The Thing About the Truth Read online

  “Rielle,” her dad calls, and Rielle squeezes my hand and then gets up and moves across the lawn. I follow her.

  “Jim was just telling me about how you’re going to be a Connor Mitchelle Scholar,” my dad says to Rielle. “That’s amazing.”

  Rielle blushes.

  “You are?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I just found out today.”

  She looks at me, her eyes apologizing for not telling me sooner. And if she just found out today, it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal. But it is. Because there was a time when she would have told me immediately, would have texted me as soon as she found out. But either she didn’t think of it, or worse, she didn’t want to brag. The Connor Mitchelle Scholar is a designation given to any junior enrolled in an accredited prep school who has an overall average of ninety percent or higher. If I was still at Concordia Prep, I would have been a Connor Mitchelle Scholar too. In fact, we probably would have celebrated together. I know Rielle’s GPA, so it’s not like it’s a surprise or anything. But still. I wish she would have told me.

  “That’s really amazing,” I say, pulling her toward me for a hug, which feels just as awkward as the last one.

  I hate this new dynamic that we have. And the worst part is, I have no one to blame for it but myself.

  • • •

  I get to school early the next morning because I need to get going on this whole Face It Down Day, and there’s no way I’m going to count on Isaac Brandano to get the ball rolling. He’s obviously completely and totally unreliable. I mean, honestly, the guy is so hot and cold he could be a thermometer.

  The cafeteria is pretty much deserted, so I snag a table by the window and pull out a notebook. I’m just about to open it up and start brainstorming some ideas and making a list of deadlines when someone sits down next to me.

  “Hello,” the someone says.

  I look up. Isaac.

  “Hi.” I keep my voice deliberately short, hoping he’ll get the point. The point being, you know, to go away. Why is he always showing up wherever I am? The other day in the gym. Yesterday in the principal’s office. Seriously, forget about Marina being the stalker. Isaac’s the real stalker. In fact, he’s probably trying to deflect the suspicion onto her, when he’s the one who’s dangerous.

  “Are you working on our club?” He sits down next to me. His hair looks rumpled, like maybe he forgot to brush it after he showered. He’s wearing a pair of dark jeans, a black sweater, and a backward baseball hat. He looks hot. But since I’m off boys, and especially off him, I try not to notice.

  “Oh, now it’s our club?” I pull my notebook closer to me so that he can’t steal my ideas. Not that I have any written down yet. But he doesn’t know that.

  “Wasn’t it always?”

  “No,” I say, “first it was mine. Until you crashed my meeting. And then it was ours. Until you got in some kind of big snit yesterday and left me. And now it’s mine again.”

  “I didn’t leave you,” he says. “Something came up.”

  “And you couldn’t have told me that?” I ask. “That would have been the polite thing to do. Actually, never mind polite, it would have been the normal thing to do.” I’m kind of mad now. Mostly at myself, for believing even for a second that he could be cool. Or that we could be friends. Or that when he made my stomach get all flippy, it could mean something other than that my hormones are obviously completely and totally out of control.

  “Well—” he starts.

  But at that moment someone else comes over and slams their books down on the table. Hard. So hard that the whole table shakes.

  “Wow,” Isaac says. “Watch it.” He picks up his coffee and pulls it toward his chest protectively.

  I look up. It’s a girl. She looks kind of familiar, but I can’t exactly—Oh. Right. The girl from yesterday, the one who was in the bathroom. The one that was crying. The one who I said was going to join our club.

  “You,” she says, pointing.

  Yikes. She must have been crying over Isaac. Wow. I mean, he’s only been here, like, one day, and he’s already got one girl, Marina, stalking him, and this other girl crying over him. And now Curly-Haired Blond Girl must be here to confront him, to give him a talking-to, to yell at him for hurting her. Good for her.

  I sit back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest. It’s going to be nice to watch the show. I only wish there were more people here to witness it. Isaac’s looking at Curly-Haired Blond Girl like he doesn’t even know who she is. Which isn’t very nice. Either he’s going to try to play it off like she’s crazy, or he was probably so drunk when they hooked up that he—

  “Don’t look so smug,” the girl says. Which is weird, because Isaac doesn’t really look that smug. Just confused. But he is a smug bastard, so I’m all for her calling him smug.

  I wait for him to contradict her, but instead, he’s looking at me. In fact, they’re both looking at me. Why are they . . . ?

  “Are you talking to me?” I ask. I almost look behind me like they do in movies when they can’t believe the person in question is talking to them. But I realize that would be going a little too far since all that’s behind us is a wall.

  “Yes,” she says. She plops down in a chair across from us. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “You have?”

  “Wow,” Isaac says, “and I thought lesbian experimentation was supposed to happen more with private school girls.” He reaches into his bag and pulls out a package of animal crackers, then pops one in his mouth.

  I give him a mean look, but Blond Girl just ignores him. It makes me like her a little bit. Anyone who can treat Isaac like he’s an inconsequential annoyance is okay in my book.

  “Yesterday in the bathroom,” she says, “you said that you have experience with broken hearts.”

  “I did?” I bite my lip. I don’t really remember what I said in the bathroom yesterday. I was in too much of a rush to get to my meeting.

  “You did?” Isaac asks. He sounds interested. “Who broke your heart?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I try.

  “Yes, you did,” the girl says.

  And then I remember. When she came out of the stall and told me she had a broken heart, I told her that I’d had experience with that kind of thing. She really shouldn’t be asking me for my opinion, though. I mean, my broken heart got me kicked out of school, made my parents think I’m some kind of hopeless fuckup, and ruined my relationship with my best friend.

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, um—”

  “Who broke your heart?” Isaac asks again. He’s looking at me like he’s actually concerned.

  “No one,” I say.

  “So you lied?” Blond Girl asks. She narrows her eyes at me, and suddenly I’m nervous. If she’s in a slightly crazy place like I was when I got my heart broken, who knows what she’s going to do. I took my rage out on Rex, but this girl might decide to turn on someone she doesn’t know. Someone like me. Someone who she’s marked as the person she could commiserate with and who then took it all away. It’s like those crazy psychos who go back and kill the boss who fired them six years ago, because they blame them for being the one who set their life on a bad course.

  “I didn’t lie,” I say.

  “Then who broke your heart?” Isaac asks for the third time.

  “Yeah.” Blond Girl pulls out a chair and sits down. “Who broke your heart?” She reaches into Isaac’s bag of animal crackers and pulls one out. She puts it in her mouth and starts to munch away. Isaac doesn’t seem to mind. He pushes the bag closer to her in case she wants another one, then pulls one out for himself. They both sit there, eating animal crackers and looking at me like they’re waiting for me to provide them with their entertainment for the morning.

  “No one,” I say. “I mean, yes, I had a broken heart. It was this guy at my old school.”

  “What happened?” Blond Girl asks.

  “Shouldn’t I, like, know your name fi
rst?” I ask her. “Seeing as how you seem to be all interested in the intimate details of my life?”

  She swallows the rest of her animal cracker. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m Chloe Schwimmer.” She looks like a Chloe Schwimmer, with her long, curly blond hair and small features. “And you are?”

  “Kelsey Romano.”

  “And I’m Isaac Brandano.”

  “Oh, right,” Chloe says. “The senator’s kid. Far out.”

  Does anyone say “far out” anymore? I don’t have time to think about it because Chloe’s attention is already back on me. “So what happened between you and this kid? What was his name?”

  “Rex.” My mouth goes dry just when I say it. Suddenly I’m back there, in the lab, the day I found out. The day I went crazy. I inhale the scent of the chemicals and the paint and the glass. I push the image out of my mind. “And there was nothing scandalous about it,” I lie. “So you guys can stop looking at me like that. I just really liked him and then he broke up with me.”

  “Why?” Isaac wants to know.

  “Why did I really like him?”

  “No.” He rolls his eyes. “Why did he break up with you?”

  “He just wasn’t into it anymore,” I say. “He wanted to date other people.” It’s not exactly the truth. Rex did want to date other people. But he started doing that before he broke up with me. Hence my meltdown.

  “So how’d you get over it?” Chloe asks.

  “Normal stuff.” I shrug. “Time. Ice cream. Cheesy romance movies.” Lie, lie, lie.

  Chloe looks disappointed. I would be too, if I were her. Obviously, the only reason she sought me out and asked me all these questions is because she was hoping I’d have some kind of secret, miracle heartbreak cure. She should have realized that if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be sitting in school. I’d be off writing a book about it and getting rich.

  The bell rings then, signaling the beginning of homeroom. I breathe a sigh of relief, glad my time in the hot seat is over. I start to gather up my stuff.

  “So do you want to have our first meeting next Wednesday?” Isaac asks. “I could make posters. I mean, if you’ve rethought that whole advertising thing?” He grins.

  “Wednesday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re going to make posters?”

  “Yeah.”

  I think about it. I’m sick of him, but I also still need him. If he can somehow get his father involved, or even if we can get some kind of media attention because of his involvement, it could be great for me. Just the kind of thing that a good college would think balances out the fact that I got kicked out of my old high school and that I’m not going to a great prep school anymore.

  He can help run things, like, in name only. He’ll be a silent partner. I mean, let’s face it, once things get up and running, once we actually have to do something, he’s going to disappear. And then I won’t even have to be around him that much.

  “You guys are starting a club?” Chloe asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s called Face It Down. You should come.” She nods, but she still looks let down, like she came to me hoping for boy help and all she got was an invitation to an after-school activity. I turn to Isaac. “Wednesday sounds good. And knock yourself out with the posters.”

  • • •

  It might be a little crazy, but I spend all night working on posters myself. I know I put Isaac in charge, but there’s no way I’m going to allow myself to expect that much from him. So I make twenty posters, which is so not easy to do when you’re working with the cheapest markers they had at the drugstore.

  But when I walk into the front foyer of school the next morning, struggling to keep the rolled-up posters from spilling out of my bag, there are already posters. Tons of them, flanking all the hallways. Professional-looking. Blue and white. Crisp, clean. Talking about Face It Down, using words like “community” and “all in this together,” and making it look like the kind of club you’d want to join.

  “Awesome, aren’t they?” Isaac asks when he catches me staring at one between second and third period. “I went down to a printing shop and spent a long time going over exactly what we wanted.”

  “That’s great,” I say. “Um, how much were they? I should pay half—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He waves me off. “I put it on my dad’s tab. He was thrilled.”

  He squeezes my shoulder before turning around and heading down the hall. I feel my stomach fill with butterflies and my heart start to race at his touch. Stop, I tell myself, you are not going to start liking Isaac Brandano. So what if he made amazing posters? That doesn’t erase the fact that he’s completely self-centered. And besides, let’s see if anyone’s even going to come. Feeling determined, I head to my locker, forcing Isaac out of my mind.

  • • •

  On Wednesday, twenty kids show up to our meeting. Including Chloe.

  The Aftermath

  Isaac

  “It sounds like everything was off to a great start,” Dr. Ostrander is saying. He’s leaning back in his chair, looking like he really is interested in the story.

  I don’t blame him. Kelsey’s a great storyteller. That’s one of the things I always loved about her. Most chicks cannot tell a good story. They either start blabbing away, adding all kinds of details that you don’t need, or they tell some story that no one gives a shit about, usually involving some other girl stealing their thunder.

  Marina’s a perfect example of this. So is my mom. I love my mom, but her stories are very long, very involved, and very boring. I think that might be why her and my dad don’t have the greatest relationship. He can’t stand to listen to her. I always vowed that the girl I ended up with would have to be able to tell a great story. And Kelsey can.

  But now I’m thinking that wanting to end up with a great storyteller might have been a bad idea. Because girls who can tell great stories are also great liars.

  “It was off to a great start,” I pipe up. Until this point I’ve been silent, deciding I was going to do the brooding, unhappy thing and hopefully show that I don’t give a shit about Kelsey or this ridiculous meeting. But she’s doing so well that I’m afraid she’s going to talk her way out of the whole thing. “The problem is, everything was built on a lie.”

  “A lie?” Dr. Ostrander looks confused, and Kelsey looks panicked.

  “Yeah,” I say. “A lie about Rex Gray.”

  Dr. Ostrander looks down at the police report in front of him. “Rex Gray,” he says. “He was the student from Concordia Prep? The one who was taken away in an ambulance?”

  I roll my eyes. “He wasn’t taken away in an ambulance,” I say.

  “It says here he was seen by the medical team and taken away in an ambulance.”

  “He was looked at by the EMTs, who said he was fine,” I tell him. “But he insisted he get taken to the hospital. They didn’t even put on the sirens.” Rex wanted to cause some big scene; he wanted to be able to tell the press that he was taken away by an ambulance, and it was all Isaac Brandano’s fault. Well, boo hoo. Seriously, what a little bitch.

  “Anyway,” Dr. Ostrander says, “it seems that things were going well with the club. So how did everything fall apart?”

  “Because of Kelsey,” I say simply.

  She looks down at her hands, and for a second I feel my heart break. I hate seeing her upset. But then I remember how she lied to me, and anger flows through my veins. So much anger that I almost can’t take it. It’s so hard and so strong that it comes close to overtaking my whole body.

  “Because of Kelsey?” Dr. Ostrander asks.

  “Yes,” I say, “because of her lies.”

  Before

  Isaac

  “Hey, can everyone quiet down?” I ask. I’m standing at the front of the room with twenty kids sitting in front of me, trying to get everyone to come to attention. They do. They all quiet down in, like, five seconds, which is pretty surprising. I thought I’d have to stand here for
at least a minute or two trying to get everyone to shut up. But everyone’s quiet. And now that they are, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be saying.

  I don’t even know why I’m here, honestly. That day when I dropped Kelsey off? I could have just let it be. I could have gotten out of this whole Face It Down Day thing. But that night, in an effort to cool down after what went on with my dad, I found myself driving around by myself. And I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Not just that night, either. The day after, too. And before I knew it, I was at that ridiculous printing shop, getting a bunch of posters printed up for Face It Down Day. And I was so excited for her to see them the next morning.

  The problem is, I’m more excited to make Kelsey happy than I actually am about Face It Down in general. And so when everyone quiets down, I don’t really know what to say.

  “Thanks, everyone,” I try. They’re all staring at me, and I’m about to turn the floor over to Kelsey when I spot Marina sitting in the crowd. She gives me a little wave, and it makes me lose my train of thought.

  That chick is certifiably out of her fucking tree. It’s to be expected, really, because she’s so hot. All hot chicks are crazy. It’s almost like they’ve been able to get away with being insane because they’re so good-looking. No one cares that they’re completely crazy, because they’re nice to look at.

  “Hi,” Kelsey says to the group. She’s wearing a really tight sweater. I have not been able to stop staring at her chest all day. That dude from my homeroom and science class, Marshall Durbin, is here too. And he’s staring at Kelsey’s chest too. Douche. The only reason he’s even here is because Marina is. I’m pretty sure he wants to get into her pants.

  Also at the meeting is Chloe, that girl from the cafeteria the other day. The rest are a bunch of kids I don’t know, but they look like the types you’d expect to show up at a meeting like this. Do-gooders.

  “I’m Kelsey Romano,” Kelsey says. “And we’re here to talk about Face It Down Day, a day where we can get together with Concordia Prep and try to work on our differences.”