The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You (24 page)

The evergreen branch centerpiece knocked into the cover of my book as the table jostled. I looked up and saw Mike Shepherd trying to push his way between empty chairs. A too-snug sport coat partially covered his school polo. His hair had been parted severely to one side.

“Hey, Mike,” I called.

He paused, craning his neck around to see me, like Bigfoot caught on film. “Oh, hi, Trixie. I was just, um, walking. Somewhere. I don't know what to do here. I really don't want to dance, in noun or verb form.”

“Me either,” I said. I gestured at the empty chair he'd collided with. “Do you want to sit down?”

I wasn't sure how Ben would react to coming back to the table and seeing his ex–best friend, but I also didn't want Mike to have to wander in circles for hours. Even at a school for nerds, the weirdest of the weirdoes needed to be able to stick together.

Mike collapsed into the chair and pulled his cell phone out of the pocket of his blazer. The NASA logo peeked out between his fingers as the screen lit up.

“Two hours and seven minutes to go,” he said. The phone disappeared into his pocket again.

“I know exactly how you feel. I'm also here under duress.” I smiled. “Harper and Meg guilted me into coming. And then they disappeared. I haven't ruled out the chance that this is all an elaborate prank and everyone's actually drinking Slurpees without me.”

“I saw Harper and Cornell driving past my house. They were too dressed up for a trip to 7-Eleven,” he said, mirroring my smile. He reached out and righted the evergreen branch between us. “I don't understand the point of things like this. It's obvious that the student council will never make enough money to buy the cricket team's whites.”

“Ben's projections say otherwise.”

Mike seemed to digest this letter by letter. It could have been a mistake to mention Ben's name. Maybe their feud was festering more than I assumed. I wasn't sure how ending a friendship worked. Was there grieving along with all of the awkward nodding in the hallway?

“I saw you guys talking,” he said suddenly. “You and, um, Ben. Are you guys friends now?”

“Yes,” I said, carefully and tonelessly. “We're friends now.”

He flashed me a toothy smile. “Cool. He always felt bad about breaking your arm. Oh. Uh, don't tell him I told you that.”

“I-I won't,” I stuttered.

The band ended a song and there was a muffled tapping on the microphone.

“If I could have your attention, please.”

Mike and I turned to see Mr. Cline shooing the band away from the stage as he fussed with the microphone stand. The dancers transformed back into the pupils of a rigorous school for the gifted, standing at attention like they were about to be ordered to do recitations.

“As you all are aware,” Cline boomed into the microphone, “this has been a period of upset in the storied history of this establishment. I would like to take this moment to formally apologize on behalf of the administration of the Messina Academy to four of our students who were wrongly accused of misdoings.” He paused, sneaking a glimpse at a piece of paper hidden in his palm. “Kenneth Pollack, Ishaan Singh, Alex Nguyen, and Jack Donnelly are exemplary young men, who, when faced with strife, did not waver in their studies.”

I snorted as the rest of the room gave a lukewarm round of applause. The Mess wrongly accused four boys of cheating and all the administration had to say about it was that their grades didn't take a hit. Mike also made a contemptuous sound.

“In fact,” Cline said, “I have been told that without the tireless efforts of Jack Donnelly, we would not have been able to find the source of the issue. We owe him a great debt of thanks.”

The crowd applauded again, this time with more enthusiasm. Someone on the dance floor called, “A hundred points to Slytherin!”

“Yes, quite.” Cline squirmed. “The homework portal will be back online tomorrow morning and the ranking list will be updated and returned to the case at the sound of the last bell on Monday. Please enjoy the rest of your festivities. I know that I will. Play on, maestro!”

“Trixie.”

I popped my head up, startled to hear my name coming out of Jack Donnelly's mouth. His black shirt was open at the collar and his hair was slick with sweat around his ears.

“You need to come with me,” he said darkly.

“Uh…” I looked at Mike, who was tacitly avoiding all eye contact. “Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not here to dance. Hence, the reading material.”

I wiggled my book at Jack for emphasis and his face contorted into something like disgust. He bent low over the table, his large hands pressing into the lace tablecloth. I felt like a rat waiting to be dissected.

“I found out who hacked into all of the probations' files,” he said.

“Um, congratulations,” I said. “Did Mendoza give you a medal?”

“Trixie,” he said, staring at me with fathomless blue eyes. “It's Harper. They expelled her. She's leaving now.”

“What?” Mike shouted over the sound of the drums kicking back up. “Harper wouldn't do that.”

He was right. Harper didn't even like playing Jenga because she couldn't abide ruining someone's work. There was no way that she had framed four people for cheating. Jack had to be messing with me, getting his jollies by making me freak out.

Knowing that didn't stop me from hiking up my skirt and running.

Blood pounded in my ears, turning everything around me into static. I was distantly aware of Mike calling my name, the slap of Jack's shoes behind me, of people leaping out of my way as I sprinted through the quad, of the sound of my heels scratching up the brick stairs. I ricocheted down the hall in the main building, skittering against the waxed floor.

“Miss Watson,” Mrs. Landry shouted at me as I tumbled into the admin office.

“Harper,” I panted, catching sight of Dr. Mendoza's open office door. His desk was unoccupied, although the chairs were all pushed out. “Where is Harper?”

Mrs. Landry frowned at me, sitting down heavily in her desk chair. She zipped her purse with a decisive swoop.

“She has been removed from campus. Now, if you and Mr. Donnelly would please return to—”

I didn't stay to listen to the lecture. I shoved Jack out of the doorway and ran out of the building toward the parking lot. I could just make out Cornell standing between two men that, as I approached, I realized were Dr. Mendoza and Harper's dad.

Mr. Leonard took a backward step toward his car. He was wearing his shirt and tie from work, but his jacket was missing. He glared at Dr. Mendoza. “Stuart, really. The campus is crawling with my daughter's peers.”

Mendoza turned to me and Jack stiffly. “Miss Watson, I must ask you to return to the dance. Jack, you were just removed from probation. Please don't make me reconsider that decision.”

“Sorry, Trixie,” Jack grumbled, bowing out. He saluted Mendoza before retreating back through the front gate.

Behind Mr. Leonard, I could see Harper tucked into the front seat of their black town car. She was ghostly pale, her hair piled on top of her head in a wide bun held in place with a glittering band that looked like a collection of delicate snowflakes. She stared straight ahead, holding her father's jacket over her chest. A glint of pink chiffon peeked out at her shoulder, a whisper of the night she'd thought she was going to have.

“This is ridiculous,” I said, pushing my hair out of my face. I could feel a trickle of cold sweat between my shoulder blades. “There's no way that Harper could or would mastermind this kind of crap. She would never go out of her way to hurt people.” I looked at Cornell, who stared pointedly at his shoes. “Tell them, Cornell. You know that she would never—”

“Not that it is any of your concern, Miss Watson,” Mendoza said, “but Mr. Aaron has already provided his deposition.”

“His deposition?” I gaped around at three impassive faces. “This is a federal case now?”

Cornell's shoulders tensed. He raised his head for the first time. This was not the laughing face that sat across from me at lunch or the lovesick boy who held Harper's hand when he thought no one was paying attention. He was severe with his mouth drawn into a haughty frown.

“Before the network went down, someone got into my account,” he said steadily. His eyes slid to the side, but he seemed to think better of looking directly at Harper. He flattened his hands over his suit jacket, smoothing the buttons. “All of my grades were changed. Not a lot. Enough to make sure that I wasn't first place in the ranking. Enough to make sure that Harper was.”

I threw up my hands. “That's it? Just because someone didn't want you to be valedictorian doesn't mean that Harper did anything wrong.”

“Jack proved that the IP address matches, Trixie,” he said. “And you heard her on Monday. Talking about how the school has been too hard on us, how we were all being pushed too far—”

“Enough,” Mr. Leonard said. “We're leaving.”

“Mr. Leonard,” I blurted. If he took Harper, then her expulsion would be real. If she could get out of the car, she could explain that she was innocent and all of this would go away. Harper could explain anything away. That was her superpower. “You don't believe this. You know that this is wrong, don't you?”

His lips were flat and bloodless against his ashen face. “I know that this is wrong, Beatrice. But I don't know that I don't believe it.” He moved around the car, nodding to Dr. Mendoza. “Stuart, we will be in touch.”

He slid into the driver's seat and the slam of the car door echoed into the night. As the car's engine roared to life, Harper turned her face a fraction. Tears spilled down her cheeks, leaking out from under the edge of her glasses and into her open, sobbing mouth. She locked eyes with me. For a moment she was just glitter and tears, both blinding in the light from the street lamps. And then the car wheeled around the corner. There were brake lights and then there was nothing but dark road and an empty street.

Dr. Mendoza straightened and cast a wary glance at me and Cornell. “I would appreciate it if the two of you would use the utmost discretion about this.”

Cornell stiffened. “I don't plan on telling the world that my girlfriend is a cheater.”

Mendoza gave a curt nod and walked briskly toward the front gate.

I couldn't force myself to move or speak. The universe seemed to have condensed down to the head of a pin, crushing and compacting in on itself, smashing me down with it until there was only one word left in the vacuum.
No.
No, no, no.

Cornell shoved his hands in his pockets, his head tilted toward the starless sky.

“There was too much evidence,” he muttered. “There wasn't anything I could do.”

I couldn't think of anything to say.

I walked away, leaving him and the Mess behind.

 

21

Hobbled and overheated,
I made it to the park and decided to take a breather. Crawling under the tube slide in my dress didn't seem feasible. I wobbled through the bark and ascended the stairs. I sat down heavily in the center of the play structure, high above the expanse of green lawn and empty benches.

Eventually, I would need to make it all the way home. I'd have to explain to my parents that Harper had been expelled and that I'd left the dance without even consuming a glass of punch.

I rested my head against the wall, feeling the rough wood hold fast to my hair. The light sheen of sweat that had been protecting my bare shoulders was evaporating fast in the night's breeze. I squeezed my eyes closed, wishing I'd thought to gather my things before I'd run out of the cafeteria. My coat was draped over the center seat in Peter's van. My purse was sitting under my book at the table where Jack had found me.

I should have gone back for them. I should have taken Meg aside and explained everything that had happened. She would have come with me to the park. She would have a plan.

But the idea of seeing Cornell again kept me in place. Anger twisted my stomach into knots and boiled up in my throat. If he had tried to give any evidence in Harper's favor, things could have been different. He could have tried. He could have told Mendoza that Harper was way too busy doing her own work to interfere with anyone else's. How could she possibly have hacked into the system and rigged five different accounts when she was doing extra-credit projects in all of her classes? Between picking up her dad's dry cleaning and making dinner and reading comics, when would she have found the time to also make sure Kenneth Pollack couldn't go to the harvest festival? And why would she target four boys that she never even spoke to? It was illogical. Harper wasn't illogical.

Wheels crunched on gravel. A boy on a bicycle was slowing down in front of the park. He passed under a street lamp and I could make out the exclamation point of his hair through the slats of the play structure.

Ben leapt down off his bike and pulled his phone out of his pocket. As he stepped into the bark, he murmured, “Yeah, I've got her. It's cool. Okay.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket and climbed the stairs.

“You know,” he said, depositing his backpack on the landing as he strode toward me, “when Shep came and told me that you'd run off with Jack, I was pretty offended. If you were going to choose between the two guys who hate me most on campus, I'd vote for Shep, personally. In a rank of guys you could spend winter ball with, it should be me, Shep, and then—dead last with a gun to your head—Jack Donnelly. I mean, I'm not the best guy at the Mess, but I have to be better than Jack.”

I tipped my neck back to look at him. “You are better than Jack.”

“Good. I just wanted to get that clear. I asked Mary-Anne and she didn't agree.” He hopped down and sat an arm's length away from me, his legs extending nearly to the entrance of the tube slide. His head lolled to face me. “Cornell said you'd left. Jack Not-As-Good-As-Me Donnelly filled us in on the rest.”