Before, I’d felt a little guilty about letting Todd in, but now I didn’t at all.
Fuck her. Her drama wasn’t my fault.
I pulled out my phone. I speed walked to the closest bathroom, and my heart was pounding as I typed out a message to Layla. I couldn’t believe she’d throw me under the bus, and I needed to know what really happened. I stayed huddled in the stall until I was almost late to class, waiting for her to text back. But she never did. And when I got to homeroom, she wasn’t even there.
I was on edge for the rest of the morning, just waiting for Sloane to retaliate. I’d been bullied in middle school, but people calling me Weirdo or Nerd or Freckle-Freak hadn’t prepared me for the vitriol I’d heard in Sloane’s voice. And to make matters worse, I still couldn’t find Layla, who had been my protector back then, whom I urgently needed to speak to now.
I’d been looking forward to lunch, knowing I’d see Layla there despite our differing schedules, but when I walked into the cafeteria, our table was empty.
I looked around, thinking maybe she got held up after class. Or thinking (somehow for the first time) that maybe she was home sick today. But then I saw her. She was sitting with Sloane and Melody, Cadence and Sage and Valeria. And I was so shaken that I almost walked right up to her to demand to know what the hell was going on. But Sloane was there. And I wasn’t ready to face her again.
So I hid. I found an empty table in a far corner of the cafeteria and I sat down all alone.
I didn’t eat. I typed out an angry series of texts to Layla. Then I watched her. She pulled out her phone and looked at it. She glanced around, but since I wasn’t at our normal table, she had no idea where to find me. Then Sloane said something to her. I watched Layla shake her head and slip her phone back into her pocket without texting me back. And the hurt of seeing her ignore me in real time was worse than Sloane calling me a bitch. It was like a hot blade through the center of me, sharp and piercing.
* * *
—
I spotted Layla at her locker with Sloane and a few of the other Chorus Girls right after lunch. I hung back until they broke away from her, and it felt strange that I had to be strategic about approaching and talking to my own best friend. I didn’t know when this change happened, but maybe it had been happening for a while, in tiny shifts that were too small to notice.
Layla was humming as I approached her. Her back was to me, so all I could see was her sleek black hair and hunched shoulders. I didn’t tap her to get her attention, I just leaned against the locker beside hers and said, “Did you hear about what Sloane said to me this morning?”
Layla closed her locker and turned to face me. She acted cool, like she hadn’t been ignoring me all morning. “I wanted to t-t-talk to you about that later.”
I scoffed. “Layla, are you kidding? You told her I was the person at the door? The way she was freaking out, it’s like she thinks I did it on purpose or something.”
Layla threw her bag over her shoulder. She crossed her arms. “I d-didn’t think she’d flip out on you, ok-k-kay? And I just said it in p-p-passing, that I’d asked you to lock the d-door. I didn’t think she’d b-blame you for him showing up in the first place.”
“Well, she clearly does,” I said, and my voice caught in my throat.
The truth was, I was more hurt by how often Layla was breaking her promises lately, and the way she’d ignored me all day, than I was by Sloane’s cruelty. I could feel us getting away from what I really wanted to ask her: Did she see what was happening to us; did she know why she was choosing these new friends over me again and again?
“But, Layla,” I said, hating how pathetic I sounded. “What are you doing, sitting with them instead of me at lunch? Not texting me back all morning?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that Sloane’s g-going through a tough t-t-t-time, okay? She really needs me right now.”
But what about me? is what I thought. What about Y.O.E.? What makes Sloane more important than us?
“She basically threatened me,” I said, and I immediately felt ridiculous saying it out loud, even though it was true.
Layla turned back to her locker. “Don’t b-b-be so dramatic. She’s just mad right now. She’ll get over it. Can we t-t-talk about it more tonight? I c-c-can c-come over.”
She hadn’t answered my question about sitting with them instead of me at lunch. She hadn’t given me an answer about why she hadn’t texted me back. And my throat was constricting to hold back tears; it was getting harder and harder to swallow. I felt the tiny betrayals filling me up like poison, and I needed Layla to reassure me. To act like the best friend she was supposed to be.
But she didn’t. And the longer we stood there, the clearer it became that Layla wasn’t coming to my rescue this time.
I coughed to clear my throat, and when I started talking again I sounded almost normal. “I’m not sure. I have a lot of homework.”
And she just nodded like this was okay. She nodded like everything was perfectly fine.
“Let me know, K?” she said. Then she closed her locker and walked away, leaving me behind.
now
LUNCHTIME BLUES
Another way Layla’s absence has destroyed me? I no longer know where I fit in the minefield that is our high school’s cafeteria—haven’t since she started sitting with the Chorus Girls more and more back in November. Lunch used to be solace for me. Now it’s torture.
For the last month or so, lunch has gone the same way: When I get to the cafeteria, I’ll open up Othello or whatever book I have with me, eat, and awkwardly people-watch. I’ll always see Jase and Mase walk past. They’ll go to sit with the Chorus Girls because Mason always sits with Layla now. It makes me wonder how things are going with the two of them. The not knowing hurts more than it should by now.
Jase’s bag lunch will still be in his backpack when they pass me by, some delicious mix of ginger chicken and rice or a beefy Chinese stew. He’ll drum his fingers across my table, and Mase will lift his head to acknowledge me. “Hi. Bye,” I’ll say, a little embarrassed by how badly I wish they’d sit down and eat with me. I’ll try not to think about how Jase used to share his lunch with me and whisper the Mandarin names of the foods into my ear whenever I asked, or the stories he’d tell me about the kids who made fun of his lunches when he was little. I’ll wish there were a way to shift my thoughts permanently out of the past.
But today, when I walk into the caf, there are two people already waiting at my table. Sydney is leaning across her lunch tray saying something to Dom that’s making him laugh. I feel instantly hot thinking about hanging out on his roof; how I wore a sweatshirt of his and how I’d recognize the scent of him anywhere. But I try to shake myself out of it. At least I don’t have to eat alone today.