Mean Girls. Louise Rozett

was laughing and looking away. It was the prettiest I had ever seen her look. She was not posing or trying. She looked like a real person. And that might have been the worst part.

      It was one thing when I thought of her as a marble statue, always posed and so very intentionally everything she was. It was another to think of her as most people must, and to imagine that she was probably out there somewhere living and breathing like a real person, Or worse, that she wasn’t. Everyone loved her. Everyone talked about her. Everyone showed it by wearing T-shirts in her name. She must have had something special. It was only me who hated her. Resented her. Envied her.

      Dana set down the picture, and took out an envelope. It was filled with folded notes. She opened a few of them.

      Meet me at the beach at midnight.

      I can’t wait until later.

      Same thing this time—you know I’m looking forward to it.

      “No more.” I said it without even meaning to. Dana smiled and closed the envelope.

      I looked down at my own bracelet. Suddenly it didn’t seem as sweet. He’d done almost the exact same thing for Becca.

      “Maybe you can see now what I’ve been trying to tell you?” Dana looked from my wrist up to me and folded the notes in my hand. Only then did I become aware that my face was hot and that there were cool streaks from tears on my cheeks.

      The second she looked back to the suitcase, I stood and ran from the room. I ran all the way down to the boys’ dorms, without even glancing to see if I was going to be caught.

      This was it: my breaking point.

      I knocked on his door, and Max opened it looking concerned. “What’s wrong?”

      “Everything!”

      My voice was not low.

      He glanced around. “Why don’t we go outside or something?”

      “No. I want to talk now.”

      “People are going to listen if we’re in here.” He said it very matter-of-factly, and as if he knew what I was going to say.

      “I don’t care, they’re all just going to make up stuff about me anyway, it may as well be true.”

      He didn’t listen. He pulled me from the hall and all the way outside.

      “What isn’t good enough about me?” I asked, my chest hot with the fire of everything.

      I felt like it was all crashing down on me. Guilt and embarrassment for being so childish, but frustration and anger at Max for still never telling me what all the secrets were that had to do with Becca.

      “Where is this coming from?” he asked.

      I took a second to breathe and not spew childlike complaints. He waited quietly for me to compose myself.

      “It’s because …” I started. “Dana just showed me a bunch of Becca’s things from her suitcase. A picture … her jewelry … her present to you … your present to her …”

      I cringed as I thought of the silken nightie that Dana had touched my face with. Max looked down at his watch.

      Impatience rose in me. “What, do you have plans to get somewhere? Why are you looking at your—”

      “No.”

      Then it occurred to me. “Was that from her?” It was a wild guess.

      He said nothing, but unlatched it and started to put it in his pocket.

      I held out a hand and asked quietly, “May I see it?”

      He hesitated but then handed it to me. It was as if I knew what I was looking for. There it was, engraved on the back of the face.

      Max and Becca, for the rest of time.

      I nodded and handed it back.

      “When you say my present to her … do you mean the locket Dana found in the supply closet?”

      I suppressed the memory of that night, and how it had been to be so close to Max in the dark. “Yes, that one.”

      “I didn’t buy that for her. She just said I did.”

      “Really.”

      “Yes. It was a ploy to make everyone think we were the happiest couple or whatever.”

      “Well, I guess it worked.” I knew it was immature. I knew that I wasn’t helping my case if I wanted to be appealing. But I just couldn’t help it.

      “I’m sorry. Please just don’t think about her. It doesn’t have anything to do with …”

      He trailed off, because there was no “us.” There was no “this.”

      I stood. “I’m sorry, too. I should have known better.”

      I turned and went back inside. He didn’t follow me. The farther I got without being chased, the bigger the lump in my throat got and the hotter my cheeks turned.