She's the Worst

by Lauren Spieller

  “Oh my god,” I say. “It’s Big Pete.”

  “Big who?” Nate asks.

  “Big Pete. He’s been the manager here for years. I totally forgot about him.” I duck down, then peer at Big Pete over Nate’s shoulder. “Now I remember—he’s the reason Jenn and I stopped coming here. He noticed we were hanging around every day and not spending any money, and he banned us from the rink!”

  “Sounds like a jerk,” Nate says.

  “Totally. After he banned us, Jenn said that was fine because we were never coming back anyway—” I freeze. “Oh my god.”

  “What?”

  “Jenn said we were never coming back!”

  Nate’s eyes go wide. “So that means—”

  “This isn’t the right place!” I look down at Nate’s feet. He’s still got one skate on. “Come on, take that off. We’ve got to hurry.”

  “Do you know where we should go next?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say as he pulls on his shoes. We both stand and head for the exit. “But we only have fifteen minutes—”

  “Hey!” Big Pete calls to us. “You two better pick those skates up and return them or you won’t be welcome back here.”

  I go back to the bench, grab the skates, and plop them onto the rental counter just as Big Pete steps back inside the booth. “I’m already not welcome back,” I say, pointing to a photo of my sister and me pinned to the corkboard behind him. “See?”

  Big Pete pulls the photo off the board and squints at it. “That’s you?” he asks.

  I reach across the counter and snatch the photo out of his hands. My sister and I are standing in front of the same booth I’m currently leaning against, our arms crossed. Jenn’s scowling at the camera, and I’m sticking my tongue out. At the top of the photo, in permanent marker, Big Pete has scrawled BANNED.

  “We got Boba after this,” I say, smiling. “It was Jenn’s first time having it, and she almost choked on a tapioca ball. We laughed so hard.”

  “Isn’t that nice,” Big Pete sneers.

  “Yeah,” I say, smiling down at the photo. “It was.”

  I turn to Nate. “We used to come here because it was too hot to hang outside, but the reason we were outside in the first place was because we had to get away from my parents.” I look down at the photo again, and grin. “This wasn’t the only place we used to go to get away, though. It wasn’t even our first choice.”

  “Sounds like you figured out where we’re going next.”

  “Damn right.”

  We start to walk away, but Big Pete calls after us.

  “Wait a minute,” he says. “You have to give that picture back! Banned once means—”

  “Banned for life!” I say, wagging the photo in the air. “I remember.”

  “Bye, Big Pete!” Nate calls as he waves. “Have a good night!”

  Big Pete splutters something, but we don’t hear it. We’re too busy pushing through the exit doors and hurrying out into the night.

  CHAPTER 28

  JENN

  This is the place,” I say. “I can feel it.”

  We’re parked next to Culver City High School, staring at the empty soccer field. I haven’t been here since graduation a few months ago, and already the place feels small and far away, like I’m peering at it from years in the future instead of through an old chain-link fence.

  “I’m telling you, it doesn’t feel right,” Shruthi says. “I know April likes soccer, but you said this was supposed to be a place that’s important to both of you.”

  “It is, but . . .” I hesitate, searching for the right words. I don’t want to sound like I’m throwing April under the bus, but Shruthi and Katie don’t know her like I do. “Let’s just say, she doesn’t always see other people quite as clearly as she thinks she does.”

  Katie snorts in the back seat.

  “What?” I ask, looking at her in the rearview mirror.

  She looks out the window. “Nothing.”

  “If you have something to say, say it.”

  Shruthi rubs her temples. “Quit it, both of you.”

  “She started it,” Katie grumbles.

  I spin in my seat to face her. “I did not.”

  Shruthi unbuckles her seat belt and throws open her door. “You two can keep fighting if you want to, but I’m going to check the field.”

  I kill the engine and we all get out. The field is flooded with light even though it’s a Saturday night in August. I don’t even want to think about how much money they’re wasting on electricity.

  “She’s not here,” Katie says when we reach the field.

  “Not yet,” I snap.

  Shruthi sits cross-legged on the grass. “Tell me again why you think this is where she’ll be.”

  I pat the grass to make sure it’s dry, then sit next to her. “She’s really into soccer. She even brought me to Venice Beach today because it’s where we went to celebrate her getting onto the JV team.”

  Katie sits beside me. “Why didn’t she bring you here earlier today, then? To the field where she actually made the team?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admit. “Maybe because this isn’t as fun as the boardwalk?”

  “Or maybe,” Shruthi says, “it’s because soccer wasn’t the point. Celebrating with you was.”

  I squeeze my knees to my chest. If Shruthi’s right, then that explains why April looked so bummed today when I couldn’t remember why Muscle Beach mattered to her. But how was I supposed to remember something that happened so long ago? She can’t expect me to keep every single little detail of our lives recorded in my memory.

  Except . . . that’s exactly what I expected her to do. It’s why I was so pissed today—first at the Ferris wheel, and later at lunch.

  Apparently, April’s not the only one who can be unreasonable.

  I look around the empty soccer field and sigh. “You’re right, Shruthi. This isn’t the right place. Let’s go.”

  We head back to the car and climb inside. “We only have twenty minutes left,” I say as I start the engine. “There’s no way we’re going to figure this out.”

  “I still think we should have stayed longer at Van Leeuwen,” Katie mutters in the back seat. “At least long enough to get a sundae.”

  Shruthi pulls a small spiral notebook and a mechanical pencil from her purse and crosses off soccer field from the short list we made before we left my house. Van Leeuwen and Westfield mall have already suffered the same fate.

  “Is there anything left?” I ask Shruthi.

  “Just Lindberg Park.”

  “She won’t be there,” I say. “Trust me.”

  Shruthi tips her head to the side. “But you said that’s where you made the pact when you were kids. How can she not remember that, when she’s the one who remembered the pact in the first place?”

  I start the car in lieu of an answer. I may have been wrong to expect April to perfectly remember every little detail of our lives, but I’m not wrong about this.

  “Let’s go to the park anyway,” Shruthi says. She double-taps the pad with the eraser end of her mechanical pencil. “It’s five minutes from here, so if it doesn’t feel right, we can leave.”

  “Fine,” I say. “But it’s a waste of five minutes.”

  I pull away from the curb, and we ride to the park in silence. I try not to, but I find myself glancing at Katie in the rearview mirror every few seconds. She’s clearly angry about something. I look at Shruthi, hoping for a clue as to what’s wrong with Katie, or at least a sympathetic eye roll, but she’s staring straight ahead, her arms tightly crossed and her lips pursed. It’s the same face she was making earlier tonight at her house.

  Are they both mad at me?

  “It looks pretty empty,” Shruthi says when I pull up to the park.

  “I told you,” I mutter.

  “But,” she says, opening the door, “we might as well get out and look around.”

  We climb out of the car and cross the parking lot toward the p
layground. The park is deserted, the only noise coming from our feet crunching across the sand as we step into the play area. I circle the jungle gym and head for the swings.

  “This feels right,” Shruthi says as she leans against the bright blue slide sticking out of a piece of playground equipment. “I think she’ll come. Don’t you?”

  A few minutes ago, I was sure she wouldn’t. But sitting here now, I’m suddenly not as confident. April and I did indeed come here on the day of the pact—in fact, we spent most of the day hanging out under the blue slide Shruthi is leaning against at this very minute, eating ice cream. But even though there would be a certain amount of poetry to April choosing to meet me here, a part of me hopes she doesn’t, since it would pretty much ruin the whole let’s-meet-somewhere-that-has-a-positive-memory-attached-to-it-for-both-of-us thing.

  “If we’re staying,” Katie says, “we might as well get comfortable.”

  She climbs onto a piece of castle-shaped play equipment and sits. Below her, Shruthi leans against the slide.

  We sit in silence, waiting. I keep checking my phone, but I have no calls from April, and Nate hasn’t returned the call I made from the mall parking lot. Either they’re not together, or she’s not coming.

  I look over at my friends just as Shruthi says something softly to Katie, who shakes her head in response. Shruthi says something again, and they both smile. I wrap my hands around the metal rings of the swing and try to pretend not to care that they’re whispering to each other again. But when Shruthi giggles, then quickly covers her mouth, I lose my cool. “Do you guys need some privacy?” I ask. “ ’Cause I can go.”

  Shruthi immediately looks apologetic, but Katie crosses her arms. “I know you’re stressed right now, but don’t take it out on us.”

  “I’m not,” I say. “I’m just tired of you guys whispering like I’m not even here. It’s rude to leave someone out like that.”

  Katie mutters, “Hypocrite.”

  “How am I a hypocrite?” I demand. “Is this about Stanford? Because it’s really none of your business that I didn’t tell my parents.”

  “It’s not that,” Katie says. “You’ve been distant for months, and then today at lunch . . .” She shakes her head, but doesn’t continue.

  Shruthi sighs and joins me on the swings. “You know we care about you and want you to be happy,” Shruthi says. “Right?”

  I wrap my arms around myself. “Right.”

  “Good. Then you know what I’m about to say is coming from a place of love.” She takes a deep breath and folds her hands in her lap. “Today at lunch, you were a total jackass.”

  I suck in a sharp breath. Beside me, Katie laughs. “Dude,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse.”

  “That’s because you don’t speak Hindi,” Shruthi says, waving her off. “But, Jenn, I’m serious. You were really unfair to us.”

  “I already apologized to you about lunch,” I say as Katie comes down the slide to stand next to Shruthi.

  “You didn’t apologize to me,” Katie says. “And you basically called us bad friends, just because we’re living together. What’s so horrible about that?”

  “It wasn’t just that,” I say. “You guys are leaving me behind.”

  “We’re not leaving you behind,” Shruthi says. “We’re going to college. If anyone is doing the leaving, it’s you.” She and Katie exchange another look. “I know this is a bad time to bring this up because you and Tom just broke up, but you guys have been a closed circuit this year. We only saw you in class, never on the weekends. And like Katie said at lunch, every time we’ve tried to talk to you about the future, you’ve gotten quiet and refused to discuss it.”

  I twist my hands in my lap. “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

  “Tell her what you told me,” Shruthi says to Katie. “After lunch.”

  Katie grimaces. “You didn’t hug us. You just said goodbye, and went out to the car with April, like it was any other day. I thought you were pissed about our argument at lunch, but Shruthi insisted you were just distracted, since you probably still had a lot of stuff to do before moving. So we waved at you from across the parking lot. But instead of waving back . . . you pretended not to notice.”

  I want to jump out of my swing and wrap my arms around them both—it’s the only way I know how to apologize for being so stupid and thoughtless. But before I can get up the courage, Katie says, “There’s more.” Her gaze drops to the sand at her feet. “On the way home, I just kept thinking, Maybe this is it. Maybe she’s not just mad, or busy, or distracted. Maybe she doesn’t want to be friends with us anymore.”

  I grip the chain of the swing. “Oh my gosh, never,” I say. “I just got so caught up in the secret I was keeping that I stopped paying attention to anything else.”

  As the words leave my mouth, a horrible thought occurs to me: Is this what Tom was talking about?

  “What’s wrong?” Shruthi asks. “You look upset.”

  “It’s nothing,” I say immediately.

  “Don’t do that,” Katie says. “Please, Jenn. You’ve been shutting us out for months. Please don’t do it now.”

  I drag my flat through the sand beneath the swing, not meeting Katie’s eye. “Do you guys think I’m self-centered?”

  “Why in the world would you ask that?” Shruthi asks.

  “It’s something Tom said when he was breaking up with me. He said I don’t listen to other people. All I care about is what’s going on with me.” I feel tears coming, but I press on. “And now you guys are saying I’ve been ignoring you, and then there’s the whole thing with not telling my parents the truth, and how I treated April today and . . . what if he’s right? What if I’m the selfish one?” The first tear rolls down my cheek, followed quickly by another.

  “You absolutely are not,” Katie says fiercely. “You give more of yourself than anyone I’ve ever met. Sometimes too much.”

  “But you just said I haven’t been around for you guys lately—”

  “Yeah, and that sucked,” Katie says. “But it doesn’t mean you’re a selfish person. It just means you made a mistake.”

  “And as for your parents,” Shruthi says, “you’ve been putting your needs second for years. Just because you’re tired of doing that doesn’t mean you’re some kind of monster.” She shakes her head. “That reasoning is simplistic at best. It’s also extremely ironic.” I must look as confused as I feel, because she continues. “Tom’s accusing you of not listening, and of not talking to your parents because you’re selfish. Right?”

  “Right . . .”

  “Then what does it say about him that he gave you absolutely no warning whatsoever that he was unhappy, and then ended things without giving you a chance to defend yourself, or, I don’t know, fix things between the two of you?”

  Katie takes a seat on the swing to my left. “She’s got a point.”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “No, definitely,” Katie says. “You can’t just expect people to read your mind. You have to talk to them. You also have to give them a chance to be there for you.”

  She takes my hand, making it clear that even though she’s talking about Tom, she’s talking a little bit about her and Shruthi, too. But as we sit there, holding hands, I realize the person this applies to more than anyone isn’t the three of them, or even my parents. It’s April.

  I’ve been so focused on everything else that’s going on that I’ve missed something truly obvious: This entire day was about my sister trying to be here for me. She even stuck it out after I admitted I’d lied to her. But instead of appreciating everything she’s done, I’ve been awful to her. When she didn’t get every little thing right, I held it against her. It never even occurred to me that it might be forgivable that she had forgotten a few things over the years, or that maybe she had been too young to realize them in the first place. I never gave her the benefit of the doubt. I assumed the worst.

  Just like I’m doing now.


  “You guys,” I say. “The park . . . it’s not the right place.”

  “Are you sure?” Shruthi asks.

  “I think so. I figured she had forgotten everything about the day we made the pact except the good stuff, so it would have made sense that she’d come here. But I was underestimating her.”

  I get off the swing and start to pace back and forth through the sand. “All day she’s been picking stuff that I thought was all about her, but I’ve been missing the point. She hasn’t been choosing places just because they’re fun. She’s been picking places where we’ve actually, you know . . . talked. Connected.”

  “I still don’t understand why it can’t be here,” Shruthi says, gesturing to the park around us. “It seems like this should be the perfect place.”

  I come to an abrupt stop. “We spent the day here, but then we went home—to the one place we always spent time together when we wanted to get away. That’s where we made the pact. Not here.”

  Katie grins. “Did you just figure out where she is?”

  I smile back. “I think so.”

  “Then let’s go!” Shruthi says. “I’ll get the car.”

  I check my phone. It’s already 7:55.

  “No time—there’s still too much traffic. I’m just going to run.” I turn to leave, then face my friends again. “Thank you guys so much for helping me. I know I need to be better about—”

  “Tell us later!” Katie exclaims. “Go!”

  I hug them both, my arms flung wide around them, then take off running.

  CHAPTER 29

  APRIL

  Move!” I yell out the window. “It’s Saturday night! All you people should be home or at a club or something. Not in your stupid cars!”

  “We’re less than ten minutes away,” Nate says as we inch forward in traffic even though the light ahead is green. “You’re going to be on time.” The light turns yellow, then red, and we come to a stop. “Maybe a minute or two late,” Nate amends. “Max.”

  “Jenn is never late. Ever.” I cross my arms, then uncross them. The clock on the dashboard clicks forward another minute. 7:52.