Teddy was like the sibling I’d never had. He had open-door privileges at our house, coming and going as he pleased. My mom never objected to Teddy sleeping over. Maybe it was just that we’d been friends since we were in third grade. Most likely she assumed, like most of the boys at school, that black eyeliner meant Teddy was gay.
I don’t know why it never occurred to me to wonder if Teddy was gay. I figured he probably wasn’t since he’d had to cover his jeans with a throw pillow when we’d watched Blue Crush in seventh grade, and I’d pretended I didn’t know why. But if he’d never expressed any interest in boys, he’d also never told me about girls he was crushing on—and he’d told me everything.
The night Teddy turned eighteen, there was a snowstorm, and Teddy and his grandparents came home from steaks even earlier than normal. I was waiting with an assortment of his favorite treats—popcorn, Mountain Dew, and jalapeño Cheetos. Will and my mom were spending the weekend at the St. Regis. I think my mom finally would have objected to secondary-birthday, knowing she and Will were going to be gone all weekend, but she didn’t remember Teddy’s birthday at all. Will did, of course, and when he’d side-hugged me goodbye he’d whispered in my ear, “I left a six pack of Coronas in the fridge. Tell him happy birthday for me.”
Teddy came in without waiting for an invitation. He kicked off his snowy shoes as I was carrying my array of treats to the living room. “Hey!” I called over my shoulder. “How was dinner? Did your grandpa yell at the waiter again because his Old Fashioned was too weak?”
Teddy laughed, his voice raw from getting over a cold. “A Lawrence family tradition,” he said, padding into the living room in stockinged feet. “Did you get it?”
“Duh,” I said, holding up a copy of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
Teddy, Ket, and I had decided last year that we would watch every movie on the American Film Institute’s list of five hundred most important films. As of Teddy’s birthday, we hadn’t really made a dent, partly because we’d done a lot of rewatching. Teddy had become obsessed with spaghetti westerns, a fact that delighted Grandpa Lawrence.
Teddy and I settled into the couch, snacks between us. Teddy’s legs were stretched out on the ottoman, mine were curled up underneath a blanket. It started out just like the last thousand times we’d hung out.
But something was wrong. Teddy usually commented during movies, cracking jokes, grabbing snacks, fidgeting restlessly. That night, he was still as a stone. I could hear the sound of his breathing as much as I could hear the dialogue of the movie.
Finally I looked over at him at him. “You okay?” I asked.
Teddy turned to me, his profile flickering blue and yellow in the light from the television. I could see his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. “I love you,” he said.
And I froze.
“Rosie?” FDR said.
I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering the look on Teddy’s face right before he stood up and walked out of my living room.
“Are you okay?” FDR asked.
I felt a surge of annoyance. “Why are you so persistent?” I hissed. “Why did you even keep talking to me at that party? And don’t tell me that it’s because I’m ‘so cute,’ or whatever, since I have been rude to you all night and you just don’t give up.”
An awkward silence filled the broom closet, wrapping around us like a thick fog. “Do you really want to know?” FDR asked finally, a slight edge to his voice.
“Yes!”
“Fisher asked me to.”
I flinched and FDR’s arms tightened around me. If I could have jerked away from him completely, I would have. “What?” I asked, my mouth dry.
FDR let out a long, slow breath—I hadn’t realized he’d been holding it. “Fisher noticed you weren’t having a good time and your friends had ditched you. She asked me if I would try to get you to loosen up.”
I nodded slowly, biting my lip.
Damnit damnit damnit. Here I was, thinking this unattainably attractive guy was annoying because he liked me so much—and it turned out he only did it because his girlfriend thought I was decreasing the overall level of cool at her party?
I was the personification of “humiliation.”
Strands of my hair caught in FDR’s stubble as he moved back slightly, like he was trying to look down at me in this pitch-black closet. “Um. Rosie? That sort of came out wrong,” he said, his voice hesitant. “Let me explain.”
“Yeah, I think I’d rather get arrested,” I said, opening the closet door.
38
Ket West-Beauchamp
April 18, 11:40 PM
Jenna knew how to change someone’s school record—which blew me away. I mean, if Jenna could fix tardies and grades all this time, why was I stressing over detentions and extra credit assignments?
“We could probably use Mr. Hansen’s room,” I said as the four of us conferred in the hall. “He leaves it unlocked.”
Hannah raised an eyebrow in my direction. “How would you know?” she asked, her tone a mixture of disbelief and disgust.
I smirked. Mr. Hansen was in his thirties and the hottest teacher in our school. “I just know,” I sing-songed. From the corner of my eye, I saw Teddy glance in the other direction, and I winced. Seriously, Ket, why does everything have to be a joke?
In reality, I knew Mr. Hansen left his classroom unlocked because I’d made out with his TA, Dave Applegate, in it a couple times. I would never make out with Mr. Hansen, but the part of me that enjoyed my Supah Scandalous reputation couldn’t help but insinuate otherwise.
We snuck up to the fourth floor where Mr. Hansen’s classrom was, in fact, unlocked. Hannah gave me another disgusted look, but with Teddy steadfastly avoiding my gaze, I couldn’t work up the energy to act superior.
The truth was Mr. Hansen gave me serious skeevy vibes. It wasn’t that he ever hit on me—it was more that he expected me to hit on him. Whenever we met about one of my papers, he made a big show of leaving the door open, but I’d catch him checking me out. If it wasn’t so painfully obvious that he was doing it because he expected me to try to jump his thirty-something bones—Oooh, tell me more about your Ragnar, Mr. Hansen—I would have rolled my eyes.
When older guys expected you to hit on them, it was usually because they thought they were hot enough to merit it. They’d act noble for about five minutes, and then they’d reciprocate.
I flirted with Rosie’s stepdad because it was funny and she hated it, but most importantly, because I could tell Will was never-ever-ever going to flirt back.
The four of us filed into Mr. Hansen’s room. Hannah flipped on the lights and I whirled to smack them off. “Don’t be an idiot,” I hissed in the dark. “We’ll just use the lamp on his desk.”
I crept my way forward, holding my hands in front of me so I wouldn’t crash into desks. “Wonder how you learned your way around this classroom in the dark,” muttered Hannah. I gritted my teeth.
“For someone blackmailing two girls into changing her record on the school server, you’re pretty judgy,” Teddy snapped. I smiled in the dark. It was nice to have a defender, for once—even if that defender was under the impression I’d hooked up with a middle-aged dude.
I bumped into Mr. Hansen’s desk, nearly toppling over in my heels as the pain from a stubbed toe shot through my foot. I hissed in a breath and Teddy whispered, “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I replied, blinking back the tears springing to my eyes. I patted along the edge of Mr. Hansen’s desk until I found his lamp and switched it on. The single bulb, barely bright enough to illuminate the entire desk, flared to life. “Okay, Jen, work your magic.”
This whole evening had been one long nightmare. Elin’s disappearance, Vaughn, Rosie running off on Main Street, hacking Mr. Hansen’s computer. Was Jodi Picoult right? Was someone going to need a kidney transplant next?
Jenna sat down behind the computer and logged on, setting the bottled water and bag of Fritos Teddy had bought her on top of a pile
of Mr. Hansen’s ungraded papers. I glanced back at the doorway, wondering what would happen to us if someone walked by, and sat down at a desk in the front row.
Months ago, Teddy, Elin, and I had been painting sets for the winter play after school. Teddy was doing it for fun, I was doing it because it was part of my final project for Art III, and Elin because she needed extra credit. Rosie, who had no interest in art but who wanted a good excuse to delay her mid-week drive down to her dad’s, had gone to get us cheeseburgers while we worked late.
Elin had been sitting on the stage. She was doing makeup projects—all year long she had been a few weeks behind on homework, only doing as much as necessary to keep teachers and her parents off her back. Most were taking pity on her, offering huge amounts of credit for tiny bits of effort. Not Mr. Hansen. He wanted a fifteen-page paper on the social, economic, and political forces behind the French Revolution. Everyone who had turned it in on time had only had to do ten pages. Elin had written a whopping paragraph.
“I don’t know why you’re complaining; I’m sure Rosie and Jenna will help you finish it in time,” Teddy had said, brushing dark brown paint to create shadows on the tree trunks.
“Mr. Hansen is a pervert,” Elin had said bitterly.
“No joke,” I had replied cheerily, flinging a paint splatter in Teddy’s direction.
I couldn’t remember what any of us said after that. Why didn’t I pay attention? What did it mean that she said, Mr. Hansen is a pervert instead of Mr. Hansen is a hardass?
Why had I never insisted on her explaining what put her in the hospital?
Why had I spent so much energy being a fun friend instead of a good friend?
Teddy, who had been hovering near Jen, pulled out the chair next to mine and sat in it, his leg just a few inches from mine, his arm brushing mine. I bit the insides of my cheeks, resisting the absurd urge to rest my cheek against his shoulder. This was one area in which I could continue to be a Good Friend.
“Is this seriously happening right now?” he muttered under his breath.
“Apparently,” I whispered back, refusing to lean an inch closer to him than a Platonic Bestie would.
He turned toward me, ever so slightly, and suddenly his mouth was a breath away from mine. I inhaled sharply. His lips parted slightly, like he was about to say something. I felt my breath catch in my throat. He blinked, like he had briefly forgotten what he was going to say.
He’s going to ask about Elin.
He’s going to say we should be grabbing Jenna and bailing.
He’s going to say he was totally lying this afternoon when he said he was over Rosie.
He will never be over Rosie.
“How are you going to avoid getting caught?” Hannah asked suddenly, and Teddy and I both jumped at the sound. For the first time, she sounded doubtful about Jenna’s plan. “If someone notices that my records were changed, won’t they be able to figure out that they were changed on prom night? On Mr. Hansen’s computer?”
Jenna paused her frantic typing. “It’s not the CIA,” she said, and even though we needed Hannah’s help, she couldn’t manage to keep the scorn out of her voice. “Even if someone notices, which I doubt, no one is going to search the metadata and figure out when it changed.”
“But what if they do?” Hannah insisted.
Jenna sighed. “If they do, it’s going to lead back to Josh Bowman. I used his universal log-in, not mine.”
“Where did you get Josh’s log-in?” I asked, relieved to have an excuse not to worry about my heart pounding out of my chest.
“He leaves it on a Post It so he doesn’t have to remember his password,” Jenna said. “Which means it could be literally anyone Josh has ever let behind the front desk in the office, so every cheerleader and half the girls’ soccer team.”
“Why do either of you have a universal log-in?” Teddy asked.
“Because we’re office assistants,” Jenna said, as if that explained everything.
“So what?” Teddy asked. “Do you need to be able to access student records to utilize the stamp pass? Which, might I add, you have never shared with me.”
Jenna paused again, staring at Teddy and looking seriously offended. “The stamp pass is sacred, Teddy.”
Teddy threw his hands in the air. “You’re changing a permanent record, but you can’t share a few ‘get out of class free’ slips?”
“Shh,” I said, glancing back at the door.
Jenna sighed, turning to Hannah. “Just trust me, okay? After tonight, your unexcused absences and tardies are things of the past. I’ve changed your transcripts, but the teacher database is going to stay the same, so if anyone notices, play dumb. They’ll assume there was a clerical error when the grades were entered into the final record. No one is going to figure it out.”
“So long as you guys don’t say anything,” Hannah muttered.
“Why would we say anything?” Jenna hissed.
Hannah shrugged and I felt a burst of annoyance toward her. No wonder Jenna had been complaining about her for weeks—girl was dumb as a rock.
Jenna pointed at Hannah, her face stern. “Now, I need you to remember something, Hannah. You start feeling guilty or scared about any of this? Or you don’t follow through with leaving Ben alone at Fisher’s? You can forget about getting my senior party money.”
“And we’ll tell everyone about the tugger you gave Josh,” I added, standing and stretching.
Hannah’s mouth dropped open. “You told her about that?” she asked.
Jenna smirked. “I tell my friends everything. So yeah, don’t forget about the handjob, either.”
“I didn’t give Josh a handjob,” Hannah snapped. “I made out with him, but that’s it.”
Jenna shrugged. “Not the way he tells it.”
“Well, he’s lying!” Hannah hissed.
I smirked. “Sucks to have everyone assume you’re doing stuff you aren’t, right?”
Teddy glanced at me, his expression unreadable in the golden light from the desklamp.
Hannah rolled her eyes. “What, are saying that your reputation is undeserved?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t have to be ashamed of anything because I don’t think sex is shameful,” I said loftily.
“Oh yeah, I’m sure that what you and Mr. Hansen have is just beautiful,” Hannah said, rolling her eyes and tossing her hair. “Later, bitches.”
I pursed my lips. “Seriously, what a hypocrite,” I muttered, sitting on the edge of Mr. Hansen’s desk and avoiding Teddy’s gaze.
“Ket,” Teddy said, and for one minute, I hated him for the pity in his voice. “Do … do people assume stuff … that isn’t true?”
I snorted. “Nah,” I said. “But I’ve never felt bad about any of it, so I don’t know where she gets off, trying to guilt me.”
Jenna turned off Mr. Hansen’s monitor with a soft click. “Shut the fuck up, Ket.”
My jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”
Jenna stood up, her lips pursed. “You heard me. I am so sick of your ‘I’m a slut and I love it’ bullshit, because you clearly do not love it.”
“Jen,” Teddy said warningly.
Jenna held up her hand. “No. She thinks her track record of asshats is inevitable, but when she’s got a shot with a nice guy, she ruins it.”
I slid off the desk and turned to face her fully. “Oh yeah, Jenna? What do you know about it?”
“I know Dave Applegate liked you!” Jenna said, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. “But you kept telling him, oh, we’re just hooking up so finally he asked Lucy-Jean out.”
“So?”
“So?! Trace wanted to date you, dummy, but you blew him off so he found a girl who knew how to put out emotionally! And that’s why, Keturah West-Beauchamp, you can kiss irony’s ass!”
I stared at her. “Are you done?” I asked through gritted teeth.
Jenna slumped back into the desk chair, shutting her eyes. “I don’t feel s
o great,” she said, her voice returning to normal.
“Yeah, because you’re drunk and you’ve lost your damn mind,” Teddy muttered.
Jenna opened her bloodshot eyes. “Don’t act like I’m crazy when you know it’s true,” she said, her voice low and raspy. “Seriously, Teddy, are you going to pretend you don’t know the only reason Ket has never made a move is because she’s sure that a nice guy like you wouldn’t want her?”
I froze. Next to me, Teddy’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped open.
For one second, none of us made a sound. If Outer Ket could have said anything, she would have whispered, “Awk-ward.”
But even she was at a loss for words.
A look of horror crossed over Jenna’s face, about three seconds too late. “Oh shit,” she whispered.
I couldn’t look at Teddy. Couldn’t look anywhere except Jenna’s face, which was rapidly filling with regret.
I yanked open the door to Mr. Hansen’s room and ran out into the hall.
39
Rosie Winchester
April 18, 11:40 PM
Luckily, there was no one in the hall when I stepped out of the closet. FDR muttered a sharp curse under his breath, but I barely heard him. “I think the coast is clear,” I said, bending down to take off my shoes just in case. “We better get out of here before he comes back.”
“Rosie …” FDR whispered.
“We have to find Elin,” I said, trying to pretend that the pit in my stomach was from worry over my friend and not mortification that I’d been so full of myself. (Bad friend, Rosie Winchester. Bad, bad friend.)
“Rosie, could you let me explain?” FDR hissed, grabbing my arm. “Don’t just run off.”
“We have to get out of here before we get caught, and I don’t think Elin is here,” I whispered. “This idea was stupid.”
I’ve never gone on a date. I’ve never been kissed, although I told my friends I had. I’ve never even wanted to go on a date or be kissed.
But for one second in that closet, I thought about …
I don’t even want to think about what I thought about.
When the Truth Unravels Page 17
