Page 86 of Whatever It Takes

My lips pull up a fraction. “Without a doubt, you have the best bow in the entire kingdom. If I were a princess, I’d even be jealous.” I pass her schedule back as she begins to smile. “Fifteen, thirty-seven, twenty-seven.”

I don’t ask if she wants me to open it. I figure spinning the lock will be a nice distraction for a second.

While she turns the dial, I’m about to ask about her last school. I assume it was public and smaller than Dalton.

Just as I open my mouth, I spot someone familiar in the corner of my eye. Carly Jefferson. She whispers to a group of three girls, about fifteen lockers down from Willow’s.

I’d like to think I’m more observant than paranoid. That this isn’t all in my head. But I have this feeling. You know the feeling—the one where everything stills around you. Just for a moment. Where every crack and flaw that frames a photo suddenly magnifies tenmilliontimes over.

It’s happening. Right now.

The hallway noises deaden in my mind. Leaving excruciating silence. Their furtive glances like sharp knives. Their smiles like snarls. Carly giggles and nudges her friend’s side. A couple guys join the huddle of girls. They lean against lockers and smirk. Taking a front row seat to a show.

Wrong.

Everything is wrong.

“Willo—” I start and grab her arm to stop her from opening the locker.

The dial has already clicked, and the blue metal swings back.

It should be empty. But it’s not.

Hundreds of tampons fall out, most in their wrapper. A handful have been torn open and soaked in what I hope is red dye.

She freezes.

I don’t even know what to do. I go as still, as quiet as her.

And the hallway erupts in laughter.

Here’s the truth: I’ve never been pranked at school. I’ve never been picked on by anyone but my brothers. I used to be well-liked. Even if I hated myself half the time.

I want to say something.

Do something.

Anything.

To stand up for the quieter person. For the first time in my life.

19BACK THEN – September

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

WILLOW MOORE

Age 17

My instinct is to run, but I have nowhere to actually go. I’ve already run away from Caribou, Maine. This is the place that I’ve run to.

My ribs tighten around my lungs with a hysteric thought and my new eulogy:Willow Moore, that fool who ran away to have her locker filled with tampons and be publicly humiliated in a new school.

It’s not true. I can’t let it be.

I ran away to build a relationship with my brother.

To become me without any apologies attached. None of these: “I’m sorry, Dad, I’m not as pretty or as popular as you hoped I’d be.”