Текст книги "Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru"

Автор книги: Tera Lynn Childs

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Chapter Seventeen

Oliver rubs his hands together. “The time has come, my little seedlings, to tell you about the senior projects.”

Everyone sits up a little straighter in their seats.

I slump farther down into mine. For the past couple days I’ve been in a kind of fog. It’s like I’m going through the motions, hearing the world around me, responding when necessary, but not really fully engaged. Since Tru confessed to the copycat vandalism, nothing has felt quite right.

Without his constant smiling and teasing and outlandish comments, the classroom full of people feels too empty. I feel too empty. How had he become such an integral part of my day in such a short period of time?

“Or, should I say,” Oliver teases, “project.”

He places a hard emphasis on the final letter of the word project. As in singular.

A couple of students groan.

Willa drops her head to the table.

“What?” Jenna cries.

“That’s right, kids.” Oliver gestures around the table at all of us. “This year, senior seminar projects are going to be a group project.”

While this doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me, some of the other students look outraged. I guess if they’ve been looking forward to doing solo senior projects for three years, it could be annoying to find out we’re going to do one big group thing.

I turn to stare out the window. It is a brilliantly sunny day and the Pokémon statue is gleaming like a fresh-off-the-mint dime. Could a day be more completely at odds with my mood?

“What kind of group project?” Willa asks, back in an upright position.

“The group will decide,” Oliver answers. “You can choose any media, any format, any direction you, as a group, decide.”

“What about the end-of-year exhibit?” Jenna asks.

Oliver smiles at her. “That will still happen. But instead of individual and small group presentations, you will present as a single group.”

Mariely raises her hand. “Can I ask why?”

“Yeah,” Dahlia says. “Why the change?”

Oliver nods. “I understand that many of you have been waiting years to work on these projects. You may have already been planning them, working on them even. And that’s part of the reason. We want everyone to be starting from scratch.”

Jenna looks like she’s about to cry. I know her type. She likes to be ahead of schedule. She probably started working on this freshman year, has it all planned down to the tiniest detail, and now it’s been pulled out from under her.

Kind of like my life. I spent three years at SODA, waiting for my time as senior to come. And then, because of one stupid decision, I had to start everything from scratch. Jenna should be happy it’s only an art project.

“And the other reason?” Willa asks.

“Because working entirely on your own or even choosing your own small groups isn’t necessarily realistic or representative of the real world.” Oliver starts a circle around the room. “You will often have to work with people you don’t know, don’t know well, or—to be honest—don’t even like.”

He pauses behind an empty chair, places his hands on the back.

“As part of the life skills initiative,” he continues, “we want your senior projects to mimic a real-life working artist scenario as completely as possible.”

I can’t stop staring at the empty chair Oliver is leaning on for emphasis. Tru’s empty chair.

There are a few other empty chairs in the room, and Tru always sat next to me, but for some reason the image of Oliver standing over that one across the table just shoots right through me.

Everything about this feels wrong. Tru should be sitting in that chair, should be in this classroom right now. Should be part of this group project, whatever it’s going to be.

I haven’t seen him since he barged into Principal Ben’s office and confessed to the art crime I’d been accused of. Two days with no teasing in the halls. No knocking on my bedroom window. Not even any sounds of yelling coming from next door.

I’ve texted him several times. I know I shouldn’t, since I’m the one who broke off with him, but this kind of changes things. This really changes things.

He hasn’t responded.

I’m worried about him. Mom says Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey have been out of town since the end of last week, so at least I know he hasn’t had to face his parents yet. The thought of what will happen when he does makes me sick. He shouldn’t be punished for something he didn’t do.

I jerk back.

That’s the exact moment I realize that, despite his confession and the lack of evidence otherwise, I know that Tru didn’t plastic the school. He couldn’t have, wouldn’t have. No matter how mad he might have been at me, he wouldn’t have set me up like that. I have nothing to go on except my gut, my instincts about him, but I believe it as strongly as if I’d seen the real vandal—whoever that is—plasticking the school with my own eyes.

Besides, if he really wanted to get back at me, he has everything he needs to totally ruin my life. He knows about Graphic Grrl. After the Artzfeed post, the quest to uncover my identity went viral. There’s even a whoisgraphicgrrl.com website. With a reward and everything.

Breaking that story would be way juicier than a repeat of my illegal trespassing and vandalism charges.

Tru didn’t set me up, which means he only confessed to save me. He sacrificed himself, for me. That kind of loyalty shouldn’t be punished by expulsion and whatever his parents will do to him. It should be rewarded. Revered. Returned.

“Oliver,” I blurt in the middle of his answer to yet another group project question, pushing to my feet as I snatch my backpack from the floor, “can I be excused?”

He studies me for a second, and I silently beg him to give me permission. Because I’m going whether he gives it or not, and I’d rather not get in bigger trouble for what I’m about to do than is absolutely necessary. Finally, he nods.

I’m out the door and racing down the hall in a flash.

Tru fell on his sword to protect me. And now it’s my turn to protect him.

I rush into the main office and throw open Principal Ben’s door before Agnes and Kyle even have time to notice me. I’ve had the entire run from senior seminar to build up my adrenaline for what I’m about to do.

Panting and desperate to make things right, I blurt, “Tru didn’t do it!”

Principal Ben just stares at me, eyes wide. Maybe barging in the same way Tru did two days ago wasn’t the most brilliant idea I’ve ever had, especially when I see who is sitting in the chairs across from his desk.

Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey.

The look on Mr. Dorsey’s face could melt the Iron Throne.

“Sloane?” Mrs. Dorsey asks.

Oh shit. I didn’t think this through before I raced inside. Not that I could have known Tru’s parents would be here. I didn’t know they were back in town.

My first thought is, Have they seen Tru already or did they come straight here before going home?

I can’t seem to form words. “Um…”

“What do you mean Tru didn’t do it?” Principal Ben asks, apparently not thrown by my unannounced arrival. “Do you have new evidence?”

Think, Sloane. Think.

“He, um…”

When I dashed out of senior seminar, my only plan had been to beg Principal Ben to reconsider, to tell him what my gut told me. I was running on certainty and adrenaline. But with three very intense pairs of eyes focused on me, I know gut feelings won’t be enough. I need real, tangible evidence. Evidence I don’t have.

I could confess, but where would that get me? I’d be expelled in Tru’s place, when neither of us is guilty. If he sacrificed himself to protect me, it’s kind of messed up to do the same. We could find ourselves in some never-ending cycle of self-sacrificing. They might just kick us both out and be done with it.

Great. What am I going to do?

I care about him too much to let him go down for this. For me. Even if it means never getting back to New York.

Oh God, I have an idea. It might be a royally stupid one, but it just might work. Or at least buy us some time.

“Principal, um…” I bite my lip, force myself to relax so I look as sincere as possible. “Principal Haverford,” I begin again, “I can’t stay quiet anymore. I know Tru didn’t vandalize the school.”

Tru’s parents must be stunned silent or something, because they just keep staring at me. Mr. Dorsey looks a bit like he’s ready to crush something and Mrs. Dorsey like she’s hoping I have the lifeline she so desperately wants for her son.

“How do you know this?” Principal Ben asks.

I take a deep breath and prepare myself for the fallout.

This is going to get me into a whole different kind of trouble. Without an audience, I might have had a chance at getting through this without anyone outside the office finding out. But that’s not an option at this point. If the Dorseys are here, that means they’re home and they know their son has been expelled. I have to do this now, or who knows what will happen to Tru?

I have to do it now, and there’s no going back.

“Because,” I say, not meeting the Dorseys’ interested gazes, “he was with me that night.”

Principal Ben gives me a sympathetic look. “Sloane, we don’t know what time the vandalism happened. Just because Tru was with you for part of the—”

“No,” I interrupt, sealing my fate as a perpetually grounded individual. “We were together all night.”

Mrs. Dorsey gasps, slaps her hand over her mouth in supposed outrage, but I can see the sparkle of relief in her eyes.

Mr. Dorsey huffs out an annoyed breath. Like he wanted Tru to be guilty, wanted to be able to punish him for this ultimate act of rebellion. Tough luck, dude.

Principal Ben blinks. Several times.

“I see…” he says. Clears his throat. Looks down at his desk, shuffles some papers. “So, ahem, then why didn’t you tell me this when Tru confessed?”

“Because my mom was there,” I say, as if the answer was too obvious to even ask. “And because she doesn’t approve of Tru. I was afraid of what she would say if she knew we were seeing each other.”

I hold my breath.

For several long moments, everyone is quite still. Frozen, and staring at me. No matter what happens, all I can feel is relief. I know I’ve done the right thing, saving Tru from his misguided attempt to protect me. Whatever happens after this…at least I’ve done that right.

Mom doesn’t look at me as I climb into the car.

Great. Another fun-filled drive.

“So, you heard,” I say.

She draws in a deep breath and then sighs. “Were you going to tell me?”

“What?” I feign innocence, buying myself even a few more seconds before Mom-rage is in full effect.

“About Tru.”

“Why would I?” I retort.

“Because I’m your mother,” she says, her voice way more calm than I expect as she pulls out into traffic.

“You expressly forbade me from having anything to do with him.” I pluck at the hem of my black Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tee. “Must have slipped my mind to let you know we’re friends.”

“You were with him at Abbey Road, weren’t you?”

I see no point in lying anymore. My fate is sealed. “Yes.”

There is a long pause as she navigates her way onto the freeway, and then she asks, “How long have you been sexually active?”

I cough-choke on my own tongue.

Clearly I had not thought through that part of my non-existent plan. If I could magically climb into a Graphic Grrl strip right now and disappear forever rather than have this talk with Mom, I totally would.

I slump lower in my seat. “I’m not.”

“That’s not what your principal told me,” she says.

“God, you’re talking about my sex life with Principal Ben?” I cover my eyes with my hands. “I hope you have a nice therapy fund set aside.”

“Sloane…”

“Ugh, I’m not, okay,” I say. “I’m not sexually active.”

“Then you didn’t spend all Sunday night with Tru?” she asks. “When I thought you were upstairs—alone—and asleep?”

I could make this fight about something it’s not. Tell her that what I do in the privacy of my own room is none of her concern, that I am adult enough to make my own decisions about my life. But while that might score me some major Rebellious Youth points, in the end we would still be at war over this.

And, to be honest, I’m tired of being at war. I’m tired of tiptoeing around everything, terrified that I’ll do something against The Rules and wind up sentenced to Texas for life. I probably already am.

There’s no way I get out of this unscathed. Either I’m the girl who’s sleeping with the screw-up neighbor, or I’m the girl who lied to the principal. I’m going to face Mom-wrath no matter what I choose.

But I’m tired of playing the what-will-get-me-in-the-least-trouble game. And I’m tired of Mom thinking the worst of Tru, when he’s definitely one of the best.

“No,” I admit. “I wasn’t with Tru Sunday night.”

She jerks the car two lanes to the left. Clearly Mom is getting used to the Austin traffic scene.

“Then why in God’s name did you say you were?” She shakes her head. “I swear, Sloane. Sometimes I don’t think you use your brain at all.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes I don’t think you know me at all,” I throw back. “You don’t trust me anymore, and I get it. I deserve it. I screwed up, and I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry that I ruined everything with one stupid mistake. I’m sorry I broke up our family, but—”

“Honey, no,” Mom interrupts. “You didn’t break up our family. You have to know that.”

I wave off her words. “But you have to forgive me. I’m still the same daughter I was before The Incident. Someday you’re going to have to trust me again. You might as well start now, because Tru didn’t do it.”

“You can’t know that.” She shakes her head. “You said yourself he is one of only a couple of students who know about your stunt. Do any of the others who know have a delinquent past?”

She can’t even see how prejudiced she’s being. All she can see is the serial screw-up that his mom is always telling her Tru is. She’s never even given him a chance. Never actually tried to get to know him or see what he’s really like. Just sentenced him based on gossip evidence from his mom. It must be nice to live in such a black and white world.

Sure, Tru has screwed up. On multiple occasions. But that doesn’t make him irredeemable.

“Have you never made a mistake?” I ask, turning the tables on her. “What am I thinking, of course you haven’t. Sorry, not all of us can be as perfect as you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. No one is perfect,” Mom returns. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes.”

I almost die of shock that the Queen of Perfection is actually admitting to the occasional error in judgment. “Does that mean we should spend the rest of our lives paying for them? How is that fair?”

“It’s not fair. That’s what I’ve been trying to make you understand since you got arrested!” she throws back. “Choices have consequences. I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life regretting them.”

Okay. Clearly the can’t-we-all-relate strategy isn’t getting us anywhere.

Not that I think there is anywhere to get, but she’s my mom, and I don’t want things between us to always be like this. I have to keep trying. For her, for the relationship we used to have, and—right now—especially for Tru.

“Look, I know the Dorseys have told you some bad things about him,” I explain, keeping my voice even. “And maybe they’re all true. But he’s never in trouble at school. The teachers and administrators adore him. He has a hard time with his parents. That’s it. Tru isn’t a bad guy, he’s just…a difficult son.”

Mom dives back across traffic as we get closer to our exit.

“You like the boy, I understand,” she says in a patronizing tone that makes me want to jump out of the car. “You can’t see—”

“He did it for me, okay?” I blurt.

I can’t take it anymore, the tiptoeing, the strategizing, the trying to find the right angle. There is no angle. There’s just the truth.

And the truth is Tru and I care about each other. We shouldn’t be punished for that.

As she steers off the freeway, she asks, “What do you mean?”

“He confessed to protect me,” I explain. “He knew I would be blamed even if I didn’t do it, knew it would get me kicked out or worse. So he confessed. He sacrificed himself for me.”

For once, Mom doesn’t have a response.

“He didn’t care if I had done it. He still confessed to protect me,” I repeat. “So I have to protect him right back.”

She’s quiet for a long time. I don’t know what else to say, how else I can make her understand. I’ve tried everything. I just give up.

Leaning my head against the window, I stare out as the fences and roofs of suburbia drift by.

When we first made this drive, all I knew of Austin was the bland, boring monotony of the suburbs. But now I know there is a lot more to the city. If I have to be stuck somewhere, at least it’s somewhere with culture. I can think of a million worse places to be.

Mom stays silent as she navigates our neighborhood, past all the houses that look just alike, down one street and then another until she’s pulling into our driveway. There are no cars in the Dorseys’ driveway, but they park in the garage. They could be having a knock-down, drag-out inside. Or there could be no one home.

“He really did that?” Mom finally asks, her voice soft. “He confessed to keep you out of trouble?”

I look away from the house next door. She is staring straight ahead, her eyes unfocused. Maybe things are finally sinking in.

“Even though he was mad at me,” I explain. “Even though I told him we couldn’t be friends because you would disapprove, and I’d lose any chance of getting back to New York. He had every reason to let me hang, but he sacrificed himself anyway.”

Mom chews on her bottom lip, lost in thought. Probably trying to figure out whether I have blown my chance of getting back to New York.

For the first time since she and Dad sprang this whole move-to-Texas plan on me, that’s not my biggest concern. Whether she lets me go home when the quarter ends in a few weeks, or I’m stuck here through the end of the year, I plan to make the most of it. And that means seeing where things lead with Tru.

Can’t she understand that he put me first? He cares about me and, even though he had no proof that I was innocent—could have thought I was guilty, for all I know—he was still willing to put himself on the line to protect me. He put me first.

Mom should appreciate that.

She turns off the ignition.

“Mom, look,” I say when she reaches for the door. “I know I screwed up. Multiple times. I know I lost your trust, and you don’t want to see me mess up that epically again.”

When she looks at me, her eyes are glistening.

“But I’m asking you to trust me on this.” I lay my hand over hers where it rests on her thigh. “Trust me to have learned from my mistakes.”

“I want to,” she says, looking into my eyes like she might find answers there.

This is about more than Tru, more than The Incident. This is about me being a responsible almost-adult. About her believing in me again.

“Trust that I’m too stubborn to be a follower. Just because I hang out with someone who is a screw-up doesn’t mean I’m going to be one, too.” I lean forward so I can look into her eyes. “And Tru is not a screw-up.”

I wait, anxious, as she processes the conversation. I consider it a really good sign that she’s no longer dogmatically defending her opinion about Tru. No longer dismissing my words as a matter of course. That she is actually thinking about what I’m saying can only be a good sign.

“Occasional poor decisions aside,” she says, nodding, “you have always been a good judge of character. If you say Tru is a good guy, then I believe you.”

I sigh with relief, a huge smile on my face. I hadn’t realized how much it bothered me that Mom wouldn’t trust me on this. That I might have really lost her trust for good.

Maybe, just maybe, re-earning her trust is my first step back to New York. At the very least, it’s the first step back to our old relationship.

She turns to face me. “Now what?”

“Now,” I say, my relieved smile turning a bit to the maniacal side, “we find out who tried to set me up.”

Chapter Eighteen

Tru finished editing his short film on the second day of expulsion, so when he woke up on Wednesday afternoon, his first thought was, What the hell am I going to do today?

His second was, Shit, my parents get home today.

They might have been home already.

No, if they were home, his father would have woken him with a patented David Dorsey alarm clock. Right to the jaw. No, they weren’t home yet, but they would be soon enough.

He pulled the comforter up over his head and tried to go back to sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come. When he’d barged into Haverford’s office and confessed to a crime—and a breach of school rules—that he hadn’t committed, his only consideration had been saving Sloane from a punishment she didn’t deserve.

He hadn’t stopped to think about the punishments he would have to face.

His mother had started calling within minutes of the security guard escorting him off campus. Though his father hadn’t called once, Tru knew this wasn’t a secret his mother would keep.

He might have had a short reprieve while they were off recreating their honeymoon in Galveston, but as soon as they got home, the fight would be epic.

Well, if he was going to die, he might as well spend his last hours doing something he enjoyed: watching movies.

He was halfway through Return of the Jedi when he heard the garage door opening. If he hid out in his room, things would only be worse. He was tired of hiding. Tired of cowering, of sneaking through his life. If he could stand up for Sloane, he could stand up to his father. So he paused the movie—only somewhat optimistic that he would be alive later to finish it—and headed downstairs to meet the coming storm head on.

When his mother walked through the door alone, he held his breath. Waiting.

But the door remained shut. His father never followed.

“Where’s Dad?” he asked.

“He had to go into the office,” Mom explained. “Some big new case.”

“I don’t—” Tru shook his head, not understanding. “Didn’t you tell him about the expulsion?”

To his shock, his mother stepped forward and placed her hands on his face. “Why didn’t you tell Principal Haverford the truth?”

“The truth?” he echoed. What was she talking about?

“We went to the school as soon as we got into town,” she explained. “To see if they could be convinced to reinstate your enrollment.”

Convinced as in bribed. His father wasn’t afraid to throw money around if it would give him what he wanted.

“While we were there,” his mother continued, “Sloane came in and told us everything.”

His heart slammed against his chest. “Everything?”

He had no idea what everything meant, but his breath quickened more than he would like.

His mother stepped close, her voice a gentle whisper. “She told us the two of you spent the night together. That you couldn’t have been the vandal.”

Tru was stunned. “She did?” he asked dumbly. “Why would she do that?”

He hadn’t meant to ask the second question out loud. It just…came out. He had tried to save her, to save her chances of getting out of this hellhole before it sucked her in as deep as it had him. Why would she throw that away?

“The real question,” his mother replied, “is why didn’t she say anything in the first place?”

Tru couldn’t seem to make sense of what his mother was telling him. Sloane had lied. To protect him. She had lied, even knowing that it would probably destroy her chances of getting back to New York.

“It’s complicated,” he told his mother.

But in truth, it had just gotten a lot simpler.

His mother frowned. “Why are you smiling?”

He knew why he had confessed to the vandalism: to protect someone he cared about. If she had fabricated this alibi for the same reason, then he had reason to be happy. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he had something to genuinely smile about.