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39
It doesn’t take long for trouble to catch up with me.
There’s a tremble in my veins as I leave the stage, gasping in the dark wings, my chest heaving as fast as though I’d run a marathon. All I can picture is Rory’s impassive face, those cool gray eyes surveying me like I was nothing. Like I wasworsethan nothing.
Every neurosis I have crashes down around me.
Maybe it was a mistake, I think to myself the instant I’m out of the spotlight, my snowflake-covered head thudding against the wall behind me.Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe thiswasn’tthe way to get them to change their minds about us girls. Maybe I’ve only added fuel to the fire.
I listen to the Lochkelvin Symphony Orchestra close out the evening by playing a medley of jolly Christmas classics.
It makes me feel weird and strange, twisted and corrupt.
What had I been doing?
Dancing in front of hundreds of people — and not just dancing, but more. Because that hadn’t been any ordinary dance. It had been mindlessly sexual, as in yes, maybe Ihadlost my mind.
Have I lost my mind? Where is my mind? Because I sure as hell didn’t have it on stage with me.
I’m done for, that’s plain to see. Even I hadn’t planned on being that explicit on stage. I’d been overcome with a need to impress, to show off my body and its abilities, that all I could do was listen to what my heart said. And my heart was apparently one level below helpfully suggesting,Why not pop ping-pong balls out from your vajayjay?
I may as well have. It would have been more honest about my intentions, almost less obscene than contorting my body gymnastically under the chiefs’ tense gazes.
As I listen to a flawlessly performedJingle Bells, it feels like all my hope is draining away from me.
All I want to do is collapse into a heap and sob.
I’m broken and weird.
So maybe I do deserve my stupid nickname,Jessa Weirdo.
But I have no time for sulking. I pick up my black robe, tying it around my middle, and head into the backstage area.
Like the big bad boss at the end of a video game, Baxter is already waiting for me.
I don’t need to be a mind reader to know what she’s about to say.
In fact, maybe she believes words are worthless, because she says absolutely nothing to me. She fixes me with a severe look and snaps her head to the exit, her tinsel-lined black robes sweeping behind her.
I follow her like the good girl I should be.
Not a student who’d been about ready to mount the son of the Prime Minister, or a member of the Royal family, or a heartbroken indie singer.
Oh, God, Iamfucked up.
Baxter slams her office door behind me, making me jump.
She storms over to her desk and leans across it to me. Her black beady eyes examine me, as though I’m the most curious insect she’s ever come across.
“Well?”
I swallow and try to hold my nerve. I’ve been a goddamn idiot. I’ve risked my place in Lochkelvin and all for what — astunt? A stunt that got out of hand? No wonder Baxter’s looking at me like she can’t take much more of this.
So now I have to lie.
Now I have to be the political force that I always should have been.
All my life, all I’ve wanted to do is make a difference. Tonight was just as much of a look-at-me as any basic activism. Only the activism wasn’t about changing opinions or bringing awareness to important topics, like poverty or discrimination or corruption.
