“Which friends?”
“Oh, you know, the Core Four. That’s your crew, isn’t it?” she says, and points to Donnie. “Donnie Alperstein, right?”
“How do you know my name?” Donnie says, defensive.
“Everyone knows you girls. Everyone.”
So this is how they’re going to do it. They’re not going to call the police. They’re going to get one of us—me, the band leader—to admit how I covered up the whole thing with Sean to the school social worker.
* * *
Ms. Tapestry is being so nice to me. Probably wants to rip my eyes out. But being fake is her job.
“I want to talk to you about what’s going on with Ali Greenleaf,” Ms. Tap says. She tells me to call her that: Ms. Tap.
“I already have a therapist,” I say. “I’ve been seeing her since I was eleven.”
“Okay, that’s wonderful. But this isn’t a traditional therapy session; this is more like talking. Because there are some problems going on in the school—you’ve obviously heard about some of them, like the graffiti in front of Ali Greenleaf’s house, the article that’s being passed around on a student’s blog—and I need to talk to all my girls to find out what’s happening.”
I want to be defensive. I want to say that all these things happened off school property, and that she has no jurisdiction over me. But saying anything will blow my cool. I need to pretend I’m a dumb popular girl. A girl so high above it all that I have no interest in high school drama.
“So I’m one of your girls? I didn’t know.”
“Every girl in this school is one of my girls.”
She stares at me like she’s going to cut me up and feed me to the wolves. I am so not one of her girls. She’s mama bear to the underlings. To girls like Ali. Not to girls like me.
She asks me a lot of questions about Ali. And I say nothing.
I picture Ali’s face. Her brown frizzy hair. How she pouts when she’s upset. How her eyes peek out from under her bangs now that her hair has grown out more. How she doesn’t even need to wear eyeliner and her hazel eyes sparkle. Those long black eyelashes. “Blythe. I want to tell you that there’s an official bullying specialist in the school. So you can talk to her, or you can talk to me. I will tell you this. She has different rules than I do.”
I nod. I freeze up. I’m tempted to just tell her everything. Confess everything. But I have to continue this face. This apathetic face. Because this has nothing to do with me. I have to keep repeating that. Cycling it in my mind.
“She also doesn’t have much of a sense of humor,” she says. “So how about this? How about we schedule another session after Thanksgiving break? We can bring your therapist in here as well if that makes you more comfortable?”
No, I tell her. I’ll be fine. She can ask me anything she wants. I have nothing to hide.
* * *
That night, I have an emergency session with my real therapist. I don’t talk to her about what we did in front of Ali’s house. I can’t admit to that. I can’t tell her. So I go for something easier. I talk about Dev.
“I didn’t tell Dev that Sean and I kissed,” I say. “We’ve broken up, and he’s still going to hate me even more than he already does.”
“So let’s explore why you might make a choice like that.”
Sean and the long con. So much else has happened between then and now that I almost forgot about it.
The one thing I had with Dev was trust. It’s what drew me to him. It’s why I stood on the side of that soccer field all that time cheering him on. Kissing his sweaty face when it was over. I miss his texts at night before bed. How close he sat next to me. How I could rub my head against him. How he listened to me. How he wanted to protect me.
I hate myself for losing him.
“People expect me to be with Dev. I expect myself to be with Dev. I have prom dresses picked out. There are expectations,” I say.
“You keep saying expectations, which is interesting to me. What about love? What about mutual respect? I want to hear the part of you that feels torn up over breaking up with Dev.”
“Wait—I don’t get it. You want to hear me cry?”
“No, Blythe. I want to hear you speak about empathy. I want to hear you speak about sadness. There’s a lot of acting out in your world. And there’s a difference between acting out and talking out. I want to hear you say either you’re going to miss Dev. Or that you did this with Sean because unconsciously you were already done with your relationship with Dev. I want to hear feelings.”
She shifts in her chair. Moves her silvery hair off her face. She must have been so beautiful at one point in her life. And I see something else in her. This tearful look that Ali used to give me. This poor Blythe look. And I hate it. I’m so angry at it because everything feels so overridden with lies. Lies from me. My friends. From Ali. My parents. Sean. There are so many lies. I couldn’t swat them away if I tried.
“I TALKED TO ALI— I told her things! She wouldn’t listen to me!” Shaking now. Screaming. “She didn’t really care about me. She used me.”
She gets up and slowly approaches me so that she’s standing behind me. Rests her hand on the back of my neck. Full palm. She tells me to breathe. She tells me to close my eyes.
“What’s going on with you right now? In this moment.”
I imagine a jungle with floating trees that reach high above me. Winds that I can barely walk through. Silvery trees. Thin limbs swaying over my head. Birds squawking, though they’re not
