Social Suicide (10 page)

Since she seemed to be a fan of the direct, I dove right in.

“You made out with Connor while he and Sydney were still going out.”

Fire instantly lit up Quinn’s eyes as she narrowed them at me. “Who told you that?”

I gulped. “Um . . . a source. Is it true?”

She pursed her lips, and I could tell a lie was just on the tip of her tongue.

But not knowing who my source was, she didn’t know what kind of proof (or lack thereof) I had. So she bit the inside of her cheeks and finally decided on, “So what?” She stuck her chin out defiantly.

“Did Sydney know?”

Quinn paused, seemingly genuine emotion suddenly welling in her eyes. “Yeah. She found out.”

“How?”

“She saw a text I’d sent Connor on his phone and called me out on it. So I told her the truth. Connor was into me.”

Huh. That wasn’t exactly how Jenni had described it, but I wasn’t going to be the one to burst Quinn’s bubble.

“I can’t imagine Sydney was very happy about that,” I prodded.

Quinn shook her head. “No. She was pissed. Not that I can blame her. She’d just found out her boyfriend was leaving her for me.”

“He told you that?” I asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of my voice.

“Well, no,” she admitted. “But I could see it coming.”

I wasn’t sure who I felt more sorry for, Dead Sydney or Clueless Quinn.

“So, let me guess,” I said. “To get back at you, Sydney told the principal that you were involved in the cheating.”

Quinn nodded. “Which was totally not cool. But, like I said, I don’t blame her for being angry.”

“But then Connor started dating Jenni, not you.”

Quinn squared her jaw. “It’s just because Jenni is up for homecoming court.”

“So after the homecoming dance . . .” I trailed off.

“He’s dumping her and getting together with me.”

Oh boy. Was Quinn ever in for a rude awakening.

“Okay, let’s play ‘let’s pretend’ for a moment, shall we?” I said.

Quinn stuck her chin out again but didn’t stop me, so I plowed on.

“Let’s pretend that Sydney hadn’t been killed. And Connor was, as you said, only with Jenni for the homecoming vote. What if, after it was over, he was going to go back to Sydney and not you?”

Quinn blinked at me. “No. He was going to get together with me.”

Either she really believed that or someone had been taking after-school drama classes. “I hate to break it to you,” I said, “but that’s not what Connor told me. He said he was going back to Sydney.”

Quinn shook her head. “That’s not possible. He’s into me. He made out with me on his own bed. Guys don’t do that unless they’re into you.”

I bit my lip. I hated to tell her but some guys just made out with you to make out with you. Being into you wasn’t a given.

Quinn was still shaking her head. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Sydney’s gone, so clearly Connor has one choice left.”

I gave her a hard look, hunkering my eyebrows down over my eyes. “Right. Now that Sydney’s gone.”

“Wait—what’s with the eyebrows?” she said. “What are you trying to say?”

“Did you kill Sydney to clear the field to Connor?” I asked point-blank.

Quinn’s eyes went big. “Me? No. God, no! She killed herself. Over the guilt from ratting me out to the VP.”

“I thought you said overachievers didn’t kill them-selves,” I pointed out, repeating what she’d told me in our first interview.

Quinn shrugged. “Well, I’ve had some time to think about it. And I think she did. I mean, I was her best friend. She must have felt really bad about what she did. Look, are we done? Because we only have fifteen minutes left of lunch and I gotta eat.”

While I would have liked to grill her further, I honestly didn’t know what else to ask. Plus, I intended to stuff as much meat-ish loaf into my own mouth in fifteen minutes as I could.

So I watched Quinn walk away, then grabbed a tray and contemplated what she’d told me as I wolfed down my lunch.

Everyone seemed to have a different theory for why Sydney had killed herself. Guilt, depression, or, as Raley thought, teen statistic. I had to admit, Sydney’s life had been a bit of a mess. But even so, I kept going back to the fact that people who kill themselves usually do it after the secret meeting they’ve set up, not before. If Sydney really had committed suicide, why not wait until after meeting with me? It just didn’t make any sense.

Unfortunately, by the time I was dumping my tray and heading to sixth period, I was no closer to an answer. I was just pulling my chem book out of my bag when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I looked down at the readout.

It was Nicky Williams. I raised an eyebrow. He was the last person I’d expected to hear from.

“Nicky?” I answered, leaning against a bank of lockers outside Mrs. Perry’s classroom.

“Hey. I need to talk to you.”

“Okay. Talk away.”

“No.” I could hear him shaking his head. “In person. They may be listening in.”

“They?” I asked.

“The cops. Look, one of them came to see me after you did yesterday. He said I was obstructing justice, hampering an investigation, all kinds of legal stuff like that.”

Raley. I wondered what the chances were he’d found Nicky out on his own and not by following me to the mall.

“Anyway,” Nicky went on, “I’m ready to talk. I’ll tell you everything you want to know about the test answers as long as you keep my name out of it. Once it’s printed in the paper, the cops will leave me alone, right?”

I shrugged. It was possible.

“Where can we meet?” I asked. “Are you at school?”

Again I could hear rustling as Nicky’s head shook back and forth in the negative. “No. School’s too dangerous. Someone might see us. Tonight. Meet me at Oak Meadow Park. Eight p.m. By the train.”

“Okay,” I agreed. I knew the park well. It was on Blossom Hill Road just down from the junior high we’d all gone to, and not only completely deserted after sunset but completely dark. Usually not a combo I was a big fan of, but I was willing to go just about anywhere to get this story. Which was exactly what I promised Nicky.

“Eight p.m. Oak Meadow. I’ll be there.”

THE REST OF THE DAY WENT BY IN A BLUR OF HOMEWORK
assignments, boring lectures, and one pop quiz in trig. And as much as Sydney’s Twittercide was on my mind, another event was slowly pushing its way to the forefront: my date with Chase.

I still wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it. Chase was nothing like the guys I’d gone out with before. Cole Perkins was my first real boyfriend. We’d gone out freshman year, but things had fizzled when Cole decided my making out with him in his bedroom when his parents were out of town meant we were soul mates. And I’d decided I wanted a soul mate that didn’t kiss like a golden retriever. After Cole I’d dated Josh DuPont who, while scoring a ten on the hot-o-meter, had ended up cheating on me with the president of the Chastity Club and dragging me headfirst into a murder investigation, after which he’d switched schools to avoid the gossip mill and hadn’t been seen since. To say I didn’t have great luck in the guy department was like saying Ryan Seacrest didn’t have great luck in the height department: total understatement.

A fact that left me with an uneasy feeling in my stomach about having pizza with Chase. Chase and I were so different that it had honestly taken me some time before I’d come to see him as a genuine friend. Putting him into the role of something more than a friend suddenly sounded like dangerous territory. Territory that left a weird sensation running through my stomach. Nervous. Anxious. Kinda like I’d eaten a bad Tuesday Taco.

Sam had to meet with her SAT tutor again after school, but as soon as she was done, she came straight to my house.

“Whoa,” she said, walking into my room. “What happened?”

I looked around. Clothes littered every surface, jeans mixing with skirts mixing with capris, and T-shirts, and sweaters, and boots, and me in the middle of it all, trying on my tenth outfit since school had let out.

“I need to be casual but not too casual. Dressy but not too dressy. I need him to think I just threw on the first thing I found and that I’m not taking this too seriously or overthinking it or even that I was thinking about it at all. Because I’m not. I’m totally not thinking about him, and I don’t want him to think I was thinking about him, but I don’t want him to think that I’m not thinking about him, because clearly he thought about me enough to ask me out and it would be mean not to be thinking about him at all, so I need just the right amount of thinking, and I’m not sure if that means boots and a skirt or skinny jeans and ballet flats. Help!”

I paused and took a deep breath, realizing I’d forgotten the importance of oxygen during my plea.

“Okay.” Sam walked in and put her book bag down on the bed. She stood in front of me, doing a slow up and down with her eyes. “I think we can fix this. First thing’s first. Your hair.”

“Hair?” I squeaked out. “Oh, fluffin’ fudge. I didn’t even think about hair!”

Two hours later I’d done the one thing I’d sworn I would never do again—let Sam dress me to go out. Though I had to admit as I checked out the results in the full-length mirror on my closet door I might not have been wrong in doing so. She’d advised on a mid-thigh white denim skirt over a pair of gray leggings. She’d paired that with a long, lean gray tee with rhinestones at the neckline and a lightweight, three-quarter sleeve cardigan. And, while I was a respectable B cup, the push-up bra Sam had insisted on made my boobs stand at attention, giving me cleavage to rival that of any member of the cheer squad. On my feet were a pair of silver three-inch heels that I could almost walk in without wobbling, which Sam had pulled from her own closet. Overall, I had to admit I looked pretty dang hot.

A thought I held on to with a two-fisted grip as I walked the mile from my house to the Pizza My Heart downtown, that taco feeling churning in my gut with every step.

By the time I finally hit the pizza place, I could feel blisters forming on my heels, and my feet were sweating so badly that I feared the effect of my hotness would be overshadowed by my need for Odor-Eaters.

I paused outside the restaurant. Pushed a couple stray strands of hair off my face. Did a quick breath check. Tried to remember how confident I’d looked in my bedroom mirror. Then pushed through the doors of Pizza My Heart at exactly six o’clock for my dinner with Chase.

The place wasn’t huge, and I spotted him right away. He was standing at a table in the back of the restaurant. His back was to me, but his spiky hair was unmistakable. It was mussed into a softer look than usual, kind of tousled like he’d been out in the wind for a while. He wore a black T-shirt, jeans that were somewhere perfectly in the middle of tight and low slung, clinging just enough to hold on to his hips but not so tight that he looked like a cast member of
Glee
. Black workboots ended the outfit, and a silver chain hung from his pocket.

I did another deep breath thing as I approached.

“Hey,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder.

He spun around.

Then his mouth dropped open just a little as he took in Sam’s handiwork, his eyes honing in on the result of her push-up.

“Heeeeeey,” he said slowly. “Wow, you look—”

“Hot!” another voice finished.

I whipped my head to the left and saw Ashley Stannic sitting at Chase’s table.

What the . . . ?

“Nice shoes,” Ashley said. “You going out later?”

I blinked at her. “I, uh . . .” Slowly I let my gaze shift around the table and realized not only was Ashley crashing my dinner with Chase, but Chris Fret was sitting at the table as well, along with a guy I recognized from Spanish class.

Chase cleared his throat beside me. “I, uh, I’m glad you could make it, Hartley.”

“Thanks,” I answered, hoping the confusion rattling around in my brain wasn’t clear in my voice.

“So, now that we’re all here,” he said, turning back to the table at large. “The reason I invited everyone out for pizza was to introduce you all to the newest member of the
Homepage
staff.”

I froze.

He invited everyone.

I suddenly felt like the word
moron
was stamped across my forehead. Chase hadn’t asked me out. He’d asked one of his reporters out. I silently prayed the floor would open up and swallow me whole as I only halfway listened to Chase, embarrassment all but drowning him out as it pounded in my overheated ears.

“Guys, this is Mike Watson,” Chase said, gesturing to Spanish Class Guy. “He’s going to be covering all the away games for
HHH
, as it’s come to my attention that Chris may be a bit overworked.”

Chris grinned sheepishly at the veiled reference to his cheating attempt.

“Great to have you,” Ashley said. Chris mumbled something similar. Chase clapped Mike on the back.

All I could do was stare dumbly.

Somehow, I managed to sit, congratulate Mike, and even stuff half a slice of pepperoni pizza into my mouth, even though all I wanted to do was crawl into that big black hole. I was so stupid. I was the queen of Stupidville. The Duchess of Moronland. The Empress of Misunderstandingtown.

And by the way Chase kept sending sidelong glances at my rhinestone-framed cleavage and spiky heels, I had a bad feeling he knew it. Clearly I was overdressed for pizza with friends. Clearly I had taken some pains to change after school. Clearly I was expecting something way more exciting than a new sports guy.

Clearly I needed to have my head examined.

By seven, I couldn’t take it anymore. I mumbled something about a previous commitment and slipped from the table as Ashley laid out her ideas for this weekend’s coverage of the homecoming dance. Chase moved to get up as I slipped from the table, but I stopped him with a quick, “See you at school,” over my shoulder as I ran (or tried to—the heels were really wobbly) for the door.

I took half an hour to indulge in a pity-party chocolate bar from Powell’s before I hoofed it down North Santa Cruz Ave to meet Nicky at Oak Meadow Park. I was determined that despite my detour into the stupid lane, my night was not going to be a total bust. So Chase only saw me as a reporter. Fine. That was easier on my stomach anyway. But this week I’d better be a fudging good one and turn in something more than fluff.

I walked as fast as my legs would take me in the tight skirt and ridiculously high heels that Sam had made me wear, all the while chanting to myself that I would never listen to her wardrobe advice again.

I looked down at my cell readout as I crossed Highway 9—7:54. I picked up the pace, half jogging until my calves cramped up, then checked my cell again. 7:58. No way was I going to make our rendezvous time. I bit my lip, praying that Nicky would wait for me.

At 8:06 I finally hit the corner of University and the gates to Oak Meadow Park.

As far as city parks went, it was large: a playground with two big jungle gyms at one end and a carousel and miniature train station at the other. Between them spanned picnic areas and a large expanse of grass used by the local soccer league in the summer.

At this time of night, everything was dark and the gates were closed. I did a brief over-the-shoulder, waiting until there was a break in the passing traffic, then quickly hopped the fence. Or, it would have been quickly if my stupid heels hadn’t gotten stuck in the metal diamonds. I finally kicked them off and threw them over the gate, cringing as they skidded in the dirt on the other side. Sam wasn’t going to be happy about that. On the second try, I slipped over the fence, landed with a thud on the other side, put the shoes back on (only scuffed a little), then picked my way down the gravel pathway to the miniature train station.

The train was a big draw for kids during the weekends and summer break, the station packed with lines of toddlers waiting for the three-dollar rides. But tonight the train was silent, and the giant clock set in the Victorian-style steeple of the station ticked eerily in the dark.

I wrapped my arms around myself, wishing I’d worn something a little warmer, and quickly made tracks toward the quiet station.

I was a few feet away when I spotted a figure in the shadows, just behind the roundhouse. By the dark hair sticking out from under a skater beanie, I could tell it was Nicky. I was about to call out when I saw another person approach him.

I paused. Nicky hadn’t said anything about bringing friends. Suddenly I felt a little outnumbered, standing in the shadows.

Which was ridiculous, because I was just going to talk and get a story. The dark, the quiet, and the eerie Victorian station were giving me the creeps.

At least that’s what I told myself as I approached the two figures. Only they weren’t paying any attention to me. They were talking to each other. Loudly. Arguing, I realized as I got closer. I was too far away to hear what they were actually saying, but the second figure started flapping his (her? It was too dark to tell) arms at Nicky. Nicky stepped back, his voice raised, though the only words I caught were, “Dude, no!”

I paused, not sure I wanted to get in the middle of this, whatever this was. I could see Figure Two was dressed in dark pants and a dark Windbreaker. He (she?) was close to Nicky’s height, but that was all I could make out. Male, female, old, young were all swallowed up by the darkness.

But I could see Nicky was getting more and more agitated. He shook his head, waved his arms. Finally he shouted, “It’s over!” loudly enough to make Figure Two stop in his-slash-her tracks. Nicky turned his back on the guy, as if to emphasize the over-ness of their situation, and started walking away.

I opened my mouth to call out to him.

But that’s when I saw it.

Figure Two bent over and picked up a rock that was lying at his feet. From the effort it took him to stand back up again, I could tell it was heavy. I watched in horror as he took a step toward Nicky, lifted the rock above his body, and brought it down with a thud on the back of Nicky’s head.

Nicky made a pathetic sort of grunt, then slumped forward, crumpling to the ground.