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one
tully
5 minutes After the Party
A disaster of the highest order—so horrific and mortifying that she would never be able to come back from it again.
The drunken partygoers around her barely noticed the girl in basketball shorts rushing down the stairs in streaked, faded makeup. Maybe they’d forgotten about her now, but there was no way in hell that people wouldn’t remember this night.
By Monday she’d be notorious, her name cackled along the halls. Maybe some kook would even write the entire incident on her locker and she would never live down the shame of it all.
Dammit. Dammit.Dammit.
“Tully!” a voice called out through the house, but she ignored it to escape out the front door. She couldn’t face anyone like this. “Tulsa!”
A frustrated yelp burst from her lungs as soon as she reached her car and slammed the driver’s side door behind her, her hands covering her eyes as she threw her head back against the headrest.
The very worst part of it all was that it washerfault.
Stupid revenge, stupid makeup, stupid alcohol, and stupid,stupidNathan Rondeau.
two
tully
3 days after the party
“Stupid names lead to stupid people.”
That’s what Tully’s mother told her when she was five years old. It was the woman’s reasoning for the “wonderful” and “meaningful” names Tully’s parents came up with for their children while high in the back of a caravan in the late 1960s. Back then they were delusional and high. Now that they’d “changed their ways,” they were just in denial.
If only her parents had realized that ‘Tulsa’ was just about the stupidest, most meaningless name in the entire world. There is nothing wonderful or meaningful about being named after the city where you were born in the back of a van. Why couldn’t she have been born in some normal-sounding city like her siblings? Joliet and Eugene were passable. ‘Tully’ wasn’t much better as a nickname, but it was better than Tulsa.
Tully could at least blame her mother and father’s crappy naming for her stupiditysometimes, but she may have just topped it. There is nothing quite as stupid as ruining your own social reputation out of spite.
She wasn’t ready to face the consequences of her actions yet. No, sitting in her car in the school parking lot on a Monday morning and hiding her face was a much, much better option.
There was the temptation to start the engine and drive far, far away from this place. She could go home and do a puzzle or study some of her notes—two of her favorite pastimes. But then she remembered that she had a quiz in statistics class and if she missed it she would cost herself those points.
She groaned and drove her head backward into the headrest, her hands clenching and unclenching repetitively in her lap. And to think, she worked so hard to maintain those good grades just to prove that book smarts had nothing to do with actual common sense—like not making a fool out of yourself at the beginning of senior year.
She loved her good grades. She loved proving that there was something she could do right.
What good was all that now?
She would have to face this straight on, eye bags and all. Sleep had evaded her the entire weekend, and when she did get a few minutes of shuteye, horrific nightmares of terrible parties and vengeful jocks plagued her.
“What the hell are you doing in there?”
Tully jumped at the harsh taps on her car window, her hand flying to her startled heart that nearly launched out of her chest. “Jeez.”
The intruder didn’t have the moussed head of pretty-boy brown hair that had stalked her weekend nightmares. In fact, the jet-black shoulder-length bob with teased bangs was different from both guys she was trying to avoid at the moment.
Tully gave one last dramatic sigh after catching the stern look in her friend’s eyes and reluctantly unlocked the door. She had to accept her fate, walking straight into the lion’s den.
Stephanie Choi’s arms were crossed over her chest. Beneath the light layer of pale purple eye shadow was a burning glare. “You ignored every single one of my calls this weekend,” she said and clicked her tongue on the Hubba Bubba she chewed. “And you left me at the party.”
Tully flinched at the mention of the cursed event and armed herself with excuses. “I was worried that Erik was calling.”
