Self-Analysis:
Darcy Phillips
Is a good person who did a bad thing two very bad things.
Would do anything to protect Brooke, especially when Brooke gets rose-colored-glasses syndrome when she’s in love.
Is wondering if it’s okay to hurt someone to save them from worse hurt?
Isn’t that called “The Greater Good”?
Isn’t that the motivation behind every movie villain ever?
Is not a movie villain. Is not any type of villain. Right?
Is trying her goddamn best, okay?
(Are you sure about that?)
I waited until lunchtime the next day, when Brooke and I had settled in at our table. Brooke’s spirits seemed okay, at least, compared to the last few weeks. I only noticed her staring in the direction of Raina’s table once.
I’d been rehearsing this all morning. I knew exactly what I was going to say, and exactly what Brooke was going to say back, and how I would respond to that. I’d prepared for at least fifteen different possible Brooke reactions to my news. Nothing could take me by surprise, right? I just had to do it.
“So, as far as I know, Ray doesn’t have a date to prom,” Brooke said. She seemed pleased. “I don’t know if she asked anyone or anything, just that she’s going with a group of girls. Jaz told me. And I doubt that’ll change in the next three days.”
Just do it. I forced a smile. “That’s good.”
Brooke hesitated. “Did you know about Brougham?”
I snapped out of my pump-up mantra. “What about him?”
“He’s going to the prom with his ex-girlfriend.”
“Oh.” Brooke had been Team Brougham ever since I’d called her after the kiss, and had inexplicably remained so even after it went nowhere. “Yeah, he told me a while ago. I don’t think she’s an ‘ex’ anything anymore, either. It’s fine.”
“Wow. I’m really proud of you, Darc. I can only imagine how weird it must feel, but you’re totally being the bigger person here.”
Just do it, just do it, just do it.
“Why are you staring at me?” Brooke asked.
Just—“Because I did something really bad and I have to tell you and you’re going to hate me forever.”
Well, her expression was closer to wry amusement than fear or fury. For now, at least. This was a good start. “Um, okay, I doubt that, but shoot.”
And even after all the rehearsing, the words fell right out of my head. I tried to wave my hand around, but it didn’t achieve much. It only made Brooke look kind of confused. Then the words came back to me.
“I’m the person who runs locker eighty-nine,” I said. “It’s always been me. I started doing it a couple of years ago. I got the locker combination from the master list in the admin area the first year, then erased it from the records.”
Brooke’s mouth fell open, and she glanced around us to check for eavesdroppers. Everyone else in the cafeteria was minding their own business, totally unaware that the biggest secret of my life had just been revealed for the second time this year, feet away from them.
If they’d known what we were talking about, I had a feeling not many of them would keep minding their own business.
“How … but … why didn’t you tell me?” Brooke asked, eyes shining. She looked equal parts astonished and impressed.
She didn’t seem mad at all that I hadn’t told her. I’d kept this enormous secret, and her immediate reaction was to ask for more information, but only in order to understand.
But the penny hadn’t quite dropped yet.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” I said. Best to leave out the whole Brougham thing, for now. “It started small, then when it got big so quickly I didn’t know when to tell you, and I also didn’t want to put anyone in a weird position.”
“Oh my god. I mean, I hate you for hiding this, because what? This is the coolest news ever, I can’t believe it was you, but I’m not mad.”
Hah. “I’m not finished. Ray wrote in about you a few weeks ago. A couple of days before Alexei’s mixer.”
Brooke took a second to process this news. “And that’s how you knew?”
“Yeah. She explained what she did, and said she was thinking of confessing to you.”
“Wait … and you told her not to?”
“No.” I hesitated. “I didn’t reply at all.”
“But when you told me, you said nothing about her wanting to tell me. You made it sound like she was never planning on letting me know.”
“I know,” I said simply. I didn’t make any move to defend myself, to say I only wanted to look out for her, because, honestly, I didn’t know how much of that I believed anymore. And Brooke would see right through that if I tried it. If I wanted her respect, I had to own my shit. Even if the way she was looking at me right now was straight out of my worst nightmares.
“You wanted me to dump her.”
“Yeah, I did. And now I regret that. I was angry at her for what she did to you, and I didn’t think she deserved you, and I was jealous you thought she was perfect. I wanted you to see she wasn’t.”
Brooke had forgotten all about her food by this point. All she could do was sit and stare at me. “Wow.”
“I am so sorry that I didn’t tell you. It was wrong, and so selfish, and I can’t even say I didn’t know what I was doing, because I did. It was really manipulative of me, and I’m fully aware of that, which is why I’m telling you now.”
But Brooke had torn her eyes away from me to frown at the table. “Wait, you were running the locker when Jaz and I got those weird responses telling us to stay away from each other.”
And as much as I knew she’d realize this sooner or later, I truly felt that I would’ve rather been shoved inside the locker and left there to starve to death than face Brooke with this. If time travel existed, I would grab hot coals or swallow wet concrete or rip my chest clean open in exchange for the chance to take it back.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“You were jealous,” Brooke repeated. There was an understanding beneath her words. I couldn’t meet her eyes, and my cheeks were burning so hot they were surely only moments from blistering. It had clicked. It’d finally clicked. And she was looking at me with something that could only be described as disdain. Time seemed to be warping, going simultaneously slower and faster. “Okay. To clarify. You didn’t tell me about the locker, let me write to you with private information not knowing it was you, abused that position to wreck something I had going with someone else because you were jealous, then did it again with Ray because you were jealous. And at no point did you tell me you were jealous, or why that might have been. Have I missed anything?”
“I am so sorry, you have no idea, I can’t even begin—”
“I’m not mad at you,” she said over me, raising her voice. “Because mad would be the understatement of the century.”
“If there’s anything I can do, anything, I swear—”
“I don’t even know you,” she cried, standing up. A few people looked over at us curiously. “Who are you? How could you do that? I don’t … I just … I can’t believe this. I can’t believe it. You liked me, and instead of telling me, you ruined all of my relationships?”
I couldn’t get words out anymore. My throat had completely closed over. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep the tears from spilling.
“You must really not give a shit about me, huh?” Brooke said, still standing. “Because as long as you get to control my life so it’s convenient for you, who the fuck cares how I feel? You watched me, you have watched me, for weeks. And you. Said. Nothing.”
“I’m saying something now.”
She laughed, and it froze me. “Well, thank fuck for small mercies.”
Then, with half the freaking cafeteria gawking at us now, she flipped me off while walking backward, then turned on her heel and left me.
Alone.