Cancelled, p.3
Cancelled, page 3
That had crossed my mind. Duncan and I might be adults in the eyes of the law, but we’re still in high school. Even if someone did think it was me, why would they think spreading that video was okay? And worse, what if the real person is underage?
“The Snapchat user already deactivated their account,” I say.
“They’ll have to seriously look into it. Open up an investigation,” she says firmly. “And, honey, this whole situation will die down. I promise. You just need to give it time.”
Those words don’t dissolve the hard lump in my throat. “Everyone thinks I did something I didn’t do.”
“But you didn’t, and you’re going to have to stand your ground.” She raises an eyebrow. “Speaking of, I am going to have to ground you. Drinking at a party, Brynn? You know better.”
I rip the bag off my head. “Can you please feel sorry for me and give me a pass?”
“Absolutely not. You were supposed to come straight home.”
I groan. I did not think today could get any worse. “I’m sorry.”
“I have rules for a reason. To keep you out of trouble.”
She might as well have said to keep you from being like your brother. Unlike him, I’ve never touched drugs, but it’s as if she fears I might pick up his habits.
“Duncan will tell the truth. He has no reason not to,” she assures me, then begins to unload the groceries she’d left sitting on the counter. “Go shower. You’ll feel better after, I promise. And I’ll email the dean while you’re in there.”
She’s right. Normally showers make me feel like I’ve removed an extra layer of skin, shedding my anxiety cocoon like a caterpillar. I head to our shared bathroom and twist the temperature knob as hot as it will go, but once I undress and stick my leg inside, the water is still freezing. I wait, hoping it will take a bit more time to turn warm, but it never does.
So things can get worse.
Holding my breath, I force my body into the shower and let the cold water rush over me. It’s shocking. The opposite of pleasant. Shivering, I complete the world’s fastest hair-and-body wash and jump out as goose bumps erupt all over my skin.
“That was quick,” my mom says when I open the door.
I am truly the bearer of bad news today. “I think the hot water heater’s out.”
She sets a jar of salsa down a little too hard. “Really?”
“At least you won’t need coffee to wake you up,” I say through chattering teeth.
My mom’s too stressed to laugh. Instead, she mumbles something to herself and goes out to the garage. I go to my room and change, and a few minutes later, we regroup in the living room.
“You’re right. It’s out.” She runs a hand through her dark hair. It’s thick and wavy, the same as mine. “There’s always something wrong here, huh?”
My mom likes to believe our house is cursed, but it’s just old. We inherited it after my granddad died when I was eight. Compared to the giant mansions that have been built in the neighborhood, it’s a modest three-bedroom, one-bathroom. The inheritance is why we’re able to live in such a nice neighborhood in Pacific Palisades, which is known for being wealthy, white, and somewhat of a hot spot for Hollywood filming locations.
She’s not wrong, though. Last month, the bathroom sink needed fixing because of a plumbing issue. In August, our AC unit stopped working and had to be replaced. In July, she was late paying the electric bill and not only did we have to scrounge up money to pay the fee to turn it back on, but we were stuck in the dark for three days.
This is why my side hustle is important. Because, inevitably, something will need fixing. And it’s my extra income that saves us. Always. She needs a job that pays better, but she’s gotten a string of rejections so far.
“At least we’ll be saving water?” I offer, recognizing I’d bathed in less than two minutes. That has to be a record.
My mom lets out a disgruntled noise.
“We’ll pull from my savings,” I say breezily, like it doesn’t feel like a gut punch.
She bites her lip. “I hate to do that.”
I don’t say anything. What other choice do we have?
She makes the call, but the cheapest handyman we know can’t come for a few days. I don’t dwell on it. Cold showers are the least of my problems right now.
“I never finished cry-and-pie,” I say, changing the subject.
My mom takes a bar stool next to me. “What kind of pie were you planning?”
“Apple,” I tell her, mostly because we have a few in the fridge that are about to go bad.
“Well,” she says with a positive trill to her voice, “it appears as if we’re going to have apple pie for breakfast.”
My mom pulls the ingredients from the fridge as I get back to my dough, piling it in a giant lump and starting over. The consistency is better the second time around, a reminder that I’m freaking great at fixing things. It’s what will get me into Stanford. I find solutions to problems. It doesn’t matter that Duncan’s scandal is slowly destroying my life, because I’m going to find my way out of it.
As my mom places the pie in the oven, I notice her phone light up on the counter beside me. My brother’s name appears in an incoming text.
I know what Smith wants, and my heart sinks. Because my mom will easily give him all the tips she’s earned today. She won’t mention the replacement water heater we need, letting him live in ignorance.
It’s not fair, but I’m used to it. I’ve tried to heal from the lasting damage of Smith, because even your own family will disappoint you. He’s let us down, again and again, and no matter how much emotional armor I use to protect my heart, a piece of me will always care.
I can fix a lot of things. I just can’t fix him.
When she turns back around, I dart my eyes away from her phone, pretending I haven’t seen. Letting her believe I’m living in my own ignorance.
3
“She only wants what she can’t have.”
“Getting Duncan Rowe was like a game for her.”
“I was going to ask her to help me talk to Henry, but I don’t support whores.”
I give myself a pep talk as I get dressed Monday morning. Unfortunately for me, my classmates have started spamming the banana emoji in my DMs. Which is great. Fine. Lovely. Definitely not detrimental to my fragile emotional state.
It is deeply painful that they’re blaming me and not Duncan, even though he’s the one who cheated on his girlfriend.
He never replied to my messages, so I need to find him at school and force him to tell the truth. I don’t know why he hasn’t already, but everything will be fine once he does. I’ll go back to being Stanford-bound Brynn instead of banana-whore Brynn.
I should have looked harder for that Shrek costume.
When you go to a selective preparatory school like Greenlough, labels are unavoidable. Some of my classmates already think I’m an attention-seeker or that I like the thrill of the chase. The latter is true, but I’m not a threat to those who have boyfriends, especially Lenora.
Sure, I like flirting—the instant gratification of it—but it’s not a game. My intention is never to hurt anyone. Even with my side hustle, I keep a strict privacy policy to foster trust and to minimize blowback.
I grab my one and only navy cardigan from my closet and yank it on. Greenlough’s uniform policy requires girls to wear a blouse with a tartan color-blocked pleated skirt containing multiple shades of gray, navy, and light blue, like the ocean on a cloudy day.
Marlowe’s two minutes away. I go out front and wait for her, and when she pulls up, I slowly—and with a bit of dramatic flair—drop to my hands and knees right in front of her car, then proceed to roll onto my back so that I’m staring into the sun.
Marlowe sticks her head out the window to get a better look at me. “I am not running you over.”
“It’ll only take you two seconds to put me out of my misery,” I counter.
“Can’t do that. I’ll miss you eating all the Eggos in my freezer when you sleep over.”
I lift my head up, squinting. “That’s my legacy?”
“Not all of us die heroes.”
I sigh, then push myself into a standing position. As I get in her car, she cranks up Harry Styles.
“You’re going to get through this,” she tells me.
“You know, you could have gently run over my arm. Or leg. Not all the way. Just a little.”
“What happens when I have to drive you to the hospital? Do I say, ‘Actually, doctor, she asked me to run her over, but just a little’?”
I slump in my seat.
“Hey,” she says gently. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I wish they knew that,” I moan. “The amount of banana emojis in my DMs is astronomical.”
She grabs my hand, twisting her fingers through mine. All of her braided friendship bracelets we made for each other over the last few years fall toward her wrist.
“Duncan will clear this up,” she says, certain.
I don’t know Duncan Rowe very well, but I know the person he portrays to the outside world: Football star. Eighth-grade spelling bee champion. The freshman who accidentally broke his middle finger when he slammed it in a car door and had to wear a cast for two months. The guy who—up until Saturday—was in love with his girlfriend, Lenora.
Clearing this up and getting back in her good graces should be at the top of his list, so why didn’t he text me back?
Marlowe slides into an empty parking spot in the senior lot. Once we’re out of the car, she links arms with me and marches us straight through the double doors.
Greenlough Academy radiates a prestigious vibe. It’s an enormous Spanish-style white building with red corrugated roofing surrounded by cypress trees for privacy. There’s a grassy courtyard in the center that’s sprinkled with wooden picnic tables. Inside, bright fluorescents glint off the immaculate white-and-gray speckled floor tiles. The doors, lockers, and walls all blend effortlessly in neutral tones, a perfect complement to the elegant wood trimming that sits just above the rows of lockers. Even the fancy garbage bins look like they’ve been thoughtfully chosen by someone who majored in interior design.
Even though Greenlough is a selective school, they like to boast that they’re progressive. They use words like accepting and community in their pamphlets, and while it’s true there are a plethora of diverse organizations and clubs, it also means you get a mix of students who don’t all think the same way.
These students tend to group together in smaller circles, like Faith Tobinson with her church friends and her pastor’s son boyfriend, John Mark, or your green-thumb environmentalists who find gardening opportunities over the weekends. Tahlia, Marlowe, and I fall in the striving-academia crowd.
As predicted, my dear classmates begin staring at me as soon as we reach our lockers. It’s jarring, the type of hurt that strikes me right in my core. I’ve never experienced this level of nasty glare before. My heart thuds violently in my chest, and my legs feel like pudding. I desperately want to scream, YOU ARE EXTREMELY INCORRECT IN THINKING I HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS!
My spiraling thoughts are interrupted by the intercom.
“Brynn Whitaker to the front office.”
Marlowe’s eyes snap to mine. I expected this. My mom emailed Dean McTiernan yesterday explaining my side and insisting he take this matter seriously. He must be paging me to talk in person.
“Let’s get this over with,” I mumble.
Marlowe gives me an encouraging smile. “It’ll be okay.”
I nod, but my heart jackhammers in my chest as I go. I try to ignore the not-so-subtle stares of my peers as I pass, my confidence sinking with each step.
When I reach the main office, I practically burst through the double glass doors. Mrs. Veerly, Greenlough’s administrative assistant, spares me a quick glance from behind her computer. She waves me toward McTiernan’s office.
Swallowing, I knock on his door.
“Come in.”
I hesitantly push it open. Dean McTiernan sits at his large oak desk, eyes fixed on the computer in front of him. He has ghost-white hair and a complexion that nearly matches it, so different from the framed photos of him in his physics classes he taught forty years ago. He’s in his seventies now, old enough to remember decades’ worth of graduates, and yet he still somehow remembers every current student’s name.
“Right, then. Please take a seat,” McTiernan says, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses.
Silently, I slip into the chair across from him.
He studies me before saying, “I called you here for two reasons today, Miss Whitaker. As you know, here at Greenlough, we hold our students to the highest standard of conduct. What you do outside of here reflects upon our academy, and unfortunately that has been reflected in your actions.”
He cannot be serious.
“It wasn’t me,” I insist, hating I even have to clarify. “I have that same costume, but I didn’t—”
He raises his hand, stopping me. “Miss Whitaker, we have proof that you brought a flask into Greenlough’s Halloween dance. One parent emailed me photos that were taken by a student who attended.”
My jaw drops. I did not bring a flask to Greenlough’s Halloween dance. I’m on scholarship. I wouldn’t jeopardize that by doing something so risky.
But.
I did take a tiny sip from a flask in secret. Yeah, maybe not my smartest move, but it was being passed around in the privacy of the restroom, away from the suspicious eyes of the chaperones.
Which means one of my classmates intentionally took a photo and reported me.
I attempt to swallow my shock. “Who?”
“That’s irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, you’ve deliberately broken one of our rules.” His mouth sets into a firm line. “We can’t let this go unpunished.”
Punishment. The word hits me hard in the chest. I close my eyes and wait for him to lay on the bad news. He’s going to expel me. Take away my scholarship. I’m going to have to explain to Stanford why I transferred to a new school during my last semester of senior year. I’ll have to clean out my locker as everyone watches—
“Detention. After school today.”
I exhale, instantly relieved. I’m not being expelled!
But wait. Oh god. No, no, no. Detention is not good. Stanford can look into that, can’t they?
“Greenlough will honor your scholarship as long as you don’t cause any more trouble for the rest of the year,” McTiernan continues. “We’re being exceptionally generous considering you signed the Greenlough Standard of Conduct that states you are to uphold a certain standard of excellence. I don’t want to see you step out of line again, Miss Whitaker. I’m already reconsidering writing you that letter of recommendation.”
Panic closes around my throat. I feel like someone’s shoved me out of a plane without a parachute. This can’t be happening. I need that letter, and more importantly, I cannot have a detention on my record. If Stanford sees that, I’m screwed.
So that’s exactly what I say. I don’t even care that I’m groveling at this point.
He must see the pained, pleading look in my eyes, because he relents. “You’re a good student, Miss Whitaker. One of our best. It’s why I promised you that letter in the first place, but you have to earn it.” He taps on the detention slip in front of him. “I won’t let this affect your record, but you’ll still have to go.”
Relief slowly unclenches from the pit in my stomach. “And the letter?”
He studies me carefully. “If you don’t step out of line for the rest of the semester, the letter is yours.”
I promise that I won’t. I don’t want McTiernan to retract his offer. As a Stanford alum, his letter wields a ton of power. He offers it to one student a year, and he’s selected me. I cannot mess up this opportunity.
“Now, the second thing.” He peers down at me. “I’ve received a number of complaints from parents about a video that’s been distributed to students, and I want you to know we are looking into it. Trust me, this is not something we’re taking lightly.”
“It wasn’t me,” I repeat for the second time, growing defensive. “Everyone thinks it is, but it’s not.”
“I believe you,” he assures me. “Your mother explained this to me in her email as well. I’m sorry this has happened. It’s not the type of exemplary behavior we expect from students.”
“I plan to force Duncan to clear things up,” I say. As soon as I flick him in the forehead a couple hundred times as revenge for my suffering.
“I will also be talking to Mr. Rowe today, and I’m going to suggest to you what I plan on telling him.” He slides my detention slip over to me, followed by something else. “A pass to visit Mrs. Burchill, our guidance counselor. I know students can be cruel, Miss Whitaker, and I’d hate to see such a terrible situation negatively affect those involved.”
“Oh,” I say, caught off guard. Because technically, I’m not involved. This is all one giant mistake, but I take both slips anyway. “That won’t be necessary, but thanks.”
McTiernan prattles on as if he hadn’t heard me. “Present it to your teacher if you feel the need to pay her a visit during class.”
“Right,” I say, already certain it won’t be worth my time. By the end of the day, Duncan will have cleared everything up and my reputation will be restored to its former glory.
Before I leave, McTiernan reminds me that the school is committed to absolving the issue and providing a firm punishment, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
By the time I’m dismissed, I’m already twenty minutes late to Gov-ernment. I’m exiting the office as Duncan rounds the corner, arriving for his visit.
I decide the dean can wait a few minutes.
