Chloe concentrates on dipping her paintbrush. “What about it?”
“Mainly, why you’re not currently making out with her.”
“Why,” Chloe says, nearly upsetting the can and ruining the whole banner, “would I be doing that?”
“What, am I supposed to pretend the girl she was talking about in her Live wasn’t you? Even Benjy put that together, and he’s not the fastest on the uptake.”
“I mean, yeah,” Chloe confirms begrudgingly, “but I’m not going to date her just because she announced that she likes me.”
“So, you’re saying you don’t like her.”
“Why would I like her? She’s not a good person!”
“Should I remind you of the several occasions on which you have testified that you think she’s hot?” Georgia says. “Or maybe I should go get the Monster Fucker Collection from behind the desk? It kind of sounds like she’s the megabitch of your dreams.”
Being known the way Georgia knows her is really annoying sometimes.
“Okay, fine, I’m attracted to her,” Chloe concedes, “but I’m not going to date her. In fact, I am refusing to date her, as a power move.”
“Chloe, I love you, but that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re still doing things based on what she wants, not because it’s what you want. That’s like, the opposite of a power move.”
“I feel like we’re losing track of the point,” Chloe says, refusing to respond to that, “which is: She’s not a good person!”
She shoots a hand out and grabs one of Rory’s ankles as he passes.
“Can I help you?” Rory says, frowning down at her.
“Tell Georgia that I’m right, that Shara isn’t a good person.”
Rory contemplates this, then sits between them. He’s eating a cup of mocha chip ice cream with a tiny pink plastic spoon, and when she looks at him, she realizes he’s flipped his septum barbell down.
“Explain,” he says.
“I want you to tell Georgia about the things she’s done to you and Smith.”
“Which things?”
“See?” Chloe says, waving a hand at Georgia. “How about the time she faked sick on Smith’s signing day?”
“You mean because she knew she was going to break up with Smith,” Rory says, “and she didn’t want him to have to edit her out of the pictures?”
“She—” Chloe rewinds what Rory said. “When did she tell you that?”
“When I was helping dye her hair.”
“You—what? Why?”
“After she got back, she snuck out to my house because it was the only place she could go without her parents noticing, and she said she was afraid everyone was gonna be staring at her at school, so I found some old dye and told her we could give them something to stare at. I got the idea from what you told me about dress code violations, actually.”
“Okay,” Chloe presses, “but what about how she made you and Smith jealous of each other on purpose to make you hate each other even more?”
“That, uh. Wasn’t really what that resulted in.”
“She blackmailed Dixon.”
“Dixon sucks though.”
“She blackmailed Ace.”
He pauses, looking up from his ice cream. “Yeah, okay, that one does suck. She’s weird about people knowing what she actually cares about.”
“She ghosted her boyfriend of two years instead of breaking up with him like a normal person,” Chloe says.
Rory points his tiny spoon across the room, to where Smith and one of the theater girls are having an animated conversation. “I have finally decided that Smith and Shara’s relationship is none of my business.”
“She’s mean.”
“Sometimes,” Rory says, returning to her. “Sometimes you are too. I still think you’re cool though.”
That strikes Chloe momentarily speechless. Rory shrugs, pats Chloe once on the shoulder, and rises to his feet.
“Okay,” Chloe says to Georgia once Rory is gone and Chloe remembers how to talk, “but surely Summer must still hate Shara. She broke Summer and Ace up for literally no reason.”
“Is that what Ace told you?”
Summer, who has apparently slipped behind them unnoticed under all the chatter and music, sits in the spot Rory vacated. She crosses her legs so her knee touches Georgia’s.
“He said that you freaked out when you caught her leaving his house,” Chloe tells her.