All the Rage(52)

“Explain it to me,” she says on the drive home. I lean back in my seat and close my eyes. “Romy, explain it to me. What was going through your mind that you would do something like that to another girl?”

“No,” I say. “Nothing.”

She pulls into the driveway. I’m out of the New Yorker before the engine is off.

“Romy, wait—”

I cut a straight line for my room because I figure I’ll get sent there anyway, but Todd is in the way and he stops me at the steps. He stares at my forehead like he can’t make the connection that what happened to me is something I made happen because if I made anything clear before I left school, it was that I was nobody’s victim.

“Jesus, kid,” he says softly.

He steps aside and I let myself into the house. By now, my head is starting to feel like it met the sharp edge of an open locker. I hear Mom throw her purse on the floor. I’m halfway up the stairs before she says, “Romy, you stop. Stop right now.”

I do, but I stay pointed in the direction of my bedroom until she tells me to turn around and look at her. I turn around and look at her, them. Because Todd is still there and for once, I wish he was as absent as the man he replaced.

“Explain it to me,” Mom says again. “Because I don’t want to hear about it for the first time in your principal’s office tomorrow when we’re finding out if you’re still welcome at school. You will not do that to me.”

She sounds like someone who’s already lost the war, but just won’t stop fighting in spite of it. And she’s right; I won’t do that to her. I wouldn’t and couldn’t do that to her. Every day, she’s got to be my mother in this town. I don’t need to make that harder than it already is.

“Tina ran her mouth, so I shoved her and the whole thing went from there.”

“Really.” Mom crosses her arms. “That’s all?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not telling me something. This isn’t like you,” she says. I think she’s wrong. It has to be like me, if I did it, otherwise I wouldn’t have. “What did she say to you?”

“Doesn’t matter what she said.”

“Yes, it does. If you don’t tell me, how can I help you?”

“What could you do to help me?”

She looks like I’ve slapped her. The truth is, I don’t really know if she could help me, but I know she really wants to believe she could and I know she wants me to come to her believing it too. My love should be knowing this about her and being able to pretend, but I can’t. I go to my room. No one tells me to. I just go.





a week’s suspension.

I thought there’d be more trouble than that, but since Tina’s the one who left me on the road and the Ortizes know I know it, they don’t demand answers from me, for what I did to their daughter. I wouldn’t have said it anyway, not in front of my mom. I just stare at Tina’s father and I hate him. I wonder if he’s already told the sheriff about this, or if he’s waiting for their next round of golf. Because Tina and I have never conducted ourselves in such an unladylike manner before, Diaz says we’re getting off easier than we would have otherwise. I want to ask her what unladylike means.

We leave the office an awkward fivesome, just before the bell goes. Our parents duck out as soon as it rings, opting to wait in their cars while Tina and I get our homework for the week. She’s immediately flanked by girls who want to know the whole story. I catch Tina’s beginning—She’s a f*cking psycho, they won’t do anything—but I don’t hang around for the end.

Teachers are cold to me when they hand me my assignments and I wonder if it’s an honest reaction or one Diaz told them to have. When I reach Ms. Alcott’s room for my English homework, Brock is at her desk. She hands him a pile of papers.

“Give Alek my best. Tell him I hope we see him back here soon.”

“Yeah, I will…” Brock tenses when he sees me. “Thanks, Ms. A.”

He leaves with her smiling sadly after him and the smile disappears when she turns her attention to me. “I have your homework right here…”

“What’s wrong with Alek?” I ask.

She looks at me like I’m an idiot and in this moment, I get the feeling she truly doesn’t like me.

“You can’t imagine the kind of stress Alek is under right now, but I hope it gives you something to think about, Romy. There are people with actual, real troubles out there and—” She grabs a stack of worksheets, and hands them over. “There are people who make trouble for themselves.”

Brock is waiting when I come out. I barely have time to register him before he’s too close. Too, too close.

“You’re telling people I slipped GHB into your drink at Wake Lake?” he asks, and he sounds almost amused, like he’s been so bogged down by the weight of all this Penny stuff, he’s okay with this funny little distraction. “Really?”

“Did you?”

“Why are you asking, if that’s what you’re telling people?”

As much as I want to run, I also want to corner him, want to turn this into a confrontation and scare a confession out of him somehow, but it would never happen, not with Brock. The safest thing my body can do is keep moving.