If I Lie

by Corrine Jackson

  A small part of me believed they would stand by me. Cheer sisters. Beer sisters. Each of us a third of a best-friends charm. We’d helped one another through acne, first kisses, and cheer tryouts. Maybe that meant something. Months before, at Carey’s party, Angel had promised they would be there for me.

  For an instant, Angel’s eyes flickered with worry, but it was too fast to be sure. The two of them flipped their pleated cheer skirts in disdain as they turned their twin letterman jackets on me. Carey’s Quinn faltered.

  I’d known how it would be: Guilty until Carey proved me innocent. You didn’t cheat on the hometown hero and expect a welcoming parade. I couldn’t have guessed how my stomach would bottom out. The urge to tell crawled up the back of my throat.

  Move your damned feet, Quinn.

  Answering the summons to the principal’s office, I headed for the door at the opposite end of the long hallway, ignoring Josh Danvers when he stepped too close, his linebacker’s shoulders thrown back in a show of solidarity for Carey. They’d played football and been in ROTC together before Carey had graduated early.

  My breath skipped.

  Shoving past Josh, I focused on the dingy gray door of the main office, determined to make it to that temporary refuge before my courage split for Canada.

  Someone shouted, “Slut!”

  My face burned, and several people laughed. I would not cry, would not cry, would not cry. The desire to hide pushed me forward. One step. And then another.

  I used to be like them, but then Jamie sending that picture changed everything. I don’t know if she was the one to take the photo, but she’d been quick to capitalize on it. Last night I’d e-mailed Carey before his parents could. Before Jamie could gleefully tell him what I’d done in her bitchy efforts to break us up.

  For once, he wrote back within hours. Everything will be okay—rememberyourpromise—we’ll figure something out.

  Then the phone calls started, with whispered accusations of WhoresluttrampTRAITOR. After the tenth venomous e-mail, I’d shut my laptop and hoped this would go away. Lying awake in my bed, I told myself to be ready for the smear campaign. For the first time since reading The Scarlet Letter, I sympathized with the adulterous Hester.

  And as I stood in the hallway that day, I guessed I would hear the whispers for some time to come.

  WhoresluttrampTRAITOR.

  The office door blurred as my eyes strained with the effort of holding back tears. Not one of my friends had asked for my side of the story. My friends had abandoned me. I wanted to shove a scarlet letter down each of their throats.

  “Call me Hester Prynne,” I muttered, twisting the familiar chain of my necklace around my fingers like a talisman.

  There was no looking back. I entered the office.

  * * *

  And now that Carey’s missing, I am back at square one.

  Calculus sucks. English bites. Third-period Spanish completely blows chunks. Saturday at Bob’s was just the start of things to come. Jamie has fired everyone up into rare form.

  Two collisions send my books flying and a shove pushes me into a row of lockers. I never see the culprits. They hide in the crowd. I guess I expected the boys to be awful with their macho, stand-by-our-man posturing. The girls are worse, though. Crueler.

  A single seat is left open for me in my fourth-period physics class. Yeah, like that wasn’t planned. Jamie, Nikki, and Angel form a horseshoe around my desk. Jamie’s brown eyes are dark with promised retribution. She’s always wanted Carey, which means she’d like a truck to take me out while I’m crossing the street. Unlike Nikki and Angel, she is neither blond, nor beautiful, nor a cheerleader. Oh no, she’s our future valedictorian, class president, and yearbook editor. I’m fairly certain my picture won’t be appearing in the yearbook this year.

  It would be so much easier to hate Jamie if she were vapid, but she’s not. Instead, she is that niggling voice in my head. The one that points out everything I’ve done wrong and all the people I’ve let down during these past few months.

  I slide into the empty seat, dropping my book bag onto the floor. Mr. Brolley starts a lecture on the laws of thermodynamics. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jamie shoot Nikki a glance, one brunette brow arching as she tilts her head toward me. Here we go.

  Nikki starts the game by throwing a pen at my head. Every time Mr. Brolley turns his back, Jamie or Nikki pulls my ponytail, kicks my chair, or mutters a curse under her breath. Childish, but effective. Others notice but say nothing.

  I lose it.

  As Jamie reaches for me again, I block her with a vicious swing of my forearm.

  “Bitch!” she hisses, cradling her arm.

  I smile and resume taking notes.

  School should not be this hard, but at least none of them bother me for the rest of the period.

  * * *

  The bell rings.

  Jamie hits me with her bag as she walks by, and I almost go after her. A hand on my shoulder stays me.

  “Don’t, Q,” Angel whispers. “It’ll only make things worse.”

  She’s spent the past hour watching them harass me, and she didn’t say a word. I can’t help wondering why she cares. “Since when did you become her minion, Ang?”

  She shrugs. “It’s not like that. Besides, Jamie’s not so bad.”

  That’s not what you used to say. I shove my books into my bag and rise. “She’s horrible. I can’t believe you don’t see that.”

  Gathering her faded blond waves into an impromptu ponytail, Angel frowns. “And you cheated on Carey before he even left.”

  Sudden longing fills me. I miss her. I want one friend to know I’m not guilty of that crime. To have just one person on my side. Carey can’t blame me for that, right?

  I touch her arm, and she pauses. Our eyes meet, and in that instant I know Ang would keep my secret—Carey’s secret. She’d hug me and tell me she’s sorry. Lunch, weekends; I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.

  Angel gives me a questioning glance, and I want her friendship again so badly that my guts twist with it.

  “I wish things were different,” I say instead.

  She shrugs again. “Me too.”

  I let her go to catch up with Jamie. I am spineless. If I tell Ang the truth, she would be punished right along with me, assuming her parents even let her hang with me—her mother is a Marine deployed in Iraq, and I’ve betrayed the code.

  Jamie spares me another glare from the door, and I wonder if she got someone to deface my locker or if she did it herself.

  WhoresluttrampTRAITOR.

  No. I won’t drag another person down into this hell.

  Chapter Six

  Lunch is an awfully big adventure.

  Before Carey left, we used to eat lunch in the cafeteria. When he went off to basic training, I ate with the cheer squad. Last September, though, I started brown-bagging it when I realized the cafeteria offered nothing but humiliation. The attention faded in October when Coach Jorgenson busted Mark Harrison with a nickel bag in his locker. The gossip mill chewed on him for a while. I’ve been wallpaper ever since.

  But Carey going missing has put me back in the public eye.

  I think longingly of going home to eat, but Principal Barkley had put the kibosh on students leaving campus for lunch after too many seniors ditched their afternoon classes. Which means everyone’s in the cafeteria. I consider hiding in the library, but Mrs. Hall, the librarian I’ve known since I was seven, shooed me out without any sympathy. Her husband served under my father.

  Entering the cafeteria with its predictable smells (french fries on Mondays, pizza on Tuesdays, mystery meat on Wednesdays, and so on), I twist the chain of my necklace around my fingers and search for a seat away from the crowd. I wait a heartbeat too long.

  “You have nerve, Quinn.”

  Jamie blocks my path with one fist on her hip, like a model posing at the end of the runway. She takes up a lot of space for such an average girl. My body language says, Anyone
have a rock I can hide under?

  The room pops with confrontation. It’s obvious I’m going to pay for defending myself in class.

  Jamie’s face glows with hatred and triumph. “I can’t believe you still wear that.” She gestures to the necklace tangled around my fingers. Carey’s class ring dangles from it. “I noticed you weren’t wearing it when you were screwing that other boy.”

  She holds up her phone, and I recognize the picture on the screen. She’s blown it up, nice and big. Even after all this time, the photo humiliates me. My eyes burn. Damn you; don’t you dare cry.

  Jamie pretends to study it. “You might want to think about working out, Quinnie. Looks like you’ve put on some weight.”

  I can see my future before me in that moment. This—this shitty moment—will be every day of my senior year as long as Carey is missing. Repeated over and over again in a thousand different ways. Because I promised him. I love Carey. I’m scared he won’t be found. I’m terrified he won’t be found alive. So even though it sucks, I suck it up. The sick rolls in my stomach, but I not about to let Jamie break me.

  She pushes into my space, a whole six inches taller than my five-foot-one-inch frame. “Who’s in the picture with you?”

  This has bothered her for months. She has harped on it. She thought I would spill my guts when the pictures hit the Internet. The more she tries to get a confession out of me, the tighter I close my lips to spite her. Besides, Blake is right. It would only hurt the Breens to admit I’d been kissing him.

  Jamie pushes again. “Come on, Quinn. Who was it?”

  My mouth opens, as if pulled by her demands.

  That’s when Blake steps forward. He doesn’t have to do anything more to command attention. Carey and Blake acted like brothers, but while Carey’s lips tip into quick smiles, Blake waits. I can’t think of another way to describe it. I can never tell what he is thinking. Jamie clearly can’t either, and she backs off in a hurry, watching to see what he’ll do.

  “Tell them,” Blake says.

  His quiet voice rumbles through the cafeteria like slow thunder. This is the first time he has confronted me in public since the pictures came out. Carey’s best friend confronting the whore girlfriend.

  They don’t hear what I do in his words. They are a dare and a plea. Something’s happened since we talked Saturday. Some part of him wants me to tell the truth, so he can be punished alongside me. I’m almost selfish enough to do it. Except then I would be blamed for his downfall—nobody ever faults the boy—and besides, I still have lingering feelings for him despite my best efforts.

  So I repeat his words from Saturday. “Fuck you.” Fuck you for trying to make me confess for you. I survey the cafeteria. “That goes for all of you. I don’t owe any of you a thing.”

  When I try to walk away, Jamie grabs my arm, her nails digging into my flesh. “You don’t deserve Carey. You—”

  “Don’t you get it, Jamie?” I shake my head in disbelief. “None of this matters. He’s missing, and you’re worried about some stupid picture that he already knows about.”

  Blake’s head snaps toward me. I hadn’t told him that Carey knew about the picture. I’m sure he’s wondering if Carey figured out Blake’s the one with his hand on my breast, but I’m not about to tell him. It’s revengeful and petty, and I can’t believe how good it feels.

  “Fuck with my locker all you want. I don’t really give a shit.”

  Jamie tenses. I’ve guessed right. She was behind the damage. Her nails sink deeper into my forearm, threatening to cut my skin. I start to shove her away when Mrs. Breen calls my name.

  “Quinn. Principal Barkley’s office. Now.”

  Carey’s mother. Just fuck.

  * * *

  In September, on that first day at school, when I entered the principal’s office, Principal Barkley’s secretary had given me a sharp look. The heavy woman bore a strong resemblance to a marshmallow and, on most days, her personality could be just as sweet. But she’d clearly heard the rumors, and her soft body shivered with disapproval like an overweight terrier when she saw me.

  “Ted, the Quinn girl is here.” She said into the phone. While she paused to listen, I had wondered if I would be referred to as “the Quinn girl” by every adult who looked down his or her nose at me. Mrs. Rodriguez set the receiver in its cradle and said in a snotty tone, “Go in. Principal Barkley is waiting on you.”

  The only other time I’d been to Barkley’s office had been before the photo leaked. He’d stood to open the door and ushered me in with a cheerful smile. He’d asked about cheerleading, my dad, and Carey. Because in Sweethaven, even the high school principal knew I’d been dating Carey for two years and was going on marriage and 2.5 kids in a house on Do-What’s-Expected Street.

  Things had changed, though. Principal Barkley had two sons serving in Iraq, and he’d served in Desert Storm before them.

  Barkley didn’t bother to rise from his chair when I entered, and he also didn’t offer me a seat. Instead, when I started to close the door, he gestured for me to keep it open. As if I would make a pass at him. As if a middle-aged man with a bald spot the size of Texas and a bushy gray beard made my knees quake. My hands tugged down the hem of my cheer skirt, and I prayed the visit would end quickly.

  Barkley adjusted his ugly tie and cleared his throat.

  “Sophie—”

  “It’s Quinn.”

  “Right. Quinn.”

  He folded his hands on top of a file that probably contained a copy of the incriminating photo. My shame in a manila folder. I felt my cheeks burn at the idea that Barkley had seen it, had studied it while deciding whether or not to expel me. Had it given him a cheap thrill?

  “Quinn, I think you know why you’re here. You—”

  “No,” I interrupted. I’m not sure why I did it, except that I hated how smug he looked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Principal Barkley’s confusion acted as a balm to the ache in my belly. “I said, no. I have no idea why I’m here.”

  For a single moment, he hesitated. His pompous mask slipped as he tried to figure out if I was screwing with him.

  “A . . . compromising . . . picture of you and another boy was e-mailed to members of the school board this morning.”

  A moan almost escaped, but I crushed my lips together in time.

  Barkley continued. “I’ve been trying to reach your father. I think it’s vital we all get on the same page before this gets out of control.” He tugged on his tie again.

  “He left yesterday on a fishing trip with Reverend Cooper,” I admitted. “His phone doesn’t always work up at the lake.” Only that morning I’d still hoped there was a chance this would blow past without him ever finding out.

  Barkley cleared his throat again. “Yes, well. Considering his unavailability, I think we can reconvene this discussion when we are able to reach him. Until then, I’d like you to go to class.”

  My father would kill me.

  Knuckles rapped on the door, and Mrs. Breen’s voice sounded behind me. “I have a question, Quinn.”

  Carey’s mother was Sweethaven’s cheer coach and a den mother to the team. More to me. The most painful thing about keeping Carey’s secret was losing his parents. Every time I had had a crisis, I’d headed to the Breens. When my mother left, Mrs. Breen ran her fingers through my hair while I cried in her lap. When my father forgot my fifteenth birthday, Mr. Breen ran to the store for a cake and lame party hats. I’m sorry, Quinnie, he’d told me with a crooked grin. It was Power Rangers or Barbie, and you’ve always struck me as a kickass kind of girl.

  Mrs. Breen’s brown eyes, so similar to Carey’s, were bloodshot, as if she’d been crying. If anyone could have made me confess the truth, it was her. The words climbed back up my throat, but the white lines around her mouth stopped me. Carey had been the first to point out that those lines were a litmus test, proof-positive of rage.

  “How could you, Quinn? Carey’s barely been in Afghanistan
a few weeks. When he finds out—”

  “He knows,” I said.

  “What?” Her voice dropped to a near whisper at my words.

  “Carey knows.”

  She wanted to slap me. I could see her hand itching with the urge. She gathered herself.

  “If he dies, I won’t forgive you.” She paused. “You’re off the team, Quinn. What you did—the picture—you signed a contract when you joined the squad. To be an example for the other kids. I think we can agree that no parent wants their child following your example.”

  WhoresluttrampTRAITOR.

  Her words were worse than a slap. My head bowed.

  “Please go to the locker room and change out of your uniform.”

  Barkley said nothing. I rose and turned to leave without making eye contact. Carey’s mother touched my arm when I passed. I looked up, hoping . . .

  “Who’s the boy, Quinn?” she pleaded.

  Sometimes a moment defines you, defines how people see you the rest of your life. That’s something my father said, a truism he shared with his troops. You can accept it or fight it. If you’re lucky, you’ll recognize the moment when it happens.

  This was my moment. I could name the boy. I could tell the truth, but it wouldn’t do any good. Everyone had made their minds up. Only Carey could save me, and he wasn’t here. A promise was a promise.

  I walked out of Barkley’s office without a backward glance.

  “I hope for your sake he was worth it.”

  The curse rang in my ears. Part of me couldn’t blame her. Starring in a photo wearing your lacy best with a half-naked boy draped across your front ranked pretty high on the list of Things Parents Frowned Upon. Having said photo spread like a virus on the Internet and to every mobile phone in a twenty-mile radius? A definite no-no. And what I did was ten times—a thousand times—worse, because the boy in that picture wasn’t her son.