The other girls around her giggle nervously, Tessa and Natalie among them. Now that I’m out of the picture, the pecking order has changed. They’ll all be vying for my old rank. I wonder which one of them will be bestowed the honor.
What everyone else thinks doesn’t matter, but what Kristen thinks does. I can’t pretend otherwise. I knew she’d be mad, but I also thought she wouldn’t throw so many years of friendship out the window. But that look on her face…my slim hope that her anger wouldn’t last dissipates, crushed to dust in some imaginary fist.
Tears, again. I fight them down and hurry around the corner without a word. At least I know where Kristen and I stand for good. Kristen, my supposed best friend. Former, now, I guess. What was I thinking? Warren is her boyfriend. I told the cops what he and Joey said at the party, after they found out about Noah from me. What they said about teaching him a lesson. And now they’ve both been arrested. It doesn’t matter if it was the right thing to do or not. Of course she hates me.
I should’ve expected this. I really did expect it, on some level. I just didn’t realize it was going to be so hard.
* * *
Mr. Callihan gives me a funny look when I hand him the note before class.
“A vow of silence?” he says dryly.
I nod, fiddling with the strap of my bag. Mr. Callihan has never liked me much, but that’s okay because I don’t like geometry, either. It’s my worst subject, and the most boring. I typically sit in the back next to Megan and talk to her as much as I can before Mr. Callihan threatens me with detention. My hope is he’ll be so keen on the prospect of me shutting up during his lectures that he won’t ask a million questions about why I’m keeping quiet. The last thing I want to do is try to explain. It’s why I came prepared with the note.
“Well.” He sighs. “You’re lucky I don’t grade on class participation.”
I take my usual seat next to Megan, who is diligently copying down the warm-up problems in her notebook, all of her attention focused on what she’s writing. She glances at me as I swing my backpack onto my desk, and then just as quickly averts her eyes again. I know she has to have heard what happened; everyone has. It even made the front page of the Grand Lake Tribune. Sure, the article didn’t include the dirty details or mention me by name, but too many people witnessed my scene in Kristen’s kitchen to keep my role in everything under wraps, and I’m sure Kristen didn’t hesitate to fill in the blanks with her own revisionist history designed to paint her in the most flattering light. And I know the gossip grapevine well enough to know how fast that story would’ve traveled.
Geometry goes okay, all things considered. Everyone acts like I’m invisible, which isn’t so surprising. All of my friends hate me now for turning in two of our own, and everyone else hated me already. The few who didn’t have no doubt heard the story and blame me for what happened to Noah. Mr. Callihan doesn’t call on me, but when the bell rings and I pack up my stuff, I can tell he’s watching.
Invisible is preferable to what I get in next period, American Lit. Mrs. Finch is far less accommodating of my voluntary silence. When I show her my note at the beginning of class, she sends me straight to the guidance counselor, Ms. Davidson.
The only time I’ve ever set foot in Ms. Davidson’s office was to fix my schedule—freshman year I’d picked French for my mandatory language credit without consulting Kristen, who’d chosen Spanish, so I went and convinced Ms. Davidson to let me switch over. Even though I’d been kind of excited about taking French, imagining that one day I would utilize it while showing my spring collection during Paris Fashion Week, it was more important to share as many classes with Kristen as possible. High school was now; my career in fashion design would come later, and there was always Rosetta Stone.
Ms. Davidson sits behind her desk and reads the note I provide, hmm-ing under her breath. She’s quiet for a while, longer than what’s necessary to read my explanation. Poor Ms. Davidson. I can tell she’s mentally reviewing all of her training and schooling to see if there’s something she’s learned that is applicable to my situation, some proper protocol for dealing with the voluntarily mute. I’m pretty sure they don’t make pamphlets for that.
“Chelsea,” she says finally, “what is it you hope to accomplish with this?”
I shrug one shoulder and stare up at the ceiling. Even if I could explain it to her, I don’t want to. She wouldn’t understand. I don’t know what the big deal is. No one wants to hear what I have to say anyway. Not Kristen, not my teachers. Not even my parents. After I explained to them what happened that night, they looked so completely let down by me I thought I would be crushed under the weight of their combined disappointment.
Running my mouth has hurt enough people already—the least I can do is shut up. Why can’t everyone see I’m doing the world a favor?
Ms. Davidson sets my note down on her desk and folds her hands on top of it. “Well, I can’t force you to talk to me,” she says. “But this kind of behavior is unhealthy and unacceptable. And unreasonable. You can’t shut out the world. Your teachers need to you to communicate.” She pauses. “I’ll have to speak to your parents about this. In the meantime, you should return to class.”
I can’t help but smile a little in triumph as she writes me a hall pass. I may not have won the war yet, but I’ve won this battle.
She hands over the pass and says, “If you ever want to talk, my door is always open.”
Yeah, that’ll happen.
Back in class, Mrs. Finch calls on me to answer some question about Of Mice and Men and symbolism or something. Not only do I not know the answer, but even if I did, she already knows I’m not going to say it out loud. So I sit there and look at her and do nothing.
“Chelsea,” she says warningly, and everyone in the class starts whispering, like, ohmygodlookathersheissuchafreak. Finally she sighs. “I’m issuing you a detention,” she informs me, and the murmurings grow louder.
I haven’t had detention since freshman year when I got caught cheating off Ashley Ziegler’s algebra exam. And Mondays are the days of meetings for the school paper, right after school—I’ve been a contributor since the start of this year. Mrs. Finch knows that; she’s the one who runs the meetings. She’s a stickler for attendance. Miss one meeting and you’re booted from the staff, unless you’re on your deathbed or something.
I guess this means I can say goodbye to my one extracurricular activity. Dammit. I open my mouth to protest, and then promptly shut it again. Whatever. I don’t need to work on the paper, even if I really like doing it. I’ll find something else to occupy my free time. I’m not letting her—or anyone else—get to me.
She signals for me to come up to her desk. I stand there, ramrod-straight, holding out my hand as I wait for her to write up the detention slip. Once she’s handed it to me, I take it and march back to my seat, leveling a defiant glare at everyone who stares. Of course, now that my weird silent freak status has been established, people don’t hold back. Whenever Mrs. Finch turns her back to the class, rubber erasers go flying, bouncing off my head and shoulders. I don’t have to turn around to know where the assault is coming from. Derek and Lowell are both on the basketball team, too. They were at the party. They know what happened.
When class ends, Lowell walks by and shoves the books and papers off my desk. I don’t know why someone wrote RAT on my locker when Lowell is the one who looks like a rodent. Beady eyes and pointy nose and thin mouth. The only reason anyone gives him the time of day is because he can shoot a stupid basketball and always knows where to score the best weed.
“Finally decided to keep your mouth shut, huh?” he says with that rodent smirk.
I shoot a quick glance to Mrs. Finch, but she’s sitting at her computer, clacking away on the keyboard, totally oblivious. Even if she was looking, she wouldn’t be able to tell anything out of the ordinary was going on. It would look like I was talking with friends, Lowell leaning his palm casually on my desk, Derek flanking