One of Us is Lying(69)
I didn’t think Cooper could get any paler, but he manages. “What?”
“Kind of a long story, but—yeah. Turns out she was a drug addict living in some kind of commune, but she’s back now. And sober, supposedly. Oh, and Bronwyn got called into the police station because of a creepy post Simon wrote about her sister sophomore year. Bronwyn told him to drop dead in the comments section, so … you know. That looks kinda bad now.”
“The hell?” By the incredulous look on Cooper’s face, I’ve managed to distract him from his problems. Then the late bell rings, and his shoulders sag. “We’d better go. But, yeah. If you guys get together, I’m in.”
The Bayview Police set themselves up in a conference room with a school liaison again, and start interviewing students one by one. At first things are kind of quiet, and when we get through the day without any rumors I’m hopeful that Cooper was wrong about his secret getting out. But by midmorning on Tuesday, the whispers start. I don’t know if it’s the kind of questions the police were asking, or who they were talking to, or just a good old-fashioned leak, but before lunch my ex-friend Olivia—who hasn’t spoken to me since Jake punched TJ—runs up to my locker and grabs my arm with a look of pure glee.
“Oh my God. Did you hear about Cooper?” Her eyes pop with excitement as she lowers her voice to a piercing whisper. “Everyone’s saying he’s gay.”
I pull away. If Olivia thinks I’m grateful to be included in the gossip mill, she’s wrong. “Who cares?” I say flatly.
“Well, Keely does,” Olivia giggles, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “No wonder he wouldn’t sleep with her! Are you headed to lunch now?”
“Yeah. With Bronwyn. See you.” I slam my locker shut and spin on my heel before she can say anything else.
In the cafeteria, I collect my food and head for our usual table. Bronwyn looks pretty in a sweater-dress and boots, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her cheeks are so pink I wonder if she’s wearing makeup for a change, but if she is it’s really natural. She keeps looking at the door.
“Expecting someone?” I ask.
She turns redder. “Maybe.”
I have a pretty good idea who she’s waiting for. Probably not Cooper, although the rest of the room seems to be. When he steps into the cafeteria everything goes quiet, and then a low whispering buzz runs through the room.
“Cooper Clay is Cooper GAY!” somebody calls out in a high, falsetto voice, and Cooper freezes in the door as something flies through the air and hits him across the chest. I recognize the blue packaging immediately: Trojan condoms. Jake’s brand. Along with half the school, I guess. But it did come from the direction of my old table.
“Doin’ the butt, hey, pretty,” somebody else sings, and laughter runs through the room. Some of it’s mean but a lot of it’s shocked and nervous. Most people look like they don’t know what to do. I’m struck silent because Cooper’s face is the worst thing I’ve ever seen and I want, so badly, for this to not be happening.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” It’s Nate. He’s in the entrance next to Cooper, which surprises me since I’ve never seen him in the cafeteria before. The rest of the room is equally taken aback, quieting enough that his contemptuous voice cuts across the whispers as he surveys the scene in front of him. “You losers seriously give a crap about this? Get a life.”
A girl’s voice calls out “Boyfriend!” disguised with a fake cough. Vanessa smirks as everyone around her dissolves into the kind of laughter that’s been directed my way over the past month: half-guilty, half-gleeful, and all Thank God this is happening to you and not me. The only exceptions are Keely, who’s biting her lip and staring at the floor, and Luis, who’s half standing with his forearms braced on the table. One of the lunch ladies hovers in the doorway between the kitchen and the cafeteria, seemingly torn between letting things play out and getting a teacher to intervene.
Nate zeroes in on Vanessa’s smug face without a trace of self-consciousness. “Really? You’ve got something to say? I don’t even know your name and you tried to stick your hand down my pants the last time we were at a party.” More laughter, but this time it’s not at Cooper’s expense. “In fact, if there’s a guy at Bayview you haven’t tried that with, I’d love to meet him.”
Vanessa’s mouth hangs open as a hand shoots up from the middle of the cafeteria. “Me,” calls a boy sitting at the computer-nerd table. His friends all laugh nervously as the pulsing attention of the room—seriously, it’s like a wave moving from one target to the next—focuses on them. Nate gives him a thumbs-up and looks back at Vanessa.
“There you go. Try to make that happen and shut the hell up.” He crosses to our table and dumps his backpack next to Bronwyn. She stands up, winds her arms around his neck, and kisses him like they’re alone while the entire cafeteria erupts into gasps and catcalls. I stare as much as everyone else. I mean, I kind of guessed, but this is pretty public. I’m not sure if Bronwyn’s trying to distract everyone from Cooper or if she couldn’t help herself. Maybe both.
Either way, Cooper’s effectively been forgotten. He’s motionless at the entrance until I grab his arm. “Come sit. The whole murder club at one table. They can stare at all of us together.”