Day Seventeen: Wednesday
"I seriously can't believe you, Vicky!"
Alisha said internally while on the bus ride to school.
"It had to be done."
"No it didn't! You didn't need to do any of that!"
"Hey, I'm not the one who agreed that you "owed him one" in class yesterday,"
said Vicky.
"That was all you. I just paid it for you."
"You could have at least asked me first! Now he'll probably go and tell everyone that we... that we..."
"Fucked?"
said Vicky.
"Well, yea."
"Say it Lish. Say it."
"...we fucked."
"That's my little Lish, getting a bit more vulgar every day!"
"But now what do we do?
" asked Alisha.
"We go to school like it's a normal day,"
said Vicky.
"And when you see Evan, and you will see him, you pretend like nothing happened. And look on the bright side, his phone is now clean of evidence about Jackie!"
"I... yea, I guess."
Alisha mostly rode in silence the rest of the trip to school. She overheard a few students from the back of the bus talking about the Jackie videos, "Van" was still a topic of discussion for yet another day."
***
"Hi Alisha," Evan said as Alisha entered the history classroom, his voice much more cheerful than usual.
"H- Hey Evan," said Alisha, trying to pretend as if nothing happened the night before.
"And how are you doing this fine morning?" he asked as Alisha took her seat beside him.
"Fine," said Alisha, trying not to make eye contact.
"Oh, I see," said Evan. "So that's how we're playing this."
"Vicky..." said Alisha. "A little help?"
"Stare at him," said Vicky. "Make sure he knows we're the ones in charge, not him. Then ask him "playing what?" as if nothing ever happened."
Alisha tried her best to follow Vicky's advice. She turned and stared at Evan, doing her best to give a disapproving glare. After a few seconds of staring at him, she continued with Vicky's advice, and asked him "playing what?" to insinuate that nothing ever happened between them. Which in Alisha's mind, wasn't exactly a lie, since it wasn't actually her in control at the time.
"Gotcha," said Evan, turning his attention back to his desk. "DL."
"Very," said Alisha.
"Ok, Vicky, now what?"
Alisha asked.
"What do you mean, now what?"
said Vicky.
"He's not giving you any more trouble, is he?"
"No... but -"
"But nothing. He knows now to play it cool, so you should too. Nothing happened, end of story."
"Ok... I'll try."
More students filed into the classroom as it quickly filled up for the morning. Mr. Weise entered the classroom a few minutes late, the classroom getting rowdy in his absence.
"Attention class," said Mr. Weise. "Today we are going to change things up. Instead of me talking, we're going to start with silent reading. Open up to chapter three, and silently read. Later, we'll discuss the content. And Mr. Lang?"
"Yes?" said Colin, caught off-guard he'd been singled out.
"Report to the office at once, they're expecting you."
Most of the class got right to reading, but both Evan and Alisha watched Colin as he put his books back in his bag. Seeming nervous, he put his bag over his shoulder, and left the room.
"How fucked you think he is?" Evan whispered as he leaned over towards Alisha.
"I... I dunno," said Alisha.
"Hopefully not at all," said Evan.
"Why do you hope for that?" Alisha asked, slightly confused.
"Think about it, if he gets off completely free, everyone else has nothing to worry about. But if he gets fucked over, a bunch of others likely will too."
"Do you think that will happen?"
"Ms. Oliver," said Mr. Weise. "I said silent reading, not chatting at the back."
"Sorry," said Alisha.
Evan and Alisha exchanged looks, knowing that depending on how things with Colin were about to go could impact them.
***
"Jackie's definitely not here today," said Rachel.
"I don't blame her," said Toni. "Think she was told not to come, or do you think her parents kept her home?"
"I don't know," said Rachel. "Either way, the situation isn't going away any time soon. I heard a few people still talking about it in my math class this morning."
"Same goes for my biology class," said Toni. "I'm guessing you haven't heard anything, Alisha?"
"Like, today?" asked Alisha.
"Like at all," said Toni.
"I... I heard a few people talking at the back of the bus," Alisha said.
"And the conversation with your mother, Lish,"
Vicky added.
"And... there was the conversation with my mom," Alisha said.
"What happened?" asked Rachel.
"What do I say?"
Alisha asked Vicky.
"The truth,"
said Vicky.
"That Jackie blamed you for her sexual escapades."
"That's it?"
"That's it, Lish."
"When I got home, my mom had a talk with me," said Alisha. "Jackie told her mom I'm the reason she was having all the sex. Her mom told my mom, and my mom sat me down when I got home to talk about it."
"That's so messed up!" said Toni. "How are you responsible for it?"
"Yea, no kidding," said Rachel. "You're like the last person who could ever be responsible for something like that!"
"Yea..." said Alisha. "But that's what she said."
While Alisha felt nervous and guilty at her friends' reactions, she couldn't help but feel somewhat comforted by how quickly they sided with her. Rachel in particular was seeming almost red in the face.
"She is so dead when I see her next," said Rachel. "She goes around leading a secret double life and tries to blame it on you."
"Make sure to save some for me," added Toni. "No one talks like that about my friends."
"Holy fuck, Lish! That worked almost too well!"
said Vicky.
"I know, but now I feel -"
"How you feel doesn't matter right now,"
said Vicky.
"Thank your friends, before it gets weird."
"I... thanks," said Alisha. "How about we just let everyone else figure things out before we do something we shouldn't."
"Yea, you're probably right," said Toni. "But she's completely dead to me though."
"Same," said Rachel. "Let's keep each other up to date on the group chat if we hear anything more."
"Yes," said Toni. "I will."
"I will too," said Alisha. "But we should get back to class, break is almost over."
"Yea. See you both at lunch?" Toni asked.
"You bet!" said Rachel.
The two girls turned and walked back to their classrooms; Alisha started back towards hers as well.
"Couldn't handle things, so you sent them back to their classes?"
Vicky asked.
"No, classes are about to start again soon!"
The sound of the bell rang out through the halls as Alisha continued walking.
"See, Lish! Now the bell rang. You panicked, and told everyone to go early."
"Fine, I did, ok?"
said Alisha.
"You try being told by your best friends you did nothing wrong when you actually did."
"But you didn't,"
said Vicky.
"If you remember, it was actually me who did it, not you."
"It doesn't matter though! No one will believe me if I said I had you in my head anyways!"
"True,"
said Vicky.
"And you should be careful with saying things like "you try" with me, I might just take that as an invitation by you to be in charge for a while."
***
"Well, looks like they let him out," said Alisha.
Rachel and Toni turned to the direction Alisha was looking across the lunch room.
"Who are we looking for?" Toni asked.
"Colin," said Alisha. "He got called to the office this morning.
The girl's attention moved two tables over, where they saw Colin joining his friends, Evan being one of them. Evan seemed to have a sixth sense, and looked back at the three girls looking over at his table. Alisha, caught off-guard by Evan's unexpected eye contact, hastily turned back to her lunch in front of her, her friends doing the same seconds later.
"Any idea what happened with him?" Toni asked.
"Probably something to do with the Jackie thing," said Rachel. "It's the only thing people are thinking about now."
"I think so," said Toni. "I mean, he's friends with Evan, and they were together for a week."
"Yea, probably," said Alisha, trying to hide while eating her lunch.
"I wonder who did all the videos," said Rachel.
"Can we not talk about videos?" said Toni.
"Sorry, my bad," said Rachel. "With everything going on, I almost forgot about what happened to you."
"It's ok," said Toni. "I mean, if you're already forgetting, hopefully everyone else is too. Guess we can thank Jackie for that."
***