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SHAY:Fearful. It was the first time anyone had looked at me like that. Ruskin said they knew I’d been the one to set Mr. Trevors’s classroom on fire, but given the circumstances, he wouldn’t call the cops.
JAMIE:What circumstances?
SHAY:Somehow, he knew Mr. Trevors had dated my mother. And he knew I had a reason to hate him. My mom went white as a ghost. I swear, she didn’t say a word the whole time, from the moment she stepped in the office. She wouldn’t even look at me.
JAMIE:Are you saying Principal Ruskin was aware that Mr. Trevors assaulted your mom, and he not only did nothing, but gave him a promotion?
SHAY:I’m saying Ruskin told me they’d have to strip valedictorian away and ban me from future school events, but if I wanted to move on from Heller—if I wanted to go quietly to the next chapter, without making a scene—the three of them had agreed there was no reason to arrest me. Insurance would cover the cost of the damage. It was an exchange. Silence for silence.
JAMIE:Ruskin bought you. ’Cause there’s no insurance that will save you if people find out you knowingly employed a teacher who beats women and terrorizes students.
SHAY:I burned down his classroom and walked away, so maybe I have agency, too, Jamie.
JAMIE:You’re right. It’s just…you were a kid.
SHAY:Who am I kidding? I went home and cried. I didn’t cry once after prom, and suddenly after this I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t going to jail. I was only getting grounded. I should’ve been happy. But I was devastated.
JAMIE:You were furious, and you wanted to destroy something, even if the only thing you could manage was your own life.
SHAY:In a way, I did destroy it. That day, locked in my room, I went online, withdrew from UT, and accepted the offer at Whitney. Changed the course of my life, just like that. Want to know why? Because one night, sophomore year, when he saw me looking at college brochures, Mr. Trevors said Whitney was a school for feminazis.
A throwaway comment, but I never stopped thinking about it. And suddenly, all I wanted was to be the kind of woman he would hate.
JAMIE:We had a pact, remember? Since middle school. You, me, and Clara were supposed to go to UT together. When you said you were switching to Whitney, I thought it was because you were done with me after our fight.
SHAY:I wasn’t doing a great job communicating back then. Besides, it was pathetic. Years of agonizing over colleges, doing all those pageants to win a scholarship, and I made my entire decision at the drop of a hat, based on something a man said to me once. There I was, eighteen years old, thinking I was taking back power. And look where Whitney led me.
(Silence.)
My whole life has been like that. Starts and stops. Doing something brave, getting something right, then messing up, burning all the progress to the ground. I can’t seem to get it straight. I’m stuck in a loop. Always back to the beginning.
JAMIE:But you keep trying. What else is there?
SHAY:Now that you know the truth about me, do you even want to come back to bed?
(Deep inhale. Footsteps. Creaking springs.)
Hey, wait. What’s wrong?
End of transcript.
Chapter Thirty-One
“I lied,” Jamie said. While I’d talked, he’d turned his back, pulling on jeans and a T-shirt. Now he sat fully clothed on the bed, eyes cast down to his feet.
“About what?”
His voice was low and husky. “I didn’t ask you to prom because I was being a good friend. I wanted to go with you.”
I tried to remember that day but couldn’t. The memory had dissolved. “Really?”
“Really.” Jamie’s eyes moved to the bedsheets. He still wouldn’t look at me. I became acutely aware of my heartbeat. “I’ll tell you something else. The day you told me you switched to Whitney, I accepted my offer at Columbia. Only a train ride away.”
“I thought you went for the journalism program.”
Gently, almost apologetically, he shook his head. “Shay, when we were in middle school, I stopped going to that soccer camp in California… Remember the one by the beach? Because you couldn’t afford it, and I wanted to stay home with you all summer. Freshman year, when you wanted to come over every night to study, I dropped everything—piano lessons, extra soccer coaching—so I would be free. Got into a huge fight with my mom over it, actually. When we were juniors, I used to time my showers after soccer practice with the end of cheer, so I could drive you home.” He laughed. “My life revolved around finding ways to spend time with you.”
“We were best friends,” I said.
