Maybe it was because I’d only gotten two hours of sleep. Maybe it was the Venti quad-shot iced mocha I’d chugged before the sun was even up. But Callie’s super-dignified dad holding a half-bald dead turkey up in front of a roomful of horrified onlookers was the funniest foxing thing I’d ever seen.
After saying goodbye to Giovanne and leaving the sound booth last night, I’d seriously considered not going back to my room at all. But Mackey had already told me that Mrs. Hwang was waiting for me to check in. So I’d gotten in bed by ten, my head still buzzing from my conversation with Giovanne, and pretended to be asleep when Christina and the other girls came in and spent almost two hours talking about The Menstrual Cyclists. I still didn’t know if they were kidding about using that name.
Once they’d finally gone to bed, I’d spent most of the night under the covers on my phone, consumed by that particular type of paranoia that only strikes in the middle of the night. Who else had Scott told about our hotel room shenanigans? What if Jorge made a joke about it on Facebook? What if someone found the coffee-soaked underwear I’d wrapped in a Ziploc and buried in a trash can under tons of empty Starbucks cups and crumpled napkins? What if Nuri posted a picture of it on Instagram? What if somehow there was video?
To distract myself, I read a bunch of blog posts and articles about sound engineering until I finally drifted off to sleep at around 3:00 a.m. And dreamed that #DrumstickSexToys started trending. So two hours later, after waking up covered in sweat and frantically checking all my social media accounts to make sure there wasn’t some sort of new triangle beater meme, I’d snuck out of the room without waking the others.
Now, the high of watching a bunch of adults lose their minds over a Nair-slathered turkey was fading, and I felt a crash coming on. All I wanted was my blissfully empty room and a few hours of real sleep. As I swiped my key card, my eyelids were already starting to droop. But when I opened the door and found myself face-to-face with Christina, I was suddenly wide awake.
“Oh. Hey.” I stepped around her and did a quick scan of the room. No Nuri or Amy, thankfully. “I was about to take a nap. Are you heading back out?”
“Actually, I was looking for you.”
Great. I walked into the bathroom and half closed the door. “Why, was Mackey asking where I was? Just tell him I’m still not feeling well.”
“He wasn’t asking. Brian was, though.”
My mouth went dry. I grabbed a plastic cup and filled it under the faucet. “Well, tell him I’m not feeling well, then.”
I heard Christina sigh on the other side of the door. “Are you actually sick?”
“Does it matter?” I asked, irritated. “Look, I’m sure Brian told you we had a fight yesterday. And I really don’t want to talk about it. Or about how Scott blabbed to everyone about … ugh. I just want to be alone, okay?”
Christina pushed the door open, and I stared down at my cup. “I didn’t want to talk to you about Scott,” she said coolly. “Or about your fight with Brian. That’s your business. I wanted to find out if you had a good reason for bailing on him this morning. And hey, you do. Selfishness.”
My head snapped up. “Excuse me?”
“I get that you’re embarrassed about what happened with Scott,” she went on. “It sucks, and I’m sorry. But it really hurt Brian’s feelings when you didn’t even show up. You could’ve at least sat in the back. Or hell, sent him a good-luck text. But no, you—”
“What are you talking about?” I interrupted, setting my cup down a little harder than necessary. “Show up for what?”
Christina’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me?” When I just stood there, she let out a weird little laugh. “Wow. Okay. His solo, Phoebe. This morning, nine thirty.”
Oh.
Sharks.
Brian’s timpani solo. He’d practiced for months, like I had. He’d gone on and on about how nervous he was yesterday when Callie was texting me, right before … right before I’d called him a massive jerk. And then I hadn’t gone this morning. Worse, I hadn’t even remembered.
Grimacing, I pushed past Christina and headed for my bed. “How’d he do, anyway?”
Christina grabbed my arm. “That’s all you have to say? Seriously?”
I shrugged her off, ignoring the uncomfortable twinge in my stomach. “Is it really that big a deal?” I tried to sound nonchalant. “It’s not like I didn’t watch him practice it a million times. So I missed one four-minute performance. Not like he’s going to run off and cry about it.”
Christina shook her head in disbelief. “Aren’t you supposed to be his best friend?”
“I was,” I said shortly. “But it hasn’t really felt that way for the last month.”
“Aha.” A strange expression flickered across her face, and I silently cursed myself. “So he was right. This is about us dating.”
“I didn’t—”
“Even though I asked you,” she cut in. “I told you I liked him and asked if it was okay, and you said it was. Did you lie?”
“No, I—”
“Are you jealous?”
“No!” I yelled. “God, I’m sick of—I don’t—look, people just drift apart sometimes, okay? It happens. It’s fine.”
“Drift apart?” Christina repeated. “Are you …” She paused, looked down, and took a deep breath. To my horror, her voice shook a little. “Is it really that easy for you?”
“Is what easy?”
“Throwing away friendships.”
I didn’t know what was happening. All I knew was that I was sleep-deprived, and I hated this conversation, and I wanted her to go away. “Are you talking about us?” I managed to croak. “You and me? Because I’m not the one who threw that away.”
Christina stared at me, her eyes red and shiny. Several long seconds passed. “You really think that, don’t you?” she said at last.
“Well … yeah, because it’s true. You’re the one who started hanging out with those student council girls all the time. You’re the one who suddenly wanted to spend every Saturday with them at the mall. You—”
“Unless you asked first,” Christina said sharply. “I always said yes when you asked me to hang out, Phoebe. Always. Even if it was just to play video games … and I’ve never even liked video games.”
“Okay, fine, but then you stopped inviting me when you’d all go to the movies or whatever,” I retorted. “You stopped inviting me, so eventually I just gave up trying at all.”
“I … you can’t …” Christina sputtered. “Phoebe, you know why I stopped inviting you? Because you were obviously miserable! You couldn’t stand those girls—you were constantly griping about them to me. They’re such airheads. They’re so stupid. Oh my god, why would anyone want to own that many pairs of shoes? You trashed them every chance you got, even though you knew they were my friends. So yeah, I stopped inviting you—because if you really thought they were that stupid, you must have thought I was pretty stupid for liking them.”
“I never said I thought you were stupid!” I said, and she let out a bitter laugh.
“You didn’t have to say it. Just like you don’t have to tell Nuri and Amy that you think they’re idiots. They know it—it’s obvious in the way you look at them. The way you treat them. The way you always have to make some sarcastic joke about Nuri being in the shower too long or all our makeup taking up the counter space or just …” Christina trailed off, gazing at me. “You know what? You’re actually kind of sexist.”
My mouth dropped open. “What?”
“The way you judge other girls,” she said slowly. “And guys. Brian couldn’t possibly care that his best friend missed his solo, right? No big deal, not like he’s going to run off and cry about it. Scott must have blabbed to everyone about fooling around with you. He didn’t, just so you know, but of course you assumed he did. It probably didn’t even occur to you that he might be totally into you and also totally mortified that everyone knows what happened. No, girls are all dumb airheads, and guys are all morons who don’t have feelings. And you, you’re just better than all of us, aren’t you?”
I stood there, stunned. Christina had never talked to me like this before. And nothing she was saying made any sense. But the part that disturbed me most was that she didn’t seem angry anymore. She looked like … well, like she felt sorry for me.
And that—the pity—that was too much. I was done.
“So I’m the jerk here. Got it.” I checked my back pocket for my key card and headed to the door. “Thanks for the wake-up call.”
My body went on autopilot as soon as the door closed behind me. No tears. No thinking. Just walking to the only room in this hotel I knew belonged to a person who wasn’t from Ridgewood. Down the hall, into the elevator, up to the fifteenth floor, turn left, and then I was knocking on number 1535.
When the door opened, I found myself facing not Callie, but Vanessa. Vanessa, wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt with her hair all sleep-messy. I squinted at her, remembering Callie’s text last night.
“Did you … spend the night here?”
“No! I mean, yes, but not like that.” Vanessa adjusted her glasses and smiled nervously at me. “Callie let me stay with her because I had a fight. With my roommate.”
She tugged at the hem of her shirt. It was a Weird Sisters shirt, with eyes dotting the i’s, like the sticker on my practice pad. A lump hardened in my throat and I swallowed it down.
“That’s funny.”
“What is?”
“Your shirt. No, I mean, your shirt’s awesome,” I added hastily when she glanced down at herself. “It’s funny that you came here because you had a fight with your roommate, because that’s why I’m here, too. I mean, I’m here because I had a fight with my roommate, not because you had a fight with …” I paused, sighing. “Sorry, I’m delirious from sleep deprivation. So no WTFcon for you today?”
“Eh …” Vanessa said. “I wanted to do some writing instead.”
“Oh. Callie’s not back yet from the turkey thing?”
Vanessa shook her head. “She should be here any minute.”
“Ah.” I stifled a yawn. “Can I come in?”
“Oh! Of course,” Vanessa said, stepping aside. A blanket covered the armchair, and a laptop sat open on the seat. I walked past it and threw myself facedown on the first bed, hoping Vanessa wouldn’t ask any questions. I didn’t want to talk about what had just happened with Christina. I wasn’t even sure I understood half of what she’d said. She’d made new friends and she’d had more in common with them. How was that my fault? And Scott—she’d said he hadn’t told everyone about us fooling around … but that was impossible. Because I sure as hell hadn’t told anyone, so how else would they have found out?
And Brian …
Well. Christina was right about all of that. I’d forgotten about his solo, and then I’d pretended it wasn’t a big deal. And that was after I’d called him a massive jerk just for trying to talk to me.
“Am I a giant shark-head?” I mumbled into the bedspread.
“What?”
Rolling onto my back, I watched her walk over to the armchair. “Am I a giant shark-head?”
“No!” she said immediately, picking up her laptop and sitting down. I covered my face with my arm. “Why?”
“My friend Brian’s solo was this morning,” I said. “And I skipped it to go to the turkey thing. Not on purpose—I actually forgot about it. Although he probably thinks I did it on purpose.”
“But he’ll understand once you explain, right?”
I shrugged, squeezing my eyes closed. Sure, he’d understand that instead of purposefully bailing on the solo performance he’d been angsting over for months, I’d forgotten about it entirely. Because apparently that was the type of friend I was. Selfish. Just like Christina had said.
And if she was right about that, what else was she right about?