I’M THE ONE WHO TOLD the Ring about Tabby’s secret past. Some of my friends have told me it’s low, that I went to a tabloid because I want fame and a payoff, but really I just want the truth to be out. I guess it didn’t follow her to Coldcliff, but here I am to tell you the story of the first boy Tabby ruined.
We were in seventh grade, but dressed like we were high school seniors. Tabby already had boobs and a butt and she knew exactly how to work them, even though she complained to me about how she wasn’t sexy, wasn’t pretty. She just wanted a compliment. So I dished them out, because she gave them right back.
Here’s the thing to know about Tabby Cousins. She’d hitch a ride with anything promising. She had a pattern. Star athletes were her thing. I had a feeling that in twenty years she’d be one of those wives on Real Housewives, which my mom watched religiously. On husband number two or three and boob job number ten, spending twenty grand on a kid’s birthday party.
The star athlete at our school was Jordan Bosch. He was four years older but this really talented football player. People were always talking about him being scouted for the NFL before he finished high school. Tabby had close proximity to him because we were on the dance squad.
So Tabby, she got really cozy with Jordan. Always waiting for him with a water bottle after his games, offering to rub his shoulders. It was bad because Jordan had a girlfriend, this girl Bella, who was the valedictorian.
The day after the regional game—which we won, of course, thanks to Jordan—Tabby comes over to me with this huge smile. “Kennedy, we’re going to a party. I got us in. Just tell your mom you’re sleeping over, and I’ll tell mine the same thing.”
She had the lie all planned out. We met at the bus stop and did our makeup in a McDonald’s bathroom, Tabby plastering her face with bronzer and dark eyeliner, pouting at her reflection. “I’m going to hook up with Jordan,” she said, pulling a little bottle of vodka, the kind you get on airplanes, out of her purse. “Just wait and see.”
“He’s with Bella,” I said. “He’s not going to cheat on her.”
She shrugged and took a swig, then passed the bottle to me. I didn’t have any. It didn’t bother me that she liked Jordan—whatever. It bothered me that she was conceited enough to think he’d leave his girlfriend for her. And it really bothered me that she didn’t care about Bella at all, that she was willing to do that to another girl.
I lost track of Tabby at the party. I have no idea why she bothered bringing me, because obviously her plan was to ditch me the entire time. I ended up calling my mom to pick me up and going home, and I got grounded for a month.
The next day, I heard what had happened. How somehow Jordan and Tabby left the party together. How he was driving the car that crashed into a tree. How his blood alcohol level was super high, even though he claimed to have had only one drink at the party. How his knee was mangled, and his football career probably finished.
Tabby claimed he had pushed her head down. That she got in the car because she wanted to leave. She had no idea there would be drinking at the party, and she felt uncomfortable, so when Jordan said he could give her a ride, she got in the car.
Of course, Jordan thought the ride meant something else, and Tabby learned that when he pulled over and started undoing his pants. She refused and tried to get out, and apparently that’s when Jordan locked the doors and started driving away, faster and faster, freaking her out, until the car hit a tree and Jordan was slumped over the steering wheel and she got out and called for help.
People at school were divided on Tabby, but most of us were firmly in the camp of she lied. Jordan wasn’t like that. Although thanks to what happened, Bella broke up with him. Tabby got the typical slut-shaming at school, until the principal intervened and her parents got called in and suddenly, boom, just like that, they were moving, the entire family. The SOLD sign hit their lawn before anyone even knew the house was listed.
She never said goodbye—she was done with me. I had been used, whatever purpose I had served completed, even though I still don’t know exactly what the purpose was. But I just so happened to be out walking our dog on the day Tabby’s family pulled away from the house in their baby-blue Ford Escape. And I swear, I’m not making it up when I say that she turned around, pressed her face to the back window, and put a finger to her lips, as if to say shh. Then she gave a little wave and a wink.
It was hot outside, but I got a chill. I still have one when I think about it. I didn’t know where Tabby was going, where she would end up, but I knew she’d land on her feet, just like a cat. I knew there would be a new Jordan eventually, the latest guy with a promising future whose life she would ruin. I knew, but what could I do? I was a teenage girl. Nobody would have believed me anyway.