Frenemies(58)

This was what Nate did.

I was just a puppet on a string.

And the worst part was that everyone knew it—had always known it—except me. Henry was right there, watching it. Watching me.

It was why he’d let me in the house that night.

The truth of it made my stomach lurch again, this time dangerously. I had to get away. I looked around wildly, and—

“Oh, no, you don’t!” I heard Helen snap, and then I felt her fingers on my arm.

“Let go of me,” I said when I half-turned to glare at the offending hand. She must have leapt across Nate to grab me, but I couldn’t bear to look in his direction just then. Much less in Henry’s. Helen let go, but she stepped closer to me.

“We need to talk,” she said, those anime eyes dark.

“I don’t think so,” I said, and broke for the front door.

I made it through the crowd, threw the door open, and was halfway down the stairs inside the apartment building before I realized I would need my coat. Because it was December and bitterly cold. I turned back—and practically tripped over Helen.

“What the hell are you doing?” I yelped. “Are you following me?”

She looked at me for a long moment, breathing hard from what I assumed was the mad dash she’d made across the apartment in my wake, and then it was as if something swept over her body. She seemed to shiver a little bit, and it took me a moment to understand that she was furious.

She made that fact even more clear by tilting back her head and letting out a frustrated scream.

I practically leapt out of my skin.

Seriously—she screamed. And this was no fishwife screech, either. It was a full-on banshee howl.

I was in shock. Her voice echoed off the walls, and I expected the neighbors to leap out from behind their doors, possibly brandishing weapons.

Unfortunately, no one intervened.

“I can’t take this anymore!” she cried, her hands rising up in the international sign for total exasperation. “I have had it with you!”

Needless to say, I was taken aback. She was sick of me?!

“It’s always Gus this and Gus that,” Helen fumed. “Gus is so cool! Gus is so smart! Gus is so funny!” She glared at me. “Henry thinks you’re hilarious. Nate wants to know why I can’t have a sense of humor about my clothes, like you did with that disgusting bridesmaid’s dress.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” I snapped at her.

She shrugged, her mouth pulled low in the corners. “I’ve tried everything I know how to do, and you’re still mean to me.”

I had to fight to remain calm.

“Helen, I hate to point this out, but when you started dating Nate? He was already dating me. Forgive me if I wasn’t inspired to hold hands and declare us best friends forever.” Not that I wanted to think too hard about Nate just then.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be the outsider,” Helen retorted. “You have Amy Lee and Georgia, and the three of you have gone out of your way to leave me out since college. You think I don’t see the looks? The rolled eyes? I know what you think of me.”

“And again,” I said, still fighting my temper. “You claimed to be a friend of mine and then you stole my boyfriend. You stalked me. You completely lied about the conversation we had so you could play more head games. What do you expect me to think of you?”

“That’s just your excuse.” She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at me. “You’ve been making fun of me since the day we met.”

“Hardly,” I retorted. “You were the one who thought she was cooler than everyone else.”

“You thought I was cooler than everyone else,” Helen retorted. “And God help me if I didn’t live up to it!”

“If your stealing Nate was designed to make me think less of you,” I threw back at her, “congratulations. I don’t think you’re cool anymore.”

“You know what?” Helen let her hands drop to her sides. “I don’t know why I bother. I can never win. I’m the one who always calls you and begs for the scraps of your attention, and meanwhile I’m lucky if you bother to call me of your own volition more than once a year.”

My mouth fell open, because she was right. That’s not how I would have described our relationship, of course, but still.

“You never gave me any indication that you’d be interested in my calling you more often,” I said, feeling defensive.

“Of course not,” Helen scoffed. “Because I’m not a person. I don’t have feelings like anyone else. Whatever. Girls like you always play these stupid games.”

“Girls like me?” I didn’t like that at all. There weren’t any girls like me. There was that girl, sure, but no girls like me.

“Oh yes,” Helen said. Her eyes darkened. “In boarding school it was Jessie Unger. Everyone loved Jessie and she hated my guts. It didn’t matter what I did, she still hated me. She and her friends called me names and made up rumors about me.” Her gaze sharpened on me. “You think I don’t know what Georgia and Amy Lee say about me?”

“Did you steal Jessie Unger’s boyfriend too?” I asked pointedly.

Helen made a noise in the back of her throat.