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Would’ve.
I don’t look up as she takes her towel and leaves. I sink to the floor, unable to move another inch for minutes as everyone showers, dresses, and the first bell rings for class.
Would’ve had so much fun, she’d said. Would’ve.
When I finally come out, her locker hangs open and empty.
• • •
Over the next few days, word spreads that Oliver Jaeger is finishing the school year from home—some story about her family needing her, but almost everyone knows it’s because of me. Sideways glances greet me when I pass students in the hall or cafeteria, some with smiles of approval and some with hints of fear. Speculation is abundant on what I supposedly did to scare her off, but no one knows for sure.
On Wednesday, I pass her main locker, noticing the flowers were still there, dried and yellowed. Did she see them before she left? She would’ve taken them if she’d wanted them.
I have to hand it to her. She wasn’t bluffing. She hadn’t come back to school. She was serious.
I sit in calculus, our fifth-period class we share—or used to share—her desk to my left and at the very front still sitting empty. It’s nice not to have her here anymore. She always had to look so different. All that silver in her ears, glinting with the sunlight streaming through the windows, hugely distracting.
The slutwear, the short skirts and the fire engine red lipstick that no one understood the point of. I mean, was she trying to get the boys’ attention? Because she did, which seemed opposite of what you’d think she’d want.
Still, though. The lipstick really was perfect for her skin tone. The little braids peeking out of her ponytails looked like they grew that way, and it was hard not to look at her.
It was hard for anyone not to look at her.
I draw in a deep breath and exhale. The school is more peaceful now. I’m better. Clearer.
The shower comes back to me, and fuck, it felt good, but if anyone found out, I’d be ruined. My friends might understand, but their parents wouldn’t. My grandmother would send me to therapy, and my parents would break, thinking they’d failed after so much loss already.
“Yes,” I hear Ms. Kirkpatrick say. “Come in, come in.”
I look up, the rest of the students filling their seats as a young woman holds the strap of her backpack over her shoulder and hands the teacher her schedule.
She leads her to a seat—Liv’s empty desk—and smiles, handing her paper back to her.
“Class?” She says loudly. “This is Chloe Harper. She’s joining us from Austin.”
The girl turns her head, offering everyone a smile with her shade of pink gloss that could easily be mine. Her eyes land on me, and she hesitates on my gaze, nodding once in hello, a beautiful, small smile grazing her lips.
She turns back around, and I shake my head, looking away. That’s Liv’s seat. So quickly filled like she was never here at all, and sun streams through the windows, making the world bright and beautiful as if everyone has just moved on.
The talk has even started to die down. Most people have stopped mentioning her.
She’s not in the locker room. The weight room. The lunch room. Her desks don’t exist anymore. She was never here.
Classes end, and I head to practice, passing her locker and see something drawn on it in red nail polish. I stop, reading Dyke written vertically down the long locker.
And I straighten, glaring. Who did this? How dare they?
Even though I know I’m one of the culprits who’s been calling her that name for years.
People wrote things on Alli’s locker too, I’d heard. I’m sure it was hard to have someone be cruel—I can certainly dish it but can’t take it—but I finally realize it was probably more painful to see the taunts in full view of everyone who passed by. Hundreds of people are invited into your suffering.
I blink, charging off to the locker room to change into my gear. I throw on my clothes, grab my equipment, and head out to the field with my friends, needing to run to get rid of the urge to scrub the front of her locker with nail polish remover. The janitors will take care of it tonight.
My head overflows with lava, and it just keeps coming and coming, the fact that she’s not here. And she won’t be here tomorrow.
Krisjen takes up Liv’s place on the field, Amy and Ruby laughing and joking around, everyone carrying on their conversations like she’s not gone. Like she wasn’t important.
She’s smart. She works hard. She’s in that theater every night, without pay, no one more devoted to earning everything she deserves. She comes from nothing, works her ass off, is honest, and a good person. She’s the muscle on the team, and they’re all just acting like we actually have a shot without her. Like she isn’t irreplaceable.
