25

I ran until I reached the school’s front steps, panting for breath and crying. I sat down hard and sobbed into my knees, barely registering the sound of footfalls hot on my heels.

“Marisa? What happened?”

My head snapped up at the sound of Jordan’s voice. I’d expected Charlie to be on my trail, but there he stood, blue eyes wide with concern, chest heaving slightly from running to keep up with me. I put my head back down, pressing my knees against my eyelids to block everything out.

“Like you don’t know.”

He sat down next to me. “I really don’t. Is this about Charlie?”

I rounded on him. “Would you care if it was? Seems to me you haven’t done a damn thing to get her name cleared.” I stuffed my mittens in my pockets and produced a tissue to wipe my face.

“You really think it’s that easy? Marisa, I want to help. I do. But believe me when I tell you I can’t. I don’t go to school here and it’s in the school board’s hands now. I have zero clout with them. You’re being unfair.”

I rubbed at my eyes. Maybe it was unfair to expect Jordan to pull strings for me, for Charlie. But I needed to be angry at someone, and it was much easier to believe that he’d knowingly let me down yet again.

“If anyone knows how to be unfair, it’s you.”

I waited for the inevitable storm-off, his standard reaction when I copped an attitude. I wanted to be alone, to find Charlie and get the hell out of there, and I couldn’t do it with him breathing bullshit down my neck.

Not only did he not leave, he gathered my hands in his. The sheer shock of it stopped my tears in their tracks. He rubbed his thumbs over my knuckles.

“Listen. I never wanted to break up with you.”

My heart stuttered. I didn’t know why he’d chosen now to talk about this, but I wanted answers as badly as ever. “Then why did you?”

He looked down at the steps, still kneading my fingers in his surprisingly warm hands. “I kind of met someone.”

The lump rose in my throat again and I pulled my hands away. “So you did cheat on me.”

“No, I…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I broke up with you before anything happened. It was the one time in my life I tried to do the right thing, except I guess there was no right thing, because you would’ve been hurt either way.”

“So then you wanted to cheat on me, but in order to keep your conscience clean, you dumped me instead?”

He fidgeted and ran a hand back and forth over his hair. “Doesn’t sound so noble when you put it that way.”

“Forgive me if I don’t nominate you for sainthood.” We sat in silence, Jordan’s leg bouncing against the step, me wiping tears and snot from my face. And then something really strange happened. A giggle bubbled up in my throat. And then another. I looked at Jordan. We both cracked up laughing.

Sure, it stung to finally hear the truth, but not as much or as long as I’d expected it to. Somewhere in the midst of my obsessing over why we’d broken up, I’d failed to notice that it didn’t really matter anymore.

As our chuckles died down, Jordan and I looked at each other and cracked up all over again.

“So who was she?” I asked, wiping away tears of laughter this time. “Sara?”

Jordan shook his head. “No, no one you’d know. If it helps, she sort of broke my heart.”

“Well, I’m not going to send you flowers or anything, but I can empathize. It sucks.”

He took my hands again. “I meant it when I said our breakup had nothing to do with you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were a good girlfriend. A great girlfriend.”

We looked at each other, half smiles playing on our lips. For the first time in months, I saw a spark in Jordan’s eyes that told me the person I’d fallen for was still in there. And that beneath his indifferent swagger, he had real regret for what he’d put me through. I squeezed his hands. My smile froze in place when he responded by rotating his palms and threading his fingers through mine. The smile faded from his lips and he leaned in.

I don’t know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t heard Charlie’s voice right then. But if she hadn’t chosen that exact second to come running down the hill, I never would’ve looked up. Or across the street, where TJ stood next to his open car door, watching Jordan and me.

• • •

“Marisa!” Charlie called. I yanked my hands away from Jordan’s, my eyes darting from her rapidly approaching figure to TJ’s car pulling away from the curb. Charlie’s eyes were huge and panicked as she skidded to a stop in front of the steps. “I’ll be straight with you: it’s bad.” She doubled over to catch her breath, resting her hands on her knees. Her right hand held her cell phone. “It’s really bad. Forget drop-kicking her. I’m pulling every last hair out of her stupid precious head.” She looked at Jordan as if she’d just noticed him. “And while I’m on a roll, you’ll want to go ahead and back up off Marisa, before this phone ends up down your throat.”

Jordan scowled. “Jesus, Reiser, do you ever have anything nice to say?”

“Sure, when I’m not talking to douchebags.”

I shot to my feet and stood between them. “Enough, guys.” I turned to Charlie. “What do you mean it’s bad?”

She held up her phone and tapped the screen a few times. When she turned it toward me, she said, “Your website underwent, uh, a few changes.”

The glittery red background of the Busted website loaded on her phone. Only it didn’t say Busted anymore. A giant black X flashed over the old heading, and from its center, the word BITCH appeared like a train emerging from a tunnel, starting off small and growing larger until it swallowed the entire foreground of the fissured heart pin. Her corny tagline about not hating the player had been replaced with CAN’T BE TRUSTED in smaller but still capitalized letters.

Jordan stood behind me. “‘Busted bitch can’t be trusted,’” he read over my shoulder. “What the fuck does that mean?”

I barely heard him. I was too busy reading what Kendall had written about me, with my full name in prominent bold letters.

Marisa Ann Palmera will pretend to be your friend. She’ll pretend to want to help. And she won’t stop until she’s taken what’s yours. The website went on to talk about how I’d betrayed her to the point where her boyfriend asked me to the dance. She’d laid on the martyrdom thick and juicy.

Beneath the blurb, the icing on the cake, she’d inserted the video of the promposal. The thumbnail displayed the frozen image of Kendall’s face, haunted and hurt, as I looked on in horror. The perfect snapshot of disaster.

“What the hell?” Jordan murmured. He reached over my shoulder and pressed play before I could stop him.

“Hey!” Charlie grabbed for the phone, but Jordan snatched it out of my hand and put his arm out to ward her off. I closed my eyes as the familiar sounds blared from the phone, seeing the whole event unfold in my mind all over again.

Charlie smacked and kicked Jordan, but it was like pummeling a statue. His eyebrows were two slanted lines as he stared at the screen, his jaw muscles locked tight. It didn’t make sense that he seemed angry as the footage played out, yet he continued to hold Charlie at bay like an adrenaline-fueled King Kong. I pulled her arms to her sides, knowing her rage on my behalf was sweet but useless. If he didn’t watch it now, he’d see the video later. No sense in delaying the inevitable.

Only when Jordan’s own cell phone rang did he let his guard down. He kept Charlie’s phone in one hand and answered his with the other, taking long, quick strides away from us, as if he didn’t want us to hear his conversation.

“What were you two doing?” Charlie hissed.

“Nothing.”

“It didn’t look like nothing.”

“Nothing, Char. Drop it. This night is shitty enough.”

Charlie pressed her lips together and wisely heeded my warning.

“Reiser!” Jordan shouted. We both looked up in time to see Charlie’s phone flying at us. She caught it, fumbling it between her mittened hands before getting a secure grip.

“Ass! You would’ve been in deep shit if you broke my phone!” Charlie called at his retreating back.

He still had his own phone pressed against his ear. Without looking back, he raised an arm in more of a salute than a wave and replied, “I’m out of here.”

Charlie’s face contorted with disgust. “What crawled up his ass and died?”

I didn’t respond. I scooped my purse off the steps and started to go after him. Charlie grabbed my arm.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m following him.”

“Are you nuts? Following people is what got you into this mess. You don’t owe Sara Mendez anything.” She clung to my arm and dug her heels into the ground as I tried to walk away.

“Sara thinks I’m the one Jordan is cheating with, remember? This ‘mess’ probably has her firing up the wood chipper as we speak. My name is shit, Char. I have to do something about it.” I strained to keep moving, but she locked her boots against the concrete.

“Catching Jordan with someone other than Sara only proves he’s a whore. It won’t make all the crap that came from spying go away. And as for the damn essay, make something up. I’m sorry I ever gave you that flyer.”

“Easy for you to say. We wouldn’t be here if you had parents like mine.”

Her hands fell to her sides and her mouth drooped. “A lot of good it did me.”

I felt a stab of guilt, but apologies would have to wait. “You’re either with me or you’re not. Decide fast, because I’m leaving.”

I watched her pupils dart from side to side as she warred with herself. Then her grip on my arm loosened. “Come on,” she said. “Our douchebag’s getting away.”