The Accidental Bad Girl

by Maxine Kaplan

  I had to stop to breathe and found myself tangled up in Gilly’s limbs, naked except for underwear he had his hand down the back of. We were both panting, and I could feel him through his boxers. I looked at his face, and it looked like he was struggling.

  “I have . . . I have condoms,” he said softly.

  I think I must have nodded, because then he was kissing me ferociously and holding me so hard it seemed like I would break. And that felt really, really good. Until I caught another glimpse of his face.

  He was looking at me intently, like he had been looking at me before, only it wasn’t quite the same. When I had kissed him, his eyes were shining, but they were focused—focused on me. Now, with all of our clothes off, they were misty, blurry, vague. It disturbed me, and I couldn’t figure out why. And then I realized that I had seen it before.

  That was the look on Trev’s face when I leaned toward him on the couch, on Jeff’s face when I smiled. And it was the look that Grant gave me before I followed him into that classroom, that first time. That was Thornhill’s dumb face in Eve’s hotel room, the one he hadn’t been invited into but had entered anyway.

  I pushed myself off of Gilly.

  “What?” he asked, out of breath. “What’s wrong?”

  That expression didn’t even seem human. It was everywhere, but it was just base, predatory instinct. It was evolution—biology. It wasn’t anything but cause and effect—no emotion involved.

  It was like slamming my hand in a door, but I yanked my legs away and started scrambling through the sheets for my clothes.

  “Where are you going?” asked Gilly, sitting up now, sounding scared.

  I liked science. My head spun with the scientific method as I pulled on my clothes as quickly as I possibly could. For the first time, I realized that, over and over, I had systematically induced that look and used it to achieve the desired results. And, come to think of it, cold or not, I didn’t find anything intrinsically wrong with that.

  But something inside me was screaming that I liked the Gilly who gave me his raincoat and blackmailed me into being careful. I didn’t want Gilly like this.

  “Kendall, what’s happening?”

  I was fully dressed now, so I stood up. “I’ll see you on Monday,” I said, avoiding his eyes but trying to make my voice sound as friendly as possible. I stopped before I got to his door and turned back around. “Please, really, don’t take this personally. I . . . I liked it.”

  It was only half a lie. I ran.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  At school, I finally had a bright spot, long-awaited, glittering at the end of my day: volleyball tryouts.

  It should have been a formality. I would have been a fourth-year varsity veteran, and my aim was never anything but fucking deadly. Never. That was especially true this year, when I had adrenaline leaking out of my pores and every single time I stepped up to serve, I sent the other girls flying across the court, grabbing air. I was even impressing myself.

  I breezed through the first round of tryouts and then waited contentedly with the others for Coach and her assistant to confer and announce the A group and the B group for the second round, my heart still hammering out a satisfying rhythm against my ribs, blood still thrumming in my ears.

  And then somehow, for the first time ever, I was in the B group.

  I wasn’t going to start. The very first day of gym, Coach had hidden the equipment cage combination lock from me, and now she had taken away my starting position. For literally no reason.

  And just like that, the second she downgraded me, the second she decided to shame me, I found I didn’t care anymore what she thought. It was a surprise but also a comfort, as the hot, sick, liquid feeling of humiliation burned itself pure into sheer, righteous anger. “Fuck that,” I whispered, rubbing the tender spot between my thumb and my index finger. “Fuck every little bit of that.” I shouldered my backpack and walked from the gym to the senior hallway with my head held high.

  And smacked right into Ellie Kurtz.

  “Fucking perfect,” she muttered and bent to retrieve a book from the floor. When she straightened, I noticed a fading curved scratch above her cheekbone.

  “Jesus, was that me?” I hadn’t meant to ask.

  “This? No, this is from the other crazy bitch that attacked me this month,” she answered tartly.

  I couldn’t help snorting. Ellie always had great delivery when it came to insults.

  She huffed out a breath and looked me over. “Did I get you anywhere?”

  I rolled up my sleeve to show her the constellation of three fingertip-shaped bruises. She leaned in and rolled her eyes. “It’s not as good as drawing blood on the face, so I’d say you win. Congratulations, Kendall.” She made an ironic curtsy.

  I had a sudden urge to apologize to Ellie. I felt my face go soft, and I opened my mouth, but Ellie seemed to catch my intention and walled herself off. She took a step back and folded her arms. Her legs went rigid but bent slightly at the knees, like she was getting ready to run. I shut my mouth.

  The door to the hallway opened, and Gilly walked in, accompanied by, of all people, Simone. They were arguing, but when he caught sight of me from across the hall, he stopped talking and smiled tentatively. Simone narrowed her eyes and stepped in front of him, blocking my view.

  Ellie, she of the sharp eyes, looked from him to me, and this time she was the one to snort. “Not really,” she said, turning back to face me. “That’s not a thing, is it?”

  I shrugged.

  She scrunched her face up. “Ew, Kendall. Ew.”

  “You don’t even know him, El.”

  “It’s not about knowing him, Kendall. It’s about him being a dirtbag who’s obsessed with you.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  Ellie looked frustrated. “You didn’t notice how he would follow us around last spring? He was practically stalking you by the end of the year. Remember when we spent that week in the computer lab running simulations at the end of the semester? He kicked that sweet kid Jacob out of his assigned seat every day, just so he could sit next to you and glare.”

  I laughed and walked past her to my locker. “Oh, sure, totally,” I said, unlocking it. “Come on. You have to be exaggerating.”

  “Uh, no, I’m not,” she said, whirling around to face me again. “I don’t know why I’m even bothering to give you a heads-up, but do you know I actually caught him looking through all your Facebook messages one day?”

  I froze. “What?”

  “I’m not sure where you were, the bathroom or something. I told him to beat it as soon as I saw what he was doing.”

  I leaned forward and banged my head against the locker.

  “Hey, are you OK?” Ellie asked, putting out her arm but not quite reaching my shoulder.

  I clutched my stomach as it lurched toward the floor. “No,” I gasped, my throat dry, my voice cracked. “I’m going to be sick.”

  I slammed my locker shut and stood up, swaying on the spot. I turned and saw, behind Ellie (still in fighting stance), Gilly stepping toward me, his face concerned.

  “Kendall? What’s wrong?”

  I stared at him, the world spinning around me. I bolted, only making it to the sink of the nearest bathroom before the burn climbed up my throat and I retched lunch onto the cheap porcelain.

  I clutched the edge of the sink, shivering. I looked up at my reflection. Saliva was dripping from my slack lower lip, and my skin was dry and beige.

  I closed my eyes and saw Grant crouching next to me in the computer lab after his last final, whispering teasingly, “Come on, Skipper. You’re not exactly working on your dissertation here.”

  “Some of us still have to get into college, old man,” I’d said, suppressing a giggle.

  He’d put his head on my lap, and I nearly gasped at the friction of his thick, soft hair against my bare leg. “Please?” he said, his brown eyes twinkling and looking up at me with affection. “It’s the only way
I want to celebrate.”

  Like the addict that I was, I’d thirstily nodded and followed him into the empty classroom across the hall—not even bothering to close Facebook.

  I opened my eyes and looked at them, red and watery in my reflection. I licked my lips, still a little swollen from kissing, and ran my tongue over the spot Gilly had touched with his fingertip while we sprawled across his bedspread.

  I stood up straight and slapped myself sharply across the face.

  It was Gilly the whole time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I got out of there fast. I don’t know if Gilly was waiting for me. I didn’t look. Just picked up my backpack and sped out of the building in my gym clothes.

  It was a long walk home and hot as July out, but I couldn’t stand the idea of going underground. By the time I let myself into my house, dripping with sweat, calves stinging, I had it all pretty much figured out.

  Gilly had to have stolen the stash. The surly friend Lemon had brought to Trev had been Gilly, not Drew—no wonder he hadn’t wanted to come in with me.

  No wonder he’d gloated in the nurse’s office.

  No wonder he’d wanted me to go to the police with the drugs he stole and not to Mason.

  No wonder he was upset by the idea of me giving the thief up to Mason.

  No wonder a lot of things.

  “So you just assume I’m a hacker and can fix it.”

  Dick.

  I stripped off my clothes and got into the shower. It had to have happened the night of the warehouse party. I knew there were sales going on there, and I now knew Gilly had to have been there.

  I closed my eyes and tilted my head under the pounding stream of water. I tossed my hair back and then to the front and side, jamming out my hip and thrusting out my collarbone, moving into position as the girl in the picture. It hit me hard and all at once: He was responsible for the girl in the picture. I collapsed into myself and crumpled my face into tissue paper until, finally, for the first time in a long time, tears came.

  I cried willfully. It was the kind of crying that’s like doing laundry after weeks of near-emergency. It’s a chore and it’s time-consuming. But your body demands it, and at the end everything is clean.

  When biology reached its limit and there was nothing left to expel, I abruptly calmed down. I uncrumpled my face and turned off the shower.

  I swiped a clear patch onto the fogged-up mirror and carefully applied a mud mask. No need to abandon my routines simply because yet another boy had turned out to be not at all who he appeared.

  I scowled at my reflection. It was my own fault. Why had I latched on to the nearest boy like he was a life raft?

  Lying down, feeling the mask sting my skin, I dismissed pure loneliness. Loneliness was part of it, but, with a sinking stomach, I realized that it wasn’t all of it. I had acted like the second-tier social climber I always had been, flirting until somebody looked at me and wanted something. So I could feel special. So I could feel worthwhile. So I could feel like I was pretty, wanted, chosen—the way a girl was supposed to be. A good girl.

  I jumped up and ran to the bathroom, peeling the mask off with my fingernails, and then washed the whole mess away. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I dried my face until it was red and patchy. Gilly had called it from the beginning, back in the nurse’s office. I was a bad girl.

  I opened my closet and saw tidy rows of colorful cardigans, muted skirts, and lacy camisole tops. Underneath were more rows: scrubbed-up sneakers and buckled shoes with high heels. Folded in a hanging cloth column of shelves were hemmed, well-fitted jeans and cords, no holes or rough edges. I picked up the top pair of bright blue jeans and, dropping my towel, held them up to my waist: not too tight and not too loose.

  I dropped the pants on the floor and turned around. Then I changed my mind.

  A guttural, athletic noise ripped out of my throat as I tore down the hanging shelves, sideswiped the hangers off the rack, and punted the heels across the room. I yanked the sole remaining garment off its hanger, my short silk junior prom dress in butter yellow, wrinkled it into a ball, and tossed it high in the air. I grabbed my hair dryer off the shelf and used it as a bat.

  The dress sailed across the room, knocking a water glass off the nightstand with a shatter and a splash.

  Ten minutes later, I surveyed myself in the mirror and was satisfied with what I saw in a way that I couldn’t remember being for years. The black jeans were from two years ago, so they fit tight, but somehow that felt supportive, not constrictive. I had dug out a T-shirt that I had only ever worn to bed, also black, with THIS IS ROCKET SCIENCE in peeling white letters across the chest, bought at the Kennedy Space Center when we visited my grandparents in Orlando three years ago. I pulled on lace-up black Converse high tops that Audrey had called “nineties.”

  I pulled my hair into two long braids, how I had worn it every day until eighth grade, and filled in my lips with burgundy lipstick. I stepped back and nodded at myself in the mirror: “This is you,” I said, and then shut the light, leaving my room in shambles.

  Bounding down the stairs, I called out, “I’m going to Mikey’s! See you later!” I slammed the door behind me, not waiting for a response.

  Sarah answered the door and, with nothing more than a deep sigh and a hair toss, motioned me upstairs.

  Gilly’s door was shut. I knocked.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” he called out in an annoyed voice.

  I opened the door.

  “Jesus, Mom,” he groaned, facedown on his bed with his eyes shut. “Are you kidding me with this?”

  “Evening, sugar,” I said, shutting the door behind me.

  Gilly scrambled off his bed, his eyes wild.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. He squinted. “Is your hair different?”

  I sat on his bed, stretching out my legs and propping myself up on my elbows. “Why do you think I’m here?”

  Gilly’s silver eyes widened as they moved up my legs to my chest. He sucked in his lower lip as he leaned over me.

  I let him get an inch from my mouth before I put up a hand and whispered, “Wait.”

  “What?” he said, almost whispering.

  I hauled off and slapped him.

  Gilly, startled, tumbled to the floor. I stood up and went over to his desk.

  “Where are they?” I said, opening and shuffling through drawers. “Did you flush them? Gilly?” He didn’t answer.

  “Well?” I asked, moving on to his closet. “You didn’t sell them, did you? I’m not sure I can do anything to save you if you did that. Mason is not a good guy.”

  “I ha—I have them,” he said quietly, his voice breaking.

  I turned to look at him now. He was still on the floor, his cheek in his hand. He had curled his legs up under himself, and his face was pink and splotchy.

  “You look miserable,” I said, turning away and squelching the pang I felt at seeing him look so sad.

  “Kendall—”

  I slammed his closet door shut. “While I’m here, I’d like the clothes I left and my knife. I dropped it the first time I was here.”

  I moved to his nightstand, and he grabbed my hand from down on the floor.

  “Can we talk about this?”

  I wrenched my wrist out from his grasp and laughed. “Sure. Let’s talk about it. Why don’t we start with what I ever did to you?”

  He looked away.

  I laughed again. Pathetic. “Good. Ignore me again. There’s the Gilly I always knew and never gave a shit about. Where’ve you been?”

  “Stop it,” he said, standing up and walking away from me.

  I darted in front of him. “No, let’s talk. I’d really like to know why you decided, having obtained these drugs, that rather than going to the cops yourself, as you’ve so strenuously argued for me to do, you decided to set me up—to involve me at all. What had I ever done to deserve that? To anyone I ever spoke to, even, let alone you?”

  Gilly scow
led his trademark scowl and mumbled something, looking away.

  “That’s just great, Gilly,” I said, sneering. “You’re right. Why would I even try to elicit a reasonable explanation from the guy who’s going to be voted ‘Most Antisocial’ in his senior yearbook?”

  I pushed past him and started scanning his bookshelf for likely hiding places.

  “You think you’re really nice, don’t you?”

  I whirled around. He smiled bitterly at me. “You’re just so much better than everyone else. Every time Dennis called someone fat or Audrey arbitrarily excluded someone from a table, I saw you flinch and hang your head, like, ‘If only we could all just get along.’”

  “Your point? I’m getting penalized for having a conscience?”

  “What’s the point of a conscience? You never said anything! After a one-second-long frown, you always went right back to smiling at whoever had been doing the shit-talking.”

  “Excuse me, I was just trying to survive high school! All I did was keep my head down.”

  “Exactly,” he practically spat out. “All you did was keep your head down, mindlessly following Audrey and the other jockettes, willfully blind to everyone and everything else. Did you know Grant Powers beat Lemon up in the locker room after gym every single week in ninth grade?”

  I drew in a sharp breath. “No.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a secret. Did you know Audrey told Jody Mueller that she had been ranked the least attractive girl in class by the seniors last year? In a totally sympathetic and caring way, of course.”

  I hadn’t, but I could imagine exactly how that scene had played out.

  “You were at the same table, completely ignoring everything that would offend your little nice-girl sensibilities.”

  At the reproach in his voice, something snapped, and I started literally vibrating with rage.

  “I did nothing wrong,” I said, expending a huge amount of energy keeping my voice steady. “You’ve had months to come up with a justification for screwing me over, and all you can come up with is I didn’t stop events I didn’t notice were happening.”