Damsel Distressed (16 page)

She grins at me and grabs her bag from the floorboard. Her eyes are bright in the darkness, and I feel like warm, happy feelings are shining straight from her smile. She peeks her head back inside the car door for just a moment and answers, “Yeah. It is.”

15

I
‘m bad at lots of things. Bad at walking through a crowded room alone and looking at something other than my feet. Bad at not pissing off my best friend. But I'm extra-super-seriously bad at sleeping when I'm anxious.

I will myself to stay in bed until my alarm goes off just on principle, and once it does, my phone pings again and a message from Grant pops up.

“Didn't want to text till you'd be awake. Have to go to school early for contest stuff. Don't need a ride. See you later.”

So here's where I should text him back and apologize for being so annoying yesterday and tell him that I know I was ridiculous. The thing at the restaurant was just blown out of proportion, but the reason he snapped at me was because of what happened when I snapped at him in the sound booth. I know I struck a nerve. I was cold and said things I don't even believe.

I'm big enough to say I'm sorry. But…

“OK”
I type.

Great. Good job. You selfish, stupid girl
.

I search through my closet for the least dirty pair of jeans to coordinate with the self-loathing I'm wearing.

Come on, Imogen. He deserves better than that
.

As I grab my bag, I look at our texts. My heart cracks. I feel it. I hear it.

I risk my very life as I type while walking down the stairs.

“I'm sorry.”

I watch, and I see that he starts to type. As I enter the kitchen, the little graphic disappears. He's stopped typing. Or deleted it. A reply never comes.

In the kitchen, I microwave two sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwiches and find a note from Evelyn on the counter.

“Hi, sweetie. I had to run to an early morning yoga class, and Carmella had something early at school. Be sure to lock up, and have a great day!:)”

I crumple the note in a ball and toss it into the recycle bin. How can a morning completely absent of any physical human contact make me so completely irritated by people? I toss another breakfast sandwich into the microwave for good measure.

It isn't until I'm walking up to the school that I realize I didn't have to deal with first period yesterday. I make a beeline for the counseling office so I can be sure Evelyn made the call about changing my schedule.

The receptionist has a pair of glasses pushed up on top of her head and another pair hanging from a beaded chain around her neck. At the counter, I don't wait for her to see me. I just sort of start talking.

“Hi. My name is Imogen Keegan, K-E-E-G-A-N, and my stepmom was supposed to call and leave word that my schedule should be changed. My first period. Some other English class, I don't really care, but I need to make sure my schedule is totally, definitely changed.”

I throw my thumb against my teeth and start gnawing at my cuticle while she wordlessly clickityclacks on her keyboard. “Your first period class is Mr. Reed's junior English.”

“No, it
was
Mr. Reed's junior English, but now it should be something different.”

“We do not have a change on file for you, and there are no notes about your stepmom calling about your schedule.”

I rub my left hand against the pocket of my jeans. Maybe the thick seam will scrape away my nerves before I completely freak out.

“I can't go. I can't. Could you please call her? Maybe she forgot.”

“There's no note,” she says.

“I can't go to that class!” I hear my voice echo in the small office, and two teachers stop in their tracks in the mail room behind the front desk.

She blinks at me and makes a pissy little scowl with her lips.

“I am in the middle of other things right now, and frankly, it's not the first month of school anymore and you need to attend your assigned class. Or we can escalate this if you'd prefer.” She reaches down and holds up a pad of paper that says “Discipline Referral Form” on the top, and I can see that I'm not getting anywhere with Miss Six-Eyes, so I take my soggy hands and my soggy eyes and turn to walk out the door just as the bell rings for first period.

While I was playing ninja in the hallways yesterday, trying to avoid Carmella during every single passing period, I figured out which hallway houses her locker.

Of course, since I came in by the front office, I'll have to walk down that hallway to get to the library to meet my class.

I walk on my tiptoes, my neck craning to see over the heads and shoulders of all of the kids who are taller than me and who are filling the hallways like a flood. I bump and push past people, and I don't even hug the wall. I need a clear view if I'm going to avoid her.

I start to imagine what Carmella will put me through today. Maybe she's going to lead them in a chorus of jeers as I enter, or maybe she'll have a bucket of mac and cheese ready to dump on my head in a more delicious version of a horror movie scenario.

“Please just leave me alone,” I mutter to myself as I pull open the double door of the library. We're working on our research, and I scan the room for Jonathan after waving at Mr. Reed, who checks me off of his attendance sheet.

I look from corner to corner and I can't see Carmella's perfect hair or her perfect face anywhere, but there's Jonathan. He's snagged us a table tucked in the most quiet, isolated corner of the two-story library.

Thankfully, our table is tiny, but the chairs are pretty big. I'm comfortable when I sit—something I haven't experienced at school in a very long time. Jonathan's notes are spread out, and his hands are hidden under the table.

I glance over my shoulder again, half-expecting for Carmella to jump out from behind a shelf screaming something horrible at me, but I still can't see her anywhere.

“Where is she?” I mumble as I crane my neck. There's no chance of me focusing until I find her. I know she's here. Her mom said she'd be at school today.

“Who—Cinderella?” Jonathan asks with a grin spreading across his face.

I smirk and point my finger at him. “Don't call her that.”

He laughs and reaches up to turn the page.

I can't help but steal a glance. I've felt something weird must be going on with his hands since I noticed he's always got at least one of them shoved deep in his pocket. I'm leaning over, trying and failing at being stealthy while looking for missing fingers, warts, or webbing.

“Miss Keegan?”

I let out a tiny scream and almost fall out of my chair when Mr. Reed says my name directly behind me.

He uses his hand to smooth over his hair—side to side, not front to back—and then he asks, “Have I already given you two a rubric?” He sets a sheet of paper on the table before we can answer. “Make sure you reference at least five print sources and cite them correctly on your works cited page. Do you two have everything you need?”

“Yeah. I think we're fine, but um…” I clear my throat. “Is Ella, my stepsister, here?”

Mr. Reed points to a Post-it note on his clipboard. “I received an email yesterday afternoon stating that Miss Cinder would not be in my first period class after all. I believe her mother called and requested a schedule change.”

“She did?”

I'm not complaining, but what would have made Evelyn change Precious Princess's schedule instead of mine? How would she know that was the problem?

Oh God, I hope Evelyn hasn't, like, figured something out and is planning a George-ified intervention. I'll jump through his sixth-floor window, I am not even kidding.

“Apparently so,” Mr. Reed says as he sniffles and tugs at the waistband of his ill-fitting trousers. I can't help but notice that they're so long he's stepping on the back of the hem. “Now, back to work, please.”

He stuffs his clipboard under his arm and continues making rounds throughout the library.

I swear, little singing birds start flying around my head, and the entire room fills with rainbows and kittens. If this were a musical, and everyone in the library knew the choreography, and if we had a really amazing, bouncy, peppy score (something modern like Jason Robert Brown, not classic like Gershwin), I would gladly dance my way through this musical number and jazz hands my ass right to the top of the circulation desk.

“Congratulations,” Jonathan says as I reach for my phone. I smile. My heart is paper-light as I text Grant the good news.

At some point this morning, he decided to answer my text after all:
“I know. Me too. Lunch in courtyard today?”

“Sure
. ☺” I reply.

I pull out my tiny white earbuds and turn on my “Try to Be Happy, Dummy” playlist.

Just a few hours without Cinder-comma-Ella, and I'm already feeling happier. If I close my eyes and focus on the music, I can almost convince myself she was never here in the first place.

16

"O
kay, that isn't hopping or running or skipping, but it could be frolicking. Are you frolicking?” Grant asks as he stands to greet me in the courtyard with his sandwich in hand and his soda on the picnic table.

The sky is perfectly blue, and I'm still imagining a big dance number featuring all of the nearby squirrels and ladybugs. I glance at the mural as I walk by and do a quick sweep, top to bottom. I pick a two-foot wide section and scan it all the way down to the grass. I set down my tray and continue to circle the table until I'm on his side.

Grant reaches over and wraps his sandwich hand around my shoulders, hugging me into his chest.

I speak, muffled, into his shirt. “First, yes. I would call that frolicking. Second, hi. Third, yesterday was a really, really bad day. Really bad. And I'm sorry I took it out on you.”

He leans his head down, and I feel his cheek resting against mine. He closes his arm around tighter. The smell of his grape jelly makes me grin.

His speech sounds soft as it whispers through my hair. “I know. I shouldn't have huffed off like a brat.” His sandwich has the cutest little nibbles taken out of it.

“But you are a brat.” I push against his shoulders, and he fakes a giant groan of pain and staggers back as if I've given him a roundhouse kick to the neck.

He brushes his T-shirt smooth (it uses Barium, Carbon, Oxygen, and Nitrogen to spell BaCON) and then comes back to the table to sit. I do the same. We're positioned on one side of the table, facing the south wall mural because we always look when we're here. He knows the drill.

“I really am sorry,” I say. “I know. Me too.” He leans over to bump my shoulder and takes a huge bite of his sandwich. Mouth full of sticky peanut butter, he says, “So congratulations on a Carmella-free English class. How did that happen?”

“Well…” I pull apart my white dinner roll and smear my white mashed potatoes across the sections in my white Styrofoam tray. “They changed her schedule, I don't know why, but she's gone.”

“I thought you asked Evelyn to call and change

your
schedule.”

“I did, but Reed said that Evelyn called to change Carmella's instead. I just got lucky, I guess. Maybe Carmella had to find some way to replace her class on Post-Modern Industrialism in the Western World or something.”

“What?” Grant lets his sandwich-filled mouth hang open with confusion.

Even when he's gross, he's not gross.

“Nothing. Whatever. Anyway, I am basically the happiest girl in the world. I probably won't ever have to see her again.”

I'm distracted by some freshmen boys that charge out of the cafeteria and chase each other through the courtyard, jumping through a circle of girls who are sitting and eating in a big, bubbly ring on the grass.

“Okay, you do remember that you live in the same house. In adjacent rooms.”

“Yes, Grant, I remember. But we've got rehearsals almost every night, and she's got dance team practice, plus you and I get here early, and—I don't know—I'm just feeling optimistic!”

“Oh my God.” Grant stares at me and sets down the last bit of his sandwich.

“What?” I ask, looking over my shoulder.

“Oh my God!”

“
What?
”

Grant stands up and shouts across the courtyard, “Ladies and gentlemen! Imogen is feeling optimistic! Cake for everyone!”

“Oh shut your mouth, Thornton!” I throw a bit of bread at him and look around to make sure that he didn't actually get anyone's attention. He didn't.

“See anything new?” Grant asks as I turn my face to the wall again. Top to bottom, starting with that big red “C.” Just outside my field of vision, I sense him turn his head to the wall. When my eyes get all the way to the grass, I let out a little sigh and let my gaze wander back to the top.

“See that blue dog up there?” I point above our heads at this pathetic-looking blue dog with a striped tail. “I thought that might be hers. Then I realized the stripes spelled ‘Tommy Rules' so…”

“Not hers.” He continues to stare at the wall beside me. The breeze blows, and I smell his hair goop, strong and boy-scented, like the smell of soap and cheap grocery store cologne and a little bit of something else.

“Definitely not,” I agree.

I scan another large stripe.

“Have you ever considered that maybe she didn't paint anything? I mean, how do you know she even put something up there?” Grant continues to scan the wall.

“I just know. Her whole class did it before their graduation. It's not really her style to sit out and be a bystander when it comes to a public display of anything.”

Or it
wasn't
really her style.

I drop my chin.

“It's been a tough few days, Gen, I know that.”

“Yeah.” I nod my head and mumble toward my chest, “You have no idea.”