Chapter 4: Pathetic

On the first Monday back, someone had taped an index card to my locker.

It had one word on it, in block letters: PATHETIC.

I peeled it off and put it in my bag.

I wanted to keep it.

The hallway had split into two sides overnight, and everybody knew which side they were on.

By the second period I had heard both versions.

In mine, a boy had wrecked a girl's college applications and then asked a stranger to announce it.

In Tate's, a girl who couldn't get over him had made up a confession from a boy who didn't exist.

His version had more people repeating it.

"Did you really write that yourself?" a sophomore asked me at the water fountain.

"Did you read it?" I said.

"Yeah."

"Does it sound like something I'd make up about myself?" I asked.

She thought about it for a long moment.

"No," she said. "It's way too embarrassing."

"Thank you," I said, and meant it.

At the end of the hall, a junior I had tutored in chemistry stopped me by the stairs.

"I believe you," she said, very fast. "I wanted you to know. My locker's near his."

"Why does that matter?"

"He's been telling people that you cried to him in October. That you called him from the parking lot." She swallowed. "Did you?"

"No," I said. "He's lying."

"I thought so," she said, and ran.

I had never been so grateful for a stranger's guess.

In AP Lit I sat in my usual seat with my notebook open and my eyes straight ahead.

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