They Wish They Were Us(74)

“What?”

“I knew Shaila was cheating on Graham. She told me. One night when she was shitfaced. Said we’d never understand.” Nikki shakes her head. “It was just like her, always pretending like she knew more than us. Was more experienced. I was shocked. I told her to break up with Graham. That it wasn’t right. And you know what she said to me? ‘Don’t be such a baby, Nikki!’ She didn’t give a shit what we thought. I don’t even think she liked me all that much. You didn’t either.”

Nikki’s words sting like a slap. I was always jealous of them. It never occurred to me that Nikki wasn’t one hundred percent confident about everything—including her friendships.

“Shaila had to die for you to be friends with me. It was always you and her against the world. Until she told me her secret. It was the one thing I had over her. Over you, too.” Nikki’s eyes are wet and glossy. She swallows hard. “She was nicer after that. I didn’t know she told Kara, too.”

I want to ask her so many questions, to hold her and tell her we have to stick together now. That she has to stop her Toastmaster tirade. Her eyes fixate on the two-ply toilet paper and its perfectly folded triangle edge as she continues talking.

“She never said it was Beaumont, though. Just said it was someone older. More sophisticated. Someone who knew what he was doing. ‘You’d be lucky to have someone like him,’ she told me.” Nikki turns to me, her eyes now rimmed in red. “Guess she was wrong about something.”

I sink to the floor to sit beside her and rest my hand on Nikki’s knee. She lays her head on top of my fingers. Her hair falls to one side so it skims the tile floor.

“I thought this was all over,” she says.

“It won’t be over until we know who did it.”

“I thought we did.”

“Me too.”

We stay like that a long time, at least through the rest of the period, until Nikki speaks.

“I miss you,” she says, so softly I can barely make it out.

“I miss you, too. It’s lonely as fuck over here.” I try to edge out a smile. A weak one, but still a smile.

“It’s not the same without you,” she says. “Marla checked out after getting onto the field hockey team at Dartmouth. Robert’s obsessed with making the pops harder and harder. He’s really going after Jared, you know.”

Ugh, so Jared was right.

“Henry’s not over you, even though he pretends to be,” Nikki continues. “He just sulks around, trying to lecture us about the power of nonprofit journalism. It’s like, shut up already, we get it!”

I let out a laugh. “At least you have Quentin,” I say. Sweet, loyal, talented Quentin, doodling Nikki’s perfectly symmetrical face on paper napkins, cardboard containers, elegant canvases. I wonder if he told her about our conversation in his car. About how we made up, too.

“There’s always Quentin.”

“And the undies. They all worship you.”

Nikki shakes her head. “Not for the right reasons.”

“I know.”

She reaches for my hands and holds my fingers tight. “Things are going to be different now,” she whispers. “They need to be.”

I exhale and squeeze her hands. “Are we friends again?” I ask.

Nikki throws her arms around my neck. Her skin is hot and sticky, comforting like a toddler’s. She smells like an expensive candle. Her tears fall in wet splotches on my white shirt and when we untangle ourselves, it looks like I spilled water down the front.

We walk back into the hallway arm in arm, holding back smiles and whispering into each other’s hair. I try to ignore the hooded eyes that flick our way. The questioning stares. Here, word travels faster than the breeze.

“What, did she blow you or something?” Robert leans against the cold metal and looks at Nikki with expectant eyes. They must be together this week but he’s still such an absolute jerk.

“Shut up, asshole,” Nikki says. She squeezes my elbow. “We’re cool.”

“Just like that?” Robert asks. One eyebrow shoots up.

“Yep,” she says, a smile in her voice. “Just like that.” She nudges me with her shoulder and I wrap an arm around her waist.

“Whatever. I can’t even begin to deal with whatever this is,” he says. “Because shit just got weird. Look.” Robert whips out his phone and pulls up a news article from GoldCoastGazette.com. Mr. Beaumont’s school photo is plastered on the screen and the headline is written in all caps.

BEAUMONT CLEARED OF ALL WRONGDOING IN ARNOLD CASE

“What?” I ask, incredulous. “I thought . . .”

Robert shakes his head. “Wasn’t him. Dude was in the Hamptons that whole weekend with his girlfriend and his parents. Some place in Amagansett. There’s even footage of him dancing to some shitty cover band at a bar.”

“But . . .” Nikki sputters. “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t with Shaila, right? She was cheating on Graham. She told me.”

Robert’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really? I mean, I didn’t peg her as that type of girl.”

“And what type is that?” I say, rage crawling up my spine.

“Relax, Newman,” he says, rolling his eyes. Before I can claw his eyes out, he keeps talking. “Even if she was hooking up with Beaumont—which, gross—he didn’t kill her. Couldn’t have. Case closed.”