Chapter 1
Charlotte
One hundred and eighty.
That’s how many school days I have to endure before I’m free.
I walk through the crowded halls, trying to find my locker. Freshmen wander, looking both awestruck to finally be in high school and terrified of it. The other classes greet those friends they don’t like enough to see over the summer but are somehow still happy to reunite with. There’s an energy in the air, a nervous excitement, that I want nothing to do with.
I don’t care about any of it.
I can’t think of anything more annoying than being the new kid in school. Maybe being the new kid in your senior year, which is almost what I am. But even that doesn’t quite describe me right. Because I am only semi-new.
I went to Huntley High for half of my freshman year. Some of the faces I pass walking down the halls are still familiar to me. People I grew up with, went to elementary and middle school with. I even recognize some of the underclassmen.
Judging by some of the double-takes the students do, they remember me too, despite the difference in my appearance. I am several inches taller, my hair several inches shorter, and I keep my head down. I used to march through the halls like I owned the place. Even as a freshman my pride and sense of self-importance was pretty epic.
But apparently, the changes are not enough. More than the double-takes, it’s the occasional student who outright glares at me, or immediately begins whispering to their friend upon seeing me, that tells me what I already feared. My sins are not forgiven or forgotten.
I wasn’t the nicest girl back then.
I stare at the floor as I walk past the glaring eyes, but I can still feel them on me. First rule of not being noticed: Don’t make eye contact.
I reach my locker and lean my head into it as if I’m searching for something. But really, I just want to hide. Of course, the locker reeks of bad cologne and old bologna, so it won’t do as a hiding place for long. I throw my backpack inside and pull out a notebook and a pen.
My first class is AP Chemistry with Mr. Roland in Room 205. When I arrive, the classroom is only half full. I pass several lab tables, each with a single bunsen burner on it, and make my way to the back. Second rule of not being noticed: Always sit in the back.
The rest of the class files in over the next few minutes. It isn’t until the bell rings and one final straggler enters that I receive a table-mate. And she doesn’t look too happy to be having to sit next to me. She gives a pompous flick of her dyed-pink hair as she sits, then scoots her stool as far away from me as she can.
I take a closer look at her face, and a memory strikes me. It’s Molly Rogers. She had brown hair freshman year. I threw a bracelet of hers in the toilet because she called me “mean” to my face.
The irony is not lost on me.
I was mean to almost everyone at some point freshman year. Back then, they were too afraid to do anything back. It’s amazing what you can get away with when you’re popular.
If I had stayed at this school, things would probably be different now. I’d still be the Queen Bee, and no one would dare mess with me. I’d probably make Prom Queen later this year. And maybe today if I burst through those entrance doors like I ran this place, I could have gotten it all back.
But that’s not me anymore. I’ve lost my power, and it’s like they can all sense it. They don’t cower or bend to my will like they used to.
Mr. Roland, a small man with squinty eyes, stands from his desk at the front of the room. “Alright. First things first. Your lab partners for this semester.”
“Can’t we just choose them ourselves?” one of the students whines.
“Definitely not,” Mr. Roland says in a no-nonsense tone. He begins assigning the students to new seats.
And then it’s my turn. “Charlotte Evans?”
I stand, awaiting my new assigned seat and praying that my partner won’t be Molly Rogers or anyone else I may have tortured years ago.
“You can stay right there,” Mr. Roland says, and I’m relieved to at least get to stay in the back. “And your lab partner will be...Jacob Bevitt.”
Jake. My stomach does a flip. How had I not seen him come in? Oh, right, keeping my head down. I scan the room. He’s near the door, gathering his things to move to our table.
He’s changed a lot. I’ve been taller than him for as long as I can remember. Now as he walks towards the table, I can tell he has me beat. He’s lost the bowl-cut hair and goes for a shorter, messier style. He wears a shirt with the name of some band I don’t recognize. It’s a big step up from the striped polos and khaki pants he used to wear every day throughout middle school.
He walks over to our table, drops his bag on the floor, and takes a seat on the stool next to mine. Is he going to say anything? Should I say something first? I don’t know what to say, though. The last words I said to him keep echoing through my mind. They weren’t good words.
Unlike the last words he said to me: “We’ll always be friends.” A promise of sorts. I wonder if it still holds, and risk a sideways glance at him.
His bright green eyes meet mine and my chest constricts. One of his eyebrows raises slightly, almost as if asking a question. There’s a few moments of tension that I desperately want to break, but I still don’t know what to say.
“You seem... different,” Jake says.
His voice has changed, too, of course. It’s deeper. More confident. I search his eyes for some confirmation that maybe the past is behind us.
Then his eyes narrow. “So what happened to your fancy private school? Couldn’t quite make the cut?”
His words are biting, leaving no room for me to misinterpret his intentions. Guess his last words to me don’t hold true after all. I can feel my face flush and will it not to turn red. Not now. Not in front of Jake.
“Hey. Lotty? You gonna answer me?”
I turn to look out the window, ignoring him. It’s probably childish but I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to face him.
“You know, looking at you, I was thinking you must have changed a lot. But maybe you’re just the same, huh?”
I’m not surprised that he’s noticed how much I’ve changed. How my hair, which was my trademark back then, long and curled to perfection, is now cut to lay above my shoulders in choppy layers. How I’m thinner, make-up free, and dressed casually, not in the obnoxious attention-seeking designer stuff I used to wear.
Jake would notice these things because there was a time when Jake knew me better than anyone else in the whole world.
I’m grateful when Mr. Roland tells everyone to quiet down so we can discuss the syllabus. I spend the entire class with my muscles tense, my hands clasped, looking anywhere but to my right, where Jake is. As soon as class is over, I bolt out of the room, bumping into three people on my way out and earning myself even more glares.
Lunch is a welcome break. In every class I’ve had, there is at least one person who I remember doing something terrible to. And I’m sure there are more that I don’t remember.
As the day goes on, more people are whispering. Even people I’m sure weren’t in my grade, who never knew me. So not only do my fellow seniors hate me, they’re spreading that hate to the underclassmen as well. This isn’t a very big school, only about eight hundred students, and word seems to get around fast.
What I hoped would blow over after the initial shock of seeing me back is just getting bigger and bigger instead. It’s like my arrival has re-awakened all their ill feelings that they otherwise would have forgotten about by now.
I go to my locker and take out a container with grapes and peanuts inside. It’s a weird mix but it was all we had at the house. I make my way to the cafeteria. It’s filled with rectangular tables, the kind that have the seats directly attached to them.
Now comes the difficult part, finding some place to sit where I don’t offend anyone. I find a table with a group of girls sitting at one end. They’re all busy with their phones, so I figure it’s safe enough to approach. I go to the opposite end of the table and start to sit.
“What’re you doing?” one of the girls asks, looking up from her phone. She’s chewing gum obnoxiously and her eyes are wide, staring at me as if I have the plague and if I sit down, she just might catch it. There are three sets of empty seats between us and still she has a problem?
“You can’t sit here,” the girl says.
The other girls glance up from their phones. One of them leans towards her. “What’s up, Trisha?”
“That’s the girl Becca was telling us about,” the gum girl whisper-shouts to her friend, as though I can’t hear her.
“Oh, Queen Bitch?” the remaining girl asks. The other two snicker.
“It’s not cool to be mean. Didn’t anybody ever teach you that?” gum girl, Trisha apparently, asks. “You can’t sit here.”
Guess she doesn’t see the irony. I resist the urge to roll my eyes or say something mean, and just walk away. Third rule of not being noticed: Don’t retaliate, even if the other person deserves it.
I’m not going to try another attempt at sitting at a table. It’s official: I’m a social pariah. And now everybody knows it.
On the way out, I pass Jake’s table. He’s sitting there with a group of kids. His friends, I guess. I recognize some of them, others are new to me. I can tell just by looking that even though they don’t necessarily have my old status, they must be somewhat popular. The clothes they’re wearing, the way the girls do their make-up, how loud they’re being compared to some of the other tables. The way some kids at the other tables are looking over at them. All indicators.
Jake wasn’t the coolest when I left freshman year. Not that he was unpopular, he just did his own thing and didn’t really buy into all that stuff. Guess we’ve done a bit of a role reversal. I don’t like to admit it, but he wears it well. He looks... happy.
I turn away before anyone can catch me looking and make my way to the bathroom. I’ve sent enough people crying out of the lunchroom, feeling ostracized, to know that that’s the place to go when you’re unwelcome in the cafeteria and want to be alone.
A girl with too much makeup and her hair straightened like straw bumps me in the shoulder as she passes me in the hallway, even though there’s plenty of space. “Watch it, Queen Bitch,” she says loudly, causing the beefy jock with a backwards cap trailing behind her to bark out a laugh.
I don’t say anything, just keep my head down and keep moving.
“Wow, bitch really has lost her bite.”
Something hits the back of my head and I glance back to see a Skittle on the ground behind me. Great. They’re throwing things now. Just what I need.
I hurry the rest of the way into the bathroom. It’s fairly humiliating to have to eat in one of the stalls, but not any more humiliating than everything else that’s happened today, so I take it in stride. Soon enough it will all blow over and no one will be paying any attention to me. That’s all I really want.
The rest of the day inches along. But that may be because I spend most of my classes staring at the clock, counting down the minutes until it’s over.
I am the first one out the door when the final bell rings. I work my way through the growing crowd of students in the halls to an obscure side door. There’s a bike rack outside there that everyone has forgotten about. The few students who ride their bikes to school usually park them out by the front entrance.
But when I go outside, there’s another bike next to mine. Guess I wasn’t the only one trying to avoid the crowd in the morning. I better be on my way fast, before the other bike owner comes along and gives me crap for a past I can’t change.
I put the combination into the lock and free my bike from the rack. It’s an old-school bike, with thin tires and peeling blue paint. No fancy gears or traction. It’s simple, and something about that appealed to me. I found it at a garage sale down the street from my house over the summer.
Just as I’m pulling my bike away, Jake Bevitt walks toward the rack from the entrance.
“Where’s the Benz today, Lotty?”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. I regret the words instantly. I’ve broken the fourth rule: Keep quiet. But I’ve hit my limit.
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I not even allowed to say your name anymore? Should I just call you Queen, then?”
It’s not lost on me that he’s left out the word that usually follows the “queen,” but it doesn’t alleviate my irritation much. “Since I seem to be the center of everyone’s world right now, it might be fitting. What is it with you guys that you’re so obsessed with me?”
Jake scoffs, pausing from unlocking his bike to look at me. “I know it’s what you’re good at, but really, don’t flatter yourself.”
“What else would you call everyone talking about me all day and staring at me and treating me like crap for no good reason?”
“Don’t act like you don’t deserve it.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But that doesn’t make it sting any less. I get on my bike and make to pedal away, but after a moment I stop and look back at Jake. “You know, I was a bitch before, and I can own that. But how are you guys any better? At least I’ve changed, but you’re all still holding onto a grudge about stuff that happened years ago. Just grow up already.”
Jake doesn’t say anything, just stares at me, eyes wide. I turn forward again and start pedaling. I said more than I wanted to say. My plan had been to stay silent and ride out the storm. But something about Jake giving me a hard time pisses me off more than the others doing it. Or maybe I have trouble biting my tongue around him because there was a time when I told him everything. We were best friends once.
But I don’t know him anymore. We’ve both changed. And I have to remember that.
