Poison Ink (10 page)

6

T
he rest of the day Sammi walked the halls of Covington High in a constant state of humiliation. In sixth grade she’d had a recurring dream about showing up late for school, completely naked. As she moved from class to class, from locker to bus line, she felt that dreamlike hyperreality envelop her. Every glance or whisper troubled her. No matter how she told herself they weren’t talking about her, that a lot of people hadn’t even noticed the way her friends had abandoned her and it simply wasn’t interesting enough gossip for the rest of the school to care, still she felt exposed.

Her skin prickled with pins and needles all day, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. Worse yet, a stone had somehow exchanged places with her heart. Cold, hard stone. It made Sammi walk more slowly, made it hard for her to lift her chin, made it hard to breathe and to swallow.

In her entire life, she’d never felt so lonely. Without the girls, Sammi floated at sea, cast adrift. She might as well have been the only one in school who spoke English, for all the good the rest of them would do her.

She had other friends, and she kept telling herself that. But they weren’t her real friends, not close. Not intimate. For the first time, she hated being a floater. In all the school there was no one to whom she could turn for reassurance, for a safe harbor. Before her final class of the day, she huddled in a stall in the girls’ room and sent Adam a text message.

today’s a disaster. can u talk later?

Sammi waited as long as she could, even past the bell to begin class, but Adam did not reply. When she hurried into psychology late, enduring the wrathful gaze of Mr. Sullivan—the knitting of those bushy eyebrows—she had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying.

Which pissed her off.

By the time psych ended and Sammi threaded through the crowded halls to her locker, some of the hurt and humiliation had turned to anger. When she saw Katsuko coming in the opposite direction, she stared into her eyes for a second and then looked away. They brushed past one another, shoulders coming into contact.

“Bitch,” Katsuko muttered.

Sammi flinched. The word cut deeply, but instead of blood, the wound filled with anger. She gritted her teeth and willed her heart to go cold against the girls—against her friends. If they were going to take things that far, then to hell with them.

She jammed her books into her backpack and slammed her locker. As she left the school, she kept her eyes fixed firmly in front of her. Sammi refused to look at anything except what was straight ahead. She raised her eyes just long enough to mark the location of her bus and then headed in that direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of T.Q.’s hair—as always, the girl was impossible to miss.

Katsuko had always tended to be arrogant and Caryn had her temper, but if any of them would give her the benefit of the doubt, it would be T.Q. For a second she hesitated, wishing she could just put an end to the emotions that had wound her up so tightly. But then Sammi pushed on, getting in line for her bus. She had tried to deceive them, had lied to all of them, but they had to know why. At least they could have given her a chance to explain.

So much for sisters,
she thought, stepping up onto the bus.

Once in her seat she pulled out her cell phone to find no messages. Adam hadn’t replied to her text yet, and why should he? They’d just met. Now she regretted having sent it at all. Sammi had never been one of those girls who thrived on drama, who stoked it up like a fire. But if she started unloading all of this crap on Cute Adam, he’d start seeing her that way for sure.

Mistake.

As the bus started to rumble away from the sidewalk, she rested her forehead on the back of the seat in front of her. Some of the tension and anger that had coiled up in her all afternoon seeped away, and she felt her muscles relaxing.

“Sammi?”

Frowning, she looked up. On the seat in front of her, a sophomore kid named Eli Burns had turned on his knees to face her.

“The thing, at lunch? Totally harsh,” he said. The pity in his eyes made her fists tighten. Eli shrugged. “Just thought someone should say it. Whatever it was about, they were total bitches.”

The chunk of ice that she had willed her heart into becoming did not melt, nor did she flush with either embarrassment or rage. Instead, she felt the color drain from her face and just stared blankly at him.

Eli blinked, cocked an eyebrow, and turned around in his seat. “Oookay. Maybe it isn’t them.”

Sammi felt like slapping him on the back of the head. Instead, she sat rigid in her seat and waited as the bus made its rounds, bristling at the delay every time the vehicle groaned to a stop to disgorge some freshman or sophomore. Most of the juniors who did not yet have their driver’s licenses managed to catch a ride with someone who did. Sammi and the girls had talked about it—had agreed that they would all ride the bus and ignore the snide looks it brought them—but this afternoon she would rather have walked home.

The sky remained gray, threatening more rain, but not a drop fell.

Eli might have been looking at her when she got up to get off the bus. Sammi kept her eyes front, pretending to be the only person on board. She moved along the aisle, then went down the steps and dropped to the curb three blocks from her house. Ahead of her were two freshman girls who’d gotten off before her. The bus rolled away, belching dark gray exhaust, and Sammi held her breath until the breeze had carried away the cloud of fumes.

If she’d wanted to, she could have caught up to the freshman girls. But she’d never bothered with them before, and today wouldn’t change that. She hung back until they had turned down Winchester Road, then hooked her thumbs through the straps of her backpack and picked up her pace.

Her house should have seemed welcoming to her, but on that gray day, and with no one home, it had an ominous stillness that gave her no comfort. Sammi took out her keys and let herself in, then let her backpack slide to the floor. She left the door open, letting the September breeze in through the screen on the storm door.

The empty house sighed as if grateful for her presence.

Sammi stepped out of her shoes and went up the stairs to her room. As she lay down on her bed, she flipped open her cell phone. Texting Adam had been a mistake. They’d been out exactly once. Putting her troubles on him would probably scare him off fast.

He still hadn’t texted her back.

“Smart move, Holland,” she whispered. Her thumb hovered over the phone’s keypad. She wanted to call Caryn, or Letty, to put all of this behind them, but a wave of bitterness swept over her. No way would she call. Sammi had already apologized, and they had totally overreacted.

No, it was their turn.

For a second she fought the temptation to call Cute Adam, just to have someone to talk to, but then she would be verging into stalker-girl territory.

Snapping the phone shut, she tossed it on the bed and got up, walking to her computer. Sammi logged onto her online journal, and her friends list popped up, revealing that Caryn had already gotten home and gone online.

She clicked to open an instant message box and began to type.

Hey. I know you don’t want to talk to me right now, and that’s fine. But I’ve already apologized. What else do you want from me? You know how things are with my parents. You’re all supposed to be my friends, but you can’t even TRY to understand?

Tempted to delete it without sending, she got up and walked away from the computer. Outside, at last, a light drizzle sprinkled against the windows. The storm had been holding its breath all day, and now it exhaled.

If her mother had been home, maybe they could have talked it out together. But she wouldn’t be home from the bank until five-thirty.

Sammi strode back to the computer and clicked Send.

Her phone trilled. She jumped a little in the chair, then went to answer it. The incoming call was from Adam, and just seeing his name gave her some comfort. A friendly, sympathetic voice would be so welcome right now.

“Hello?”

“You all right?” She could hear the concern in his voice, but also a kind of wary curiosity.

“I’m okay. Mondays, y’know? Kinda butting heads with my friends, but I’ll survive. How did
your
Monday go?” She spoke too fast, the words running together, and anyone who knew her would understand how upset she was. But Adam didn’t know her. He probably thought she was just psycho.

Way to go, Sam.

“Kind of disappointing,” he said. “My clever plan for world domination failed.”

Sammi laughed, maybe a little too much. “So what next, evil overlord? What’s Plan B?”

“No Plan B. I met this girl, see. She’s a musician. Beautiful music, beautiful girl. Makes me think maybe it’s time to leave world domination schemes to my flunkies, stop and smell the roses, blah blah blah. Want to hang out Saturday night?”

I so do,
she thought. But she took a breath. Looking eager was never a good idea.

“Well, if it means preventing world conquest by a tyrannical madman, it would be selfish of me to say no.”

Adam gave a quiet laugh. “Throwing yourself to the lions. Admirable.”

Her computer binked. Sammi glanced over and saw that Caryn had replied to her IM. The ice she had summoned up earlier re-formed around her heart, but the spark of hope burned there, too.

“Hey. Can we talk later? I’ve got some stuff.”

“Sure. If you have a chance. If not, we’ll catch up tomorrow.”

“Thanks. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Sammi closed her phone. Catching up tomorrow might be better. Now that she’d managed to dig herself out of the pitiful text she’d sent Adam earlier, no way would she lay all of her drama on him. When she knew him better, maybe. But right now all she wanted to show him of herself was the girl he’d had so much fun with at dinner the other night.

Sliding the phone into the clip on her belt, she went back to her chair, but never got to sit down. She put her hands on the back, staring down at the instant message window that stood open on her screen.

You’re all righteous now?
Caryn had written.
Our bodies are branded with a mark that—for the rest of our lives—is going to remind us what a traitorous bitch you are. You didn’t ruin a moment. You put a stain on us that’ll be there every day in the mirror. That’s forever. Don’t even think about talking to me again.

Sammi stared at the words, trying to make sense of the rage and regret that filled her, to put it into words. Something blinked on the right of the screen, and she focused on her friends list. The others were all there now. BrownEyedGirl93 was Letty. T.Q. used her real name, SimoneD. Katsuko hated when people called her Kat, but used KatScratch for her screen name.

StylishCarA had vanished.

Caryn had not just logged off. She had blocked Sammi from her friends list.

And now, as Sammi watched, one by one the others all defriended her as well, blinking out. BrownEyedGirl93. SimoneD. KatScratch. They were all gone, leaving behind the names of a few people at school and several she knew only from the Internet, people who might be on her friends list but didn’t really belong.

The girls had deleted Sammi from their lives.

At half past five, Sammi’s mother came home. Sammi heard the door shut and called down to her, but didn’t get up immediately. She was in the middle of changing a string on her guitar. Homework left zipped away in her backpack, she’d spent the afternoon playing angry songs that made her feel self-righteous—Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple, and even “What I Am,” an ancient tune by Edie Brickell and New Bohemians. Anything that she could sing well while pissed off worked just fine.

Once she’d replaced the string, she fiddled with the guitar for a few minutes, making sure it was in tune. Trying to shake off her mood before seeing her mother, she picked out the first few notes of “Summer Girl,” a song of her own she’d been working on that followed a single girl’s emotional arc over the course of four seasons, from autumn to summer. She had another that needed work—“Invisible”—but it involved school and friendship, and she wouldn’t strum a note of that one today.

Sammi sang the first verse and chorus of “Summer Girl” before she realized that the house seemed awfully quiet. Her mother had come in but had not yet come upstairs to say hello to her. No cabinets were banging, no pots and pans, so Mom hadn’t started on dinner, and she didn’t hear voices, so Mom wasn’t on the phone.

Curious, she stood up, propped her guitar on the stand in the corner, and went downstairs. Several windows were open, and the curtains rustled lazily with a cool breeze, heavy with the moisture of the damp day. Television voices droned from the living room, and Sammi followed them.

Her mother lay on her side on the couch, a pillow under her head and her eyes closed. On the cooking channel, a skinny British girl flashing tons of cleavage mixed some kind of concoction in a bowl, smiling and chatting away as though talking to her best friend—her audience.

Sammi stepped into the room and her mother opened her eyes. She didn’t seem to have been sleeping, and her attempt at a smile looked as though it pained her.

“You okay?” Sammi asked.

“I’ve had better days.”

“Me too.”

Her mother frowned and sat up. For the first time, Sammi noticed the uneven line of her mascara, as though she might have been crying but done her best to eliminate the evidence.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Sammi shook her head. “Nothing important. Teenager stuff. It’ll pass.” Lies. All lies. “What about you? Something bad happen at work?”

A wry smile touched her mother’s lips and she shook her head. “No. Work’s fine. Listen, I really don’t feet like cooking tonight, and I’m in even less of a mood to go out. Any objection to just ordering pizza?”

Sammi tried searching her eyes, but her mother glanced away. A selfish voice inside her began to whine. Her mom had been the one person she’d hoped to talk to about her falling-out with the girls, but now she had her own burdens, whatever they were. It didn’t seem fair.