Don't Trust the Impostor

by Victorine E. Lieske

  It was like a dream come true. Destiny was being included in the group of pop girls. She hurried to catch up to them. Kara picked up a bracelet and slid it on her wrist. “Does this go with my complexion?”

  “I think it looks nice,” Destiny said.

  Nikki squinted at it. “Yep. Looks good.”

  Destiny kind of felt like one of them as they looked through all the jewelry, commenting on the styles. She picked up one with turquoise stones. “This one is cool.”

  “Love it,” Nikki said. “Turquoise is so in right now.”

  Destiny could have floated out of there. “Yes. And it would go with your shirt.”

  Nikki grew serious and set down the bracelet. “Okay. I’m going to give it to you straight. You’re cool, Destiny. And I think you could help us.”

  Destiny tried not to hyperventilate. Nikki called her cool. That was freakin’ awesome. “Sure, I’d be happy to,” she said, trying to keep her voice light.

  “Are you one of us?” Nikki said, her voice low.

  They wanted her to be one of the pop girls? Destiny thought she was going to faint. “Yes.”

  “Would you swear yourself to secrecy, even if it meant going to jail?” Nikki looked at her like this was the most important question of all. Kara and Charley huddled in closer.

  “I swear,” Destiny whispered. She’d do anything to be in with the pop girls.

  Nikki looked around the shop, then leaned in closer to the group. “Here’s the plan. I’ll go distract that harpy behind the counter. The rest of you will snag the bracelets.” She looked at Destiny, her gaze piercing. “You in?”

  Chapter 14

  Destiny’s throat closed up, and she had a hard time breathing. Nikki wanted her to steal? Was that what the pop girls did for fun?

  A thousand things ran through her mind at once. She was an honest person. She’d never stolen anything in her life. She always drove the speed limit. She never even stayed out past her curfew. It wasn’t in her nature to steal.

  But the pop girls were who she belonged with. She was born to be popular. She loved the fashion, loved the too-cool-for-school vibe they had. She loved the way everyone wanted to be them.

  A vision flashed through her mind, and she saw herself at school. She walked with a swagger, sat at their table, and laughed with them. She was looked up to by every freshman girl. She was crowned prom queen. She could have it all, if only she would do this.

  But the vision turned dark, and she saw herself with them, stealing on the weekends. Getting caught. Getting arrested. Going to jail. She would be in so much trouble.

  Guilt overpowered her, and she knew. There was no way she could help the pop girls steal.

  Nikki stared at her, her long eyelashes thick with mascara. “Are you in, or are you out?” She emphasized the words, and Destiny knew what she meant. She would be in the group if she did this. But if she refused, she’d be out of popularity. Out of the inner circle. And probably out of every group at school.

  Destiny swallowed. She wanted to be in. She wanted it so bad, she could taste it. But she couldn’t do what Nikki wanted her to. Destiny licked her lips. “I’m going to pick out a jacket. You do what you want.”

  As she left them, she heard one of them snort. Probably Kara, but she didn’t look back to see. Her skin felt like it was on fire. She could feel them staring at her. She picked up a white fuzzy jacket and checked the size. It would fit.

  Her nerves grew as she walked to the counter. She slid the coat onto the glass. The woman behind the counter gave her a bored look. “Is this it?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman bent down to get a sack from behind the counter.

  She heard movement behind her and a realization hit her. She was probably doing exactly what the pop girls wanted. She was distracting the woman behind the counter so they could take the bracelets. They might even think she volunteered to be the one to distract her. For a split-second, Destiny debated what to do. She could do nothing and just let the girls get away with it. They might take her in as one of them. But her gut clenched, and she couldn’t do it.

  When the woman stood back up, Destiny leaned close. “Those girls are stealing bracelets,” she whispered.

  The woman pointed. “Those girls?”

  Destiny looked. Nikki, Kara and Charley were speed-walking toward the exit. She nodded. “Yes.”

  The woman waited until they left the store, then she picked up the phone and pressed a couple of buttons. She talked for a moment, then hung up. “Security will stop them. Thanks for reporting it. We lose quite a bit of money from people who shoplift. We need more teenagers like you.”

  Destiny smiled but didn’t feel it. Inside, she felt sick to her stomach. She just got the pop girls into trouble. They probably would hate her forever now. Who knew what they would do to her?

  She left the store with her shopping bag, feeling worse than ever before. As she walked, she saw them. A security guard was standing in front of the pop girls, his arms folded. Nikki looked like she was going to murder someone. And then her gaze met Destiny’s. “You’re dead,” she mouthed.

  Heat rose up Destiny’s neck, and she picked up her pace. She told herself to ignore the pop girls, but she couldn’t. She knew she’d just committed social suicide. Her face flamed as she walked outside and rushed to get into her car.

  Her hands shook as she turned the key in the ignition. How could she have done that? All she had to do was keep quiet. She wasn’t stealing. She was just buying a jacket. No one would have known. The pop girls would have loved her. The store would have absorbed the cost. It would have worked out.

  But, no. She had to tattle on them. Destiny felt like she was going to throw up. She drove home and took her jacket up to her room, leaving it in the bag. She shoved it in the bottom of her closet. She didn’t want to look at it. She probably would never wear it now that it was tainted with this memory.

  She took off her boots and sat in her bean bag chair. She opened up her Snapchat account and saw fifteen messages. Oh, no. This was not good. She opened the first one, from a username she didn’t recognize.

  How could you? You are scum.

  It went on, but she didn’t read the rest. She opened the next one, and then the next. They were all variations of the first, some getting vulgar, some threatening. She stopped opening them. Her chest felt hollow as she deleted the messages. She closed Snapchat and texted Eli, tears blurring her vision.

  Where are you? I need you.

  It didn’t take long for him to get back to her.

  What’s going on? I’m downtown at Grind It Up.

  Fluffy came up to her and she scooped her cat into her lap. She needed the comfort. She texted Eli back.

  I did something bad. Really bad.

  She couldn’t stop her fingers from trembling.

  What happened?!?

  I committed social suicide.

  Destiny felt like throwing up. She texted the rest of the story to him.

  You did the right thing.

  But now they hate me, and they are telling everyone, and I’m getting hate mail now.

  Hold on. I’m coming over.

  Destiny couldn’t stop shaking. Her phone alerted her to another message on Snapchat. She turned off the sound and shoved it into her pocket, but the phone vibrated each time another message came in. This was so bad. The whole school would know by tomorrow. She would be hated.

  She sat there, numb, for twelve minutes, until she heard the doorbell ring. She set Fluffy on the floor, jumped up from her chair and raced down to open the door, even though she was pretty sure she was the only one home. When she saw Eli, she let out a sob and rushed into his arms.

  He held her tight. It felt so good to have his arms around her. Like he was holding her together, and without him, she would shatter into a million pieces.

  “Hey, calm down. It’s okay. It will be all right.”

  “No, it won’t,” she whispered. “Everyone hates me.”


  “That’s not true. Come on. Let’s go inside.” He led her to the living room, gently guiding her to sit on the couch. He kept his arm around her. “Not everyone hates you.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Listen to them come in.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and turned on the ringer. The notifications came, one after another.

  Eli frowned. “Let me see them.”

  Destiny swallowed down another wave of nausea. She opened Snapchat and gave him the phone. He sat for a moment, reading the messages, his face getting red. “I think you should uninstall this app. Maybe even disable your account.”

  Disable her Snapchat? But that was how she talked to most of her friends. She didn’t want to, but as the hate notifications kept coming in, she nodded. “All right. You do it. I don’t want to see it anymore.”

  She turned away while he fiddled with her phone. A moment later, he placed it on her lap. “Done.”

  She closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the couch. “I’m never going to recover from this.”

  “Yes, you are. Those girls might be popular, but they don’t own the whole school.”

  “But they do.” Destiny blinked back more tears. Nikki was queen of them all. She decided what—or who—was popular. What was in and what was out. And now, Destiny was out. Not only that, she was blackballed. Hated.

  “Even the nerds? Do they follow after those girls?”

  “No.”

  “The band geeks?”

  Destiny made a face. “I know what you’re trying to do, but it won’t work.”

  Eli blew out a frustrated breath. “What, that I’m trying to show you that not everyone falls down to worship those girls? That the whole school isn’t on a quest to make you miserable?”

  “Did you see all those messages?”

  “Yeah. And most of them were brand new usernames. Think about it. Get a group of ten kids together and you can send a zillion messages out just by wasting your time.”

  Was that true? Destiny ran a hand over her hair. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “They don’t have power over everyone at school.”

  “Just all the popular people.”

  “Think about it,” Eli said, pressing closer to her. “That’s not that many people. The cheerleaders and jocks. And maybe a few rich kids. That’s all.”

  Destiny took in a breath and let it out slowly. He was right. The whole school didn’t hate her. She squeezed Eli’s hand. “Yeah. You’re right.”

  A text message came through on her phone. She looked at it.

  Too cowardly to keep your Snapchat account?

  She froze as a cold fear snaked through her. It was from an unknown number. She tried to hide it from Eli but he grabbed her phone and read it. “I suggest you block any numbers that text you today.”

  Another one came in.

  Do you think you’ll get away from this? If I were you, I wouldn’t go to school tomorrow.

  She covered her face with her hands. “It’s never going to stop.”

  “Come on now. It’s just the pop girls and their followers giving you a bad time. You stood up to them and they didn’t like that.”

  “Really? That’s good that you can deduce that because I wasn’t sure at all what was going on.” Destiny felt bad for being snarky. She sucked in a breath. “Sorry. That was mean.”

  “You’re just on edge. We need to get your mind off this. Let’s go do something.”

  “Are you done putting in job applications?”

  “For now.” He smiled at her. “This is more important.”

  “All right.” She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. “What should we do?”

  “Something cheap. I’m out of money.” He chuckled, and she laughed.

  “All right. But let me go fix my makeup. I’m sure I look like a mess.”

  Eli shook his head. “Nope. You look like a goddess.”

  That made her smile. He was such a good guy. How had she gotten so lucky? “You’re the best,” she said as she leaned over to kiss him again.

  Her phone indicated another text had come through. She turned it off without looking.

  Chapter 15

  Eli spent the rest of the afternoon trying to cheer up Destiny. Every time a text would come through on her phone, she would shove it at him. He was glad she wasn’t reading them anymore. They were getting worse, the more she ignored them. He would block the numbers, but new numbers kept getting through. He was starting to worry that Destiny’s original assessment was more accurate. There seemed to be a lot of kids who hated her.

  He took Destiny to the park. They walked the gardens, looked at the sculptures and fountains, and stopped to get an ice cream cone as the sun went down. On the way back to her house, she shrieked and grabbed his arm. “Stop the car!”

  He slammed on his brakes, his heart pounding. “What?”

  Destiny jumped out of his car. “There it is.”

  He leaned down to watch her race up the grass towards the high school. What in the world was she doing? He couldn’t quite see. But as she walked back to him, she held a black-and-white kitten in her arms.

  The scrawny thing looked so tiny. Destiny climbed back in the car. “I think its mother got killed. I don’t know if—” Destiny held the kitten up and looked under the tail. “She can eat food on her own yet.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Let’s take her to my house. We can search the internet to figure out what to feed her.”

  The little thing meowed. Eli drove to Destiny’s house and pulled into the driveway. “The poor thing. It looks cold.”

  “I know. I saw it twice before, but it was too fast. It got away from me.”

  He followed her into her house. Destiny pulled a blanket from the closet and wrapped it around the kitten. Then she took it into the living room and grabbed a remote control from the mantel. “Will you Google what to feed a kitten while I try to warm her?”

  The fireplace came to life and Destiny curled up in front of it. Eli joined her. “Sure.”

  After a moment the kitten wiggled out of Destiny’s blanket cocoon and jumped onto the hearth. She stared at the flames, then tried to bat at them on the screen.

  “No, sweetie,” Destiny said, pulling the kitten back.

  Eli opened a browser and searched for what to feed the tiny thing. “How old do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It can eat on its own if it’s six weeks old.”

  “How can you tell the age?” Destiny set the kitten down because it was squirming to get away again. The kitten jumped on the corner of the blanket, like it had caught a mouse. Destiny tugged on the blanket and they played a game of chase the blanket corner.

  “I’ll search.” Eli went back to his phone and looked for the answer. “Here’s a chart.” He looked at the images and descriptions of the different stages. “Oh, this one has got to be old enough to eat cat food. Look at this picture.” He showed it to Destiny.

  “Yeah, she looks like that.”

  “Okay. She should be able to eat cat food, then.”

  The kitten pounced on her foot and she giggled. “I’ll get some from the cupboard.”

  He watched as she stood and walked into the kitchen. This was the perfect distraction that she needed. He was glad she’d seen the scrawny thing in the bushes. He heard her open the can, then a white cat came racing down the stairs and through the room to the kitchen. The kitten watched the cat with curiosity.

  “Fluffy! This isn’t for you,” Destiny said. She came back in the room with a bowl of cat food in one hand, and Fluffy held like a football in the other.

  When Fluffy saw the kitten, her ears flattened and she hissed. “Stop that,” Destiny said, setting down the bowl of food. The kitten came and attacked it like it hadn’t eaten in days.

  “Aw, look. She’s starving.” Fluffy hissed again and wiggled out of Destiny’s arms. She ran from the room. The kitten ignored her, eating the wet cat
food.

  Destiny’s phone made another sound. She just shoved it at Eli. “Delete and block.”

  “I will.” He looked at the message. It was from Jessica.

  What’s going on? I got a message from someone saying you stabbed Nikki in the back and stole her boyfriend. Is this true?

  Eli’s chest tightened. This wasn’t good. If rumors are starting to spread to the senior band geeks, it was possible the whole school would be talking about her by tomorrow. “You’d better answer this one. It’s from your cousin.”

  Destiny grabbed her phone back. Her face drained of color, and she stared before typing furiously on her phone. “They’re spreading lies about me. I knew it. I knew this was going to happen.” She moaned and rocked back and forth.

  “Hey, calm down.” Eli put his hand on her arm. “We’ll straighten it out. Don’t worry.”

  “How? Everyone is going to think the worst things about me.”

  “I’ll think of something.” Eli pulled her to him, and she snuggled into his chest. “Don’t think about it right now.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one everyone is going to hate tomorrow.”

  Eli just held her and stroked her back. She might be right. With the rumors spreading that quickly, she might have a hard time at school tomorrow. “Have you thought about staying home tomorrow?”

  “I can’t. I have tests I have to take.”

  “Then ignore everyone else. I’ll be there. You can stick with me. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens.”

  A dark feeling spread through Eli’s gut. He hoped he knew what to do. Something told him he might not be able to follow through with his promise.

  Chapter 16

  Destiny’s parents weren’t too terribly happy about the kitten, but they let her keep it in her room for the time being. She’d work on them. They usually gave in to her if she persisted.

  Monday morning came too early, and Destiny texted Eli before she got ready for school.

  I’m nervous.