The S-Word (29 page)

“I want you to love yourself,” I murmur, and he knows what I’m saying.

He starts to shake his head. I can feel his gut clenching, like his body’s rejecting my words. “Baby, please,” he says, lowering his lips to mine.

We kiss. His mouth parts to let me in. He’s so warm, I could stay like this forever. Tasting him. Feeling the softness of his lips. Believing I deserve to be kissed.

But I don’t.

I have to detangle myself from him. To push him so far away
he’ll never get back. Teeth tugging on his bottom lip, I pull away.

“Good-bye, Jesse,” I whisper in his ear.

His arms go slack. He backs away from me like I’m some angel of destruction. It feels good, in a way, to see him look at me like that. It proves I was right about myself.

Still, it takes far too much effort to push my way into the girls’ bathroom, and when I do, I must look like a mess because Elliot’s face falls at the sight of me.

“We need to talk to you,” she says. Poor girl, she’s already tearing up again. I can see where she wiped her cheeks clean of mascara stains, but she must’ve reapplied. When she blinks, little black dots appear beneath her eyes.

“There’s not really time for that.” I hold out their gowns.

They just look at me. Well, Cara won’t meet my eyes, but her face is aimed in my general direction. I get that creepy-crawly feeling, like spiders are skittering over my skin. “It’ll just take a minute,” she says, clearly mesmerized by the wall behind me.

“We wanted to say we’re sorry,” Elliot says. She takes Cara’s hand and I know it’s not an act. She’s being a good friend, like friends are meant to be. “About Lizzie.”

Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t.

“No worries,” I say, which sounds absolutely idiotic. But what else can I say? I can’t do this here and now. Can’t have real feelings. Can’t feel sympathy or sadness. Do they want me to dissolve into a sniveling mess in front of the entire student body? It’s horrible enough when I do that alone.

“Not just her death,” Elliot says, pushing the words out with obvious effort. “What we did to her. We shouldn’t have been so mean. There was no reason for it.”

There must’ve been,
I think, but I don’t say it. Why bait them? Why say anything at all?

“This whole thing is our fault,” Elliot says.

“No, it’s mine,” I murmur. My hand goes to my lips. Why did I say that? Why am I doing anything but shoving their gowns in their direction and bolting? I don’t need their forgiveness, and they’re in no position to give it to me.

“What are you talking about?” Cara asks, still avoiding my gaze.

“It was my fault,” I say. “Everyone tortured her for me.”

“For you?” Elliot’s face gets all scrunched. “Who did it for you?”

“Everybody. They hated her because of me.” I pause, thinking of everything I’ve learned. “Most of them anyway . . .”

Elliot’s shaking her head. They’re both shaking their heads, looking at me like maybe I’ve gone a little crazy.

Just a little? Please.

“But everyone wrote the same thing,” I insist. “Why would they do that, if not for me?”

“I don’t know.” Cara looks at me finally. “It was just easy. You call some other girl a slut, and nobody’s looking at you anymore. Nobody was looking at Kennedy.”

“Why would they be looking at Kennedy?”

But that’s a stupid question, and she answers it quickly. “She dates more than anybody.”

“
At least
dates,” Elliot supplies, dabbing at her eyes. But she doesn’t look bewitching anymore. She’s more like a dime-store magician, performing emotional sleight of hand:

Look this way, at the amazing slut-girl, Lizzie Hart!

Meanwhile, Cara sneaks Miss Popularity out through a panel in the floor.

“You were protecting Kennedy?” I shift the gowns in my arms. They feel heavy. The whole world feels heavy, pressing into me. If the girls would just get dressed, we could get out of here, and my
final act of vengeance would be completed. The karmic balance would be restored to the world.

That’s how it works, right? You battle hate with hate, and things even out. That’s why I can’t look in the mirror. That’s why I feel so fucking fabulous right now.

“We were trying to make things easier. But we’re sorry,” Cara says, reaching for me. I jerk away involuntarily. It’s only after I’ve stepped back that I realize she was trying to comfort me.

“Really sorry,” Elliot agrees. “But we don’t expect you to forgive us.”

“I’m the last person who needs to forgive you,” I say, thinking immediately of Lizzie. I want to be able to choose the right memory of her, the one that will fit this moment, but it doesn’t work that way. My mind jumps to the day I stood beside her locker, too afraid to talk to her. I was scared, so I did what was easy.

Over and over, I chose
easy
over
right.

Just give them the gowns and this will all be finished.

But I can’t. Their apology has ripped a hole in my anger and I feel myself inching toward the door . . .

Wondering if Jesse will still be waiting for me outside. His words circle around my head:
We can’t do what they did. We’d become them.

I push out of the bathroom and into the hallway. For a moment, it looks empty. Then I see his silhouette, lingering at the top of the stairs.

“Help!”

He turns around so quickly, my battered heart squeezes. He must think I’m in real danger. I’ve got to stop doing this to him.

“I need you to guard the boys’ bathroom,” I call before any more dark images can form in his mind. Hopefully, my words will amuse him long enough to abate the fear.

“Is this going to become a thing?” he asks, jogging toward me.

“Last time, I promise.” I duck inside the boys’ room before he can answer. Thank God the room is empty. My footsteps echo as I hurry to the sinks. I force myself to look in the mirror.

To see what I’ve become.

What I find there surprises me. It’s just me. No monster or unrecognizable beast snarls back at me. I’m still Angie.

I’m still a human being.

I realize I can find a way back to myself. I can be the person Lizzie wanted me to be, the person I want to be. No matter what I’ve done I can still stop this cycle, because what does hate do but breed more hate? Destroying a person’s life doesn’t solve anything. It just keeps the circle going, making the world uglier and uglier.

And I have the power to stop it.

I spread the gowns over the stall doors. It takes about ten seconds to cut the words out of them; good thing I didn’t leave Kennedy’s scissors in one of Drake’s extremities. When I’ve done all the damage I can do, I pin the black squares over the holes so the girls won’t know what’s missing until it’s too late. Then I send Shelby a text thanking her for letting me sort the gowns.

She’ll know what to do with it.

Jesse’s the only one waiting for me when I come out of the bathroom. “I ushered them down the stairs,” he says, looking worried, like maybe he helped me do evil.

“You did a good thing,” I say as I take his arm. “I promise.”

I savor the feeling of his arm against mine as we walk down the hall. I still expect him to say good-bye to me by the end of the day. But for now, as we approach the auditorium, I almost feel happy. No, not almost. I do feel happy.

It’s kind of amazing.

I pass Cara and Elliot their gowns when we reach the auditorium. Kennedy gives me a look, but she’s too far away to
intervene. Then the music starts and we all look forward, mesmerized by the thought of getting out of this place alive.

Of course, that opportunity isn’t afforded to everybody.

The ceremony starts out uneventfully. Principal Paisley welcomes us in this monotone that practically puts me to sleep. Valedictorian Shelby gives us one of her typical dramatic speeches. The highlight comes when Drake Alexander stumbles across the stage, still half-blinded by the pepper spray, to take his diploma.

As he exits, we get a perfect view of the back of his gown. The electric blue letters sparkle beautifully in the light:

RAPIST

D
RAKE WASN’T THE
first person to hurt someone this year. Two weeks prior to the start of winter break we all heard whispers about the girl who was abducted on Main Street. Two guys pulled over in broad daylight and dragged her into a van. The girl showed up three months later, but she was just a body then.

I’m not going to tell you what they did to her, but you can guess.

For several months afterward, everyone locked up their daughters like trophies in glass cases and pretended it would protect them from the evils of the world. Pretended it would protect
us
, even though the most common evils lurked behind our closed doors. Nobody said a word about the abuse already happening in those dark bedrooms. Nobody warned Lizzie that the worst moments of her life would be brought about by a family member and a friend.

Just like nobody warned Drake about whatever messed-up shit he must’ve endured growing up, because
good God,
you don’t come out of your mother a monster.

No, monsters are made. We make them. And when we don’t like what we’ve created, we play pretend.

Today, in the auditorium, I watch the senior class play pretend. I watch them stare at the word
RAPIST,
just like they stared at the word
SLUT
so many weeks before, and have the
exact opposite reaction.

They’re not gasping. They’re not attacking Drake with hurtful names. They’re laughing.

My classmates are laughing.

I close my eyes. Behind closed lids I witness the scene as if I were standing in the Alternate Dimension Bathroom—the way it should happen. I hear the cries, the outrage. I witness the mob of angry students rushing the stage. Maybe they lock Drake up and throw away the key. Maybe they draw and quarter him. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he’ll never hurt anybody again.

Yeah.

That’s how it happens.

I open my eyes back to the real scene. The football team’s bent over, slapping their knees and howling. Some of the girls are chuckling behind their hands. They’re having a grand old time.

And I start to wonder, for the very first time, if Lizzie was right to want to leave this place.

I start to wonder if there’s a way to see her again.

I stand, ready to leave this room, and maybe the world; I haven’t decided yet. But as I turn, the auditorium doors open, bringing with them the light. I remember Lizzie’s words then, when she caught sight of the clock tower in her dream:

The light of God will fill me up.

For a second, I actually wish for divine intervention. I’m starting to feel like it’s the only thing that can help me. But it isn’t God that enters the room in freshly pressed blue cotton and heavy black boots.

It’s the fuzz.

And I’ve never been so happy to see the cops in my life.

I press my fingers into my eyes to stop the tears of relief. Two boys in blue are hovering at the top of the room. It’s obvious they don’t want to interrupt the ceremony, but they can’t control the effect their arrival is having on us.

The laughter tapers off.

No, it
dies
. Invisible threads have wrapped themselves around the throat of every jerk who took Drake’s innocence for granted. They can’t laugh now. They can barely breathe. The possibility has finally dawned on them—not the realization, just the
possibility—
that Drake has had an ugly hand in things. And you know what else? Some of them are looking at me.

I inhale sharply, swallowing my fury, and give them my cheeriest smile. I wave, as if to say:
Yes, I did.

They stare at me, mesmerized, like they’re working out a math problem. The thought reminds me of Marvin, and suddenly I’m searching the crowd for his unruly head. All along the aisles, parents are taking stock of the Police Situation, gathering information and passing it down like they’re playing a game of Telephone. Under different circumstances, it would be hilarious, but I can’t focus on it.

I’ve located Marvin.

He’s staring right at me. His face isn’t red. He almost looks . . . impressed.

Same with Shelby: she’s sitting much closer, in the Jesse/Kennedy cluster.

Kennedy gives me a nod. Even Cara and Elliot, whose gowns have suffered my scissors’ wrath, are looking at me with a mixture of relief and awe.

They realize I’ve spared them.

And suddenly, the last people in the school who should come
to my defense start chanting for me, over and over again, until others join in:

“RAPIST,” they murmur, softly at first, their voices heavy with the weight of the word.

“RAPIST,” they shout to the red-faced, wide-eyed boy who’s managed to exit the stage. He’s cowering there, at the foot of the stairs. His graduation gown is balled up in his hands. Really, there’s nowhere for him to go. Even if he manages to slip behind the curtains, the cops will eventually find him. It’s not like he’s going to make it to Mexico.

He might not even make it to his house.

I almost smile.

But I can’t. The chant is getting louder, weaving its way into my brain. “RAPIST.” It’s ringing in my ears and making my heart pound. “RAPIST.” I actually kind of wish they would stop. Even whispered quietly, that word has the power to turn your stomach. But maybe that’s why it’s important to say it out loud. Maybe we can’t be afraid of talking about it if we ever want it to stop.

Maybe the first step to stomping out the world’s ugliness is dragging it into the light.

Quietly, I start chanting the word, though I hate how it sounds and how it tastes. I’m not screaming—I’m barely speaking above a whisper—but it’s enough to attract the attention of its target. Drake finds me in the crowd, eyes nervously settling on mine for one drawn-out second. His lips form the word “BITCH.”

I mouth “RAPIST” back to him because, honestly, if bitch is the alternative, I’ll be a bitch for the rest of my life.