let out a long sigh and hunched forward dramatically, resting her face in her hands. “Does anyone have a paper bag I can breathe into?”
“Calm down,” Madeline said with an eye roll. Her porcelain features were set in a stony mask.
“How can you be calm?” Gabby smoothed a wrinkle in her polo shirt. “I swear to God, if this gets in the way of my Ivy-league dreams I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Gabs, your grades will get in the way of your Ivy-league dreams,” Charlotte snapped. “And it’s not like they can punish us. We didn’t even do anything.”
“But they think we did,” Lili moaned.
Charlotte gave her a cold, calculating look. “You wanted into the Lying Game. Sometimes this comes with the territory.”
“Perhaps you’d like us to revoke your membership?” Madeline asked.
Gabby opened her mouth quickly. But before she could say a word, Ms. Ambrose swept back in, a pinched look on her doughy face. She looked eerily like a baseball mitt. Her brown eyes were the color of old, rotten wood. The skin on her face was folded and worn. She wore her frosted blond hair in a feathered, eighties style—probably the last time she’d gone to a hairdresser.
Ms. Ambrose sat heavily back into her chair and stared at all of them. “You girls have spent the last four years turning this school upside down, and I’m putting a stop to it right now.” She focused her attention on Emma, licking her thin lips hungrily.
She was probably dying to get her hands on Sutton Mercer. Little did she know that ship had sailed, I thought grimly.
“Ms. Ambrose, we didn’t do this,” Emma said quickly.
“It was those freshman bitches!” Lili cried.
Ms. Ambrose whirled around to face Lili. “Watch your language, Miss Fiorello.”
“Ms. Ambrose,” Madeline started. “What Lilianna is trying to say is that—”
The principal held up a pudgy hand. “What I’m trying to say is that I know it’s you, and the security cameras will show it.”
Emma sat back. “What cameras?” she challenged. Hollier was a public school. They barely had a budget for security guards, let alone security systems.
Ms. Ambrose’s steely expression wavered slightly, as though she didn’t expect Emma to call her bluff.
Emma pushed on. “If you had cameras, you’d know it wasn’t us.” And if they did have cameras, no doubt the Lying Game members would have been suspended long before this, she added to herself, thinking of all the videos of pranks she’d seen on Laurel’s computer. Several occurred on campus, and one included hanging the school’s American flag upside down on its pole.
Ms. Ambrose pressed her lips together until they almost disappeared. “Either way, once I have proof, I’ll have no trouble expelling all of you.”
“Well, we look forward to seeing that proof, which you’ll have trouble finding, since we didn’t do it,” Emma shot back, straightening up. “And if that’s all, we’re late for homeroom.”
The others jumped up quickly and followed Emma out the door. “Miss Mercer!” Ms. Ambrose called after her, but Emma kept going, even though her heart was hammering hummingbird-fast in her chest. She figured it was something Sutton would do. And if there was ever a time to show her friends that she was their fearless leader, it was now.
I had to admit I was impressed with Emma’s nerve. She was becoming more and more like me by the second.
At lunch, Emma sat in the petite redbrick patio courtyard just outside the cafeteria, waiting for Sutton’s friends to arrive. Only seniors and a few select juniors were allowed to eat there, and even though the temperature had dropped, the usual suspects were still holding court. The soccer team sat at the corner table, chowing on subs. Garrett craned his neck over the goalie’s head, making it plain that he was glaring at Emma. Emma flinched and looked away.
Garrett had had it in for her since the night of Sutton’s eighteenth birthday party, when he’d offered her his body and she’d blatantly refused. The night of the Homecoming Dance, he’d cornered her in the supply room to confront her about dating Ethan—and her history with Thayer. She didn’t have any evidence that he’d hurt Sutton, but she hadn’t ruled him out as a suspect quite yet. It was possible he’d known all along that Sutton had been sneaking around with Thayer and wanted revenge.
It was something I’d thought about, too. Garrett was a goody-goody, and I couldn’t imagine him having the nerve to kill me, but at this point, I was willing to consider anyone a suspect.
“Dining alone?” a voice said, and Emma looked up to see Charlotte, a cardboard carton containing four hot beverages in hand. Emma breathed in. They smelled like hot chocolate, a nice change from the gallons of coffee Sutton and her friends usually drank.
“Not anymore,” Emma said, pushing away her German text.
Charlotte took a seat and pushed her red curls behind her shoulders. “Did you hear that the Twitter Twins got detention?”
“For the prank?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Nah. They got caught tweeting in class. Probably to their dad’s lawyer or something.”
Emma snorted. “They need to chill.”
A squeal sounded across the courtyard. A chubby girl in leggings and Tory Burch flats was pointing at something just out of view. “It’s Thayer Vega!”
A hush fell over the courtyard immediately. Charlotte froze, her hot chocolate inches from her lips, and Emma edged out of her seat. There, in the doorway, was Thayer, with Laurel and Madeline at his heels. His dark hair hung shaggily around his eyes and he had on a North Face down vest and broken-in gray corduroys. He moved across the courtyard confidently—or as confidently as someone could move with a limp.
To me, the limp made him even sexier, like he was vulnerable, mortal. Then my gaze slid to Laurel. She smiled up at him flirtatiously, shaking her honey-blond hair free from its ponytail. He looked down at her with affection. No, I thought. This was my kind of entrance. And Thayer was only supposed to look at me like that.
The captain of the girls’ soccer team broke the silence. “Thayer Vega for Harvest Dance King!” she whooped. A cheer erupted among the students.
Thayer coughed in embarrassment, then dropped his tray next to Emma’s. Emma started in surprise. Why wasn’t Thayer sitting with the soccer guys? She glanced at Garrett’s table over her shoulder, but none of the boys were even looking Thayer’s way. Were they all showing solidarity for Garrett?
As though reading her mind, Thayer nodded at the soccer table. “Apparently I’m not as useful to them now that I can’t kick.”
She caught the scent of his minty shampoo as he shifted in his seat to face her. The sun reflected in his eyes, turning them a golden brown. Emma drew her bottom lip into her mouth. “How’s your first day back?”
“Well, my old soccer buddies aside, I don’t think I’ve ever been so popular,” he said with a hint of a smirk.
