Projection (13 page)

“What about Gretchen?” Ariel asked. She’d heard all kinds of things when Gretchen had first gone away; that she refused to speak to anyone, that she slept for fifteen, sometimes twenty, hours a day, that she was undergoing shock therapy treatments. It was these images that caused Ariel
to stick her finger down her throat for nearly a year, these images that compelled her to shoplift, and these images that, ultimately, sent her running to Mrs. Lackman’s office every week.

Jessica’s face darkened. “I don’t talk to Gretchen anymore,” she said.

Ariel thought about the kiss between them that she’d filmed.
Had they been in a relationship? Had there been a bitter break up?
But she didn’t dare ask.

And then, just like that, the light went back into Jessica’s face. She stuck her hand out toward Ariel. “So, what do you say? Friends?”

Ariel hesitated for just a fraction of a second. She still couldn’t quite believe that this was for real. But she reached out and shook Jessica’s hand. “Okay. Friends.”

Jessica smiled. She held up one finger, signaling for Ariel to wait for her, and she ran off toward the kitchen. A few moments later she was back, carrying two Wedgwood teacups filled with tequila. She handed one to Ariel.

“To new beginnings,” Jessica said, clinking her cup gently against Ariel’s.

“To new beginnings,” Ariel agreed.

She tossed hers back.

As she lowered her cup, she caught sight of Brinley watching her from outside. She felt a flush creep up her neck and into her cheeks, but it wasn’t from the tequila. Brinley shook her head and walked away.
Yes, I get the message
, Ariel thought.
Melodramatic enough?
She smiled at Jessica. It didn’t matter what Brinley thought. Brinley was the pathetic one; if she couldn’t move on from something that had happened in middle school, then that was her problem.

A horn honked in
the driveway. Ariel lifted the curtain that hung from the lone window in her tiny bedroom and peeked out at the black Acura idling in the driveway. It belonged to Jessica’s uncle Rob—Ariel recognized it from when she’d worked at the Club—but she caught a glimpse of Jessica’s streaky-blonde hair in the driver’s seat. Was this really happening? Was she really old enough now to have friends who could drive to school? Doubt quickly snaked its way into her mind like a curl of smoke.
Is Jessica Shaw really my friend?

She’d nearly choked on the tortilla chip she’d been eating when she’d seen the text from Jessica last night:
U need a ride to school tmrw?
Ariel had secretly been hoping that Nick would drive her to school this year, but that ship had sailed once she’d learned that he had daily 6
A.M.
practices. A ride from Jessica Shaw was something she had never even considered or even dreamed of.

Ariel tried once again to put herself in Jessica’s shoes. Tainted by scandal. Out of the loop for two years. Former
best friend institutionalized. Slowly, it dawned on her. Jessica Shaw needed her. She thought back to what Jessica had said at the party:
You’re the It Girl now, I get it
. Ariel tried to imagine what would happen if Jessica showed up for school today alone, out of the blue. Everyone would whisper.
But if she shows up with me …
Ariel had to admire Jessica’s forethought. She’d done her homework on who’s who at Delphi High these days. For a second, it crossed Ariel’s mind that she could still decline the ride. She could say she wasn’t feeling well and let Jessica fend for herself without the protection of Ariel’s popularity. But Ariel knew that that would be a mistake. After all, she needed Jessica, too. She needed her to keep her mouth shut. The best way to ensure that she did would be to keep her happy and to let her think that Ariel didn’t have her all figured out.

Oh, stop being so cynical
, Ariel told herself. After all, she was trying to move on. Maybe Jessica was just trying to do so, too. She heard Mrs. Lackman’s voice in her head:
A grudge is not a life preserver. It’s not a healthy thing to hold onto
. Ariel wondered if maybe Jessica had been seeing her own Mrs. Lackman these last two years.

She dropped the curtain and walked into the kitchen. Her mom had left for work before Ariel had even woken up, but she’d left a homemade blueberry muffin on the counter for her. Next to it was a note.

Ever since her mom had lost her job as a nutritional consultant for the Delphi School District, she’d been commuting
to another town over an hour away. Some days they didn’t even see each other at all. Ariel cringed as she remembered how her mother would show up in the school cafeteria to check in with the staff, her hair covered in a mesh hairnet. At first, she pretended not to know her. But how could she? Her mom was a single mom, her only parent, her best friend, her ally. And eventually they all found out, as they always did.

Your mom’s a lunch lesbo
, the kids would sneer.
Where’s your hairnet, loser?

She wondered if the other kids’ moms had been home by five every night. Not to mention weekends. When the other girls were having sleepovers or going to events for the Oculus Society, she and her mom would go to the movies or bake cupcakes at home. Now their primary means of communication took the form of notes left on the kitchen counter.

But on the other hand, nobody asks me where my hairnet is anymore
.

Ariel slung her backpack over her shoulder, grabbed the muffin, and ran out the front door to where Jessica was waiting.

She could sense the
unease as soon as she and Jessica pulled up in the school parking lot. Everyone was staring at them.

Her heart raced. Maybe she’d made a mistake. Maybe
she
was the one who was going to end up stuck in Loserville if people didn’t accept Jessica. She breathed in deeply. No. The other kids would be taking their cues from her. All she had to do was act like everything was normal, and everyone would follow suit. So she did. As she and Jessica walked toward the eleventh grade homeroom wing. Sure enough, by the time they reached their lockers, everyone
was smiling, welcoming Jessica with open arms. For the first time since she could remember, Ariel felt like a good person. She wanted to cling to that sense of benevolence—as strange as it was intoxicating.

When the bell rang
, releasing them from homeroom, Ariel was feeling so light-hearted and magnanimous, she practically floated out into the hallway. She resolved to stop shoplifting, effective immediately. She studied her schedule, trying to figure out when would be the soonest time she could sneak into Mrs. Lackman’s office to report all of her good news.

But when she shut her locker door and found Jessica on the other side of it, looking white as a sheet of paper, her hope fizzled. Something was wrong. Ariel glanced around. Not too many people, but there was a low buzz, a few urgent whispers behind cupped hands.

“What’s going on?”

Jessica seemed to look right through her. She didn’t answer for a moment, and Ariel sensed that she was having some kind of inner dialogue with herself. Then, suddenly, the color came back into her face. She straightened as if she’d made up her mind about something.

“Gretchen’s back,” she answered.

Ariel’s pulse quickened. Jessica, she could handle. Jessica, she
had
handled. But Gretchen was the one who haunted her. A million questions ran through her mind. How could she be back? Wasn’t she in an institution? How come nobody knew she was re-enrolling? Finally Ariel’s thoughts came back around to herself.
What if she tells everyone what I did?

Ariel wanted to frantically throw all of these questions at Jessica at once, but something in her gut was telling her that she should play it cool. “Wow. That’s a coincidence, both of
you coming back at the same time.”

Suddenly, the buzz in the hallway stopped, giving way to dead silence. Ariel’s head whipped around. There she was. Gretchen. She was taller, of course, and she’d shed the baby fat she had still been carrying back in middle school. She’d given up her long, smooth layers for a choppier, shoulder-length cut with side-swept bangs—but her dark blue eyes were still striking, her cheekbones still high and prominent.

The only real difference was in the way she carried herself. Before, Gretchen had been all confidence. Now she walked with her shoulders slumped, her head turned down, eyes focused on the floor in front of her. Impulsively, Ariel started to lift her hand in a wave. If she could save Jessica, shouldn’t she do the same for Gretchen? As if reading Ariel’s mind, Jessica slammed her locker shut, breaking the silence. The hallway instantly began to buzz again. Jessica turned on her heel and walked off in the other direction.

“Jess,” Ariel called out to her. “Wait up!”

Jessica turned around, and when she saw that Ariel was alone, she waited. “What was that about?” Ariel wanted to know. “How come you didn’t say hi to her?”

Jessica frowned. “Are you joking? Didn’t you see her, shuffling her feet and looking at the floor? Seriously, Ariel. The girl is crazy. You don’t want to be associated with someone like that. All she’ll do is drag you down.”

Ariel stared back at her. Jessica lowered her eyes. Ariel again thought back to the kiss in the teepee that night: maybe only one of them had wanted to be more than friends. Maybe Gretchen had kissed Jessica unexpectedly, and maybe Jessica hadn’t known how to handle the advance. On the other hand, how could she? Her best friend had wanted to be something more?

Ariel sighed. Ignoring Gretchen didn’t sit well with the
fresh start she’d made just half an hour ago. But Jessica was probably right. Gretchen
did
seem pathetic, and the last thing Ariel wanted was to be deemed pathetic by association. She decided to trust Jessica on this one. After all, she did have experience with this kind of thing. And besides, she had to admit: she was dying to know what had happened between the two of them. If she went along, she just might be able to find out.

At lunch, Jessica regaled
them with funny stories about boarding school.

“You wouldn’t even believe this one girl. She had a whole advance team come in and decorate her dorm room before she arrived, like she was the Queen of England …”

Ariel glanced around their table: Nick’s friends and the Oculus Society princesses. Everyone was rapt. Amazing: Jessica seamlessly fit back in; she made herself the center of attention, but Ariel didn’t feel at all displaced. It was as if the rest of them were a giant puzzle, and all this time they’d had no idea that they’d been missing the final piece.

But Ariel also couldn’t help noticing how Gretchen sat by herself in the corner, reading a book as she ate. The seats around her were conspicuously empty. Unpopularity was the most contagious disease. She knew that better than anyone. And yet she’d been cured. Ariel turned back to Jessica, waiting for her to notice, too, but she never even glanced in Gretchen’s direction. The dynamic was starting to make Ariel paranoid. She desperately wanted to speak to Gretchen, to put what had happened between them behind her once and for all. But she was afraid to approach her, and not just because Jessica forbade it. After all, Gretchen might not be as forgiving as Jessica was, and Ariel worried that bringing up
the past with her might open a Pandora’s box that she’d never be able to close.

But what if she tells?
For the thousandth time, Ariel thought back to the aftermath of the “Secret Lovers” video: the explosion in hits, the scorn heaped upon Jessica and Gretchen, the questioning of all things Oculus Society, their abrupt disappearance … and now this. Two years ago it had been a delicious game with Ariel as sole victor. But the video had faded into oblivion, the way all YouTube videos do. And the Oculus Society had never lost any influence or power in Delphi. They had denounced the anonymous poster as cruel and tasteless and depraved. And soon even their denouncements were forgotten.

Ariel glanced over at Gretchen again. She wished she would look up so that she could catch her eye and maybe get a read on how Gretchen was feeling toward her. Everyone at the table suddenly burst out laughing.

Ariel noticed that Jessica looked only at Nick, and smiled at him as their eyes met. Connor was staring at Jessica in a way that was almost creepy. Instinctively, Ariel put her arm around Nick’s waist. When Jessica wasn’t looking, she whispered in his ear.

“I think Connor likes Jessica,” she said. “He was listening to her story like it was the most interesting thing he’d ever heard. Wouldn’t they be cute together?”

Nick looked at her, bewildered. “What? Does she like him?”

Ariel nodded. “Yeah,” she lied. “She told me this morning that she thinks he’s really hot. Did he say anything about her to you?”

Nick frowned. “No. We haven’t talked about it. But I’ll find out.”

Ariel kissed him on the mouth, then pulled away seductively.
“It would be fun if they went out. We could double date.”

Jessica drove Ariel home
in silence, steering with her left hand and chewing at the skin around the nails of her right hand. Ariel hadn’t counted on the tension. She wished Nick could have driven her home.

“So how was your first day back?” Ariel finally asked. “It seemed like things went pretty well for you.”

Jessica shrugged. “It was fine, I guess. Kind of feels like I never left.”

Ariel nodded. Something was obviously bothering her. Maybe Jessica was having second thoughts about being friends with her now that she’d been back at school. Maybe someone had said something to her about the video. Maybe Jessica had realized that it bothered her more than she’d thought it would.

“Listen, Jessica, I just want to apologize to you again about, you know, everything that happened before,” Ariel blurted out. “I’m sure it was weird for you to be back around everyone today, knowing that they all know about, um, what happened.” She was still too ashamed to even say the words.