Nevermore

Amid all the icicle stares, Varen’s was the only gaze she sought in return. Why, though, did it seem like he was the last person to look at her?

“What do you want, Barbie?” the girl sitting next to him asked.

Isobel’s mouth pinched tight. She heard the girl, registered the words, but for some reason, she couldn’t respond. She was too focused on waiting for Varen. For him to say something.

To intercede on her behalf.

All she could do was keep her eyes locked on his while she stood there, waiting—waiting for him to clear her name and a place for her to sit.

“Hey,” the girl said again, waving a hand between them, breaking the spell.

Varen turned away. Dazed, Isobel looked at the girl, recognizing her instantly as the one who had handed Varen the red envelope, the girl he kept a picture of in his wallet. Lacy.

“I don’t know if you’re lost or something,” she said, her voice deep, mellow, and full of disinterest. “Or, like, if it’s too hard for you to remember which table you’re supposed to sit at?”

A snicker trickled through the others. “But you can’t sit here.”

Isobel looked back to Varen. Tell them, she thought. Why didn’t he just tell them?

He sat staring straight ahead, his jaw hard.

Like an electroshock, Isobel felt a surge of fear, mortification, stupidity, and liquid anger. It all shot through her spine, a deadly mixture that filled her from the inside out.

With every second that ticked by, the knot in her stomach expanded. She could feel everyone staring at her, and her face burned.

So this was how it would go?

“I can’t believe you,” she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper.

But she was talking right to him. Right at him. Why wouldn’t he look at her?

Slowly, one by one, the rest of them followed his example. They each turned back to their lunches, chains clanking, black lace rustling—a few dark smiles gracing painted lips.

Dismissed, they seemed to say.

No, Isobel thought, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“You think you’re different.” Her voice wavered, and she hated sounding so weak. “You think you’re all so different,” she went on, louder this time. “You do everything to be different,” she spat.

The silence of the table—of the whole cafeteria—was reclaimed in an instant. “But you’re not,” she said at last. “You are just like every. Body. Else.”

Pivoting, Isobel swung away. She dumped her tray onto the vacant table she had passed earlier, where it landed with a loud clatter. Refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, she stormed out the cafeteria doors, using both arms to shove them wide.

Alone in the hallway, she bit down on the inside of her bottom lip, hard—hard enough to taste the copper sting of blood. She pounded her fist against a locker door.

Stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

She kept walking, straight to the nearest girls’ bathroom.

She pushed through the door and dabbed the sleeve of her sweater against her eyelids, hating the tears that soaked it, hating that she’d have to hand wash the fabric later in Woolite to get the mascara smudges out—hating most of all the thought that he might know she was crying.

Isobel grabbed the trash can, piled high with wadded paper towels and tissues, and hauled it over. It toppled onto its side, its metal body clanging against the tiled floor.

She really didn’t care. It was just embarrassing, was all. Humiliating. But then what had she expected? It shouldn’t be this big of a surprise. None of it should be. Not Brad, not Nikki—least of all him.

I don’t care. She said it over and over in her mind, pacing the floor, trampling wet towels.

All he’d cared about was the project.

All that had mattered to him was the grade.

She was expendable.

“I don’t care!” she screamed at the trash can, kicking it. The crash echoed, and the can upchucked more wadded paper towels onto the floor.

She was stupid for shouting. She was stupid for crying, and most of all, she was stupid for believing, for even a second, that they might have been friends.

Isobel grabbed a handful of paper towels from the metal dispenser. She would not go back out into the hall with her makeup smeared and her eyes puffy-red.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, she turned on the faucet and brought her gaze up to her reflection.

A dry croak caught in her throat.

He stood in the doorway of the stall behind her. A man, cloaked in black. He stared at her, a tattered fedora hat shading his features, a white scarf swathing his mouth and nose, hiding his face.