Forget You(43)
Author: Jennifer Echols

"What?" I jerked upright again. "That’s illegal! A damn sight more illegal than collecting donations in a bucket on the highway."

"My brother is a very bad policeman. So . . . you’re coming to school, right?"

I was dying to see Doug. The low notes of his voice on the phone gave me chill bumps all over again. But as I ran my free hand through my hair, crispy from chlorine I hadn’t washed out, I pictured Brandon giving me that awkward hug under duress last night. And behind him, the swim team watching me like an exhibit at the zoo. "Nnnnnnno."

"Come so you can be around people," Doug coaxed. "I don’t think you should be alone today."

"I think I definitely should."

"Come so I won’t worry about you."

He’d made the one argument that could persuade me. I owed him big-time. I owed him that much.

WE HUNG TOGETHER ALL DAY–EXCEPT CALCULUS , of course. It was delicious. Like we’d hooked up. Or, okay, like I’d felt him up in the backseat of a cop car.

Really more like he was my dear friend looking out for me. We weren’t doing anything that unusual. Since the school year started we’d followed each other along the same path from English to history, from biology to lunch. The only difference today was that we walked together. I wondered whether everyone avoided my eyes or just wasn’t looking at me. I wondered whether they whispered about me and my mom. Doug knew how I felt without me telling him. He gave me someone to walk with and talk to so I wouldn’t feel alone.

Since school started we’d eaten at the same lunch table too–just at different ends. Today we sat next to each other at the usual table with most of the swim team, his friends and my former friends who acted like I might bite them now. I’d dropped the ball breaking up the fight between Keke and Lila on Tuesday, but I’d brought them back together without even trying. Nothing cemented a relationship like mutual hatred of a third party. Lila sat between Mike and Keke, talking in turns to each of them. Every time she talked to Keke, she ate a spoonful of Keke’s frozen yogurt, and the two of them looked at me with hooded eyes, then looked away. They prided themselves on knowing everything about everyone. They were furious at being kept in the dark about their best friend’s mother. It was futile to explain I’d hoped no one would ever find out.

"Let’s see the clipboard, Captain," Doug said, giving me something to do.

I set down my fork and pulled the clipboard out of my backpack for him. He flipped through the pages of numbers in his handwriting, really looking. "Y our times the past few days have been amazing." He cocked his head at me. "Demons chasing you?"

"Maybe." Across the lunchroom, Stephanie Wetzel acted out a little skit with exaggerated motions for her friends. My mom pulling me out of the pool. A fisherman hauling a marlin on board. Hard to say.

"The trick is to get you swimming like that every time," Doug said, "even when you don’t have something hanging over your head."

I turned to him. "I don’t think that will be a problem for a while." I passed my hand in a circle above my head. "This is very crowded airspace right now. If it keeps up, I might even place at State." Keke and Lila watched me. I put my hand down.

"My dad’s picking me up after swim practice today," Doug said. "On Thursdays we have a sunset cruise and then a crew meeting."

"Crew meeting?" I echoed. That sounded too New Age a concept for the ruffians I’d seen working on the Hemingway.

"But I hear the swim team is planning a beach party after the football game tomorrow night," he said, "and they’re trying to convince the football team to crash it. Keke and Lila aren’t subtle. Want to go?"

I couldn’t help cutting my eyes at Keke and Lila. They whispered together as Keke gazed at me. I told Doug, "I’m not invited."

"Of course you’re invited–you’re the captain of the swim team–but let’s skip that issue. Y ou’re invited because I’m inviting you."

"As a date?" I asked quietly enough that no one around us could hear over the laughter and the clinks of silverware.

"Of course not as a date, because then you’d have to break up with your wonderful boyfriend who hasn’t messaged you all day." How did Doug know this? He’d been watching me more closely than he let on.

"As friends, then?" I clarified.

He lowered his chin and gave me that sexy look through his long black lashes. "As whatever we are."

During swim practice he even convinced Gabriel to drag a lawn chair poolside so he could sit closer to me, protecting me. But as he’d said, at the end of practice he gave me a wave and limped out the gate to meet his dad. He couldn’t protect me in the women’s locker room anyway.

I knew it was coming. In my peripheral vision I saw Keke eyeing me as we showered, dried off, and dressed.

I could have sped up and beat the crowd out the door, robbing her of her chance alone with me. Instead, I slowed down. I’d had enough of the cold stares from her and Lila. Lila had hurried out of the locker room to meet Mike, but disarming Keke might disarm both twins at once. When the last of the junior girls finally giggled their way outside, I slammed my locker door and whirled to face Keke, catching her–what else?–midstare. "What is it?" I demanded. "Tell me."

Surprised that she wasn’t the one to confront me first, she blinked and took a deep breath before dropping her bomb. "Y didn’t measure the skid

ou marks at the wreck so your mom could get more insurance money for you. Y measured them because you were trying to figure out what happened. Y

ou ou obviously don’t remember anything about that night. If you did, you would have been freaking out completely. And you flat-out lied to Lila and me about it."

Y but only because my dad had threatened me. I opened my mouth to say this to her. I couldn’t form the words. My brain fixated on what she’d said.

es, Why should I have been freaking out about that night? What had I done?

"Go home and find the accident report," Keke said. "Even after all the lies you’ve told me in the past two weeks, you need to know what really happened." 13 "Just tell me!" I shouted at her. If a copy of the accident report was at my house, I knew where it would be. And I wasn’t allowed in there. "Y know this big

ou secret so just tell me instead of making me chase around for it!"

"Oh, I don’t give away people’s secrets." If Doug’s words dripped sarcasm, Keke’s gushed it like the biggest waterfall at Slide with Clyde. "That’s why you didn’t tell me your mom–" Even in the middle of confronting me, Keke couldn’t bring herself to say it. My mom was insane. "And that’s why you didn’t tell me you had amnesia. Because you don’t trust me with something that important. Now everybody knows my own best friend doesn’t trust me. Y ou made a freaking fool out of me–"