Exposed (22 page)

OhmyGodohmyGod …

The hour Mom’s gone whirls by in a total blur as I read the manual and figure out how to move all over the Net, how to download the hacker programs to cover my tracks in case anyone ever does catch me with the B-3k, how to access my e-mail, the fastest ways to type—and even how to log into my B-3k account. It’s in my name, and the password hint is
I’mnobody
. So, I type in
Whoareyou
,
and check the cost of my plan, which is nearly two hundred dollars a month.

I can afford it for at least five months, if Paul doesn’t put another dime in the account.

My brain pings and bounces and I can barely concentrate to make my fingers press the tiny buttons as I enter Paul’s e-mail address on a post and write:

OMG.

Can’t believe this. How did you do it all?

I’m here! I’m here! Are you there? Missed you so much.

Did I really make that much? All done? More to come?

Unreal.

I sign
Red
, with a P.S. of
admiring bog
from the poem, so he’ll know for sure it’s me.

About twenty seconds later, I get a post back with a time to be in chat later, after everyone else will be in bed. It’s signed with a smiley.

Mom and Lauren clatter and bang as they come in downstairs. I hug the B-3k to my chest as my gaze moves to the locked bedroom door. If Mom tries to come in, I’ll have plenty of time to react. I have to be sure it’s always that way, from now on.

Paul’s back in my life, and no matter what I have to do, Mom’s not taking him away from me again.

“A
C
, Chan?” Devin’s tear ducts definitely aren’t broken like mine. Water splashes from her cheeks to the fold-out bleachers. The gym seems eerie-quiet, since everyone else is out marching. The Bear noticed something was wrong the minute we showed up for practice, and gave Devin and me permission to be a little late to the field, so long as we
vorked things out
.

Are we vorking things out?

It doesn’t feel like we’re vorking things out.

This feels awful.

Devin sniffs, then explodes again. “We’ll have to make, like a perfect score on the final draft to even pull a B on the project, and it’s half our grade! With what I make on other stuff, I’ll be lucky to pull a C overall. God!”

I hold the paper in my lap, the “Wild Dyke of Amherst,” with its garish
Tattler
cover just like Devin ordered. Inside, on the first page, there’s a note from Haggerty, written in sloping red letters.

Disappointing. Research is solid, but you didn’t support your conclusions beyond assumption and innuendo. Chan, this paper doesn’t have your usual flair. Do better on the final draft.

Below that’s the grade.

A
C
.

Actually, it’s a C–, but I don’t want to make things worse by pointing that out.

Devin punches a finger at the paper. “This thing sounds so totally flat. Nothing connects.
I
could have written this. Maybe I should have!”

“I did my best,” I mumble.

Total lie.

But Devin doesn’t glare at me, so maybe she doesn’t realize I’m not telling the truth. Not for sure, at least.

“I’m sorry,” I say for like the twenty-fourth time.

Only Devin has no idea how sorry I really am. I already told her how Lauren’s so into the Community Theater’s
Sound of Music
that she’s pounding my eardrums with constant rehearsals, not to mention the whole waking me up almost every night because of her bad dreams thing. I already told Devin about Mom’s endless bitchery and how Mom won’t let
anything
go, and even about Dad’s pizza fetish driving me crazy, especially when I’m starving-hungry most of the time thanks to the training program.

But, of course, I didn’t tell Devin about being back in touch with Paul or the B-3k.

Most of all, I didn’t tell Devin how I kept putting off
the Emily rough draft and putting it off and putting it off until finally, sometime early Sunday morning, I paid one of those term paper sites twenty-five dollars a page for a rush job.

Since the paper has to be so long, with references and everything, paying for it really put a dent in my Portal-pay account. And, like the site promised, I got a sound paper from a native English speaker that followed all the rules and guidelines—but I could have done better.

I should have done better.

Assuming for one second I could have concentrated on it at all.

“Were my notes not good enough?” Devin’s dark eyes are wide and teary as she looks up at me from the bleacher step below mine. “I thought I did my part, that I gave you enough.”

Total ass. That should be my middle name instead of Atwood. Chan TotalAss Shealy
.
Just plain
Ass
would do for a nickname.

“You did great. It was me.” I’m starting to feel sick inside. “I’m so sorry. I really, really am. I guess being grounded is melting my brain.”

Devin studies me. “Are you sure there’s nothing else? I feel like all of a sudden, I don’t know what’s happening with you.”

“Not being able to talk outside of school completely sucks.” Sicker, and sicker, and sicker. Part of me wants to spill everything, but the rest of me—well, the rest of me
knows Devin, and knows better. “Mom has to give it up sooner or later.”

“Maybe,” Devin mutters. “But you knew you’d end up in Mommy-jail the minute you made that profile. Was Paul worth it? I mean, really?”

Oh, yeah, totally he’s worth it
, I want to say, but as I gaze at her sad, half-angry expression, I wonder for the first time ever if I could actually lose Devin as my best friend. The thought makes my sick insides knot and double-knot and triple-knot.

Will Devin dump me like Adam-P did?

“Um, not really, I guess,” I say, wishing I could shrivel up and disappear. “It was pretty stupid.”

God, if she does dump me, I’ll deserve it.

But Devin wouldn’t do that. Best friends don’t dump each other, right? We have plans. We’re going to college together, without my mom and her dad breathing down our necks every second of our lives.

I need to go home right after practice and work on another draft of the Emily paper. Maybe if I turn in something better, Haggerty might up our grade a tad, and give us a shot at a better final grade. I could give her some story about family problems.

It might work.

It has to work.

“I’ll do something, I swear,” I say to Devin, who has started staring at the back of her hands instead of looking at me. “Somehow I’ll fix this and I’ll make the final draft rock.”

She gives me a smile, even though it doesn’t look like a normal glowing Devin-grin. “You make me believe you, you know that?”

“Because I mean it.” I pick up my backpack and stuff the report down inside. “Wait and see.”

Am I lying? I hope

I’m not lying.

Devin stares down at her hands again, and seems to be making up her mind. When she looks up this time, all she says is, “Okay.”

That’s enough for the moment.

Devin doesn’t have to say anything else. I know the rest is up to me. I just wish I could get off the ceiling and stop staring at myself. I just wish life would start feeling real again, and all mine, and like I’m in charge of it.

The rest is up to me.

It really is up to me.

• • •

“I don’t know if I can take much more of Lauren’s singing,” I type to Paul that evening on the B-3k. I’m sitting at my desk with my notebooks open, my compendium open, and the Emily paper spread every which way.

Rising from the garage like some insanely annoying movie soundtrack, endless strains of “Edelweiss” have been assaulting me for over an hour. Sometimes Lauren sings with the karaoke music. Sometimes she doesn’t. It’s enough to make me want to jump out my window.

“Give the kid a break,” Paul writes back. “She’s just
being as dedicated as you are, right? Sounds like Lauren just wants to be a winner.”

“Or the first member of our family to actually get committed to a mental institution,” I send before he can start typing again.

“That’s harsh, Red!” But he sends lots of smileys.

Talking to him is making me feel so much better. I tell him about screwing up with Devin, then fight guilt about telling Paul everything when I’m keeping so much from Devin.

“That’s not good. You’ve got to work on that paper.” No smileys now. Paul’s being completely serious. “Want to set some limits on chat time, or maybe some rewards if you’re a good girl?”

That makes me smile at him
that
way, like I know he’s up to something. “What do you have in mind?”

He sends me a waggling-eyebrow smiley, and I swallow a laugh since I don’t know where Mom is. My door’s locked, but she could knock any second, especially if she hears me cracking up all alone in my room like some nutcase.

As if anyone can hear anything over yet another round of “Edelweiss.” God.

“You have a one-track mind,” I type as I seriously consider buying some earplugs, then send him a red-faced smiley. “Yeah, I do need to work on the paper. Tonight, in fact. I hate it, but I really, really need to.”

“I understand—and I agree, Red. I don’t want to be bad for you.”

Those words make me stare a while.

“You’re not bad for me,” I tell him. “No way.”

He types a quick good-bye, but I stop him by waving at the camera and tapping out, “Hold on a sec. I needed to ask—has my video made any more money?”

Paul sends me a sad-face. “No, sorry. It’s about tapped. Why? I thought you had plenty in the account.”

I confess about spending the bucks to get the Emily rough draft, which earns me a stern frown, followed by, “I’m tight this month, too. I can’t pay your plan for you.”

He pauses while I considered the horror of having my account shut off for nonpayment, then writes, “We could do another video. Something spicier, that’ll make even more money—something like what I told you I did that time. You know, without my shirt and stuff.”

I gape at him. “What, me sit around with no shirt on—
live
? I can’t do that!”

Paul is typing.

Yeah, well, he better be typing something better than
that
idea.

“Sure you can. Just do it for me like you did Tuesday night.”

I totally blush remembering our sweaty little Tuesday night closet session. If it’s possible to make second base without ever actually touching, we definitely did that Tuesday night. What a way to break in my awesome
little handheld. Just the memory of it gives me good tinglies.

But Tuesday night had been for Paul, not for a bunch of panting pervs watching a video.

I want to be mad at Paul for even suggesting that, but since he’s done it himself, I don’t want to say anything to embarrass him or make him feel bad about it.

Paul is typing.

“You could do it tonight, while you work on that paper. Kill two birds with one stone. Well, three birds, if you count me, because I’ll love it, too.”

Feeling way unreal, I write, “Everyone’s still up. My mom could come to the door.”

“It’s locked, right? Look, Red, I thought you trusted me.”

“I do trust you, but this is freaked out.”

“It’s not. I promise. I can blur your face, and nobody’ll know it’s you except me. So, really, it will be just for me, since I’m the only one who actually sees you doing it, with your real face, in real time.”

He sends me a line of smileys before I can type anything back.

When I do, I find myself asking, “How much did you make when you did the no-shirt thing?”

“Around 2k, but I’m not a girl. You’ll make more. And if you touch yourself, you know, cup your boobs and stuff, you could probably make a small fortune.”

“No way I’m doing that!” My body goes red-hot, and I know I have to be fluorescent red all over.

“No problem! If you just do the no-shirt thing, just sit and work on the paper, I bet I can get you enough to pay the B-3k account for most of the year—long as you don’t go buying any more crappy English papers. Please, Red. I don’t think I can face losing you again.”

Paul gazes straight into the screen, straight into my eyes. My heart twists, and all the knot-tying starts in my chest and stomach as I write, “I don’t want to lose you again, either.”

“Then do this. Right now, tonight, while you work. And just let it be for me. I promise I can protect your identity, and you’ll have the money you need—assuming you don’t spend it on another term paper.”

I give him an I’m-sorry smile and nod. Not paying the account and being cut off from Paul again—unthinkable. Not happening. Just the idea gives me an awful, tired, the-world-is-ending feeling. He’s right, and I know it. This is the only way, for now. If I have to flash a little skin to keep Paul, then flashing’s what I’ll do. Besides, it was my dumb-ass idea to waste those bucks in my account on a paper I should have written.

Paul gives me a thumbs-up before I turn around to get my desk or ganized.

Then I take fifteen whole minutes getting ready, doing a zillion little things that don’t matter. With each
passing second, my throat gets drier and the knots inside my body get tighter.

I can’t do this. I can do this. I
have
to do this.

“It’s just for Paul,” I mumble out loud to myself as I dig in my backpack and get out the report. Then I grab a pen off the desk. I put them both on my bed next to the B-3k and my last year’s backpack, where I’ll stuff the B-3k if Mom knocks.

When I pick up the machine, I see Paul, patiently waiting. He blows me a kiss and gives me another thumbs-up.

I put down the B-3k, take a breath, and pull my shirt over my head, leaving just a bra between me and the world who’ll see the video.

Gooseflesh breaks across my bare shoulders. Instant cold. Instant shivering. I stretch the shirt out on the bed so I can get into it fast, in case of a Mom attack.

My fingers fumble with the satin straps on my bra, but my hands don’t want to work. I grind my teeth.