The Education of Hailey Kendrick - Eileen Cook [34]
Tristan turned and went into his room, shutting the door behind him. I turned and faced Joel and Kelsie, who were standing behind me.
“Wow. The guy didn’t mean anything to you? That’s good to know,” Joel said.
I closed my eyes. I seemed to be incapable of making anything go right. “That’s not what I meant. This is complicated.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations.” He moved past me to join Tristan in their room.
“You have a wad of Kleenex stuck to your lip,” Kelsie said, breaking the silence. “What’s stuck up Joel’s ass with the whole thing? Why does he think he deserves a bio on the guy?”
I started to cry. I wasn’t making a sound, but my shoulders were shaking from the sobs. Kelsie stepped in and hugged me, letting me bury my face in her hair. My ankle and wrist were throbbing with pain, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.
“What are you staring at?” Kelsie said over my shoulder to the sophomore girls. “Get a life. Go do something else somewhere else.”
I could hear the girls scuttle off, whispering as they went. They would spread the news of my graceful fall down the stairs and my fight with Tristan to the rest of the student body faster than any emergency broadcast system. With the way things were going for me, they would act it out so that everyone could have the full experience.
“I want to go home,” I whispered.
“Let’s go.” Kelsie grabbed her Vogue off the sofa and started to lead me back to our dorm.
When I’d said “home” I hadn’t meant the dorm. I’d meant someplace that didn’t even exist anymore. The house I used to have with my mom and dad had been sold. My dad’s apartment had never been home to me. He’d never asked me what I wanted. Instead he’d had a decorator design a room for me. It was purple. I hate purple. I was a guest. A guest who didn’t even rank having the guest room to myself, since my dad kept his treadmill in there too, as if my room were more of a storage closet.
“This is a nightmare,” I mumbled as we walked outside. It was raining, and the wind whipped the drops so that they felt like razors hitting my skin.
“I told you it wasn’t a good idea to talk to Tristan. He’s really upset.”
“He’s got you to comfort him, though.” The words flew out of my mouth. Turns out I was still thinking about her hand on the side of his face.
Kelsie stopped and turned to face me. “What do you want? Yes, Tristan’s my friend, and if I can help him feel better, then I’m going to try to do that. I’m the kind of person who tries to think of my friends, which is why I’m standing in the rain with you now instead of upstairs watching the rest of the hockey game. For someone who got caught kissing some random guy, you sound awfully judgmental.”
My insides crumpled like a wet tissue. Now I was making the only person who was on my side turn against me.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Everything I do or say is exactly the wrong thing. From now on I’m going to listen to your advice. Just tell me how to get through this.”
“It won’t do much for the situation with Tristan, but things would go a lot easier all around if you would spill the identity of the guy. One week on restriction isn’t that bad. It gives everyone a chance to chill out, but if this stretches into next week, you’re going to see people getting ticked. You aren’t doing yourself any favors.”
“I can’t tell. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I can’t.”
“I hope that whoever he is, he’s worth it,” Kelsie said.
There was no way to explain that keeping Joel out of trouble and not involving him in the situation with Tristan was the only decent thing to come out of the situation so far. That night scared me. Not because of what had happened but because I hadn’t thought I was the kind of person who could do something like that. Doing this one thing right gave me the hope that I was still, somewhere deep down, a decent person.
“Any other advice?” I asked.
“Keep your head down and pray someone else screws