TABBY COMPLAINED ABOUT Louisa a few times. Basically stuff like, Why does she hate me so much? I’ve never done anything to her. And I’m not sure, but I think it was less about what Lou had against her and more about what stood between them. Who stood between them. Beck. From what I’ve heard, Lou thinks my sister hooked up with Beck after they started dating, or something like that.
(Don’t ask me about what’s happening with Beck, as if I’m supposed to know. He’s just a guy my sister used to sneak out to meet. I don’t have any inside knowledge of him. I know as much about him as you do, which is probably very little. When Tabby and Beck were “together”—whatever that even means—he didn’t feel the need to even acknowledge I existed. At least there was some honesty to that, unlike Mark, who tried on that “cool older brother” act at first. It didn’t work.)
Anyway, Lou started all of this about my sister. If she hadn’t posted that video of Tabby shoving Lance, would any of this be happening? Maybe it would have happened anyway. Maybe there was no way a girl like Tabby could sneak through unscathed. But the video didn’t help. The video was what made people feel entitled, its comments section the first battlefield. If the situation were reversed and I was the one who had gotten taken away by the police, I know my sister wouldn’t be skulking through the halls like a shadow.
So today I find Louisa Chamberlain.
I have to wait to get her alone, because she’s always surrounded by these same girls—I think their names are all variations of Kaylie or Kacie or Kylie, all of them in pastels, like sidewalk chalk lined up in a row. They must be really vapid to have Louisa as their leader. I have to wait until the end of the day, when Louisa is walking to her car in the parking lot—an Audi, which makes me smile, because Tabby once said only assholes drive Audis.
I’m supposed to be at practice. We’re going into the woods, doing repeats of Salt Hill, short and steep, but I don’t want to be in the woods right now. Not because Mark died there. Maybe I’m morbid, but that part doesn’t bother me. It’s Tabby’s death that bothers me more, the way she gets murdered a little more every single day. Every comment on every article a new knife wound, a fresh stab.
And I need to blame somebody, so today I blame Louisa.
I trail her until she’s almost at her car door. I’m good at that—coming up from behind. It’s a skill I’ve honed through all my years spent running. I don’t have a flashy style. I rarely lead from the start, choosing to tuck myself behind the leaders, staring at their backs until I notice the signs of them getting tired. Hunched shoulders, shorter strides, shallow breaths. Then I make my move. That’s why freshman year, my teammates started calling me the Silent Knife.
“You’re unassuming, until you’re not,” Laurel told me.
Now, I’m not.
“Why did you do it?” I call to Louisa’s back. I hate her hair—it’s always so precise, these precious ringlets that obviously didn’t come from nature.
She whips around. “Excuse me?”
I stand my ground. “Why did you take the video? And why did you post it? Are you so jealous of my sister that you have to try to ruin her life? You realize this isn’t just some feud over a guy, right? She’s in juvie. She might actually go to prison.”
I’m no good at confrontation. My voice has already started to become thin, like the tread of shoes that have run too many paths. I think about the Nikes Tabby wore in the woods that day—my brain keeps coming back to them, like they’re supposed to mean something.
“I wasn’t the only one who took a video.” Louisa drums her nails on her arm. “It’s not like she tried to keep it a secret. If she didn’t want people to see, she shouldn’t have acted psycho in front of everyone.”
“She’s not psycho. She was angry. Do you even know what Lance said to her?”
“The question is, do you?” Lou says. “Look, maybe you don’t know her as well as you think. I saw what I saw. And that wasn’t the first time I’ve seen Tabby mad. I don’t know. If she gets that mad when she knows people are watching, imagine what she’s like with nobody around.”
I know what she’s getting at. Tabby has a temper, and now everybody remembers every outburst she has ever had. If Tabby were a quiet girl, this might be a different situation. Because somewhere along the line, we decided to equate quiet with good, which means loud became bad by default. In the world we live in—our girl world, bordered by our bodies, trespassers violated accordingly—everything is an extreme.
“Lance didn’t say anything. He was just making a comment about the swim team missing Mark. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
I clench my jaw. I’m supposed to be the quiet one. The innocent one. But just because there are things I haven’t done doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about them. Right now, I’m thinking about my fist making contact with Louisa’s skin. The satisfying crack my knuckles would make on her cheekbone.
But I’m not going to do it. Because it won’t be me Louisa comes after. It’ll be Tabby. My violence will be her fault. I must have seen that rage somewhere. I was always such a nice girl. Something must have happened for me to shed that skin and pull a heavier, angrier one around me. I’m not myself anymore as much as I am an extension of Tabby, another limb. When I bruise, she does. If I break, she does, too. So I have to stay intact, for both of us.
“Just stop spreading rumors about my sister.” I turn away. I hope she hears the venom in my voice and knows it isn’t just for show. Because quiet girls might be the most dangerous type.