Tease(9)

“I mean, you don’t want Emma to be right,” Brielle adds.

I’m used to Brielle being harsh, but this is kind of a lot, even for her. I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

“Come on,” she says when I’ve paused a little too long, “you know what I mean! He is totally hot. And he’s been super patient with you, right? For like two months! That’s like ten million in hot-boy years.”

“Just because I’m not a slut like Emma doesn’t make me a tease,” I protest, finally.

“Well, I mean, he’s your boyfriend . . . ,” Brielle says. “So it kinda does.”





July


“I DON’T WANT to talk about it.”

“You don’t want to talk about what?”

“About any of it. No one cares what I think, anyway.”

“They don’t?”

Therapist Teresa looks at me over her reading glasses. She has glossy black hair and this ridiculously smooth light-brown skin, and she wears weird, colorful scarves all the time, even when it’s blazing hot outside like it is today. She’s always very pretty and colorful—but jeez, what a pain in the ass with the questions. I can’t say anything without it coming back at me with a big question mark tacked on the end.

I sigh loudly to let her know I’m on to her trick. “It’s just—whatever I tell them, whatever I say, it’s all, just, like, what’s the point, you know?”

“What’s the point?”

“Yeah, what’s the point, when everyone’s decided what happened already?”

“Everyone has decided what happened?”

I throw my arms up in frustration. “Me and my friends! Everyone thinks we’re *s—sorry—and that Emma was all innocent and sweet and shit—sorry—and even if I say everything right and it all magically goes away, I still can’t pump gas into my f—my freaking car without getting harassed or—whatever.”

Teresa doesn’t yell at me for cursing or anything, but I don’t usually do it in front of grown-ups. It feels weird that she just sits there, nodding, not reacting really at all. And then, of course:

“What would be the right ‘everything’ for you to say?”

I sigh again and put my hands over my face, hiding my eyes. I didn’t want to go to a stupid therapist, obviously. And when these sessions started, a few weeks after we had to get a lawyer and the lawyer said we had to get a therapist, I didn’t talk at all. Sometimes Teresa actually gets me to start blabbing on and on about the lawyers and my mom and all the crap that is my life now. I mean, there have been a couple of times that I actually talked to her about stuff. But I still hate it. I hate that I have so much stuff to talk about. And zero people in my life who will listen to me talk. Besides this court-ordered therapist.

Or, whatever, lawyer-recommended. Big difference.

Too late, I realize I’m probably smudging the hell out of my mascara, whatever might be left after all the sweating I did on the way here. I lower my hands and carefully run my fingers under my eyes, like you would if you were brushing away tears. Except as usual, my cheeks are perfectly dry.

“I guess, you know, all the stuff they want me to say—that I’m sorry, that we should’ve been nicer to her.”

“And you can’t say that?”

“That it’s my fault she killed herself? No.” We’ve kind of talked about this before, but Teresa always acts like whatever I’ve said is a brand-new thought.

“But you did call her names,” Teresa says. For once, not a question.

“Yeah, a couple. But everyone did that. She called me names too!”

“She called you names?”

I shake my head. This is exactly what I didn’t feel like talking about.

“Okay,” she says, settling back in her seat. “I hear you saying that everyone at school was pretty tough on Emma.”

I nod. Then I add, “On everyone. I mean, it’s high school. You say stuff, people say stuff.”

“It’s normal, calling each other bitch or slut.”

With a shrug I say, “If someone’s acting like one.”

It’s Teresa’s turn to nod. “But you and your friends—people think you took it too far.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I say. I stare at my hands, then tuck them under my thighs. It’s cold in here. All summer it’s been getting colder, the AC cranked up higher all the time. I should bring a sweater. Or at least stop wearing shorts everywhere. I wish I had a tan. I wish I wasn’t sitting here. I wish—

“Why do you think that is?”

I look up at Teresa again and just stare at her. “Why do you keep asking me dumb questions?” I snap. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

A little furrow puckers between her eyebrows and she looks stung, but just for a moment. I wonder, not for the first time, how old Teresa is. Not old enough to be a good therapist. Not young enough to remember being in high school.

She shakes her head just slightly and says, “I’m trying to lead you through all of these questions, these things other people see that you don’t seem to see. Does that make sense?”

“No,” I say flatly. It doesn’t.