Words are flying out of my mouth faster than I can form them. “But now she knows. Madeline—she—she’ll talk about it and—” The second wave crashes next, the one that reminds me how many people watch Lady Westmoore.
A girl with a recognizable name like yours—that would be quite a story.
I grab my head because I don’t know what else to do. “You have to fix this, Graham. You have to tell her . . . ” I can’t finish, because there’s nothing he can tell her. What he’s done is beyond fixing.
He nervously runs his hand over his chin as he tries to laugh it off. “I want her to know we’re together. Her and whoever else cares.” He steps closer. “I thought that’s what you wanted. For her to back off. For both of them to back off.”
“That’s not—” The tears break free when I realize he has no idea what he’s done. “That’s not what I wanted. I never told you to talk to her!” The thoughts are tumbling now, and I have a crazy sensation of falling, as if the floor is melting below my feet—the vortex I’ve always wished for. “You don’t know what Chelsea is capable of. That’s just part of it, though. Madeline is going to make a video about me!”
I walk down the aisle, turn down another, not sure where I’m going. Graham gets in front of me, blocking my path. “So what if she does? It’s not a big deal, Lemon.”
“It is a big deal,” I blurt. “You have no idea.”
Each time he dismisses the severity of the situation, a vice twists tighter and tighter around my chest. I shouldn’t have trusted him. I should’ve let him go. And now it’s too late—he’s led me to the slaughterhouse, and all I can do is wait for Madeline to hook me up and start her dissection.
“This is not the reaction I expected,” he says, his face utterly confused.
“You expected I’d be happy to be gossiped about by people who don’t even know me?”
“That’s not what—”
“—you promised me we’d keep this a secret!”
We’re both yelling when the librarian appears between the shelves, shocking us both silent.
“What is going on here?” she hisses, wanting to discipline us, but still adhering to the rules of being quiet. “This is a library!”
I don’t apologize, don’t give an excuse. I can’t stand here any longer. I brush past her and return to the tables just as the final bell rings. I yank my bag off the chair and run into a crowd streaming into the hallways. I hear Graham call my name, but I don’t care. Self-preservation wins every time.
ONCE I’M SAFELY PARKED in my driveway, I call Isabel with shaking hands. When she doesn’t answer, I immediately redial. She’s mid-laugh when she answers, and I’m struck speechless for a few seconds. How do I even start to explain what’s happened?
“Hello?” she says. “Lemon?”
I have a hard time hearing her over the noisy background. “Iz, where are you?”
“In Mike’s car, heading to the diner with him, Lisa, and Shannon.” She laughs again, says something I can’t understand.
“I thought you and Mike were . . . ”
“Friends,” she confirms. Then, “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t talk if you’re around other people.”
“They’re not listening. Tell me what’s up.”
My voice trembles as I recount the story. When I finish, she’s suddenly back to the serious Isabel I desperately need right now.
“What did Graham say?”
“It doesn't matter. Everything is ruined. My life is ruined.” I spiral, looking down the rabbit hole to the most terrible consequence. “Iz, what if . . . ” I can’t latch on to one thought when there are so many.
I hear some prolonged shuffling, a door slam, then Isabel says to someone, “I’ll meet you inside.”
I don’t wait for her response. “Do you think Mike could do something? He has lunch with Madeline . . . maybe he could tell her I surrender?”
“Lem, he doesn't really know her that well, not enough to stop her—it could make it worse.”
I close my eyes. The one small hope I had disintegrates to nothing. I’d known it was a long shot, but even bad ideas seem good at the moment.
“I could ask him,” she says, breaking the silence. “We just got to the diner.”
“What for?”
“I’ve had the same lab group since September, and I thought I’d ask them to hang out.” She pauses. “Come meet up with us. Talk to Mike.”
I can’t imagine being there, trying to act normal as I wait for the video about me to hit Lady Westmoore.
“Thanks, but I . . . I don’t really want to be around them right now.”
She breathes into the phone. “Are you sure you should be alone? I didn’t drive here, so I can’t leave, but I can come over right after I get my car at school.”
“No, my dad won’t let me have anyone at the house.” I hear Isabel’s name in the background. “I should go,” I say, “and I don’t want to hold you up.”
“Lem. I’m worried about you. Just hang tight. I’ll call you later. We’ll talk about it, and everything will be okay.”
I thank her and end the call, but I know that none of it will be okay.
FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS, I dodge calls from Graham and delete his text messages without reading them. In shock, I cradle my phone as it pings repeatedly, but I can’t talk to him; I don’t know what I could possibly say. I’m still stunned that he’s thrown me to the wolves. I turn it around all ways, searching for some angle, some belief that this doesn’t end up how I’m sure it will, but find nothing. Madeline has made it pretty clear what my fate will be.
By the time Isabel calls after dinner, I’ve worked myself up into such anxiety that I don’t answer. I want to wallow, to spend my last anonymous hours in peace. Not that I feel much peace—I alternate between refreshing the Lady Westmoore page every minute and imagining a scenario where Madeline might show me some mercy.
When midnight comes and there’s still no video, I dangle, twisting and helpless like a moth caught in a web, waiting for the spider to strike.
fifteen
THE NEXT MORNING, AS I walk to my locker, the first thing that alerts me to the change in my usual status is the ripple of heads lifting at my presence—from people I sort of know to those whose faces mean nothing to me. Anonymity draining away, I hide behind my hair and move forward, but every eye feels suction-cupped to me. A crackle of information zips along the hallways, following every step I take.
Lemon Lavender. Lady Westmoore. Graham Stuart.
I don’t even know what’s being said yet, but in homeroom, I keep my gaze passive, focused straight ahead. I tell myself I’ll be fine, because I’ll ignore everything. All the people watching, recording me with their phones, will get bored fast. Soon there won’t be anything to talk about, because I won’t give them anything.
My plan doesn’t last, because when I get to English Lit, Graham is outside the door. I’m used to him waiting for me, leaning against the cinderblock wall, hand in his pocket while the other scrolls through is phone. But this time, his face is worn with fatigue and his shoulders bend under his bag, as if he hasn’t slept either.
As soon as he sees me, he shoots upright. I want to turn around, skip class, but I can’t. I have to be fine.
“I’m so sorry,” he says when I reach the classroom door. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think . . . ”
He extends his hand, but I stalk past him, saying nothing. As I skulk to my seat, every head is either glued to a screen or turned in my direction. Graham’s steps echo behind me, and when I sit, he stutters at my desk but thinks better of it and continues down the aisle. Thankful that he’s abandoned another attempt to talk, I fasten my eyes to my desk, unmoving, unwilling to feed the room with any reaction.
When Mr. Parsons flicks off the lights and starts a movie, I discreetly hide my phone in the unzipped gap of my bag, slip in one earbud, and watch the video that dropped overnight.
The headline is “Westmoore’s
Sour Stalker.” Madeline appears outside the Gas & Sip, like a real reporter on the scene of a story. “You may think Westmoore is small enough to know everyone,” she begins, “but who is Lemon Lavender? Easily, she has the most infamous name of the junior class, and you might even remember how she was known as Lemon Laugh-at-her.”
The frame transitions to a string of videos of me, all edited together. Slow-motion walking, staring, a close up of my eyes, me in my car. My normal, unsmiling face looks dangerous. Sinister.
Madeline returns to the screen, walking now as the camera pans outward. “This wallflower hasn’t been on my radar until recently, when she was spotted at this East Branch gas station trying to get cozy with Graham Stuart—only an hour after he attended the Halloween dance with his girlfriend, Chelsea Millinger. But no means no, and our darling Lemon turned from sour . . . to stalker. I think we can all agree—nobody is laughing now.”
She cuts to Brian Ward, who gives a firsthand account of the time he witnessed me throw myself at Graham, knocking him over. He shakes his head, all concerned. “She just, like, attacked him. I didn’t know what to do. She’s crazy, man. Crazy.”
The interview ends and the video transitions back to Madeline, leaning against the Gas & Sip. She wraps up by saying, “A stalker is in our midst, Westmoore. But I say no. I say it’s time for us to watch her. This lady won’t stand by and do nothing. Will you?”
The screen goes black and silent, with the hashtags #SayNoToStalking and #SourStalker.
The very first comment, from “Anonymous,” questions why I, a loser with no friends, would ever expect someone like Graham to give me the time of day. “Lemon Hater” comments next, agreeing with “Anonymous” and adding that I’m a slut for going after Graham when he already has a girlfriend. “Sour Lemon” says they saw him trying to push me out of his car the night of the Halloween dance, as he called me desperate and obsessed. The comments go on and on, new ones posting every second, until my name is shredded into tiny, worthless pieces.
I close the video and my eyes. The hurt is so hotly piercing, so straight to the soul, I wonder if it will burn me alive. I sit motionless in my chair, feeling the cameras trained in my direction, but I repeat: you are a stone, you are a stone. It’s a temporary mental patch that allows me to stay through the whole class, even as the story steadily grows from a tiny monster into a kraken curling throughout the entire school, touching everything.
When class ends, I walk out, unseeing, unhearing. A rolling stone, barreling my way down the hallway.
AFTER ENGLISH LIT, I go straight to the nurse’s office and feign vomiting until she signs an early-release form. I do feel legitimately sick, on a bridge between complete despair and hysteria, unsure which direction to go. There’s no way I’m going to entertain my audience, not when they won’t be happy with watching the video and letting it go. They have to analyze each detail, provide an opinion, make sure they pick a side. My life is no longer my own—the person I am online is taking over.
I drive home on autopilot as my phone fills with text messages from Isabel and both voice and text messages from Graham. When I’m in my bedroom, I let Isabel know I left school and pretend I’m fine. I power my phone off after that, but only feel safe after I’ve tossed it into a drawer.
I sleep on and off for the rest of the day, waking only to remember, then cry, then stuff it back down again so I can sleep. I think of my mother in her own bedroom down the hall, purposely comatose. I suddenly have a small glimpse of her grief, a hard, silver ball of pain so heavy that it presses you against the bed. Trying to fight against it is a waste of time.
I rouse myself just before my father gets home so I can slap together leftovers for dinner and force myself to appear normal. He doesn’t question my lethargy—we’re all suffocating under the weight of our own troubles, plus Thanksgiving without Meg, and Aunt Vee’s visit. Those things matter, but my mind has today on a loop—the video, the comments, the guilt on Graham’s face this morning.
When the sun sets and Dad is asleep on the couch, the house is so still in comparison to the nonstop sprint of my brain. I bundle up against the clear, cutting cold and go for a walk. It feels strangely good to move, to let the wind slash against me. I study the trees silhouetted against the moonlit sky, how their branches spindle into small, claw-like hands. I’m that way too, fractured, split into points stretching for something they can’t reach. But I can’t afford to break. I have to be a rock, solid and strong. What would my father do with one girl missing and two who won’t leave their beds?
I walk around my neighborhood until incoming clouds cover the moon. When my house comes into sight, I spot Graham’s car against the curb. The engine is running, creating clouds of exhaust in the night air. The initial betrayal feels very far away since so much has happened; it buries the pirouettes my stomach usually do when I see him.
I approach the window. His head leans against the seat, eyes closed, as if he has a bad headache. I knock gently, and his lids fly open. He unlocks the passenger door, but I don’t make any move to get in, so he kills the engine and steps out. I back into the middle of the road, placing enough distance between us so he can’t touch me. Cold wraps around my body, freezing me into a calm I know I can convincingly fake.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come out,” he says. “I’ve been texting all day.”
“I turned my phone off. So I didn’t come out . . . I was taking a walk.”
His eyes lower, and he nods, realizing this is a coincidence and not because I want to see him. He jams his hands into his coat and looks down at the road. It’s so cold, the asphalt sparkles.
“We can’t talk here,” I say. I cut across the lawn to the side of the house, and he follows, his feet crunching on the frozen grass behind me. Once we’re out of view, I lean against the siding and he stands opposite, lost in the shadows. Almost like yesterday in the library, only everything has changed.
“Why did you come?” I ask. I can barely see his face, but it’s probably better that way.
“You’re seriously wondering why I’m here? Because of what happened! The library and that thing Madeline posted . . . all of it. I wanted to see if you were okay.”
I don’t respond. I’m honestly unsure what I want to hear or what I want to say. The thoughts float around me, and when I try to grab one, it darts away, out of reach.
“Lemon . . . you have to realize that I thought talking to Chelsea was the right thing. I didn’t know this would happen.”
“I realize that.”
“Do you? Do you really? Because you haven’t answered any of my messages. You walked right by me today like I wasn’t even there.”
I crush a leaf into the grass with a satisfying crunch. “I trusted you.”
“This has nothing to do with trust. I didn’t betray you, Lemon. I told a girl I didn’t like that I was with you so she’d leave you alone. This is where I’m confused, because you seem to think standing up for you was the wrong move.”
“Trust has everything to do with it. Why would you talk to her about us—”
“Because you said I wasn’t honest with her!”
“I also said I would ignore the notes. You were supposed to . . . we were supposed to . . . ” I inhale, trying to figure this out. “It was private. She didn’t know anything. Nobody did. That’s the way I wanted it, the way it had to be. I told you how Madeline threatened me. I told you.”
“So we were supposed to stay a secret? That was never a forever option. We had to face it sometime, and telling the truth seemed like the best decision.”
“Can’t you see how talking about us to her was the worst thing you could do?”
“So a few people spread some stupid gossip. They don’t matter to me. You matter to me.” He reaches forward to touch my elbow, but I move away.
“You aren’t the one they’re calling a stalker. You come out looking like a goddamn saint.”
“I’m not trying to be a saint. I’m trying to be with you
during this whole mess, because it’s our mess. I’m part of it too.”
Exasperated, I yank my hands out of my pockets. The cold burns. “We’re just talking in circles. There’s no point, you don’t get it.”
“This is all so un-fucking-believable!” His breath shoots into the darkness between us. “I wanted to fix it. So we could be together.”
“I never asked for your help.”
“But that’s what you do, Lemon. You help the people you care about.”
I think about the story he’d told me, about his mother and the tattoo. Save me and I will save you. I never asked for saving, though. Not this way.
“Your way of helping isn’t the kind I need.”
He walks a few paces and swears. It starts snowing as he’s turned away. Delicate flakes flutter through the air and melt when they whisper against the grass. The effect is too beautiful to waste on this moment, and neither of us stops to remark on it.
“I thought it would make you less afraid. I tried to be patient, but you didn’t want to be seen with me. At school, you’d cringe when I came near you. We never even went out in public. But none of that bothered you.”
I wonder if he realizes he’s using past tense.
“It was just the circumstances,” I argue. “I told you how things were at home for me . . . and besides that, Chelsea and Madeline were breathing down my neck.”
He starts shaking his head before I’ve stopped talking. “It’s not just the circumstances. You’re terrified of being seen by anyone, no matter what. I thought if I fixed things with Chelsea, the notes would stop and you wouldn’t run away from me anymore. I thought I could pull you out of your shadow instead of you pulling me into yours.”
There’s no way to tell him that it’s so much more than that. I was never supposed to have him in the first place—I warned myself that first day when he stopped at my locker, because some part of me knew it. I defied the signs, all those things that added up to a foregone conclusion. I ignored everything, and this is the price: a cutting, sharp fracture.
Lemon Lavender Is Not Fine Page 11
