I Kissed Shara Wheeler(59)

She didn’t ask for any of this. But she’s going to finish it, even if she has to do it alone.



* * *



Georgia takes one look at Chloe outside her house and says, “You’re kidding.”

“Hang on.” Chloe sticks her foot in the door so it can’t be slammed in her face. “Please, listen for a second.”

“All I do is listen to you, Chloe. That’s the whole problem.”

“If you just let me show you what’s been up with me, it’ll all make sense. I promise.”

Chloe went straight to Belltower after school, but Georgia wasn’t there, which is why she’s standing on this tiny front porch with her makeup pouch, trying to prove that Shara’s the one who ruined everything, not her.

“Fine.” Georgia crosses her arms. “What’s in the bag?”

“You remember how Shara kissed me?”

It takes a moment for the outrage to dawn on Georgia’s face.

“Shara Wheeler?” Georgia says, eyes wide. “This is about Shara Wheeler?”

“Stay with me. Shara kissed me, and then she ran away, and then she left me that note. The one I got in the Taco Bell drive-thru.”

“Uh-huh.”

She unzips the bag and hands it to Georgia.

“She left notes for Rory and Smith too,” Chloe says as Georgia starts pulling out pink card after pink card. “With clues in them, all leading to another clue, and another, and another. And they’re in these ridiculous places. I’m telling you, Georgia, it’s been a full-time job finding them, that’s why I’ve been spending so much time with Smith and Rory. I had to go to that Dixon party because she hid one there, and then I had to break into the principal’s office to get one out of her dad’s filing cabinet—I mean, it’s like, unbelievable. And every clue has a note from her, and every single one proves that I was right about her. I mean, she’s evil—”

Georgia stops shuffling the cards.

“Hang on,” Georgia interrupts. “You said you broke into the office? How?”

“I had a key,” Chloe answers automatically.

“To the office?”

“Not exactly.”

Georgia’s eyes narrow. “When was this?”

“I don’t know, like two weeks ago.”

“Two weeks ago,” Georgia says slowly, “as in, when I let you borrow my library key?”

Uh-oh.

“I—I made sure I didn’t get caught,” she backpedals.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have gotten me in?” Georgia demands. Her face is going red in patches the way it does when she’s really heartbroken. “You lied to me! You could have gotten me suspended!”

“I wouldn’t have let that happen!”

Georgia throws the pouch back at her.

“Go home, Chloe.”

“No—”

“You don’t get to decide everything!” Georgia says. “I decided you’re leaving! So, leave!”

She kicks Chloe’s foot out of the way, curses under her breath when her socked toes connect with Chloe’s shoe, and slams the door.

“Geo!” Chloe yells at the wood.

“Bye!” Georgia’s voice shouts from the other side. “Go away!”

“Georgia!”

“Don’t text me either!”

She calls Georgia’s name one more time, but there’s no answer.



* * *



Chloe spends the rest of Dead Week alone, nose-down in study guides, both hands a highlighter bloodbath.

Maybe she doesn’t need her friends, who seem perfectly fine joking around in the parking lot before school without her, or Rory and Smith, or anyone. Maybe this is good practice for life after high school, when she’ll have to rely on herself for everything. Only Chloe, eating lunch by herself in the library with Shara’s cards and a mountain of exams. She has plenty to focus on. Willowgrove likes to consolidate AP exams and senior finals into the same week of early May, so next week is going to be hell, even if the finals for her AP classes are all perfunctory take-home exams that double as reviews for the real tests.

It’s fine. Good, actually, since she’s slipped in a couple of classes the past month, so she needs to catch up now. She can handle it. And she has nothing to feel bad about. All she’s been doing is what she’s had to do.

Shara’s the one who Gone Girl’d herself because she’s in love with Chloe. How is Chloe the crazy one?

The week ends—her last real week of school—and it’s fine. She can handle it.

Valedictorian and her friends and Willowgrove and Shara and the whole world. She can handle it.

“I can handle it!” she snaps when her mama tries to pull a jar of chili oil out of her hands in the kitchen on Friday night. She’s been struggling to open it for five minutes. She just wants to make some cup noodles and disappear into her room until Monday.

“Well, hello,” says her mama, putting her hands on her hips in the way she does that says, We’re going to talk about this now.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says immediately.

“Okay,” her mama says. “Val!”