The Thing About the Truth Read online

  “Well.” I smooth my list out on the top of my binder and look at Mr. Colangelo across the desk, being sure to make meaningful and focused eye contact. “I’d like to start an extracurricular club here at Concordia Public.”

  He looks down at my file. Which makes me nervous. Why does he keep doing that? And why does he have to have my file in here, anyway? More importantly, what exactly does it say? I wonder if I could get a copy if I wanted it. There must be some kind of law, like the Freedom of Information Act or something.

  “Hmm,” Mr. Colangelo says. He takes a sip of this disgusting-looking cup of coffee that’s probably been sitting there all day and is now totally stale. “I don’t see anything in your file that would preclude you from doing so.”

  Yay! “Well, that’s wonderful news,” I say.

  He’s closing my file now, and his eyes flick to the clock over the wall. Does that mean that we’re done here? Is it that easy? Is he going to dismiss me, basically letting me start whatever kind of club I want? “So I was thinking about maybe newspaper,” I tell him. “I’ve always been interested in journalism.”

  “We don’t have a newspaper here anymore,” Mr. Colangelo says.

  “Yes, that’s why I was hoping I could start one.”

  “Start one?” He sounds shocked. “I don’t think you need the kind of stress that comes from starting a school club when you’ve just enrolled here.”

  “But you just said . . .” Wait a minute. Did Mr. Colangelo think I said I wanted to join an existing club? And so he was giving me permission to do that? Way to listen. Not that there’s anything wrong with joining an extracurricular activity, but let’s face it: When you don’t have an alumnus as a parent, or some kind of famous relative, you can’t just join some clubs for your college applications. You have to do something big and meaningful. Especially if you’ve gotten kicked out of your last school.

  There’s a knock on Mr. Colangelo’s door, and the secretary pokes her head in. “Sorry to interrupt,” she says, “but Isaac Brandano is here. He said he was supposed to be joining you and Ms. Romano?”

  “Is that true, Kelsey?” Mr. Colangelo asks.

  “Um, well . . .”

  But before I can tell him no, Isaac appears in the doorway of the office. He’s now wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, with a blue zip-up on over it. Why did he change his clothes? And why is he here? Shouldn’t he have scheduled his own meeting?

  “Hey,” he says when he sees me, like we’re old friends and not two people who barely know each other and got into a fight in the hallway this morning.

  “Hello,” I say tightly. “It’s nice to see you, Isaac, but Mr. Colangelo and I aren’t done with our meeting. As soon as we are, you can talk to him about how you want to run an extracurricular too.”

  “Oh!” Isaac says. “I thought we’d talked about doing it together.”

  “You two?” Mr. Colangelo says. He looks interested, probably because anything Isaac does is going to get a lot of people signing up for it. Not to mention some kind of funding from his dad. Hell, maybe they’ll even pass some kind of bill, like “Isaac’s Law” or something, and his club will get a big grant from the state that won’t ever be able to be taken away.

  “Yeah,” Isaac says. He’s moving into the room now, I guess because he thinks he’s been invited in, even though he so totally hasn’t. He drops his book bag down at my feet and then slides into the chair next to me.

  “Ow,” I say, pretending that he dropped his bag on my foot. I move my feet away from him.

  “We were talking about it this morning before school, remember?” Isaac asks, ignoring my fake injury.

  He gives me a big grin, like he’s challenging me to say we weren’t.

  “Well,” I say, wondering how I’m going to get out of this one, “we were talking about it, that’s true, but—”

  “Well, Kelsey, why didn’t you say so?” Mr. Colangelo bellows. “As long as you have another student helping you, I think starting a club is a great idea. Does either of you have any ideas about what it could be?”

  “I do,” Isaac says.

  I cannot believe this. Not only is Isaac pretending that we had some kind of plan to do this together, but now Mr. Colangelo is giving me permission just because Isaac is involved. And now Isaac is even claiming he has some ideas about what kind of group we can start!

  “Me too,” I say, not wanting to be outdone. Maybe when Isaac starts giving his half-baked ideas for whatever stupid things he’s come up with, I can jump in with mine. And then maybe Mr. Colangelo will see that I actually can do this on my own, and I don’t need Isaac Brandano’s name or influence to help me.

  “That’s so great,” Isaac says. “Do you want to present your ideas first?” He’s giving me this sort of smarmy smile, a smile that makes me think he just wants me to give my ideas first because he doesn’t actually have any ideas of his own. So I’ll give mine, and then we’ll decide on one of them being perfect, and that will save him from the embarrassment of having to admit that he has no idea what he’s even doing.

  “No, that’s okay,” I say sweetly. “Why don’t you go ahead?”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Isaac shrugs, then reaches into his bag and pulls out a black leather notebook. Taped to the front is piece of computer paper with the words “Face It Down” printed in swirly script on the front. He opens up to the first page.

  “Now,” he says, “this is just an overview, of course. I was hoping we could get into the specifics later, if we do decide to move forward with the project.”

  “Of course,” Mr. Colangelo says, like this makes perfect sense. He nods and leans back in his black swivel chair.

  My mouth has dropped open.

  Isaac turns his attention back to his notebook. “I was thinking that what we all need is some understanding.”

  I snort. Because honestly, what does he know about understanding? I mean, that sounds so political. He’s acting just like a politician, someone who wants to get along with everyone, someone who wants to be one of the little people or whatever, while meanwhile, I’m sure he surrounds himself with people who are just like him. Not to mention that “what we all need is some understanding” are song lyrics. At least, I’m pretty sure they are.

  “Something funny?” Isaac asks.

  “No,” I lie.

  “So what I’m proposing,” Isaac says, giving me an admonishing look out of the corner of his eye, like I’m a child who’s interrupted the teacher during an important lesson, “is that we set up a group of students who are interested in advancing the idea of understanding and acceptance for everyone. We could work on spreading these things throughout the community. For example, I was thinking our first project could be setting up Face It Down Day, where students from Concordia Prep and Concordia Public join together and talk about how even though we come from different backgrounds and families, we’re basically all alike, facing the same challenges and insecurities.”

  I’m speechless. The idea is so simple, and so brilliant, that I’m pissed I didn’t come up with it myself. Mr. Colangelo is eating out of Isaac’s hand. He’s leaning forward over his desk, his eyes on Isaac’s. Which makes me even more angry. I mean, it’s not enough that Isaac has this kind of effect on girls, now he has it on guys, too, including the principal?

  “That sounds absolutely amazing,” Mr. Colangelo says, sounding like a smitten schoolgirl. He pauses, leaving the unspoken question hanging in the air. I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

  “And I’m sure my dad would be happy to get involved,” Isaac says, realizing what Mr. Colangelo is looking for. Which means that he’s a lot smarter than I first gave him credit for. “You know, with money or whatever.”

  “Fabulous,” Mr. Colangelo says. Seriously, he’s about three seconds away from clapping his hands in glee. “So you two can get together and work on the club, and then report back to me about how it’s going. You’ll want to get it up and ru
nning as soon as possible, I’m assuming?”

  “Don’t you even want to hear my ideas?” I ask. Obviously, I’m not going to bring up the idea of a book club now, since Isaac’s idea was so good, but you’d think Mr. Colangelo would at least pretend to want to know my ideas.

  “Well, we’re running out of time,” Mr. Colangelo says. He’s looking at the clock again and picking up his phone. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

  “Sounds great,” Isaac says. “Me and Kels will get to work on this right away.”

  Kels?

  “Yeah,” I echo weakly. “Sounds great.”

  The Aftermath

  Kelsey

  The superintendent’s office is actually really nice, with a big huge oak desk in the middle and floor-to-ceiling windows that let in stripes of sunlight that fall against the soft cream-colored carpet. It’s probably intended to foster a sense of security. Kind of like those newfangled dentists’ offices where they hide all the equipment so you’re blissfully unaware of the amount of torture you’re about to be in for.

  “Now,” Dr. Ostrander says once we’re sitting down. He’s behind his desk, his hands crossed in front of him. “Which one of you wants to start?”

  I look over at Isaac. He’s slumped in his chair, the sleeves of his navy-blue shirt unbuttoned and rolled up. He’s looking at the floor, a scowl on his face. Well. If he thinks that I’m going to be the one to start talking first, that I’m going to be the one to throw myself under the bus, then he’s wrong. He can talk if he’s so smart.

  “Maybe it will help you two if I give you a recap of what happened at Face It Down Day,” Dr. Ostrander says. He pulls a piece of yellow legal paper out and sets it down in front of him. “Isaac got into a fistfight with a student from Concordia Prep. The police were called. A boy had to be taken away in an ambulance. The NBC crew recorded the whole thing, and Marina Ruiz has filed a restraining order against Kelsey.” He pulls his glasses off and sets them down on the desk. “Does either one of you want to tell me how all this happened?”

  Isaac still shows no sign of moving, so I clear my throat. “Dr. Ostrander,” I say, “first let me start by apologizing on behalf of both myself and Isaac for the things that went down last week. We truly had no idea that Face It Down Day would turn into such a, ah . . .” Mess? Disaster? “. . . situation, and if we did, we certainly wouldn’t have held it.”

  Next to me, Isaac snorts.

  “Do you have something to say, Mr. Brandano?” Dr. Ostrander asks.

  Isaac starts to shake his head, but then he catches my eye. He sits up straight. “Yes,” he says. “Actually, I do have something to say. Kelsey’s lying.”

  I gasp.

  “Oh?” Dr. Ostrander asks. “Do you care to elaborate on that?”

  “She knew a lot about Face It Down Day that she kept secret.” Isaac shrugs. “In fact, she keeps a lot of secrets from a lot of people.”

  I swallow. Because he’s right. I do keep a lot of secrets from a lot of people. “Is that true, Ms. Romano?” Dr. Ostrander asks. And he’s not saying it like he’s curious. He’s saying it like, “If that’s true, then maybe you’re the one to blame for this whole mess.”

  I think about lying, but honestly, at this point I’ve lied enough. It’s over. They’re probably going to kick me out of Concordia Public, too, and then I’ll really never get into college. Forget the Ivy League, I’ll be lucky to get into a state school.

  “Yes,” I say, looking down at my hands. “It’s true.”

  Dr. Ostrander sighs and leans back in his chair. He looks toward the ceiling and rubs his eyes like he can’t believe he’s dealing with this. I kind of don’t blame him. I mean, the man has a PhD in education, which probably means tons of horribly boring classes and hours and hours of studying, and where has it gotten him? Here, dealing with our teen drama.

  “Okay,” he says finally, looking at us. “Start at the beginning. And tell me how this happened.”

  Before

  Isaac

  So, the look on Kelsey’s face when I pulled out that notebook? Yeah, that was pretty priceless. I don’t even know how I come up with this shit. I just do. It’s like some kind of underrated talent. I also don’t know why it was so important to me that I show her there’s more to me than she thinks. But it was.

  And so what if there was really nothing in that notebook? She doesn’t need to know that. The important part is that I did come up with the idea myself. For Face It Down Day. And I did design and print out the paper that said “Face It Down” on the printer in the library and then tape it on my notebook. It took forever to get the font size right. And then it took even longer to tape it down because I was trying to get the corners perfect. I had the feeling that would be something Kelsey would really notice—perfectly taped corners.

  To be fair, I didn’t come up with the idea completely on my own. I was Googling around, and it turns out that a lot of schools have similar clubs. It seemed perfect since there’s always been this weird competition between Concordia Prep and Concordia Public. Of course, I have no idea how to implement any of the things I was saying to Mr. Colangelo about facilitating communication and understanding and all that other bullshit. But I’ll bet that Kelsey does.

  Not that she seems like it right now.

  At the moment she’s stomping down the hall in front of me. The school’s pretty empty since most people have gone home for the day, and the kids who haven’t are over on the other side of the school near the gym.

  She glances over her shoulder and glares at me.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She ignores me. But then her desire to yell at me must take over, because she turns around and says, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? You came into my meeting and crashed it, you’re completely taking over, and you’re asking me what’s wrong?” She throws her arms up in the air in exasperation, and her face is getting all flushed. She looks pretty adorable, actually.

  “Taking over? No, I’m not,” I say, even though I kind of am. But doesn’t she get that I want her to work with me?

  “Then what would you call it?”

  “Helping?” I try.

  She throws me another glare, then turns around and starts to stomp down the hall again. She’s wearing these very high, very uncomfortable-looking shoes. I don’t get why girls wear those things. I get that they look good, but not enough to risk breaking your ankle or developing some kind of hip problem.

  As she goes her heel twists, and she almost falls. And then I start to feel bad. This obviously means a lot to her, and I’ve gone and messed with it just because I wanted to prove a point. I don’t want her getting so upset that she’s stumbling all over the place.

  “Hey,” I say, running to catch up with her. She’s walking faster now, facing straight ahead. “Wait a second.” I step in front of her, and she tries to push past me.

  “Move,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. Her eyes meet mine, challenging.

  “I shouldn’t have crashed your meeting,” I say honestly. “I’m sorry.”

  She does a double take, like she can’t believe I’m actually apologizing to her. She’s not the only one. I don’t usually apologize. To anyone. Ever. “You are?”

  “Yes. I shouldn’t have hijacked your meeting.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  I wonder if I can come up with a good excuse, something I can tell her that won’t make her think I’m a complete loser. But then I think, ah, fuck it, and I just decide to go for the truth. And the truth is, it isn’t all because of Kelsey. “Well,” I say, sighing, “part of it is that I didn’t like that you thought I was the type of person who just got everything handed to him. And the other part of it has to do with my dad.”

  Her face softens. For the first time, I realize how pretty she is. Don’t get me wrong. I always knew she was attractive, and she looked really cute when she was yelling at me. But Kelsey is, like, really, really pretty. Perfect skin. Light brown hair. Blue eyes. A few freckles
that she doesn’t try to cover up with a ton of makeup.

  “What about him?” she asks.

  “Well,” I say, “he’s always . . .”

  A burst of noise comes from farther down the hall, and a couple of guys dressed in football jerseys come pushing their way toward us, jostling each other as they go.

  I stop talking. And then, for some reason, before I even know what I’m doing, I’m leaning in close to Kelsey. I can smell her perfume, something that smells fruity and sweet, and her hair smells amazing too. “Do you want to get out of here?” I ask.

  “With you?” She seems shocked.

  “Yeah.” I grin. “Let me buy you something to eat. You do eat, don’t you?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Of course I eat.”

  “Then come on. I’ll buy you dinner. And then I can explain.” She hesitates. I step back and lean down a little, looking into her eyes. “Please?”

  She bites her lip, thinking about it. And then, finally, she nods.

  Before

  Kelsey

  Isaac takes me to the bowling alley. The bowling alley! He asks to take me out to dinner, and then he takes me to a bowling alley. It’s my own fault, really. Why did I agree to go out with him? He crashed my meeting, and he’s obviously a total jerk. But he got to me for a second with that whole thing about his dad. I’m a bleeding heart when it comes to dysfunctional dad relationships.

  “The bowling alley?” I ask as we pull in. I look at the Games ’n’ Lanes sign doubtfully. The white paint is dirty, and the stick-on letters are starting to peel.

  “Yup,” he says, turning off the car. Seeing him here somehow doesn’t compute. He’s just so perfectly groomed and, well . . . hot. Not to mention his car is a supershiny black BMW. His whole vibe just seems out of place here.

  “I thought you said we were going to get something to eat,” I say. I look out the windshield as two guys with huge beer bellies and dirty T-shirts disappear through the front doors.