I Kissed Shara Wheeler(85)
And Shara—Shara never shows up to school at all. Chloe imagines her in the Wheeler mansion, handing her mom a cucumber water and a Xanax while they meet with the family attorney.
Could she really not have known?
At lunch, Ash asks, “Who do you think did it?”
The choir room is a lot more full than usual, since Georgia invited Summer and Benjy invited Ace, and Ash has somehow convinced Jake and April to stop by and watch them play Breath of the Wild on the Switch they snuck into school. On the top row of the risers, Rory and Smith are having an animated discussion about either poetry or Dragon Ball Z—it’s impossible to tell.
“My money’s on Brooklyn Bennett,” Benjy says. “Total Brooklyn move. Plus, she has means and motive.”
“Nah, it was that kid with the tube socks,” Summer says. “The walking YouTube algorithm. He’s obsessed with ACT scores and loves conspiracy theories.”
“Drew Taylor?” Ash says. “He doesn’t have the range.”
“What even happens now?” Georgia asks, reaching over to steal one of Summer’s Doritos.
Ace, who has been doing wall sits for five minutes straight, pauses mid-squat to say, “Dixon said his dad is going to handle it because he’s a lawyer. Are you allowed to be your own lawyer? Is that a thing?”
“Yes, that’s a thing, Ace,” Georgia says patiently.
In Willowgrove fashion, the well of gossip is bottomless. Apparently, Wheeler’s barricaded himself in his office and is only speaking to legal counsel, entirely ignoring the Willowgrove church board that runs the school and presides over the administration. Nobody knows if he’s going to get arrested or get fired or what. Cracks are forming in the Wheeler empire, and the craziest part is, nobody knows who put them there.
Chloe notices, though, as they scatter into the hall and toward sixth hour, that there’s one person who doesn’t look surprised at this news at all.
She cuts out of seventh hour early—no way in hell is Rory staying the whole day during Taint Week. In-Between Week. Whatever.
She catches him reversing out of his parking spot, and he has to slam on the brakes to stop his back bumper from taking Chloe out at the knees.
He sticks his head out the window. “Jesus Christ, Green!”
“Did you do it?” she asks him directly, coming around to his window. “Wheeler’s emails?”
“What?” he says. “No.”
She eyes him: one hand fidgeting on the steering wheel, elbow propped up a bit too casually on the console.
“I don’t believe you,” she says. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He sighs, dropping his head against the headrest.
“Do you know how I got this car?” he finally says.
Always with the cryptic questions. Rory is like a bag of right angles with a secret.
“We’ve been through this. Rhetorical questions only work if you don’t have to explain why you’re asking them.”
“Do you want me to tell you what I know or not?”
“Okay,” Chloe groans.
“So,” Rory goes on, “my stepdad gave it to me. He’s never given me a gift my whole life, but last year he springs this sweet-ass vintage convertible on me out of nowhere. Sus as fuck. So I went through his office when he wasn’t home, and I figured out that he bought the car off his brother in cash since all of his shit was about to get seized, because he got caught paying off the principal of his kid’s school for ACT answers.”
“Okay…”
“So, when we were in Wheeler’s office looking for Shara’s note,” Rory continues, “I saw some papers in the desk, and they looked kind of like what I saw in my stepdad’s office. So I took some pictures, and when Shara got back I … may have, uh, asked her to look at them to be sure.”
“But—why Shara? Why wouldn’t you give it to somebody who could actually do something about it?”
Rory waves a hand and jerks his chin at her in a sort of duh gesture. “Shara did do something about it.”
“She—” There is no possible way what Rory’s suggesting is true. “You think Shara threw her own dad—and herself—under the bus?”
“She was the only person I told,” Rory says with a shrug. “I didn’t even send her copies of the pictures, so I guess she got her hands on the originals. But I don’t care what happens to Wheeler, or anyone in those emails. You know I don’t give a shit about the ACT. I just thought Shara deserved to know.”
Once, Chloe considered herself better than people like Rory, who act like they’ve beaten the system by choosing not to care. But it’s obvious from the look on Rory’s face that he does care, in different ways about different things. Maybe pretending is its own high school survival strategy.
“But why would she do this?” Chloe asks.
“Why are we boycotting graduation?” Rory asks. “Same thing, different approach.”
He shrugs again and turns his music back up.
“Anyway,” Rory says, shifting out of park. “I got plans. Bye.”
He leaves Chloe standing in the parking lot, speechless.
* * *
All Chloe can do is get in her car and drive home.