They Wish They Were Us Read online

  “C’mon, Jill. What?” He looks at me with one brow raised.

  Something turns inside me and I feel the need to tell him everything, to fill him in on what’s to come even though it’s totally against the rules. But fuck the rules. Rachel broke them and it worked for me—at least for a little while. The fact that she hasn’t answered my text, even though it was an arrow of pity lobbed her way, makes no difference right now. My brother needs to know what’s coming. Maybe not everything, but at least the beginning. “Next week,” I say. “You’re gonna get invited to join the Players. It’ll all make sense soon. But . . . it’s more than parties and the best lunch table. It’s a lifeline. A . . . group. I’m in it. So is Nikki. Shaila was, too. It’s been around Gold Coast for decades and every year we bring in new freshmen. It’s your turn now. You got in.”

  He crosses his arms and leans back, trying to hide his excitement, but not connecting the dots. “How’s that gonna help me with bio?”

  I sigh, exasperated. I’ll have to show him. I pull my phone from my pocket and swipe until I find the app I’m looking for, the encrypted one that’s only knowable by its green-and-gray icon. Within a few taps, I’m in. I set my phone down on the vinyl table and spin it around so the screen faces Jared. I drag my forefinger up. The titles are endless. Bio. Chem. AP US History. Calculus. French. Past SATs. Admissions officer database. African History. Nutrition 1. Nutrition 2. East Asian Studies. College-level Russian Literature. The list goes on forever.

  Jared’s eyes grow wide and his mouth drops open. I can see a piece of half-chewed pancake flop against his cheek. “This is the Players?” he asks, his voice a whisper.

  I nod. “This is the Players.”

  * * *

  —

  By the time Nikki, Marla, and I get to the beach, the boys have the fire going a few feet in the air. A massive pile of wood sits next to the pit and they’re passing around a bottle of Jameson.

  “Jill!” Henry runs to meet us as we tread down the sand. It’s damp and cold, squishing between my bare toes. We’re all bundled up in our finest gorpcore attire. For some weird reason, expensive fleece half-zips and comfy beanies are the ultimate status symbol at Gold Coast. “You guys excited?” Henry asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “Gonna be the best intro night ever.” And I mean it. I am ready to start fresh with a new class. With my brother. Things are going to be different this year. The bonfire burns higher as the rest of the Players file in and soon it’s time. More bottles appear and our voices grow louder. My phone buzzes and my heart stops. Of course Rachel would respond now. I sneak a peek at the screen. It’s Adam. A slow smile spreads across my face.

  Have so much fun tonight. Take care of B.

  Wish you were here, I type but then delete. Always, I say instead.

  He responds in a second. Thanks, Newman.

  A warmth spreads through my chest and I watch the sophomores light sparklers, making the whole beach look like a birthday cake. Henry’s hand catches mine. His eyes shine with wonder and mischief, and I lean closer to him, shoving my shoulder under his armpit and burrowing my face against his fleecy chest.

  “I wish Shaila was here,” I whisper, surprising even myself.

  Henry pulls me closer. “I know, babe.”

  My throat starts to burn and I’m desperate to test my luck. “Henry, what if . . .” I start. “What if Graham didn’t do it?”

  Henry drops his arm from around my shoulders and shakes his head with a slow stoicism. “Come on, Jill,” he says. “I thought we decided this was bullshit.”

  Before I can respond Nikki climbs onto a cement block near the fire. “They’re here!” she yells. “Everyone, shut up!”

  A hush washes over us. I glance quickly at Henry, trying to read him, but he turns away, toward the path that leads to the beach. Out they come. Like little ducklings, the eight freshmen ascend from behind tall, thick reeds. Jared walks in the middle, standing in between Bryce and Sierra. Her eyes are wild and unfocused, and she tries to smother a smile. They reach the fire and fan out in a line, facing us. The seven-foot kid, Larry Kramer, launches into a quad stretch, like he’s preparing for sprints at basketball practice. I try to make eye contact with Jared, but he keeps his focus on Nikki, his gaze unwavering.

  “As you may have guessed,” Nikki says, taking her spot at the front, “you have been chosen by this year’s senior class to be Players.” Bryce nods and grins. He must have spoken to Adam. I wonder what he said.

  “But that doesn’t mean you are a Player,” Nikki continues, echoing Jake Horowitz’s words from three years ago. Coming from her they sound gentle and stern, not menacing or scary. It’s the same voice she uses when speaking at all-school assemblies. She’d be an insanely good politician and she knows it. “It just means we think you could be. This year you’ll be faced with a series of challenges, some fun, some . . . not so fun. If you make it through, if you choose to continue, then you’ll be a Player. You’ll reap the rewards and you’ll endure the losses. You’ll become part of a group that will have your back for life.” Quentin shifts awkwardly on his feet next to me and lets out a puff of air. I grab his hand and he squeezes back.

  “Are you ready?” Nikki asks, raising an eyebrow and her plastic cup.

  Robert steps forward and hands Bryce an unmarked clear bottle. The little Miller takes a swig and coughs. He doesn’t do as well as Shaila did but he passes it down the line until they’re all nearly in fits.

  “I remember my first beer,” Robert shouts, his body lurching forward toward the freshmen. Sierra flinches.

  The wind picks up and I shiver. Finally Jared looks over at me and his shoulders relax. Relief fills his face. But my excitement disappears when he brings the bottle to his mouth. It’s already too familiar, seeing him like this. It feels wrong, torturous. I fight the urge to knock the jug from his hand and instead suck in my cheeks, turning my mouth into a fish face, just like we used to do when we were kids. His lips curl into a smile and he takes a sip from the bottle.

  * * *

  —

  Shaila Arnold was one of those people who went by both her first and last name. Shaila Arnold. There were no other Shailas at Gold Coast. I don’t even think there were any Arnolds. But nevertheless, when she was alive, that’s what everyone called her. Mr. Beaumont, when he said her name in roll call. Big Keith during cast announcements. Only those close to her called her Shay, and only sometimes, when the moment was right. People who didn’t know her, but speak of her now, often smush her name together like it’s all one word. Shailarnold. That’s how Sierra McKinley says it tonight during the first senior-freshman girl sleepover at Nikki’s house a week after intro night. We did the same thing when I was a freshman. Back then it was a size-up-the-competition thing disguised as a get-to-know-you thing. A pre-pops slumber party to gain our trust before they broke us. This year will be different, I say over and over again to myself. This year will be different. It has to be.

  “Shailarnold was your best friend, right?” Sierra asks while we sit at Nikki’s kitchen island. Her legs are bare, save for a tiny pair of flannel shorts with lace detailing around the edges. Her oversize tee makes them nearly invisible when she stands.

  “Yep,” I say, trying not to show my disgust at hearing her name come from Sierra’s mouth.

  “I knew her, you know.” Sierra brings her knees up to her chest and her eyes flit around Nikki’s great room. From our perches on the bar stools, we can see everyone. “Westhampton Beach Club,” she continues. “She and Kara Sullivan were my swim counselors.”

  Shaila and Kara had spent so many summers there, sailing and perfecting their backstrokes. It was where Shaila got her period for the first time in the summer between sixth and seventh grades. She described it in obsessive detail in one of her longest letters to me.

  It’s BROWN some days, she wrote. It’s so disgusting and I feel like a
monster. I can’t even talk to Kara about this. CAN YOU GET YOURS TOO, SO WE CAN BE IN IT TOGETHER?!?!?! PLEASE. I’M BEGGING YOU.

  Her wish was my command. The day after I opened her letter, I pulled down my cotton shorts to find a pool of thick, dark goo matting my underwear. It had seeped all the way through my shorts and I cried in the stall, thinking about how I had been walking around science camp with blood stains on my butt, in front of boys, while extracting samples from the pond, standing in the dining hall. I stayed there until my own counselor came over with a maxi pad as big as a diaper.

  When I told Shaila, she was thrilled.

  I’m going to buy us bright red headbands to wear on the first day of school so everyone knows we are WOMEN, she wrote in her next letter.

  And she did. I wore mine begrudgingly, annoyed that I was forced to display my deep, dark secret like a badge of honor when really it seemed like a curse. Graham, who was still just a middle school asshole who hadn’t murdered anyone yet, lost his shit when he saw us in the library. He pointed at our matching hair and laughed. “What are you? Blood sisters? Gross!” he called. “Don’t get your bloody shit all over me!”

  Shaila just laughed at him, waving at him like he didn’t even matter. “Sorry, Graham. Guess you can’t handle a real woman. Sucks to suck.” Graham shuffled off, mumbling something under his breath. I wore that stupid headband with pride after that day. Any shame I had felt about my entry into adulthood disappeared, too.

  They both seemed to have forgotten the whole incident by the time we entered high school, but for the rest of that year, Shaila was the fairy godmother of periods. She invested in dozens of red velvet headbands and whenever a classmate made the transition, she gifted them one. She even gave them to the quiet girls, the ones who got their PE credits fulfilled in badminton, and the horse girls who sat together in the library during lunch, playing with those creepy figurines. Shaila made it cool to go through that rite of passage. But she didn’t realize what it would do to the girls who weren’t there yet. Neither did I until I found Nikki crying in the locker room in the middle of eighth grade, devastated that everyone had a red headband but her. It took her until ninth grade to earn one.

  All of that feels so far away now in Nikki’s kitchen with a whole new set of girls to watch over. The responsibility feels like too much to bear. I look at Sierra and bite my tongue, forcing myself not to ask if she had already gotten her period, if she needed her own red headband. But it’s hard to picture. She’s small like a child, her skin taut against her bones.

  I’m desperate to find a way out of the conversation. Nikki and Marla are spinning and dancing in front of the TV, leading a few desperate freshmen in some butchered Beyoncé choreography. Their giggles make me recoil.

  “Can I ask you something?” Sierra asks. She leans in close like she’s about to tell me that she has, indeed, begun to bleed this very second.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “What really happens?” she asks, her eyes wide. “The challenges—”

  “They’re called pops.” The condescension drips from my voice.

  “Right,” she says softly. “And all the rules. Initiation. The binder.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We all know about the good stuff—the app and everything, the parties, the connections—but . . .” She trails off. “I’ve heard stories.”

  My heart beats fast, a quick rhythm that hurts my chest.

  “I just want to know what I’m getting myself into.”

  Guilt pumps through me. She’s defenseless. Like a baby deer learning to walk. She can’t be more than five feet even. I think of all the other girls, the juniors and sophomores who had asked the same questions. The ones who I had laughed at and whose concerns I had waved off. How they looked at me when they learned the truth. When the Toastmaster, always a guy, told them they had to do something, or else. How they came out either hardened or cracked after the fact. Then, how they looked at the next class of girls when it was their turn.

  “You’re going to be fine,” I say with feigned disinterest. “This year will be different.”

  Sierra doesn’t break her gaze, but her fingers clench around her thighs. “What does that mean?”

  “Nikki’s in charge,” I say slowly, carefully. “This year will be different.”

  Sierra releases her skin and leaves behind little nail marks. She leans back and I hope she knows that’s all she’s going to get from me, at least today.

  “I’m gonna get a drink.” She hops off the stool and pads to the refrigerator. I look around the room again, at the nervous freshmen trying to impress us, my sweet friends trying to seem cool, elegant, old. I wonder how Jared’s faring with the boys. Henry promised to look out for him and Bryce. I wonder what our friends are saying about us, how they answer when they’re asked that same question. I hope they tell the truth.

  My phone erupts without warning, a startling presence against my leg. I glance down and my breath hitches. Finally. It’s the text I’ve been waiting for, the one I sort of hoped would never come. Suddenly, I’m light-headed and need to get out of this room, away from everyone.

  I push open the front door. The cool October air winds through my hair and when I sit, the marble steps are like ice against my butt. I huddle around my phone, putting my body between it and the others, the ones I’m betraying.

  Can you come to the city? We need to meet in person.

  A bubble emerges, a signal that Rachel is typing, but then it disappears like an unfulfilled promise.

  When? I ask.

  I clutch the phone close to my chest and resist the urge to gnaw on a stray cuticle. But she responds quickly.

  Friday at 8 pm? 425 Ave. D. Buzz 6E when you’re here.

  It’s an almost impossible ask. But my brain fizzles and my fingers feel numb as they float over the screen. I bite my lip so hard I taste blood. Then I punch out the answer, knowing it will change everything.

  I’ll be there.

  NINE

  IT’S THE LONGEST week of all time. Every class spans a century. By lunch on Friday I’m a ball of nerves, rigid and flinchy all over. When I take my seat at the Players’ Table, Henry plants a wet kiss on my cheek and I jump, nearly sending my turkey club and raw cookie dough flying off the tray.

  “You okay?” he asks. His mouth turns into a frown.

  I muster a smile and nod. “Just nervous for the French midterm. Last period.”

  “Did you look in the Files?” he asks, ripping a bite out of his BLT.

  I spent the last week cramming but had memorized an old study guide as insurance last night. “Just hoping I have it right.”

  “You’ll do great, babe. You always do.” He flashes me a smile and playfully nudges my shoulder.

  Robert plunks his tray down and turns to Henry without looking my way. “Dude,” he sneers. “Fresh meat are gonna get destroyed.”

  Henry laughs into his sandwich. “Which one?” I elbow him in the stomach and he throws me his I’m sorry face. But I just shake my head. Whenever they talk this way it just makes me think of all the things that were probably said about me over the years. My shoulders stiffen.

  “Sierra McKinley, dude. She’s totally sucking up, commenting on all my Instas. Shooting me looks in the hall.” Robert crams a French fry in his mouth. “I’m gonna make her life hell with pops. She’ll do whatever I want.”

  “You sound like a dick,” I say.

  Robert rolls his eyes. “What are you, a cop?”

  I glance at Henry for support, but suddenly a wilted piece of lettuce becomes super interesting. “Whatever,” I mumble. I know I should push back but I’m not looking for a fight. Not today.

  “Gotta do one last cram,” I say through clenched teeth. I rise and turn my back to them, wishing I had the courage to scream. To tear them both apart. Instead, I walk away.

&nb
sp; I’ve just stepped out in the hall when I see Nikki and Quentin coming toward me. “Whoa, wait up,” Quentin says. “Where you going?”

  I shake my head and inhale sharply. “Robert’s talking so much shit about the freshmen.” Nikki’s face contorts, pissed.

  “Sorry,” I say, but she rolls her shoulders back like it doesn’t matter, like she doesn’t care that he’s already forgotten her. She flips her hair over her shoulder and readjusts her blazer.

  “That’s just how he is,” Quentin says. “He’ll get bored with it soon.”

  “We said we would change things,” I sputter. “And so far, we’ve done everything the same.”

  “We will,” Nikki says, her mouth in a straight line. “Just relax for now. We’ll figure it out together. We’re in this together.”

  “We are, right?” I say, pleading with them.

  Quentin wraps both of us in a hug. “Of course.”

  I let myself believe him—it’s easier than not. Their supportive, sweet faces make me want to tell them the truth. “There’s something else,” I say quietly, motioning for them to lean in close. “I can’t stop thinking about Graham. What if he’s, you know, innocent? What if someone else killed Shaila?”

  The question hangs heavy between us. Quentin and Nikki glance quickly at each other. “Jill, come on,” she says. “We agreed. It’s over. Let’s let it lie.”

  “But what—” I start. Out of everyone, I thought she would understand.

  “Let. It. Lie,” Nikki says through gritted teeth.

  Quentin shakes his head. “It’s just not worth it to get involved. We don’t need everyone finding out what happened that night.”

  My whole body tenses, but I force my head to nod, to pretend like I agree and that I, too, will let this whole thing go. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Come on, let’s get you back to the caf.” Quentin swings an arm over my shoulder and I let them drag me back to the Players’ Table where I zone out for another twenty-three minutes, wondering how the hell I ended up here.