I want to say, Too late. That I walk around every day feeling permanently marked by him, but maybe that’s unfair. Hasn’t he been trying hard to save me? Making me promise I’d move away for college, insisting that ultimately my life would be bigger than him. He wants more for me, an expanse of a future rather than a narrow road, but that can only happen if he remains a secret. Once the truth is out, he’ll come to define my entire life; nothing else about me will matter. I see a half memory, like something from a dream: a hybrid girl, part myself and part Ms. Thompson—or maybe I’m remembering a news clip of Monica Lewinsky?—a young woman with tears rolling down her cheeks, trying to hold her head high through question after humiliating question of what happened: Tell us exactly what he did to you. It’s easy to imagine how my life could become one long trail of wreckage leading directly back to my decision to tell.
“I’d rather end my life right now than go through that,” Strane says. He looks down at me, his hands still in his pant pockets. He’s casual even as he looks ruin in the eye. “But maybe you’re stronger than I am.”
At that, I start to cry, really cry, the kind I’ve never done in front of him before—hiccupping, awful, ugly crying with snot dripping from my nose. It comes on so fast, it knocks me over. I lean against the side of the house, brace my hands against my thighs, and try to breathe. The sobs won’t stop. I wrap my arms around my middle, crouch on the ground, and smack the back of my head against the cedar shingles, like I’m trying to whack them out of me. Strane kneels before me, holds his hands behind my head, between me and the house, until I stop struggling against him, open my eyes.
“There you are,” he says. He inhales, exhales, and my chest rises and falls along with him. His hands still cradle my head, his face close enough to kiss. Tears dry on my skin, tighten my cheeks, and his thumb strokes the soft spot behind my ear. He’s grateful, he says, for what I’ve done so far. It’s very brave to take responsibility and offer myself to the wolves. It’s evidence of love. I probably love him more than anyone else ever has.
“I’m not going to tell,” I say. “I don’t want to. I never will.”
“I know,” he says. “I know you won’t.”
We work out together what I’ll say in the meeting tomorrow, how I’ll blame myself for the rumors, apologize for lying, and make clear that he did nothing wrong. It isn’t fair, he says, that I’m being forced to do this, but clearing his name is the only way to get out of this alive. He kisses me on the forehead and the corners of my eyes the way he did when we kissed for the first time in his classroom, huddled behind his desk.
Before I leave, I glance over my shoulder and see him standing on the dark lawn, his silhouette illuminated by the light from the living room windows. Gratitude radiates out of him and into me, floods me with love. This, I think, is what it means to be selfless, to be good. How could I ever have thought of myself as helpless when I alone have the power to save him?
The next morning, the twenty-six people on Jenny’s list meet in Mr. Sheldon’s classroom. There aren’t enough desks for everyone, so some kids lean against the back wall. I can’t tell who’s there; I only see faces bobbing and swaying, an ocean of buoys. Mrs. Giles has me stand next to her at the front of the room while I read the statement Strane and I came up with the night before.
“Any inappropriate rumors you might have heard about Mr. Strane and me are not true. I spread lies about him, which he did not deserve. I’m sorry for being deceitful.”
The faces stare back at me, unconvinced.
“Does anyone have questions for Vanessa?” Mrs. Giles asks. One hand shoots up. Deanna Perkins.
“I just don’t get why you would lie about this,” Deanna says. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Um.” I look to Mrs. Giles, but she only stares back at me. Everyone is staring at me. “That isn’t really a question.”
Deanna rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying, why?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
Someone asks a question about why I’m in his room all the time. I say, “I’m never in his room,” a lie so glaring, a couple people laugh. Someone else asks if there’s something wrong with me “like, mentally,” and I say, “I don’t know, probably.” As the questions continue, I realize the obvious: that I can’t come back, not after this.
“Ok,” Mrs. Giles says, “that’s enough.”
Everyone is given a slip of paper with three questions. One, who did you hear this rumor from? Two, when did you hear it? Three, have you told your parents about it? When I leave, all twenty-six heads are bent, filling out the survey, except for Jenny’s. She sits with her arms crossed, staring at her desk.
I get back to Gould and find my parents packing up my room. The bed is stripped, the closet empty. Mom blindly dumps my stuff into a garbage bag—trash, papers, anything on the floor.
“How did it go?” Dad asks.
“It?”
“The, you know . . .” He trails off, unsure what to call it. “The meeting.”
I don’t answer. I don’t know how it went, can’t even process what really happened. Watching Mom, I say, “You’re throwing away important stuff.”
“It’s garbage,” she says.
“No, you’re putting school things in there, stuff I need.”
She stands back and lets me rifle through the garbage bag. I find an essay with Strane’s comments, a handout he gave us on Emily Dickinson. I clutch the papers to my chest, not wanting them to see what it is I’m saving.
Dad zips my big suitcase, stuffed with clothes. “I’ll start bringing stuff down,” he says, stepping out into the hallway.
“We’re leaving now?” I turn to Mom.
“Come on,” she says. “Help me clean this out.” She opens my bottom desk drawer and gasps. It’s full of trash: crumpled papers, food wrappers, used tissues, a blackened banana peel. I’d filled it in a panic a few weeks ago right before room inspections and forgotten to clean it out. “Vanessa, for god’s sake!”
“Just let me do it if you’re going to yell at me.” I grab the bag from her.
“Why won’t you just throw things away?” she asks. “I mean, Jesus, Vanessa, that’s trash. Garbage. What kind of person hoards garbage in a drawer?”
I focus on breathing as I empty the desk drawer into the trash bag.
“It’s not sanitary and it’s not normal. You scare me sometimes, you know that? These things you do, Vanessa, they don’t make sense.”
“There.” I shove the drawer back into the desk. “All clean.”
“We should disinfect it.”
“Mom, it’s fine.”
She looks around the room. It’s still a mess, though it’s hard to tell what mess is mine and what is from packing everything up.
“If we’re leaving now,” I say, “I need to go do something.”
“Where do you need to go?”
“Ten minutes.”
She shakes her head. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here and helping us clean this room.”