The New Guy (18 page)

Relief is what I feel first. It’s not
the worst
, even though up until this very moment I didn’t realize that I even had a
worst
in mind. It was years ago, and it ended. It’s nothing that changes our romantic relationship.

And what Chaos 4 All did probably isn’t illegal.

But it’s definitely unethical.

What Alex did was unethical.

And he’s possibly still doing it.

After all, if Ethan Summers can be so casual about it now, they must have all known. Sure, they were all just fifteen, but couldn’t someone have said something? Maybe they couldn’t have stopped it, but they could have spoken up.

It really
should
make me upset. Doesn’t this make Alex a thief, at least kind of? It makes him at least a liar. It makes him
a cheater
.

I’m actually not sure there are that many things worse than cheating.

I escape my parents and hole up in my room because I’m not sure how I’ll manage not to tell them about this. They’ve literally been the only people I could talk to about Alex since we got back together, but now it’s too much.

Peanut and Daisy join me on the bed, so I talk to them instead.

“We clearly can’t publish it,” I say. “It’s all based on hypothesis at this point, and even if it wasn’t, I’m not sure that Mr. Wheeler would let us.”

I might be imagining it, but it seems like Daisy’s giving me a look of concern.

“But of course it’s not just that,” I say while stroking Daisy’s velvet ears. “I can’t do that to Alex. Even if it’s true. Even if he’s a cheater and a liar and other bad things. He’s still Alex.”

Peanut perks up at the sound of Alex’s name, which would be the cutest thing ever if not for the situation at hand.

“How could he know all of that?” I ask. “How could he
know that
and
go along with it
? Alex was so concerned when he did that Stray Rescue piece for TALON that I thought of him doing it for good and not for attention. Could someone like that cheat
everyone
just to get famous? And then
do it again
?”

My phone buzzes, and I look at it, even though I know who it’ll be, both because I’m expecting it and because this is exactly how my life works. Of course it’s Alex.

“Of course I want to go out!” I say, and I don’t even pretend I’m talking to the dogs anymore. I’m just a girl, sitting on my bed, talking to myself. “But can I
not talk
about this? I don’t think that’s even possible.”

Right now it seems that my phone is the source of everything stressful, so I stick it under my pillows and run back downstairs. Darcy and Mom are debating where they should go out for dinner, and even though I think it might be some kind of date night, I pipe up that French sounds great. I have to get out of the house. And I think when you’re a parent, you accept that your child will at least occasionally hone in on your plans.

I hope so at least.

When we get back from dinner at Canelé and then coffee at Bon Vivant, Mom and I take the dogs out for a walk while Darcy checks in on some work emails. By the time we’ve brought the dogs back in the house, I say good night and head up to my room. I want more enforced time away from my phone, of course, but I’ve crashed enough of their date night.

Alex hasn’t texted any more, but,
crap
, Sadie has. Why do I keep forgetting her?

I start to type that I was out with my parents, but obviously I’d normally have my phone on me, and also I’d normally pick dinner with Sadie over dinner with my parents. Nothing will add up if I can’t include anything about Alex or the Alex article.

I do text Alex back, though.
Sorry, out with Mom and Darcy. It’s probably too late now. Sorry!

His response is immediate.
Don’t be sorry. It’s not THAT late, but I know you run on Sunday mornings.

I want to view him with nothing short of intelligent suspicion, but now he’s texting me and being considerate. The thought of kissing him is enough to put the article out of my head.

For a moment, at least.

Thanks for understanding,
I text.
Have a good night!

Will he know something’s up? Normally we don’t say good night; we text back and forth until it’s harder to come up with complete thoughts, and then it sort of trails off naturally. But if Alex suspects anything isn’t usual about tonight, he doesn’t say it, merely wishes me a
good night
too.

Sadie and Em are at my locker when I get to school on Monday. Alex passes by me, and I use every ounce of effort not
to react in any way. All at once I want to demand he explain everything about Chaos 4 All and TALON, but also I want to kiss him. And instead I have to do nothing.

“Big Saturday-night plans?” Sadie asks me, and I remember the texts I missed while my phone was under my pillow and I was out on my parents’ date.

“I’m sorry I didn’t text back,” I tell her.

“Let me guess?” Sadie rolls her eyes. “Your phone died?”

“No, I…” I’m not sure what I can say that will sound real and also that won’t sound like a cop-out. “The
Crest
stuff.”

“Of course,” she says.

“We hung out on Friday night,” I say, because all of us ended up at a movie again.

“With everyone else,” she says. “Come on, Em. See you in class, Jules.”

“But…” I lock eyes with her. “We have first period together.”

“Yes, Jules, I’m capable of remembering my own schedule. See you there.”

They walk off toward Em’s first-period class, and I slide all my books from my backpack into my locker. And when I get to women’s history, Sadie doesn’t look at me at all.

I go to school like it’s a completely normal Tuesday, even though my SAT scores are due to get posted today. There were only a few other Eagle Vista students there with me that day; I try to gauge when I spot, for example, Natalie in the hall, if she looks nervous. But she looks like she always does; completely together and completely unfriendly.

“I bet they’ll be fine,” Sadie tells me before women’s history. We seem to be talking again, but I did make a point of it last night not to let my phone out of my sight, and to text Sadie a couple of funny pictures of the dogs. “Not fine.
Perfect.
I’ve never seen you choke. I have so much more to worry about.”

“NYU’s acceptance rate is four times higher than Brown’s,” I tell her. “You’re fine.”

“Wait, do you have every college’s acceptance rate memorized?” she asks.

“Just the ones relating to me,” I say.

“Aw! You memorized it because I’m your best friend?
That’s somehow the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a while.”

“It wasn’t even that nice,” I say, which makes her laugh. Hopefully we’re back on normal footing. Better footing, at least.

It is easier not confessing everything to Sadie when we aren’t hanging out constantly, though.

“Let’s skip class and check your scores,” she says.

“Skip class?”
I give her my best disapproving look, even though it’s true that women’s history, and
my future,
start at the exact same time today, eight
AM
.

“Someone will give us a pass,” she says, pulling me down the hallway to Mr. Wheeler’s classroom. We file in with his freshmen.

“Jules, Sadie,” he says. “Are you two lost? Ha-ha!”

Sadie laughs like this is a very funny bit. “Mr. Wheeler, could we use one of the computers for just a moment, and get a pass for first period?”

He sighs but waves us over to the row of computers as the bell rings. Sadie sits down and types in my email address into the Web portal. “What’s your password?”

I lean past Sadie to enter my password (PeanutDaisy777), and then follow the directions I’ve saved in my inbox to get to my scores.

“Should I close my eyes?” Sadie asks as I’m logging in. “Do you need, like, one private second?”

“Hey, ladies,” Mr. Wheeler says. “Please keep it down over there, okay?”

“Sorry, Mr. Wheeler!” Sadie calls. Loudly.

“You don’t have to close your eyes,” I whisper as my results load.

“You’re
a rock star
,” Sadie says in nothing approaching a whisper.

“I don’t think SAT scores are what rock stars are known for,” I say, but I can’t help smiling. My numbers are higher than ever. These are Brown-worthy scores.

“Sadie, come on.” Mr. Wheeler looks over from his attempt to observe the classroom for attendance. “We’re having a class here.”

“Jules, we have to celebrate,” Sadie says emphatically enough that Mr. Wheeler gives her another stern look.

“Later,” I tell her. “We need to go to class.”

“We should get our passes and leave this classroom,” she says, loudly enough that Mr. Wheeler just walks to his desk and writes out our passes.

Out in the hallway I take out my phone to message Darcy and Mom in our ongoing group text. It’s usually about who walked the dogs last or if whoever’s making dinner needs something picked up from Gelson’s. This is better.

“Swork for coffee?” Sadie asks.

“We have class,” I say.

“We have passes that keep us out of first period,” she says, “as long as we’re back before the bell rings. You’re a genius and deserve a latte. Well, more than a latte, but right now I will buy you a latte.”

I don’t know how to say no to Sadie when she’s right in
front of me, so I walk as calmly as I can beside her and realize that if our passes are held in viewing range that no one really gives us a second look. We’re off campus before I know it, and then we’re only a couple of blocks from Swork.

We get small iced lattes, because we feel confident we can finish them in the couple of blocks before we’re back at the school. I check my phone while we’re still off campus and fast-sipping our lattes, and my parents have both responded.
We knew you could do it! SO PROUD!!!
plus an emoji heart from Mom.
Yes, this is a non-surprise, but the best kind,
from Darcy, and then one more emoji heart from Mom.

“I think my mom learned emoji from your mom,” Sadie says, glancing over my shoulder. “I get whole messages without words now.”

“We should get back to class,” I say.

“I know, I know.” She grabs my empty cup and tosses both of ours in the trash can immediately before school grounds. “We can celebrate for real later, okay? After you walk the dogs tomorrow? I’ll plan something cool that you’ll love.”

“Maybe,” I say. “I have to check my schedule.”

Sadie sighs. “I know, I know, I’m just Sadie, I can’t help you with the
Crest
or with Brown. I’d never be able to figure out how to take down the whole of digital media in one fell swoop.”

“What? No, just, my moms, homework, everything.” I shrug because
everything
partially does include the
Crest
and of course taking down at least the digital media within our school.

“Sure,” Sadie says, but like the word is something she has
to get rid of from her mouth as quickly as possible. “See you at lunch.”

I didn’t think it was possible to get these scores and feel this bad.

Maybe it’s my scores, or the caffeine in the iced latte, or Sadie’s
sure
playing over and over in my head, but I’d somehow almost forgotten about the Chaos 4 All article.

“We’re definitely publishing it,” Carlos says during our after-after-school meeting. “Right?”

“I… don’t know,” Thatcher says, looking right at me.

“I don’t think that we should.” I aim for a firm and convicted tone, but my pitch sounds off. High-pitched and off. “It doesn’t seem to fit the historic goals of the
Crest
.”

“I thought this year we were trying to protect those historic goals,” Marisa says.

“We are—”

“That’s
exactly
what this will do,” she interrupts me. “Right?”

There are a lot of positive-sounding murmurs around Carlos’s living room.

“I don’t think
historic goals
ever covered ruining a student’s reputation,” Thatcher says in a voice that sounds convicted but not crazy. I have so much to learn from Thatcher.
“Right?”

There are positive-sounding noises for this too, but maybe not as many.

“Even if I thought this was the right thing to do,” I say, “which I don’t, Mr. Wheeler would never let us print it.”

“That is correct,” Thatcher says. “Let’s just drop it.”

“This feels
important
,” Marisa says. “What Chaos 4 All did was…”

“Really screwed up,” Carlos says.

“It was
wrong
,” Marisa adds. “And somehow no one’s looked into this before…”

“Probably because Chaos 4 All ended up such an epic fail,” Amanda says, and now almost the entire room sounds affirmative.

And I know this is true; if people had continued listening to and loving and supporting Chaos 4 All, there would have been much more attention on them. This would have come out earlier. And even if nothing else changed from there on out, when Alex started school here, I’d have already known he was a cheater and a liar. I can’t imagine I would have fallen for him then.

Staying fallen, though, is another story.

“How did you even get Ethan Summers to talk to you?” I ask.

“Seriously,” Carlos says. “And you got Alex to admit it too, which is pretty incredible.”

“Alex didn’t come out and admit anything,” Marisa says. “I told him I was writing a piece about viral popularity and new media, and wondered if he’d give me a few quotes. But once I talked to Ethan, all the information came forward, and it all fit together.”

“Again, how did you even talk to Ethan?” I ask. “Why did Ethan want to tell you everything?”

“Alex set it up; I guess they’re still friends. And Ethan sounded
relieved
, to be honest,” Marisa says. “Imagine carrying around that big secret for years. Plus probably no one asks him about Chaos 4 All anymore.”

I think of the secret bottled up within Alex. He must feel the same.

“I think we owe it to everyone to at least give Mr. Wheeler the option,” Marisa says. “It can’t be pure coincidence that TALON gets so many views. Who the hell would care about TALON who doesn’t go to this school?”

“We’ll have to give away so much if we do,” I say. “I’m afraid these meetings will come up. Or everything else we’ve tried to do against TALON.”

“I’ll say I did it on my own,” Marisa says. “I know how to keep secrets, Jules.”

“It’s investigative journalism,” Carlos says. “It’s a really well-written article. I think Wheeler would be impressed with it.”

“I’m not sure about how Mr. Wheeler would feel,” I say, “but I agree. It’s well written, and this is exactly what print journalism can do that something like TALON couldn’t.”

“Thank you,” Marisa says.

“But considering Mr. Wheeler”—
and Alex
—“let’s just sit on it for now,” I say. “We can keep watching their online traffic and see if it stays suspicious. If it does, we’ll have good reason to take our findings to Mr. Wheeler.”

Everyone makes affirmative noises, so I move the conversation along to our next topic. And I tell myself that even if Alex wasn’t my secret boyfriend—oh my god, “secret boyfriend” never stops sounding ridiculous—I’d still say we should give it some time.

The doorbell rings once I’m home working on physics and letting equations take up my brain space instead of Chaos 4 All. It’s a deliveryman with flowers—unbelievably, for me.

No one’s ever sent me flowers before, but I still know that the first thing I should do is check the card. I suspect Darcy and Mom are behind them, but I also hope that they aren’t, at least a little.

I touch the word
love
with my thumb. Alex could have just signed his name. But he didn’t.

I worry he’s a liar and a cheater. I worry he doesn’t have any sort of integrity, where things like success and popularity are concerned. But I also worry about the heavy burden he’s carried around with him, and what such a weight might do to a person.

A person who might love me.