“AND WE’LL BE TEAMING UP IN PAIRS FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT.”
Margot’s head snapped up. Short of “I’m accusing you of murder,” Mr. Heinrich had just spoken the words Margot dreaded most in her school experience: “teaming up.”
Whether it was kickball on the elementary school playground or a presentation for first-period AP Government, Margot would inevitably be the odd girl out, paired up with whomever was unlucky enough to still be standing in the game of musical chairs once the iPod shut off.
“Pick your partners,” Mr. Heinrich continued, “and remember, this will count for twenty percent of your final grade.”
Alarms bells went off in Margot’s head. She was in a class full of seniors, which is what happens when your parents insist you enroll in summer semester every year so that you can load up on AP classes before you even start applying for college. She only knew one person in the room, and despite the fact that she was probably the smartest student in the class—a niche that occasionally meant a classmate with failing grades would beg her to be their partner on an assignment like this—it was only the second week of school, so no one knew that about her yet.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. “Margot?” Logan asked. “Do you have a partner yet?”
“No,” she managed.
He paused, looking embarrassed. “Do you want to pair up with me?”
Margot could have hugged him. “Sure,” she said simply, hoping it sounded somewhere between “OMG THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME” and “I might be more terrified of pairing up with you than being left unpartnered.”
“This looks like a lot of work,” Logan said, flipping through the packet of materials Mr. Heinrich handed out. “What are your nights and weekends like?”
Totally open as long as my parents think I’m doing schoolwork. “I can work something out.”
“Okay.” Logan’s eyebrows drew together. “Mine are a little wonky. I’ve got rehearsals for the school play almost every night for the next three weeks.”
“Why so intense?” Margot asked.
“We’ve got this special performance of Twelfth Night for some Big Kahuna director.”
“‘If music be the food of love,’” Margot said softly, quoting the opening line of Twelfth Night, “‘play on.’”
“You know Shakespeare?”
Margot dropped her chin, hoping he wouldn’t notice the blush creeping up her neck. “We did a Shakespeare module in AP English last year. I’m good at remembering things.”
Logan pointed at her. “You know, Mr. Cunningham is totally overwhelmed with this show. I bet he could use someone like you to help run lines with the actors.”
Slipping out of the house once in a while for a Don’t Get Mad meeting couched as a study group was one thing, but hanging out in the theater department every night for the next three weeks? Margot wasn’t sure her parents would buy it.
“Come on,” Logan said. He bumped her shoulder playfully. “We can work on our AP Government project whenever I’m not in a scene, so it’s academic and extracurricular. They keep telling us it looks good on college apps, right?”
He had a point, but Margot wasn’t sure she could sell her parents on it. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good enough.”
The bell rang, and the class began to pack up. Logan laid his hand lightly on her arm. “Do you think . . .” He blinked several times. “Um, do you think I could get your phone number? So we can coordinate?”
It’s just for school, Margot told herself, trying to suppress her excitement. “Sure.”
She rattled off her cell phone number as Logan typed into his phone. “Sweet. I sent you mine. So you have it.”
Margot sat at her desk, dumbfounded, as she watched Logan bound out of the classroom. Had that really just happened? In the course of an hour, had Margot agreed to join a theater production and given her phone number to the cutest boy she had ever met in her life?
Margot slipped her hand into her backpack and pulled out her cell phone. She needed to see Logan’s text, to make sure it was real and not some elaborate practical joke engineered by Amber Stevens. There was an incoming text on her screen.
It’s Logan! Now you have my number. ☺
Nausea. Fear. Excitement. Panic. It all swamped her at once. Part of her wanted to text Logan back and say, “No! I made a mistake. Can’t do this!” But fear had motivated so much of her life, Margot refused to give in to it this time.
Margot was still in a haze as she walked down the hall, but as she swung her locker door open, all thoughts of Logan evaporated.
Sitting on top of her textbooks was another manila envelope.
Margot had never been late to a class in her entire academic career, but she didn’t regret the decision to duck into the ladies’ room before second period, even with the ’Maine Men patrolling the halls during class. Whatever was in the mysterious envelope was not something that could (a) wait for the break, or (b) be opened in a crowded classroom.
And while a toilet stall wasn’t exactly her first choice for privacy, it was the only place she was likely to get it.
She was oddly calm as she studied the envelope in her hands. It was exactly like the first—a generic office supply with a single piece of tape meticulously centered on the flap—and left in exactly the same way. And though part of Margot cringed at what she might find, her hand was steady as she popped the tape and peeked inside.
More photos. Three of them.
But unlike the first, Margot had never seen any of these.
She thought of the first photo, the one of her overweight body wrapped in plastic.
It had all been part of Amber’s plan. But Margot was too naive to realize that it had been a setup when she overheard Amber in the locker room, telling Peanut and Jezebel about this amazing new weight-loss sensation. All you had to do was bind yourself in plastic wrap before bed each night, and you’d sweat the pounds off in your sleep.
It had sounded like the miracle she’d been waiting for. As soon as she was free of her parents for the night, she’d stripped down and swaddled herself before bed.
It wasn’t until the next day, when the photo of her chubby body encased in plastic wrap was infecting every phone in school, that Margot realized the whole thing had been a horrible joke.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, a group of eighth-grade boys had come to school with plastic wrapped around their arms and legs and stomachs. Wherever Margot went, someone was mocking her, pointing, laughing. It had been too much. Margot had left school at lunch, walked six miles home, and taken her dad’s straight razor with her into the bathtub.
She would have succeeded, too, if the cleaning lady hadn’t shown up.
For four years, Margot had nursed a secret hatred of Amber Stevens. Amber, who had set her up, taken that photo, and circulated it to the entire school.
Margot stared at the photos in her hand, cycling through them slowly. The first two were from outside Margot’s house, but too far away from the bedroom window to see what was inside. The third was closer, probably taken from behind the sycamore tree outside Margot’s window. It showed Amber standing near the windowpane, turning to the camera with a wicked smile on her face and flashing two thumbs up. But there was a second figure in the photo, reflected in the darkened window. The flash from the camera phone obscured the photographer’s face, backlighting her to a vague, monochromatic silhouette. All Margot could make out was that she had long, curly hair.
The realization made Margot’s hands turn ice-cold. Amber wasn’t alone that night.
And Amber didn’t take the photo.
