Dangerous Girls

“That’s enough.” He cuts me off. “No further questions.”

“But you can’t!” I leap up. “It wasn’t like that!”

“Miss Chevalier,” the judge interrupts me. “That’s enough! Do I need to return you to custody?”

I sink back into the witness chair. He’s left the photos up on display. Elise and Tate and me, covered in fake blood. Me holding the knife to her throat. Tate’s shirt open, his arms draped around us both. Elise and me licking strawberry syrup off the blade. The close-up of the pentagram necklaces.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but these only have one:

Guilty.

BEFORE

I spend that afternoon with Elise cloistered in a coffee shop downtown, talking and laughing and pouring tiny packets of sugar into bitter espresso drinks as we gaze longingly at the ruffle-haired college boys brooding over their laptops. It’s new for me: I’ve never been one of those girls linked arm-in-arm in the street; head bent over a magazine, friendship bracelets falling, frayed, off a wrist. I’m wary at first, still waiting for the sharp comment, the mean-girl backlash, but none comes. Instead, away from her clique, Elise unfurls, hair slipping from her neat ponytail, waistband folded over another daring inch. She gets brighter, louder, almost breathless with gossip, as if she’s been keeping this part of herself back for years and can’t help but spill over in a torrent of bitching and wishful thinking and plans of traveling in Europe before college, and the California campuses far, far away from her parents.

I’m swept up in her exuberance too, in the tiny space of warmth and easy friendship, like a square of sunshine falling on the cold winter floor. As we sip our coffees and hum along to the indie rock songs on the café stereo, I find myself beginning to hope that maybe, just maybe, things could be different after all. I look at Elise’s animated expression, her arms flung wide to illustrate her story, and see an alternate version of my life unfold for the first time: the version where I have a place to sit at lunch, a partner in the lab, after-school plans that count for something more than curling in our living room, alone, eating take-out pizza to the lonely sound of the TV.

And then we slip back into school in time for fifth period, and Elise is gone. Back to Lindsay, and her old clique, back to following them down the hallway—walking half a step behind; her eyes down when she passes me by my locker. Back to the lesser girl she was pretending to be.

And I go back to being nobody at all.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised. What was she going to do? Tell her friends to go f**k themselves, cast herself out of their world, all alone?

Of all the many sins of high school, this is the worst. Better to be a sneak, or a slut, or a narc, or a bully, than alone. The rest, you can laugh off, turn away from, and pretend it’s not true, but when you’re alone, you have no one to turn to. You need them: to sit with at lunch, to save you a place in line, to wait with for the bus outside the gates after school. To stand alone says you’re an outsider. Different.

I don’t blame her. Hell, if it was me in her place, I’d probably do the same, but that doesn’t stop the sharp sting in my chest whenever her gaze slides past me and her group explodes in a chorus of giggles. I go back to spending lunch periods in my library carrel, ignoring the whispers and the not-so-subtle way the jock boys sniff the air around me—the legacy of the milkshake prank. The week passes, and turns into the next, and one after that, too, and soon it feels like our stolen afternoon was a dream, some out-of-body experience.

Until Elise finds me weeping in the second-floor girls’ bathroom one afternoon, three days before spring break.

“Anna?”

I jolt at the voice, spinning around in panic. I got a hall pass from French because I couldn’t make it to final bell. Did someone follow me out?

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s only me.” Elise shuts the door behind her and moves closer. She looks just the same, with her neat ponytail and blazer decorated with merit pins. I back away instinctively. “Anna? Anna, what’s wrong?”

I still can’t speak, the tears I’ve held back all day forcing themselves from my body in great noisy sobs. These aren’t delicate tears; these are wretched and angry, and it’s all I can do to fall against the wall and slide to the ground, my shoulders heaving, my whole torso racked with pain.

Elise crouches on the floor beside me and tries to take my hands, but I shrink away. I hate that she’s seeing this. I hate that I fell apart at all.

“Please,” I manage, my voice hoarse and cracked. “Just go!”

“Shhh.” She gets up, and for a moment I think she’s going to leave, but it’s only to grab a handful of tissue from one of the stalls. She sits back down beside me on the hard tile floor. “Was it Lindsay? Did she do something? I told her not to, but . . .”

Lindsay? I try to laugh, but it comes out as a garbled squark through my tears. I shake my head. “No, it’s not . . . it’s not that.”

Elise waits, rubbing my back in slow, soothing circles, and eventually—long minutes later—my sobs fade away, leaving nothing but exhaustion and the familiar dull throb of a headache in their place.

“Here.” She wets a paper towel and dabs at my face. I try to duck away again, but she rolls her eyes. “Trust me. That mascara isn’t waterproof.” I quit struggling and let her pull me back together; blotting my red eyes, smoothing back my tangled hair, until there’s nothing left to do, just silence between us in the empty bathroom.

“I’m sorry,” Elise offers finally. Her voice is soft, fearful. “I know I shouldn’t have ditched you like that, but—”

“You think this is about you?” I have to laugh again, harsher this time. “You’re not . . .” I stop, trying to find the words, but there are none. “The world is bigger than high school,” I bite out at last.

She waits.

“You can go back now.” I take a deep breath, willing my pulse to slow. “I’m fine.”

Elise doesn’t move.

“I mean it.” I wipe my face again, blow my nose. “I’m good, see?” I force a smile. “It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit.” Elise’s voice is low but clear. “Come on, Anna. Talk to me.”

She takes my hands again, forcing me to meet her gaze. I take another breath, ready to brush away her concern with some flippant comment or sarcastic crack, but instead, the words slip out of my mouth, unbidden.