Then Kenny claps her hands and commences with what she calls “town rundown.” “Listen up,” she says.
Kenny rattles off things like the “top five creepy guys” and “what gas station food will give you bubble guts.” The rest of the group either laughs hysterically or adamantly agrees with her warnings. I smile, thinking of how Amari did the same thing a little while after I got to the center. She seemed to know everything about everyone. She was the one who taught me how to survive there. The girls’ town rundown is more trivial than Amari’s since the stakes aren’t as high, but I listen just as closely.
“What else?” Kenny asks the girls.
They all think about it for a second, and then Deanna speaks up. “Oh, I have one,” she says. “Nothingis really a secret in this town.” Everyone nods and I look at her to see if she’s going to elaborate. I wonder what kinds of secrets these girls are keeping and whether it’s true that they all come to light eventually.
After a beat, Kayla returns to the warning about guys. “So, Kenny, is your boyfriend a creep?” she teases.
Kenny glares at her. “Kayla!” she says, tossing a balled-up sandwich wrapper. It lands in front of Alice.
“Nothing is really a secret in this town,” Alice says, mimicking Deanna and throwing the wrapper back. Deanna and Mel glance back and forth between Kayla and Kenny, slowly realizing they’re missing something.
“Wait, what boyfriend?!” Mel asks suspiciously.
Kayla pretends to zip her lips. Kenny buries her head in her hands. Mel turns her attention to Deanna, silently begging for help.
Deanna nudges Kenny with her elbow. “Seriously, girl, spill it,” she says. Kenny groans and raises her head slowly. Alice covers her mouth to stifle her laughter.
I want to know now, too. “So, who’s your boyfriend?” I ask.
Kenny looks at me. “Only becauseyouasked,” she says, sitting up and taking a deep breath. “It’s Leon.” The group gasps. “He’s this sort of weird kid that we’ve known since kindergarten. But guys,” she says, looking around at her friends, “I actually really like him.”
“Awwww,” Mel says. “When did this happen?”
“Look what you did,” Kenny says to Kayla.
“I swear I didn’t know it was actually true, Kenny!” Kayla moves to the bleachers to hug her. “I wouldn’t have said a word.” She sounds like she really regrets putting her on blast. Alice snickers.
“I can’t believe I really admitted that! You guys think I’m stupid?” Kenny asks, dropping her head into her hands again.
“Yes!” Alice says. Everyone glares at her. “Sheesh, I’m joking.”
Deanna, who is leaning back and staring at the clouds through the slats of the bleachers, smiles wryly.
“Why am I always the last to know things?!” Mel whines.
The group laughs as Alice slaps her leg. “You can’t hold water, Mel.”
Mel starts to protest, then throws her hands up. As the chuckling dies down, she turns to me. “Anyway, let’s change the subject before Kenny kills us. Jasmine. What’s your deal? You came here from boarding school but you’re from Lorial, right?”
I glance over at Kayla. She has the lie down pat. But Mel’s tone is curious, not barbed, even though I know she and Kayla and the rest of the girls must’ve talked about me. I feel some nerves in the pit of my stomach as I repeat my lie about boarding school. Luckily, Alice and Deanna have heard my introduction already, and the twins seem eager to meet anyone who’s Kayla-approved. The story gets easier with each telling, and Igive the short version, explaining that while I liked boarding school, now that my mom has married Travis, she wanted me to come home so we could be a family. That part, at least, is true—or seems like it, anyway.
“Well, welcome, Kayla’s sister,” Alice says with a definitive nod, and with that, the topic of my origin seems closed.
The conversation moves on to tryouts, the day’s gossip, and new clothes. The girls discuss an incident in the locker room, but I can barely follow all the different code words and nicknames they use. I let their conversation wash over me in a gentle wave, and it feels nice to sit outside in the sun, surrounded by the sound of their laughter.
I wonder how long this will last, though. Yes, people seem to readily accept that I’ve been at boarding school for the last year, but what if I get too comfortable and slip up? What would these girls think if they found out I was in a juvenile detention center? Looking at them smoke cigarettes on school property without a care in the world, I know they couldn’t possibly understand what it feels like to constantly be walking on eggshells.
When the bell rings inside the school building, everyone sits up and checks their phones for the time.
“Hope they didn’t scare you away,” Deanna says quietly to me.
I shake my head, and Deanna says, “Good.” I let her attention mean more than it might because I think she’sverycute.
“Later, guys,” she tells the rest of the group as they begin cleaning up.
Alice and Kayla are the last to finish packing, and together we walk back to the building. “You’re not bad, Kayla’s sister,” Alice says, holding the door open for me.
