talktomeQuinn

I hiccup through a laugh that’s one part bitter and two parts terror. “Carey. He’s MIA.”

“Fuck.”

George pats my arm. That’s all it takes to send me over the edge. I’m laughing and crying in a squelchy mess. And then I’m just crying while George holds my hand, and I hate myself for wishing for a second that I’d never met Carey. That I’d never fallen for him—or taken the fall for him.

“Can I offer you some advice, Sophie?” George asks.

He sounds hesitant, very un-George-like, and he retrieves his hand when I nod. My coat sleeve is soaked from scrubbing my face like a five-year-old.

“Stop protecting them. They’re grown men. You’re not doing anyone any favors, least of all yourself, girl.”

Them? I’ve told George next to nothing about my life outside this hospital. We mostly talk about the Veterans History Project. It’s my job to help him collect stories, photos, and mementos from soldiers who want their military memories to live on at the Library of Congress. I’m continuing George’s mission to keep a record of war. This place—my time with him—it’s where I forget everything that came before.

“What makes you think I’m protecting anyone?”

He snorts. “Only someone with their head up their ass would think you betrayed that boy. I’d known you five minutes when I knew what kind of person you are. And no way in hell are you a lying cheat like they say,” he says, nodding his head toward the hospital.

I freeze. “They talk about me in there?”

A shrug and another snort. “Only the people from around Sweethaven. We’re sitting ducks for gossip, Soph, and your dad is well known around here. Besides, what else do we have to do? Play hopscotch?”

I should have guessed the gossip would follow me here. My dad is the reason I work at the hospital in the first place. I’m not upset like I thought I’d be, though. A tiny spark of warmth kindles inside me. Because George heard the awful things people say about me and doesn’t believe them. I think he must be the only one. One in a million.

George’s peppered hair covers the bald spot on the top of his head in a combover. Despite everything, my lips slip into a smile. “Liar,” I say. “Everyone knows you sneak into the atrium to play poker with the guys from 216C.”

“Son of a bitch, you say.”

A breeze sweeps through the ash trees, and the bare branches sway. George hides a shiver. The past weeks have brought fragility to him that he won’t acknowledge. I rise and circle the chair to push him back toward the hospital.

We are silent until I ask, “George?”

“Hmph?”

“Thanks for not believing the gossip.”

He reaches back to pat my hand with his wrinkled one.

Chapter Five

Monday means school, and school means tarring-and-feathering for the slutty girl who cheated on her saintly boyfriend. Like their parents, my classmates believe I’ve broken the code. Didn’t you hear? She was fucking some other guy before Carey even left for Afghanistan.

I’d hate that girl too, if I didn’t know the truth about her. And it doesn’t really matter how good or kind she was before.

I wait until the last bell rings before I enter the school. Better to be tardy than brave the crowded halls alone. That is a lesson I learned the hard way.

After the photo was first posted, I grew accustomed to the stares. My classmates and I have come to an uneasy truce. I don’t speak to them, and they pretend I don’t exist. It works with everyone, except Jamie. With Carey out of the way, she’s made it her mission to destroy me. I want to tell her to give it up: Carey can’t love her no matter how hard she tries. But that would lead to questions and explanations I can’t give.

Whatever progress I’ve made in the six months since Jamie posted the picture of me on the Web will have been destroyed by the latest news about Carey. The scene at Bob’s proved that.

Yellow ribbons are plastered on many of the orange lockers in the deserted main hallway. I hadn’t expected that, but it doesn’t surprise me a bit. Carey is ours. He might as well have a PROPERTY OF SWEETHAVEN label stamped on his ass. He belongs to this town, and we belong to him. These ribbons say I’m proud of you and I miss you and Come home safe. I feel a twinge of fierce longing and love for my former friends.

Then I arrive at my locker to retrieve my calculus book for first period. The artist really took his or her time carving TRAITOR into the metal skin of my locker. And beneath that, in larger letters: WHORE. They must have used an awl because the letters are good and deep. The message will reappear like magic no matter how many coats of paint Mr. Dupree, the janitor, slaps on it.

Freaking awesome.

You’d think they could find a scrap of originality after all these months.

*   *   *

It sucked to start my senior year crowned as the town slut.

News traveled fast in our town of 3,053, and the night before school started, a picture hit the Internet and lit our corner of the world on fire. Some had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about cheating, and the appearance of my half-naked self on Facebook challenged that. The picture had to have been taken by accident. Shot from the end zone at an August football scrimmage, the foreground featured our team celebrating on the sidelines of a rival school’s field. Blake and I were only noticeable upon closer scrutiny, hidden as we were behind the bleachers.