The Book of Luke (23 page)

I
’d been back at school for less than six minutes and already I was under assault.

“We heard you broke up with him, by e-mail no less.” Josie smiled. “Nice touch.”

“So, it’s over? The guide works?” Lucy and Josie waited for my answer. “In three days we have to put it in the time capsule and we need an answer.”

“I think so. I really think Luke’s changed.”

“That’s amazing.” Josie hugged me. “See, I knew you could do it. He’ll probably be apologizing to me any day now.”

“Probably,” I told her.

“I bet you’re glad the experiment is finally over.”

“I still can’t believe you got Luke to really fall for you.” Josie smiled and it was obvious she was proud of me.

All day Tuesday, I avoided Luke as best I could, and it seemed to be working. If I saw him coming down the hall, I’d duck into the nearest doorway (which is how I ended up in the first-floor janitor’s closet for fifteen minutes while Luke and his lacrosse friends stood outside talking about the upcoming game against Country Day School). I ate in the cafeteria with Lucy and Josie, and he never showed up. I figured he was probably at Sam’s eating his potato logs, dripping ketchup all over himself without anyone there to help clean it up. At least I didn’t have to watch the Lunch Legion cater to him. I just couldn’t have handled watching that.

Any time we couldn’t avoid each other, like in English class, I knew Luke was shooting me dirty looks, even if I never actually met his eyes long enough to prove it. I could just feel him watching me from the last row, like there was an accusing finger pointing at my back—
That’s the bitch who broke up with me in an e-mail—even after she told me it was wrong.

“Man, he’s pissed at you,” Lucy told me after one particularly nasty look. “Job well done.”

“Yeah, well, at least it’s over.”

“And Luke changed,” Josie reminded us. “And that was the point, right?”

“Right,” I agreed, even though I didn’t agree anymore. That may have started out as the point, but once Luke stood me up at the dance there had been another point. To prove that nice girls didn’t have to finish last. To prove that I had it in me to act just as detached and cruel as all the guys we hated. All along I’d almost believed the test was to see if I could change Luke. But now I realized the real test was whether or not I could change. And I’d done it. I’d proved I could be just as much of a jerk as the guys.

“Do you want to do something after school?” Lucy asked. “Maybe go through the guide one more time before Friday’s unveiling? I could meet you after practice.”

Josie shook her head. “Can’t.”

“What, hot date?” Lucy joked.

“Riding practice.” Josie rolled her eyes. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” I told her, knowing perfectly well I had no intention of reading the guide ever again.

On Friday at two o’clock the entire school was on its way to the gym to watch our senior class place objects in the time capsule—which wasn’t so much a capsule as a blue plastic Rubbermaid storage container with a snap-on lid.

Heywood liked to make a big deal about the last all-school assembly, and, because everyone got to skip last period, we always looked forward to it, if only because it meant we missed biology lab. But this year I wasn’t looking forward to it. I was dreading it.

Lucy, Josie, and I had made plans to meet in front of the girls’ locker room so we could all walk into the gym together. A united front.

I waited by the water fountain with the guide, and I knew the moment I saw them coming toward me that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it to Luke.

“I can’t do this,” I announced when they reached.

“What do you mean, you can’t do this?” Josie asked. “You already did it. The guide works.”

“I meant I can’t put the guide in the capsule.” This wasn’t about choosing between my best friends and a guy. It was about doing what’s right. And being honest. And, honestly, there was nothing to be gained by putting the guide in the capsule. And humiliating Luke in front of the whole school was nothing to be proud of.

“Sure you can.” Josie reached for the brown notebook I was carrying facedown against my hip, but I pulled away.

“No, I can’t,” I repeated before blurting out the four words I was sure were going to change everything. “I slept with him.”

Lucy stepped back from me, bumping into the garbage can and knocking it over. “You slept with who?”

I held my breath for a second before answering. “Luke.”

A group of middle school girls came around the corner on their way to the gym, thank God. I only wished they could stay there, a buffer between me and Josie.

“You did
what
?!” Josie screamed as they passed us. Her voice was loud enough, and their fear of seniors big enough, that they scrambled into the gym as fast as their legs would carry them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I gushed, hoping Josie would understand. “It just happened.”

Josie looked perfectly white, which was quite a task considering she’d been using a new bronzer her mother got from her makeup artist. She wrapped her arms around her waist and doubled over. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Lucy rested her hands on Josie’s shoulders and led her to the water fountain, where she rubbed Josie’s back while Josie leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on her face.

Lucy moved aside as more students headed to the gym. “Please tell us you’re kidding.”

I shook my head.

“Then please tell us that you sacrificed your body for the sake of the project.”

“When?” Josie asked through the drops of water.

“Saturday night,” I answered, my voice wobbly.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Josie shrieked. “You said you hated him. You said he needed to be reformed. You were supposed to be making him a better boyfriend for me!”

It wasn’t until she stopped yelling at me that I noticed a group of sophomore guys—a group that included my brother—watching the entire scene from the entrance to the gym.

Lucy shook her head, confused. “Wait a minute—this just happened? Saturday night?”

“I’m so sorry,” I told them in a voice so meek it almost sounded like I was whispering. There was nothing else I could say, nothing left for me to do.

I set the overturned garbage can upright and tossed the notebook into it, watching as it landed between two Gatorade bottles and a wad of paper towels.

Lucy continued rubbing Josie’s back and I knew right then and there, as her hand circled Josie’s shoulder blades, that I’d lost her. Lucy was on Josie’s side.

“How could you do this to her?” Lucy asked. “How could you lie to us all along?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to.”

“How could you do this to me?” Josie yelled. “He was my boyfriend! And you decided to screw him?”

I glanced over at TJ, who, from the way he uncomfortably looked down at his shoes, had obviously heard that last piece of information.

“I didn’t mean—” I started to answer, but Josie wouldn’t let me.

“Forget it,” she snapped, and then pushed open the door to the girls’ locker room and disappeared. “I’m out of here.”

Lucy didn’t move. She didn’t yell at me or say it would all be okay. And I knew it wouldn’t.

“Remember when Josie was caught shoplifting those earrings? She knew I had that necklace in my sneakers. She saw me drop it in there. And you know what? She didn’t say a word to that security guard, even though she could have. She got in trouble all by herself, and she didn’t have to.” Lucy let out a long breath and shook her head at me before starting for the door after Josie. “I feel like I don’t even know you anymore, Emily. When you said you were done being nice, you weren’t kidding. There is nothing nice about screwing over your best friend.”

Then Lucy was gone and I was left standing alone.

“Can we have the senior class down on the floor?” Mr. Wesley asked into the microphone set up in the center of the basketball court.

Everyone sitting on the front row of the bleachers rose up and walked to center court. Lucy and Josie were sitting as far away from me as possible. Only Luke outdid them in the Emily avoidance department—he hadn’t even bothered to show up.

“This is it,” Mandy Pinta whispered, and nudged me closer to the Rubbermaid container.

Josie and Lucy made sure they were nowhere near me as the senior class made a semicircle around the time capsule and one by one Mr. Wesley called people up to place their contribution inside.

Miranda, Elinor, and Carrie went first, and we watched as they put a
People
magazine and tube of MAC Pink Poodle lip gloss into the capsule.

When Mr. Wesley called out our names, I walked up to the time capsule like a prisoner walking to the electric chair. I didn’t look to my left or right, I just kept my eyes on that Rubbermaid container as if it were the most important thing in the world. I didn’t have to look up to know that Lucy and Josie were watching me.

“We don’t have anything,” I told Mr. Wesley.

“Didn’t you know you were supposed to contribute something?” he asked me, obviously annoyed.

“We couldn’t come up with anything,” I offered and then stepped back into the group, where I just wanted to disappear.

After a few more useless contributions, Mr. Wesley reached for the plastic lid, ready to seal up the container for the next ten years. “Well, that does it.”

“Wait!” Luke stepped forward from out of nowhere, his right arm bent behind his back so we couldn’t see what he was holding. “There’s one more thing.”

He smirked at our class, but I could swear that smirk was meant just for me.

Luke made his way over to the Rubbermaid container and then turned to face the bleachers. And that’s when I saw it. A brown spiral notebook with marker across the front.

Luke looked right at me as he held the notebook up for everyone to see.

“I have something here I thought you’d all find interesting. It’s a little book written by our very own Emily Abbott.” Luke paused and flipped through the notebook pages. “Emily thought it would be fun to write a book about how horrible I am—how horrible all guys are. I guess she thinks she’s so perfect, she can impart her infinite wisdom to the rest of us.”

I stood frozen. It could only go downhill from here.

“This is Emily’s contribution to the time capsule,” Luke continued, but at that point the room went blurry and his voice started to sound like he was speaking into a tunnel.

There was no way this was happening. There was no way Luke got his hands on a notebook I’d thrown in the garbage.

And that’s when I saw the familiar face standing beside the bleachers watching me. And I knew. It was the only explanation that made any of this make sense. I’d been ratted out by my very own brother. TJ had watched me toss the notebook in the garbage can and then he’d taken it out and given it to Luke!

There was only one problem with my conspiracy theory—TJ looked as horrified as I felt by Luke’s revelation. He didn’t exactly seem thrilled with the idea of being related to me at the moment. And I couldn’t blame him.

I glanced across the semicircle of seniors and caught the eye of the girl standing directly across from me. Josie was watching me with eyes so hard and cold I swear she never even blinked, not once. And those eyes told me everything I needed to know.

My best friend had given Luke the guide.

Mandy stood in the stall doorway watching me wipe my mouth with toilet paper.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I nodded my head, which was still reeling from the scene in the gym.

Mr. Wesley had refused to let Luke put the guide in the capsule but at that point it didn’t matter. Everyone knew. And before I could be further humiliated in front of the entire school, before Luke could continue his litany of sarcastic observations on the life of Emily Abbott, I had ran to the girls’ locker room to hide.

“Wow, Emily, I can’t believe you did that!” Mandy held up her hand and waited for me to high-five her. “Way to go!”

Like everything else, there were two sides to this situation—the people who applauded me, and the people who thought I sucked. I kind of sided with the latter.

I could barely manage a meek “Thanks.”

“Don’t listen to what Luke said, a lot of us think what you did was great. Long overdue, in my opinion.” Mandy handed me a wet paper towel and waited for me to leave the safety of my stall. “All the guys think you’re a bitch, of course, but so what? Right?”

“I just can’t believe this,” I repeated for what must have been the hundredth time. “How could this have happened?”

I had to get out of there. I had to go home and as far away from Heywood as possible. “I’m leaving.”