Undead Girl Gang(3)

The show choir warms up, a series of menacing oohs. The soloist standing at the center of the group aggressively taps out a four count on her leg. There’s a collective intake of breath, and they start the same damn song they sang at June and Dayton’s funeral. “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.” They must be competing with it this year. They should rethink that. It’s terrible. A public domain rip-off of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that’s somehow even more of a bummer. The soloist—a senior girl who is rail-thin and short-haired—starts the song.

“I'm always chasing rainbows. Watching clouds drifting by. My schemes are just like all my dreams. Ending in the sky.”

God. So nasal. It’s physically painful to my ears.

I won’t give them the satisfaction of looking at them. I turn back to the program. Riley smirks up at me, blond and effortless, with the kind of athletic build that everyone subconsciously registers as healthy. She should have been the queen of Fairmont. Considering she was Xander’s sister, she could have been. But she was happy—seemed happy—to hide in the background with me.

In the picture on the program, she’s wearing a beanie with round bear ears on top pulled down almost to her dark eyebrows. Her roots were growing out. It was only just starting to feel like real autumn, but she swore she was going to hide her hair under a hat until she got a chance to buy a box of bleach this weekend. And now she’ll never have the chance. She’ll have half an inch of dark brown growth on display until it decomposes from her scalp. If she knew, she’d be pissed.

Fuck a duck, she’d say in her raspy voice. She didn’t smoke, but she always sounded like she was getting over bronchitis. I can hear it so clearly in my head, it’s like she’s with me, making commentary in my ear.

Where she should be.

Where she never will be again.

My head spins. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be here. My body is too exhausted to cry, but if I stay I might start screaming over the show choir. And while I don’t care if I ruin this garbage performance, I don’t think it’ll disprove my parents’ theory that I’ve lost my mind.

“Some fellows look and find the sunshine.”

I stagger to my feet, turning my back to the performance and the crowd. It’s not like I can blend in. I can’t pretend like my body doesn’t take up space. The only thing to do is lean into it, to do what Riley would do and not give a fuck that people can see me leaving. The sounds of my boots are muffled against the carpet as I stride down the aisle. I keep my head up, letting everyone I pass see my makeup untouched by tears, letting it confirm their worst fears about the fat witch of the junior class.

I see Aniyah Dorsey, amateur poet and school newspaper reporter, standing near the door. She’s in plus-size leggings and a black flannel. Tears fog the silver glasses perched on her dark brown nose. She whispers after me, “Mila?”

“Your poem fucking sucks,” I growl at her.

Her chin snaps back. I can’t tell if she’s offended or indignant, and I honestly couldn’t give half a shit to stick around long enough to find out. I don’t need fat-girl solidarity right now. I don’t need anyone’s solidarity. Ever.

“I always look and find the rain.”

I pop the collar of my jacket, stuff my hands into the pockets, and step out into the friendless world.





TWO



I’M NOT READY to be back at school, but here I am, balanced on a stool at the center table in third-period chemistry while Mr. Cavanagh wipes last period’s notes from the whiteboard. People filter into the room, their voices like mosquitos buzzing. I can’t seem to stop myself from flinching when they pass too close to me.

According to the internet, only 20 percent of homicides are committed by strangers. Which means there is an 80 percent chance that the last thing Riley saw was the face of someone she knew, staring down at her through the murky water of the creek. There is an 80 percent chance that it was someone like Dawn Mathy of the Nouns clique, who is sitting daintily in front of me, smoothing her short bangs. She gets belligerent whenever someone questions the need for a speech and debate team. Or Dan Calalang, a senior stuck in junior-level chem. His forearms are scary beefy from CrossFit, the better to drag you to your death with.

It could be one of the janitors or Ms. Chu or someone whose name I’ve never bothered to learn. Someone who took my best friend from me and is still going to class and taking notes and looking forward to cafeteria chicken nuggets.

I feel sick to my stomach. I’m not ready to be here. Everyone seems so normal, but they can’t all be—normal people don’t drown girls in the creek.

“Hey, Mila.”

I look up and immediately wish that I had a bushel of bay leaves. (They’re good for banishing—although Riley’s mom kept them in the spice cabinet to use in her spaghetti sauce.)

Caleb Treadwell, Ms. Chu’s stepson and my lab partner, is climbing onto the stool next to mine, wobbling a little as he tucks a silver chain into the collar of his T-shirt. I should have smelled him coming. He starts every morning by drowning himself in cologne that smells like leather and moss, but it can’t quite smother the tang of clinical-strength face wash. He stinks like a chemical fire.

On the surface, he’s almost painfully nondescript. His hair is too khaki-colored to be considered brown or blond, and it’s cut into the same short-on-the-sides, long-on-top style that every other guy in school has. His chapped, mauve lips are so puffy that he has a near constant pout.