But you don’t understand is what I’m tempted to say to her.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I mumble instead.
“Do you not want to hurt me? Or are you afraid I’m gonna hurt you?”
I let out a long, low sigh. “Both?” I admit.
Sydney nods, and then Willa is back. She looks at us, taking in the tense way we’re staring at each other across the table. I feel like I’m close to tears. “You need some privacy?” Willa asks.
And when Sydney says, “You mind?” Willa shakes her head and slips those giant headphones over her ears. It sounds like she’s listening to metal now. She nods to the beat and keeps her eyes and hands busy ripping open creamers and sugar packets for her coffee.
“Look, how about we do this,” Sydney says. Her earrings are tiny chandeliers today, and I stare at them instead of meeting her eyes as she talks. “How about you give me a chance, and I give you one? How about we each try our best, but we tell each other if we mess up? How about we don’t decide we can’t be friends before we even try?”
I blink, looking up and away from her, trying to get rid of tears, but I’m sure my eyes still look glassy. I give a tiny nod.
Sydney clears her throat. “Okay, then. What’s the next spot on your New Memories list?”
I take out my phone and pull up my list. But then I glance over at Willa, who is messing around with her phone. I don’t say a thing, but I guess Sydney can tell what I’m thinking: Willa is a threat because she’s cute and cool and clearly comfortable with herself in a way I’m still trying to become. Why be friends with me, when Sydney could be friends with a girl like her?
Sydney crosses her arms. “Stop it,” she says sternly, like she’s a teacher, or my mom. “Give Willa, and yourself, a chance too.”
then: December, week 2
NOBODY
It had been three days since I yelled at Layla in the hallway. Thirteen since she’d texted or called. It was also the day that Daddy was moving out—whoever had occupied the apartment he’d found had decided to move early so they could be settled in their new place before the holidays. My parents thought that this was a good idea—for Daddy to be settled before the new year and his new job started—so we wouldn’t even be having a final Christmas together, as a family that lived in the same place.
I could barely look at my mother, because it felt like everything that was happening with Daddy was all her fault, and I was upset with myself because Layla’s complete and utter silence was mostly mine.
Daddy had already started lining up boxes of his clothes, books, records, and art along the hallway when I woke up.
“You’ll have two Christmases,” he said when he found me in the hall, weeping with his copy of Antony and Cleopatra in my hands.
“God, Daddy. I’m not a fucking five-year-old!” I said, throwing the book back into the box I’d lifted it out of. “You should know I don’t care about that.”
Daddy looked wounded, and I felt bad for making something that was clearly hard for him harder. I was just about to apologize when my mom stepped out of the bathroom and said, “Cleo, I know you’re upset, but we don’t use that kind of language in this house.”
I didn’t apologize then. I just started crying harder.
“Seriously, Mom? You’re lecturing me about language when Daddy’s shit is in fucking boxes all along our goddamn hallway? Are you even human?”
I slammed my bedroom door, dressed quickly, and ran out of the apartment after that, not looking back at either of them. I didn’t want to see the agony on my mother’s face or have to deal with my father’s sadness. And I knew I couldn’t be there when the movers arrived and he and everything he owned disappeared from our home for good.
* * *
—
At school, I discovered that the Chorus Girls had rallied around Layla, and because of what I’d said to her in front of them, I was instantly their enemy. Seeing them step into the school building unexpectedly and almost immediately made my bad morning worse.
“Look who it is,” I heard a high-pitched voice trill as soon as I closed my locker. A few people snickered, and I didn’t need to turn around to know who was speaking. “Chloe Baker the Bitch,” Sage whispered as she passed me, still not knowing what my name actually was, and clearly not caring.
“It looks like someone threw up on her face,” Melody said next. She spoke quietly, just loudly enough for me to hear. I hadn’t heard that one in a while, but my faceful of freckles had prepared me for those kinds of insults. I’d been hearing them all my life.
Maybe starting a day cursing in front of my parents had made me ballsy, had made me stupidly brave. Because without looking at them, I said, “Funny. That the best you got?”
“It looks like she just came from a shitty funeral,” Cadence muttered next, like I hadn’t spoken a word. “Do your parents always wear black too? You know, because they’re mourning your birth?”
At the mention of my parents, I lost most if not all of my nerve. I thought of the boxes back home and my heart began breaking all over again. I started walking a little more quickly down the hall.
“And her hair,” Sage said, and I knew what came next would sting, especially because Sage was black too. She knew what it was like to live with black hair—with feeling like it was never straight enough or long enough or good enough—so she knew exactly what to say to cut right to the heart of me, quick and deep. “It’s so nappy and gross-looking. Say it with me, Chloe: Shampoo. Condition. Rinse and repeat. And have you ever heard of a flatiron?”
They laughed, and I wanted to pull their hair out at the roots. I clenched my fists so tightly that I could feel my nails digging into my palms.
I looked up then, because I knew that Layla had to be with them. My chest felt heavy, and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs when my eyes met hers. She wasn’t smiling and she wasn’t adding to the flurry of insults they were hurling in my direction, but she wasn’t doing anything to stop them either.
“Come on, guys,” Sloane said. And I thought, Is it really going to be her that puts an end to this? I made the mistake of looking hopeful—of glancing over at her instead of keeping my eyes on Layla, or looking back down. Sloane stared right at me, through me, and said, “Anyone who says the shit she said to their ‘best friend’ isn’t worth our time.” She turned to Layla. “She’s…literal trash and you don’t need her.” And then, to me: “Fucking nobody.”
I was hot with fury, cold and achy with hurt. And I didn’t know a body could contain such a storm of feeling until they kept talking; kept laughing. Sloane threw her arm over Layla’s shoulder, and Layla looked down at her shoes, her curtain of too-straight hair falling over her face. And still she stayed quiet. Her silence was the worst part of all.