You and Everything After

“I noticed I haven’t seen her around. I thought it was maybe just because she has a new boyfriend,” Rowe says.

“That’s part of it. When she’s into a guy, everything else disappears. But honestly, I couldn’t care less right now. I kind of welcome the excuse not to have to talk to her,” I say, my eyes focusing on a small star sticker above my bed, left by the person who stayed in this room before me, or maybe it was left well before then. I plan on leaving it behind when I leave in the spring—someone else deserves to stare at it when they think too.

“I’m sorry,” Rowe says, rolling into me lightly. I grab her arm once and squeeze, pulling myself back up to sitting, and I let my legs dangle off the end of the bed.

“Thanks. It’ll work itself out. She just…she broke a promise. But it’ll work out,” I say, more to convince myself than Rowe.

I was alone for an hour after Rowe took off. Ty left his long-sleeved striped shirt with me, or rather, I took it from his closet, and he didn’t make me give it back. I put it on, deciding to use it to give me strength on my plane ride.

Paige calls and tells me to meet her at the curb, so we can share our cab. By the time I meet her out front with my bag, she’s already on the phone with someone else. She’s talking about the winter formal her sorority is throwing, and she keeps saying how much stress planning this all is going to be.

Stress. This is stressful for my sister.

The longer her conversation goes, the more I feel the need to laugh, until finally I give in and let a few chuckles out. She continues to talk while we get into the cab, snapping her fingers and pointing to the driver so he can take her bag. We’re only minutes away from the airport when she finally says goodbye, along with some stupid inside joke about rhinoceroses and hippos to whomever she’s talking to. She’s still laughing to herself, amused by the conversation, when I finally explode.

“You are so rude,” I say.

“Uhm, excuse me? That was rude,” she says, her compact already in her hand so she can check her lipstick.

“Your lips look fine. We’re getting on a plane, not having our portraits done,” I say. The seal is broken. The words from my mouth are only going to get worse.

“Wow. Someone woke up and put on her bitch costume today,” she says. She tucks her compact back in her purse, so at least I get the satisfaction of that.

I manage to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the ride, and I bite my tongue in line, through security, and for the forty minutes we sit and wait for our gate to open. When we finally board, I pull my phone out and text Ty and Rowe, letting them know I’m about to take off. Paige pulls her phone out to check her texts too, and something makes me glance in her lap. I see the picture of her and Chandra, arms around each other, cups in their hands, at some frat party.

“Where was this taken?” I ask, pulling the phone from her fingers.

“First off, don’t touch my phone. And second, at a party, duh,” she says, taking the phone back and shutting it off completely.

I stare at her, my stomach so sick with hate that I fear I may actually need the bag tucked in the seat-back pocket in front of me. I had this feeling all along that Paige was the one to tell Chandra, but I held out hope. I knew they knew each other, but I convinced myself that they didn’t know each other well. But my instincts…they are sharp. And as much as I wanted to ignore the arrows, they still pointed to Paige in the end.

“I can’t believe you told her,” I say, forcing myself to breathe in slowly, an effort to stave off the tears that want to ruin my face. I won’t cry. I won’t cry.

“Told who what?” Paige says, not looking at me. Her indifference infuriates me, so I grab her chin and pull her face to mine. Her first reaction is to pull back. But then she sees me. She sees.

“You told Chandra about Paul Cotterman.”

She doesn’t deny it. She doesn’t blink. She stares right back at me, guilty as hell. The wheels of her mind are spinning, trying to find a version of history that doesn’t match up to what I’m saying. But there isn’t one. She told her. And Chandra probably told everybody on the team. And I am right back where I started—the girl in high school with the scarlet letter on her forehead.

“Cass,” she says, her voice quivering as she pieces it all together.

“I can’t trust you,” I say, unbuckling my belt and standing quickly to grab my bag from the overhead bin.

“Cass, don’t! What are you doing? Where are you going?” Her face honestly looks distressed. I can’t deal with it.