TMI (15 page)

By Monday, Bailey's Facebook post had earned so many comments and Likes that Meg walked to school to escape facing the taunts on the bus. Huddled in her hoodie, she heard a car pull up beside her. She didn't bother to look. She knew it would be Chase. He'd had his license for a year now. Meg had her learner's permit but had never been behind the wheel. Her mother just didn't have time to teach her.

The car sped ahead with a sudden burst of acceleration, and Meg figured Chase was still mad.

Good.

As long as he was mad, he'd stay away. She adjusted her backpack and shoved her hands in her pockets. She would eventually have to face him. She knew this, didn't like it, but accepted it. She also knew she'd have to tell him why she kept turning him down and spare none of the gory details.

She owed him that much.

If, at the end of the tale, he still wanted to be friends, well, she'd have to turn down that request too.

It was too painful.

Kissing Chase was a mistake. It forced her to face the truth that she was in love with Chase too.

And that had to remain her little secret.

She reached the school with only seconds to spare before the final bell. She didn't bother with her locker, just headed to her first class, and slid behind her desk, aware of the hush that fell over the room when Bailey looked up, saw Meg, and quickly turned away.

Math was not one of Bailey's favorite subjects. Actually, Bailey had no favorite subjects. But Meg enjoyed it. She focused on the lesson, something involving polar coordinate equations, and soon lost herself in the work. She glanced next to her, saw Bailey struggling to understand the concepts, but did not swoop in with the answers today. Forgiveness, when she gave it, would be hard earned.

The bell rang and Meg scooped her work into her backpack, ready to flee before anyone could stop her. She'd just zipped her bag when a pair of Fruit of the Looms landed on it, accompanied by loud laughter. Her face blazed, but she did not make eye contact with anyone and instead fled, leaving the briefs behind.

In homeroom, the entire class lauded her with all manner of undergarments—from tiny thongs to granny panties. Mr. Allen asked her if she was taking up a collection and the class howled. Meg tossed them all in the wastebasket on her way out of class when the bell rang. In each class, someone asked her if her pants were wet. In the hall, somebody shot her with a squirt gun. In the stairwells, in the cafeteria, in the locker room, someone laughed. By the end of the day, Meg was certain she was immune to further embarrassment until Chase approached her at the bus stop, his face twisted in an expression of confusion.

“Hey,” he greeted her. “Um…Bailey handed me this and said I had to give it to you right away—that it was an emergency.” He handed her a paper bag. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Awesome.” She poked inside the bag, flung the scarlet red lace panties at Chase, and turned dark, hurt eyes to his. “You too? I can't believe you'd do this!”

Chase looked at the underwear in his hand and cursed. “No, Meg, I—”

“Shut up, Chase.”

She turned and went home on foot, slammed the door behind her, and sank to the floor against it. She hated crying, hated how weak it made her feel, how desperate. It took a long time, but she fought it, managed to come out on the top of the crushing urge to curl up and die. All it took was one thought.

Her dad.

Meg slowly rolled to her knees, pulled out her cell phone, and texted Ryder.

Meg:
I apologized. I even told you I'd back off. But that wasn't good enough. You had to get rid of me. Well, congratulations—it worked. I don't know what you told Bailey, but she's really pissed off. When you hurt her—and we both know you will—I will come after you. Yeah, that's a threat.

Since she'd spent lunch dodging more insults, Meg dragged herself to the kitchen for a snack. Again, there was little to choose from, so she snagged the last apple, grabbed a jar of peanut butter, and headed to her room, only to discover she'd forgotten a knife. With a loud sigh, she plucked an X-Acto blade from her brush jar and started slicing the apple into wedges.

“Damn it!” The knife clattered to her desk, leaving a long bloody gash in the webbing between the thumb and index finger of her left hand. She hurried to the bathroom and ran the wound under cool water, watched blood drip into the sink. It was a deep cut, but it didn't hurt much. She wrapped a towel around it, figured it would stop bleeding soon, and went back to her room to uncover her test project.

She mixed paints—acrylics this time. She stared at the test project for a long time and then tore it from the clips on her easel. She fastened her last canvas, grabbed a wide brush, and laid down a flesh-toned foundation and then switched to a smaller brush to put down the shadows and angles for a face. She moved with precision, certainty. Bold strokes and soft blended edges. Light and shadow. Lines, curves, shapes. Slowly, the image appeared. The image she couldn't get out of her mind, her dreams, her heart. Chase. Always Chase.

Perspective. That's what she needed. More perspective. She imagined the contours of his jaw under her hand the day she'd kissed him, the strength in his broad shoulders, the stubborn set of his mouth. She imagined those lips on hers, the scrape of stubble against her cheek. Her own lips parted. She switched brushes, painted hair. Oh, his hair. Her fingers itched to feel all that silk again. She imagined his nose—straight and perfect. He was beautiful. She could not deny that. But it was his eyes that always drew her in, made her wish she'd studied the Old Masters. She dabbed on color, stroked on contours, smoothed out rough edges with the tip of her finger.

She painted until the light faded, until her hands cramped and her head spun. When she finally put down her brushes and stepped back, she gasped.

She'd done it. She'd finally done it. She'd rendered Chase on canvas. Her eyes studied the play of color, the sepia-toned mood she'd managed to capture. There was blood on her palette, blood mixed with the paint and blood on the portrait, the portrait that perfectly captured his pain, his disappointment. Her betrayal. She lifted her hands, saw that her wound was still dripping. The towel was saturated.

Maybe that had been the key all along? To hurt like she'd hurt him.

Somehow, that felt entirely appropriate.

Meg capped her paints, cleaned her brushes, and wrapped a clean towel around her hand. She grabbed her keys and some money from the meager stash in her wallet and locked the front door.

It would be a long walk to the hospital.

The day had dragged on. When Bailey first posted Meg's little underwear problem, it felt right and just. It felt like payback. At first, she thought it was funny how the whole school lined up to attack Meg, pelting her with underwear and leak pads. But it got old fast.

Maybe she'd gone too far. Maybe that's why she hadn't heard anything from Ryder. Maybe she should apologize to Meg. She sent Meg a text, but there was no reply. She was probably painting. Meg often ignored the phone when she was caught up in a subject. Bailey would try again later.

Bailey went downstairs when Gran called her for dinner. When the dishes were cleared away, Gran handed her the plastic containers of leftovers and that made her think of Meg. And thinking of Meg made her feel guilty, so she went upstairs to find something else to occupy her time.

She tried Xbox, but WyldRyd11 wasn't logged on. She tried Facebook and saw no status updates from Ryder or Meg. But her little “wet pants” story had gotten a lot of airtime. Likes by people she didn't even know, comments by the screenful—and some of them were ridiculously funny, except for the one from Chase, who told them both to leave him out of their dumb fights from now on. She shrugged and then checked her email. Still nothing from Ryder, but she did find one from the classmates site.

They'd located her mother's yearbook.

Her mom still wasn't talking to her. She'd gone over it in her mind a dozen times. Should she forget the whole idea or keep going? And a dozen times, she'd arrived at different decisions. Now that her mother's yearbook was a click away, Bailey knew she had to keep going. She had to find him.

Bailey logged in, clicked the link, and flipped through the scanned pages. Nicole at seventeen looked a lot like Bailey at seventeen. They both had the same curly hair and similar body shapes, but Nicole's face looked older. Wiser. Tired. With a start, Bailey reminded herself most of these pictures were taken when she'd been just a few months old.

It must have been so hard to go back to school after she'd had a baby.

Bailey scrolled through page after page. Her mom was in a lot of pictures but never with any guys. So who was her father? Where was he?

“What's that?”

Bailey leaped and spun at the sound of Gran's voice behind her. “Oh, my God, you scared me half to death.”

Gran didn't smile. “What are you looking at?”

Crap. “Mom's yearbook. It's online now.” Bailey figured Gran already saw the screen, so there was no point in lying.

“I see that. Any particular reason why?”

Double crap. “I wanted to see who my dad is.”

Gran came in, shut the door behind her, and sat on Bailey's bed. “Sweetie, there are some things way better off left unasked, unseen, unfound—this is one of them.”

Bailey considered that for about three seconds and decided it was too bad. “For mom. Not for me. I need to know.”

“No, you don't.”

“Why?” She exploded with it—the years of secrecy and evasion. “Why can't I know who my own father is? Was he some evil rapist or something?”

Gran's mouth fell open, and she pressed a hand to cover it. “No! Why would you even say such a thing?”

“Why wouldn't I with the way everyone pretends I was hatched instead of conceived?”

“He broke your mother's heart. Can you not understand how painful it is for her, seeing you every day, a living, breathing reminder of that?”

Gran's words were like the crack of a palm on a bare cheek and she flinched. She sank to the bed beside her grandmother. “I guess so,” she murmured. “But I still don't think it's fair. I'm not Mom! Why am I the one getting punished? He has rights too. Maybe he wanted me!”

“Do you see him here?”

Slowly, Bailey shook her head.

“Bailey, honey, listen to me. I know you're hurting. But so is your mom. It's been seventeen years and it still hurts her. Let your mom heal.”

Long after she left the room, Bailey sat in the same spot, wondering if anyone cared that she needed to heal too. She turned back to her computer and logged into her blog page.

Bailey twirled a lock of hair and read her notes so far. It was almost ironic that she was upset with Meg for sharing a secret and just as pissed at her mother for keeping one.

Meg told Ryder one of her secrets. Bailey wondered how long before their friendship crumbled.

No.

No, she wasn't going to let that happen.