Authors: Cherry Cheva
“All of you are suspended for three days,” he said. “To be served at staggered intervals starting next week. Dani, you’re also grounded for a month. I’m calling everyone’s parents this afternoon. Now go back to class.” He went back into his office and slammed the door.
Oh my God.
I wasn’t expelled.
I was suspended—like everyone else—and I owed them all big time. I still had no idea how any of this had just happened, and I had a dim realization that once all was said and done, this was probably still going to mess up things with Stanford . . . but I wasn’t expelled.
A hand reached into my line of vision and I high-fived it without thinking. It was attached to Cat, who grinned at me as she picked up her backpack and headed out the door. What? How had she been furious at me a day ago and now suddenly—I couldn’t finish my thought because Jonny reached toward me and did almost the same thing. He tugged a lock of my hair and grinned, and then picked up his stuff and went out the door. Dani went the opposite way—back into her dad’s office, no doubt to protest being grounded along with the suspension—and as the door swung shut behind her, I turned to Sarah, who was now the only one left in the reception area with me.
“Uh . . .” I said hesitantly.
She grinned and tilted her head toward the door to the hallway, then stepped outside. “I’ll explain everything.”
I collected an excuse pass for first through fourth periods from Mrs. Hunter and then walked into the hallway and nudged Sarah on the shoulder with my own. “What the
hell
just happened?” I asked. “I mean, okay, I actually know what just happened, but—why? And why are
you
here? You didn’t even have anything to do with
any
of it, and you agreed to come in here and confess to a fake crime?”
“What do you mean
agreed
?” Sarah asked innocently.
I stared at her. “Oh my God. This wasn’t your idea, was it?”
She smiled and gave a tiny little curtsy. My jaw dropped open.
“You—you got everyone to come in here and—I mean—just to save my—? You could’ve gotten expelled along with me and Camden!” I exclaimed. “How did you— how did you convince everyone to—” I bounced up and down on my tiptoes a little, nearly shaking with a mixture of glee and disbelief.
“Please, like Davis was ever gonna take down the average G.P.A. of this school that much. He’d lose all his extra funding,” Sarah scoffed. “Everybody knew that . . . at least, once I pointed it out, everybody knew that. And the people who needed extra convincing, well, I may have casually threatened to turn them in.” She smiled mischievously.
“Don’t give me that much credit. It wasn’t
that
risky.”
“It totally was,” I said. “It
totally
was.”
“Yeah, well, it was worth it,” she said. “Believe me, I’m collecting on this one. Forever.”
“Oh my God, please do,” I said. “But I still can’t believe everyone would—I mean, don’t they think that I’m just a horrible person who—”
“No, they don’t,” Sarah said. “I told them about the fine. And about Leonard, that vile little punk. I figured when you weren’t in class this morning that the guilt had probably gotten to you, and then I saw that note you left me, and I
knew
it had.” She looked at me and I gave her a sheepish grin, which she returned. “And I figured right. And so I figured I’d do something about it.”
I contemplated this as the lunch bell rang and kids started filtering into the hallway around us. I dropped everything I was holding onto the floor and threw my arms around Sarah as tightly as I could. She squeaked in surprise, sounding like she couldn’t breathe, but I wouldn’t let go. “Thank you!” I cried. “And bless you for not holding a grudge! I am so, so sorry I said all those terrible things to you that day in the tutoring office!”
“Oh, yes! Make out!” some guy yelled from down the hall. I flipped off whoever it was without looking, as Sarah laughed and disentangled herself from me. Then I dragged us into the girls’ bathroom so that we wouldn’t be subject to any more Girls Gone Wild–type suggestions from passing randoms.
“Oh my God!” she said, lightly shoving me. “
I’m
sorry!
I
was
jealous, you called it, and I was acting like a total six-year-old about it!”
“No,” I insisted. “It was all my fault. Hello, look how wrong I turned out to be about Camden. And look how right
you
were. He turned out to be such a sketch—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. An unpleasant shiver had gone down my spine as I thought, yet again, about what had happened with Camden Saturday night.
“Yeah, about that,” said a voice. Sarah and I both turned around.
Dani had just come in.
“Oh, hi,” I said flatly, stepping away from her. I wasn’t looking where I was going, the result being that my back slammed into one of the wall mounted hand dryers. The impact caused a sharp pain to my spine, while also seeming to liberate a word from my mouth that I don’t
think
I meant to say: “Slut.”
Dani laughed and crossed over to the wall mirror to start putting on mascara. “Seriously?” she asked, running a hand over her already smooth hair. “Slut? That’s not even creative.”
“Creative, no. Truth, yes,” I said, standing my ground.
A few months ago, I probably would have ducked out of her way. Who am I kidding, a few months ago I never would have spoken to her in the first place, much less called her a ho. But hey, it had been a month and a half of firsts for me, including the first time I’d ever walked in on my boyfriend making out with some other girl—so why the heck not? “I mean, thanks for doing what you did just now in your dad’s office, I appreciate that,” I said. “What I
don’t
appreciate is—”
Dani cut me off. “Maya. Honey,” she said, taking a black eye pencil out of her purse and fearlessly lining her inner rims with it. “You’re supposed to be the smart one, and you haven’t figured it out yet?”
“Figured what out?” I asked warily. I looked over at Sarah, who shrugged.
“Why Camden didn’t rat you out when my dad hauled him out of class yesterday?”
Next to me, I felt Sarah tense up. “Okay, why?” I asked Dani cautiously.
“My dad was onto you guys last week,” she said, turning away from the mirror to look at me. “I warned Cam that something might go down soon, and he asked me to help him piss you off enough that you’d let him take the fall alone if something happened. The whole thing with your friends finding out about you guys taking a percentage, well, he didn’t plan on that. But people start talking when they start drinking.”
I stared at her.
“Yeah, the party didn’t exactly get more fun after you flipped out and ran away,” she added. “But, like I said, the hot tub thing was a setup.”
I gripped the edge of one of the sinks to keep from falling over. It was wet, which was disgusting, but I held on anyway, as my head got dizzy and my stomach did back flips. If you ever wanted to know what hope, plus dread, plus Tootsie Pop tastes like coming back up, the answer is sour Gummi worms. Gross, but true.
“Wait. So . . .” I was still struggling to stand, and now I was struggling to talk. “So . . . so you and he weren’t really . . .”
“Please,” Dani said coolly. “Like I would ever voluntarily hook up with Cam? The guy’s like my freakin’ brother.
Sophomore year was just some sort of weird experiment.”
She chucked her array of eye makeup back into her purse and paused in the doorway on her way out. “The point of all this is that he really likes you. In fact, I’ve totally never seen him like this over a girl before. So give him a second chance, for chrissakes. And call me later. We should all go shopping again sometime soon—I need new shoes.” She glanced down at my feet, which were clad in some of my brother’s ratty old childhood sneakers. “So do you,” she added teasingly.
Then she grinned at me, waved at Sarah, and left.
I tried to breathe again.
Oh, God.
Camden had sacrificed himself. He’d taken all the blame so that I wouldn’t get in trouble. He’d hidden the truth so that I wouldn’t get hurt. Christ, he’d gone on a suicide mission and taken himself down . . . and he’d done it all for me.
My phone rang.
It was him.
My eyes widened, and I wordlessly showed the phone to Sarah.
“Answer it,” she said, smiling. “I’ll see you in class.” She pushed open the bathroom door and walked off, as I leaned back against the wall and looked at my ringing phone again.
Camden
, it blinked at me.
Camden
.
Camden
.
I took a deep breath and answered it.
“So, what’re you gonna do with your three day vacation?”
Camden asked. It was a few days later. We were up in the woods behind the school; the afternoon was warm and sunny, and it had been long enough so that it was possible to sit on a stump, which was what I was doing, or lean back against a tree, which was what Camden was doing, without getting wet from the drizzle that had been coming down earlier that morning. We were both in jeans and T-shirts (mine was cropped—a nod to Dani’s fashion sense), and I was wearing flipflops for the first time that spring, the better to show off the sparkly blue pedicure I’d given myself.
“My three day
suspension
,” I said, throwing my head back and my arms out in order to stretch my face toward the sunshine, “will be spent catching up on all my own homework that I’ve been skimping on for the past month, and getting used to the idea of being stuck in Michigan forever. Or at least for another four years.” After what Sarah had done for me, I couldn’t stomach the the possibility that she’d get any trouble from Stanford about the suspensions we’d all gotten, so I’d written them a letter telling them what had happened, in order to make sure that her record remained spotless. Unfortunately . . .
“So Stanford’s really not letting you in, huh?” Camden asked.
“Oh, they are,” I said. “It’s the scholarship that’s the problem. I think all those über-rich donors are pretty confident that they can find another kid with my grades and test scores who needs the money more, and by ‘needs the money more’ I mean ‘didn’t mastermind an elaborate multi-thousand dollar cheating ring.’ So now we can’t really afford anything but in-state.”
“I gotta give you credit,” Camden said. “You don’t even sound that bummed.”
“Whatever, I got what I deserved.” I shrugged, feeling a tinge of remorse flutter up but then quickly settle down again. I’d spent the previous day in a stupor over the fact that my Stanford dream was dead—and by my own hand—but now all my panic had resolved itself into a sort of quiet, calm acceptance. Going to University of Michigan wasn’t exactly a tragedy—it might have been my safety school, but it was a kickass one nonetheless. “Anyway,” I added, “I’ll just go to Stanford for med school.”
Camden raised an eyebrow at me. “Little overconfident there, don’t you think?” he asked, nudging me with his foot.
I kicked back at him playfully. “I learned from the master,” I said. He grinned and stepped over to where I was sitting, lowering himself to the ground next to me and leaning his head on my knee.
“Well, at least you aren’t gonna be three thousand miles away next year,” he said.
“Not from here,” I agreed. “But maybe from you—you don’t know where you’re gonna end up yet,” I pointed out, running my hand gently through his hair as he looked up at me. His waves were already a bit lighter now from the sun than they’d been a few months ago during the dark of winter.
“Probably nowhere,” he said cheerfully. “I can’t believe my parents actually cracked down this hard. I mean, military school? Am I gonna get raped?”
“That’s prison,” I said.
“Same difference. I’ll be away from you,” he said.
My heart went,
Awww!
My hand kept ruffling his hair.
My mouth couldn’t think of anything good to say, but it didn’t seem to matter; his arm snaked around my lower legs and hugged them to himself.
“Anyway,” he continued, “you can come visit. It’s only like, a two hour drive.”
“Three,” I said.
“Two and a half if you speed,” he said. “Plus, if I actually get hard core about grades and stuff, maybe I can go to Michigan next year too.”
I took his head in my hands and twisted it up so that he could see the look I was giving him.
“Okay, okay, Michigan State,” he said, grinning.
I smiled and kissed his forehead. “All right, so what do you think? Time to go?”
“I dunno,” said Camden. “What do you think, Leonard?” he called.
We both looked over at a large tree about fifteen feet away. From behind it peeked Leonard, wearing just his shoes, socks, and some exceedingly lame boxers with those fake lipstick marks all over them.
“Can you believe he fell for that text you sent him?” Camden asked me, purposefully loud enough for Leonard to hear.
“I’m hot. Who wouldn’t fall for it?” I asked innocently.
“Wow,” said Camden, “you really did learn from me, didn’t you?”
I smiled sweetly, then turned to look at Leonard, who had approached us and was shivering despite the sun.
“Come on, you guys,” he said, his voice sounding as desperate as I’m sure mine had the day he blackmailed me.
“Can I have my clothes back?”
“I dunno. Can we have our five grand back?” asked Camden, standing up.
“I already spent it!”
“Then no,” I said. I picked up my backpack and swung it over my shoulder as Camden put his arm around me, and we started back toward the parking lot.
“You can’t leave me here!” Leonard yelled after us. “What if it starts to rain again? I’m gonna freeze to death! I’m gonna catch pneumonia! I’m gonna sue you guys!”
We ignored him.
Back at the car, Camden clicked it unlocked and then opened the passenger side door for me. I got in and waited for him to come around the other side and slide behind the wheel. He started to turn the key, but I put my hand on his arm and stopped him. There was something that had been bugging me that we hadn’t talked about yet.