The last time I felt like this was right before Layla and I fell apart for good. I feel the punch of tears at the back of my throat, but it’s not because I’m sad.
This is pure, unadulterated rage.
“That’s why everyone is staring at me,” I say. “That’s why people are acting like I have the bubonic plague. They think my dad is a…pedophile?”
I look at Sydney, like she needs to confirm this any more than she already has, but she just tucks her hair behind her ears and looks at the floor. Her earrings today are spirals, tiny tornados I wish would pick me up and carry me away. I look at Willa and her dark eyes are fierce, like she’s as angry about this as I am. She reaches out and grabs one of Sydney’s dangling hands—it’s like she always has to be holding on to someone else.
“What are you going to do?” Sydney asks. And I make a mental note that she said “you” instead of “we.” Layla would have said “we,” and something about having to endure this alone is too much to take. I grit my teeth and step into a stall, slamming the door closed behind me.
“Cleo,” Sydney says. “Cleo, are you okay? I mean, I know you’re not, but—”
“Just leave me alone,” I mutter.
I hear Willa and Sydney whispering, and then Sydney tries to talk to me again, but I stay silent. After about ten minutes a few other girls come into the bathroom, and under the door I see Sydney’s riding boots and Willa’s checkered Vans shuffle to the other side of the bathroom. When it sounds like the other girls have left, Sydney tries one last time.
“Cleo. It’s almost time for first period. Do you want me to stay in here with you or do you want space?”
I want her to stay, but I don’t want to have to ask. I want her to go, but I can’t send her away.
I don’t say anything, and when I hear Sydney swing her bag back over her shoulder, my throat gets achy, and my eyes fill.
“If you need us,” Willa says after a few hushed minutes pass between us, “just text, ’kay?”
“We’ll come right away,” Sydney adds, and she drags her feet a little as they turn away from my stall. I hear Willa’s bangles jingling, and then they’re finally gone. I open the door of my stall the tiniest bit to peek out and make sure the bathroom is completely empty. It is.
I kick the stall door a few times until it swings all the way open. Then I sit there until I feel calm enough to go back to Mr. Yoon’s class and grab my stuff. I can’t go to first period—I can’t do the rest of today. I know there will be consequences, but there’s no way I can sit in a room with twenty other people who think my dad is a perv. I want to find out who did this to him—destroyed his reputation with a heinous lie—so I need to find out who sent that text message.
The second I step out of the girls’ bathroom, Jase steps out of the boys’. He’s looking down at his phone, so I try to skirt by him, but he must recognize my braids or hear the clomp of my boots.
“Cleo Imani—” he starts, but I cut him off.
I spin and I say, my voice hissing through my teeth, “Not right now, Jase, okay?”
He looks surprised. His ever-present, dimpled grin falls off his face and his brow crinkles, his dark eyes taking in my war-torn face. “Oh shit, are you all right?” I swallow hard around the hurt and shake my head, because I could never lie to Jase.
“But I don’t want to talk about it, okay? I just need to get back to class.”
He reaches for me then. He reaches in that particular way that he used to whenever we’d had a fight back when he loved me. He’d put his big hand out and I’d put my smaller one in his and he’d pull me to his chest. I would complain or cry and he would kiss me until it was all better. But he can’t fix me with kisses, because he doesn’t love me anymore. And even if he did, this isn’t something his gentleness would make better.
“I have to go,” I say, so softly I’m sure he doesn’t hear me. I leave his hand outstretched, dangling in the space between us.
When I walk back into class, Dom has moved into one of the empty seats closer to where I was sitting. And while this would have been exciting to me ten minutes ago, now it just pisses me off. Why should he get to decide when he wants to be my friend? Why does everyone else get to pick when they want to be close to me and when they don’t? I’m sick of it.
I sit down, and I pretend Dom isn’t there, less than a foot away from me, though the sweet-smoke-and-nutty-soap scent of him is hard to ignore. I start packing up my stuff, the lump in my throat swelling so large that I have to bite my tongue against the pain of it.
Dom leans across the space between our desks. “You good?” he asks, and I know my jaw is clenched tight and my eyes are probably glassy behind my glasses, because not even my best Poker Face could hide this kind of pain well. I’ve been so used to going it alone that I forgot what it was like to have someone else care. Like Sydney and Willa in the bathroom. Like Jase in the hall. Like Dom now. Having people who notice when you aren’t okay complicates things.
I take a deep breath and nod, hard. I sneak a glance at Dom, because I want him to believe me. I want more than anything for him to go back to being mad, just so he’ll leave me alone. But he persists. He leans in again and says, “You sure?” And I just lose it. I slam down the book I’m holding hard enough on my desk that the people around us look at me even more intently than they’ve been staring all morning.
“Jesus! I’m fine. Why are you suddenly acting like you care?”
Dom frowns at me. He doesn’t roll his eyes or change his posture at all. He just keeps looking at me, and eventually he looks away.
“I don’t know,” he says. “My bad.”
As soon as the bell rings, I shoulder my bag and fly from the room. I push my way through the crowded halls thinking about nothing but the irony of that line from Othello when I’m questioning everything.
Men should be what they seem.
I need to find a place to hide so I won’t have to endure everyone’s stares for the rest of the day. So obviously I head straight to the library, to tuck myself away in the stacks. I push my earbuds in and turn the Cover Girls all the way up, and I don’t stop when I think I hear someone calling my name—I just walk even faster. I’m only a few feet away from the library door, inches from freedom, when I feel a hand encircle my wrist.
I turn to see who’s grabbed me and it’s Valeria. Her cheeks are blotchy like she’s hot or upset, the same way Sloane’s get, and her fluffy auburn hair is falling out of its ponytail.
“Valeria?” I ask. I pull my wrist out of her grip and yank out my earbuds. “What are you doing?”