Mean Girls. Louise Rozett

goes any further.”

      I was baffled. “My interest in either one of them? I don’t … What?”

      Madison looked earnestly at me. “You already know Max was with Becca before she went missing. But what you might not know is that he was crazy in love with her. And so was Johnny.”

      Johnny had loved Becca?

      Julia took over. “But Max and Becca were so in love. He said he wanted to marry her and everything. She tried to break up with him a hundred times, and he always begged for her back.”

      I found it hard to picture Max begging anyone for anything.

      “If they were so in love, why did she try to break up with him so many times?”

      They were silent for a few seconds, but then Madison spoke. “I really think they would have gotten married. And if—and when—she comes back … they’ll definitely get back together.”

      “We just don’t want you to get hurt,” Julia explained.

      “We don’t want that at all.”

      “And if Johnny does have any interest in you, it’s kind of weird.”

      My stomach was slowly plummeting. I didn’t even know him. “Weird, why weird?”

      “I mean … she was the new girl last year. Now you’re here … in her room….”

      “You even kind of look like her,” Julia said. She observed me for a moment and clearly decided that if I did indeed look like Becca, I was a much less attractive version. “No wonder he likes you.”

      I froze. “I’ve only had a few conversations with him. I’m not trying to … anything.”

      “But we also don’t want you to misread anything Max might say or do. He’s protective of girls, so if he talks to you it’s probably just him trying to make you feel better about how everyone is talking about you.”

      “Is everyone talking about me?”

      I wanted to go home.

      The two girls stared blankly at me.

      “Look,” I said, sparing them the duty of having to say yes, “I won’t go near either of them.”

      “Do you promise?” Madison asked. “It’s really for your own good.”

      “Yes. I’m—I’ve gotta go.”

      I went back into my room. I wished I could run farther. It seemed suddenly to be a horrible idea, sleeping in the school you go to. Everyone was everywhere, every second of every day. And in high school, that’s pretty much the fastest way to lose your sanity.

      I didn’t even know what I wanted, and Madison and Julia were assuring me that anything I might consider was out of the question. I couldn’t put one toe onto Becca’s property. Max could never like me. Johnny might, but I was supposed to know it was creepy. I got it. I wasn’t going to start “going after” anyone. I never had, and I wasn’t going to start now.

      I sat down on my own bed, breathing hard. I looked straight across from me at all the many smiling faces of Becca, Becca and Max, Becca and Max kissing, Becca and Johnny, one of the three of them and Becca and the rest of her friends.

      “Are you upset?”

      I almost jumped at the sound of Dana’s voice. “Yes. I’m upset.”

      “Why?”

      “I’d rather not talk about it with you?”

      Um. Obviously.

      “Does it have to do with Max? I saw how you looked at him. You have feelings for him.”

      “No, okay, I don’t.”

      “You better not, because—”

      “Because he was madly in love with Becca—I get it, okay?”

      “Is. He is in love with Becca. She’s not gone. She’s not dead. I wish everyone would try to remember that every once in a while.” Dana threw down Coping. “Max and Becca are meant for each other … you couldn’t even begin to understand! Anything she did … it was just—She’ll come back and it’ll be for him, not for anyone else!”

      Dana had gone from less than zero to over a hundred in five seconds flat.

      “I didn’t mean to imply that she’s definitely gone or … or anything!”

      “Yes, you did!” Dana’s eyes were wide and scary. She looked crazed. “And you don’t even know her! I knew her, okay? She’ll be back, nothing happened to her!”

      “Okay!”

      “No! She will! You have to understand that. And you’ll understand why no one will ever see you how they saw her, so you can just stop trying. Her hair? Her face? Her body? She’s physically better than you. Her hair is shinier and lighter, she doesn’t have stupid little freckles all over her face like you do, and she’s taller than you.”

      I didn’t even know what to say. This was baffling. She just went on and on.

      “And that’s just physically. But otherwise? Everybody loves her. She started everyone going down to the boathouse to have parties. She came up with that. She’s fun, and you’re drab. You and your hippie lifestyle—”

      “Hippie lifestyle? Are you kidding?”

      “Yes, you’re all tan and your hair’s all wavy, you’re always wearing flip-flops and beat-up jeans—you’re trying so hard to look like some kind of ad for Sex Wax. How much do you spend a year on self-tanner and highlights? How much of your life have you spent trying to look like you’re not trying?”

      “I …”

      It was impossible to defend. This was crazy. For one small and pretty irrelevant thing, I actually really didn’t use self-tanner. It was something my mom was always reprimanding me for. And as for my hair, it was the one thing I really liked about myself. I never highlighted it or colored it, and it always got lighter in the summer. But I couldn’t insist that to a crazy person. I couldn’t engage in this. And she was grief stricken. I wanted to understand her but she was making it impossible.

      “Becca will come back,” she threatened, “and then you’ll see. If anyone is giving you any kind of second look right now, you’ll see how quickly that goes away, because you could never compare to her. You’ll never be as good as her. You’ll never be as pretty. You’ll never have what she has.”

      That was it. I whipped around, and my hands were moving of their own volition. I was pulling thumbtacks out of the wall and gathering the pictures of perfect little Becca and hurling them at Dana.

      “Stop it!” Horror was filling her eyes, and seemingly paralyzing her where she stood. “Becca put those there! You put them back!” She was screaming now, reminding me of that scene in Lord of the Rings when that blonde girl goes from beautiful to a big computer-graphic monster.

      “No! You take these. Put them up on your own damn wall if you want to. Put them in a box for when and if she comes to pick them up, but I am not going to stare at these pictures anymore.” I threw the last of them on the floor and then threw the thumbtacks at her closet. It may have been the most violent act I’d ever made. “This is my bed. This is my shelf—” I picked up the remaining four picture frames “—and this shit is not mine.”

      “You bitch. You fucking bitch!”

      “I don’t care what you think. I’m sorry you’re worried about your friend. I really, truly am. But you will not belittle me and my life because of it.”

      I grabbed my wallet and key and left the room, slamming the door. I shouldn’t