Unfriended (20 page)

NATASHA

I WENT STRAIGHT
to the back corner of the social studies classroom to sit down with my group. None of them looked up at me. I slumped in my chair and took out my notebook. I wasn't sure if I was back in for lunch and in general, or what Truly's status was, but we were definitely stuck together for one more day at least, because of stupid History Day.

Brooke dashed in all flushed and smiley, a minute after the bell, apologizing. Clay was right behind her, grinning. Were they gossiping about me out in the hallway or something? Neither of them would even look my way.

Truly pulled a stack of typed, stapled packets out of her bag and handed them out to us without a word.

“Wow,” Brooke said. “Truly, this is . . . Thanks for doing all this.”

We all started reading.

“There are only four parts,” Evangeline said, flipping pages.

Truly nodded. She had a script on the desk in front of her, neat, pages unturned. She'd written the whole thing and none of us had even done any of the research to help. But she'd put all of our names up top, her own last.

Now watch, they'll all think she's so awesome for that, when they should be concentrating on all the bad stuff about her. Focus.

“Who's not in it?” Lulu asked Truly.

“Me,” Truly whispered.

“You're directing?” I asked. Of course, she'd made herself the boss. Typical.

“I'm nothing,” Truly answered.

Truly was contracting on the chair. She looked like one of the caterpillars in the butterfly hatching kit I had once, when they started entering the chrysalis stage. Tight and hard. Then most of them died.

“So wait. This Peggy girl?” Lulu pointed at me. “She totally played Benedict, right?”

“Hold up, I'm still trying to read this,” Evangeline said. “Am I a traitor or not?”

“Yes, you are, Benedict,” Truly mumbled. “But nobody here is completely innocent because . . .”

“Yes!” Lulu shouted. “Exactly!” Lulu gets very psyched when she figures stuff out. Focus, Lulu. Remember what we were just discussing about Truly and how evil
she
is?

Lulu bounced in her seat. “So Benedict wants to turn over West Point to the Brits. But meanwhile it was Natasha!” She pointed her stubby finger at me.

“Wait,” I said. “Why am I the—”

“Natasha totally masterminded this whole thing, and then she, like, collapses on the floor when Brooke comes in!” Lulu said. “In a big fake fit! Natasha just pretends to be completely innocent when it's all her fault!”

“Well, it's not
all
her fault,” Truly said from inside her cocoon.

I was trying to speed-read through the script, but it was hard to concentrate because I was trying to figure out if everything they were saying had double and triple meanings and if they were actually attacking Truly or it was me they were turning on again. My stomach was churning.

Leave it to Truly to get everybody back on her side with a stupid school project.

“I'm starting to get confused about who to feel sorry for,” Lulu said.

“Preach,” I agreed.

“Well, you're the worst,” Evangeline said. I looked up.

She was staring at me.

“Me?” I asked.

Evangeline slammed her palms onto her desk. “I should fully divorce your butt.” Oh, shoot me. She was actually talking about the freaking script? What is wrong with everybody?

“He'd never divorce her,” Truly said. “Even if he knew she was cheating on him with the French guy. And not just because it wasn't that common back then. He couldn't believe somebody so charming and beautiful and popular as Peggy would ever be with him. He felt completely unworthy all the time. Which maybe explains some stuff he did. He felt so desperate and, like, inadequate, it made him just forget to think. He knew he was hard to get along with,” Truly said quietly. “He was really smart but kind of, anti-charming?”

“I like that,” Brooke said. “Anti-charming. That's awesome.”

“Only George Washington really liked him,” Truly said. “And then Benedict betrayed him.”

“What a fungus,” Lulu said. “Betraying your best friend?”

Truly shrugged.

“Yeah,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “Who would do a nasty thing like that?”

“He had this idea he could maybe be a hero,” Truly said. “John André—the French guy—put the idea in his head that maybe he, this big ugly rough guy nobody liked, no social skills, anti-charming . . . Maybe he could turn West Point over to the British and end the war and everybody would hail him as a hero.”

“
Hail
him?” I started to mock, but they were all looking at Truly, into it, so I stopped. My stomach made a loud embarrassing gurgling noise.

Maybe nobody heard though because Truly kept talking: “Benedict thought, maybe if he did this, this one maybe questionable thing, he could be even cooler and more beloved than George Washington. So he took a chance and did it. And then he got caught and had to run away, like a rat through the woods, and he lived the rest of his life in England.”

“Wait, he got away?” Lulu asked. She flipped to the end of the script. It was five pages long. “They didn't catch him? I thought they killed him.”

“Nope,” Truly said. “They tried, but he survived. He lived a long time, after that. He died an old man. And his dying words were about how he wished he'd died with his friends on the battlefield.”

Nobody said anything. Around the room the low murmur of other groups discussing their projects burbled. Our group had ground to a stop.

“That's sad,” Evangeline said, after a full minute.

Come on, people
. “He betrayed his only friend,” I reminded her. “Doesn't get any lower than that.”

“Still,” Brooke said. “He made some bad choices, sure, but, like, you can see somebody's flaws and still have compassion for them”

“Maybe to be a hero,” I said, “you just have to die before everybody finds out the truth about you.”

“Yeah,” Truly whispered. “Maybe.”

“I mean, obviously it's just a first draft and it's kind of a muddled mess. So it's hard for any of us to really know what you're trying to say here,” I told Truly. “But maybe you mean that if a person realizes he or she has been a betraying, lying, conniving douche, who doesn't even know how to be a decent friend? It would be better for that person to just go ahead and die.”

Truly stood up. Pale and shaking, she stood there for a few seconds and then walked right out of the class.

After the door closed behind her, everybody turned and stared at me, like it was my fault.

“What?” I asked. “I was just saying.”

The bell rang a few seconds later. We all collected our stuff, shoved our scripts into our bags. Nobody said I should join them, I could sit at their table. My mom had been so sure they'd grab me right back in, once we exposed Truly. Everything would be normal again.

But nothing was.

I went to the girls' room, locked myself in a stall, and texted my mom. So pathetic, I know. But who else could I text?

I did what you said, head high, no mercy. Truly just walked out of school. I'm a little worried about her. Maybe I was too mean?

I sat there on the disgusting toilet with my pants up, trying not to touch anything. Waiting.

Stay strong!
Mom texted back.

I'm trying,
I typed quickly with my thumbs. And then added:
I'm just not sure what STRONG would be, now, though.

TRULY

JUST KEEP WALKING,
Butterfly.

Don't think.

Don't feel.

Don't decide anything.

Just walk.

HAZEL

TRULY

STANDING BY THE
side of Big Pond.

Never been this close to it before. I'm not allowed, so I never even thought about stepping off the sidewalk toward it, never mind down the hill.

I can't see my reflection in the murky water.

My fingertips are cold on my buzzing phone.

Last thing I need is to read any more of the truth about how horrible I am, posted everywhere. So I don't bother to look at it. I just look down into the bottomless murky water.

What did I do?

Why are they all so mad at me?

I haven't been a great friend, or a good person. I know that. I've messed up and been awkward and selfish. I'm too sensitive. I was so excited at the thought of becoming popular that I forgot to think. I left my best friend, Hazel, hanging alone. I wasn't sensitive enough to what Natasha was going through, and maybe I enjoyed the attention the boys were paying to me too much. I don't know how to be cool.

But if the choice in life is either having no friends, or handing over power to your friends to hurt you, I'm not sure how you decide. Both options stink.

I knew when Mom and Dad got home they'd be so mad—the school sends out robocalls or alerts, supposedly, when a kid cuts. Which I did. So I was stalling, here at Big Pond Their star, their easy kid, the good one. Yeah, well. Sorry. Blew that, too.

I flipped through some apps on my phone. More of the same. People were about evenly split between saying gross positive stuff and gross negative stuff. I was madly pointlessly untagging myself when I got a text from Hazel, the first since that day I walked away from her at our lockers:
URGENT—CALL ME.

I ignored it. She probably just wanted to join in on the fun of hating me. She was the one person I deserved it from most. But I had all those photos to find and untag.

Another text:
Seriously! Please Truly. I have to tell you something . . .

I ignored that one, too. That the photos of me look all slutty and stupid? Yeah, thanks Hazel. Seen 'em. You have every right to hate me, but I seriously can't take it on right now. I'm too busy deleting myself, bit by bit.

A bunch more texts from Hazel, which I ignored/deleted until this one:

I closed my eyes and took a breath, my phone cold and heavy as a gun in my hand. I was so tired. She needs . . . what?

Maybe something happened with her parents, or her brother, or her grandmother?

But what could I possibly do for her? Or for anyone? I was like the opposite of Midas—everything I touch turned to . . .

Another buzz.

Please,
Hazel texted.
Truly—I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . . ugh. It's too long to explain by text. If I e-mail you something, will you please open it?

There was just nothing left in me. I wasn't thinking about whether to say yes or no, wasn't wondering what could possibly be making Hazel push her own drama onto me right at that worst moment of my entire life. I wasn't doing anything. I couldn't even muster the necessary grace to say,
I'm the one who should be apologizing, Hazel—you have nothing to be sorry for!

I knew that's what I needed to do. My mom says when you feel down, the best strategy is to find a way to be kind to someone else. Here it was, presenting itself to me, a chance to be kind to someone who completely deserved my apology and kindness.

But I didn't text her back an apology. I didn't text her back at all. I didn't even do that one small good thing. I just stood there, feeling the wind blow around instead of through me, wondering what right I even had to make those air molecules change their paths.

Then this text came through from Brooke:
Hey. Why'd you cut? Are you coming to Evangeline's to rehearse after school?

No,
I texted back. Why would I answer Brooke and not Hazel? Because she's popular and despite everything I still feel buzzy when her name shows up on my phone?

Don't let Natasha get to you
, Brooke texted.

It's not just Natasha,
I texted back fast
. It's everybody. Including me.

As soon as I hit
SEND
on that to Brooke, this text came through from Hazel:

What was she even blathering on about?

My hand clenched the phone tighter, tighter, my one lifeline to everybody, this phone I begged my parents to buy me for my thirteenth birthday, back when becoming a teenager seemed like it would be so great, so exciting and full of adventure.

Hahahahaha.

I threw my phone up into the air. I watched it arc perfectly through the air, like a Salugi ball thrown by Evangeline, or Jack, one of the kids who is actually coordinated. It sliced silently through the unbelievably blue sky and then crashed into the water in the center of the pond. Not an explosion. Barely disturbed the pond water, never mind the universe. Just a quiet
plink.

And it was gone.

53

JACK

I WALKED OVER
to Truly's house instead of going to practice. I didn't care. Coach could bench me. He'd be right to. I was letting the team down, cutting practice, I knew. Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing, though.

You just do.

She lived a long way from school, I knew. I had looked her up in school directory. Not in a creepy stalker way, just . . .

Okay maybe that does seem creepy stalker of me. I was looking up her phone number because I was going to call her to ask
What was the science homework
but I hung up before anybody answered because, yeah.

But I am pretty good at memorizing things like her phone number and her address. And walking. I can just walk and walk; it's no problem.

I rang the doorbell at her house. Nobody answered. I knew she had left school early, I watched her walk out and off school grounds, watched her walking toward home, so I knew it wasn't that she'd stayed after school hanging out with friends or doing sports or anything.

I rang a few more times. No answer. I was about to start knocking and yelling but then I heard a squeak from around back. I stayed very still, listening for another sound. One little squeak. Then another, each followed by a dull little thump.

I went down the steps and around past the garage onto the narrow side path. When I got to the backyard, I saw her, sitting on a swing in the wooden swing set back there, slowly swaying.

I didn't want to startle her so I walked with heavy steps toward her. She lifted her eyes slowly to see me and didn't scream or jump, so I kept going.

When I got to the swing set I wasn't sure if I should maybe give her some pushes like a little kid, which is what she looked like, or just sit down in the other swing. I went with sit on the other swing. It seemed like the better choice.

I pushed a bit with my toes, but kept them in the dirt, dragging, catching up to Truly's rhythm.

After about a million minutes of silence, I thought of something to say: “How's your busted knee?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Okay.”

“The stitches came out fine?”

She nodded a tiny bit.

“So it's healing up well?”

“Crusting over.”

I nodded. “Sorry again about smashing into you.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I didn't mean to—I wasn't . . .”

And then she started bawling. Seriously. Not a few little tears tracking down her cheeks like used to happen to my mom sometimes back in Ohio when she thought I was asleep. No—this was full-out sobs, with her shoulders shaking and her nose running so much she had to wipe it on her sweatshirt sleeve. I didn't know what to do. I had no tissues. My mom tries to give me a travel pack sometimes but I never take it. So I had nothing.

Well, not nothing.

I leaned forward and reached into my backpack. “Here,” I said, handing her the small white box with its slightly crushed ribbons.

She didn't take it. She was still sobbing. Her shoulders were heaving and wet was dripping from her face to the dirt. Mostly tears, I think, but there might have been snot and drool in there, too.

Why didn't I take those tissues?

“Oh, wait,” I said. “I have a napkin. Don't worry it's clean. My sandwich today was kind of dry, not my best effort—turkey with not enough honey mustard and some Craisins. Eh. But on the plus side, I didn't use the napkin. So you're in luck.”

I had fished it out by then and held the napkin under her face, which was parallel to the mud puddle fast forming between her tiny feet.

She took my napkin and rubbed it on her face.

First time I ever felt happy about a too-dry sandwich.

She sniffed a bunch of times and then said, “Thanks.”

I was still holding the box. I reached it out so she could see it better. “This is for you,” I said. “Maybe it will cheer you up.”

She shook her head slightly, or maybe she just was sitting there and the swing bobbled a little.

“Do you want me to open it for you?” I asked.

Maybe she was too shy to say she did want me to open it for her, yes please. Or maybe she was thinking, Why is this guy being a creeper and bringing me a present? Like my mom hinted she would, though Mom thought we were talking about a possible present, not an actual one. Still, my mom is very smart about reactions, and normally I would never ignore her advice. But it was too late by then to have not bought it, so I decided to just keep it tucked into my backpack where nobody putting away socks would notice it accidentally.

And now it was also too late to not show it to Truly.

“Or you could open it,” I suggested. “When you're ready. No rush.”

“Who's it for?” she asked.

“You,” I said.

She plucked it gently from my hand. Then she just held it for a while. The ribbons were crushed in multiple places. I wished they looked as smooth as when I first got them. I wished she would open it. She was just holding it, still.

“It's not my . . . why?”

“I just wanted to,” I said.

“Did you see what they said about me online?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Some.”

“Oh, no,” she moaned.

“People say a lot of stupid and untrue stuff. What are you gonna do?”

She leaned forward and carefully lifted the box off my hand. Her bony little fingers began working those knots open. I had spent a bunch of my free time picturing that exact thing, so much, in fact, that it was like I was remembering it, even while I was watching it happen for the first and only time right in front of me.

She dropped the ribbons into her lap and lifted the box top off, then fished the bracelet out. It didn't look as pretty as I remembered from the shop. It looked like maybe I made it out of tin foil scraps.

“It's for you,” I said. “It's a bracelet.”

She looked up at me suddenly, the gray parts of her eyes floating in pools of red. It was a tiny bit scary. She held the bracelet up and looked at it.
Please think it's pretty,
I was thinking.
Please don't think I'm a creepy stalker.

I was imagining that she'd maybe put it on, asking for my help if she wanted it, and then maybe shyly smile and thank me. And then maybe we could swing a while, talking about this and that.

That's how I was thinking it should go.

But instead she just sat still, with the bracelet dangling limply off her finger.