Chapter 10

She smiled and held up her fist for me to bump. “One hundred and three days until we’re officially roommates.”

“I can’t wait.”

We pulled into the parking lot at school. Right away I saw Laney and mea heading our way from where they had just climbed out of the car. I braced myself. Mea had all weekend to analyze prom. Surely she’d come up with something incriminating.

Laney and mea joined us at the car.

“Tia,” Laney said. “Tie breaker.”

“Okay.” I shouldered my backpack and shut the car door.

“Which building do you think is higher—the Holiday Inn or the Convention Center?”

“Um . . . what?”

“The boys were talking about rappelling off one. Hypothetically, of course.”

“Which Holiday Inn? Beachfront or Downtown?”

“Beachfront.”

“The Convention Center. Hands down. But Beachfront would be easier to rappel without getting caught.”

“See?” Laney said, pointing at mea.

“You act like Tia is the authority on building heights.”

Great. I’d thought it was an argument between the boys. I hadn’t realized I was going against Mea. It was like she was always on the opposing side from me whether I knew it or not. “But I could be wrong,” I said. “I’ve never measured them.” I walked toward campus, the others following after me.

“I’ll Google it,” Mea said.

She was constantly Googling things to prove she was right. The problem was that when she wasn’t right she got all pissy, as if we had personally gone into Google and changed all the answers to go against her.

She pulled out her phone. “Oh, and while I’m online, I wanted to leave mean messages on Tom's Facebook page for what he did to you. What’s his last name again?”

Here it was—her play. I was surprised she had waited this long. “He isn’t on Facebook. Who goes on Facebook anymore anyway?” He actually was on Facebook, but there was no way I was telling her that.

“So Instagram? Twitter? You showed me them before but I don’t remember his handle,” she pushed.

“We broke up, Mea. I don’t want him to think I’m still hung up on him.”

“But the messages will be from me.” She held her phone poised like I was going to give her his social media information right there on the way to class. I wasn’t sure if she thought she’d find something on one of those sites to incriminate me or if she knew he wasn’t who I claimed him to be. “Did you see our prom picture I posted? It already has forty likes.”

“Yes, I saw.”

She handed me the phone anyway and I looked at the picture of the seven of us crowded around that table at prom. My date’s head was mostly hidden by my own and I found myself wishing it wasn’t. I held back a frustrated sigh over that thought and gave her back her phone.

“I’ve been thinking,” Mea said.

Never a good thing, I thought.

“It’s so weird that Tom knew someone else from our school. Not only knew her but was having a relationship with her behind your back. What are the odds of that?”

Crap. Our story had holes. Big ones. Everyone seemed to analyze this statement because all their eyes were on me now to explain. One harmless lie. I thought that’s all I’d have to tell that night at prom. I was just changing the order of events. And now here I was, still lying. I felt myself building the web and I was afraid the only one who was going to get trapped in it was me.

“He used to live here before I knew him. Before he went away to school. He must’ve known her from then.”

“Who is she anyway?” Claire asked this time. “We should find her and talk to her. Tell her to stay away from Tom.”

“I didn’t recognize her. Maybe she doesn’t even go to school here. Maybe she went to prom with a friend.” My anxiety was building, my heart racing. I didn’t like lying. Lucky for me, Daniel Carlson sidestepped into our group, draping his arm around my shoulder. I was happy for the interruption, knowing he’d change the subject to student council stuff that we had been working on for the last few weeks. Or at least that’s why I figured he was here. It’s all we ever talked about anymore.

“So, now that you’re single . . .”

Or maybe he wouldn’t change the subject. “I don’t do repeats, Daniel.”

He laughed. “Too bad for you.”

“Yes, it tears me up inside.”

“So,” he said. “Rally emergency. The sound system for the gym is down. Mr. Green doesn’t know if it will be fixed by Friday.”

“Okay, we’ll discuss it at the meeting today.”

“As vice president, I felt it important to report this immediately as I am just a servant to your authority.”

I hip-checked him. “Whatever. I’ll see you after school.”

“I’m dismissed, boss?”

I smiled. “Go away.”

He ran off, joining another group of girls ahead of us. Claire and Laney had fallen a few steps behind, talking about calculus homework, but Mea was still at my side.

“I thought he said he didn’t know our town very well. He asked if we had an arcade,” Jules said.

I blinked, confused. “What?”

"Tom. You said he lived here before, but he said he didn’t know our town very well".