Mean Girls: New Girl / Confessions of an Angry Girl / Here Lies Bridget / Speechless

“Miss Tobias!”

Professor Crawley, in khakis and a Harvard sweatshirt, was standing and breathing hard at the bottom of the stairs. Susan turned around when he called her name. “Stop running, I’ve already seen you—all of you—so just stop running.”

Susan Tobias was trembling and white as a sheet. “P-please, Mr. Crawley, I—I … My p-parents will kill me!”

“Come with me, and we might be able to work something out.” He ushered her with his hand. “There are only, what, five hundred students at this school? I know who you all are.”

He looked up and caught eyes with me. He crooked his finger to beckon me downstairs.

“We might have been out of bed after curfew, but she just snuck out of the boys’ dorms!” Susan was saying as I descended the stairs.

My heart was pounding. I hated getting caught doing anything. It always mortified me.

“You come with me, too,” he said, once I was next to them.

He led us through two heavy wooden doors and down a hallway. He switched on the lights and opened his office door with a key. “Sit.”

He indicated the seats across from his own, where he sat.

“I’m sorry, I—”

Professor Crawley cut me off. “I’ll talk to you in a second.” He turned toward Susan. “Miss Tobias. You’ve had a lot of detentions lately, haven’t you?” He turned on his computer and typed her name into a search box. “Yes, you have. Six in the past three months. I’m not going to ask you what’s going on. I just need you to stop messing up. You’re going to interfere with your own chances of getting into Northwestern. Also, I hate being dragged out of bed.”

“Yes, Professor Crawley. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to your future if you screw it up.”

“Yes, Professor Crawley.”

He gave a nod. “Go on to bed now.”

“Thank you, Professor Crawley,” she said quietly, before walking out the door and leaving us alone.

“So what happened with you? The boys’ dorms, really? This surprises me.”

“I wasn’t doing anything—I just had to talk to Max. Holloway. Max Holloway. I had to talk to him about something.”

“Couldn’t wait until the morning?”

I shook my head. My eyes suddenly started to burn, and I surprised myself by getting the urge to cry.

“What’s goin’ on?”

I shook my head and fought back the tears. “I don’t even know. I’m just so frustrated. I feel like all he thinks about is Her, and everyone’s always talking about it—Becca this, and Becca that—and I’m just not trying to be her—I don’t want what she had. Well, I mean, I do, I want him but that’s just a coincidence, it wasn’t on purpose. And everyone thinks it is, I feel like. And I went home and even Michael knew. Michael! He doesn’t know anything, and yet he knew about Her. And then we got in that big fight, and it’s just like even if I wanted to, I can’t even go home, and I don’t want to go to school with Leah anymore, because she’s just … ugh sometimes, you know? Plus then every time I go up to my room here, there’s Dana, just waitin’ to be weird as hell. Blake’s nice and everything, so that’s cool, and I mean, you know, sometimes it really does feel like Max likes me. But why does Dana care so much? It’s like I get sticking up for your friend, but … And what if she really comes back? Not that I don’t want her to be okay or anything.” I took a deep breath. I’d been staring at a spot on the desk, my words getting faster and more high-pitched as I spoke. I looked up at Professor Crawley and shook my head again. “I’m sorry.”

“Quite all right,” he said.

“I’m okay. Really. Like … all that stuff is just pissing me off. It’s not like I’m troubled or anything.”

“No, I understand perfectly well what you’re saying. I don’t know that I understood half of what you said, but I get that you’re frustrated. But you’re okay, you say?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded, and then opened his mouth to say something before closing it again. He leaned in on his desk and looked at me. “Listen. Kids your age love to obsess. Half of them didn’t even know Becca. But once she was missing, they all appropriated the pain and suffering. It’s just what people do. Also, they’ve idolized her. They took her from being a normal human being, and turned her into some kind of deity of popularity. I’m not saying anything negative about Miss Normandy. But you just have to remember that no one is perfect. Not even her.”

“Right. I’ll remember that.”

“All right. Feel better.”

“Thanks.” I stood to leave.

“Oh, and don’t sneak into the boys’ dorms again. If you want gossip started about you, that’s the fastest way to get it.”

When I got to my hall, I saw that almost all the doors were open, and everyone was talking.

“What happened?” I asked Madison when I saw her standing against a wall, her hand over her mouth.

“We should have known this would happen eventually.” She was shaking her head and looking upset.

“What happened?”

“Someone else was watching the tapes.”

Julia took over. “There’s this … slow guy who works with the security team, and he usually watches at night. Becca cut some deal with him last year. He usually points the cameras away for a little while or something. I guess he wasn’t the one watching tonight, or something. Or maybe he just doesn’t care anymore.”

Madison wiped the black tears from her cheeks. “At least last year he listened to Becca.”

“Listened to her how?”

Julia shrugged. “I don’t know, she talked to him one time and he agreed to keep quiet about seeing us walk down to the boathouse and everything on the other cameras. He works the overnight shifts on weekends. It was really convenient.”

I’d had no idea I’d been risking so much by going down to the boathouse those few times. I thought it … well, I guess I never thought about it.

“That sucks.” I tried to look sympathetic. “Anyway. I’m going to bed. I’m sorry you guys got in trouble.”

I pushed open my door and went in, threw off my clothes without bothering to find pajamas, and crawled into my stiff bed. A few minutes later, Dana came in. She said nothing, but started laughing. I lay there, without acknowledging her, until she sighed and went silent.

Welcome back to Manderley.

chapter 22 me

THE DINING HALL THE NEXT DAY WAS AWASH with “FIND BECCA” T-shirts.

I spotted my usual table easily in the sea of pink. I sat next to Blake, and ignored Max.

“Does it ever stop being cold here?” I asked, at a loss for anything else to say.

“Usually in April or May,” said Blake. “So did you hear about the bust last night? Cam and I almost went!”