The S-Word

by Chelsea Pitcher

  He looks up from his blubbering. “I drank too much,” he says. “I meant to send it to Elizabeth but I sent it to the Elizabethan Club.”

  My ears perk up. “Let me guess. Shelby’s the president?”

  He shakes his head. “She’s head of the Shakespearean Club.”

  I almost laugh, the conversation is so ridiculous.

  “The Elizabethan Club is mostly freshmen,” he explains. “For those who don’t make it into the Shakespearean Club.”

  I snort. “Junior varsity.”

  He peers at me like he’s afraid he’ll catch Cheerleader Disease. “I helped them with some sketches earlier this year. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have had their email address, and this never would’ve—”

  “So it’s the Elizabethan Club’s fault?”

  He inhales sharply. “I’m just trying to explain.”

  “I know. I get it.” Again, I go to touch him, but I can’t bring myself to do it. “Frankly, I’m not sure if I should be happy the email was an accident or horrified you thought it was acceptable to paint her without her permission.”

  The truth is, I’m leaning toward horrified, but I don’t want to send him over the edge again. I’m not even sure I want to print out his picture now.

  How screwed up is that?

  A few minutes pass, and Marvin pulls himself together. I show him to the door, trying desperately to get my anger back. He’s a pervert. He violated Lizzie’s privacy and sense of freedom. And whether he meant to or not, he emailed a drawing of her naked body to a bunch of idiots. He deserves to be punished for that.

  Still, hours after he’s gone, I keep seeing that look on his face when he said he’d caused Lizzie’s death. I know the look well. I see it every time I look in the mirror. It reminds me of the day I almost offered her my forgiveness.

  THE DAY STARTED like any other post-prom-humiliation day. I dragged my ass out of bed, forcing myself to go through the motions: wash, dress, choke down breakfast. I’m not going to pretend my days were anywhere near as hard as Lizzie’s. But I’m not going to pretend life was awesome either.

  It sucked.

  I was so lonely. I thought of approaching Lizzie so many times. I know that sounds like bullshit, like I’m rearranging the events after they happened, but it’s the truth. The issue of forgiveness barely even came into play. If she had apologized to me, I would’ve taken her back. But she didn’t, and I knew what that meant. She didn’t want me in her life.

  So I stayed away.

  On that particular Monday, three weeks after prom, Lizzie was taking her books out of her locker. She wore jeans, a sweater, a sweatshirt, and a coat. Her hair was hanging in her face. These days, she used it as an extra layer of protection against the people who always followed her in swarms. They had to be careful, you know, with the administration watching, but how hard was it to knock into someone and blame clumsiness? How hard was it to whisper “Stupid bitch” in someone’s ear? They could push her into the bathroom where all their friends were waiting. They could vandalize her locker when the tardy bell rang.

  Case in point: the S-word now covered every inch of her locker door. The janitor couldn’t wash the words away fast enough. They showed up in different sizes, some cursive, some printed, increasingly etched into the paint. People exaggerated the differences to make it clear her attackers were many.

  I hovered halfway down the hall, waiting for her to finish gathering her books. Our lockers were still next to each other, in spite of several desperate pleas to the office to relocate me. And yeah, it made things incredibly difficult. But we had a system. We never approached when the other was there, and it had worked up until today.

  Why isn’t she leaving?

  I needed my English book. Now. I couldn’t afford another mishap after the Marvin-library fiasco. I had to be a good little student and come to class prepared. That meant going to my locker while Lizzie was still at hers.

  It was probably the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, walking up to the girl who broke my heart. Still, it must’ve been a thousand times worse for her. She looked like she hadn’t eaten or slept in days. In spite of everything that had happened, I wanted to lace my hand through hers and lend her my warmth. I wanted to summon that feeling of invincibility that came from knowing we’d never be alone as long as we had each other.

  But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t reach for her. I didn’t speak to her, even as the whispers reached a fever pitch. I opened my locker, making a wall between us, and pulled out my English book with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. My entire being wouldn’t stop shaking, and I just stood there, not able to look at her, and cried right in the middle of the hallway, quietly, so she wouldn’t hear.

  Every move, a mistake.

  Still, she waited. In retrospect, it’s pretty obvious she was hoping I would say something. All I had to do was tell her I still loved her. All she had to do was tell me the same. If either of us had been brave enough to say something, everything would’ve been different. For the rest of my life, this ache wouldn’t live inside me, reminding me of the emptiness Lizzie left behind. I wouldn’t hate myself, and life, and want to leave this place. I wouldn’t feel the desire to hurt everyone who took her life away, most of all me.

  Neither of us spoke.

  I zipped my backpack and wiped my eyes. I turned just so, closing my locker with my back to the crowd, so they wouldn’t see that I’d been crying. And I walked away. I left Lizzie alone in the place that was destroying her. I left her to the mercy of Verity’s vultures, when I could’ve stopped them from tearing her apart.

  I did nothing.

  twenty-seven

  SATURDAY MORNING I stop off at the police department to give Lizzie’s diary to the detective who handled her case. I tell him I found the missing pages in Drake’s bedroom, and if he doesn’t believe me, he can check it for fingerprints. Then I tell him I’ve got to run. I have a graduation ceremony to get to.

  My phone starts to ring as I cut through the school park. I answer it and say, “Meet me at the football field in five minutes,” then hit the end button quickly.

  Out on the field, Kennedy and the rest of the Cheer Bears are pretending to practice. Half of them have on their graduation gowns, unzipped, over their uniforms. I’m supposed to be in my uniform as well, but I really didn’t feel like it.

  I jog up to them, my heels squishing in the grass. Whoever thought they should water the lawn this morning was a moron. I’ve got four graduation gowns slung over my shoulder: mine, Cara’s, Elliot’s, and Drake’s. I’m freezing my butt off but I can’t put mine on in front of Kennedy. It’ll spoil the surprise.

  Cara and Elliot invite me into their circle like we’re the best of friends. Elliot’s already crying. I give her a cheek kiss and tell her it’s going to be okay.

  “No—it’s not!” She’s got the hiccups, bad. “Half—of us—are going—to different places—”

  Kennedy wraps Elliot in her arms. “Knock it off,” she says, but her tone is kind. She steers Elliot toward the bleachers. “I know what will cheer you up.”

  “Our surprise?” Elliot asks. Several girls perk up at the mention.

  “Yep. Come on.” Kennedy motions for us to follow.

  “What surprise?” I ask, tagging along.

  “It’s for you.” She holds out a hand for me. She’s still got an arm around Elliot. “By the way, what the hell are you wearing?”

  “A dress.” Lizzie’s dress, to be exact. The gold one her father pushed on me. I figured, whether Lizzie’s looking down from some magical world, or giving life to daisies in the Fir Point Cemetery, seeing me in the dress would make her smile.

  “You better have your uniform in that purse,” says Kennedy.

  I give her my best poker face.

  “Okay, you do look hot,” she concedes.

  “Well, thank you.” I clap my hands. “Now give me my surprise.”

  Kennedy digs through her giant purse. I check the p
osition of the gowns on my arm. Right now I’ve got mine over the top, face-up, so it looks like I’m just carrying one. Still, the stack’s a little bulky. Cara gives me a wink as I try to smooth them. Poor girl thinks we’re in cahoots.

  Cahoots. Like we’re spies.

  I’m not looking forward to seeing Jesse today. He’s got that I’m so disappointed in you look down to an art. Plus, I miss him.

  Okay, that’s the real reason.

  Kennedy pulls out a stack of photo sheets and some scissors to cut them into wallet-size prints. But she’s not the subject.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “Is that—”

  “Ew,” several girls squeal at once.

  “This is supposed to cheer me up?” Elliot asks, but she’s wearing this deranged smile.

  I take one of the sheets. The boy is dressed in tighty-whities and a wizard hat. He’s holding a wand. It’s Marvin.

  But I didn’t send it.

  “Where did you get this?” I ask.

  Kennedy grins mischievously. “Showed up in my email last night.”

  “That’s impossible,” I breathe, staring at my handiwork. “Who sent this to you?”

  “Somebody named ‘MacDaddy’ something.” She snickers while I cringe. “Sixty-nine—that’s right. How could I forget? I thought it would be fun to print them out, like real school photos. See? We can cut them out and pass them around.”

  “Aren’t you smart. Do I get to do the honors?” I hold out a hand.

  She hands me the photos, eyeing me suspiciously. “Cut away, then.”

  I stare at the pictures. My eyes start to sting. With all these photos circulating the auditorium, everyone in the school will catch a glimpse of half-naked Marvin by the end of the day. He’ll be a bigger joke than he already is. He’ll know Lizzie’s pain.

  Just like she would’ve wanted.

  Yeah.

  Right.

  Still, I can’t steal all the pictures without the girls throwing a fit. And Marvin clearly wanted them to get out. Maybe the humiliation is supposed to assuage his guilt. I take the scissors and cut out a picture for each girl on the squad.

  “That should be enough,” I say with a shrug.

  Kennedy smiles like she’s my mommy. “Look at you, growing a heart.”

  “Whatever. I just don’t want to alert the faculty to our dirty dealings.” I slide the rest of the photos into my purse. “We should go.”

  “Fair enough,” Kennedy says, still eyeing me. Elliot and Cara are sidling up to me but my attention is across the field. I can see Drake approaching from a distance. He’s ambling along like he’s got all the time in the world.

  Or maybe he’s scared.

  I lean in to whisper in Cara’s ear, “I have to deal with something. Meet me in the bathroom in five?”

  “Upstairs?”

  “Of course.”

  She skips ahead, taking Elliot with her. Kennedy glances back when she sees Drake coming. “You want me to stay?” she asks.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  She glances from him to me. “I’ll do it, by the way.”

  “I just said you don’t have to.”

  “No, I mean . . .” She rolls her eyes like I’m pathetically dim-witted. “I’ll talk to the police.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I say, my chest burning as Drake reaches the fifty-yard line. Kennedy’s words should make me feel triumphant, but all I can feel is my stomach turning and turning. I wish I could ask her to stay with me.

  But I wave her along. She goes hesitantly, looking back like maybe I need her. Then it’s just me, and Drake, and this big empty field between us. Soon, even the field is gone.

  “What’s with the scissors?” he says in greeting.

  “What?” I look down. I’ve still got Kennedy’s scissors in my hands. I’m clutching them like a weapon. I wonder if maybe I’ll need them.

  “Oh, just a project,” I say. “Here, turn around.”

  He does so. I slip his graduation gown through his arms and over his shoulders. He turns again and lets me zip it up. “Thank God it fits,” he says.

  “I knew it would.”

  “Want me to help put yours on?” He steps closer.

  I jerk away. “Not yet.”

  “What’s going on with you?” he demands. God, he’s hot and cold in an instant. I wonder if I should just go inside.

  Instead, I say, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “About me?”

  I nod. “There’s something I can’t figure out.”

  “What is it?” He’s close now. He thinks he’s about to kiss me. I swear, if he tries, I’ll knock him out.

  “If I committed a crime and someone documented it, wouldn’t I destroy the documentation the first chance I got?”

  He doesn’t know what I’m getting at, not really. But a part of him responds to the accusation and he steps back. “What are you talking about?”

  I pull some papers out of my purse. Some photocopies I made yesterday.

  What, like I was going to sit around all day twiddling my thumbs?

  Please.

  I hand the copies to Drake. “I’m talking about this.”

  “Where did you get these?” He’s making this shocked face, like he’s never seen the pages before. It makes me so mad I want to scream.

  But I won’t give him the satisfaction.

  I steady my hand as I point to him. “You lied to everyone about what happened. You lied to me—your girlfriend. The person you were supposed to love.”

  He holds up his hands. “I’ve never seen this before.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Put down the scissors.” He reaches for them. I yank my hand away.

  Time to regroup, asshole.

  It’s almost like he hears me. “Angie, don’t you see what’s happening? Whoever wrote that stuff on our lockers is pretending to be her. It’s not real.”

  “I wrote that stuff on our lockers.”

  He stammers, “You d-did not.”

  “I took Lizzie’s diary from her bedroom. I brought those photocopies to school. But there were already pages missing, weren’t there?”

  “She was a friend of mine.”

  “ ‘A friend of my best friend. A friend of all of our families,’ ” I say, quoting Lizzie.

  His eyes are bugging out. “She was a friend of our families.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” I advance.

  He looks behind his back. But nobody’s there to help him. “This is crazy.”

  “You know what’s crazy, Drake? Lizzie’s father caught you in her bedroom the night she died.” I’m close now and he’s not backing away. “Why did you go over there that night? Did you know what she’d written? Tell me!”

  I must look scary with the scissors and all, because he says, “I heard somebody tried to steal that book from her.”

  “That diary?”

  “Yeah, that.” He runs his hands through his hair. It doesn’t hide him, though, even with strands falling into his eyes. He’s still exposed. “I heard they went through her gym bag when they found out she had one. And she totally lost it. Started screaming until they gave it back. I knew there had to be something in it, for her to react like that.”

  His words are a weight on my chest. I’ve forgotten how to breathe. “When did this happen?”

  “That week. The week before she . . .” He trails off. He can’t say died, just like he can’t say raped.

  But I can. “So you knew it was a danger to you, and you had to get it back,” I say. “Smart move, just taking the pages that incriminated you. I had to look really closely to know they were missing.”

  “I just wanted to see what she said.”

  “You wanted to cover your ass, in case the wrong person found out what you did. In case they found out you’re the reason she’s—”

  “Don’t say it!” he screams, and it actually scares me. I’ve never seen him like this. But the greatest dangers don’t always com
e when people are the loudest. “Don’t say I did that!”

  “Oh, so it only matters because she’s dead? Like if she wasn’t, what you did wouldn’t be vile and evil and disgusting—”

  “I didn’t do that! I didn’t cause her death.”

  “But you did rape her.”

  He’s shaking his head. I can’t tell if he’s somehow convinced himself of his innocence, or if he just can’t live with the fact that there are consequences for doing horrible things.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You have to.” He looks up at me, and those pale blue eyes are laced with red. Two weeks ago, I might’ve softened at the sight of them. Now I want to jab something into them and watch them bleed.

  And yeah, it’s scary how much this has darkened me. But I can’t go back.

  “Why should I believe you?” I ask, even though I’m very aware that there’s danger here. “If you’re so innocent, why did you keep those pages? Why didn’t you destroy the only evidence against you?”

  “I didn’t understand it. Why did she invite me into her hotel room?”

  “It was our hotel room, Drake. And you knocked on the door.”

  “Why did she kiss me?”

  “You caught her off guard. For godsakes, Drake, it was a kiss! You can’t be that mental.”

  Can he?

  In a way, it’s easier to believe he’d have to be insane to do what he did. But it’s not that simple, is it? He chose to hurt her. He made that choice.

  All of this is just a ploy to get me to believe him.

  “You want to know what I think?” I move in closer. I’m shaking, but it just looks like I’m waving the scissors at him. “I think you kept those pages because you liked reading what she said. I think you got off on reading what you did, you sick, psycho—”

  “Stop it!” He pushes me back.

  I start laughing. I can’t help it. “Nice, Drake.” I pull my heel out of the grass. “Way to prove you’re not violent.”

  “I didn’t mean to do that.” He’s clenching his hands. “Just—please put those scissors away.”

  “Are you scared?” I snap them in his face. “Scared you’re going to get hurt? That’s ironic.”