e., not wearing the goth-style pants that looked like an entire flap of a circus tent had been stitched together) and stop skipping school until tenth grade. That was also when he started obsessing about the grades he couldn’t seem to keep up very easily.

Judging by the way Brett never spoke to Michelle again and instead gazed at her every chance he got, I was pretty sure he still wanted to sit in a tree with her. Lucky for me, his expression when I said her name removed all doubt from my mind.

“What about Michelle? What do you mean you’ll trade her?”

“I’ll get you a date with her if you give me the answers.”

He hesitated. I saw something that looked like the tiniest bit of consideration in his eyes. I jumped at it.

“Come on, Brett, it’s totally worth it. It’s not like we’ll get caught. And, be real, when else are you going to have a chance with Michelle?” He looked a little offended and, for some reason I could not imagine, amused.

I would have felt bad saying that he didn’t have a shot with her except that it was true. And just because I pointed out the obvious didn’t mean it was my fault that he never would have asked her out.

“It’s not right, you can’t expect to just trade her like money or something.” He seemed to give himself an idea.

“Here, just ask her to talk to me. I’ll ask her out myself.”

Ha! He was making this way too easy.

“So we have a deal.” It wasn’t a question. I wanted him to feel like he had already agreed.

“She’ll sit with you Monday at lunch.”

I snickered to myself and walked past him to the cafeteria. But as soon as I walked away, Liam loomed in my mind again, removing any trace of laughter.

I STAYED QUIET THROUGHOUT the lunch period, ignoring the gossip Jillian was imparting to Michelle. Instead of participating, I spent the whole period looking through my Allure magazine and glancing at Liam as furtively and often as possible.

He was about six foot three, his body lean and toned. His hair was the dark, shiny brown that you might see in a shampoo commercial, and reached down just past his dark, straight eyebrows. His eyes, though I couldn’t see them from where I sat, I knew to be the same light color of a swimming pool. The dark circle of his pupil and his thick, dark, straight eyelashes made the color seem even more striking.

He was sitting with Anna, who was taking a bite out of a cheeseburger. Eyeing the bottle of Coke Classic that sat in front of her, I wondered how she ate like that and still stayed so thin. Even if we had been friends, though, I never would have asked her that—that was what people asked me.

Not the other way around.

I decided that of all things, I didn’t have the energy to look at the pair of them.

“Bridget?”

I blinked away images of times Liam’s eyes had been close enough to mine that I could memorize them.

“What?” I snapped, and looked up to see a girl named Laura’s eager-looking face.

She recoiled slightly at the harshness in my tone.

“Um. Well, I was, uh …” she nervously tripped over her words “.wondering if you guys wanted to come over to my house tonight. I mean, it’s not going to be like a big deal party or anything. Not like your parties.”

“Have you ever actually been to one of my parties?” I asked impatiently, barely interested in the conversation.

“Um. No, but, I mean, I hear they’re great.”

I narrowed my eyes at her and cocked my head a bit to the side. She cleared her throat.

“Well, anyway, it’s just going to be like board games and stuff. My parents will be there.” She looked sheepish.

I waited to see if she said anything else. When she didn’t, and instead shifted her weight uncomfortably, I smiled.

“Uh-huh. Well, I know that I’ll be busy tonight. I don’t know about the other girls. Michelle? Jillian? Busy tonight? Want to go play some board games with Laura and her parents?”

Michelle shook her head down at her food, her face red. Jillian looked sympathetically at Laura and then said something about plans with her mom.

I crinkled my nose, and made a tsk-ing sound as I turned back to Laura looking regretful.

“Aw, that’s too bad. Maybe next time?” I smiled dismissively, and looked back down at my magazine.

“You know what, Bridget?” Laura asked, her ears turning red.

I gave her a challenging look.

“What’s that?”

“You’re just …”

There was a lurch in my stomach. I would not be told off, and I could tell that was where this was going. But I’d learned long ago to deflect this sort of thing.

“I’d stop now, if I were you. Which thank God I’m not.”

I watched her fury grow, and I felt the growing sense that I’d really gone too far.

“I’d always rather be me than you.” And she walked away.

I scrambled to think of something to say. I thought of nothing. I’d never had to. Since when did anyone challenge me?

I knew I’d been unnecessarily cruel to her, and I felt kind of guilty. But my day had sucked so far, too, and no one was apologizing to me. “Bridget—”

“So I ran into Anna today,” I started, cutting off Michelle. I knew she was going to give me grief and I just couldn’t deal with that on top of it all. Plus, I had to pretend that what had just happened didn’t bother me.

“And she introduced herself to me and all—she already knew my name—and then told me that Liam had told her to ‘look out for’ me. What do you suppose that means?”

Jillian, always interested in a good outrage, gasped and dropped her celery stick.

“He said that?”

I enlightened her on my theories of what he might have meant, and we talked about it for the rest of the period, eventually agreeing that he must have meant that I am so popular she’s bound to run into me, and to then introduce herself.

As soon as the bell rang indicating the end of lunch, I told Michelle about the deal I’d made with Brett. Well, I told her the half she needed to know, which was that she was sitting with him on Monday at lunch.

She raised her eyebrows at me.

“I’m what?”

“It’s no big deal. Seriously, I said I’d get him a date, and all he wanted was to ask you out himself.” She stared at me.

“Oh, my God, Michelle, just say no to him, it’s not that hard.” “Bridget, you can’t just—” What, now she was going to start rebelling, too? “Well, you’re going to sit with him, so …” I let the so hang in the air, letting her fill in the blank for herself with stop arguing with me. I smiled superficially, wiggled a goodbye with my fingers to Jillian and then strutted off to class. I didn’t look back to see what Michelle did next.

As I walked away, I began to wonder if what I was about to do was wrong. Sure, chances were that Brett wouldn’t get caught helping me, and that he wouldn’t dive into a depression when Michelle said no to his date. But still—what if we did get caught? What if he did fail the class, and it was my fault? What if between that and Michelle rejecting him, he did slip into a depression? Anyone would, after being expelled from this school. It was such a high-profile place that anything that happened here was practically in the society pages.

But no, I thought to myself. I was giving my actions far more credit than they deserved. Brett would be fine. We wouldn’t get caught, and even if we did … Brett would be fine.

My conviction wavered a bit once I walked into my NSL class and saw that there was a substitute teacher.

Okay, this could go one of two ways. Either the sub was nicer than Mrs. Remeley, our usual teacher, or she could be nasty.

Nasty like that teacher we’d had in middle school who kept telling us to sit up straight and hold our books a certain way during reading time.

Nice like my first-grade teacher with Valentine’s Day candy and the inability to stop me from doing what I wanted. Which, in first grade, was to use Brett to my advantage.

On my way to my seat, I watched her. She looked to be about in her fifties, but according to the chalkboard, she was a “Miss.” Miss Smithson. She was mousy and looked nervous. I instantly felt some indefinable emotion for her.

Brett was in his seat looking down at his notes when I sat down. I tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Brett?”

“Yeah?” he asked, eyes still on his paper. I clicked my tongue at his lack of interest in what I had to say.

“I talked to Michelle.” I grinned as he looked up at me.

“She’s looking forward to Monday.”

I could tell that he wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth or not. Whatever, he was probably hopeful enough to choose to believe I was telling the truth. And there was nothing wrong with giving him some hope. Especially because my hope was that this encouragement would stop him from backing out.

The bell rang, and Miss Smithson cleared her throat.

“Good afternoon, students!” She waited for a response. Though she didn’t seem to notice, the only response she got was a raised eyebrow from me.

“As you know, you’ve got a test today. It’s only three pages long, and it’s all multiple-choice. I’m sure you’ll all do fine.”

Really, you are? I thought, unnecessarily.

She started passing out the papers.

“Be sure to write your names in the upper right-hand corner!”

This spurt of enthusiasm had me raising both of my eyebrows.

When the test finally got to me, I wrote my name and took a look at the first question.

What the hell was “gerrymandering”?

I looked over at Brett’s paper, which already bore the answers to three questions on the first page. I circled the a on the first question and hurried to write the other answers. He couldn’t go this fast, or I wouldn’t keep up.

“Slow down!” I commanded in a whisper out of the side of my mouth.

He looked at me, looked at the substitute and then ripped the corner off of the first page of his test. The teacher looked up, and we both tried to look busy. She finally put her nose back into her romance novel, and I glared at Brett.

I inhaled deeply as I saw that he was writing something to me in his slanted handwriting, which gave all of his letters long stems.

He slid the note onto my desk. After one glare at him for his entire lack of stealth and several discreet glances at the teacher, I opened the note and read it.

I can’t do this. You have to do the work.

My eyes and mouth widened and I turned toward Brett, who was staring determinedly down at his paper. What was happening to everyone? No one ever said no to me!

I spoke through my teeth. “You. Have. To.”

“I can’t,” he whispered.

“I can’t risk it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Miss Smithson stand up and walk toward us. I shushed Brett, who was no longer making any noise, and went back to my test. My heart was beating so hard, I was sure she would see the pounding in my chest. I circled the other answers that Brett had put down and answered the two following without reading the questions. I heard her soft, non-heeled steps come closer and finally stop in front of our desks.

“Could you two please step out into the hall?”

There were times when I was trying to get away with something but felt positive that the fact that I was practically swallowing my face would give me away.

This was one of those times.

How was this possible? Out of absolutely nowhere, everything I did today was failing. Nothing was going my way. And truthfully? That’s not how my life works.

I looked up to see Brett’s panicked glare and then Miss Smithson’s disappointed gaze. We walked out into the echoing hall and she followed us. Once in the hall, she headed for the staff lounge a few doors down.

Brett and I stood in silence for a few seconds.

“I, um …” I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, whether it would come out as an apology or as an accusation. I didn’t have time to decide because, at that moment, Miss Smithson came out of the lounge. Chubby little Ms. Chase, whose mouth was full of food and who had clearly just been pulled from her lunch period, followed.

Ms. Chase waved jovially at Brett and me, and then walked into the NSL classroom to chaperone. To make sure no one else was cheating, I guess.

What was I going to do if my father found out about this? He was no tyrant, but he would definitely find cheating unacceptable. There would be angry words. Punishment. Disappointment. Though that might be my own, once Meredith was proven right about me. That I could not handle.

When I had done something wrong was the only time I was even a little not-horribly-resentful that my mother had died in a car accident when I was seven. That way I had only one parent I worried about, one stepparent I couldn’t care less about and one parent I tried never to think about.

I was so busy worrying about what my father was going to say when he found out that when Miss Smithson spoke, I was surprised.

“Cheating,” she said, looking far more intimidating than I had initially suspected, “is an unacceptable act of behavior. I must say I am disappointed.”

I thought nastily of asking her how in the world she could be disappointed in us when she didn’t know us to begin with.

She continued on.

“Now which one of you wants to explain to me what happened?”

If I had been a cartoon character, there would have been an exclamation point over my head.

She wanted one of us to explain.

She didn’t know which one of us had done the cheating. I wasn’t dead, not yet. My next words came tumbling from my mouth faster than I could think them through.

“I tried to tell him to stop, Miss Smithson. I know it’s wrong to talk during a test, but I didn’t know what else to do.” I looked her in the eyes, and tried to look as sincere as possible.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Smithson, really.”

I knew it was wrong to cheat. I knew it was wrong to lie. I knew it was wrong to push someone in front of a speeding train. But all I could think at that moment was that I had to get out of trouble.

And somehow, miraculously, it looked like I might.

“Brett, is this true?” Miss Smithson’s gaze shifted to him. I could feel his eyes on me.

“I was trying to tell her not to cheat!” The pure rage in his voice shook me.

Miss Smithson had seen it all before.

“You’re either going to agree here on who it was, or you’re both going to be punished to the full extent.” She watched us, waiting for one of us to say something.

“I understand,” I said. One of the things I understood was that Brett was going to get in trouble for something he didn’t do. I knew that I would probably be in the same amount of trouble either way, and that I was dragging Brett down with me. I also knew that this was the perfect chance to tell the truth.

But I couldn’t do it. I don’t know why.

And then I made it all worse by remembering the note Brett had passed me. I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to Miss Smithson.

“See? You can see that it’s his, because it’s the corner of the first page on his test.” It was from him. The words were his. The meaning, however, had shifted to suit me.

“See, he said he couldn’t do it, and that I had to do the work. For him.”

Miss Smithson took the piece of paper from my outstretched hand. Lifting her glasses from the chain that hung them around her neck, she read it.

“Did you write this?” she asked Brett, peering at him over the top rims of her lenses, which were scooted down her nose.

I was banking on him starting with the truth.

He did.

“Yes, but—” Brett said, desperately trying to explain what I had done. It was too late.

“All right then,” she finally said, “gather your things and go to the office. Miss Duke, I know it doesn’t feel like you’ve done anything wrong, but you’ll have to go explain what happened to the headmaster. I’ll call to let him know you’re coming.”

On the way to the office, I kept my face pointed purposefully in front of me, terrified to make eye contact with Brett. Not that I would have if I had looked at him, because he wouldn’t look at me either. I didn’t blame him; he must have been disgusted with me. I wanted to fix it, but it was too late. If I said something now, I’d be in even more trouble.

Trouble I couldn’t afford. And something in me knew that I would never have chosen to be noble and do the right thing. There was no taking it back. I always took the self-preservation route.

But maybe I could explain to Brett why I really couldn’t get in trouble right now. Last time I’d gotten in trouble, my father had given me this death stare he’s awesome at, and told me that I didn’t even want to know how much things would change if I got in trouble again at school.

“Listen, Brett—”

“Shut up, Bridget.”

I gasped and resolved to stick to my lie when I spoke to the headmaster. Perhaps even make up some more lies.