The Boyfriend App (27 page)

“Trogs suck!” someone else joined in.

“But trash sucks the most,”
Jolene Martin growled.

Aidan and Mindy were nowhere to be seen, but I breathed a sigh of relief when Nigit emerged wearing a skinny tie over a black shirt and green velvet pants. “At least you can all keep your buyPlayers!” he shouted. He didn’t meet my glance. Instead he pulled Lindsay and me around the corner.

No one followed us. The three of us stood there alone, staring at one another.

“Audrey,” Nigit finally said, his face earnest. “How could you do it? How could you break the biggest rule of Trog ethics?”

I opened my mouth to talk, but I couldn’t make words. There was nothing I could say. I thought about saying how none of this was what it seemed. But what if Nigit started digging around and found something?

Lindsay was staring at me. Waiting for me to explain. When I didn’t, she said, “I’m sure Audrey has a reason.”

Now they were both staring.

“I—I don’t,” I said.

Nigit looked totally conflicted, and Lindsay just looked devastated. I wanted to scream the truth—I could feel it trying to claw its way from my throat.

Nigit turned to Lindsay and said, “I’m sorry, Linds. I can’t be aligned with questionable morals in the creative space.”

Blood drained from Lindsay’s face. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her voice shaky. She stared at Nigit like it was just the two of them standing there alone in the hall.

Nigit didn’t say anything.

“She’s my family,” Lindsay said.

Nigit blinked like he didn’t know what to do. He glanced between the two of us, looking more nervous by the second. Then he turned and walked away.

I couldn’t bear to look at Lindsay, so I stared at the space between my sneakers. But Lindsay’s hand gently lifted my chin. Then she touched the gold Ganesh charm that rested against her collarbone. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. She pulled me into the girls’ locker room past a pink thong tacked to the bulletin board with a handmade sign that read:
LOST YOUR PANTIES?
As soon as the door shut and we were alone she burst into tears and slid down a full-length mirror. “You didn’t have to do that,” I said, kneeling beneath a poster showing how to do the Heimlich maneuver. “You don’t always have to stick up for me.” I put my arms around her but she just cried harder. Her tiny shoulders shook against me.

“He’ll come back around,” I tried. She was the one who always knew what to say, not me.

“Why did you do it?” Lindsay asked, choking on the words.

The thick smell of chlorine seeped from the pool. It made it even harder to breathe. “I can’t explain. Not right now.” My lungs were so tight I could barely suck down air. “Probably never.”

Lindsay shook her head. “I don’t understand you,” she said, running a hand over her mouth. Mandarin-colored lipstick smudged her palm.

Footsteps sounded behind us.

“Girls?”

I scrambled to my feet. The skin around my mom’s green eyes was puffy like a marshmallow. “Mom? What happened?”

My mom stood there in her wrinkle-free khakis and the California T-shirt she bought in the airport. She gave me her trademark
Everything’s fine
smile, which freaked me out even more. “Principal Dawkins fired me today.”

“Mom,”
I said. It came out like a squeak. And then I couldn’t stop the tears I’d been fighting. I felt them hot on my cheeks.

Lindsay was on her feet with her arms around us.

“This is all my fault,” I said, barely able to get the words out. How could I have been so stupid to think I could take on Alec Pierce and Public?

“We’ll be okay, sweetie,” my mom said. But I knew better. Each month we had between sixty and seventy-five dollars left after her paycheck for our savings account. Thirty-six months since my dad died meant a little more than two thousand dollars saved. We were
not
okay.

The loudspeaker cackled like static. “Will Audrey McCarthy please report immediately to Mrs. Condor’s office?”

I steadied myself against a dingy gray locker. I felt like someone was carving a hole in me deeper and deeper. I texted Aidan: Please answer this text. He had to have heard the announcement. Can you meet me outside the girls’ locker room? Walk me to mrs. condor?

I waited outside the locker room with my mom and Lindsay. But Aidan never showed up.

I cried so hard I could barely see straight. To get to Mrs. Condor’s office, Lindsay, my mom, and I had to pass the gym, where the Public people were confiscating everybody’s Beasts. So I held my breath and sang a song my dad had taught me about a wealthy guy named Taffy over and over in my head.
Just ignore them,
Audrey,
he would’ve said. So I did. I hummed the lyrics so loud I barely registered the gaping stares, barely registered the accusations. I hummed so loud I barely registered Xander Knight pushing through the crowd toward Lindsay and my mom and me until he caught my elbow and leaned in close.

“I’ll take you,” he said.

But I didn’t want him. Where was Aidan?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

chapter thirty

X
ander stared sideways at me as we walked through the hall. A worn blue rope was tied around his wrist. His vintage Coca-Cola T-shirt was stretched at the neck and sleeves. Whenever he moved closer, I moved farther away. Even if he was under the influence of hormones, Aidan had asked me to choose.

It wasn’t even a choice.

Harrison felt hollow with nearly everyone in the gym. We passed the computer lab and I glanced inside, hoping to see Aidan. But it was empty.

Xander cleared his throat as we entered the G Wing. “Do you remember when we were eleven, and I pissed myself at recess and started crying, and you told everyone that a dog came up to me and peed on my pants and that’s why they were wet?”

“I remember,” I said. I smiled until I saw the serious look on Xander’s face.

“Everyone believed you,” he said, fidgeting with the blue rope bracelet. “Because you were the kind of girl that everyone wanted to believe in.”

I swallowed.

Xander’s face darkened. “I called Blake last night,” he said. “She hasn’t been right lately, and I still care about her, even if we’re not together.” He slowed his steps. “Her dad came into her bedroom while we were on the phone and told her to get off. But when she said good-bye to me, she didn’t hang up.” He glanced over at me. “I think she did it on purpose. Because I heard some stuff. And now I know you didn’t steal that idea from Blake.” His face was lined with worry. “I realize she’s done bad stuff to you, Audrey. But I heard her protest this time, like she didn’t want to go along with her dad and Alec’s plan to make it look like you stole the idea from her.” Xander’s eyes narrowed on me. “But you of all people know how her convincing her father is.”

I imagined Blake’s dad storming into her room. Telling her that disobeying him wasn’t an option.

Xander picked up our pace again and said, “Blake did a lot of nice things for me.” He sounded apologetic, like he wanted me to know why he’d been with her for so many years. But I was the last person he needed to explain it to.

“Like buy lacrosse stuff when my parents couldn’t afford it,” he said.

I thought about the clothes she’d let me borrow. How she’d practically thrust them into my hands, told me how her favorite thing about shopping was finding stuff I’d like, too. I remembered how funny she was when we’d go to the mall and dare each other to do stuff, like in Ann Taylor when Blake asked the superconservative saleslady if they carried chocolate-flavored edible thongs. Or when she dared me to goose the mall security guard. I did it to hear her laugh.

I was quiet for a while, lost in my memories of her.

Xander kept going. “Blake was the one who encouraged me all the time, always saying lacrosse could get me into a good school. She practically signed me up herself for that lax camp that got me noticed by Stanford. It sounds stupid, but I wouldn’t have gone after scholarships without her. I would’ve settled for something less.” He looked at me. “It doesn’t mean the other stuff she did was right,” he said.

“No, it doesn’t,” I said.

We were rounding the corner when Xander said, “I don’t know what happened to all of us—why we changed.” His golden-brown eyes stared somewhere down the hall. “Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll change again in college. Maybe be more like we were when we were younger. Especially you.”

Sunlight streamed in rectangles across the linoleum as we walked.

The girl I was back then—the braver girl, the one who wasn’t so scared of bad stuff that she had to carry around a rabbit’s foot—that girl had a father. I didn’t know if I could get her back, even if I wanted to. “Especially me,” I said in a whisper. Maybe he was right. I wanted him to be right.

Xander took my hand and pulled me against the wall next to a water fountain. He leaned close, and I thought he was going to whisper something. But then he pressed his lips against mine. I was jerking away when sneakered feet squeaked around the corner. “So then how can we prove she didn’t do it?”

Aidan’s voice.

I pulled from Xander’s kiss, but I wasn’t fast enough.

Aidan and Mindy stood side by side with matching wide eyes. Color drained from Aidan’s face. I suddenly felt sick. “Aidan? Xander was just taking me to . . .”

Aidan backed away. He mumbled something beneath his breath and nearly fell trying to get around the corner.

“Aidan, wait!” I called, my heart pounding.

Mindy raced after him.

The door swung open. Mrs. Condor’s dirty-blond hair was freshly trimmed and her pool-water eyes telegraphed:
You’re safe now, Audrey.

I stumbled away from her. “Aidan!” I called again.

I wanted to be the person Xander remembered—but for Aidan, not for Xander. Aidan was the one who took me as I was right now—broken or fixed, right or wrong. He was the one who’d been by my side since the first day we met.

I moved around the corner but he was gone.

Mrs. Condor motioned me toward her office. I took a breath—I could explain to Aidan later, as soon as I saw him. (
“Aidan, Xander kissed me due to years-old sentimentality. Or maybe he actually likes me now. I don’t know, and—shockingly—I don’t care, because I like you.”
)

Ms. Bates materialized in the doorway behind Mrs. Condor.
What the heck?

“Um, Audrey? I’m gonna
go
,” Xander said, suddenly looking mortified.

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and he tensed beneath me, like he was nervous. “Thank you for what you said,” I whispered. I wondered if he knew how much I meant it.

Mrs. Condor closed the door behind Bates and me. There were three metal folding chairs in front of her desk, and we sat. The empty chair was obviously the Battery’s throne. I needed to get this over with. I needed to find Aidan.

Bates checked her sleek silver watch. “I’m sure he’ll be here any minute.”

Mrs. Condor was smiling, and despite myself, I felt calmer. (The woman was good.) “Audrey, this is an intervention.”

Oh my God.

“I want to welcome you, and remind you that everything you say in this room today—no matter who is present—is confidential,” Mrs. Condor said, sitting behind her Compaq and her framed family photograph/L.L.Bean catalogue picture.

Ms. Bates’s light brown eyes were blinking at me. Shame heated my face when I looked at her. Bates thinking I’d cheated was a knife in my stomach.

A knock rapped the door and Mrs. Condor opened it. Nigit’s father wore a flannel jacket over blue hospital scrubs and clay-colored Crocs. His short hair looked unwashed and his shadow of stubble was darker than in California.

Ms. Bates stood and said, “Nikhil Gurung: Erika Condor.”

I was so stunned that all I could think was:
Mrs. Condor’s name is Erika. Her friends call her
Erika
.

The chair’s legs squawked against the floor as Dr. Gurung sat. He gripped his green leather briefcase, his eyes wild.

No one spoke.

Finally Ms. Bates turned to me. “I know how talented you are,” she said slowly. “And sometimes I think I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of your capabilities as a programmer.” She tucked a strand of smooth white hair behind her ear. “And I know you didn’t steal an idea from a classmate. Which leads me to believe something very strange is going on between you and Public. When Dr. Gurung approached me regarding your meeting at Notre Dame and his concerns, the two of us pieced together what we think you may have done.”

My heart seized. All three of them stared.

“What did you find on those phones, Audrey?” Bates’s voice was gentle, but her grip tightened on the side of the metal chair. I stared at a freckle on the back of her hand shaped like a convertible. When I didn’t answer, she said, “Public is powerful. If you don’t let us help you, they’ll never stop hounding you.”

I glanced up to see everyone’s eyes on me. The three of them knew my secret, but they didn’t seem mad, and they hadn’t called the FBI—
yet
.

“I’m nervous, too, Audrey,” Dr. Gurung said (nervously). He opened his briefcase and his hands moved over papers with black-and-white graphs and labels like TEST GROUP and CONTROL GROUP. He went on to explain how Public funded his study. (I practiced my theatrical skills and made a surprised face.) When he finished, he took a long breath. “I took money from Public to stay quiet when I should not have. It was a mistake, and they’ve made me pay. Don’t let them do the same to you.”

The metal creaked as I leaned forward. If I was the only one who could stop Robert Dawkins and Public . . .

I took a breath and told them everything.

When I finished, the cuckoo shot out from the wall and chirped. Mrs. Condor’s face was still professionally neutral, but Dr. Gurung had edged to the front of his seat. And he was staring at me with one part awe and one part horror, like I’d stolen a famous painting.