Every Ugly Word Read online

  Matt scowled. “I’m not staying here.” He turned away from me and pulled his T-shirt over his head. I was left juggling the fierce desire to protect him from himself with the dry-mouthed awareness of his muscled back.

  “Matt—”

  “We’re going.” He punched one arm into a blue-checked shirt, then the other.

  I glared. Matthew Thomas Gray was my best friend, and the nicest guy I knew.

  And he was stubborn as a mule when he wanted to be.

  I got to my feet, ignoring the tingle of nerves. If he didn’t want to talk about it, it had to be really bad. “Matt, you can’t just stop halfway through that kind of story.”

  “We’re going to the dance,” he said. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it tomorrow—and you won’t want to, either. You’re just trying to make me stop asking.”

  “So take the hint!”

  “No!”

  “Fine!” Matt yelled, whirling to face me.

  The button-down shirt hung open over his chest, revealing two angry, oval marks. It took me a second to realize they were bruises. Thumbprints.

  Right at the base of his neck.

  The line of his jaw flexed. I knew my mouth had fallen open, but I couldn’t seem to close it. I reached for Matt, but he stepped back and snapped his shirt closed.

  “I put him on his ass. He isn’t going to do it again.”

  “That’s what you said last time!” My voice jumped an octave.

  “Well, this time I’m right.” He grabbed his wallet and shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans. Checked his phone, then put that in the other pocket.

  When he started messing with his hair I realized he was serious. He was going to show up at this stupid thing. He was going to dance and flirt and pretend his life was completely normal.

  I didn’t move. “He could have killed you.”

  Matt jerked to a stop, tension radiating from him. “No,” he said quietly. But the word lacked conviction. “It was never that bad. He never . . . I could always breathe.”

  “I didn’t say he tried to kill you. I said he could have.”

  He stared at the floor, swallowed hard. “I get it, okay? But I handled it. I handled him. And I told you the truth.” He turned back to me. “Now I want to go be normal.”

  “Let him go.” The words were a whisper, floating out of the mirror behind Matt. I glanced at the shining surface, but from this angle I could only see copper-colored hair, a shade darker than my own. “It’s hardly the night you want to declare yourself anyway.”

  I shook my head. That wasn’t the point. Not anymore. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  Matt started for the door, then hesitated. When he turned his face was screwed up and he cursed under his breath.

  I stopped. “What?”

  “I forgot. I need to talk to you,” he said. He ran his palms down his thighs.

  He was twitchy.

  Despite everything, hope rose in my chest.

  “Look, Ash, I’m really sorry about this. The thing with Dad just took my head out of the game and . . . I wouldn’t normally do it this way. Okay?”

  “It’s okay,” I told him softly, laying a hand on his arm. “Whatever it is . . . this is me.”

  “You’re my best friend. You know that, right?” he said.

  “Yeah.” And I want to be so much more.

  Matt took my hand and cleared his throat. “Right. Okay. I need to tell you . . . do you remember that youth leadership conference thing I went to a couple of weeks ago?”

  “Um . . . yeah.” Random.

  “Well, while I was there, we had to do this assignment and we all got paired up. The only other person from our school was Karyn. So she and I worked together.”

  I froze.

  Suddenly, I saw him through a different filter. The nervous energy. The inability to look at me. The twitchiness.

  “I told her you were my best friend,” Matt rushed on. “That I’d never date someone who hurt you. But she said she didn’t have a problem with you. She said she feels terrible about how things have been between you. That it started because she thought you didn’t like her.”

  He smiled a little and shook his head, apparently warmed by the memory. I wanted to smack the grin off his face. Stupid, gullible, idiot.

  “Ash . . . Ash, are you listening?” Matt squeezed my hand.

  “Of course.” My voice sounded dead, even to me.

  “Nothing’s going to change, okay?” he promised.

  I nodded because I had to. “Yeah, sure.” Like hell. I took my hand back, resisting the urge to wipe it on my jeans. “It’s just . . . why Karyn?”

  Why my ex-friend, the girl who’d made my life hell since eighth grade? The girl who’d told the guys in PE that I didn’t wear underwear. The girl who’d told Gerry Henkins I liked him—when all he wanted was someone to sleep with. The girl who whispered to her friends that I’d hit on their boyfriends, setting them on me like well-trained dogs, then stood back and laughed.

  Why couldn’t he see what a witch she was?

  But the answer was obvious: He was a guy. All he saw was her platinum hair and flashing baby blues. And her dimples—everyone loved those stupid dimples.

  Matt stared at his feet. “It’s just . . . she helps me forget,” he said. “She doesn’t know anything about my dad. She doesn’t care if I’m on student council, or if I make honor roll . . . She doesn’t care about anything. She just wants to be with me. And when I’m with her, I don’t care about that stuff either.”

  The expression on his face was a mallet to my frozen heart.

  “This is okay, right, Ash?” he asked quietly. “We can all be friends. It’ll be great.”

  I nodded, for his sake. But it wouldn’t be great. At all.

  As Matt smiled and started for the door again, I took a step back and looked right at the mirror. At Older Me. At her hunched shoulders, and her hands buried in the pocket of that hoodie. At her wide eyes.

  Wide with guilt. Not shock.

  She knew. She knew this was coming and she didn’t tell me.

  Chapter Three

  Doc calmly examines his thumbnail. While I’m grateful for the lack of histrionics, part of me is offended that he can listen with such detachment. I’ve just told him my high school sweetheart was almost killed by his father, and, oh, by the way, I talk to myself in the mirror. To my other self.

  Then again, if he’s read my file, he knows where this is going.

  “Karyn?” he says to his thumb. “The same Karyn who was involved in your . . . incident?”

  “Yes.” I spit the word. It’s the wrong way to respond.

  Doc looks up. “It must be hard, looking back.”

  I cross my legs, tipping my weight so I don’t stretch the scars on my side.

  “You were friends with Karyn?”

  “Yes, at least in the beginning. She moved to town in seventh grade. Back then I was friends with her and all of the girls, Doc. I was popular until the end of eighth grade. Sort of.”

  “And Matt?” he asks.

  “He went to a different middle school,” I explained. “His dad sent him to some private, rich-kid one in the next town over. He didn’t go to school with us until freshman year.”

  Doc looks at his notes, frowns. “So, what changed for you? What happened in the eighth grade?”

  I flap a hand to pretend I’m unfazed. “Just kids being kids,” I say. “What’s your point?”

  He sighs and removes his glasses, holding them up to the light. “Ashley, I can assure you that none of my questions are pointless. If we’re going to get through this today, you’re going to have to trust me to identify what is important and what is not.”

  Trust.

  Now there’s a word.

  Doc returns his glasses to his nose and stares at me.

  Okay, fine.

  “I’d been friends with all those people for years—Finn and Brooke were in elementar
y school with me and Matt. But by the eighth grade Matt was off at his fancy school and I was alone with the rest of them. I got sick of the games. Sick of feeling like I was always on the verge of being out. I wanted to impress the girls. I thought maybe they’d make me a real part of their circle if I did. So I told them a stupid lie.”

  Pause. “What was the lie?”

  I pick at the cuff of my hoodie. “I said I slept with Finn. He was dating Brooke at the time, but they were always fighting.”

  One Monday when I knew Finn and Matt had gotten together over the weekend, I told Terese I had snuck over to Finn’s house. I “proved” my story by telling them about a little birthmark Finn had in a place you could only see when he was naked. He told me and Matt about it one time when we were playing Truth or Dare.

  Brooke heard about it and asked one of the guys if the birthmark was real—which it was. Next thing I knew, the entire school was talking about it. Brooke broke up with Finn. Told the other girls he was a cheater. Blamed me. To get back at me, Finn told everyone we didn’t sleep together because when I showed up I was all mental and sex crazed. That I was lying to cover myself. Between them they turned everyone else against me. Once I realized no one thought I was cool for sleeping with him, I tried to apologize and admit it was a lie. But my proof was too good. No one wanted to believe the truth.

  Doc frowns. “Why did you start a rumor that cast yourself in such a negative light?”

  I throw up my hands in exasperation. “Because I was thirteen and stupid. Back then everyone was kind of in awe of the girls who slept with guys. I thought they’d think I was grown-up and cool, and then the whole thing would blow over. But they never let it go. Never. From that day on, I was the slutty freak.”

  “What did Matt think of all this?”

  I squirm. “Matt didn’t know the real story for a long time. I never told him why I stopped hanging out with Finn. And I guess Finn didn’t say anything, either. Matt didn’t notice until freshman year. When he came to high school, he realized me and Finn didn’t get along anymore.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He asked Finn what happened and Finn told him to talk to me. I told Matt it was just a fight and to forget about it. So he did.”

  He frowns harder. “How did that make you feel?”

  Oh, please. I look up so he can see I’m serious. “I felt relieved that Matt was still my friend since I’d lost everyone else.”

  “Ah,” Doc says, in that infuriating, knowing way shrinks have.

  “What?” I ask, too sharply.

  He eyes me over the frame of his glasses. “It just seems like Matt dating Karyn might have made you finally feel like you’d lost your last friend.”

  “Maybe.” I shrug, pulling at another loose thread on my cuff. Suddenly the whole hem comes undone.

  •••

  I drove Matt to the dance in silence. The whole car was filled with the smell of his aftershave, a crisp, piney scent that normally made me want to do nothing but close my eyes and inhale. Instead, I gritted my teeth and ground the gears.

  It wasn’t just the fact that Matt had a girlfriend—he was always dating someone. But usually I could tell it was coming. He’d ask about a girl. Find out if I knew anything about her. He’d work up the courage to ask her out, then I’d help him plan his first date so he could impress her. I’d listen to him gush about her for a few weeks. Then something would change. He’d stop talking about her as much. Hang out with me more. Start complaining about whatever she was doing that irritated him . . .

  It was a cycle we’d been repeating since freshman year. But now he’d broken it. He’d said nothing. Hidden her completely. So what was different? Was he more serious this time? About Karyn?

  Just get him to the dance. Then you can claim a headache and go home, I told myself. No questions, no declarations. Older Me would be thrilled.

  In ten minutes, we were there. Black Point High (“Home of the Bears!”) took up two whole blocks in our tiny town. It was bordered on all four sides by tall fences. Like a zoo. Three entrances—one at the front door, one at the cafeteria, and one at the gym—let seven hundred animals in every day. Rumor had it, the original building was an insane asylum, and Principal West’s office used to be the electric-shock room. I figured it was just a way for kids to freak each other out. But there were a large number of outlets behind West’s desk . . .

  I pulled into a parking spot and killed the engine. Matt started to open his door, but he paused, looking at me over his shoulder. “Ash? Are you coming?”

  Before I could reply, his door swung wide. “There you are!” sang an irritating little-girl voice.

  Karyn.

  Matt grinned. “Hey.”

  My heart squeezed painfully. That one syllable held more desire, more passion in it than every kind word he’d ever said to me combined.

  “You’re late,” Karyn squealed.

  “Sorry, got held up.” Matt pulled himself out of my car and wrapped his arms around her, his chin dropping to rest on the top of her head.

  You got held up by your abusive father, Matt. Tell her that. Oh, wait . . . mopping you up then watching you fall all over someone else is my job.

  I knew I was being unfair, but I could practically feel the letter nestled in my purse, never to see the light of day. Time to get home and burn it. I put my hand on the key, ready to turn it.

  “Hey, Ashley,” Karyn squeaked.

  “Hey, Karyn,” I said without looking up. But I guess my flat tone was the only clue she needed.

  “You told her? Finally!”

  “I told you I would,” Matt murmured sheepishly. “Don’t worry. It’s all good.”

  All good.

  Yeah, Matt. Sure. It was brilliant.

  “Great! So let’s go in and tell everybody else!” She tripped around the car and opened my door, like we were suddenly best friends. I was taken so off guard, she had me by the elbow and half out of my seat before I found my voice.

  “I actually have a bit of a headache—”

  She shook her head. “C’mon, Ashley, it’ll be fun. The three of us can hang out.”

  I turned, openmouthed, to Matt, silently asking Can’t you see through this? But he was too busy smiling at Karyn, and a moment later, she had each of us on an elbow, and we were crossing the parking lot to join the other students walking toward the main lobby entrance.

  A wave of panic trilled down my spine. It’ll be all right, I told myself. As soon as Matt and Karyn had everyone’s attention—which would take all of five seconds—I’d slip out the back door of the gym. Matt could get a ride home from his new girlfriend.

  “Hold my hand when we’re walking in so everybody knows,” Karyn said in a low voice, her cheek against Matt’s bicep. I stifled a groan.

  The second we walked through the main doors, everyone—and I do mean everyone—stopped what they were doing and turned to look at us. They looked from Matt, to Karyn, to their entwined hands, back to their faces.

  Brooke immediately stopped flirting with Eli, a lacrosse goalie with calves the size of watermelons. “I knew it!” she called, patting her glossy black waves.

  Karyn squealed again; Matt grinned like the farmer trotting out his prize hog as Brooke and Terese crowded around Karyn. Eli and a couple of other guys gathered in behind them, talking to Matt.

  “And I see you two brought your puppy!” Eli flicked his hair out of his eyes and clapped me on the shoulder. The entire circle laughed.

  “Says the guy wearing a choke collar,” I muttered. Eli wore the same wooden bead necklace every day. He swore it was good luck because the night he bought it, he’d lost his virginity.

  “Lay off, dude.” Matt shoved him good-naturedly.

  “That’s no puppy,” Brooke said quietly to Karyn and Terese. “That’s a pony.” Then she smiled at me. “Did you bring your bridle, Ashley?”

  I glanced at Matt, but he was too busy high-fiving Eli to notice the barb.

  Scre
w this. Ignoring the girls hushed voices and giggles, I turned on my heel and shouldered back through a crowd of freshman gawking at Matt and Karyn. I was out the front doors and almost to my car when I noticed Finn Patton leaning against the fence of the parking lot with several friends, discreetly sucking on a flask.

  Everything about Finn was angles and hard edges: the way his elbows poked out of his shirtsleeves like the ends of wire hangers. The spiky peaks of his intentionally messy dark hair. The sharp jut of his cheekbones. At first glance he seemed lanky, almost skinny. But when he curled his arms, ropes of granite muscle twisted under his skin.

  Finn pushed away from the fence and gave me an awful half grin. “Hey, C! You made it!”

  His gaze locked with mine, and I imagined plowing my fist into that smug smile. “C” was the first letter in the word he’d been suspended for calling me the semester before. “What, were they out of dog food at home? I’m sure I saw a couple of biscuits around here somewhere.”

  “Grow up, Finn.” I pulled my chin up and stalked toward my car.

  At the last second I saw his foot sliding out to catch mine. I twisted, tried to step over it. But he just lifted it higher to catch me at the ankle. Muttering a curse, I grabbed his shirt as I toppled and pulled him down, too. I landed hard on my tailbone. My purse skittered across the cement, the contents bursting out like confetti. Half a second later, all the air left my lungs as Finn landed on top of me.

  Wolf whistles, applause, and laughter echoed in the darkness.

  “Get a room!” someone called.

  Finn’s face was barely an inch from mine, black eyes glittering. He reeked like an ashtray. He swore and rolled off me, landing a vicious elbow in my ribs in the process. Then he was on his feet, shouting, “I’ve been molested! Call the police!”

  My tailbone throbbed. It took a second to get to my hands and knees. Laughter still bubbled from the guys as Finn knelt down over the scattered contents of my purse—my keys, a tube of lip gloss, a few receipts—and came up with a tampon.

  “So, it’s true,” he said, holding up the purple tube. “You really are a chick.”

  I grabbed it from him and shoved the items back in my bag. As soon as I was upright, Finn stood too.