YOU ALREADY KNOW that Tabby lawyered up. What you probably don’t know is that I’m not even allowed to talk to her anymore. She’s more cut off every day, a princess in a two-story. I want to know what they have on her, besides a whole lot of crap supposedly proving that she’s not innocent. As if not being an angel translates into being guilty.
I’m not innocent in all this either. I played a role. I’m still playing one.
When I’m at school today, I lose myself in a swirl of girls, the same ones who come to my parties but don’t know me at all. It’s not their fault. When Tabby came into my life, I let everyone else slip out of a grasp I hadn’t even been aware I possessed. Now when they ask me anything—What are you doing after school? Are you going to the party in the woods?—what they’re really doing is trying to wedge me open so I let Tabby’s secrets sprinkle out.
I don’t say a word. I tell them I’m fine and let my smile do the rest. My mouth is my deadliest weapon. I’ve told lots of lies with it. Two of my lies started out gossamer thin, with barely any substance. But they got so tangled that it stopped mattering.
I know Dallas has algebra second period, and I’ve aligned my days so I don’t have to see him. But today, he’s coming out of Mr. Mancini’s office as I’m walking to the cafeteria, and I dart into a random classroom so he doesn’t see me. Not that it matters. Dallas has been texting me nonstop. Elle, what’s going on? What did I do wrong? Just talk to me. If I did something, don’t I deserve to know?
He did something. But I’m the one who did something wrong. This time, by not talking. See? My mouth really is my deadliest weapon. If it says something, it gets people in trouble. If it doesn’t, it gets me in trouble. Sometimes being a girl is a lose-lose situation. Like now—I have to hide not because I’m afraid of what he’ll say but because of what everyone else will.
Beck’s text, which comes in right after I get home, is one I don’t ignore. Seeing his name on my phone still turns my ribs into a vise, gripping my heart. I got a lawyer. Are they still talking to you?
It’s my fault he’s involved at all. Just like it’s my fault Tabby and Beck ended, and my fault she met Mark. I’m the catalyst for everything, and I’m the only one who knows it.
She’s cheating on you. Those are the words I said to Beck when he and Tabby had been together for four months. I was drunk, barefoot in someone’s backyard, and I was irritated at Tabby for ignoring me and worshipping her leather-clad bad boy. She was so fucking starry-eyed. And she kept on flirting with other guys, even though she didn’t call it flirting. She called it being friendly. If she had seen Beck like I did—really seen him, his softness and the sensitive parts he swept underneath the hard exterior—she never would have been so friendly.
He confronted her, and she didn’t deny it, because it was true. She had cheated on him. A kiss with Sawyer Hartman, who she didn’t even care about. I saw it, a quick grazing of their lips at the bus stop. I didn’t even know Tabby took the bus anywhere. Maybe that’s what bothered me most, that she had secret pockets in her life that I wasn’t invited into.
Two days later, she and Beck were done. My poison acted fast. Tabby was a mess, of course. I took her for ice cream and dried her tears and listened to her talk, knowing I was the reason she hurt but saying nothing.
But Beck never stopped caring about her. I could tell. They weren’t friends, exactly, but something else. Two people who went through something together. One who had been screwed over by the other but still managed to care.
(There’s an analogy here for me and Dallas, but I’m choosing to ignore it. Because what I did to him is much worse.)
My phone buzzes when I’m in the middle of composing a message to Beck—something long and emotional that I know I’ll never send. The new text is from Dallas. I know you saw me today—just talk to me, please.
I delete it instantly and erase everything I was typing to Beck. I send something else instead. It doesn’t matter—they don’t hear anything I say anyway.
What I said to Beck two months ago—what I told him about Mark—I knew it would set something off. I’m not sure why I did it. I guess I wanted to see how far people would go for Tabby.
Maybe I can’t handle the answer.