Wrath

didn’t have caller ID, she would recognize Beth’s voice. “Are you… mad at me?” It sounded so childish-but it was all she could come up with. She couldn’t reference what she’d heard in the parking lot.

“Why would I be mad at you, Bethie?” Claire asked, adopting the nickname she’d used when they were kids. “Have you done something? Feeling guilty?”

“You just seem… mad,” Beth said lamely, avoiding the question. Did she feel guilty? Had she trashed the friendship, or had they just drifted apart? What did it say that she could no longer remember?

“Beth, I’m kind of busy. Is there a point to this? Because otherwise-”

“I heard you in the parking lot,” Beth blurted. If Claire hung up, Beth might not have the nerve to call back. And that would mean letting it go, returning their fake smiles and pretending she didn’t know what lay behind them. “You, Abbie, Leslie-I heard what you said. About me.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause. Then-“You were spying on us?”

“No, I was just-it doesn’t matter. I just…”

“What do you want me to say?” Claire asked irritably. “If you heard us, why are you even calling? What do you want from me?”

It was a reasonable question, but for all her agonizing over this call, Beth hadn’t thought to come up with an answer.

“I wanted-I thought we could be friends again.”

Claire laughed. “Just like that? Just because you decide, after all this time, you want to pick things up where we left off. You think it’s that easy?”

“Why not?” Beth whispered.

“Because where were you, Bethie? Where were you when Abbie broke her leg, or got her first boyfriend? Where were you when I almost failed precalc? When my parents got divorced-” Her voice, which had been rising steadily, suddenly broke off, and all Beth could hear were her labored breaths.

“I’m sorry,” Beth began. “I wish I hadn’t-”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry. Don’t you get that? And I don’t care anymore that you weren’t there-I got by without you. We all did. I don’t need you anymore. And I really don’t care if you need me.”

Claire hung up.

Beth sat with the phone to her ear for a long time, just listening to the dial tone. That was it, then. Unless she wanted to back down and forgive Adam, she was on her own.

On her nightstand, sandwiched between a stack of CDs and an empty picture frame (that had, until recently, held a shot from the junior prom), sat a small cardboard box. It was the size of a jewelry box, and inside it lay two yellow pills, each the size of one of her gold stud earrings.

She lifted the top and looked at the pills, examining them more closely than she had before. She even took one out of the box, just to see how it would feel in the palm of her hand. It was light, like aspirin, and it looked just as harmless.

Kane had given them to her as a Christmas present. He’d thought they could make their New Year’s “ex-tra special”-a mistake almost as big as the one she’d made by inviting him into her life in the first place.

Still, she’d pocketed the pills, and kept them. For a rainy day? If so, this qualified, and she could certainly do with a jolt of happiness, chemical or not.

But she put the pill back in the box. She either had too much restraint or not enough nerve-she was no longer sure which. She didn’t want to find out what those little pills did, no matter how wrecked she felt.

Yet, for whatever reason, she couldn’t bring herself to throw them away.

Chapter 8

A month of detention was starting to look a whole lot sweeter. Room 246 was the same as she remembered it from her last week of incarceration: a long, gray space crammed with rows of desks drilled to the floor, the detention monitor positioned at the front with her nose buried in a book. There were just a few key differences.

First, Harper wasn’t by her side to help make the hours speed by.

Second, the sign-in sheet was now yellow, rather than its former puke green.

And third, the only difference that mattered: Kane Geary was sitting in the back corner. And he was flagging her down, pointing to the empty desk to his left.

Me? Miranda mouthed, fighting the urge to look behind her and see what tall, leggy blonde was the true target of that lazy grin. Yes, you. He nodded, and when she slipped into the desk beside him, he patted her on the knee in welcome. It as all Miranda could do to not slide off the seat and melt onto the floor.

“Welcome to prison,” he greeted her. “At least now I’ve got a good cell mate.”

The hour passed too quickly, in a haze of whispered complaints about the monitor’s hairy mole or the leaning Mohawk of the delinquent in front of them. They played dirty hangman (Miranda’s winning word: “vulva”), placed bets on the number of wads of gum stuck beneath Kane’s desk (seven), and, for a blissful ten minutes, Kane leaned over to Miranda’s notebook and drew nasty but spot-on caricatures of the other members of the basketball team, who were seated in a hulking cluster toward the front of the room. Blissful because, to reach Miranda’s notebook, Kane had to shift his body into her space and lay his arm across her desk, where it pressed, very lightly, against her own. As he stared at the page, intent on getting the point guard’s dopey expression just right, Miranda concentrated on his arm, imagining that he was touching her on purpose. Knowing, even when he shifted position for a moment and his hand actually grazed hers, that he wasn’t.

And then the bell rang, and it was all over.

It would be asking too much, holding out foolish hope to think that-

“See you tomorrow?” Kane asked, hoisting his bag over his shoulder and helping her gather up her scattered belongings.

“Same time, same place,” Miranda replied, trying desperately for nonchalance.

Thank God Beth had weaseled out of trouble and left Miranda to face her punishment all on her own.

Miranda Stevens had spent her whole life flying under the radar and doing what other people told her to do.

So this is what you got for being a rebel?

Bring it on.

Beth felt him before she heard him. She was absorbed in her work, proofing the page layout for the next issue of the paper, and didn’t hear the door to the tiny office click open. But some part of her must have registered it, and must have known whose hand lay on the knob, because gradually the words on her computer screen began to swim in front of her eyes and, unable to concentrate, she sensed a heavy quality in the air. The walls felt closer, the ceiling lower, and her muscles tensed.

He cleared his throat.

It was then she knew for sure.

“I thought we had an agreement,” Beth said, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice. Her hands gripped the edge of the small computer desk until her knuckles turned white. She focused on the dull pain of the wooden desk digging into her palms. It kept her from being swept off in a wave of panicked thoughts-the room was empty, the halls were deserted, he was blocking the only exit, there would be no one to hear her scream. Yes, it was probably best to steer clear of thoughts like that, and not to even think the word “scream.” Or she just might.

“You’re not supposed to be in here, not while I’m here alone.” It was silly, but she suddenly felt she’d made a dangerous misstep by calling attention to the fact that she was by herself-as if, otherwise, he wouldn’t have noticed.

“Things have changed,” Jack Powell said. He locked the door behind him and took a seat on the couch, patting the space next to him. Then he laughed at the look of horror on her face. “Oh, calm down,” he said irritably. “You’ve got nothing I want.”

Beth couldn’t believe she’d once found this man adorable, fantasizing about his dark eyes and crooked smile.