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“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. I truly am. You’ve been such a good friend to me and I just… I forgot what that’s like.”
She gave me a funny look then turned to her locker to exchange one textbook for another. “You didn’t have friends in New York? I find that hard to believe.”
“I had friends,” I said. “Then I didn’t. And that’s the way it’s been for a while now. Until you.”
Angie shut her locker and turned to look at me, clutching her binder to her chest. “Why has it been that way?”
I couldn’t look at her. “It just had to be.”
Angie wilted with a sigh. “You know, if there’s something you want to talk about… I’m here. Okay? Whenever you want.” Her dark eyes met mine. “Or…whenever you’re ready.”
I started to tell her I had nothing to say. “Thanks, Angie,” came out instead on a low whisper of breath.
She nodded briskly, her long black curls bouncing around her shoulders. “Great. And if we’ve dispensed with old business, can we now move onto new business? Namely, the great non-date with Isaac Pearce?”
A small smile came over my lips without my permission as we started down the hallway together. “It was really good,” I said. “Isaac’s not what people think he is.” She gave me a look and I nudged her elbow. “I know how that sounds, but I’m serious. People around here paint him as criminal or acting savant and that’s it. But he’s actually a complete human being. He’s really smart and he thinks on different levels…”
“Sounds like you guys hit it off. Why do you sound so sad when talking about him?”
“We w
ere doing fine until two of the Plastics saw us having coffee together. I’m worried one of them was Tessa Vance and that she’ll tattle. If my dad finds out, he’ll pull me out of the play.”
“Sounds like a legit concern,” Angie said. “But we’re sad because…?”
“I can’t explain that to Isaac. He’d know I heard the gossip about him and Tessa. Worse, he offered me a ride home. When we got to my street, I told him to park half a block away from my actual house because I didn’t want my mom to see him. And I know he knew it wasn’t the right house. I’m making him feel like shit for all the wrong reasons, but I’m afraid he’d be more hurt by the truth. That my dad forbids me from associating with him outside of the play.”
Angie opened her mouth to speak and then nudged my arm. She leaned into me. “Tessa Vance is standing right over there,” she said through her teeth. “Reddish brown hair.”
I followed her eyes to the Plastics, standing together near the drinking fountain, and immediately recognized two of them from Saturday.
“Shit, that’s her.”
“And shit, they see us eyeballing them now,” Angie replied.
Tessa gave me the fakest of smiles and then pointedly leaned to whisper to her friends. They all turned to look at me with wide-eyed amusement and disdain.
“And I’m fucked,” I said.
“Come on.” Angie hooked her arm through mine and pulled me down the hall. “Don’t look back.”
“I’m totally fucked. I don’t give a shit what they think, but if she tells her dad…”
“So what? Angie said. “Just tell your dad she’s a lying little bitch—” she turned to shout over her shoulder, “—who can’t mind her own business.”
My laugh degenerated into a groan. “What am I going to do? I need this play.”
“You need it?”
“I’ve just…grown attached to it. To the director and the actors.”
“And Isaac.”
“Yes, okay? But he’s leaving Harmony in a few months so we’re just friends. We can only ever be friends.”
Angie rolled her eyes. “Famous last words.”
As the day wore on, I became more and more convinced Tessa would rat on me. The silly paranoia fed on itself, fueled by my fear of Dad pulling me out of the play. I’d told Angie the truth. I needed the play. I still hadn’t found what I was looking for in Ophelia, but it was there, on the horizon, like a hint of dawn on a new day. An optimistic sun rising against my ever-present darkness.
