I got into my seat. “Elise, you didn’t, you haven’t . . .”

She glared at me. “No, I haven’t! I can’t believe this. Not even you believe in me.” She got into the car and slammed the door.

Josh and I exchanged looks, then he started the car. I leaned toward Elise. “If you say you didn’t, I believe you.”

“Oh, good. That’s one person out of the whole high school. Everyone else thinks I’m a slut. They’re all whispering about me.” She turned to Josh. “Beat Chad up.”

He guided the car through the parking lot. “Sure, Elise.”

“I’m serious. Don’t you care about defending my honor?”

“Why should I,” he asked, “when you never have?”

She blinked at him in surprise. “Josh!”

His voice was calm but intense. “If you’d been the least bit concerned with your honor, you would have lived like you had some, and then nobody would believe Chad when he tells lies about you.”

She folded her arms stubbornly and looked out her window. “You don’t care about me.”

“My picking a fight with Chad won’t rebuild your reputation.”

“It would teach him a lesson.”

“I’m more concerned with teaching you a lesson.”

“Me?” She gasped, her gaze back on him. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did. And until you realize it, you’ll make the same mistakes and keep dragging everyone else through them too.”

She pursed her lips. “I don’t drag everyone else through my mistakes.”

He took his eyes off the road for long enough to send her a piercing look. “You do whatever you want, whenever you want. If you want to break a few laws, you do. If you want to disappear so the entire family has to go out looking for you, you do. If you want to get wasted with losers like Chad, you do. You never think how it might turn out. You don’t care what everyone else goes through—how it makes the rest of us feel or look.”

She frowned at him, arms still folded. “That’s what you really care about, isn’t it? How this makes you look. Well, what about me? I’m the one who has to walk through the halls while everyone stares at me. What about me?”

Josh’s voice went quiet. “You know, Elise, I think your main problem in life is that you ask that question too often.”

She turned sharply away from him and stared out the window again. For the rest of the car ride we were all silent.

* * *

After I was done with my homework, I went online to write Anjie. I noticed she’d posted a message to Samantha: Happy Birthday. She’d included pictures from Samantha’s party in fifth grade. The three of us were standing together, all smiles, arms draped over one another’s shoulders.

How had I forgotten it was Samantha’s birthday today? As a child I had looked forward to this date every year almost as much as my own birthday. It had always meant a fun outing with Samantha and Anjie. Instead, I had argued with her today.

I stared at those pictures for a full half an hour.

Then I wrote her a long message telling her I was sorry that things were the way they were between us. I didn’t know if it would change anything, but I had to write it anyway.

* * *

I hoped Josh and Elise would be back on good terms by morning. They weren’t. They both sat tense and silent in the car. “Don’t worry,” I told Elise. “It will blow over. These things always do.”

“Right. Everyone thinks I’m a slut, and now the only guys who’ll ever ask me out are ones with social diseases.” She turned to Josh. “You wouldn’t date a girl who had that type of reputation, but you’ll stand by and let Chad Warren give me one.”

Josh switched through radio stations, punching the buttons with more force than the task needed. “This isn’t my fault, Elise. I didn’t date the guy. I didn’t take you to parties and make you act like a complete fool.”

“Chad is spreading lies about me,” she said, “and you don’t care.”

“I do care,” Josh said. “That’s why I told you not to date the guy in the first place.”

Neither one said anything after that.

Chapter 17

Elise was right about the rumors not blowing over. In fact, if they’d been a weather front, I’d say they settled in and showered on her. By ten o’clock I’d heard three different, very creative accounts of Elise’s supposed encounters. I denied each story, whereupon the teller of the story would look at me smugly and murmur, “Oh Cassidy, you’re so naïve.”

At lunchtime, Elise ate at my table. The first thing she said to my friends was, “Just to dispel any rumors you may have heard, I want you to know I share more in common with the Virgin Mary than a two-syllable name.”

“And what would that be?” Caitlin asked. “Your Jewish ancestry?”

Elise opened her lunch sack stiffly. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Faith said, “But Mary had an angel to vouch for her.”

Caitlin opened her milk carton and slid in a straw. “You’re not thinking of claiming an immaculate conception are you?”

“Forget it,” Elise said. “Forget the whole comparison. She bit into her sandwich and chewed angrily, then stared off across the cafeteria.

I kicked Caitlin under the table.

She spoke to Elise again, this time with more kindness. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t think most people hold it against you. I mean, who could resist Chad Warren?”

“I could,” Elise said. “Despite what everyone thinks, I’m not about to be somebody’s one-night stand. I have some self-respect.” She put down her sandwich and pushed herself away from the table. “This is amazing. No one believes me.”

Elise stood up and stalked off toward the exit. I went after her. She was out of the cafeteria by the time I’d caught up to her. “Don’t leave,” I told her. “Faith and Caitlin didn’t mean to give you a bad time.”

“Yes, they did. They did it with glee.”

“Give them a chance. They’ll forget about it tomorrow.”

“No, they won’t. Your friends have hated me ever since I dated Chad.” She kept walking, heading toward the front door. I wondered if she planned on walking all the way home without her coat. I had a half an hour until my next class started. I kept pace beside her.

“They don’t hate you.”

“The worst part about it,” Elise went on, “is my friends aren’t any better. Do you know what Kaylee’s reaction to all this is? She thinks it’s funny. Every time she sees me in the hallway she yells, ‘How was he?’” My other friends keep asking me for details about who else I was with, like my life is some sort of sordid soap opera. I’m never coming back to school. I hereby drop out.”

“You can’t do that, Elise. That’s letting Chad win.”

She flung open the front door and a gush of cold air hit us. She strode outside anyway. “I suppose you feel vindicated now. Josh and his high horse are both riding around on cloud nine. He keeps saying, ‘These are the consequences you get when you make bad choices.’ Well, it’s not my fault Chad turned out to be such a creep.”

“Which is why you can’t run away and let his side of the story stand.” Dirty bits of snow sat on the steps, tracked up from the parking lot. I avoided it as much as I could. “I’ll help you set people straight. After all, it could have been me this happened to. I wanted to date Chad too.”

Elise stopped then; stopped and stared wearily off at the parking lot. “No one would have believed it about you,” she finally said. “Because you’re not the kind of girl who got kicked out of her last high school for vandalism, and who made out with Cole Rider in front of everybody, and who got wasted at parties. But me, well, I’ve set a really great precedence for myself.” She let out a long sigh and folded her arms for warmth. “I hate it when Josh is right.”

I gestured to the school. “You don’t really want to drop out. Let’s go back inside.”

She glanced at the building but didn’t move. “If I stay, then anytime a guy asks me out I’ll wonder if he’s expecting something from me.”