Free Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate Page B

anything about my life on the weekends. For a second I sit there, my lip curling. “Wow,” I say, finally. “I . . . wow.”
    García calls out, “All right, back to your seats, everyone.”
    I head back to my desk and fume until the bell rings.
    I’m the first one out the door, and I seethe all the way through the halls into the old wing. I smack into Juniper in front of our sixth period, French.
    â€œWhat’s up?” she asks as we head to our row. “You look like someone insulted
Return of the Jedi
.”
    â€œNo, I just—I talked to Matt Jackson for the first time. García gave us this project, and we’re paired up for it.”
    Juniper pats my shoulder. “My deepest sympathies.”
    â€œSympathies accepted. He is so . . .” I make a clenching motion with both hands. “Oh my God, infuriating, is what.”
    Juni laughs. “What’d he say?”
    â€œHe was normal until we were talking about the election, andthen he got all bitchy and just, holy shit.” I crack my knuckles. “One of us has to win, Juni. He’s not allowed to win. Okay? Deal?”
    â€œDeal, I suppose. Although I thought you wanted to drop out.”
    â€œI did until, like, forty-five minutes ago.” I flick my hair out of my eyes. “Now I want to win out of sheer spite.”
    â€œNaturally.” Juniper strokes an imaginary goatee, looking sagely into the distance. “You know what they say. ‘Three things last forever: faith, hope, and spite. And the greatest of these is spite.’”
    I laugh so hard I have to put my head down on my desk.

BETWEEN SIXTH AND SEVENTH PERIOD, I PASS BY ONE of the student-government lists I taped between rows of lockers. A flash of red catches my eye, and I glance up at it. Somebody has taken a pen to Olivia’s name. Now it reads: OLIVIA SCOTT SUCKS DICKKKK!!
    I roll my eyes and keep walking.
    Halfway down the hall, I realize I should have taken that list down, or at least scratched out the graffiti. Why didn’t it occur to me to do that? God, I’m the worst friend.
    I stop at my locker, loosing a sigh. The way Olivia bounces from guy to guy these days, I can’t get away from references to her sex life. It’s wearing on me—the graffiti, all the talk in the halls, the muttered conversations I overhear in class.
    This stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum—if you sleep around, people think about you differently. Maybe it’s shitty, but that’s the way things work, and Olivia knows it as well as I do. I’ve never spoken up. It’s not like I condone her sleeping around, and insults have always seemed to roll off her back, so why should I bother interfering?
    Still, I have a sneaking feeling that it makes me a terribleperson not to stick up for her. A lot of the time, I worry that I am a terrible person and just haven’t had it confirmed yet. After all, how are you supposed to know for sure? Who’s going to tell you? Who’s going to be the one to break the news?
    I scoop up my Young Environmentalists brochures and continue down the hall. Why are all my friends going off the rails lately? Juniper has the alcohol tolerance of a five-year-old, but last Saturday she shotgunned three beers in a row for no apparent reason and ended up wasted. Olivia guessed it was because Thomas Fallon kept hitting on her and she was getting annoyed, but I think if Juni wanted some guy to leave her alone, she’d tell him.
    She’d tell
us
if something was wrong, right?
    Maybe it’s good that she’s loosening up, making mistakes. That’s how you learn, isn’t it, through mistakes? Maybe Juni’s tired of doing everything right.
    Heading back down the hall, I pass Andrea Silverstein. A couple of guys beside me wait until she’s gone and then start snickering about the streak of green dye at the front of her hair.
    As always, I feel like I