Rules for Being a Girl

I head downstairs and let myself out, dodging her mom in the kitchen. The boys are still playing in the living room, their trash talk just audible over the clatter of the Cartoon Network.

“Sunk!” one of them says, gleeful. The sound of them laughing is the last thing I hear before I shut the door.

Twenty-Two

My parents and I meet with Principal DioGuardi and the school board over break, all of us sitting around a folding table on the stage in the auditorium. I wonder if they made Mr. Lyle come in specifically to set it up. I give the board my full statement, feeling weirdly like I’m performing in a play I never auditioned for; they assure us that they’re taking the matter very seriously, that they’ll be talking to Mr. Beckett as well.

The rest of Christmas vacation is achingly quiet. Gray gets back from New Hampshire and takes me to breakfast at Deluxe Town Diner. Gracie and I go see The Nutcracker with my mom. My dad sit

s through about a million Hallmark Christmas movies without complaining, getting up periodically to get us more homemade marshmallow hot chocolate cookies, which I know is code for I love you and I’m here.

My mom lets me take her car in my first morning back after break, the security blanket of knowing I could make a quick exit if I needed to. I slam the driver’s door shut before dashing across the parking lot, the pavement sleet-slippery under my boots. Icy rain slides underneath the collar of my winter coat, and I almost wipe out hard on the concrete staircase, catching myself on the railing just in time.

I shake my hair out once I make it through the senior entrance and scan the bright, crowded hallway. Harper Russo raises her eyebrows, then whispers something to Kaylin Benedetto. Michael Cyr shoots me a giant, shit-eating grin.

I duck my face and head for my locker, telling myself I’m being dramatic—this is my actual high school, not the establishing shot of a nineties teen movie. Still, I grab my books as quickly as humanly possible, edging past Cara St. John and Aminah Thomas in the bottleneck in the hallway.

“—always hanging out with him in the newspaper office,” Cara is saying, scooping her shoulder-length hair into a stubby blond ponytail. “I don’t know what she thought was going on.”

“I wish Bex would try something with me,” Aminah chimes in with a snort, then happens to glance over her shoulder and spot me right behind her. The embarrassment on her face is nothing compared to the hot, prickly wave of nausea that rolls through my entire body.

So. Everybody really does know, then.

I shuffle dazedly through my first two classes, feeling like my head has been wrapped in gauze and I can’t see or hear or even breathe properly. All morning I try to imagine what I’ll do if Bex is in his classroom at the start of AP English, and all morning I try to imagine what I’ll do if he’s not.

“You ready?” Gray asks, slipping his hand into mine as we head down the hallway, and I nod.

I’ve been telling myself I’ll be fine no matter what happens, but I can’t deny the way my knees go wobbly with relief when I see the sub standing up in front of Bex’s classroom, a nerdy-looking middle-aged guy with a comb-over and a paunch.

“Nice,” Gray murmurs, a smile spreading over his face as we take our seats. “See? Dude’s gone. Nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah.” I muster a small smile of my own. It falls as Chloe comes in, stopping short at the sight of the sub.

“Hey,” I say quietly, as she passes by my desk. “Can we talk?”

Chloe ignores me.

The sub introduces himself as Mr. Haddock—“like the fish,” he clarifies, looking visibly pained when nobody laughs—and launches into this week’s vocab lesson. He’s dry as toast and just as achingly boring as Chloe predicted. But I don’t care at all.

Apparently, I’m the only one.

“This guy suuucks,” Dean Shepherd mutters from the back of the room.

“At least Marin won’t try to screw him,” Michael Cyr cracks in response. “I mean . . . probably.”

I stare fire down at my notes, my face flaming. Gray fixes them both with a look.

“Excuse me?” Chloe pipes up at the front of the room, raising her hand primly. “When will Mr. Beckett be back?”

Mr. Haddock frowns. “He should be here tomorrow, I believe—but I have no intention of wasting the time I’ve got with you folks, so if you’ll open your books—”

I lose the rest of what he says underneath the sudden roar in my head. For a moment I honestly think I’ve heard him wrong.

Tomorrow. He’ll be back . . . tomorrow?

God, I’m such an idiot.

This isn’t finished at all.