The Inside of Out (26 page)

Whitney Jenkins, Palmetto sophomore, TMZ video interview

“Her soul is still in jeopardy, even if she's not an active homosexual. I'm praying for all of them.”

Reverend Tom Rawlings, in
The Post and Courier

“She's been straight all along. Since eighth grade, anyway. That's when
we
were together. I don't really want to kiss and tell, but let's just say she is very, very, very straight. It was intense. I'm gonna be honest . . . she broke my heart.”

Seth-Freaking-Ross, basking in the News Channel 7 camera's glow

“Your
heart
? I broke your
nose
!”

Daisy Beaumont-Smith, Palmetto junior, screaming at the computer screen

“The barest, quickest web search reveals a worrying pattern of grandiose promises and outrageous assertions by Ms. Beaumont-Smith. Only two years prior, she made local headlines by claiming to have written an original opera on the life of famed pirate Stede Bonnet. Though she was hailed as a young prodigy, the opera never materialized. It begs the question—were we complicit? Too rabidly eager to laud and crown a sixteen-year-old whom the harsh glare of hindsight reveals quite clearly as the narcissist and pathological liar she was all along?”

Editorial in
The Guardian

“We've been talking.”

Sophie's eyes were kind, her voice soothing. It felt like I was being dumped by my fairy godmother.

“And we think it would be better for us to keep going . . . without you as our spokesperson.”

I nodded. “I totally agree.”

Sophie let out her breath in one big
shuh,
relieved that I didn't put up a fight. Sean patted my hand, but the old thrill at having him in close proximity was no longer strong enough to boost my mood.

“It's not that we don't appreciate what you've done, Daisy,” he said. “It's just gotten so complicated, right?”

He leaned in, grimacing, like we were gossiping about somebody else.

“Yeah, I can see that.” Everyone looked wary, half expecting me to go Hulk-mad and overturn the conference table. “So how else can I help?”

“You've done enough,” Raina said, and it came out so harsh that she herself winced. “I mean . . . you've
helped
enough. You can sit it out from here.”

I nodded as if I understood. “Sit it out, um, completely? Or—”

“It's nothing personal,” Raina said, to a chorus of wild-eyed agreement from the group. “We should never have put you in this position in the first place. You're not a bad person, you're just . . . unqualified.”

My mouth made an “oh,” but the sound didn't come out.

“Sit with me at lunch,” Sophie said, stretching her hand
out, not quite far enough to reach me. “You're still our friend, even if you're not . . . technically . . . an Alliance member anymore.”

So I was out of the Alliance too. It took my lungs a second to recover from having the air smacked out of them.

I looked to Kyle, but he glanced away. It wouldn't be fair to ask him to go to bat for me. All I'd done was ruin everything he was fighting for. The narrative we'd been promoting all along was gone. The Alliance had gone from Gallant to Goofus in one stupid lip-lock.

“Got it,” I said, and tried to leave with as much grace as possible—only to remember in the hallway that I'd left my backpack, forcing me to double back and round the table again to get it, before ducking out a second time with yet another sheepish wave
just
as the bell rang, at which point everybody got up and walked out with me. Awesome.

Sophie and Jack both gave a tiny wave good-bye, which made me feel a smidge less awkward, but then Raina, the last to leave the room, hit me with her backpack as she waltzed past. Didn't even look back, like I'd ceased to exist the instant she ousted me from the group.

Because it
was
her, wasn't it? She'd always wanted me gone. And now I was.

“Congratulations!” I shouted at her retreating back. She stopped walking. “I'm the villain after all. Right, Raina? This whole situation . . .” As she slowly turned, I drew a big circle in the air. “It's on me. I mean, it's not like you held a meeting and
voted
for me to pretend to be a lesbian. Oh! Wait!”

“What exactly are you fighting for, here, Daisy?” Raina asked, smoothing a stray curl into her headband as she strolled over. “The right to hang out with us?”

I flinched. She smiled.

“To help us put up tents? Hang streamers for the dance?” She pretended to consider. “Tell you what. You really want to do that? You can do it. There you go, you're hired.”

“You can't rehire me,” I snapped. “I quit.”

She let out a laugh like a gunshot and pointed at me. “
There.
There it is.”

I glanced down at my outfit. “Where what—?”

“Your
blind spot
.” She dropped her bag on the ground, spread her stance. “Here's what you don't get. You
can
quit. Because you, Daisy Beaumont-Smith, are
privileged
.”

“
Excuse me?
” I scoffed. Raina was looking at me like I was a princess. A mean girl. Natalie Beck. “Privileged? How am
I
—?”

She cut me off, eyes alight. “You really want to argue this with me? Let's see, Daisy.” She counted off on her fingers. “You're white. You're cisgender, you're straight, you're rich—”

“I'm not rich!” I gawked at her. “We're
comfortable,
but—”

She sighed like it hurt. “Are you gonna go to college?”

This was ridiculous. “Yeah. But I don't see—”

“So you're looking into financial aid programs, then. Scholarships.”

My mouth clamped shut. I looked away. “No.”

“No,” she parroted. “You're rich. And the fact that you think ‘comfortable' isn't rich? That's your privilege showing.”

I sank into myself, feeling like I was being cross-examined into a lengthy prison sentence. Raina was going to make one
hell of an attorney. Not that I'd know her by the time that happened.

“You don't get it.” Her voice grew gentle, almost sad. “You're never going to get it. Because this is the problem with privilege, Daisy. It's a blindfold with a pretty picture of the world painted on the inside. You think it's the truth. But it's just
your
truth. You think homecoming is something you can play with, be reckless about, never mind the consequences—because there have never
been
consequences for you. And you're lucky, I'm happy for you.” As if to demonstrate, she shot me a grim smile that fell away instantly. “But that is not our reality. Our reality is that this fucking matters. Our cause is not a toy.”

If she'd been holding a mic, she'd have dropped it. Instead, she picked up her backpack and continued down the hall, while I stayed shuffling in place like a lame horse, knowing that if I argued any further, I would only prove her point.

Besides, I agreed with her on one thing. I should never,
ever
have gotten involved.

Hannah once taught me the German word for vicarious embarrassment:
fremdschämen
. It sounded like an infectious disease, and for good reason—my entire school appeared to have come down with it.

No one acknowledged me—not to mock, yell, offer words of sympathy, hold the door before it smacked me in the face, call on me in class. QB was keeping his distance, as well he freaking should. No matter how many times I checked my phone, Adam wasn't texting. The Alliance was formalizing our divorce by pretending I'd never existed, and Hannah . . .

Hannah was really good at running.

“Hey!” I shouted, rounding the corner of the school toward the parking lot. She walked faster. “Han!”

I caught her by the shoulder and she turned with a bewildered headshake.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn't hear you.”

“Then how did you know there was something to hear?” I grinned, nudged her, realized too late that joking around was the wrong tack to take.

She sighed. “What do you need, Daisy?”

One friend in the entire world?

I clung to my backpack straps, fighting to stay sunny. “I just wanted you to know that I got your voicemail, and if you need somebody to talk to, or a distraction, or anything else . . . I am here for you. And I suddenly have a lot more free time for hanging out. So yeah.”

“Duly noted.” She shifted her weight and looked away. “Listen, I need a week. Just to go to school and do my homework and go to bed and not think about anything. We'll talk after that.” She crossed her arms, looked at me. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah, totally!” I backed away, hands where she could see them.

“Okay.” She slumped, exhausted—but also visibly relieved.

As she walked off, I dropped the smile, the act, all of it. There was no point in pretending. She wasn't going to look back.

She left me the stoop. I'd noticed it sitting empty on Monday and Tuesday, but I'd snuck lunch up to the math wing to eat alone, knees tucked to make myself as small as possible. On Wednesday, the stoop looked so sunny and inviting that I took a chance, poked my head out, and reclaimed my old seat.

I'd sort of hoped it would be empowering. That I'd feel independent, self-sufficient, like this was still my own little corner of the universe. But the stoop just felt like a stoop—not mine, not Hannah's—a random architectural feature of an ugly municipal building.

I ate. I left. And on Thursday, I got over myself.

“Hey,” I said, approaching the granola table. “Mind if I—?”

“Of course!” Sophie beamed, clearing the spot next to her.

I'd bought a salad for lunch, worried about offending their sensibilities, but now I looked around to find them chowing down on cafeteria burgers and chicken soup. Not what I'd expected.

Sophie tried to include me in the conversation, but it was all about some music festival they were going to and some guy named Gus who was lending them his van and was apparently
hilarious,
so there was really no entry point. I focused on my non-meal, grateful at least for the pretense of friends.

“Nope,” said a dreadlocked girl at the end of the table. “Nope, nope, nope.”

Everyone's heads turned right, a herd of gazelles sensing danger.

“Ignore them,” said the boy to Sophie's left as she folded into herself. I glanced up from picking at my lettuce to see the Sexual Harassment Squad veering in our direction.

But they weren't here for Sophie.

“Daisy,” cooed Seth Ross, his pompadour shellacked with gel, Roman nose begging to be re-pummeled. “I've missed you. We were hot together, don't you think? Did you see my
interview
?”

I bit into a cherry tomato. “Yup.”

As far as harassment went, this was not impressive.

His friends were more skillful. “I heard you like dick now, is that right?”

“Or just football dick?” said the shortest guy in the crew, pulling on his ear as he tittered.

Leering, Seth picked up the thread. “Something about those sweaty jockstraps . . . do they remind you of—?”

“Oh my God,”
was all I could say.

Then, to my left came a sudden blur of movement as Sophie picked up the piping hot bowl of soup from a tray opposite her, stood, and tossed it at Seth Ross's crotch.

Her hands flew sweetly to her cheeks. “Oh, goodness. I'm so sorry, clumsy me!”

We all stood in amazement.

“What the
fuck
?” He was doubled over, spurting short-form expletives as his friends kneeled in a cluster, dabbing him with napkins. Realizing how it must look, he started hitting them to get them to stop. It was
incredible
.

Sophie fled. I followed. After a few rounded corners, I found her in the girls' room, perched on the windowsill, wiping her face with balled fists. I thought for a second she was laughing, but then she looked up, cheeks splotchy red and eyes streaming.

“That was so mean,” she said, shuddering. “I can't believe how mean I just was!”

“You were defending me.” I eased open one of her hands and held it. “
Thank
you. Now you need to start doing that for yourself.”

She squeezed, shaking her head. “I can't.”

“Why not?” I leaned in, catching and holding her eye. “Think about your anger issues. Wouldn't your mom be proud if she could see—?”

“She would be
horrified
. We're Quakers! We're supposed to be pacifists.” She buried her face in her tucked-up knees, her symbol necklace swinging loose.

“Wait, you're a Quaker?” I squinted at her. “I thought you were, like, Wiccan. Or Hindu.”

She peeked out, perplexed. “Why?”

“Your necklace,” I admitted. “I couldn't figure out what the symbol meant.”

Sophie blinked down at it. “
S
? For Sophie?”

“Oh.” Now that she mentioned it, the curve did form a recognizable . . . yeah, I was an idiot.

When we left the bathroom, Principal Zimmer was shuffling uncomfortably on the other side of the hallway, hands clasped behind his back.

“Just heard there was an altercation in the cafeteria?”

Sophie's head sank.

Oh no,
I realized.
They're gonna call her mom.

I stepped in front of her. “
I did it.
Lost my temper. He deserved it, but . . . sorry?”

Principal Zimmer sighed. “Come with me.”

Behind me, Sophie's eyes widened in shock, then relief. She mouthed “Thank you,” and added out loud, “See you later, Daisy, I'm gonna get back to my friends.” She spun back. “I mean—”

I forced a wan smile. “It's cool.”
I know what you mean.
“See you later.”

After shame-marching through the halls to the administrative wing, passing students grinning maliciously to see me getting into trouble—their
fremdschämen
morphing into
schadenfreude
—Principal Zimmer passed me to the starchy vice principal, who at least looked sympathetic as she handed down a one-week suspension, part of the school's “zero tolerance” policy against on-campus violence. I didn't bother to argue.

“Whom should I call?” the vice principal asked, lifting her phone from its cradle. “I need to notify one of your—”

“Dad!” I blurted. “My dad.”

I forced my mind into a happy place while she spoke to him, then she motioned to a set of chairs in the hallway where I could wait.

The bell rang for seventh period. Raina walked past, typing on her phone. Then Jack, with Sean, who was demonstrating something with a series of elaborate hand gestures. Then Kyle. He dropped his bag, spilling books onto the carpet, and Sophie ran up to help. I lifted a hand. They didn't see me.

“
Daisy
.” My dad was standing over me, more ashen than I'd ever seen him. He looked like he needed to be quarantined, which he sort of already was. “Let's go. Explain in the car.”

“It was Seth Ross,” I said as soon as our seat belts were clicked.

Dad's mouth fell open. “The same—?”

“Yep.”

He glanced around wildly, his face blotching with anger under his two-day stubble. “Do I need to have words with him myself? Or with his parents?”

I swallowed my grin. “No, Dad, I don't think we need another assault charge tacked on, but I appreciate the gesture.”

He settled down and started the car.

“Could we . . . possibly . . . not tell Mom, though?”

His grimace deepened. “This seems like her area more than mine, Daisy. I don't see—”

“I don't want her to get involved,” I said. “She would, like,
start a petition on school harassment and . . . can we just tell her I'm home sick? Let her off the hook this once?”

“I see what you're saying.” Dad glanced sidelong at me. “But she and I are partners, Daisy. I don't like cutting her out.”

Really?
I thought.
Because I can't remember the last time the three of us were even in the same room together.

Was that what marriage was? Meet-cute in high school, share your dreams, launch a business, start a family, drift apart until you aren't much more than roommates? If that was the case, maybe it wasn't so sad that I hadn't seen Adam in five days. It wasn't heartbreaking at all. It was
fantastic
.

Watching my expression darken, Dad patted my shoulder and sighed. “All right, Daisy. Just make sure you're convincing.”

After I heard Mom's car pull out of the driveway the next morning, I uncurled myself from “stomach virus pose,” got out of bed, and stood for a few minutes in front of the bathroom mirror, debating whether to put on clothes, run a brush through my nest of hair, make some effort to feel human. But after a few bleary stares at my reflection, I opted for Plan B: wallow.

Here it was again, that old familiar feeling. Maybe it had always been with me, lurking in the background while I pretended to be happy. Empty house. Silent. Indifferent. I had the nostalgic urge to curl up with my old Giselle Chronicles books, but that would involve climbing into the attic. So instead, safely back in bed, I stared at Zelda as she flounced
onto the end of my mattress and silently delivered a smug lecture: Hope: Avoiding It at All Costs.

“You knew this was going to happen,” the cat said, blinking slowly. “It was only a matter of time before Hannah realized you weren't worth caring about. You're a psycho and everyone knows it now. Everyone in the entire country—including Adam. You're not gay. You're not asexual. You're not worth a designation. You're just nothing.”

A tear rolled down my cheek, as close to a shower as I was going to get today.

“Stop crying,” Zelda said, burrowing into the covers with a low purr. “Nobody feels sorry for you. You don't get to feel sorry for yourself. It's boring.”

My cat, cruel tormentor though she may have been, had a point. Wallowing was really freaking boring.

So I got out of bed, pulled out my bio textbook, and started to read it, right from Lesson One: Darwin.

Once I'd worked my way through to one chapter past where we were in class, I took a break to check my email. Nobody had written. Then, stupidly, I clicked on the tab next to email—the one that took me to my brand-new Facebook account. Lots of people had written me there! All my new “friends.” Saying what a liar I was, that they hoped I would crawl back in the troll hole I'd come from, that they wanted their donations back, that I'd set the gay rights movement back ten years, which seemed like a bit of an overstatement. But I wasn't gay, so I didn't get to decide that. Maybe they were right. Maybe I had just screwed up the lives of millions of people.

I deleted the account and shut down my computer for at least the day, maybe ever, and went back to having a staring contest with the cat. The cat won.