Premeditated (19 page)

Brooks nodded, accepting my version without hesitation. If there was nothing wrong, then he had nothing to fix.

Excuses make everything easier on everyone. They cover up faults and erase guilt. They split the blame between the person who did wrong and the one they hurt. And they maintain the illusion; that’s the most important thing when you’re in the enemy’s camp. Appearance is everything, and I needed to appear to be the girl who didn’t care that she’d been manhandled in public and almost no one noticed.

It’s all appearance, even my embarrassment.…

I hoped repeating that to myself enough would make it close to the truth; that way I could believe it, too. Then I wouldn’t have to hate myself for acting like a victim in the making.

The two of us stood there, not discussing Dex or the growing
number of complaints against him until the second warning bell rang and reminded me that bumping into Brooks was more than an unhappy accident.

“I brought you something,” I said, locating Tabs’ cupcake in my bag. “To say thanks for helping me and all.”

“I’m the one who should be thanking you.” Brooks set the cupcake on top of his books. He took the position Dex had claimed the Friday before, escorting me toward the stairs and Mr. Tarrelton’s class. “If you hadn’t come home with me, I’m not sure Dad would have given me the chance to explain anything. Besides, you haven’t been back to class yet. You still don’t know if it did you any good.”

“It did.” Just like Brucey’s improv act at the mall.

We’d almost reached the stairs when the sound of several dozen cell phones going off filled the halls. The stragglers who were waiting until the last possible second to go into their homerooms answered them quickly, lest the sound draw teachers who would confiscate every device in sight.

Two seconds later, the snickers started, followed by whispers and pointed looks in our direction. Down the hall, one boy I hadn’t met nudged his buddy with his elbow so he could point Brooks out.

“What’s going on?” Brooks whispered to me.

Dex’s idea that nothing could impact Brooks or his mood crumbled. His posture was beginning to take on the signs I’d seen when he was anticipating his dad’s temper after the mall, and it was very close to the way I’d felt in the parking lot.

I shrugged, waiting for the second wave, which came directly after the first. Brucey had arranged things by grade level,
Seniors first, and then us. This time when the phones went off, both mine and Brooks were included. (Brucey later claimed this was to make sure I didn’t stand out by omission; I think he got lazy and didn’t want to do the numbers one at a time.)

Our phones, like those of every other student in the school, showed an incoming message that, when clicked, opened to Brucey’s phone-vid of Brooks’ brush with arrest at the mall.

Brooks turned white, giving his skin a sick sheen that nearly blended with the wall. Frantically, he tried to find the sender’s information, but Brucey had sent the videos from an anonymous account through the library’s terminal. There was nothing to find.

“Who would do this?” I asked, proud of myself that I managed a note or two of real concern.

“I don’t know.” Brooks shook his head and said it again, quieter, repeating those three words over and over while he tried to force information out of his phone it didn’t contain. He even shook it like an Etch A Sketch, as though he could knock a name out of it.

A commotion built from the far end of the hall, opposite the stairs, where swells of accusation and silence filtered through as people moved out of the way of someone walking quickly past them. I recognized Ms. Kuykendall when she was about twenty feet off. (Before that, I thought she was a tall student—seriously, the woman needed to consider not dressing to match the kids in her school. It was creepy in an “I want to be a teenager forever” kind of way.) She made another of those Botox-impossible scowls and stopped beside the bannister.

“Mr. Walden, there you are,” she said. “I was just on my way to Mr. Tarrelton’s class to fetch you.”

“Am I in trouble?” Brooks asked. He stepped in closer to me, almost leaning, like he couldn’t support his own weight.

“In my office” was the only answer she gave. “Now, please.”

Ms. Kuykendall executed a runway-perfect pivot and left the way she’d come. Stunned students closed the gap they’d made for her.

“This is not good,” Brooks whispered. “If whoever sent that out sent it to her, too …”

“Just tell her what happened. She’ll believe you,” I said, adding a generic promise to talk to him later.

It was likely true. Once Brooks told her what happened, and assuming she even bothered to confirm it, she’d dismiss him to class. She might even apologize for wasting his time, because he was the kind of guy everyone wanted to believe the best of. This wasn’t about lasting trouble—not yet.

This was the seed—the moment of first doubt to knock the shine off the white knight’s armor. Once the truth came out, everyone would forget about the video. Oh, they might play it a few times and use it to make Brooks the butt of a joke here and there, but it would all be in fun. But the next time … the next time something happened with his name or face attached to it, belief would come that much easier, and accusation would come that much faster, because, thanks to ten seconds of digital comeuppance, there was precedent for them to assume the worst.

One misunderstanding people shrug off. Two can be called coincidence or bad luck. Pile three, or four, or more of these little moments on top of each other, and it won’t matter how many times someone claims they’re innocent—it won’t even matter that they can prove it. People aren’t wired to accept that
much circumstance. That tiny seed of doubt will grow, and even friends will begin to wonder if they don’t need to reevaluate how well they really know someone.

I could afford to be reassuring, and I accept that all would be forgotten by lunch, because it was only temporary. Retribution would come, carrying Justice on her shoulders. Until then I’d wait and pretend I’d be there to catch Brooks if he really did need someone to lean on. He wouldn’t know it was a lie until he hit the floor.

Later turned into much later.

Brooks was twenty minutes late to class, slinking in after we’d endured one of those “famous” pop quizzes Dex had warned me about the week before. Whatever else Brooks was, Abigail-not-Abby had been right about his trig skills. He was an excellent tutor; the time I’d spent with him and his math book back in his room had bought me at least one passing grade.

Dex had morphed back into his old, and very apologetic, self, only speaking to me once to ask if I knew where Brooks was. I whispered a quick rundown about Ms. Kuykendall just before Brooks appeared at the door, tardy slip in hand, and hurried to his seat without a word.

I tried to catch his eye, hoping to get an idea of what had happened in the headmistress’s office or why it had lasted so long, but he stayed hunched over his paper, taking notes with his nose nearly touching the desktop and his arm guarding his face from anyone who might be trying to get a look at him.

By lunch, whispers were everywhere. I’d seen people replay the video of Brooks on their phones and heard them fantasize about what it meant and what he’d done. All that planning between me and Tabs and Brucey, and it was nothing compared to the efficiency of a good old-fashioned rumor mill.

I meant to sit with Brooks at lunch, even if it meant dealing
with Dex, to score a ringside seat (and maybe some inside information), but by the time I got into the lunchroom, Brooks and Chandi were in the middle of a three-way argument with Jordan, while their table mates pretended nothing unusual was going on.

It lasted until Chandi cut the other two off with a very loud and annoyed “I’m fine!” Then she crumbled, terror evident in her eyes, her face turning red as she scanned the room to see how many people were watching her.

Dex laughed it off, giving her a thumbs-up and an attempted pat on the back, which she jerked away from.

Abigail-not-Abby was practically doing handsprings over the apparent end of Brooks and Chandi’s romance, but her joyful chatter became little more than background noise, blending with the rest of the room. Another one of those nagging questions was creating a toehold in the back of my mind. Somehow, in the span of time between dealing with Dex and our shared history class, Chandi’s shirt had shrunk again. I hadn’t been paying too much attention to her clothes before, but the details were easier to pick out when she was having a meltdown that guaranteed people would be watching. The shirt was too short to tuck in; it was too tight across her midsection, and just like last Friday, it required two open buttons at the top because it wouldn’t close all the way.

Eventually, she realized she was the center-ring attraction and shut her mouth. Her shoulders stooped, causing her blazer to drape farther over her shirt, but there was no using Brooks for an anchor this time. Chandi leapt up and ran for the door, with Jordan chasing after her the same way she had that morning. I assumed they were headed to the bathroom again.

The fight, or whatever it was that happened in the lunchroom, must have been serious, because the layer of ice between Chandi and Brooks hadn’t thawed by the time we all hit the theater for last period.

Abigail-not-Abby had her usual seat. Chandi was snarling something at Jordan in the front row, and Dex was pouting. Brooks looked very alone in the center of the room, something I rectified by taking the seat next to him.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I’m here,” he said.

“Not what I asked.”

“No, I’m not okay. And I’m not okay because I still can’t figure out who would send that video. I don’t even know who could have done it. Who was there besides you and me and Dex?”

“It’s a mall.” I shrugged. “There were hundreds of people there.”

“Yeah, but who would have access to the school’s call list? And why me? Why would someone hate me that much?”

“They probably thought it was funny. You know, a prank.”

“Some prank. Ms. Kuykendall made me sit in her office for a fifteen-minute lecture where she didn’t give me a chance to explain it wasn’t what it looked like. She dragged out the honor code I signed at the first of the year, and ticked it off point by point to tell me how my behavior ‘reflected badly on the school.’ And on top of that, because it was a ‘disciplinary matter,’ the quiz I missed in Tarrelton’s class ends up a big fat zero.”

My inner self was getting that urge to do embarrassing victory dance moves again.

“So your grade drops to ninety-nine and a half?”

“I’m serious, Dinah.
This
is serious.”

“Can’t you tell Mr. Tarrelton what happened and ask if you can make it up? Surely with everything you’ve done for him, tutoring and all, he’ll give you one do-over.”

“I hope so. Otherwise, it’ll mean a call to my father.”

Inner me stopped the rah-rah routine and gave me a dirty look for that one. I didn’t even want to imagine how a full-blown rage by his dad would go; the censored version had been enough to make me revert to roughly the same place I’d been in when I was in second grade and my own dad caught me with a bald cat and a pair of clippers. Only, I was never actually afraid of my dad.

“And Chandi still won’t tell me what’s wrong with her. All I did was ask, and she came unglued. I just want to do this presentation, find a place to hide until I have to go home, and pretend today was a bad dream,” he said.

“Presentation?”

“The monologue for Cavanaugh. You didn’t forget, did you?”

Crap. Crap. Crappity, crap, crap, crap
.

“I’ll take the look of abject horror as a yes. Think of something, quick. Most of his grades are participation, so if you do anything and hit the time limit, you’re good.”

“I can do that.”

I could, so long as Mr. Cavanaugh didn’t …

“Miss Powell, you’re up.”

… call on me first.

The horror of hearing my name put my body on pause. I didn’t move, other than to blink in his general direction.

“In front of everyone?” I said. Maybe if I bought a few seconds with my mouth, then my brain could figure out what came next.

“Right up here.” Mr. Cavanaugh stepped to the side, yielding the mark at center stage. “We know you excel at getting people’s attention, so let’s see if you can channel your enthusiasm into something more controlled. Preferably without removing clothes this time.”

So this was my punishment for Friday’s peep show. Everyone except Chandi laughed.

“Go on.” Brooks nudged my shoulder. “He’ll only make it worse if you wait. He’s got face paint and costumes stashed backstage.”

I stood up and stuffed my bag in my chair, smoothed imaginary wrinkles out of my skirt, and tugged on my blazer. I’d just have to wing it. If the universe thought hitting one little bump was going to shake me off my game, it was dead wrong.

Walking up the stage steps spurred a flashback of me, four years old, wearing a blue tutu and a bow bigger than my head. Even then, I’d hated having people look at me. I could do choreography fine in the studio, but the stage floor felt different under my feet; there were no mirrors and no barre. The light was different. All those variables threw me, and I spent the whole routine stuck in one place while the rest of the pageant girls did their turns and positions.

Maybe I
couldn’t
do this.

I looked down (which, for the record, is even less advisable onstage than on a tightrope) and the first face I saw was Chandi’s. She smirked as though she could smell the fear and doubt.
Abigail-not-Abby nodded to make me move toward the mark, while Dex was trying to sneak a look down Jordan’s shirt from the seat behind her.

Everyone else just waited.

“Whenever you’re ready, Miss Powell,” Mr. Cavanaugh said. I may have nodded at him; I’m not sure. I was too busy trying not to let my eardrums explode from rising blood pressure.

I had nothing—no words, no ideas, just a silver pen in my hand that I’d forgotten to set down.

“Dinah?” Mr. Cavanaugh asked. “You okay?”