“She’d never do anything like what you did. Everyone saw you kissing him. It was humiliating for her, didn’t you think of that?”
“For her?” My throat was closing up and my vision was blurring. I felt like I was going to have another panic attack. “I have to go,” I said, and bolted out of the refectory into the fresh air, where I followed Doctor Z’s instructions and took deep, calming breaths and tried to think relaxing thoughts, even though I felt like I was going to die, right there, leaning against the rough brick of the building.
That afternoon’s appointment with Doctor Z helped a bit, actually. I told her the Hutch story, and a little about how nobody would talk to me, and it suddenly hit me: I had become Hutch. Well, that makes it sound too dramatic (and also insane). But in the course of two weeks I had gone from reasonably popular to a bona fide leper—and when I talked, I might as well have been talking to myself, since nobody seemed to understand a thing I said.
The next day at school, I was determined to face the refectory again. I hadn’t eaten lunch there in more than a week, but even lepers need their calories and somehow learn to stand it, eating by themselves in dark corners with their books propped up in front of them, while everyone else is joking and laughing. I couldn’t keep eating on the bench behind the library forever.
At the salad bar, I took a long time making the same combo I always have for lunch. Lettuce, raisins, fried Chinese noodles, baby corn, cheese, black olives, ranch dressing. I fiddled around adding things here and there until I saw Cricket, Kim, Jackson and Nora all sitting down at our regular table.
Finn, who used to sit with us, was eating with a bunch of guys from the soccer team.
Hutch sat in a corner wearing an iPod and looking very interested in his hamburger.
There was a table full of boys right in front of me: Shiv (#11 on my list), Cabbie (#15), Matt (Jackson’s best friend), Kyle (another of Jackson’s friends), Pete (Cricket’s new boyfriend) and Josh (who was just obnoxious). I couldn’t bring myself to face them.
Katarina and her set would probably tolerate me—I mean, I didn’t think they’d push me off my chair or anything—but I knew that they’d all heard Kim’s side of things, and heard her call me a slut in Mr. Wallace’s class, and that I wouldn’t exactly be welcome at their table. Plus Heidi was there, and she’s Jackson’s old girlfriend, and the last thing I wanted to face was the weird new sisterly sympathy she had started affecting (like the same man hath done us both wrong and we should share our sob stories), when less than two weeks ago she’d been completely jealous and catty because I was the girlfriend of the boy she liked.
Beyond the sophomore/junior tables, over by the window, seniors.
I scanned the room for people I knew from the lacrosse team, but couldn’t see anyone.6
I could feel Kim ignoring me through the back of her head. Jackson nudged her with his shoulder and she laughed. The inside of my chest felt cold and hollow.
I stood stupidly with my tray of raisin salad, staring at the two of them like I was looking at a train wreck in slow motion. I couldn’t move my eyes away. I felt like everyone at school could see my heart breaking, blood pouring out of my chest and sloshing down across my shoes and gushing under the tables.
And nobody cared, because they thought I deserved it.
Two weeks ag o, back when I had a life and friends and a boyfriend, I had ended up eating lunch with Meghan against my will. She blindsided me at the salad bar, looking unbearably cute in what must have been Bick’s crew T- shirt and a pair of old corduroys.7 “Ruby Oliver, are you deaf? I’ve been calling your name from our table for ages!”
Sticking out her lower lip in that pouty way she has that makes all the other girls love to hate her,8 Meghan had pointed to a table filled with seniors.9 Prime refectory real estate, right by the windows. Meghan is the only sophomore who eats there every day. Actually, she’s the only sophomore who
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t hear.”
“Come sit with us,” she said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to her table. I looked around for Jackson, Cricket, Kim and Nora and waved an “I can’t help it, she’s a madwoman” wave at them from across the room.
“Bick, this is my friend Ruby that I carpool,” Meghan said, sitting on Bick’s lap so I could have her seat. “You know, the one I always talk about.”
I smiled and nodded—but inside, I cringed.
“Hey,” Bick said. He flashed his smile at me, then leaned back into a discussion of some party Billy Alexander was having next week. Meghan whispered in my ear from her spot on his lap, pointing the seniors out like they were trophies she was proud of winning. “Debra, Billy, April, Molly, the Whipper, Steve.”
Of course, I already knew who all of them were.
For a second, I felt bad for Meghan. These people weren’t her friends. Not really. Except for Bick, I could see that they basically pretended she wasn’t there.
I wasn’t her friend either. Most of the time, I was annoyed that Meghan even existed. And here she was, dragging me over to meet her boyfriend, like the two of us were so close. Was I really “the one” she always talked about?
Carpool was different. I gave Meghan gas money every month, and she agreed to show up on time. It was a business relationship. We’d sing along to the radio and make up stupid lyrics, mostly. Sometimes we’d try on each other’s lip gloss or copy each other’s math homework. I’d bring these oatmeal cookies my dad used to make (before my mom went macrobiotic) and we’d eat them for breakfast.
I only knew about her shrink and her dead dad because she was very up-front about it and probably told everybody she knew. She’d bring it up at 8 a.m., while we were swinging through the Starbucks drive-thru window on our way to school—the same way she’d talk about her singing lessons or where Bick took her on Saturday night. She had never been over to my house or anything.10
