“Thanks dad,” Tatiana replied, and there was a certain lightness to her voice, like an iron weight had been lifted out.
We got out of the car, waved goodbye to Cristiano, and walked into school. I was trying to think of the best way to at least breach the subject of Tatiana’s romantic life with her when she stopped moving. I glanced back and noticed she had a look of bewilderment on her face. I turned back around and saw that everyone in the hallways, who had seconds before been checking their lockers, chattering with friends, and bustling to class, were all frozen in place and staring at Tatiana. My stomach tightened.
Uh oh. I was anxiously searching the crowd for even one person not staring, but there were none. All eyes were on Tatiana and I feared that I knew why.
“Why haven’t you been answering my calls?!” One of the kids known for being a bit of a loser around school, Billy Benton, was rushing up to Tatiana, his face drenched in sweat and frightened. “I need to talk to you.” Tatiana opened her mouth to reply, but Billy had already taken her by the wrist and was dragging her away.
Once Tatiana was out of sight, I started to panic. My forehead was already covered in sweat, as Billy’s had been, and I was scanning the crowd for Harlie; I had to find her. It was a huge mistake telling her about Tatiana. I was impulsive. I should have just waited. The second she figured it out, I knew she was going to let the cat out of the bag, I just didn’t realize the scale. She told everyone in school? Everyone?
There was a tap on my shoulder and I turned around to see our principal, Marcellus Devine, standing behind me. “Mr. Undinger. Can I speak to you in my office, please?”
Shit. “Sure.” Shit. Shit.
I followed Mr. Devine, and even as I walked through the school office, all the teachers and administrators inside were staring at me. The entire school knew, staff included. This was bad. This was so bad. We walked into his personal office and he shut the door behind him. He motioned for me to sit in one of the stock school, gray, polyester armchairs sitting in front of his oak wood desk. He sat down in his chair and faced me and my heart was pounding harder and faster than it ever had before.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying to remain even toned. “If this is about my parents. I’m actually doing well.” Was I talking too much? Was it dumb to try and play innocent?
“That’s not what this is about, though I’m glad to hear you’re doing okay.” He sighed. “No, this is about a different troubling matter. A rather disturbing rumor has made its way to me that your friend, Tatiana Marquette, is involved in, at the very least, a sexual relationship with one of our teachers here, Val Kepler. I’ve followed it as far back as I can and have learned from Harlie Jones that she heard this rumor from you.”
There goes that hope of ever rekindling. Not only did she throw me under the bus by telling the school about Tatiana when she promised she wouldn’t, she backed over me by telling the principal the rumor started with me. If she had told him, she probably told the rest of the school that part of the story as well.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, praying I was convincing. “That’s insane.”
Mr. Devine raised his eyebrow, and I could tell he wasn’t buying it. “Really?”
I shrugged. “Really.”
“You know, Mr. Undinger. If there’s any validity to these rumors, even if just a piece of the story, your friend could be in danger. If you know anything, you should say something. She could need help.” He folded his hands on the desk in front of him, trying to do the ‘concerned adult’ bit. “I just want to be that help.”
I knew that Tatiana needed help, but this wasn’t how I wanted to do it. All I could picture was our amazing day out on Saturday and how much better we were doing, and it was all going up in smoke. If Tatiana found out I was the source of the rumor, I could kiss any hope of being anything to her--friends, lovers, or otherwise--goodbye.
I needed to make Mr. Devine believe me somehow. I didn’t know if it was better to try and discuss what I’d seen, but belittle it by saying that I was mad at her and just made assumptions to hurt her, or continue to pretend as if I didn’t know anything about the rumor at all.
“Look, Mr. D. I don’t know what Harlie told you, but I didn’t start any rumor about Tatiana seeing a teacher. I never would, because I know her really well, and I know she’d never do anything like that. The rumors were probably started by Harlie because she doesn’t like Tatiana very much.” An idea clicked into my head like a lightbulb turning on. “Harlie’s my ex and I think she found out Tatiana and I went out on a date.” I never wanted to be that guy that lied and said his interactions with a certain girl were more than they were, but I think Tatiana would agree this was an emergency.
Mr. Devine leaned in with renewed curiosity. “You’re dating Miss Marquette?”
“Yeah. We went to that food festival this weekend.” I pulled out my phone and flipped to the pictures we’d taken and handed it over. “See?”
Mr. Devine took my phone and started scrolling through the pictures. Eventually he handed it back to me, with a sigh of relief. “Well, that certainly sheds some light on things. I haven’t spoken with Val Kepler yet, I know children can gossip and didn’t want to involve him until I was certain. Just a jealous ex-girlfriend, eh?”
I felt like I was gonna throw up. “Yeah. Harlie’s really vindictive, so she probably started the rumor and then told everyone I did to try and cause problems.” As the words came out of me, I realized that they were probably true, even if I was spinning an untrue tale with those threads. “If I don’t get to Tatiana before these rumors do, it’s probably going to work.”
Mr. Devine nodded. “Go. Go find her. I can’t stop the rumors, but I’ll let the rest of the staff know so we can try and dwarf them as much as we can.”
I stood up from the chair desperate to get to Tatiana and warn her. “Thank you.”
I started for the door when I was struck with another fear. I turned around and looked back at Mr. Devine. “Um. You’re not going to call Tatiana’s parents are you?”
Mr. Devine leaned back in his chair. “Do I need to?”
I shook my head. “No. Things are just really weird at her place right now, with me moving in and my parents’ death and all that. I just don’t want things to get worse because of some rumor a jealous ex of mine started.”
Mr. Devine nodded. “I understand, Mr. Undinger. We’ll keep this between us.”
That time, it was me letting out a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much.”
“Go find her,” Mr. Devine said. “Hopefully it isn’t too late.” No kidding.
I rushed out of the office trying to figure out where Billy might have pulled Tatiana off to, but I didn’t need to search far. The second I opened the door, Tatiana walked up to me. Her eyes were puffy and red, and tears were still leaking from them.
“Tati,” I murmured.
She looked at me as though I’d stuck a heated butcher knife straight through her. “How could you start such a terrible rumor about me?”
15