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“I’m not—,” I start to say. I’m not worth that. I reach out and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
She shakes her head, almost angrily. “The next day, I can tell he was bragging about me. One of his friends even asks me about it. So I go over to Greg and think of the worst possible thing I can say. I tell him that if he doesn’t shut up about me, I will swear up and down that he’s awful in bed. That he’s hung like a worm.”
I give a snort of incredulous laughter.
She’s still not looking at me, though. And her cheeks are, if anything, redder. “He’s all, ‘You know you liked it.’ And I say—”
She stops. I can hear people in the hallway. In a few moments, they’ll be inside.
“What?” I ask.
“You have to understand,” she says, quickly. “He got really mad. Really, really mad. And I think that’s why he went after HEX.”
“Lila, what did you say?”
She closes her eyes tightly. Her voice is almost a whisper. “I said I was thinking about you the whole time.”
I’m glad her eyes are closed. I’m glad she can’t see my face.
People start filing in. Nadja, Rachel, and Chad are the first to arrive and Lila, still blushing, doesn’t waste any time directing them. Soon, everyone is arranging chairs.
I fake my way through seeming calm and collected. Daneca comes in a few moments later with snacks.
It’s not your fault, I want to tell Lila. But I don’t say that. I don’t say anything.
We take picture after picture with the backdrop of the blackboard and the scrawled “HEX MEETING” on it. Ones with someone standing in the center of a circle of chairs, talking earnestly. Ones with everyone laughing and a girl on Greg’s lap. Halfway through our photo shoot, he wakes up enough to pull the pencils off the back of his neck and push up his sunglasses. He looks at all of us in confusion, but not with any real alarm.
“What’s going on?” Greg slurs.
I want to snap his neck. I want to make him sorry he was ever born.
“Smile,” says Daneca. He gives a lopsided grin. A girl throws her arm over his shoulder.
Lila keeps clicking away.
Eventually Greg goes back to sleep, head cradled in his arms on a desk. Lila, Daneca, and I go to the corner store and use the booth there to print out all the photos from the SIM card.
They look great. So good that it would be a crime not to share them with everyone at Wallingford.
* * *
Most people never report being conned, for three reasons. The first reason is that con artists don’t usually leave a lot of evidence. If you don’t really know who did this to you, there’s no point in reporting them. The second reason is that usually you, the mark, agreed to do something shady. If you report the con artist, you have to report yourself along with him. But the third reason is the simplest and most compelling. Shame. You’re the dummy who got conned.
No one wants to look stupid. No one wants to be thought of as gullible. So they hide how dumb and gullible they were. Con artists barely have to cover up at all, with marks so eager to cover up for them.
Greg Harmsford insists he was Photoshopped into the pictures, loudly and to anyone who will listen. He’s furious when his story gets questioned. Eventually the teasing gets to him and he punches Gavin Perry in the face.
He’s suspended for two days. All that because he doesn’t want to admit that he got had.
* * *
I’m sitting in my room for study hall, working on my world ethics homework, when my phone rings. I don’t know the number, but I pick it up.
“We have to meet,” says the voice on the other end. It takes me a moment to realize I’m talking to Barron. His voice sounds colder than usual.
“I’m at school,” I say. I’m not in the mood for more sneaking around. “I can’t get out of here before the weekend.”
“What a coincidence,” Barron says. “I’m at Wallingford too.”
