On the other side of the gym, Leah and her crew snicker behind their hands, giving Alex dirty looks. Their disapproval is a show put on especially for me. They’re terrible actresses, though. Alex, with his brand new Raleigh Rebels Crew t-shirt pulling taut across his chest, and his dark, unruly waves mussed like the devil himself just tousled them, looks so sexy that I could drop down fucking dead. The girls squint down their noses at him and sneer to try and make me feel bad, but they can’t help their treacherous hormones from softening their spite. I see their hunger as their eyes cut him down, and it brings me a savage satisfaction to know that they’re never going to get to eat at that table.
Zander and Alex shuttle up and down the gym, glaring mutinously at one another every time they pass. The football team and the Sirens disperse, plainly disappointed that the fun is over, and each team heads to their respective ends of the gym. Meanwhile, I duck my head, praying that I’m not as red in the face as I feel.
“Sorry, Argento.” Alex slows a little as he passes me. “Couldn’t help it.”
I’m not mad at him. It would have been nice to commence my first day of training with the Sirens without a spectacle. “Jack?” I ask quietly. “He asked Zander to try and get you on side?”
Alex is too far away to respond now, but from the steely, unhappy flare of acknowledgement in his dark brown eyes, I know I’m right. It’s surprising that Giacomo hasn’t tried to elicit Zander’s help before now. I’ve waited with bated breath every single day since Alex’s father approached me outside of the English block, bracing myself for the next Giacomo Moretti-related incident. It’s a miracle that it’s taken this long to arrive.
I stretch quickly, warming up my muscles, trying to ignore the lancing pain in my ribcage every time I twist, or just how generally stiff and sore I am all over my body. The doctors recommended I wait at least six weeks before I attempted any kind of physical activity. It’s almost been that long now, but my injuries still aren’t completely healed. If I have to sit out on the sidelines, missing my chance to catch up with my own life, then I’m going to lose my mind, though. I’ll tolerate the pain. I’m going to have to.
The mat area set aside for stretching is small, but the other girls give me a wide berth as I sit down and fold myself over my legs, easing the tension in my hamstrings. Things are going to be really interesting if they don’t find a way to get over themselves soon. Cheerleading is all about trust. You have to trust the person next to you to move in sync with you, and you need to trust the person at the bottom of the pyramid to catch you when you leap. Without trust, the whole thing literally falls apart in the blink of an eye. Usually with very painful consequences.
“Silver?”
I look up, and a pair of white Adidas sneakers with pink laces fill my vision.
Huh.
The sneakers are brand new, the same as style as all of the other Sirens’ footwear, but I only know of one person who wears pink laces. One person, who used to dive bomb into Lake Cushman with me during long, hot summers, and who used to giggle and laugh about boys with me in the back conservatory of her parents’ house.
Slowly, taking a second to prepare myself for whatever’s about to come next, I lift my head and look up. “Hi, Hal.”
Her thick strawberry blonde hair is longer than ever. Her Sirens uniform is perfect as always, her skirt pleated in a crisp, sharp way that always used to piss Kacey off because she could never get hers to look as good. A couple of years ago at an away game, Kace even made Halliday switch skirts with her because it was her ‘duty’ as captain of the Sirens to look better than everyone else. Halliday had given up her skirt without flinching, but when Kacey had tried to put it on, it had been a size too small and she couldn’t get the zipper up. Suffice it to say, that had not gone down well. Not at all. Kacey had given Hal a week to put on five pounds or she was going to have to find somewhere else to sit at lunch. Again, Halliday hadn’t flinched. She’d happily gorged herself on donuts and grilled cheese while the rest of us picked at our salads morosely, and by the end of the allotted time, Halliday had in fact gained six pounds. On her tits.
I still remember Kacey’s rage when she realized Halliday was still a dress size smaller than she was but that her rack had become significantly more impressive. She’d told Hal she looked like a blow-up fuck doll, all the while jealously eyeing the boys on the football team, who all seemed to appreciate Hal’s new curves.
Now, Halliday warily eyes the other girls; they’ve all stopped their own stretching routines to surreptitiously watch our exchange. “Um. Hi. I…I…” she stammers.
The last time we were this close, I’d just pieced together that she was on her way to the Rock to strip, and things had gotten pretty fucking weird. At the time, I’d thought things couldn’t have gotten any more uncomfortable between us, but it looks like I was wrong. She shifts anxiously from one foot to the other. “Glad you’re back on the team,” she says. “And…I’m glad you’re doing better, after…”
“After Jacob hung me from that rafter and made me swing?” I point to the specific rafter in question. Better to avoid any confusion.
Halliday ducks her head, twin spots of red burning on her cheeks. She looks many things: ashamed; afraid; mortified; remorseful. I could ease up and try not to be so confrontational, but I’m feeling spiky and her meek approach hasn’t made me feel very merciful. She was my friend, one of my best friends. She was the one who found me, shell-shocked and covered in blood, wearing nothing but one of Mr. Wickman’s dress shirts and a pint of my own bloody at Leon’s party. She’d panicked, scared as hell, because she’d known something terrible had happened to me, and yet she’d still let Kacey spurn me from the group. She could have taken a stand that night and left with me. She could have picked me over Kacey, right over wrong, countless other times during the months that followed, when the other students at Raleigh made my life a living hell. So, no. I could go easier on her, but I’m not feeling that benevolent.
Halliday swallows thickly as she looks up, eyes fixed on the rafter over our heads. I’ve been doing a damn good job of avoiding looking at it, but I can’t stop myself now. To my horror, there’s still a piece of police tape fluttering away, high over our heads, snagged on the beam.
“Fuck, Sil,” she whispers. Her hand goes to her throat, as if she’s picturing what it must have felt like to have that noose biting into her skin, tightening, tightening, tightening… “I—I—I don’t know what to say.”
“So say nothing.” I bend back over my leg, grabbing onto my foot so I can pull myself lower into the stretch. “It won’t change anything.”
A long, awkward moment passes, where Halliday stands silently over me, watching me, and I do absolutely nothing to set her at ease. Inevitably, she speaks again. “Look…I know you probably hate me, and I don’t blame you for that. I’ve hated myself for the way I treated you. I hated myself when I was doing it…”
The question burns on the tip of my tongue: So then why the fuck did you do it, Halliday? But it’s a question that I already know the answer to. She did it for the same reason I did so many shady, shitty things over the years. You never went against Kacey. Not if you wanted to survive. I bite the inside of my cheek, waiting for her to continue.