“Stare all you want, but you’re the ones who are idiots!” she shouts, turning in a circle in the middle of the hallway. “You’re the ones who are going along with this, but you know what? Sooner or later, she’s going to come after you, too, and you’re going to know what it’s like to be laughed at.” When the whispers and stares increase to laughter and gawking, Wynter fumes, returning to my side.
“I’m going to put a stop to this.” She leans against the locker beside me with her thinking face on.
“Just let it go.” I collect my English book and iPod before I close my locker. “Eventually, it’ll all blow over.”
“You’re too much of an optimist,” she mutters, putting a braid in her hair. “If anything, things are going to get worse.”
“So they get worse.” I shut my locker and hug my books to my chest as we start toward class. “I have you guys, and that’s all that really matters to me.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Her lips thin as she pinches them together. I can see her wheels turning in her head, her thoughts heading to who knows where. “I need to go somewhere before class. I’ll see you at lunch.”
“Wynter, leave it alone!” I beg as she strides away from me with her chin held high.
She raises her hand up and waves at me before turning down one of the side hallways.
I sigh and begrudgingly go to class, crossing my fingers that she doesn’t do something that will add fuel to the fire.
By the time the lunch bell rings, I noticed two things. One, this thing going on between Beck and Willow isn’t simply going to blow over. The two of them still can’t look each other in the eye, which makes the vibe in our circle awkward. And two, Wynter has definitely done something to Piper.
I first noticed something was off during third period, a class I have with Piper. Usually, whenever she walks in, she seizes the chance to whisper as loudly as she can to her friends, “There’s the thief slut. Everyone keep an eye on your purses.” Then her friends snicker and clutch their bags as if, at any given moment, I’m going to get up and try to steal it from them.
Today, however, nada. No whispering. No snickering. Piper doesn’t even look at me. It’s as if I’ve become invisible or something. The same thing happens with Logan during fourth period. He doesn’t even so much as cast a glance in my direction.
By the time the lunch bell rings, I know something’s going on.
“What did you do?” I ask Wynter the second she sits down with her lunch.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Willow says, taking an apple and a soda from her bag. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “I know you said something to Piper, Wynter. She hasn’t said anything to me since you walked off this morning, and even Logan’s left me alone.”
“Hey.” Grey sits down beside me, leaning in to give me a kiss on the cheek. When he catches sight of my face, though, he pauses. “What happened?”
“Ask Wynter.” I glare at her. “I told you not to get involved in this. Now she’s going to come after you.”
Wynter waves it off, biting into her apple. “I’ll be fine. I’m tough as nails, Lu. You know that.”
“But I don’t want you to have to be tough as nails,” I say. “Not because of me.”
“It won’t be because of you. I chose to do what I did.” She pops the tab on her soda can. “You didn’t make me do it.”
“What exactly did you do?” Grey asks, massaging my shoulders.
Wynter takes a sip of her soda, shrugging. “Something that should’ve been done a long time ago.” She balances the can between her outstretched legs as we wait for her to explain further. “Look, all I did was talk to a few people and see if any of them had any dirt on Piper. Turns out, Beth, one of my friends from the volleyball team, has an uncle who is a plastic surgeon out in Fair Hollow. Apparently, right before Piper moved here, she lost some weight and really matured in the”—she points at her chest—“department, but only because she went and got a bunch of plastic surgery done.” Wynter relaxes back on her hands and slips off her sandals. “Now, normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, but since Piper is so fixated with how people look, I didn’t think she’d take it too well if people knew that her little caterpillar to butterfly transformation was a lie. It also helped that Beth knows how to get some of the before photos of her.”
While I’m glad to have a break from Piper, I still feel guilty that this will eventually backfire on Wynter.
“I really wish you’d have talked to me first before you did anything.”
“Why? You’d have just talked me out of it.” She kneels up and moves over in front of me. “I love you, Luna. You’re like the sister I never got to have, and when I made a promise to you in third grade that no one would ever hurt you, I meant it.” She targets her gaze on Grey. “Remember that when you so much as think about doing anything that will hurt her.”
Grey slings his arm around me. “Good thing I’m planning on never hurting her.”
“Good boy,” Wynter says then hugs me. “Now, let this go and start packing your stuff. We might have gotten all the drama settled at school, but we need to get you out of the house.”
I nod, and then we pull away, shifting the conversation to much lighter things like the dance. Ari and Wynter decide they’ll go together as friends while Beck works and works to get Willow to smile and agree to go with him to the dance. At first, I don’t think he’s going to be able to pull it off, but I should know better than to ever question Beck’s ability to charm people. After doing a little dance and song performance in the middle of our circle with half the school watching, Willow finally cracks a smile.
“Fine, I’ll go with you,” she says, laughing. “Just no more singing.”
“Sounds like the perfect deal.” Beck grins as he plops down on the grass beside her.
“But just as friends, right?” Willow asks, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger.
“Of course,” Beck replies with a nod.
I’m still not exactly sure what happened between the two of them at the party. Willow insists it was just the sexy dancing that made things uncomfortable, but I have to wonder if something more happened after Ari and I took off.
If that’s the case, Willow seems pretty dead set on keeping it a secret.
“I’ll be at the store if you need me,” Grey tells me as we stand in front of the restaurant I’m supposed to be meeting my aunt at. He has his hands resting on my hips and worry creasing his face. “Maybe I should wait until she shows up, just to make sure everything is okay.”
“I’ll be fine.” I stand on my tiptoes to give him a kiss. Even after a week straight of kissing him, it still turns my stomach into butterflies and my legs into goo. “And if you stick around, you’ll be late for work.”
“I can be a few minutes late.”
“No, you can’t.” I step back and point a stern finger toward the end of the block. “Now get going.”
His lips quirk. “I think the bossy side might even turn me on more than the sore loser side.”
I lightheartedly swat his arm, and he laughs, reluctantly heading away from me.
I watch him walk away for a moment before I muster up some bravery and open the door to the restaurant. I take a seat in a corner booth and order a Coke while I wait for my aunt to show up, worrying that I won’t be able to spot her when she walks. Although I’ve seen photos of her, she’s almost fifteen years older now. She could’ve changed a lot over that amount of time.
All my concerns vanish when the door dings, and a woman in her thirties walks in with similar features as my mom and freckles on her nose just like me. She recognizes me, too, and rushes toward me with joy radiating from her eyes.
“I’m so glad I finally get to see you after all these years,” she says as she reaches the table I’m at. ”
“Me, too . . . I’ve wanted to meet you forever.” I get up and give her a hug. As I put my arms around her, I become painfully aware of just how little my parents hug me and how most of the hugs I’ve received over the years have been from my friends and now Grey.