Wicked Lies by Mae Doyle
Chapter 16
Dinner was the worst part of the day anymore. Not only because I couldn’t seem to get away from the stares of the harpies and the rogues, but because everyone in the class was all there. They’d all heard my private thoughts written in my journal last week, and now they took great joy in quoting it back to me.
“I just don’t know how I can ever live with myself, knowing that I was with my dad when he died.” Instead of turning around to see who was talking, I just gritted my teeth and stabbed my roasted pepper. It didn’t matter who quoted my journal to me, they were all doing it to get a response, and I didn’t want to give them one.
Harper and Maggie didn’t say anything, but I could read the compassion in their eyes. “You know,” said Harper, delicately pushing her food around on her plate, “I think that I can get us passes this weekend to go shopping for the dance. Let’s go to your room and talk about it.”
A dance? This weekend? I’d heard about it, and I’d already made up my mind that I’d be hiding in my room while the festivities were going on but the looks on my friends’ faces made me pause.
“Come on, Rose. Let’s go to your room.” Maggie grabbed the cookie off of her plate and reached for my hand. Sighing, I took it, and allowed her to pull me to my feet.
We were quiet on the way up the elevator and down the hall to my room. I wasn’t sure how to tell my friends that I didn’t want to go to the dance, especially when they both looked so hopeful about the three of us getting to spend time together. Even though I wanted to be gentle and kind about it, as soon as my door shut, I swung around to face the two of them.
“There’s no way that I’m going to the dance,” I told them, locking them with my stare. “Are you kidding? After the past few weeks? I’ve had my private journal read out loud, someone filmed my mom at work and showed everyone, shit has been dumped on my food, I get terrible texts, my desk disappeared in math, someone stole my sheet music for voice and replaced it with copies of my journal, I’ve been tripped, had juice poured on my food, someone cut off the end of my ponytail during class,” I took a deep breath to keep going, and held up the end of my sad ponytail to show my friends, but Harper held up her hand.
“It has sucked, Rose, there’s no denying that. But this is your chance to get out and live a little. Besides, you said yourself that you needed a trim.” Harper grinned at me and I couldn’t help but dip my head and smile. Thank goodness I’d realized what was going on in time or they surely would have scalped me.
“Are both of you going?”
Maggie grinned. “You think that there’s a chance we’d miss this? Harper’s mom has agreed to take us shopping and let us stay the night there this Friday. The dance is Saturday, so we have plenty of time to get ready. Please go with us, Rose. It really wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“You guys don’t have dates?” I found it very hard to believe that my two gorgeous friends would rather spend time at the dance with me rather than with hot guys, and I’d noticed more than one of our classmates checking them out.
“I think that Woods is going to ask me.” Harper shrugged. “He’s a nice guy, and you said yourself that he hasn’t been involved in any of the bullying, so…”
“Woods is a great guy.” I did my best to sound thrilled for my friend, even though I was secretly hoping to be asked first. The way things were going, however, I was a social pariah, so I doubted that anyone would want to risk showing up with me, and I didn’t blame them. “What about you, Mags?”
Maggie blushed. “I’m going to ask Everett.”
“Another solid choice.” I grinned at my friends. “You guys sure you don’t mind me tagging along as a fifth wheel? And are they okay with hanging out with someone like me?”
“You mean someone like you who’s being unfairly targeted? Yeah, they’re both against it, but they don’t know what they can do.” Harper sounded apologetic, and I leaned over, resting my head on her shoulder.
“Just being my friend is enough.” It sounded stupid, but it was true. Just knowing that I had friends who were on my side during all of this made it much easier for me to make it through everything.
“So it’s settled then?” Harper grabbed her phone. “I’ll text my mom now and she’ll get the passes lined up for us. We’ll have to leave right after class so we have time to make it to the stores before they close, but there’s no way Mr. Taylor will let us skip out of class to shop for dresses.”
Maggie giggled. “Can you imagine? The whole class would leave!”
Pretty much everything sucked, but right when I was about to let myself get drug down in all of it, my friends picked me back up and showed me that things were going to be okay. I laughed as the three of us got into a pillow fight, feathers flying everywhere.
By the time we were finished, my room was covered in a light layer of down. “I’m gonna have to leave out a treat for the cleaning crew,” I told them, looking around the space.
“We’ll get them something on our trip. I promise.” Harper stretched and hopped off of my bed. “But now it’s time to sleep. Get ready for tomorrow, Rose, my mom can’t wait to see you and I can’t wait to go shopping!” She squealed, pulling Maggie from the bed and running out of my room.
I hopped up and locked it behind them, hearing the thud of the deadbolt slide into place. Shopping with my friends. Like a normal teenager. Turning, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. Thankfully, my hair wasn’t too short. I could still pull it up for the dance. And, in the right dress – I turned, smiling at myself – well, maybe I wouldn’t stick out too much.
* * *
“Ihad no idea how much fun shopping could be.” Kicking off my sneakers, I sighed, wiggling my toes in the air. “Seriously. We always shopped at the local mall, and I didn’t even know that stores like that existed.”
Harper and Maggie laughed, kicking off their shoes to join me. The three of us had spent all afternoon running through the most amazing shopping complex, trying on dresses that cost more than a mortgage, and cramming our feet into strappy shoes.
By the time we had to meet Harper’s mom back in the parking lot, each of us carried a long dress bag and a pair of shoes. Harper and Maggie both chose red dresses that popped on their pale skin and made them look like fiery devils, but I chose something a little more understated.
Glancing over, I could see the bottom of my dress peeking out from the bag. The hem was cut at an angle, which meant that the dress wasn’t as traditional as some of the others we saw. It was fitted to me, the entire thing shimmering with sequins and sparkly thread, and had straps that criss-crossed in the back. As soon as I’d slipped it on my head, both of my friends sighed.
“That’s it,” Maggie had said, handing me her credit card. “Let me get it for you. A gift.”
It hadn’t mattered how much I’d argued. In the end I had the dress and a killer pair of shoes to go with it. I’d promised to do their hair and makeup for the dance and they’d agreed.
“You girls hungry?” Mrs. Pierce walked into the room carrying a huge tray with snacks. Not only did she have three bottles of cream soda on it, my favorite, but it was loaded down with mini sandwiches, fresh cookies, fruit, and some amazing chocolate that she said she had shipped in from Europe.
“Man, I could get used to this.” I popped a chocolate in my mouth right away. I loved M&Ms, but this Switzerland chocolate was on a whole different level.
“You’re welcome here whenever you need a break, dear.” She patted me on the shoulder and turned to leave, but then looked back at me. “I love the hair. The shorter cut looks really good on you, Rose. I know that Harper said you liked it longer, but this looks good. Tell your hairdresser that they did a good job.”
To our benefit, the three of us managed to hold it together until she left the room, and then we started laughing. “Maybe I should thank the class for trying to scalp me,” I said between giggles. “Who knew that it would actually look this good?”
Harper grinned at me. “I told you that it looked okay! Now we just have to come up with a game plan for tomorrow. Did you decide if you’re going to ask anyone?”
The three faces of the rogues flashed through my mind, but I wasn’t going to allow myself to think about dancing with any of them. Shaking my head hard, I bit my lower lip. “Not a chance. I’m there to dance with you guys when you’re not grinding with your guys and to eat some delicious food.”
“We’ll make time to dance with you, don’t worry.” Maggie reached out and took my hand, giving it a little squeeze. “We just wish that there were something we could do to make things better for you.”
I wished that, too, but there wasn’t anything to be done, and we all knew it. The thing that kept me going was knowing that my future would be better when I made it out of Taylor Prep. All I had to do was get through the rest of this year and the next and I would be golden.
But first: the dance.
