Seven Ways We Lie(20)

Juni laughs. “What’d he say?”

“He was normal until we were talking about the election, and then he got all bitchy and just, holy shit.” I crack my knuckles. “One of us has to win, Juni. He’s not allowed to win. Okay? Deal?”

“Deal, I suppose. Although I thought you wanted to drop out.”

“I did until, like, forty-five minutes ago.” I flick my hair out of my eyes. “Now I want to win out of sheer spite.”

“Naturally.” Juniper strokes an imaginary goatee, looking sagely into the distance. “You know what they say. ‘Three things last forever: faith, hope, and spite. And the greatest of these is spite.’”

I laugh so hard I have to put my head down on my desk.





BETWEEN SIXTH AND SEVENTH PERIOD, I PASS BY ONE of the student-government lists I taped between rows of lockers. A flash of red catches my eye, and I glance up at it. Somebody has taken a pen to Olivia’s name. Now it reads: OLIVIA SCOTT SUCKS DICKKKK!!

I roll my eyes and keep walking.

Halfway down the hall, I realize I should have taken that list down, or at least scratched out the graffiti. Why didn’t it occur to me to do that? God, I’m the worst friend.

I stop at my locker, loosing a sigh. The way Olivia bounces from guy to guy these days, I can’t get away from references to her sex life. It’s wearing on me—the graffiti, all the talk in the halls, the muttered conversations I overhear in class.

This stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum—if you sleep around, people think about you differently. Maybe it’s shitty, but that’s the way things work, and Olivia knows it as well as I do. I’ve never spoken up. It’s not like I condone her sleeping around, and insults have always seemed to roll off her back, so why should I bother interfering?

Still, I have a sneaking feeling that it makes me a terrible person not to stick up for her. A lot of the time, I worry that I am a terrible person and just haven’t had it confirmed yet. After all, how are you supposed to know for sure? Who’s going to tell you? Who’s going to be the one to break the news?

I scoop up my Young Environmentalists brochures and continue down the hall. Why are all my friends going off the rails lately? Juniper has the alcohol tolerance of a five-year-old, but last Saturday she shotgunned three beers in a row for no apparent reason and ended up wasted. Olivia guessed it was because Thomas Fallon kept hitting on her and she was getting annoyed, but I think if Juni wanted some guy to leave her alone, she’d tell him.

She’d tell us if something was wrong, right?

Maybe it’s good that she’s loosening up, making mistakes. That’s how you learn, isn’t it, through mistakes? Maybe Juni’s tired of doing everything right.

Heading back down the hall, I pass Andrea Silverstein. A couple of guys beside me wait until she’s gone and then start snickering about the streak of green dye at the front of her hair.

As always, I feel like I should tell them to stop. But—as always—the idea of speaking up paralyzes me, like, if I say a word, their laughter might turn on me. One time, back in sixth grade, I got caught texting in class, and Ms. Rollins read it aloud. Zomg Eddie is so cute, I’d texted to Olivia. I want us to exchange numbers and it’ll be super romantic and perfect XD

People lost their minds laughing. I thought I was going to pop from shame, but Juniper stood up for me. I remember that day like quartz, hard and clear: November, five years ago now. “Grow up,” Juniper had said to the other kids. “Would you want her to laugh at you?”

I’d never spoken to Juniper in my life, but she found me after class and asked me to sit with her and Olivia at lunch. I was hideously grateful, feeling so lucky to be with the two of them. They weren’t just smart—they were pretty, too, with their straight, perfect hair, their clear skin. I was the kid with headgear for my braces and medication for my acne. I remember how surprised I was that they laughed at my jokes, that they would even look at me, let alone talk to me. I remember adopting their mannerisms, terrified that they’d let me go as quickly as they’d picked me up. I remember easing in, finding my niche with them, sleepovers and movie nights.

I picture a twelve-year-old Juniper swinging a tennis racket around in figure eights one summer afternoon, her hair whirling out in a blond pinwheel. She lost her grip, and the racket spun over our heads and into the lake with a miserable splash. We laughed until our stomachs ached. It was easy back then.

I hurry into the stairwell and leap up the steps two by two. My mind wanders back to the words scribbled beside Olivia’s name, and I can’t help but think, At least people want to sleep with Liv. I bet nobody would give me the attention she gets even if I hung a neon OPEN FOR BUSINESS sign on my back. Or on other regions.

It’s not like I’m jealous. I went out with the hottest guy at Paloma High for thirteen months. So what if he dumped me and hardly even gave me a reason?

Okay. I am maybe a tad jealous.

He started to tell me why, the day we broke up. He said, “You can’t compare . . .” before cutting himself off, falling back on some empty-sounding apology. I didn’t push it—I was busy crying—but now I wish I’d demanded that he finish the sentence. You can’t compare—you can’t compare—you can’t compare, you can’t, you can’t— Lucas’s words play on a loop in my mind. I can’t compare to what?