The Exact Opposite of Okay(72)

“Noted. Do you have the authority over other killings? I have a hit list I’d like to start working through.”

“Sure. Who’s first? Carson?”

“Nah,” I say, draining the dregs of my coffee. “Carlie, please.”

Ajita smiles properly now. “I heard what you did. Thank you for sticking up for me. I can’t believe Schumer didn’t suspend you.”

I nod. “Yeah, I was kind of hoping he would, to be fair. I could do with a week off. But I think he knew that’s what I wanted, and the bastard didn’t give it to me. So rude.”

“I never did like him.” She sniffs against the cold wind. “Okay, Carlie first. Who next?”

“Danny. I found out he started the World Class Whore website.”

Ajita’s eyes flash wildly. “Wait, he did what?”

“Yep. Sucks, huh?”

All her sadness evaporates in lieu of world-ending rage. She splutters everywhere, stomping a Doc Marten angrily. “That little son of a . . . how dare he! And to think . . . to think! He’s been playing the victim all this time, manipulating the crap out of me, out of both of us, and . . . he’s the one who’s to blame for all this! He ruined his best friend’s life out of jealousy??! OH MY GOD, WHERE’S MY MOM’S ASSAULT RIFLE WHEN YOU NEED IT?”


10.02 a.m.

As Ajita and I leave math class we notice Carson lingering on the opposite side of the hall – the first time I’ve seen his face since he spoke to the press, although he’s been texting me at regular intervals to promise me it wasn’t him. I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him.

Before he spots me, Ajita grabs my arm and hauls me back into the classroom, nearly knocking out Sharon the deadpan queen with her backpack. Which wouldn’t have been terrible on account of her horrid Twitter rant about my displeasing body shape.

We hunch behind the door and tactfully avoid Mr Cheung’s glares by pretending to rummage in our purses for tampons, which we all know is a surefire way to get male faculty members off your case.

“Shit, Ajita, what am I going to do? Should I confront him?” I mutter as I slip quietly into cardiac arrest. “Carson, not Mr Cheung.”

She considers this for a moment while dangling a paper-wrapped supersize emphatically in front of her face, like she’s trying to hypnotize me on behalf of the period goddesses. “Look, Izzy, boys are like buses.”

“They all come at once?”

“No, they’re cheap, unreliable and smell like day-old dick cheese. Point is, you’re awesome, and none of these pricks deserve you. Not Danny, not Vaughan, and not Carson.” Something deep in my chest rebels at the idea Carson doesn’t deserve me. If he’s the man I think he is, he absolutely does. “Just go and give him a piece of your mind. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

I frown. “What about my last remaining strand of dignity?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You lost that last summer when you touched your foofer after chopping chilies and had to squat in a bowl of Greek yoghurt.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you remember the moving funeral service I held for said dignity? Betty said a few words; Dumbledore peed on the casket?”

By now I am just so desperate for this conversation to be over that when she shoves me back out the door I’m beyond caring what happens in the next few minutes of my life.

Carson’s eyes meet mine and sheer terror flits across his face. I attempt to fix some semblance of fury onto my own features and stride up to him, trying to forget Ajita’s profoundly disturbing observations about dick cheese.

“Izzy, I –”

“What the fucking shit, Carson? Selling your story? Are you actually kidding me?”

Literally everyone on the planet is looking at us. Drivers on the highway have abandoned their vehicles to get a better look. Every drone in the world is pointed in our direction. Extraterrestrial life forms have finally breached the earth’s atmosphere and nobody has noticed on account of the fact everyone is focusing on this pathetic sex scandal in small-town America.

“You don’t under–”

Red-hot anger bubbles through me. “I don’t understand? I don’t understand needing some extra cash? Really? You’re really saying those words to me right now? For fucking, shitting sake, why –”

He looks genuinely devastated that I’m cursing so fluidly at him. “I can explain. Please. Let me explain.”

“Okay. Go.”

Carson seems taken aback by my bluntness. “Right here?”

Small crowds have gathered around us now, and I don’t know whether surviving several shaming rituals in the last month has toughened me up a bit, but I actually don’t even care who witnesses this exchange.

“Why not? You’ll probably sell your story again and all of these people will find out all the gritty little details anyway, so it might as well be public.”

He shoots me a genuinely pained expression, wincing like I’ve punched him in the kidneys. “I didn’t sell you out. I promise. You gotta believe me.”

“No? So how’d the Enquirer get those screenshots?” I’m starting to yell now, and the corridor is quieter than it’s ever been so my words echo around the lockers.