After all, everyone knows Chelsea Knot doesn’t know how to keep her mouth shut.
I go to pull another pillow over my head, but my hand instead curls around my ratty stuffed dog, Nelly. It’s pretty lame to sleep with a stuffed animal when you’re sixteen, but I never could bring myself to get rid of her when I finally became too old for toys. Dad gave her to me when I was seven years old and had to get my tonsils out. I hug Nelly tight to my chest, smoothing out her matted gray cotton fur with one hand.
Yeah, I can do this. I can play dumb like Kristen said. No one has to hear it from me. I can stay quiet, even if no one else steps forward. Even if it means Warren and Joey get away with this. Even if Noah never wakes up.
What if he doesn’t? And what if no one points the finger at Warren and Joey? If that happens, can I really live with myself?
I already know the answer to that. I lie there for a while with Nelly tucked under my chin, trying in vain to come up with other options, some way out of this that leaves me unscathed, but they all circle around to the same conclusion. Kristen’ll be furious with me, I know it, but…but she’ll understand. She has to understand. I can’t not say anything.
The walk downstairs is like trudging down the Green Mile. Mom and Dad are in the living room, cozied up on the couch watching television.
“Mom?” I say, voice shaking. “Dad?”
They both twist around to look at me, and their expressions of content transform into identical looks of worry. It’d almost be funny if it were any other situation.
Dad mutes the television. “What is it, honey?” he asks.
I take a deep breath. It’s now or never.
“I have to tell you something.”
Three Days Later
day one
RAT.
The word is scratched across my locker in fat black marker for everyone to see, lettered in abrupt, messy slashes, like whoever wrote it didn’t even pause, didn’t have to think twice about what they were doing. I can feel the eyes of everyone in the hall boring into my back; hear their titters behind me, providing the soundtrack to my humiliation. Blood rushes up to my face and turns my pale skin as red as my hair. The familiar hot prick of tears stings behind my eyes, waiting for their cue to spill over.