Sarah Stevenson - Underneath (Sarah Jamila Stevenson)

“Lame, dude, I can’t believe your parents are making you go to some wedding ,” Spike’s saying, like this is the most disgusting thing he’s ever heard.

“I know; it’s like punishment. It’s like hell in a tuxedo. It’s like … ” Eyes-Front trails off, staring at Cassie’s chest as she takes off her jacket.

“Quit staring, Marc. You’re such a perv,” Cassie says offhandedly, but with a tiny smile. She never minds extra attention, even from him. “I, for one, will not miss you at the barbecue.”

“You wound me, woman, you wound me,” Eyes-Front says, putting a hand to his heart in mock anguish while still somehow managing to eye up Cassie.

“Sunny, are you coming?” Spike looks over at me from across the table. I’d almost forgotten I was part of the conversation.

“I’m, uh … I don’t know.” I can’t picture being at a barbecue with them, with these people who suddenly feel like strangers.

“James’s brother is going to be there, remember,” he says, trying to sound persuasive. My cheeks get hot. Last year I had a humongous crush on James’s older brother Evan, a junior at UC Irvine. Spike’s argument might have convinced me once upon a time, but today I raise my eyebrows at him and shrug.

He keeps looking at me, expectantly.

I can’t think of any conceivable way this barbecue will be fun for me right now, but I feel bad because I know Spike wants me to go. I squirm uncomfortably. I hate this; hate feeling guilty. I don’t want to have to feel bad about not writing in a journal or not going to a party that I don’t want to go to.

My neck is damp with sweat and I take deep breaths, trying to recapture a semblance of calm. After a moment, I can meet Spike’s gaze again. I am fine. I am perfectly serene. I am—

Now Cassie is staring at me out of the corner of her eye. One second my mind is clear and uncluttered and Zen-like, the next second—

oh my god look at her eyebrows

she hasn’t even gotten them shaped since—

she always wants all the attention and boy

has she been getting it

—sick of feeling sorry for her, what about me?

It’s Cassie’s voice. I don’t want to hear it. I want to pretend that it’s not her and it’s only my paranoid imagination. But I can feel her layers of confused annoyance, her frustration and anger and even loneliness, coming off her like waves of heat from a summer parking lot. Her expression is placid, one perfectly arched and penciled eyebrow slightly raised, but to me it looks like a smirk.

And I hear the rest of them, like a buzz in the background.

—never wants to party with us

feeling sorry for herself—can’t she just get past—

—major downer, I wish she’d just—

I want to put my hands over my ears, but I know it won’t help. My eyes prickle like I’m going to cry. It must be showing on my face, but nobody else’s expression changes.

I swallow hard. How long has Cassie felt like this? Maybe we never had the deepest friendship, but we always had fun. I thought I knew her. But I guess I didn’t.

I can’t hold it inside. I stand up.

“Are you sure you even want me to go?” I say bitterly, directing my question at Cassie. “You don’t seem that excited.”

“What are you even talking about?” She frowns, cuts her eyes at me, but I know she’s lying. For all I know, she’s just been going along with our friendship, going through the motions on the outside when inside she’s backstabbing me. Or maybe it isn’t only inside. A horrible, unfamiliar feeling of suspicion begins to take shape. Bile rises in the back of my throat. Everyone at the table is looking at me. Spike looks confused, and Elisa looks worried, but the longer I stand there, the worse I feel. I grab my backpack.

“I, uh, have to check something in the library,” I say, my voice weaker than I’d like it to sound.

“Sure, whatever,” Cassie says, sounding perfectly casual, but I know what she wasn’t saying and I saw her roll her eyes at Marc. And was it my imagination or was he grinning knowingly back at her?

I don’t care. I start walking briskly away, backpack dangling heavily off one shoulder.

“Hey, wait,” Spike shouts. “You coming Saturday?”

I wave noncommittally, not looking at him, and keep walking. Spike’s beach party: James, his brother, lots of beer, the swim team crew, and Cassie. My so-called friends.

There’s no way I’m going to that barbecue.

The texture on my bedroom ceiling has a funny shape like an evil clown’s head, right above my bed. I never noticed it until tonight. It’s amazing what you notice when you spend ten hours lying around staring at the ceiling.

It’s starting to get dark, so I turn on the bedside lamp so I can see the evil clown more clearly. Next to it is a bunny with three ears. The better to hear you with, my dear. With three ears, that rabbit could hear a wolf just thinking about chasing it.

And, just like that, I’m obsessing again. No matter how hard I try, I keep going back to what happened yesterday at school, and even more than that, the fact that I’ve started hearing thoughts.

Hearing thoughts . Whenever I think about it, I get a nervous, gut-churning feeling inside. It’s like a sci-fi movie. Except I’m no heroine, and I don’t feel powerful. I’m just me, scared and alone. And angry.

I turn on my side and pull my knees up to my chest. I can’t get the image of Cassie’s smirking face out of my mind. Or the faces of all my so-called friends, plastered with fake smiles while their real feelings hammered my brain.

It’s like the first day of kindergarten all over again. I’m wearing an embroidered dress—my favorite dress, bright purple and sparkly with tiny mirrors, a dress that Dadi had brought from Pakistan. I was still a little pudgy with baby fat. At recess, a group of mean kids surrounded me near the jump rope area, teasing me. “ What are you wearing?” “You look purple like a grape.” “Grape girl.” Back then, Shiri was there to step in, running all the way over from the older kids’ recess area when she saw me being cornered.

If she were here, I wonder if she’d understand, if she’d rub my back like she did when she was nine and I was five, and comfort me. “ Forget it. They don’t know anything. You look cute, that’s all. They’re jealous.”

A tear slides down my nose. They don’t know anything. Cassie doesn’t know anything about how hard this is. And obviously I can’t tell her.

I used to just laugh it off when she’d make bitchy little comments. I’d always known she didn’t really mean it, that she was trying to be funny when she didn’t know what to say. But yesterday … I heard what she was thinking, and somehow that made all the difference. Maybe she didn’t say it out loud this time, but she felt it. She meant it.

Part of me wonders if I should call her, try to confront her about it. But every time I pick up the phone, I hear her words echo in my head. She texted me a couple of times, but I deleted the messages without reading them. Maybe I’m being too harsh.

—sick of feeling sorry for her—

No. I’m doing the right thing.

The door hinges creak a little as Mom peeks into my room yet again. “Okay, Sunny honey?”

“Fine, Mom,” I mutter.

When she shuts the door, I sit up and fumble my feet into my fuzzy slippers. I took another day off school today, but it’s time to make an appearance downstairs and pretend everything’s normal, pretend I’m feeling better. I don’t want to have to talk to my parents about this. How can I? How could I explain it?