Imposter

I peek at my phone. The text is from Rollins.

U AWAKE?

My thumbs fly over the keypad as I respond.

YEAH. BE READY IN 10.

Rollins texts back that he’ll see me soon. I pull on some jeans and slide the phone into my back pocket before heading downstairs. I find my father sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. “Do you have whiplash? Feel like you want to see a doctor?”

I grin. “I’m seeing one right now, silly.”

The anxiety in his eyes melts away, and he snorts. “Ha. But really. How does your head feel? Any dizziness? Nausea?”

Patting my father’s hand reassuringly, I say, “I’m fine. Promise.”

I sit down at the table, and my father pushes a glass of orange juice my way. I drink half of it in one long gulp.

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay. I know you don’t want to go to a doctor, but if this is a new symptom, we should really get you checked out. We can’t have you sleepdriving at night. You could have been killed.”

Sleepdriving. Is that even a thing?

“I seriously think it was a fluke, Dad. But if it makes you feel better, you can lock me in my room at night.”

He rolls his eyes. “I might take you up on that. Now can you tell me where I might find my car?”

“It’s a little off Highway 6. About five miles south of town,” I say, remembering the road signs I encountered on my hike.

“Ugggggggggggggggggggggggh.” My sister shuffles into the room, looking even more disheveled than I feel this morning. She must have been having nightmares about dead girls again. “Thank God it’s Friday.” Mattie grabs a coffee cup and fills it to the brim. I look on with envy. Perhaps I could have just a little caffeine to get through today. I’m operating on about three hours of sleep.

But before I have a chance to act on my impulse, I hear a car pull into our driveway, the radio so loud I can hear the opening notes of a Chevelle song from where I sit.

“Rollins is here,” I tell my dad. I gulp the rest of my orange juice and stand up. “Are you riding with us today?” I ask Mattie.

She nods and takes another sip of coffee before dumping the rest down the sink. Something in me dies a little as I watch the black deliciousness swirl down the drain.

“You sure you’re okay, Vee?” my dad asks.

“Yeah. Totally fine. If I start to feel sick, I’ll go to the nurse. Okay?”

Reluctantly, he agrees. I swoop down to give him a quick kiss and then dart out the door with Mattie following close behind.

Rollins doesn’t even wait for me to fasten my seat belt before he starts in on me. “How are you this morning, Vee? Are you sure you should go to school?”

Mattie drops into the seat behind me. “Dude, why is everyone so concerned about you today?”

Rollins throws me a curious glance. “You didn’t tell her?”

I shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”

“What’s not a big deal?” Mattie asks. In the rearview mirror, I see her checking her cell phone. She’s obviously very worried about my well-being.

“Oh, nothing. I just totaled Dad’s car in the middle of the night.”

I probably shouldn’t get so much satisfaction from the shocked look my sister gives me. “What? How did that happen? Are you okay?”

Feeling sort of bad for springing my accident on Mattie, I turn around to face her. “Calm down, Matt. Look at me. I’m all in one piece.” I make a split-second decision not to tell her about the whole driving-while-sleeping thing and the bizarre encounter with the woman, because she looks so alarmed already. At least, I’ll stay quiet for now. “Don’t worry. It’s no big deal.”

When I turn to face the front, Rollins gives me a questioning look. I mouth the word later at him and then fiddle with the radio. He growls and swats my hand away. Melting back into my seat, I welcome the normalcy of the scene. Rollins, rocking out behind the wheel. Mattie, in the back, scrutinizing a text message on her phone.

Then there’s me, wondering if there was someone else in my head last night.

An impostor.

“Aw, hey.” Rollins gives the girl a hug. Jealousy prickles up my spine. He turns toward me. “Vee, this is Anna. She’s been training me at the radio station.”

I lift my face to hers and somehow manage a smile. The most distinctive feature of Anna’s face is her eyes, which are the most startling purple color with eyelashes that seem to go on for miles. I wonder if she’s wearing contacts because I’ve never seen eyes that color before. She’s wearing a lacy baby-doll dress over rainbow-striped tights and combat boots.

She is everything that I am not.

Suddenly I start to feel sick, remembering the song Rollins played last night. I’d kind of assumed he was thinking of me when he played it. But what if, the whole time Dave Grohl was singing, Rollins had been staring at this beautiful girl? The thought is so uncomfortable, I banish it from my mind. I am the one he loves. He told me as much that night he rescued me from the fire. True, that was six months ago, but still—could his feelings have changed that much?

“Hi, Vee,” Anna says, holding out her hand to shake mine. I pump perhaps too vigorously and then feel like an idiot.

“Hello,” I say. “Cool tattoo.”

Can she hear the envy in my voice?

She touches her arm gently. “Thanks. The artist is a good friend of mine. If you ever want to get a tat, let me know. I can get you a special deal.”

Rollins laughs. “I don’t think Vee is exactly a tattoo kind of girl.”

I scowl at him. “I like tattoos. Why would you think I’m not into them?” I turn to Anna. “I used to have pink hair, you know. I only recently dyed it back because . . . because I was bored with it.”

I don’t know why I said that. I guess it’s because I feel out of place somehow. Anna and Rollins just look like they belong together with their piercings and tattoos. And then there’s me . . . former preppy cheerleader turned narcoleptic slider.

Anna nods politely. “Well, Rollins, I’ll catch you tomorrow night if I don’t see you before then.” She disappears into the crowd.

I stuff my hands into my pockets so Rollins won’t see how my fingernails are digging into my palms. “She seems nice,” I say in a strained voice.

“Oh, yeah. She’s really cool. Knows her music, too.”

“Oh.” I don’t dare say anything else, in case the jealousy I’m feeling will come through in my words. How can I be feeling jealous? This is Rollins, my best friend. Of course he can have another friend. He should have other friends. I’m so ridiculous sometimes.

But then I wonder, as I watch him slam his locker shut and head toward first period, what if he likes her as more than a friend? What would I do then?

The five-minute bell rings, saving me from my thoughts. I rush to my locker and grab my books for English class. As I reach into my backpack to grab a pen, my fingers brush against an old bottle of caffeine pills I stashed away for emergencies. I let my hand linger for just a moment and then pull it away.

My head throbs from lack of sleep. As Mrs. Winger works her way up and down the aisles, picking up homework, I feel my eyes droop.

“Look alive, Sylvia,” Mrs. Winger says, stopping at my desk. “Do you have the assignment?”

I open my folder and pretend to look through the papers, even though I know I didn’t do the work. I’d planned to do my homework while I listened to Rollins’s show, but I ended up falling asleep instead. Perhaps I could bring up the car accident for sympathy points. But, no, then everyone would just think I’m weirder than they already do. Add sleepdriving to my narcolepsy and I’m a Grade-A Freak.

“Sorry, Mrs. Winger. I must have left it at home.”

She shakes her head as though she doesn’t believe me and moves on to Samantha, who looks even worse than I feel. Her hair, usually perfectly straightened, is swept back in a messy ponytail. She’s not wearing any makeup, and there are huge circles beneath her eyes. Remembering how she was drunkenly singing in the back of Scotch’s car, I wonder just how hungover she is today. But Sam doesn’t just look dehydrated. She looks regretful or something. Her demeanor unsettles me, reminds me of how I felt the morning after the homecoming dance last year. I wonder if something happened to her. I wouldn’t put it past Scotch to take advantage of an inebriated girl. If Rollins hadn’t burst in on us in the locker room, who knows what would have happened?

“How about you, Samantha? Did you finish the assignment?” Mrs. Winger hovers over Samantha, tapping her foot.

Samantha doesn’t even pretend to look through her things. She just glares at Mrs. Winger wordlessly until the teacher gets uncomfortable and moves on. Sam must sense my eyes on her because she then levels her gaze at me. I don’t look away.

She continues to give me her patented death stare while I scoot into the empty desk between us so I can talk to her without Mrs. Winger, who has moved to the back of the room, hearing our conversation.

“Hey, Sam,” I say, using her nickname for the first time in ages. It feels strange on my tongue. “Everything okay?”

Samantha crosses her arms over her chest. “What do you care?”

I hesitate. Samantha was so out of it last night. Unless Scotch told her about our encounter, which I’m thinking is highly unlikely, she probably has no idea that I saw her in Scotch’s car. If I explain, I’ll have to tell her about the car crash, which I really don’t want people finding out about. But if I don’t tell her, I’ll just look really nosy.

In the end, I choose nosiness over freakishness.

“Did you have a rough night?” I ask, hoping to sound sympathetic.

She narrows her eyes. “Why? What did you hear?”

I try to look innocent. “Nothing. You look kind of tired this morning, that’s all. Just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

My neighborly concern doesn’t seem to be winning Samantha over. She pulls out a notebook, flips to a clean page, and writes the date at the top. I realize that she’s ignoring me.

“Samantha, we don’t have to be enemies,” I say, thinking how false the words sound even as they come out of my mouth. Nothing has changed since I tried to save her life. I am still the girl who went out with the guy she had a crush on. She is still the girl who told everyone I was a slut. She is still the girl who watched Scotch drag me into the boys’ locker room and didn’t do a thing to help me. A few words aren’t going to change that. Still, I want to try. “I don’t hate you.”

Samantha makes a disgusted noise and sets down her pen deliberately. “Vee, I don’t give a shit if you hate me or not. You are, like, the least of my concerns this morning.”

Her outburst wasn’t exactly what I was going for, but it’s something. At least she’s admitting that there’s something going on with her.

“What is your biggest concern this morning?”

The look Samantha gives me could freeze Satan himself. “None of your effing business.” She picks up her pen again, and I know I’ve been defeated.

Mrs. Winger moves to the front of the classroom and starts to talk about the Puritans. Reluctantly, I return to my seat. The rest of the period crawls by. I keep sneaking peeks at Samantha, but she is either really immersed in Mrs. Winger’s lecture or completely determined to pay no attention to me whatsoever. At the end of the period, she stuffs her notebook and pen into her oversized purse and rockets out of the room, never once looking my way.

I sit in the back of the library with the tattered copy of Sports Illustrated lying open before me. Before I try to slide, I wait for the librarian to take attendance and then sit down with her own magazine.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m almost always successful at triggering slides, except when I’m amped up on caffeine. Thank God I didn’t give in to the pills in my bag this morning. Otherwise I don’t think this would work.

I’m going to slide into Scotch and see if I can figure out exactly what went down last night. He’ll be in gym class. If I’m lucky, he’ll be gossiping with his jock friend again. If something did happen with Samantha, I’m sure he’ll be bragging about it to the whole school.

Once the librarian settles down with her copy of Crock-Pot Adventures or whatever the hell she’s reading, I run my fingers over the glossy pages of the magazine. I’ve opened it to an article about some NFL player who overcame great adversity—family problems, health problems, academic problems—to get where he is today. The page has been turned down, as if someone wanted to return to it for inspiration. I wonder if that person was Scotch.

I rest my head on my desk as the bookshelves of the library melt away, turning into basketball hoops and banners in our school’s colors. Just like the last time I slid into Scotch, the students are doing laps.

Scotch’s sneakered feet slap against the wooden floor. His breathing is more labored than it was the last time I was inside him. He’s probably feeling the ill effects of the alcohol from last night’s party. Serves him right.

“So how was it?” a voice to my right asks.

Randall Fritz.

Here comes the part where Scotch brags about his conquest to his friend. I brace myself for a detailed description of Scotch’s sexual prowess. And then a troubling thought occurs to me. There’s no way for me to verify whether Scotch is telling the truth. If he says he had sex with Samantha, it could be true or it could be a lie. If it is true, having sex with a practically unconscious girl makes Scotch a date rapist. If it’s a lie, that just makes him scum.

Before I can think about what I’ll do if Scotch does say he hooked up with Samantha, he throws a curveball.

“Oh, man. Last night was so freaky. So Samantha and I were driving out in the country, looking for a quiet place to have some privacy if you know what I mean . . . and who do you think we came across, just walking along the side of the road?”

Oh shit. Hold everything.

“Who?” Randall asks, panting for some juicy gossip.

“Vee Bell.”

“Damn,” Randall says. “She is hot. Especially since she dyed her hair back and doesn’t look like such a freak anymore. Tell me, did you get some of that?”

Scotch stops running for a second. “Do you even need to ask? Vee’s had the hots for me since freshman year. I went out with her last year, but then I had to cut her off when she went through that weird goth phase. But she was begging for it last night.”

Scotch stops speaking and starts grinding his teeth together. Without my realizing it, the rage brewing inside me has taken over. “Asshole,” I mutter.

Randall looks confused. “Uh, did you just call me an asshole?”

“Misogynistic douche bag.” I can’t help it. The words just fly out of Scotch’s mouth.

“Wait. Miss-oh-ginous . . . what?” Randall scratches his head.

“You want to know what really happened last night?” I ask. Since we’ve stopped running, more and more people are slowing down to listen to our conversation. The gym teacher has disappeared into his office.

Randall looks seriously freaked out now. “Um. Okay?”

I take a deep breath. “Last night, I dropped Samantha off so I could go home and watch some Golden Girls. That Betty White gets me hot, if you know what I mean.” I wink at Randall twice, and he turns bright red.

A couple of girls start to laugh.

“What did he just say?” asks a guy with a fauxhawk.

“I think he just said he whacks it to Golden Girls,” a girl in a pink Juicy Couture sweatshirt answers helpfully.

Considering my job done, I slide back into my own body. I lift my head from the desk and realize I’ve drooled a little bit on the copy of Sports Illustrated. I wipe the corner of my mouth with my sleeve. The librarian didn’t even notice me appear to fall asleep.

“So I heard an interesting rumor today,” he says, crossing his arms. “I thought you might know a little something about it.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask innocently, arranging my backpack on the floor.

“Evidently Scotch Becker announced his fondness for Betty White today in gym class?”

I’m unable to suppress a smirk. The rumor had spread like wildfire, and almost everyone was talking about it by lunchtime. I overheard Scotch in the hallway, bewildered, trying to explain to his football buddies that it was all a joke. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Not that I’m Scotch’s biggest fan, but why would you do that to him?” Rollins asks, sounding genuinely flabbergasted. “Yeah, the guy’s an ass, but you don’t need to be messing with his head.”

It occurs to me that, in the confusion of last night, I never did tell Rollins about running into Scotch or how Samantha was wasted in the back of his car. Quickly, I fill him in, explaining how distraught Samantha seemed in English this morning and how I slid into Scotch to find out what really happened between the two of them. When I get to the part about Scotch claiming that I came onto him last night, Rollins holds up his hand for me to stop. He looks like he’s going to puke.

“Okay, okay, I get the picture. I guess it served him right. Do you really think he took advantage of Samantha?”

I shrug. “There’s no way to know. Scotch is a lying sack of shit, and Sam doesn’t trust me enough to tell the truth. I hope he’s all talk. For her sake.”

Rollins shakes his head. “If I ever hear him talking about you that way . . .”

“Hey,” I say softly, reaching out to grab his arm. “I can take care of myself.”

Rollins stares at me for a moment and then nods, starting the car.

“So. Friday Night Fright?” I ask, mentally thumbing through my DVDs, wondering which horror flick we should watch.

“Uh, yeah. I have some things to do first, though,” Rollins says vaguely.

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

It’s not unusual for Rollins to have to run home and give his mother supper and get her ready for bed before he comes over, but he’s usually pretty up-front about it—at least, he has been since I learned about his mother’s condition. However, something about the way he’s avoiding my gaze makes me feel like he’s trying to hide something.

We don’t say anything more until he pulls into my driveway. I grab my backpack, trying to think of something lighthearted to say to ease the awkwardness between us. “I, um, guess I’ll see you later.”

“Later.” He barely waits for me to close the door before he’s backing out into the street—a definite contrast to the way he usually waits for me to get inside before he leaves. As I watch him disappear around the corner, I feel a bit queasy. If he’s not going home, where is he going?

Some part of me wonders if, wherever he’s going, Anna will be there.

Onscreen, Jason Voorhees chases some poor girl through the woods. Mattie and her friend Regina are sprawled on the floor, devouring a bowl of popcorn.

Mattie started hanging out with Regina a lot after Sophie and Amber died. She’s a sweet girl, but she kind of reminds me of Eeyore. Her older brother, Todd, was killed in a boating accident a few years ago, and she brings him up all the time. One minute she’ll be talking about how hot the new band teacher is, and the next she’ll be in tears because she remembers how her brother used to play the clarinet in elementary school. It’s exhausting to spend time with her, but I think she gets Mattie in a way that few other people do.

Rollins sits inches away from me on the couch. Almost everything about him is familiar—the scent of leather that lingers on him long after he takes off his jacket, the way his lip ring shines in the light from the television, the warmth that emanates off his body in our otherwise chilly living room.

But there’s something about him that’s changed. There’s a tension in his shoulders, as if he isn’t completely comfortable sitting this close to me. I wonder if it’s because he’s thinking about Anna.

God, these thoughts are torturous. And I feel ridiculous, getting so worked up over practically nothing. So he has a new, hot friend. So he might have gone to see her tonight before he came over here. Why is it any of my business? Why did it take Rollins possibly being interested in someone else before I came to my senses and realized what a freaking amazing guy he is?

A loud noise causes Mattie and Regina to shriek. In the movie, Jason has jumped out at the girl, his knife blade flashing. I take the opportunity to pretend to be startled and move a bit closer to Rollins, setting my hand next to his until our pinkies meet. Almost imperceptibly, he moves an inch away from me, so we’re not touching. Did he mean to do that? Can’t he stand to be close to me anymore?

I look around the room, searching for some way to get Mattie and Regina to leave us alone. My eyes fall on the popcorn bowl on the floor, nearly empty. I grab the remote control and hit the Pause button.

“Hey, Mattie. Way to eat all the popcorn. Rollins and I didn’t get any.”

Mattie glances at the bowl and then looks up guiltily. “Oops. Sorry.”

“Maybe you and Regina could go make some more?” I raise my eyebrows and tilt my head slightly toward the kitchen, hoping to convey that this is an order, not a request.

Mattie looks at me and then Rollins, and she smiles. “Oh, sure. Come on, Regina.” Mattie scoops up the popcorn bowl.

“Hey, do you have any of that flavored powder to sprinkle on top?” Regina asks, following Mattie. “Todd used to love that stuff. He could go through a whole bottle in two days.”

With the two gone, I turn toward Rollins. “I was hoping we’d get a moment alone to talk,” I say, my heart banging so hard I’m afraid he might hear it.

I know what I have to do now. Somehow, I have to find the words to tell Rollins how I feel, before this thing with Anna gets going. Otherwise, I might lose him forever.

Rollins looks down at his hands. “About what?”

“About us,” I say, my voice small.

Finally, he looks up. “What do you mean?”

Jesus, this is hard. So hard that I’m tempted to just let it go, leave things the way they are. I mean, we’re best friends. Do I really want to mess that up? What if I confess my feelings for him, and Rollins denies them? What if we never speak again?