Understudy

“Some kid got arrested.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Where?”

“Here,” she says excitedly. “Like, two cops showed up and handcuffed him in class. It was in the class across the hall from mine so I saw it after it happened.” She closes her compact and shoves it back in her purse. “I bet it’s terrifying to be sitting in class and have a cop walk in and take you away.”

“Wow.” Our rinky-dink security guard doesn’t even carry handcuffs, let alone a gun. I’ve never seen an actual police officer in school before. “He must have done something bad.”

She shrugs. “Apparently he wasn’t doing anything in class, so no one knows why he got arrested. Still, it’s pretty big news for our tiny ass town.”

I nod as a twinge of uneasiness falls over me. “Do you know who it was?”

“No, but he looked like someone who’d get arrested. Long hair. His jeans had rips in them even though that’s against dress code. That sorta thing.”

The uneasiness morphs into a nausea in the pit of my stomach. She can’t possibly mean Derek. As I head back to class, I run through all the guys in school who have long hair. I can think of three other guys besides Derek, but only one is also a senior and could have a class in the same senior hallway as Nydia.

I take that tiny bit of hope and cling to it like a life vest. It’s not Derek. It’s totally not Derek. Although, I was the person who ignored four texts from him last night so I guess I shouldn’t care if he got arrested.

After the bell rings, Margot catches me walking to my next class. Her arm hooks around my elbow, her long perfect waves of hair falling over my shoulder.

“Did you hear the news?” She says as we perform the hallway shuffle through dozens of other students heading to their next class.

I don’t say anything. I just look at her, hoping to god that she’s talking about some new sale a Sephora or a crazy celebrity gossip story. Her lips hold back a smile as she projects a faked frown of sympathy for me.

“I’m so sorry, Wren. I hate saying I told you so, But…” She releases my arm as she reaches her fifth period art class. “I told you so!”

I’m falling asleep to the sound of Jason Brigg’s garage band practicing across the street. I don’t know why they play so late, on a school night, and no one calls the cops. Maybe, like me, all the other neighbors find Jason’s voice soothing as he sings that sappy song he wrote for his girlfriend for the sixteenth time tonight in hopes that the drummer will finally play it correctly.

A gentle knock startles me out of my half-asleep stupor. The knock comes again, definitely from the other side of my window and I freeze. It’s Derek. Please don’t be Derek.

But what if it is? I breathe slowly, letting my chest rise and fall as if I were asleep. He probably can’t see through my paper blinds. That’s why I bought them. Also because they were on sale and totally fit with my décor.

Derek probably doesn’t remember where I live, so it can’t be him. It could be Greg, especially since he’s across the street at Jason’s and all. The knocking continues. I slide out of bed and tiptoe to the window. Jason’s band screeches to a stop and then starts the song over again. I peer through the crack in the side of the windows, and let out the breath I’d been holding.

It isn’t Derek. Or Greg.

“Margot?” I pull open my window. She gives me a sheepish shrug and I roll my eyes. “What are you doing? Why didn’t you just call?”

“I was already out here, leaving Jason’s.” Margot used to date Jason, and I’d bet a million dollars that her new boyfriend doesn’t know this little fact.

“Do you want to come in?”

“No, I can’t. I just have to tell you in person because I don’t want to be shitty and text you.”

Coming from anyone else, I might get nervous. But Margot’s things she needs to tell me are never earthshattering. And her thick black eyeliner is perfectly in place around her eyes with no signs of tears, so she’s not having a crisis. “What is it?”

“I’m dropping out of the play.”

“So?” I say, about two seconds before I realize exactly how devastating this news is for me. “Wait—you can’t drop out!”

“Sorry. Just find someone to fill in for me. It can’t be that hard.”

“You better be dying of some horrible disease.”

“I am.” Margot clutches her phone to her chest. “It’s lovesickness. Jordan lives an hour away and he can’t go so long without seeing me. Having rehearsal every day is killing our relationship, Wren.”

“You’re seriously doing this to me?”

“Yes.”