She's the Worst

by Lauren Spieller

  “April said that?” Shruthi asks.

  “She wasn’t talking about Tom when she said it, but she’s still right—I can’t go to Stanford without him, Shruthi. We had everything planned out. We’re even in the same dorm. If I run into him . . . I just can’t do it.”

  Shruthi crosses her arms and fixes me with a stare so similar to the one her mom gave her in the kitchen that it makes me sit up straighter in my chair.

  “I know what you’re thinking, okay? I need to call him and talk it through.”

  “No,” Shruthi says.

  “No?”

  “No. I think he made what he wants pretty clear.” My eyes fill with tears again, but she keeps talking. “What’s not clear is what you want.”

  I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “I want Tom. I want to be with him.”

  “Okay,” she says. “But what else? You want more out of life than just dating Tom, right?”

  “Of course,” I say, bristling. “Of course I do.”

  “Good. Like what?”

  I look down at my hands and rub the little red line left behind on my index finger by the coriander stem. “I wanted to go to Stanford, but now—”

  “Why?” she asks, cutting me off. “Why did you want to go to Stanford?”

  I sit back in the dining room chair. “Um . . . because it’s a really good school? They have a well-respected biomedical science program.”

  She frowns. “I didn’t know you were interested in that.”

  “Oh, I’m not, but Tom—”

  “—is interested in biomed,” Shruthi says, nodding. “Which is why he applied there. But do you remember why you applied?”

  I swallow, and tears fill my eyes. “I just wanted to be with him.”

  “No!” Shruthi says, and slaps the table.

  I jump in my seat.

  “Jenn, listen to me,” Shruthi says, leaning forward. “You’ve been talking about Stanford for as long as I’ve known you, and you had a reason for wanting to go there way before you met Tom.”

  I sniff and wipe my eyes. “I don’t remember.”

  Shruthi fixes me with her mother’s stare again. “You said you wanted to go there because it’s the best of all worlds—great science facilities, amazing arts departments, you name it. You said Stanford would give you a ‘world-class liberal arts education.’ We were only in tenth grade and you were already thinking like a college counselor.” Shruthi shakes her head. “But it wasn’t just that. You also said you wanted to be closer to your grandma. Doesn’t she live up there?”

  “Yeah, in San Mateo,” I say.

  “Has any of that changed?”

  I shake my head.

  Shruthi sits back in her chair, a look of satisfaction on her face. “Then you should still go,” she says. “Regardless of whether you’re dating Tom.”

  “I don’t hear you picking coriander!” Mrs. Thakur calls from the kitchen. “Shruthi, come get another bag. You still have fifteen to go!”

  Shruthi grimaces. “Be right back.”

  She goes into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the dining room with the pile of coriander leaves and discarded stems. I pick one up, but this time I pop one of the bright green leaves into my mouth instead of winding the stem around my finger. Shruthi’s right. I know she is. But the idea of walking onto that huge campus without Tom still terrifies me. For the last year I’ve pictured us doing everything together—classes, meals, Friday nights—but now that I know he won’t be there, I can’t see myself there either. It’s as if by erasing us, he’s erased me, too.

  “Sorry about that,” Shruthi says as she comes back into the room. She dumps a second bag of coriander on the table. “Mom says if we finish this one, then she’ll heat up some leftovers from last night. I know that doesn’t sound very appetizing, but curry is actually better the next day.”

  “I’ve had some of your lunch at school,” I say. “I trust anything that comes out of your mom’s kitchen.”

  “I made it this time, actually,” she says. “But she taught me.”

  I grin. “Even better.”

  Shruthi picks up a piece of coriander and gets back to work. I feel a little better now that I’ve told her about Tom, but now that that’s out of the way, I notice the way she’s sitting—her legs tightly crossed, her lips pursed—is strange.

  So is the way she’s ripping the leaves off the stems.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask. “I mean, between you and me?”

  “Sure.”

  She keeps tearing the leaves away from the stems, one after another.

  “Shruthi,” I say.

  “Hmm?”

  “Look at me, please?”

  She hesitates, then puts the coriander down. “What’s up?”

  “I’m sorry about today,” I say. “I was a jerk at lunch.”

  “Yes,” she says, nodding. “You were. What I don’t get is why.”

  I’m on the verge of telling her the truth, when I realize . . . I don’t want to tell her what my sister said. Not just because I’m embarrassed that I was so easily manipulated—though I am—but because a teeny, tiny part of me isn’t sure April was wrong. I didn’t invent them leaving me out of their conversation about UCLA, nor did I imagine the way they leaned in to talk to each other the moment I stepped away from the table.

  But I don’t want to tell Shruthi that because it’ll just start an argument, and the last thing I want to do right now is get into a fight in the middle of her dining room with Mrs. Thakur only a few feet away. So I bottle it up instead and say, “I was in a bad mood, I guess.”

  Shruthi considers me for a moment, then picks up another stem. “If you don’t keep working, we’re never going to eat.”

  “Sorry,” I say, returning to the pile of greens. I clear my throat. “I’d rather pick coriander all night than go home, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when I get home,” I say, “I have to tell my parents about Stanford.”

  “What about it?”

  “That I’m going. They, um . . . still think I’m staying here.”

  Shruthi drops the coriander she’s picking. “I thought you told them weeks ago!” She shakes her head. “This isn’t right.”

  “I know,” I say, struggling to keep my tone even. First April and Tom, now Shruthi. “I was hoping Tom was going to help me tell them tonight—”

  “Tonight is now,” Shruthi says. “It’s already almost seven!”

  She bags the rest of the coriander and stands. “Come on. I’m getting you some dinner, and then we’re going.”

  “Wait, you’re coming with me? You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know,” she says, “but if you haven’t noticed, I’m a really, really good friend.”

  CHAPTER 23

  APRIL

  Our first stop is Van Leeuwen in Culver City. Technically it was supposed to be the last stop, but after the day I’ve had, ice cream is a priority.

  We both order the usual—salted caramel for me, honeycomb for him—and grab a table on the empty patio out back. It makes me a little sad to be here without Jenn, but the ice cream helps.

  “Whoa,” Nate says as I eat three sweet-and-salty bites in quick succession.

  “What? It’s delicious.” I reach across the table and swipe a bite of his with my spoon. “Why do I always forget that honeycomb is better?”

  The door opens, and two girls on a date come outside. One of them winks at me as they sit down at the table next to ours. It takes me a minute to figure out why, and then I realize—she thinks Nate and I are on a date too. I shake my head, but she’s already turned away.

  “So, what’s left to do on the list?” Nate asks when we’ve finished our ice cream. “Anything particularly good?”

  I glance at my purse. On the way over, I remembered the envelope of photos is still inside, so technically I don’t need the list on my phone. But I don’t tell Nate that. He’d want to see the pictures, and I’m not sure I wa
nt to look at Jenn’s face right now, regardless of the fact that she’s no older than fourteen in most of them. “We were going to head toward Beverly Hills and do a few things over on that side of town, and then the last stop was coming here for ice cream.”

  “Cheers,” Nate says, lifting his spoon.

  I take another bite, and my thoughts return to the envelope. Our parents printed most of the photos for a photo album that never actually came together. But there’s one photo that isn’t in the envelope, because my parents have never seen it. No one has, because it’s been sitting in my cell phone since the day I took it.

  It was a few weeks into Jenn’s freshman year, and we’d just spent the entire summer hanging out at the ice rink and playing Crazy Eights on the roof of our duplex while the sun set. Then she started high school, and for the first time we weren’t at the same school anymore. No more walking together in the morning or running into each other in the halls as she hurried to eighth-grade PE and I stalled before sixth-grade science. We had to wait until we got home to talk.

  That’s why we decided to go to Van Leeuwen that day—to catch up. Jenn hadn’t made many friends yet, and I was already struggling in history even though we were only a few weeks into the semester. We were halfway through eating our ice cream when I noticed Jenn checking out a guy in line. I asked if she knew him from high school, but she blushed and changed the subject. Then, when she went to the bathroom, I noticed him noticing her. So when Jenn came back from the bathroom, I offered him a seat at our table . . . then conveniently realized I had to make a phone call the moment he sat down.

  As soon as I got inside, I turned around and snapped the very first picture of them ever taken—the picture on my cell phone.

  I wasn’t sure about including Van Leeuwen in today’s itinerary. I’m not in that photo, so technically it’s not about Jenn and me. But I wanted Jenn to remember that, even though it’s a picture of her and Thomas, I was there too. I was there first. And if I hadn’t been, not only would the picture not exist, Jenn and Thomas might not either.

  But after what she said in the car—about how I made everything about me instead of us—it’s probably for the best that she didn’t see it. She’d say I was being selfish again, and worse, she’d probably be right.

  The door opens again, and another couple comes outside and sits on the other side of the patio.

  “We should go,” Nate says suddenly.

  “Why?” I ask. “We just got here. I haven’t even finished eating—”

  “I know,” he says, standing. “But we should get you some real dinner. Ice cream isn’t good for you.”

  “I think I’ll be okay, Mom. Will you please sit back down?” I glance over at the two girls seated a few feet away. “People are going to think we’re in a fight or something.”

  “No,” Nate says, his eyes widening as he stares at something over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “What the hell is wrong is with you?” I ask, turning around. “What are you looking at— Oh.”

  Ten feet away from us, seated at a table in the corner of the patio, is Eric, his hands tangled in the curly brown hair of the girl he’s with. The girl he’s kissing.

  “Come on,” Nate says. “You don’t have to watch this.”

  But I’m not listening to him. I’m too busy touching my own curls, remembering the way Eric’s hands felt in my hair when he kissed me just a few hours ago. “Mother. Fucker.”

  Nate’s eyes go wide. “Shh, they’re going to hear you.”

  Shit. I did not mean to say that out loud.

  The brunette breaks away from Eric and looks over. “April?”

  Oh god. It’s Blair, from my trig class. I raise a hand and smile weakly. “Hey.”

  “Hi! How’s your summer going?” Blair smiles, and I notice her lipstick is a little smudged from kissing. My stomach churns. I should not have eaten that ice cream so fast.

  “Oh, sorry,” Blair says, reaching out for Eric’s hand. “This is Eric. Or do you guys already know each other?”

  Eric stares daggers at me, but his voice is light and friendly. “A little, yeah. April and I both play soccer.”

  “Oh, right,” Blair says. “Of course.”

  Eric continues to stare me down, even as he places his hand on Blair’s. My heart squeezes in my chest. I know what he’s doing. He’s making it clear that I am not supposed to let on that we’re dating. Correction—that we were dating. If that’s what we were even doing. Oh god, what were we doing? And what are they doing? Is she his girlfriend now? He never took me out for ice cream. He never took me anywhere. We always just met up somewhere private, like my room, or his car.

  I guess that’s the difference between what he does when he really likes someone and what he does when he just wants to have sex.

  My eyes start to burn, and I know I’m thirty seconds away from crying. I start to turn away and realize Nate is watching me. “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  We start for the exit. Behind us, Blair calls, “See you around, April!”

  I hesitate, my hand on the door. I have to say something. I don’t want to be rude to her—she didn’t do anything wrong. But I know the minute I open my mouth, I’ll start to cry.

  Nate puts his hand on my back. “I’ve got this.”

  He turns around and strides toward their table. “Hi, I’m Nate,” he says to Blair, extending his hand.

  “Nice to meet you,” she says, a look of surprise on her face as they shake hands.

  “You too. We’re going to get out of your way, but I thought you might want to know one thing before we go.”

  Blaire blinks. “Um, okay?”

  “This guy you’re with?” Nate says, gesturing to Eric. “He’s a piece of shit.”

  Then he turns around, grabs my hand, and pulls me outside.

  CHAPTER 24

  JENN

  Are you ready?” Shruthi asks.

  We’ve been sitting in the car for almost ten minutes, staring at my duplex. The white stucco walls are bright against the darkening summer sky, and inside, the chandelier my parents found twenty years ago on their honeymoon in Italy casts a warm, welcoming glow. Mom is seated on the couch, while Dad walks back and forth past the front window. It would be the picture of comfort and happiness . . . if they weren’t screaming at each other.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Shruthi says. “I’m sure they’ll understand once you explain.”

  “I doubt it,” I say.

  My dad throws his hands up in the air, and Shruthi winces. “I’ll admit, your dad looks kinda . . .”

  “Pissed?” I say. She nods.

  Mom stands, and begins rearranging pillows on the couch, something she does when she’s so furious she can’t sit still. It usually means I have about five minutes to calm things down before she totally loses it.

  Normally, I’d hurry inside to interrupt whatever they’re fighting about and save them from themselves. It would be the right thing to do. But today isn’t a normal day, so I stay put.

  Shruthi clears her throat. “Do you have a plan?”

  I shake my head. A plan would have been a good idea—we’ve been sitting here long enough that I probably could have come up with one—but every time I try to imagine myself telling my parents the truth, my mind goes back to Tom. Or, more specifically, the look on his face when he told me he wanted to break up. He seemed sad, but also scared. Was he afraid he was going to regret breaking up with me? Or that he might not have the courage to go through with it? And then, when I was leaving, he said he loved me . . . but he also said he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to get back together. How can both those things be true at the same time?

  I reach for my phone. I put it on silent at dinner, and I haven’t checked it since. The screen is full of missed calls and unread texts from Mom and Dad, but nothing from Tom. My heart sinks.

  “Jenn?” Shruthi says. “I think they
see us.”

  I look up. Mom and Dad are standing in the doorway to the house, staring at the car.

  “Crap. I better go in.”

  “Want me to go with you?”

  “I think I’d better do this on my own.” I hand Shruthi the keys. “Wanna drive yourself home? I’ll bike over when we’re done and pick up the car.”

  Shruthi nods. “Good luck.”

  I climb out and walk slowly across the street. Mom’s arms are crossed, and Dad looks like he might start yelling again at any moment. It occurs to me that they might not just be mad at each other—they might be mad at me for not showing up at the store too. I take a deep breath and speed up. Might as well get this over with.

  “Hi,” I say when I’m a few feet away from the front door. “Sorry I didn’t come earlier—”

  “When were you going to tell us?” Mom interrupts. “Or were you going to keep lying forever?”

  I come to an abrupt stop. “What?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” she says. “April told us everything.”

  My stomach sinks. Of course she did. Of course. I bet she couldn’t wait to rat me out after our fight in the car.

  “Well?” Dad says. “We’re waiting.”

  I glance over my shoulder. Shruthi is still in the passenger seat, her face ghost white as she watches us. This is not how I wanted to tell them. “Can we go inside?” I ask.

  I scurry past them into the house, not waiting for an answer. Mom and Dad follow me, slamming the door behind us.

  Dad stands in the middle of the living room. “Sit down.”

  I drop onto the couch and fold my hands in my lap. Mom and Dad stand in front of me, their faces matching masks of fury. I swallow and examine my fingers. I’ve never been in any real trouble before, at least not like this. But I’ve seen Mom and Dad argue a million times. I can handle this.

  “I know you’re upset,” I say carefully.

  “You’re damn right,” Dad says.

  “But I think if you sit down,” I continue, gesturing to the empty seats beside me, “I can explain everything. What’s important to keep in mind is—”

  Mom holds up a hand. “Jennifer, don’t talk to us like we’re children. In fact, you are not to speak unless we ask you a direct question. Do you understand?”