The Takedown Page 14

  For the hundredth time, I thanked the universe for my parents’ happy marriage.

  Whatever mix of nationalities Ellie was, not to be mean, but one of them had to be oak tree. Sturdy and thick with muscle, she wore her brown hair in a short bob, which she always tied back for games using one elastic and a hundred thousand bobby pins. She jumped when she caught my reflection in the mirror at the end of the locker row, surprise dribbling across her round features. But then she laughed.

  “Oh boy, let me guess.” She faced the mirror and reworked her ponytail so it shot directly out the back of her head. “You’re here to blame me for your hair not coming out right today?”

  Wait, seriously, what was wrong with my hair?

  “No, actually, Ellie, I found the clip of me that was used to make the sex video. It came from footage you took.”

  I don’t know what I was expecting—that she would fess up? Or be floored by my detective work? Or at the very least be creeped out like I was that someone had stolen her innocuous vid to frame me? And, fine, if I’m being 100 percent honest, even though there’s nothing lamer than women fighting women over men, a tiny part of me hoped she’d be as nice as she always was, so I could press her for a little insider info on why Ailey and Mac suddenly looked so chummy.

  But instead Ellie laughed again.

  “Yeah, Ailey told me you tried to blame her, too. That you’re saying it’s fake.”

  “What do you mean, I’m saying it’s fake? It is fake. I just told you. I found the original clip my hater used to doctor the video. A clip that you originally recorded.”

  “The only fake thing around here is you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  This was not the Ellie Cyr I was used to. Ellie Cyr was nice. Ellie Cyr and I took a boot-camp class in the park our sophomore year and immediately got milk shakes afterwards. This version of Ellie was the girl who pushed through two defensive guards to dunk the game winner and smashed the backboard in the process. (Yes, that actually happened. It was amazing.) This Ellie was a girl I didn’t at all want to share frosty beverages with. Or be on the opposing side of.

  “You heard me, Cheng.”

  One long leg following the other, Ellie stepped over the changing bench to hover over me, like she was trying to engage in one of those chest-bumping competitions. My knees gave. I sat down hard on the bench behind me. She smirked.

  “Ailey also told me about how you abandoned her freshman year all because Audra brought you a juice.”

  My face was level with Ellie’s belly button.

  I frowned, mumbled, “She also said there was only one seat.”

  “So you pull up another one. Ailey was your best friend.”

  “We were fourteen. Friends break up all the time.” I stood back up. Ellie didn’t move to give me more space, so the top of my head was right beneath her nose. I stepped out from under her. “Look. I didn’t come to talk about Ailey. I came to talk about the video you took.”

  “The sex video?” Ellie turned back toward her locker, folding her school clothes and shoving them in her bag.

  “No. The video that was used to put me into the sex video.”

  “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.” She looked genuinely puzzled, but then gave me that smirk again. “‘Put you into’ the sex video? How would I do that, with magic? I didn’t make that video, Kyle. Because no one did. You can’t make reality.”

  This was getting me nowhere. It was time for a different tactic.

  “Look, Ellie, I have no static with you, but I know you’re friends with Jessie and I thought—”

  “So you didn’t come to blame me, you just came to blame my best friend.”

  “Wait, I thought Ailey was your best friend.” And she was scolding me for being disloyal? “And actually, I did come to blame you, but now that we’re talking, I’m pretty sure you had nothing to do with it.”

  “I meant she’s one of my best friends,” Ellie huffed. “I’m not like you. I stand by my people. Besides, Jessie wouldn’t do this either; she’s not—”

  “Creative enough,” I filled in, until I realized that wasn’t the descriptor Ellie was searching for. “Grimacing face. Sorry.”

  “I was going to say she’s not that mean. Something else you wouldn’t know anything about. If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna hit the machines or I might hit something else.”

  Spinning around faster than I’d expected, Ellie stormed past me and rammed me so hard in the shoulder that I stumbled backwards.

  “Geez, Ellie,” I said. “Watch it.”

  And then I did something stupid. I pushed her. Only a little, but that was all it took.

  Now, at five eight I wasn’t short, but have I mentioned Ellie Cyr was six foot two? Her nickname was Empire State. As in the building. Next thing I knew, a tourist attraction–sized girl slapped me across the face. The force of the slap knocked me back two steps. My head smacked into the lockers behind me.

  “Whoa,” Ellie said, as I felt my cheek with a shaky hand.

  And maybe if she’d apologized, things would have been different, but she didn’t. Her surprise was immediately replaced by that smirk, and something inside me snapped. I charged. We flew over the bench that divided the row of lockers and tumbled to the floor. Ellie had a fistful of my hair in one hand and was punching my ribs with the other. I tried to shield the blows while also landing a few of my own. I was not successful.

  “Hey!” someone shouted. But not at us, because then they said, “No PHDs allowed in the locker room. What are you recording?”

  When I looked up, whoever was filming us was gone. A click later, in that person’s place huffed a Y staff member.

  “Girls,” she said, “what are you doing lying on the floor like that? Come on now. Y’s closing early today. I suggest you hurry up, get on with your exercise, and then go have yourselves a happy holiday. Some of us would like to do the same.”

  Ellie was breathing heavily. Pushing away from me, she sat against the lockers with her head in her hands. Her shoulders shook like she was sobbing. When she looked up, she was laughing so hard she was barely able to breathe. The employee tsked, muttered something about missing Christmas Eve drinks for this nonsense, and plodded off.

  “Oh my God,” Ellie wheezed, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’ve never gotten in a fight before. Wait till the girls hear. Your cheek is all red.”

  “Because you slapped me,” I said, which made Ellie laugh harder.

  Ellie got to her feet, inspected her arms and legs for damage, then adjusted her ponytail. Stray bobby pins littered the floor around her like fallen leaves.

  “You deserve a lot more than that, Kyle. Though it looks like you’re getting it. Give my best to Mr. E. Hope you two have a happy holiday.”

  Fawn lived in the biggest brownstone of any of us. It had been willed to her mom by her grandparents, and ever since her parents’ divorce when Fawn was a toddler, to make ends meet her associate-professor-of-women’s-studies mom rented out every room in the building to an ever-changing flow of foreign graduate students and professionals. It was a lively, liberal household that was full of heady conversations but low on toilet paper. It was also the closest in proximity to the Y, and since I’d just gotten beaten up, I needed closest proximity. The last thing I wanted was to get caught in someone’s Woofer sporting a puffy eye.

  A tacky animatronic Santa took up half the stoop and ho-ho-hoed when I rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, an equally jolly Fawn answered the door.

  “Kyle.” Her laughter stopped midtwinkle. “What’re you doing here? You can’t be here.”

  “I just had this awful confrontation with Ellie at the Y….” The curtains in the front window separated and then fell back into place. “Wait, Fawnie, why can’t I be here? Are the other girls inside?”

  “No, uh…it’s, um…” She nervously chewed on the inside of her cheek like it was free-range jerky; then her face lit up. “It’s a boy!”

  A f
ew weeks back, Audra had plugged us all into her period-predicting app. Blue dots were what you marked on your calendar to mean “had sex.” And Fawn had tons of blue dots. When I’d teased her about it, she’d said, “It’s no big deal, Kyle. My body needs to poop. My body needs to sleep. And lately my body feels like it needs to have sex.” And that had cured me of ever wanting to mention her dots again.

  So it was entirely possible she was telling the truth, but the Fawn I knew would have dragged the boy outside and, like, made him do a pirouette so I could admire how cute his butt was. Instead she stepped out onto the stoop and pulled the door shut after her.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “Oh, nobody you know. I didn’t want to tell any of you about him because, uh, it didn’t seem appropriate if I was all daydreamy, especially with what’s going on with you and Audra.”

  “Wait, what’s going on with me and Audra?”

  “Oh my gawd, Fawn,” she squealed, and slapped a hand across her mouth and then giggled. “Nothing. I meant with you and your video and Audra just being crabby all the time.”

  That wasn’t what she meant. Fawn wouldn’t meet my eyes, and normally Fawn all-caps DUG my eye contact. The curtains flickered again. Fawn squealed and rocked on her heels.

  “What are you on?”

  “Endorphins?”

  I tilted her head back and stared into her eyes. They weren’t bloodshot.

  “Breathe,” I said.

  She puffed into my face. Her breath smelled like tater tots and ketchup. She giggled again, looked back nervously over her shoulder.

  “Kyle, I gotta pee. Too much kombucha. Oh, gosh, and Merry Christmas Eeeve. My dad’s coming by to pick me up in, like, an hour, but txt me laters.”

  The door shut in my face. I tried not to feel upset. Fawn was Fawn. This was not a friend conspiracy against me. It wasn’t. I swiped on my Doc. My finger hovered over the WhereYouAt app. There was one way to know for sure where all the girls were.

  Sighing, I swiped off my Doc. Animatronic Santa beamed his approval, like I was a prime candidate for the Nice list.

  “Oh, stick a pipe in it, old man.”

  The truth was, if the girls were all on the other side of Fawn’s door?

  I didn’t want to know.

  Mac txted as I walked home.

  mac Saw the fight.

  The warm front continued. As dusk came on, Christmas lights blinked on with it. It all felt a little surreal. Like Christmas in July. I didn’t bother asking how he already knew about the fight. I’d been getting pinged like crazy. @JessieRosenthal had posted it on ConnectBook. It had been her in the locker room. She’d titled it “Valedictorian?” Guess she suddenly wasn’t too good for the Internet anymore.

  Viewed alongside the sex vid—as it now forever would be, considering they were already grouped together in an If you liked this, then watch…—it looked like my life was in a tailspin. (Looked like? Ha!) More than being creepy, knowing she’d been there listening to us the whole time, it was supremely frustrating. There I was, wasting my time wrassling with Ellie, when Jessie was only steps away. I finally could have confronted her.

  mac What happened?

  moi I honestly don’t know. I told Ellie I knew she shot the original footage of me that was used in the Mr. E vid…

  mac Nice!

  moi Next second we’re tumbling over benches.

  mac Kind of an aggressive reaction.

  I touched my cheek. Winced.

  moi Yeah, tell me about it. What do you think it means?

  mac I guess that Ellie needs to be added to the list of possible haters.

  Didn’t it seem strange that all my possible haters were in the same friend group? Ailey. Ellie. Jessie. I sighed. I felt like I was too narrowly focused, like I was missing something. For starters, Ailey and Ellie had both adamantly denied making the video, and as aggravating as it was, I believed them. So that left Jessie, who couldn’t even be bothered to post things under a fake name. Like she wanted me to know she was enacting my takedown. But why would she so blatantly post the fight and the flash-mob video in the foyer, but not the Mr. E. vid?

  How many haters did I have?

  mac Want some company? We haven’t had after-school time all week.

  He sent me some quick pics of the world exploding, a mad scientist pulling at his hair, and Godzilla ravaging NYC.

  Or maybe the fight video was totally innocent. Maybe Jessie had simply gone to pick up Ellie and stumbled on us fighting. Who wouldn’t record a fight?

  mac I can come over early. Hang before we all go for ramen.

  Earlier in the week I’d invited Mac to come to Christmas Eve dinner with us.

  moi You sure you’re not busy?

  mac ???

  moi Hanging with Ailey, maybe?

  My Doc fell silent as Mac figured out how to word his response. I’d finally made it home. I let myself in and went straight to the freezer and got a bag of peas to put on my eye.

  mac Are you talking about me walking with her this morning? She had a math question.

  moi So you weren’t trying to make me jealous?

  mac What am I, ten? She had a math question.

  moi Was she trying to multiply you times her?

  I grinned, perfectly envisioning his exasperated expression.

  Faintly, I heard the front door open.

  “Mom?”

  I waited for my mom to come into the kitchen. How in the world was I going to explain my puffy face to her? I thought about just going straight to my room, but I’d have to dash right past her. Mac’s txt thread spooled as he wrote and deleted the perfect comeback.

  But then all he sent was:

  mac She had a math question.

  moi I hope you gave her a satisfying answer.

  Ever so softly I heard the front door close. It wasn’t my mom or she would have said something. I crept to the kitchen door, listening. I could have sworn I locked the front door. To get to the front hall, I’d have to walk through the dining room. It felt like someone was standing just on the other side of the dining room doorway, listening right back.

  “Dad?” I waited, and when there was no answer: “Kyle? Is that you?”

  Silence. But not an empty silence.

  “I hope it’s all right,” I called out. “Mac and his cousins are coming over. They’ll be here any second.”

  The floorboards in the front hall creaked. I wasn’t imagining things. Someone was in my house.

  “Oh my gosh.”

  I was so upset over the fight, I must not have locked the door. What if it was the “don’t talk to strangers” guy? I’d been so focused on my Doc, he could have been sitting on the stoop next door and I’d have missed him completely. Or what if it was just about anyone else who now knew me, even though I didn’t know them?

  There was nowhere for me to go. The kitchen led into the basement—no way, uh-uh—or the backyard. The yard was minuscule, with a ten-foot-high fence around it, but at least out there, people could hear me scream. I grabbed a chopstick from the jar on the counter in case I needed to stab my assailant in the eye. Then as quickly and quietly as possible I went to the back door. The lock was old, rusted, and usually required an iron grip and a lot of willpower to turn. Dad was always talking about needing to replace it.

  Struggling with the lock, I looked over my shoulder only to see a big guy in a black hoodie coming at me. I flung my chopstick at him. It struck him harmlessly in the stomach, then clattered on the kitchen tiles. I tugged at the lock. A hand gripped my shoulder. I screamed and sank to the floor.

  “Geez Louise, you are not having a good day, are you?”

  It was Kyle. Dumb, stupid, wonderful, non-rapey Kyle.

  “Where did you come in from?”

  “Nowhere. I was upstairs.”

  “But I heard the front door open and close.”

  “Must be a ghost,” Kyle said, his upper body already halfway buried in the fridge. “I’ve been upstairs for th
e last two hours. Didn’t see any murderers on my way down, either. I did see the fight, though.”

  He waved his Doc at me.

  “How awesome will it be if you have a shiner for the Christmas pic?” he said. “I can’t believe I once had a crush on Ellie. I’m totally unconnecting her on everything.”

  “Thanks, Kylie.” I was still trying to catch my breath.

  I couldn’t stop staring at the useless chopstick lying in the middle of the floor. Audra always said every woman needed to arm herself with confidence and a bottle of pepper spray.

  My Doc dinged with a txt tone I hadn’t heard in forever. Ailey.

  ailey Hey Kyle, Ellie told me what happened between you two. I made the mistake of telling my mom. She told me to tell you, if you come to our house or approach me anywhere outside of school, she’s going to file a restraining order against you.

  “Oh my God. That little brat never could fight her own fights.”

  “What is it?” Kyle asked, but I was too angry to respond.

  moi Ailey, this wasn’t even about you. And ELLIE slapped ME!

  ailey Sorry. I’m actually a little mortified, but she = serious. I just thought you should know.

  “Ailey’s mom wants to take out a restraining order against you?”

  I held my Doc to my chest, but it was too late. Damn holoscreen txting. When would I learn? Kyle’s jaw dropped open. His Doc was immediately in his hands. I grabbed his wrist.

  “Don’t you dare txt Mom.”