Lessons from a Dead Girl(18)

Leah finds me at my locker that afternoon. I have a flyer about soccer tryouts in my hand when she comes up behind me and peers over my shoulder. She breathes quietly in my ear.

“Hey, Lainey, haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Hey, Leah.” I quickly crumple up the paper, but she’s already seen it.

“Girls’ soccer?” She smiles and narrows her eyes, then licks her lips.

I try to step away from her. “Yeah, but — I probably won’t bother,” I say, trying to sound casual.

“Why not? You’re athletic.”

“I don’t know. I guess I don’t want to.”

She moves in closer to me so our faces are only a few inches apart. I quickly scan the hallway for who might see us.

“You know there are perks for being on a team, don’t you?” she asks.

I try to move away from her again, but I’m already practically inside my locker. Her breath smells like cigarettes and mint gum. She seems different again. Meaner. I wonder when she started smoking.

“What perks?” I ask, forcing my voice to stay calm.

“The locker room, Laine? Come on — you can’t fool me.”

“No. Really. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Laine, you’re so good at pretending you’re innocent.” She reaches for my hand, touching it gently before I pull it away. I drop the paper in my locker and close the door.

“I have to get to class,” I say. Our eyes meet. For a second I think I see the old Leah there. The one who taught me how to ride horses and passed notes in class with me. But she quickly looks down.

“Don’t give up on that tryout, Lainey. Just think of the locker room.”

I start to walk away, but Leah grabs my arm.

“The locker room, Lainey. All those girls undressing in front of you? How will you control yourself?”

I feel sick to my stomach.

“Look at you,” Leah says, close to my face again. “You can’t hide it, Laine. I know what team you play on.” She moves even closer and whispers in my ear. “See ya tonight.”

She turns and walks down the hall. As she swings her hips, her short skirt swishes back and forth, going higher up her thighs.

I lean against my locker. She’s wrong. Other girls don’t make me feel different. Only Leah.

But she’s the one who did those things to me.

So what does that make her?

By the time Mrs. Greene drops Leah off that night, my parents have already left for a party. Christi has escaped to her room and shut the door, leaving me to welcome Leah in. Great.

She opens the door without knocking and throws her leather backpack on the floor by the door. She checks out the room. And me.

“Well, this is going to be a blast,” she says sarcastically. “How the hell are you, Lainey?”

“OK,” I say. “You?”

She shrugs. “I’m hungry.”

“There’s some leftover pizza in the fridge,” I say. “Feel free to help yourself.”

She wrinkles her nose as if I offered her leftover meat loaf, but she goes into the kitchen anyway. I don’t follow her.

I watch TV in the living room, waiting for her to come back out. But she doesn’t. After a while, I hear her voice through the kitchen door. I turn down the volume on the TV.

“Come on,” she says. “Why don’t you come over and party? Her parents aren’t even here.”

I walk to the kitchen and poke my head through the doorway. Leah’s sitting at the kitchen table with her feet propped up on it, one of my father’s antique bar glasses in her hand.

“Just a minute,” she says when she sees me. She lets the mouthpiece slide down below her chin. “May I help you?” She takes a sip of her drink.

“What are you drinking?”

“Gin and tonic. Want one?”

Who is this person? To a stranger, Leah probably looks about eighteen or nineteen, not sixteen.

When I don’t answer, she takes a long drink and turns her back to me.

“So will you please come?” she asks the person on the phone. She laces the cord of the old phone my dad restored through her fingers as she talks in a fake whine.

“I bet I could cheer you up.” She pauses as the other person says something, then giggles.

I leave her there and find Christi in her room, studying French.

“Oui?” she says, looking up.

“Leah’s drinking Dad’s gin.”

Christi stops smiling. “Perfect. When will Mom and Dad be home?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lainey?” It’s Leah calling from the kitchen. “I’m still hungry!”

Christi looks worried.

“She was asking some guy to come over and party,” I tell her.

“Crap.” Christi gets up, annoyed. “Can we just lock ourselves in here?” She’s kidding, but I would have been up for it.

“Lai-ney! Where are you?” We hear Leah climb the stairs and make her way to my room. “Lainey?”

“I’m in Christi’s room!” I call back reluctantly.

“Hey, guys,” she says from the hallway. “I didn’t even know you were here, Christi. What were you doing? Hiding?” She has one hand behind her back. In the other is a full glass of gin and tonic. She’s even cut a lime for it, like my parents do at their parties.