Top Ten(24)

They chatted for a while about the test they’d had this morning, about why Mrs. Mattiace wore the exact same cardigan every single day. Gabby tried to get herself to relax. But her anxiety was like an invisible bully, sitting on her shoulder filing its nails and offering running commentary. Her laugh was weird and wheezy; her forehead was probably shining in the glare of the recessed lights. And why had she worn these jeans? They bagged weirdly at the knees, blown out from too many runs through the dryer. God, she couldn’t even dress herself. The familiar refrain started up in her head again, an overplayed song: You don’t belong here. Everyone thinks you’re an idiot. You’re a giant weirdo, Gabby Hart, and the only reason you’re not actively bullied every day of your life is because usually you know enough to stay out of people’s way.

She could bail, she reasoned. Nobody would need to know. Nobody would even notice, probably. But when she said her good-byes to the global studies girls and started to edge toward the front door, she saw Ryan in the living room, watching a bunch of hockey bros play flip cup and, apparently, having the time of his life. There was no way to get out without him seeing her. Without admitting to him that he’d been right.

Instead she turned sharply into a hallway off the kitchen, scurrying up the staircase to the second floor like a mouse diving for cover in a suddenly lit room. At the very least she could take five minutes of quiet to compose herself before she tried again. When in doubt, she thought, hide.

It was quieter upstairs, the hallway thickly carpeted and the walls hung from ceiling to waist level with a million family photos. Gabby smiled in spite of herself. She loved other people’s pictures: the chance to peek in on lives she’d never live herself, to study faces she’d never actually meet.

She was staring at them—Jordan Highsmith’s family at Disney World a few years ago next to a shot of somebody’s ’90s wedding, a black-and-white snapshot of a cluster of serious-looking people standing in front of a barn—when the bathroom door opened and a startlingly beautiful girl ambled out of it.

“No toilet paper,” the girl warned her. She was wearing white jeans and a chambray button-down that revealed sharp, angular collarbones; her hair was dark and thick and wavy, the kind you could wash every three days or even less without it turning into an oil slick. A tiny gold necklace in the shape of a wishbone nestled in the hollow of her throat. “Savages.”

“It’s okay,” Gabby said. “I don’t actually have to go.” Right away she felt like an idiot—after all, what exactly was she doing creeping up here if not looking for a bathroom?—but the girl only nodded.

“Just looking to hide out for a bit, huh?” she asked.

Gabby nodded. “Something like that.”

“Well, there’s a lot to look at,” the girl said, motioning to the pictures. “I’m such a snoop in other people’s houses. I’m always like, looking at the bookshelves and what people have hanging on their fridges and stuff. Jordan Highsmith’s sister got an A-minus on her essay about the causes of World War I, in case you were wondering.”

Gabby laughed. “Good for Jordan Highsmith’s sister.”

“I think she could have worked a little harder on her five-paragraph structure, personally,” the girl said, shrugging. Then she grinned and stuck her hand out. “I’m Shay.”

“Gabby.” Gabby felt herself flush at the contact as they shook. She’d known she liked girls as long as she’d known she liked boys, basically—since way back in middle school when it occurred to her that she was equally attracted to both of the leads on Celia’s favorite sexy doctor show. Still, aside from one aborted kiss with Kerry Caroll when she and her sisters were visiting her aunt Liz in Cincinnati last summer, she’d never been so immediately drawn to one in real life. She wondered what Shay’s deal was. On first glance she wasn’t giving anything away, but something about the extra second she held on to Gabby’s hand made her wonder. “You go to Colson?” Gabby asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Shay said. “I’m a junior.”

“I’m a sophomore,” Gabby said.

“Cool.” Shay nodded. For a moment that lasted one beat too long, neither one of them said anything, the silence unfurling like a rug. “So what do you like to do besides hiding out upstairs at parties?” she asked.

Gabby opened her mouth and shut it again, surprised and momentarily drawing a giant blank. She always had this problem when people asked her questions like that; distilled to its particles, her life sounded enormously boring. This was why she preferred nobody ask her any questions at all. “I do some photography,” she managed. “I work on the yearbook.”