Best Friends (Until Someone Better Comes Along) (14 page)

“Excuse me,” Bailey said, refusing to make eye contact
again. She pointed. “I think this is my locker. Can I get by?”

I stepped to the side, and watched as Bailey fiddled with the combination on her lock. Ava stood beside her. While Bailey unloaded her bag and grabbed a notebook for first period, neither she nor Ava said anything.

I had no idea how much of Heidi's rant they had heard, and I had no idea what I could say to make it clear that I
hadn't
been talking about them. My best friends—at least, the girls I'd
thought
were my best friends—were being absolutely horrible. And I was stuck in the middle of it.

I hoped all it would take was a conversation with Bailey and Ava to sort things out. But sometimes, I knew, words meant nothing. Especially when you were fighting against your own reputation—and my reputation was Mean Girl. I had a feeling it wasn't going to be easy to prove that I had changed, or to convince anyone that Heidi and Sylvie's words were
their
words and not mine.

But I knew I had to try.

I
t turned out Bailey and
I had third-period history together, but I couldn't get her alone to talk. I tried to sit in an open seat right behind her, but Brenna Thomson flagged me down, and by the time I was able to squirm away from her annoying gossip about something totally inconsequential, all the seats near Bailey were taken.

At lunch, I sat at a table with Sylvie and Heidi, as usual. This year, we got to move one table closer to the windows—to the rectangular table that was right next to some of the soccer guys, including Henry and Jake. Only one table was better than ours, but that was the one the eighth-grade posse (which was ruled by Skylar, the captain of the dance team) sat at. Next year, their big round table right by the windows would be ours.

The lunchroom operated on an informal reservation system, and it had always worked that way. Everyone knew who went where, and anyone who tried to break the lunchroom rules would pay. As I munched on my bagel that day, I wondered why it mattered so much—and why we stressed out about who would fill the other five seats at our table. It took so much time and energy to control the lunchroom-table situation that, by the time we figured out who would sit where, we hardly had any time to talk at all.

Bailey and Ava must have decided to eat outside or something, since I didn't see either of them in the cafeteria—or again for the rest of the day. As soon as school was over, my friends met me at my locker practically before the bell had finished ringing.

“Hang out at my house?” Sylvie suggested. My locker wasn't even closed yet.

“Definitely,” Heidi sighed. “I need to go through my routine a few more times before dance team auditions tomorrow.” She flipped her hair over one shoulder, and I realized for the first time just how often she did that. After another flip to the other side, she pulled out her lip gloss and leaned against the locker next to mine. Maren Fuller, who belonged to that locker, walked up seconds later and just stood there, trying
to figure out if it was a good idea to ask Heidi to move or not. Heidi ignored her, and finally Maren walked away. “Not that I'm worried about auditions, obvs.”

I rolled my eyes. I
knew
Heidi was nervous about dance tryouts, but she always tried to make it seem like she was a shoo-in for the team. “You're not at all nervous?” I asked, trying to get her to fess up. I wanted us to be more honest with each other, wanted us to be the kind of best friends who tell each other things and don't backstab. The kind of friends who can confess things to each other, and not worry about being judged.

“Not really,” Heidi said confidently. “Tryouts are just a formality. I can't think of who
would
get in, other than Sylvie and me.”

I thought about Ava, and how hard she'd been working on her routine all summer. There were only ten slots on the team, and six of those would be filled with girls who were returning to the team from last year. That meant there were only four open spots on the team. I knew Ava was a much better dancer than Heidi, but I also knew Ava was sort of a nobody, and the captains of the team—the eighth graders who controlled the top lunchroom table—were obsessed with making sure the team had the “right kind” of people.
Skill was only one little part of who got a slot on the team, which I'd begun to realize was really stupid.

“I just don't want you to get your hopes up and then be disappointed,” I said. “I'm sure there are a ton of amazing people trying out, so don't go in expecting it to be a sure thing.”

Heidi sniffed. “You are a major bummer today, Izzy,” she said. “And that's a really nasty thing to say to your best friend. Aren't you supposed to have my back?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm sorry. I'm sure you'll be amazing.” I slammed my locker closed and slung my bag over my shoulder. “I guess I'm just sort of freaking out about school starting or something. It feels different this year.”

I was about to add something about Bailey and Ava, to tell Heidi and Sylvie how mean and hurtful their words had been that morning. But before I could figure out how to word it so it wouldn't sound like I was scolding them, I spotted Bailey at the end of the hall. She was walking into the disgusting bathroom right at the end of the band hallway. Ava was with her. I realized I had to seize the opportunity. “Guys, actually, I kind of feel sick. Maybe I'm getting the flu or something. I need to run to the bathroom for a sec—” I trailed off as I hustled down the hall. I went quickly, hoping they wouldn't follow me.

“Iz?” Sylvie called after me.

After a beat, I heard Heidi say, “Should we offer to hold her hair while she pukes or something?”

I guess they decided the answer was no, since neither of them followed me. I stepped into the bathroom, and found Bailey and Ava at the sinks washing their hands. “Hey,” I said, breathless. I guess maybe I'd been a little too into my about-to-puke routine, since now I was totally winded. I probably didn't need to hustle quite as much as I had.

“Hi, Izzy,” Bailey said, looking over my shoulder to see who was with me. She visibly relaxed when she saw I was alone.

“How was your first day?” I asked.

“Fine,” Ava said quietly. I noticed she was wearing my headband. She caught me looking at it and said, “Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. I forgot to give this back.” She pulled it off her head and thrust it toward me. Her hair was sticking up all over the place. “Do you want it back? I don't have lice or anything.” She was talking so quietly it was almost a whisper. It was like she was just a shadow of the person she'd become around me when we were at the lake.

“If you had lice, don't you think I probably would have caught it by now?” I asked, trying for a light and airy tone. “We spent the last few weeks sharing clothes and pillows, so I'm obviously not worried about it.” I paused, then added,
“Anyway, I don't want it back. It looks better on you.”

“Okay,” said Ava, and returned it to her hair. “Thanks.”

“You guys, this morning . . .,” I started, unsure of exactly how much they'd heard Heidi and Sylvie say before school. “I don't know if you heard what my friends were saying this morning, but I just wanted you to know that I had a great time with you this summer, and I don't want you to think I, like, only hung out with you out of pity or something.” I realized that sounded terrible the second I said it, but I wasn't sure how to rephrase it now. “I mean—”

Bailey cut me off. “Look, Izzy, we just assumed you'd act like we didn't even exist once we got back to school. We're trying to move on too. So it's not really a big deal.”

“And honestly—” Ava said. She broke off, swallowed, then said, “We'd kind of prefer if we weren't even on your radar at all. If you could just
not
talk about us when you're with Heidi and Sylvie, that would probably be best. We don't really need to be the subject of your mean-girl pranks this year.”

“I wouldn't!” I said, my eyes stinging from tears that came out of nowhere. I couldn't believe that after the month we'd spent together, they would ever think that I'd do anything to intentionally hurt them. But even though I believed I had changed, I knew that the Isabella Caravelli everyone knew at
this school totally
would
pull mean-girl pranks on someone who was supposedly a friend.

But I was sick of mean-girl pranks—they were, well,
mean
. And the fact is, I was a lot happier at the lake when I was spending time just having fun with Ava and Bailey than I
ever
was when Heidi and Sylvie and I were putting people down. I liked the person I'd become when I was out of school and away from my own reputation, and I sort of wanted a piece of that
other
me to stick around. I liked the Izzy that Bailey and Ava knew, and I wasn't so sure I liked the Isabella Caravelli everyone else at Southwest was used to. That girl was sort of a snob.

“You guys,” I said, sounding desperate, “I really want to find a way for us to be friends at school, too. Maybe we could hang out after school one day, or you guys could come over? Heidi and Sylvie are nice once you get to know them. What if we ate lunch together tomorrow, in a big group? You can sit at our table.”

Ava smiled sadly. “I don't think so,” she whispered. “I loved hanging out with you this summer, but I find it hard to believe that you're going to change for
good
. People just don't change into a new person in one summer.”

Bailey nodded along. “We've got to go, or we'll miss the bus,” she said, backing toward the bathroom door. They both
waved to me as they hustled off. “See ya, Izzy,” Bailey called over her shoulder.

I stood in the bathroom for a while, trying to think. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I'd apologized, and I was trying to be nicer—but I wondered if what Ava had said was true.
Could
a person change? Could
I
? Maybe not. Maybe we all have a part to play in middle school, and I was just messing up everything by trying to be someone I wasn't.

After a few minutes had passed—and the stench of the automatic air freshener started to make me sick—I slipped back out into the hall to return to my friends. When I got back to my locker, they both sort of backed away from me. “No offense, Iz,” Heidi said slowly, “but I really don't want to get sick before dance team auditions, so maybe we shouldn't hang out this afternoon?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, kind of relieved to have an excuse not to hang out with my best friends. I needed some time to think, and an all-afternoon gossip fest wasn't going to let me do that. “Maybe that's a good idea.”

“We'll pick you up in the morning, okay?” Sylvie said. “Don't forget—tomorrow's outfit is jeans and the T-shirts we got at the mall last week, okay?”

“I won't forget,” I said, waving weakly as my friends hurried
away from me as fast as possible. I sighed, and finished gathering stuff into my bag. It wasn't until I slammed my locker closed and headed for the side door that I realized Heidi was my ride home. I'd missed the buses (not that I'd take one anyway), and my friends were probably long gone by now. I was stranded.

I couldn't believe they'd just abandoned me. It was like they'd totally forgotten that we were all riding together or something! Frustrated, I sunk down on a bench by the front doors and pulled out my phone. I could call my mom, but I knew she'd be really annoyed if she had to come all the way to school to get me. She was under deadline for her freelance projects, and anyway, she never drove me to or from school. It was as if she didn't realize the bus was social suicide. I
could
walk, but it was really far, and my new black boots were already rubbing wrong. Then I had an idea.

I dialed, hoping my dad would pick up. He did!

“Hi, Dad,” I said, trying not to let my bummer of a day sneak into my voice. He could always sense stuff like that, even when I thought I was doing a good job covering it up. “What are you doing?”

“Working,” he said. He sounded distracted. “What do you need, Isabella?”

“Um . . .,” I said, realizing it was stupid to have called him. I hadn't called my dad in the middle of the workday in more than a year—probably not since fifth grade, even, when we started drifting apart. After a few seconds slipped by, I realized I'd said “um,” which was one of my dad's pet-peeve words. Maybe he wouldn't notice my communication error. “I was just wondering if, maybe, you—uh—wanted to leave work a little early and maybe go biking or something?”

For some reason, a bike ride with my dad was the one thing I wanted to do. I knew if I went home and sat alone, I'd just end up calling Heidi. It was habit, and I had to start breaking some habits if I was going to try to change for good. Also, my dad always used to have really good advice when I was stuck on something. I needed some advice. “Maybe we could stop and get some ice cream to celebrate the first day of school?”

There was a long pause, then my dad sighed. “Izzy—” he said, his voice a warning.

“Never mind,” I said quickly. I couldn't handle being rejected a second time in the same day—first Bailey and Ava, then my dad. I was trying to be nice! Why wasn't anyone responding? And why on earth did I call my dad, when I knew he didn't have time for me? “It was just an idea.”

There was silence. Then my dad said, “Actually, I like that idea. We haven't done something to commemorate your first day of school in a while. Ice cream sounds good. I like the way you're thinking.”

Fifteen minutes later, Dad pulled up in front of Southwest. I hopped into the front seat and smiled at him. He smiled back. “Backseat, kid.”