Truly, Madly, Deadly

TEN

Sawyer was feeling slightly more comfortable after homeroom and had nearly forgotten the notes, the flowers, and the shredded clothes by the time she got to second period. When she walked into the choir room, she was downright giddy thinking of her solo, appearing in her new choir costume. Chloe bounded over to her.

“Hey! You’re smiling. Kind of like an idiot.” She poked Sawyer in the ribs and grinned. “Anything I should know about?”

Sawyer shook her head, feeling her soft brown hair tumble over her shoulders. “Nope. I’m just feeling pretty decent today.”

“Good to know.”

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Mr. Rose strode through the door, hands up as though he were conducting the students’ conversations. “Tone it down now. I suspect you all have been looking over—and loving—our new set list.” He shuffled some papers. “We’re going to start today with the third number first so we can work on everyone’s solos.” His eyes flashed to Sawyer’s and she gulped, then clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Oh, crap. I forgot my sheet music,” she murmured.

“Huh?” Chloe asked.

“My sheet music.” Sawyer’s hand shot into the air. “Um, Mr. Rose? Can I run to my locker for just a sec? I left my sheet music in there.”

Mr. Rose sat down at the piano and nodded, waving absently toward the door. “Hurry.”

Maggie rolled her eyes as Sawyer shimmied past. “And the whole world waits for Sawyer Dodd,” she muttered just loud enough for Sawyer to hear.

Sawyer pushed into the deserted hallway and, head down, beelined toward her locker. She looked up just in time to avoid a collision with Cooper.

“Oh, hey.” He flushed a blotchy red from exposed neck to forehead and then broke into an uncertain grin.

Sawyer looked from Cooper to her locker—less than three paces away—and back to Cooper again. “What are you doing out here?”

He waved a pink hall pass. “Bathroom break.”

Sawyer bit her lip and pointed over Cooper’s right shoulder. “The boys’ room is in corridor C.”

Cooper’s smile looked uncomfortable, forced. “I thought I’d take the long way. Trig is killing me.”

Sawyer cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “The very long way.”

“What are you doing out here in the middle of class? I mean, besides general interrogation.” Cooper’s voice was light, amused, but there was an edge to it that made Sawyer feel uncomfortable.

“Forgot something in my locker,” she said.

“Oh, your locker is in this corridor?”

Sawyer nodded, unease traveling the length of her spine. “All the junior lockers are.”

“Right. We were all kind of mixed up at my old school.” Cooper dangled the hall pass again. “Well, I should be getting back to class. Someone’s going to catch on that it doesn’t take this long to pee.”

Sawyer said nothing while Cooper hurried past her down the hall. He headed away from corridor C, away from the bank of math classrooms behind them. When she finally turned to her locker, Sawyer spun the lock, feeling a weird sense of calm and dread. If there is a note, Cooper is suspect number one, she told herself.

She immediately thought of their conversations, of the delicious heat that crept through her when his lips were on hers. She thought of the softness in his eyes and felt herself slump. “God, I’m freaking paranoid.”

Cooper would never do anything to hurt me. He—she paused in mid-thought, about to utter the word “loves.” He likes me, she corrected herself.

Even people who like—or love—you can hurt you, her conscience warned her. Sawyer ignored it.

“Prank,” she muttered out loud, as if trying to convince herself. “Stupid prank.”

But there was nothing amiss in her locker, and her sheet music, her track clothes, and her photos were exactly as she had left them. She slammed the metal door, her heart thumping in a way she could barely remember—normally.

She whistled the chorus of her new solo as she skipped back to class.

“So, I figure I’ll head home and change, and then drive over around five. Sound okay?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah, that sounds good. I say we do an all-night bad-movie chocolate fest. If I get through chem today, I’m totally going to need it.” Sawyer turned to head to her locker when Chloe laid a soft hand on her forearm.

“Hey, Sawyer”—she licked her lips—“I’m really glad you’re—you’re feeling better.”

Sawyer felt a lump grow in her throat, but this time, it didn’t have the sharp pang of despair that she was now so used to. Instead, she smiled—genuinely—and pulled her best friend into a hug. “Me too. And you too.”

Chloe pulled back, confusion flitting across her face. Sawyer cocked her head, gently brushing her fingertips over Chloe’s forehead, over the still-healing cut above her best friend’s eye.

“Oh, right.”

“Hey, Chloe, speaking of that. Did you—did you ever go to the police?”

Chloe shook her head. “I told you—my mom would kill me. Besides”—she wrinkled her nose—“Ryan was able to get the car towed without anyone being the wiser. His dad owns that garage out on Forest, you know.”

Sawyer nodded. “But someone attacked you, that’s pretty—”

Chloe put her hands on Sawyer’s shoulders and squeezed gently. “It’s over, Sawyer. No big deal.”

Sawyer wished she had an ounce of her best friend’s bravery. Maybe then she wouldn’t nearly jump out of her skin every fifteen minutes or scrutinize cute guys who were just trying to be nice to her.

“I worry about you, Chloe.”

Chloe began to annunciate. “No. Big. Deal. Car is fine.” She pointed to her forehead. “Noggin made of stone or some such other hard material.”

Sawyer laughed. “I guess. And hey, I guess with the car at Ryan’s dad’s, you two got to spend some extra time together, huh?”

Chloe’s eyes rolled to the ceiling and a sly smile formed on her lips. “A lady never tells…”

“Which is why you should be spilling everything.”

“Nothing to tell, S. Don’t you think I would have given you every sordid detail by now if there was?” She winked. “Best friends don’t keep secrets.”

Sawyer felt her smile falter, just for a second. “Yeah. You’re totally right.”

“All right, gotta run. See you later, sweet cheeks.” Chloe skipped through the double glass doors on her way to P.E. while Sawyer spun her locker combo and yanked out her chemistry book.

“You!”

Maggie’s voice cut through the din of students in the hall.

“What’s Maggie going on about now?” Sawyer murmured to herself.

“I’m talking to you!”

Sawyer felt a bony finger jabbing below her shoulder blade. She gripped the sides of her locker and breathed in what was supposed to be a calming breath. Maggie poked her again.

Sawyer spun around, eyes in mid-roll. “What do you—” Sawyer stopped when she saw the note clenched in Maggie’s hand. It was the same pale-green paper, the same size and shape, and judging by the fury in Maggie’s eyes and the flush on her cheeks, Maggie had read it.

“Where did you get that?”

“You shoved it in my locker, you bitch!”

Before Sawyer had a chance to process what Maggie had said, she felt Maggie’s palms against her chest, giving her a hard shove that landed her against the cold metal of her locker. Her lock stung the back of her neck, and Sawyer winced.

“You think I’m a whore?” Maggie continued without missing a beat, waving the note in Sawyer’s face. “You think I’m a slut? Kevin only left me for you because he heard you were easy. He heard you were blowing half the guys from here to your stupid new housing tract.”

Maggie’s face was inches from Sawyer’s, and her voice had reached a frenzied pitch. Her eyes were wild, her nostrils flared, and that was what Sawyer was focused on when Maggie hit her.

The slap was clean and stinging against her cheek, and for the second time in her life, Sawyer felt cornered, threatened. Her eyes watered, and she pressed herself against the cold metal lockers.

“You don’t know the first thing about me and Kevin!” Maggie spat. “He cheated on you with me!”

A tiny bubble of anger percolated low in Sawyer’s stomach. She stopped listening as Maggie went to slap her again. She grabbed Maggie’s wrist, feeling the heat roiling into a full fire in her gut. No one was going to hit her again, not ever.

“Don’t you touch me,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Don’t send me those damn notes,” Maggie screamed back. When her other hand came up against Sawyer’s head Sawyer grabbed that too, and gave Maggie a hard shove. Maggie stumbled over her own feet, over the group of kids who had ringed them to watch, and fell hard on her butt on the linoleum. The note slipped out of her hand, and Sawyer watched its graceful arc as it slid behind Maggie and came to rest against the bank of lockers.

Maggie’s fury was palpable. “You bitch!”

“What’s going on here?”

Principal Chappie’s baritone voice made the kids scatter like marbles until only Sawyer and Maggie were left, Sawyer pressed against her locker, Maggie looking like a wounded dove on the floor. Sawyer watched Maggie’s chest pulse as she blinked hard until huge mascara-colored crocodile tears slid over her cheeks. “Sawyer attacked me! She pushed me down!”

“No, I didn’t,” Sawyer protested. “She came after me!” She stepped closer to Principal Chappie and Maggie stayed put, throwing an arm over her forehead as through she feared a blow from Sawyer.

“Oh, get up!” Sawyer barked at her. “You know what happened. You fell over your damn self trying to hit me. Tell him!”

Maggie blinked innocent, doe-like eyes. “I don’t know what happened. I was walking down the hall and Sawyer threw herself on me like some kind of animal.”

“No, I didn’t! And you spray-painted my locker and tore up my clothes!”

Maggie’s poor-girl façade didn’t crack. “I don’t know what she’s talking about, Principal Chappie. She’s crazy. She sent me a threatening note. I’m just…” She sniffed, and Sawyer watched Maggie’s small shoulders shiver, her face crumble under another torrent of tears.

That girl could win an Oscar, Sawyer thought bitterly.

“I’m just so scared. I don’t know what I ever did to her.”

Sawyer gaped. “What I did to her? Principal Chappie—”

Principal Chappie helped Maggie up and cupped his chin with his hand. “You’d better come down to my office, Sawyer. Do either of you need to see the nurse?”

Maggie made a show of checking her elbows, twisting her wrists as though looking for breaks. “I think I’m okay, sir. I’d just like to get to class. I have a presentation due for English.”

“Of course, Maggie. Go on ahead.” Principal Chappie put his hand on Sawyer’s elbow. “Sawyer?”

Anger radiated from Sawyer in waves as Maggie slipped away, head held high.

Sawyer watched her leave.

“Come on,” Principal Chappie said.

“Fine,” Sawyer relented, trying to loosen the tight set of her jaw. “Let me just grab my backpack.” She bent down to gather her pack, then snatched Maggie’s discarded note from under the locker, jamming it down in her pocket. “Okay.”

Sawyer sat in Principal Chappie’s office, chewing her bottom lip as he hung up the phone. “You father should be here in just a few minutes. I already told him what we talked about.”

“I’m suspended,” Sawyer said miserably.

“Effective immediately. But don’t think this as some kind of vacation. You will come in tomorrow morning before the first bell and report to detention while the board decides whether your punishment is sufficient.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Sawyer said, her voice a low, nearly inaudible rumble.

“If you choose not to report to detention tomorrow, you will immediately be expelled.”

“Expelled?” she gaped.

“This is very serious, Ms. Dodd. We don’t take bullying lightly at Hawthorne High. Do you understand?”

She nodded, her entire focus going to the note in her pocket. Its contents radiated through her, and she played through any scenario that would allow her a few private moments to read it.

“Can I use the restroom?”

Principal Chappie pressed his lips into a stern, straight line. “Is it an emergency?”

Sawyer pumped her head, pressing her fingertips to her lower abdomen. “Cramps.”

He seemed to consider a moment before picking up his phone once again. “Ellen, can you come here and take Ms. Dodd to the ladies room?”

“I can go to the bathroom alone, Principal Chappie.”

Ellen, a freshman who barely cleared Sawyer’s chin, was standing in Principal Chappie’s doorway a beat after he hung up the receiver. “I can take you right now.” Ellen’s cracked lips broke into a friendly smile, showing off a mouthful of silvery braces.

“Thanks,” Sawyer muttered, walking behind the tiny blond.

“So,” Ellen started when they had reached the relative sanctity of the deserted hallway. “Is it true you attacked Maggie Gaines?”

“No,” Sawyer said without looking at the girl.

Ellen frowned, and Sawyer saw the girl’s fingers go to the hem of her T-shirt, rolling the fabric nervously.

“I’m sorry,” Sawyer said, stopping to face Ellen. “I’m just in a really bad mood. It’s nothing against you.”

Ellen nodded, her cotton candy fluff of blond hair swirling around her freckled cheeks. “That’s okay. I’m sorry about the suspension.”

“You already know?”

Ellen’s freckles disappeared under a wash of pink. “I kind of figured. It’s a zero-tolerance policy here.”

“Anyway”—Sawyer pointed to the girl’s room door—“I’m just going to—”

“Oh, right.” Ellen nodded, smiled, and leaned against the adjacent wall. “I’ll just wait for you here.”

Sawyer jammed her hands in her pockets, her fingertips brushing the top of the note. Her stomach dropped, but she forced a small smile. “I promise not to make a run for it.”

Sawyer slipped into the first stall and locked the door behind her, digging the note from her pocket. She smoothed it against her thigh and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Every beat of her heart seemed to squeeze the last of the breath out of her lungs as she read.

Maggie—

You’re a slut! Don’t think Kevin didn’t tell me about you. As a matter of fact, he said you were the worst blow ever…although ALL the other guys on the football team might have a different view. We used to laugh about what a skanky bitch you were, pretending to be a sweet, innocent virgin. You aren’t fooling anyone; the entire school knows what a whore you are, what a ho…

It wasn’t the words on the note that caused Sawyer’s distress; it wasn’t even the fact that the note appeared on the same mint-green paper as hers had—it was the handwriting. It was identical to hers.

Sawyer bit down hard on her lower lip as she read the last line—signed,

Sawyer Dodd, an admirer.

Her breath came out in painful gasps now, and Sawyer flopped forward, clutching the note in one hand as she pressed her head between her knees. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed her breathing to slow down, her heart to slow down, when there was a frantic beating on the girl’s room door, followed by a crack of hallway light as the door opened.

“Sawyer? Is everything okay?”

Sawyer pushed herself up and used the heel of her hand to brush away the tears that had inexplicably started to fall. “Yeah,” she said, clearing her throat, “I’m good.” She kick-flushed the toilet for good measure and beelined to the bank of sinks, keeping her head bent so Ellen couldn’t see her flushed cheeks. She splashed her face with cold water and Ellen’s eyebrows went up, her lips curling into a sympathetic coo.

“Are you worried about what your parents are going to say?”

“Um, yeah, a little bit,” Sawyer said, meeting Ellen at the door. “But time to face the music, I guess, huh?”

Ellen fell into step next to Sawyer. “You know, if you need anything, you can call me. I know we don’t really know each other, but I can get your schoolwork for you or something.”

“That’s okay,” Sawyer said, “you don’t even know my classes.”

“Oh, no worries. I can pull your schedule from the office. It’s no big deal.”

Sawyer felt a small bit of heat clawing at the back of her neck, but she wasn’t sure why. “No, that’s all right. I really appreciate it though, thanks.”

Andrew Dodd didn’t say anything to Sawyer as they left Principal Chappie’s office and walked to the visitor’s lot.

“Dad,” Sawyer tried once they got to the car.

Andrew held up a silencing hand as he sunk his key into the lock and slid into the front seat of the car. Sawyer flopped into the passenger seat next to him, dumping her backpack on the floor.

“Dad, I didn’t do anything. Maggie threw herself on me! And I didn’t even write that note.” She paused, and when Andrew didn’t respond, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and slunk down in her seat, staring out the front windshield. When her father made a left turn away from the highway toward Blackwood Hills Estates, she frowned. “Where are we going?”

“You’re going to see Dr. Johnson.”

Sawyer straightened up, anger and betrayal tearing through her. “What? Dad, I told you I had nothing to do with this. Maggie is a freak—and someone sent her a note and they said it was from me but it wasn’t.”

Andrew raked a hand through his thinning hair then rubbed his eyes. “Sawyer, Tara’s on bed rest. She’s gone to her mother’s house.”

Sawyer felt her eyebrows rise. “What? Why?”

Her father turned to look her full in the face now. His eyes were narrowed and cold, and his cheeks were flushed a hot red. “Really, Sawyer? Really?”

“Dad, I have no idea what—”

“Save it. God, Sawyer, I just don’t know what to do with you anymore. I mean, I know you lost your boyfriend and my marriage and this baby have been hard on you but really, grow up. What you did—” He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white and he continued looking straight out the front windshield. “You know what? You’re about to be late for your appointment. I’ll be right out here in an hour, and I expect you to be here.”

Sawyer opened her mouth to say something, but the tension was oppressive. Instead, she swallowed back tears and slipped out of the car, making a beeline for Dr. Johnson’s empty waiting room.

“Sawyer Dodd,” she said to the woman at the front desk. “I guess I have an appointment.”

The dark-haired woman smiled serenely. Without checking her computer or datebook, she gestured toward Dr. Johnson’s office. “You can go right in.”

Sawyer hiked up her shoulder bag, suddenly feeling very small and very unprotected as she walked into Dr. Johnson’s posh office. She had been there a handful of times before—just after Tara and her father married, and then again after Kevin’s death.

“Ah, Sawyer, so nice to see you again.” Dr. Johnson was dressed in his signature “don’t think of me as a doctor, think of me as a buddy!” khakis, with a light-colored button down that showed off his trim physique. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing off well-toned forearms tufted with blond hair. He was a good-looking man, but Sawyer never trusted anyone who steepled their fingers and “mmhmm, mmhmmed” as much as he did.

“Have a seat.”

She did, tentatively, dropping her purse on the floor. “Why am I here?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I knew,” she said, feeling the hot fist of anger forming in the pit of her stomach. “Some chick at school jumped me and my father picked me up and dumped me here. It wasn’t even my fault.”

Dr. Johnson pressed his lips together. “So you don’t want to talk about the nursery.”

Sawyer felt her lip curl. “What about the nursery?”

The doctor cocked his head in what was supposed to be a comforting look, Sawyer guessed, but it just looked like condescension to her. “So we’re not going to talk about it?”

“What are you talking about?”

Dr. Johnson picked up the cell phone on his meticulously kept desk. He scrolled through a few screens and then handed it to Sawyer.

She gasped.

“Oh my God. Who did this?”

The pictures were of the nursery that Tara had so carefully put together with her organic fabrics and the soothing, butter-colored walls, the white slatted crib with its layette that matched so perfectly. Only it wasn’t. Now the calm of the pale yellow walls was interrupted by angry slashes of red paint that dripped in sad streaks, leaving pools on the carpet. Slats of the pristine white crib were kicked in on each other, showing the blond wood underneath. The layette was torn and slashed, bubbles of organic cotton fill bubbling out. What wasn’t destroyed was splashed with heavy dots of red paint, giving the image that something truly terrible had happened there—or was about to.

Sawyer gaped at Dr. Johnson. “They think I did this.”

The doctor waited.

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? My dad thinks I’ve gone over the edge and I—I want to hurt the baby.” She shoved the phone back at Dr. Johnson. “I didn’t do this. You know I wouldn’t do this, Dr. Johnson, you have to tell them.”

“Sawyer, a lot has happened in your life in a very short time. It’s understandable that you would feel some anger.”

“I’m not angry!”

“You were in a fight today at school.”

“I told you she jumped on me. I didn’t do anything! I had to push her off of me—that’s all. I didn’t mean for her to fall.”

“Did you mean to send her the note? Uh…” He pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and picked up his phone, reading from it. “Maggie, You’re a slut! Don’t think Kevin didn’t tell me about you. As a matter of fact, he said you were the worst blow ever…although ALL the other guys on the football team might have a different view.”

Sawyer’s eyebrows rose, as did the heat at the back of her neck. Her hand immediately, almost subconsciously, went to her jeans pocket, where Maggie’s note was stashed.

“How do you know what the note said?”

Dr. Johnson looked surprised. “Your principal sent me a picture of it.”

Sawyer frowned. “May I see it?”

The doctor handed over his phone. “Is that not the note you sent to Maggie?”

Sawyer read over the note pictured on the screen. The text was the same, but the paper was slightly different. “Principal Chappie had this?”

“Yes. I suppose Maggie brought it to him. You know she was suspended as well. Now tell me—”

“Maggie was suspended too?”

“That’s what zero tolerance means, Sawyer. Both parties are immediately—”

“I didn’t write that note.”

Dr. Johnson smiled, lips pressed to together. “That’s beside the point. Maggie was still suspended as well.”

“No—I mean, that’s fine, whatever. But the note. I didn’t write that. I try my best—every day—to stay out of Maggie’s way. She’s the one who’s been harassing me. She spray-painted my locker.” Sawyer paused, considering. “It was the same color paint that was on Tara’s wall. And Maggie shredded my clothes, just like the layette. Maggie must have done this too!” Even as she said the words, they didn’t ring true. Sawyer wasn’t even sure that Maggie knew her stepmom was pregnant, let alone where she lived or what kind of schedule her family kept.

She felt the blood drain from her face.

“Someone is watching me, Dr. Johnson. Someone is trying to hurt me—and my family.”

Dr. Johnson pressed back in his chair, did his psychologist-approved hand steeple. “Sawyer, I can’t do anything to help you unless you’re honest with me.”

“I am being honest. I didn’t do any of this.”

Dr. Johnson blinked slowly. “If you can’t be honest with me, you need to at least be honest with yourself. How does the impending birth of your half-sibling make you feel?”

“I feel pissed,” Sawyer said, springing up, “but not at the baby. I’m pissed at whoever is making my life hell.” She snatched up her shoulder bag. “And I’m going to find out who’s doing it.” She turned on her heel and went for the door, slamming it hard behind her.

Dr. Johnson didn’t try to stop her.