Chapter 41

Friday 9:47 A.M.

THERE’S A CHANCE I can go free.

All I have to do is pretend I killed Katherine.

I spent another night in juvie, despondent and miserable. Gail says that if I don’t agree to the self-defense idea, it’s possible that I could spend the next ten or fifteen years in prison. But how do you pretend you killed someone?

I’m taken to the visitors’ room again. Only this time my mother is waiting there with Gail. Mom’s hair is brushed and she’s even wearing a little makeup. She’s got a smile on her face, but I know her well enough to suspect it’s forced.

“What’s going on?” I ask suspiciously as soon as I sit down. Mom and Gail share a pensive glance. Now I know for certain they’re up to something.

“Honey, Gail told me about her idea,” Mom says.

A sense of betrayal hurtles through me. It may not be rational, but I’m furious at Gail, who has obviously brought my mother here to try to persuade me to agree to claim self-defense.

“But I didn’t kill her!” I cry. “You can’t—”

Gail raises her hand to quiet me. “Callie, you have to put it in perspective.”

“You want me to put it in perspective?” I shoot back angrily, and turn to Mom. “She’s using you. She wants me to pretend I killed Katherine because it’s way too much work to try to prove I’m innocent. Just like when that jerk who defended Sebastian wanted him to plead to attempted manslaughter. Is that what you want, Mom? Do you want the world to think that your son attempted murder and your daughter killed someone in self-defense?”

“Yes,” Mom replies calmly.

After the article came out in the school newspaper, I found myself in the same position as Dakota, spending lunchtime in the library rather than face Katherine. The first day I went to the library, Dakota was sitting at the computer table. I sat on a couch near the fiction section and we didn’t speak.

But the next day I decided I wanted to talk and started toward her. As soon as Dakota realized what I was doing, she got up and walked toward the back of the library, where the tall stacks of books were.

It didn’t take a nuclear physicist to figure out that she didn’t want to be seen talking to me.

She went down one aisle of bookshelves and I went down the next. We stood facing each other with the shelves between us and pretended to be looking at books.

“Nice article,” Dakota whispered sarcastically, as if she knew that was why I was in the library and not the cafeteria.

“Thanks,” I answered, emphasizing it with a groan.

“I can’t believe the way you singled out Katherine.”

“First of all, I didn’t write it alone,” I said, and explained that I’d written it with Mia and that it was supposed to have both our names on it. “She asked me to help her. I was just trying to be supportive. And second, it wasn’t meant to be about Katherine. We were writing about a trend.”

Through the shelves, Dakota gave me a “get real” look. “The thing about how it used to be that kids had to be good at something, but now all you need is to be born rich? Jodie acts and does ads. Zelda’s the captain of the girls’ volleyball team. Everyone knows I’m going to run for president of the student council. The only one who did nothing except be born rich, who never runs for an office where she has to be elected, and who isn’t involved with sports is Katherine.”

“It still wasn’t supposed to single her out,” I insisted.

“Maybe not, but that’s exactly what it did,” Dakota said, then leaned closer and dropped her voice even more. “Just between you and me? I’m glad you did it.”

The way she said “you” made me think she meant that it was something she’d wanted to do, too. “Why?”

“Because now the rumors she’s spreading are about you, not me.”

“What rumors?”

Dakota smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. “About the night before school started? About you and two guys at once.”

“That’s—” I started to react, but the outrage passed quickly. “That’s lame. Everyone’ll know she’s just trying to get back at me.”

“Maybe.” Dakota shrugged.

Since we were speaking confidentially, I decided to bring up the reason I’d wanted to talk to her. “What happened between you two?”

“Nothing.”

“You can’t stand her being more popular than you?” I asked, pressing her.

Dakota lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, please, that’s so seventh grade.”

“Then what?” I asked. “Why can’t you be honest with me?”

After a moment of silence, she said, “Look, Callie, I’m never going to confide in you. You and I are never going to be friends, okay? It’s just not happening.”

And then she walked away.