If I Lie (5 page)

I’d hate that girl too, if I didn’t know the truth about her. And it doesn’t really matter how good or kind she was before.

I wait until the last bell rings before I enter the school. Better to be tardy than brave the crowded halls alone. That is a lesson I learned the hard way.

After the photo was first posted, I grew accustomed to the stares. My classmates and I have come to an uneasy truce. I don’t speak to them, and they pretend I don’t exist. It works with everyone, except Jamie. With Carey out of the way, she’s made it her mission to destroy me. I want to tell her to give it up: Carey
can’t love her no matter how hard she tries. But that would lead to questions and explanations I can’t give.

Whatever progress I’ve made in the six months since Jamie posted the picture of me on the Web will have been destroyed by the latest news about Carey. The scene at Bob’s proved that.

Yellow ribbons are plastered on many of the orange lockers in the deserted main hallway. I hadn’t expected that, but it doesn’t surprise me a bit. Carey is ours. He might as well have a
PROPERTY OF SWEETHAVEN
label stamped on his ass. He belongs to this town, and we belong to him. These ribbons say
I’m proud of you
and
I miss you
and
Come home safe
. I feel a twinge of fierce longing and love for my former friends.

Then I arrive at my locker to retrieve my calculus book for first period. The artist really took his or her time carving
TRAITOR
into the metal skin of my locker. And beneath that, in larger letters:
WHORE
. They must have used an awl because the letters are good and deep. The message will reappear like magic no matter how many coats of paint Mr. Dupree, the janitor, slaps on it.

Freaking awesome.

You’d think they could find a scrap of originality after all these months.

*   *   *

It sucked to start my senior year crowned as the town slut.

News traveled fast in our town of 3,053, and the night before school started, a picture hit the Internet and lit our corner of the world on fire. Some had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about
cheating, and the appearance of my half-naked self on Facebook challenged that. The picture had to have been taken by accident. Shot from the end zone at an August football scrimmage, the foreground featured our team celebrating on the sidelines of a rival school’s field. Blake and I were only noticeable upon closer scrutiny, hidden as we were behind the bleachers.

Lucky for him, the shadows obscured almost everything that could reveal his identity, except for a small tattoo on his lower back that nobody knew he had, except Carey and me. My identity, on the other hand, couldn’t have been clearer. Standing in my cheer skirt and a lacy bra, I’d wrapped myself around Blake’s naked torso. The amateur photographer had accidentally struck PG–13 gold when they’d captured that shot.

Most people remembered Carey had been at that game just before he shipped out. The fact that I would cheat while he was there at the game, days before he went to war for our country, only added to my reputation.

The comments on my Facebook profile, the crank calls, and the nasty e-mails had started up as soon as the picture hit the Internet. I’d thought they’d prepared me to go to school the next day, but then the call had come from the school office Sunday evening. My father and I had received a summons to see the principal first thing in the morning, but my father had already gone off on a fishing trip.

So I’d waited until the last possible minute to drive myself to school. I’d taken a deep breath and plunged through Sweethaven
High’s double doors with my head held high, hoping the hall would be empty, even though I’d mentally prepared myself to be shunned. I might as well have a
KICK ME
sign taped to my back. Nobody would see the war paint I’d chosen—“Marine Green” nail polish for my toes—but Carey would’ve liked it. Too bad he’d already been in the desert for a few weeks.

You’ve done nothing wrong.
The school doors swung closed behind me, and everyone stared at my cheerleading uniform with
QUINN
embroidered on the left breast of the scratchy wool sweater—my version of giving them all the bird while I quaked to Reese’s Pieces inside. Carey’s Quinn could weather the scorn. I’d promised.

My friends had crammed into the hall, along with those who wanted to witness my downfall. As Carey’s girlfriend, I’d become Somebody. I’d transformed from tomboy into cheerleader, shedding the strangled mop of hair and losing the braces. Looking more like my mother and less like a scrawny ragamuffin helped, too. But things changed that first day of school. My classmates’ whispers hushed, and they froze like cockroaches do when you flip on the bathroom light in the middle of the night. Surprised. Busted.

I spotted Nikki and Angel in the crowd. They’d kept our summer pact to go blond, and Nikki’s natural red color tinted her hair the brass of Elliot Morgan’s tuba. Angel could have been Marilyn Monroe’s younger sister. I’d forgotten how I’d obsessed over damaging my black hair by bleaching it blond. I hadn’t
wanted to disappoint my friends by backing out. Now my long black hair seemed to say,
One of these things is not like the others.

A small part of me believed they would stand by me. Cheer sisters. Beer sisters. Each of us a third of a best-friends charm. We’d helped one another through acne, first kisses, and cheer tryouts. Maybe that meant something. Months before, at Carey’s party, Angel had promised they would be there for me.

For an instant, Angel’s eyes flickered with worry, but it was too fast to be sure. The two of them flipped their pleated cheer skirts in disdain as they turned their twin letterman jackets on me. Carey’s Quinn faltered.

I’d known how it would be: Guilty until Carey proved me innocent. You didn’t cheat on the hometown hero and expect a welcoming parade. I couldn’t have guessed how my stomach would bottom out. The urge to tell crawled up the back of my throat.

Move your damned feet, Quinn.

Answering the summons to the principal’s office, I headed for the door at the opposite end of the long hallway, ignoring Josh Danvers when he stepped too close, his linebacker’s shoulders thrown back in a show of solidarity for Carey. They’d played football and been in ROTC together before Carey had graduated early.

My breath skipped.

Shoving past Josh, I focused on the dingy gray door of the main office, determined to make it to that temporary refuge before my courage split for Canada.

Someone shouted, “Slut!”

My face burned, and several people laughed. I would not cry, would not cry, would not cry. The desire to hide pushed me forward. One step. And then another.

I used to be like them, but then Jamie sending that picture changed everything. I don’t know if she was the one to take the photo, but she’d been quick to capitalize on it. Last night I’d e-mailed Carey before his parents could. Before Jamie could gleefully tell him what I’d done in her bitchy efforts to break us up.

For once, he wrote back within hours.
Everything will be okay
—rememberyourpromise—
we’ll figure something out.

Then the phone calls started, with whispered accusations of
WhoresluttrampTRAITOR.
After the tenth venomous e-mail, I’d shut my laptop and hoped this would go away. Lying awake in my bed, I told myself to be ready for the smear campaign. For the first time since reading
The Scarlet Letter
, I sympathized with the adulterous Hester.

And as I stood in the hallway that day, I guessed I would hear the whispers for some time to come.

WhoresluttrampTRAITOR.

The office door blurred as my eyes strained with the effort of holding back tears. Not one of my friends had asked for my side of the story. My
friends
had abandoned me. I wanted to shove a scarlet letter down each of their throats.

“Call me Hester Prynne,” I muttered, twisting the familiar chain of my necklace around my fingers like a talisman.

There was no looking back. I entered the office.

*   *   *

And now that Carey’s missing, I am back at square one.

Calculus sucks. English bites. Third-period Spanish completely blows chunks. Saturday at Bob’s was just the start of things to come. Jamie has fired everyone up into rare form.

Two collisions send my books flying and a shove pushes me into a row of lockers. I never see the culprits. They hide in the crowd. I guess I expected the boys to be awful with their macho, stand-by-our-man posturing. The girls are worse, though. Crueler.

A single seat is left open for me in my fourth-period physics class.
Yeah, like that wasn’t planned.
Jamie, Nikki, and Angel form a horseshoe around my desk. Jamie’s brown eyes are dark with promised retribution. She’s always wanted Carey, which means she’d like a truck to take me out while I’m crossing the street. Unlike Nikki and Angel, she is neither blond, nor beautiful, nor a cheerleader. Oh no, she’s our future valedictorian, class president, and yearbook editor. I’m fairly certain my picture won’t be appearing in the yearbook this year.

It would be so much easier to hate Jamie if she were vapid, but she’s not. Instead, she is that niggling voice in my head. The one that points out everything I’ve done wrong and all the people I’ve let down during these past few months.

I slide into the empty seat, dropping my book bag onto the floor. Mr. Brolley starts a lecture on the laws of thermodynamics. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jamie shoot Nikki a glance, one brunette brow arching as she tilts her head toward me.
Here we go.

Nikki starts the game by throwing a pen at my head. Every time Mr. Brolley turns his back, Jamie or Nikki pulls my ponytail, kicks my chair, or mutters a curse under her breath. Childish, but effective. Others notice but say nothing.

I lose it.

As Jamie reaches for me again, I block her with a vicious swing of my forearm.

“Bitch!” she hisses, cradling her arm.

I smile and resume taking notes.

School should not be this hard, but at least none of them bother me for the rest of the period.

*   *   *

The bell rings.

Jamie hits me with her bag as she walks by, and I almost go after her. A hand on my shoulder stays me.

“Don’t, Q,” Angel whispers. “It’ll only make things worse.”

She’s spent the past hour watching them harass me, and she didn’t say a word. I can’t help wondering why she cares. “Since when did you become her minion, Ang?”

She shrugs. “It’s not like that. Besides, Jamie’s not so bad.”

That’s not what you used to say.
I shove my books into my bag
and rise. “She’s horrible. I can’t believe you don’t see that.”

Gathering her faded blond waves into an impromptu ponytail, Angel frowns. “And you cheated on Carey before he even left.”

Sudden longing fills me. I miss her. I want one friend to know I’m not guilty of that crime. To have just one person on my side. Carey can’t blame me for that, right?

I touch her arm, and she pauses. Our eyes meet, and in that instant I know Ang would keep my secret—Carey’s secret. She’d hug me and tell me she’s sorry. Lunch, weekends; I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.

Angel gives me a questioning glance, and I want her friendship again so badly that my guts twist with it.

“I wish things were different,” I say instead.

She shrugs again. “Me too.”

I let her go to catch up with Jamie. I am spineless. If I tell Ang the truth, she would be punished right along with me, assuming her parents even let her hang with me—her mother is a Marine deployed in Iraq, and I’ve betrayed the code.

Jamie spares me another glare from the door, and I wonder if she got someone to deface my locker or if she did it herself.

WhoresluttrampTRAITOR.

No. I won’t drag another person down into this hell.

Chapter Six

Lunch is an awfully big adventure.

Before Carey left, we used to eat lunch in the cafeteria. When he went off to basic training, I ate with the cheer squad. Last September, though, I started brown-bagging it when I realized the cafeteria offered nothing but humiliation. The attention faded in October when Coach Jorgenson busted Mark Harrison with a nickel bag in his locker. The gossip mill chewed on him for a while. I’ve been wallpaper ever since.

But Carey going missing has put me back in the public eye.

I think longingly of going home to eat, but Principal Barkley had put the kibosh on students leaving campus for lunch after too many seniors ditched their afternoon classes. Which means everyone’s in the cafeteria. I consider hiding in the library, but Mrs. Hall, the librarian I’ve known since I was seven, shooed me out without any sympathy. Her husband served under my father.