Pieces of Us (19 page)

Julie

M
arissa smirks at me whenever she sees me now. Today she’s waiting by my locker after school. She’s wearing a sleeveless turtleneck and jeans. Her hair is pulled back neatly with a blue ribbon. But when she smiles, there’s lipstick all over her teeth.

“Excuse me,” I say. Why is she here?

“Of course,” she says, stepping aside so I can open my locker.

I get my backpack, and she’s still there. “Can I help you?”

She laughs. “You and your sister sure got balls.”

What could Katie have done that deserves this? Stolen her boyfriend? Seems like it’s the other way around. Last year and this past summer, I would have said Katie deserved whatever was coming to her, but I can tell she’s different now. We’re friends. Almost.

“Stop trashing my sister,” I say.

“I don’t need to. She’s trash all on her own.”

I want to hit her, but I know she’ll make my life hell. “Oh please,” I say. “I’m sure you have your own skeletons.”

I didn’t think it was possible for her face to get any paler, but it does. Now it makes sense. Does Katie have something on
her
? Is she trying to make Katie’s life hell so people won’t ask about her own? I wasn’t going to tell Katie, but now there’s a reason. Now Marissa is in
my
face. Now I—no, we, Katie and I—can make her stop.

“You just watch your back,” she says, but I can tell what I said messed her up.

“Sure thing.” I know I’ll now be watching hers.

Katie

J
ulie runs into my room, her cheeks pink with excitement.

“You will not believe what Marissa did,” she says.

The room spins. The chills start.

Julie doesn’t notice. She talks. I hear “bathroom stalls,” “your name everywhere,” “who does she think she is?”

Her mouth opens and I don’t hear words.

“Katie!” she yells. “I
said
, why did she do it?”

I shrug. At least I think I do. I’m too frozen to tell. “Stupid rumors,” I say.

“She’s not going to get away with this, right? This is what we do.” She’s acting like some superhero. She’s going to save me. Right the wrongs. Bring justice. The best way to do this is to do nothing. She’s still talking. “We figure out what she’s hiding, because it’s sooo obvious there’s something, and then we’ve got her.”

“No.”

She looks like I slapped her. Like I thwarted her mission to save the world. “Don’t you
care
?”

“It’s stupid, Julie. Just let it go.” My teeth chatter. The whispers start. Chris and Ethan are circling me.

“What’s the matter with you? If it were me, and it kinda is because she’s talking smack to
me
now, I’d want to do something.”

“Well, I’m not you.” Am I shouting? It’s hard to hear.

She eyes me, getting angry. “God, you’re such a wimp. You just want to run away from everything. It’s just like with the chickens!”

I almost tell her then. But the whispers are loud, loud, loud, and I can’t think. Chris and Ethan are in my face and I can’t breathe. When I look up again, she’s gone.

Alex

K
atie is losing it. Who ever thought I’d want my mother to whip out her shrink index cards again?

I call her today, and she’s a mess. She rambles about Julie and that Marissa bitch.

“Baby,” I say. I keep my voice low and steady, like they do on TV when talking to hysterical people. “Baby, just ignore it. You didn’t do anything.”

She’s crying. “I did,” she says. “I did. I told you—”

I tune her out. I remember what she told me, and I don’t want to hear about her and some other guy again. What she did or didn’t do. I pound my fist on my night table. Cheap piece of shit cracks. I take a deep breath. “It’s not the end of the world, okay? It’s just words. Call her a whore back. I’m sure you wouldn’t be the first.”

I think I hear a snort come through the cries, like she laughed or something. But then she starts with the crying again. Fuck. Guys wouldn’t be bawling now. They’d go punch someone. I pound the night table again, and it breaks in two.

“Hang in there, baby. I’ll see you soon. I’ll drive up at the end of the week.”

She sniffles. “That would be good.”

I keep her on the phone and talk quietly, telling her it will be okay. Her breathing slows down, and I think she’s asleep.

“I’ll see you soon,” I say.

“Alex?” she says, voice sleepy.

“Yeah?”

“Whatever happens, remember I’m really sorry. And I never cared about anyone like I do about you.”

“Just get some sleep. Nothing’s going to happen,” I say, and hang up.

Julie

S
chool is out for the day, and I’m halfway home before I realize I left my study sheet in Mr. Stevens’s homeroom. I run back, cursing myself for being stupid. The halls are silent, and it doesn’t feel as safe without Chloe. His door is open, but only a crack. I hear arguing and look inside. I see cheerleader shoes, and I just know they’re Marissa’s, but I peek anyway to make sure. It
is
her. The voices get louder and I press myself against the lockers. Is this her secret? She failing science or something?

But that’s not what they’re arguing about. “Sleeping with her again!” I hear her say. “You told me it was over.” He tells her to keep her voice down. I can’t be hearing this right. I get closer to the door. “It doesn’t mean anything, I swear,” he says, like from a clich
é
d movie. Marissa cries, and I don’t feel bad. “I’m sorry, baby,” says Mr. Stevens. Then there’s silence. I get closer, my heart pounding. They’re kissing. His hand goes up her leg, and I don’t stay to see more.

On the way home, I’m bursting to tell Chloe. I don’t think about Mr. Stevens. Only him and Marissa. Marissa and her red marker. Marissa smearing the stalls with Katie’s name. Marissa looking so smug. Marissa looking at Katie like
she’s
the whore. God, who’s the whore now, bitch?

I start to text Chloe as soon as I get home, but my thoughts are running faster than my fingers. I call her and she can’t believe it. I tell her in detail what I saw. She wants me to tell it again and we dissect the whole thing. Over and over and over.

“Guess they’re going to have to change all the names in the stall to Marissa now,” says Chloe.

We’re silent, and we get the idea at the same time. We text everyone we know.

Katie

J
ulie runs into my room. She tells me what she saw. She tells me what she did.

“Tell me you didn’t!” I feel the floor shake. I don’t know why Julie is not shaking with it.

“You should be thanking me, not yelling at me. She won’t call you names anymore.”

“You don’t know what you started.”

“What?” she screams. “What did I start?”

But I can’t tell her because the sound from the earth cracking is too loud.

Julie

T
he next day, it’s all over the school. Marissa gets called down to the office. Katie should be doing cartwheels, but she goes home sick.

No one can talk about anything except the “rumors,” but Chloe and I know they’re not rumors. In History we talk about being innocent until proven guilty. Our teacher throws up her hands. “Forget this. Who thinks he did it?”

We look at each other and raise our hands. She does too.

Katie

I
hear Marissa’s name on the intercom, and my stomach churns.

Ethan bloodies his hand on a row of lockers.

I run to the bathroom to throw up. The trees I drew before look bolder and brighter but new words are creeping through the leaves every second.

I go to the school nurse and tell her I’m sick. She calls my mother, who says I’m allowed to walk home. I gather my things quickly and sprint to the doors. Marissa is there, like she knew I’d be making an escape.

“I warned you,” she hisses.

“It wasn’t me.”

Her eyes are glassy. “I don’t care how they know, but they know. And he confirmed it. Just like that.” She snaps her fingers. “What the hell was all the secrecy for if he was going to break so easily?”

I’m desperate. “So, see? He admitted it. It’s over.”

“You’re so stupid. What do you think everyone is going to be saying about me now? What about Ethan?”

Her mom drives up. “You take care, Katie,” Marissa says, getting in the car.

They begin to drive away when the car stops. Marissa opens her window. “Be sure to check your messages. I’ll be sending you something special.”

Kyle

Y
ou sit in the kitchen and stare at the television. A school right over the border. East High, in Cherry Hill. Julie and Katie’s school. Teacher-student affair.

You don’t hear Alex come up behind you until he says, “Crazy shit, right?”

You have a bad feeling about this. Your mouth is dry. He doesn’t notice.

“You know what the fucked-up thing about all this is?” He heats up a slice of leftover pizza. You shake your head no when he offers to heat a slice up for you too. “The fucked-up thing is, the girl is probably some slut. She probably wanted it as much as he did, but she’s a minor.” He puts air quotes around the word minor. The microwave beeps and he takes out his slice. “Now, I bet the dude’s career is done. All because of some ho.” He takes a bite. “You’ll see I’m right, because what do I always tell you?”

He looks at you like he wants an answer. You find your voice. “Stay away from hos.”

He slaps you on the back. “Fuck yeah. Stay away from dirty hos.”

Katie

M
arissa is absent all week. Mr. Stevens is too, but we know
he’s not coming back. I check my messages like an addict, but nothing comes up. Marissa’s name rivals mine in the stalls.

By the end of the week, I can almost breathe again. Julie bounces through the halls like she’s prom queen. Leah says she always knew Marissa would have made an awful Pyramid Girl. Ethan stops coming to our lunch table. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Friday after school, he walks past me in the hall, and I speed up to get further away from him.

“Wait! Please,” he calls.

I stop.

“Why did she do it?” he asks when I get closer. “Why?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “And you know what else? I lost my fucking cell. All in one damn week.”

He looks through me and walks away, still mumbling about his lost cell and how the world has it in for him. And why does he always get the cheaters?

When I walk home, the earth doesn’t rumble. The voices are barely a whisper. By the time I get in the door, I am almost calm. I check my messages again, and for the first time this week I’m sure nothing will come up. I smile and text Alex I’m turning in early.

Love you, babe
, he texts back, and I fall asleep.

Julie

T
he text comes from Chloe. She sends me to a link on a private server. I want to throw up. I go on Facebook. Link after link after link with my name:
See @Julie Taylor’s sister HERE
posted on my friends’ pages.

Marissa’s page is public, and she doesn’t stop at the link. She embeds the video. There’s one line:
WHO’S THE WHORE NOW?

Kyle

Y
ou get bombarded with texts and emails and Facebook messages.

You’re watching the video like it’s a pileup. Alex isn’t home yet, but there’s no way he doesn’t know. And if he doesn’t, it’s only a matter of time.

“Did you see?” Julie asks when you pick up your phone.

“I’m watching it now.”

Silence. Then, “Can you
stop
watching it?”

You do.

“How could she do
that
?” asks Julie.

“She doesn’t look like she likes it.” Maybe Julie can’t tell, but you can. The way her body is rigid, the leer on the guys’ faces, her blank eyes.

Julie snorts. “Did you see the whole thing? She’s smiling. The. Whole. Time. She even says it feels good.”

You know it didn’t. “Maybe they made her.”

“I thought—” Julie’s voice catches and she takes a deep breath. “I thought, when I called, you’d be there for
me
. I thought you’d find a way to make me feel better.”

Downstairs the door slams. You close and lock the door to your room. In the room next door, you hear banging and cursing. Something breaks. He heard.

“I have to go,” you say, voice shaking.

“That’s it? That’s all you have?”

He pounds on your door. You put your dresser against it.

“Kyle?” Julie says, her voice shrill. “KYLE!”

“Maybe it wasn’t her fault,” you say, and hang up.