TABBY CALLS ME FROM JUVIE. They get phone privileges. I picture her lining up to use a shitty pay phone, like in Orange Is the New Black. She must be going crazy in there without her iPhone. I know I’d be losing it without mine. Mom loves to get on my case about being addicted to my phone, but she’s just as bad with hers, with her mommy blogger websites and rounds of Candy Crush.
“Tell me what they’re saying,” she says. “I don’t get the internet in here, obviously. So tell me.”
“Nothing much new,” I say. Her silence, just a few seconds too long, makes me think she knows I’m lying. “How are you doing anyway?”
“I shower with forty other girls. Just tell me what they’re saying. I need to know.”
“The guys on the swim team started this campaign to raise money for a scholarship in Mark’s name. It’s some GoFundMe thing. And there’s this Remember Mark hashtag on Instagram, where people are posting pictures of him and stories about nice stuff he supposedly did.” I leave out the post about the abortion and the comments that festered underneath it.
That gets a laugh. “I bet they are. What else, Elle?”
“It’s not all bad,” I say. “That Facebook group that started up to defend you. The Tabby Cats. They’re doing all kinds of marches and stuff.”
“That’s cute.” I can hear the smile in her voice, the relief. Not everyone worships Mark’s memory. Not everyone let death make him blameless.
“Don’t you want to talk about something else?” Because I do. I need to talk about something else, and I need my best friend.
“Did something happen?” There’s the Tabby I know, the fierce one who would defend me even if it was my fault. And it is my fault.
“He knows it was me and not you,” I say. “He keeps trying to talk to me. It was—I feel like a monster.”
“You’re not a monster, Elle,” Tabby snaps. “Do you hear me? I’m so sick of people making us think like this. Like our choices either make us good or evil. Picture it the other way. There was literally no way out where you weren’t going to get judged.”
I don’t think we’re just talking about me anymore. We’re talking about her. Whether she did it or not—whatever it even was—people are going to hate her. They already do.
“I heard they found Beck’s boot print,” Tabby says. His name is a stab wound, short and swift.
“Yeah. I saw that on Lou’s Facebook. She wrote some cryptic message about the truth coming out.”
“Can you do something for me? Talk to him, okay? Tell him this will all blow over.”
“I—” I don’t want to talk to Beck. I have good reasons to keep my distance.
“Just tell him, Elle. This is totally my fault. He was only trying to protect me.”
I hold my breath. I’m the reason why Beck’s fist made contact with Mark’s face. Because of what I said. He isn’t a good guy, and I saw him shove her.
I did see him shove her—that much is true. I’d been drinking, but I know what I saw. But I didn’t say it to defend Tabby. I did it to test Beck. I needed to know how much he cared. If he still loved her.
I got my answer.
“I’ll talk to him,” I say.
“I have to go, Elle,” Tabby says. “Love you, okay? Whatever happens, remember that.”
She hangs up before I get a chance to say it back.