“Not exactly.”
Georgia’s eyes narrow. “When was this?”
“I don’t know, like two weeks ago.”
“Two weeks ago,” Georgia says slowly, “as in, when I let you borrow my library key?”
Uh-oh.
“I—I made sure I didn’t get caught,” she backpedals.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have gotten me in?” Georgia demands. Her face is going red in patches the way it does when she’s really heartbroken. “You lied to me! You could have gotten me suspended!”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen!”
Georgia throws the pouch back at her.
“Go home, Chloe.”
“No—”
“You don’t get to decide everything!” Georgia says. “I decided you’re leaving! So, leave!”
She kicks Chloe’s foot out of the way, curses under her breath when her socked toes connect with Chloe’s shoe, and slams the door.
“Geo!” Chloe yells at the wood.
“Bye!” Georgia’s voice shouts from the other side. “Go away!”
“Georgia!”
“Don’t text me either!”
She calls Georgia’s name one more time, but there’s no answer.
* * *
Chloe spends the rest of Dead Week alone, nose-down in study guides, both hands a highlighter bloodbath.
Maybe she doesn’t need her friends, who seem perfectly fine joking around in the parking lot before school without her, or Rory and Smith, or anyone. Maybe this is good practice for life after high school, when she’ll have to rely on herself for everything. Only Chloe, eating lunch by herself in the library with Shara’s cards and a mountain of exams. She has plenty to focus on. Willowgrove likes to consolidate AP exams and senior finals into the same week of early May, so next week is going to be hell, even if the finals for her AP classes are all perfunctory take-home exams that double as reviews for the real tests.
It’s fine. Good, actually, since she’s slipped in a couple of classes the past month, so she needs to catch up now. She can handle it. And she has nothing to feel bad about. All she’s been doing is what she’s had to do.
Shara’s the one who Gone Girl’d herself because she’s in love with Chloe. How is Chloe the crazy one?
The week ends—her last real week of school—and it’s fine. She can handle it.
Valedictorian and her friends and Willowgrove and Shara and the whole world. She can handle it.
“I can handle it!” she snaps when her mama tries to pull a jar of chili oil out of her hands in the kitchen on Friday night. She’s been struggling to open it for five minutes. She just wants to make some cup noodles and disappear into her room until Monday.
“Well, hello,” says her mama, putting her hands on her hips in the way she does that says, We’re going to talk about this now.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says immediately.
“Okay,” her mama says. “Val!”
“Yeah?” her mom yells from the living room.
“Chloe is very angry about something and says she doesn’t want to talk about it!”
“Please don’t—” Chloe attempts.
“Oh, fun,” says her mom, and then she’s joining them in the kitchen, tucking a screwdriver into the kangaroo pocket over her overalls.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Chloe insists.
Her mama nudges her onto one of the stools at the kitchen counter, and the two of them stand across from her with arms folded and calm, expectant looks. Maybe Chloe should feel comforted by this, but all she really feels is the anger bubbling hot in her chest, blurring her vision at the corners.
She knows neither of her moms will let it drop until she says something, so she sighs and opens her mouth to give them the stupid, infuriating details of her stupid, infuriating life—Georgia’s cold shoulder, Shara, AP exams, finals, Shara, the thought of having to go to New York and start a new life all by herself when she was supposed to have her best friend in the entire world alongside her, every last thing about Shara Wheeler— Nobody is more surprised than Chloe to hear her own voice say hoarsely, “Is there something wrong with me?”
Her mama flinches at the words, shaking her head. “Of course there’s not.”
“Okay, but,” Chloe grinds out. She doesn’t feel in control of her mouth anymore. Her voice comes out nauseatingly raw. “Are you sure? Like, am I a bad person?”