“No, you don’t . . . Melissa told you?” I don’t understand Karey’s threats. I don’t understand what she’s doing here at all.
“I’m here if you want to talk,” Karey says, and I finally notice the anxiety in her eyes, the way she searches my face. “And there are options for reporting, if you want—not just the police, but wherever he goes to school, or the quidditch officials have a policy in place.”
“It wasn’t . . . I didn’t get, like, harassed.” My voice squeaks, my chest curls more firmly around my knees. “I’m fine; I’m definitely fine. I mean, I’m embarrassed because I . . . but it wasn’t anything bad. I just met a cute guy and we made out. Or hooked up. Or something. But not in a scary way. In a good way.”
Karey lets out a long breath. “Okay. If it turns out that’s not the case, please, please know that you can talk to me whenever you feel comfortable.”
“I promise, it’s fine,” I say.
“You’re sitting on the ground sobbing,” Karey points out. “And you smell like vodka. I feel like maybe someone deserves an ass-kicking.”
“It’s been a long night.”
Karey smiles. I search the sky for constellations. Someone flips off the music inside, and cicadas and night birds quickly fill up the momentary silence.
“You know . . .” Karey shrugs and shifts so that her legs stretch out against the cement. “You can talk to me about Melissa, too. I make no promises about kicking her ass, but . . .”
I laugh. “I was being stupid. She’s mad at me, but I wanted to pretend like everything was normal. I wanted her to . . . I don’t know, give me a high five or something. Which wasn’t going to happen. You don’t get high fives for being promiscuous at a quidditch party.”
“I mean . . .” Karey trails off, and I stop staring at the sky to look at her. She holds out her palm.
I ruin the slap of our hands with a snotty sniffle. “Thanks.”
“You know,” Karey says, “it might not seem like it, but she just wants to talk to you.”
I snort through my snot. Sure, Melissa is just dying to talk to me. That’s why she avoided me for weeks, acted so weird, kept grilling me about John without listening to—
The light switch flips. I blink at Karey.
“She has a secret.” I knew that. I remember thinking that a long time ago, right after she broke up with Chris. I thought she was hiding something, a new crush maybe. At some point I got too involved in my own feelings and I forgot. I thought it was all about me, Melissa wanting to ditch me like Xiumiao did—like Xiumiao didn’t, actually.
God, I do have an abandonment complex.
Karey’s poker face is good, but it doesn’t matter. I stand up, something between a laugh and a growl bubbling up in my throat.
I rush inside, ignoring the scattered figures sleeping on the couches and armchairs. The apartment feels implausibly silent and my damp shoes squish loudly against the floor, but I can’t slow down as I rush to see Melissa stepping out of the bathroom, her face red and her fists balled.
She sees me, and she scowls, and now that I can see the hurt behind her anger I can’t believe I ever thought she didn’t care.
“Melissa, I—”
She faces me, the scene so similar to what happened just a few minutes ago, but . . . changed. The bathroom door hangs open, and as soon as I notice how little attention Melissa pays it, I also realize how intent she was on keeping me away from it before. Because she didn’t want me to go in, because there was something in there she didn’t want me to see. Or—I think of my own recent party activities—there was someone in there.
More light switches, a whole wall of them, connected to a whole bank of fluorescent lights that flicker, sputter, and blink on full-blast as I connect dot after dot after dot.
“What?” Melissa demands.
I open my mouth to release my question, but instead the truth creeps out.
“You have something to tell me about Karey.”
In the silence that follows, a buzzing noise convinces me that the cicadas followed me inside. And then I notice that the buzzing is coming from my pocket. And then I pull out my ringing phone and see that Dad is calling.
Melissa and I stare at each other, identical stupid expressions on our faces. Because we’re both caught.
27
“It’s my dad,” I say, even though Melissa probably already read the caller ID.
She grimaces. “I knew you didn’t have permission.”
I answer the phone. I hold it a few inches from my face, shying away like it might explode.
“Hello?”
“Ellen? Everything okay?”
I stare at the unfamiliar hallway, the bathroom door, Melissa’s wide eyes. I can’t think of a single way to answer his question.
“Connie got worried when you didn’t answer her texts. Are you asleep? How is everything holding up?”
“Is the kitchen clean?” Connie’s distant voice asks.
Melissa watches my mouth drop open and stay there. She twirls her hands around each other frantically: Say something!
“Um,” I start off promisingly, “yeah . . . Yeah, Yasmín went to bed, like, a couple hours ago.” Not a lie, I think even as my face starts to flush. I have Xiumiao’s text to prove it. “How was your day?”
“We were worried,” Dad says. “Connie hasn’t been able to fall asleep.”
“Sorry, I think my phone was on silent. Yasmín wanted to watch Moana.” True, I just didn’t happen to be there to watch it with her.
“Great.” Dad’s voice relaxes. “Well, we’ll let you get back to bed. Keep a closer eye on your phone please.” He talks about the beach for a minute while I hyperventilate and Melissa offers unhelpful panic faces. I only tune back in to hear, “So we’ll see you in the morning, probably, or around lunchtime at the latest.”
“Wait, tomorrow?” I wince at the squeak in my voice. Chill, vocal cords. “I thought you were staying another night, taking off Monday . . .”
Melissa’s eyes widen, and her mouth twists comically. My face feels frozen in place.
“Well, we missed our girls. We can all have a family day on Monday. We have . . . some apologies to make.”
A distant rational part of my brain realizes that this is my last chance to confess, that lying right now will only postpone disaster. But instinct beats logic.
“Okay, yeah. Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”