The Cheerleaders(37)

“No prob.” Carly tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, revealing a cascade of silver studs. Then, as if an afterthought: “Sorry about your sister. She really did seem nice.”

“Thanks,” I say, anger still swelling in me. I step off the curb, heading for the parking lot as quickly as I can, desperate to escape Carly and the sickly sweet vanilla smell of her smoke.



* * *



—

As I approach Ginny’s car, I see her and Petey in an animated conversation. She turns her head to the driver’s side window. Her face falls when she spots me. It must be obvious how my conversation with Carly went; I wish I had done a lap around the library to compose myself.

I slip into the passenger seat, Petey’s hands already on my headrest, his voice and peanut butter breath in my ear. “Do they make slime at that library?” He turns to Ginny. “At our library, they make slime.”

“No, this is a college library,” I say. My voice is trembling.

Ginny lifts her eyes to meet Petey’s in the mirror. “I saw a recipe for color-changing slime,” she says. “You should look it up.”

Petey chirps, “Cool!” and immerses himself in my phone. I close my eyes.

Ginny’s voice is soft beside me. “Are you okay?”

I nod, my throat tight. “Carly says she wasn’t friends with any of them.”

When I inhale and open my eyes, Ginny is watching me expectantly.

I can’t bring myself to tell her what Carly Amato said about the paper Jen slipped into Ethan’s locker. It’s complete bullshit—there’s no way that paper was a hit list. Her friends were on it. Friends whose deaths completely broke her, she loved them so much.

Mrs. Ruiz’s voice knifes its way through my brain. Jen and Susan weren’t speaking. Susan went to the principal when she saw Ethan McCready’s hit list. According to Carly, Susan saw Jen slip something into Ethan’s locker…

The note. I’m not okay.

A misunderstanding. It explains everything. Jen was simply replying to Ethan’s message: Do you want to talk about it? Susan saw Jen putting the note in Ethan’s locker, the same day she saw Ethan writing the list, and instead of talking to Jen about it, she went to Principal Heinz. Of course Jen would be pissed enough at Susan to stop speaking to her.

“Hey, we should get McFlurries!” Petey yells from the backseat, breaking my train of thought.

My hand moves to my empty pocket with a flutter of panic. I think about my wallet on the kitchen island. Right where I left it after I gave Petey his bribe money. “I forgot my wallet.”

“That’s okay,” Petey says. “I have twenty dollars now. I got you.”

I don’t say anything. My reflex is to tell him no, but I can’t handle the thought of going home right now.

“I would enjoy a McFlurry,” Ginny says.

Can she sense it, how I’m not ready to go home? I let myself breathe. “I would enjoy one too.”

Ginny and I don’t bring up Carly Amato again on the drive back into town. McDonald’s is only a block away from the playhouse, but I don’t have the presence of mind to be worried about my mom catching us out right now. When Ginny parks, Petey tumbles out of the backseat and darts ahead.

“Wait for us,” I say, still too dazed to be irritated with him.

Petey stops at the entrance and holds the door open for Ginny and me.

At the counter, I order vanilla ice cream with Oreo pieces, and Ginny gets Butterfinger.

“That’s what Jen always got,” Petey says, matter-of-fact, before asking the cashier for vanilla ice cream with M&M’s. I don’t have the heart to tell him that he’s confusing Jen with me; that Butterfinger McFlurries used to be my favorite.

“Go get us a table.” I nudge Petey once he’s paid the cashier. I watch him wind his way through the restaurant and plop himself in a booth nearby. He takes out my phone and holds it sideways, which means Clan Wars. I forgot he still has my phone. My head is thrumming with so many questions.

“Are you okay?” Ginny’s voice is soft, but it brings me back.

“I don’t know. Carly told me Susan saw Jen put something in Ethan’s locker the day before he got expelled. It had to be the note they were passing back and forth. But Susan must have thought it had something to do with the hit list and told Principal Heinz.”

“Do you really think Susan would do that?” Ginny whispers.

“I don’t know.”

Ginny is watching me as if she can sense there’s more. I swallow. “Carly was talking like Jen was involved somehow and that she wasn’t the only one who thought that way.”

Ginny is quiet. The cashier sets her McFlurry on the counter, but she doesn’t move to collect it.

“That’s crap,” she finally says.

It’s the first I’ve heard Ginny curse and it’s like a jolt to my brain, waking me up. “Right?” I look her in the eyes. “It makes no sense.”

The cashier sets my McFlurry down. Ginny and I grab our order and join Petey at the booth. I sit next to him, and Ginny slides into the seat across from us.

I let Ginny eat a spoonful of her ice cream before I catch her eye and speak again. “There’s something else. Carly says Jen was the only cheerleader who wasn’t on the hit list.”