Tripp
“Who would do this?” Charlotte demands at lunch, brandishing her phone like an accusation. “How dare they? It’s obscene!”
“It’s a stupid joke,” Shane says. He leans back in his chair and puts an arm around Charlotte’s shoulders, but for once she’s too distracted to melt into him. “That whole portrait thing has everyone riled up.”
“Well, they should make up their minds,” Charlotte says tightly. “Do they hate Mr. Larkin, or do they hate us? If we’re murderers, then you can’t have it both ways, right?”
“Stop acting like this is supposed to make sense,” I say, hoping I sound as nonchalant as Shane. If Charlotte knew how much that text freaked me out, she’d only spiral more. Besides, I started feeling better—less targeted, anyway—when I realized Shane and Charlotte got one too.
“I hate being falsely accused.” Charlotte flings her phone onto the table and folds her arms tightly across her chest. “It brings back memories.” Shane and I both blink at her, confused, until she says, “Hello? The class- trip money? People said I was a thief.”
“No one ever actually believed that,” Shane reassures her.
Charlotte looks more than ready to argue the point, so I quickly change the subject. “I wonder how whoever sent this got our numbers?” I say.
Shane shrugs. “School directory? The office has them. Wouldn’t be hard.”
“So it’s somebody here,” Charlotte says, her eyes narrowing as they flick across the cafeteria. “One of the dregs, probably.”
“Come on, Charlotte. Don’t jump onto that train,” I say. The term dregs makes me uncomfortable, and not only because the guy who started it, Colin Jeffries, lives two blocks away from me in Sturgis. If there’s such a thing as a dreg at Saint Ambrose, I’m it. Shane and Charlotte keep forgetting that, maybe because they’ve never been to my house. Even when they pick me up to go someplace, I meet them at school. That started in eighth grade, when I was an asshole who was embarrassed about where I lived, and somehow it never stopped.
Yes, it’s weird. But it’s probably weirder that they’ve never questioned
it.
“Drop it, okay?” Shane murmurs as the table starts to fill up. Abby Liu
puts her tray next to mine, lowering halfway into a chair, before springing back up with a frustrated sigh. “Ugh, I forgot to get a drink,” she says. “Anyone else need anything?”
“Could you find me another apple?” Charlotte asks, frowning at the one on her tray. “This one has a bruise.” It looks fine to me, but Charlotte is like that fairy tale about the princess and the pea—always pointing out flaws that nobody else notices.
“Sure,” Abby says, twisting her shiny dark ponytail over one shoulder. “Tripp?”
“I’m good, thanks,” I say.
Charlotte watches Abby walk away before turning to me with a knowing smile. “She’s into you,” she says.
I snort. “You say that about everyone.”
“Can I help it if everyone is into you?” Charlotte asks, flipping her hair over her shoulders. The except me is implied. For the moment, at least, the
Murderer text seems forgotten. “And you need a girlfriend. You’ve been single for way too long.”
“Nobody needs a girlfriend,” Shane says, earning a hard look from Charlotte. “I just mean, leave the guy alone, babe. Tripp can get plenty of action if he wants it.”
“Don’t be a Neanderthal,” Charlotte huffs, scanning the tables around us. “Hmm,” she adds, her expression turning thoughtful. “Brynn Gallagher got pretty, didn’t she?”
I don’t follow her gaze. It’s funny how Charlotte is the hottest girl in school, but if you had to say why, you’d be stuck, because even though she’s the total package, there’s nothing about her that stands out. Not to me, anyway. With Brynn, on the other hand, everything stands out: the green eyes, the light dusting of freckles, the coppery hair. But noticing that feels like a bad idea, so I act like I didn’t hear Charlotte and say, “Here comes Abby with your apple.”
Charlotte puts on a bright smile as she plucks the shiny red apple from Abby’s outstretched hand. Then her expression dims into disappointment as she sets it carefully next to the other one. “This is bruised too, but thank you anyway.”
I can’t hear, exactly, what Shane mutters under his breath, but it sounds a lot like fucking impossible to please.
—
Hours later I’m in the Saint Ambrose greenhouse, at the edge of a group of kids I barely know, while waiting for Ms. Kelso, because I’m afraid Regina really will fire me if I don’t sign up for this goddamn memorial garden committee.
There’s no one here to talk to, so I distract myself by scrolling through my phone. For some reason I still haven’t deleted the Murderer message; maybe because I keep wondering if there might be some kind of clue as to who sent it, but that’s pointless with a blocked number. Before I can get rid of it, though, a text comes through from a familiar, unwelcome number.
Lisa Marie: Still an early-morning runner, huh, Trey?
I shut my eyes briefly. It’s always “Trey,” like my mother needs her own special version of a nickname, and it’s a bonus that I happen to hate it. The driver of the gray sedan that sped past me this morning wasn’t a mirage after all. This day just keeps getting better.
A second text forces my attention back to my phone. Want to get coffee after school? I saw a cute bakery on Main.
You mean the bakery I work at? I almost type, but think better of it. It’s not as if my mother would bother to remember that I have a job now. Besides, I don’t owe her an instant response just because she decided to show up out of the blue and cruise the streets of Sturgis, instead of giving me a heads-up like a normal person. Lisa Marie thinks this kind of thing is fun, that she’s bringing an exciting spot of color into the drab life she left behind.
But I think it’s bullshit, and I’m tired of playing her games.
“Hello, hello! So sorry I’m running behind!” Ms. Kelso bustles in with a few people behind her, her arms filled with folders. “What a pleasure to see so many of you here. I’m grateful, and thrilled to be working with all of you on this important project.”
She opens one of her folders, pulls out a bunch of stapled papers, and hands them to the kid closest to her. “Take one and pass it along, please. This is an outline of how I’m thinking the process will go, but I welcome any and all feedback.” Then her eyes settle on me, and her entire face lights up. I’m a favorite of hers, even though I’ve done nothing to deserve it. “Tripp, you made it after all! I’m so happy you decided to join us.”
“Sure,” I mumble, ducking my head as I take a handout and pass the rest to whoever’s next to me, without looking at them. I don’t need any more curious glances; I’ve been getting them since I showed up in the greenhouse. I’m the guy who found Mr. Larkin, after all.
“I’m thinking about this in phases,” Ms. Kelso continues. “First there’s planning. We need to decide what the garden should contain, both in terms of plantings and some kind of object like a bench or a plaque. We’re going to have to price out those options. And then…”
It’s hot in the greenhouse, so I unzip my coat and look around me as Ms. Kelso continues to talk. There are too many plants here, I decide. I don’t like it. I haven’t liked being surrounded by this much green since that day in the woods.
No. Not thinking about that.
Usually it works; the memory threatens to surface, and I push it down. But this time, maybe because I’m in the middle of an overheated faux woods, I can’t. For a few seconds, everything around me fades. All I can see is trees, their trunks gnarled and their branches twisting every which way, blocking the sunlight and hemming me in. Someone is screaming, making it impossible to think, and I have to think.
“Tripp?”
I blink until my vision clears. Ms. Kelso is staring at me, which probably means everyone else is too.
“Did you hear me?” she asks. “Are you okay with heading up that subcommittee?”
Fuck. What subcommittee? What have I gotten myself into? I should just accept that Martina Zielinski is getting the Kendrick Scholarship, not me, and then I can leave this leafy hellscape and never come back. Except for the part where Regina would either fire me or kill me. Possibly both. “Yeah, I guess,” I mumble, dropping my eyes back to my handout. The words swim in front of me, impossible to read.
“Wonderful,” Ms. Kelso says. “You and your co-chair will make a great team.”
Co-chair? Ms. Kelso is smiling at someone to my left, the person I shoved the handouts toward without a glance a few minutes ago. I look now, and find myself staring into Brynn Gallagher’s bright green eyes.
“Hi, partner,” she says.
