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“Beep, beep,” Jozie said. “My lie detector’s going off.”
“I forgot how weird you are.”
“Tell me what’s going on. Seriously. Is it with school? Mom and Dad?”
It was a myriad of things, but I found myself wanting to tell Jozie about none of it. The Most Likely To list, losing valedictorian, everything with Alex, tutoring Connor Bray—I didn’t want to ruin the one phone call I’d gotten from her in weeks.
I rolled onto my side and faced my window. From this angle, I only had the perfect view of the ever-lightening sky. “I don’t really want to get into it.”
“Just tell me who’s grinding your gears,” she said, voice releasing a hint of impatience. “And we can let it go.”
“Alex and I had a fight last night.”
It was true and it wasn’t true. We didn’t necessarily fight—no harsh words were exchanged, no one raised their voice. Still, itfeltlike we did. Like something happened last night that would be tough to overcome.
Jozie was quiet on the other end for a long moment, debating how serious she was about “letting it go.” Apparently, not very. “Can I say one thing and we can drop it?”
My gaze slid to her discarded bed, sad without her endless supply of pillows and stuffed animals. All of those had gone with her in the move. “I don’t know. I’m not in the mood to talk about everything.” Especially not at seven in the morning.
“Life’s too short to spend it with people who don’t make you happy,” she told me, shrugging on her big sister pants and giving the advice she would’ve given if she was home. “You deserve more than a guy who doesn’t make you happy.”
“You’ve never liked Alex.”
“I never liked how he treated you,” she corrected. “Your relationship has never really made much sense to me. You guys act more like dysfunctional friends than anything.”
First Connor said that Alex treated me like an annoying sister, and now Jozie was saying that we acted like dysfunctional friends. Awesome. “Okay, you’ve said your one thing.”
We talked for a little while longer, long enough for the sun to raise higher in the window. I told her a bit about tutoring while leaving out thewho, because even though Jozie had graduated last year, she absolutely would’ve recognized the name. She told me a little bit about her classes, which admittedly most of went over my head. But I’d been content to simply listen to her voice, letting it calm a bit of my nerves that had carried over from the night before.
When we hung up, I realized Ava had never texted me last night with the article she needed proofed. It was a record for me, opening up Brentwood Babble so early in the morning, but I loaded up her blog page. She had ended up just posting the game’s score, but just before I closed out the page, my eyes snagged on the second most recent post.
ALERT THE MEDIA—It Must Be Date Night!
It was a picture post from Thursday night, the image she’d snapped of Connor and his posse at the shoe rental counter. Connor smiled in the photo, and Reed’s eyes were locked on Ava’s camera, but that wasn’t what had me faltering.
The top comment to the bowling post was another picture post, and this time, it was of me. It was five seconds post Niagara Falls incident, with my face in an O-shaped letter of mortification, Alex’s eyes round. The picture transported me back into the moment, bringing back the iciness of soda spilling onto my lap, the burning of my cheeks. And here it was, broadcasted for the entirety of Brentwood High to see. And reply to.
SmileyFace20:Why doesn’t Babble post this stuff??? This is hilarious!
Anonymoose:Yikes, are those white shorts?! Guess someone got a show
BrentwoodBobs:Break out an umbrella. Probably got so nervous because the dream team showed up. Landon, Reed, AND Connor? I’d be a klutz too!
It didn’t stop there. I counted ten comments before forcing my gaze away. My heart thrummed at the speed of light, thoughts running even faster. I couldn’t do anything to the photo besides give it a frowny-face emoji, which it hadn’t gotten yet. It’d only gotten laughing emojis and rain drop emojis.
I doubled back to the person who posted the picture, to the initial comment. It wasn’t hard to guess who might’ve snapped the shot. From the angle of the photo, it could’ve only been taken from the table the Top Tier had claimed. When I read through the text, at who posted it, things became so much clearer.
JDBobcatBabe01:Did the weather call for rain?
* * *
Monday morning, I walked into Brentwood High with my insides in a tangle of discomfort. The weekend had gone by in slow-mo, dragging on as if someone had added four hours to the day. Mom and Dad had been at the gallery all weekend, leaving me to do nothing but homework and feel sorry for myself. After impulsively checking Brentwood Babble for the tenth time, refreshing to see if any new comments had popped up, I’d ended up shoving my cell in the top drawer of my dresser, starting my self-proclaimed social media detox for the rest of the weekend.
Which meant that I didn’t get Alex’s apology text that’d come in Saturday night until I turned my phone back on this morning.
Alex:hey, I know I should’ve texted sooner, but I didn’t know what to say. I’m really, really srry for Friday, Maisie. Plz don’t be mad at me. Can you call me when you see this? I feel like this is something I should apologize about in person. Plz?
I spun my combination, but as soon as I opened my locker door, a folded-up piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Immediately, my guard flew up, but I grabbed it anyway.
