And When I Die, page 7
Actually, it was amazing how much time she had in general since her friendship with Whitney had ended. She never realized how wrapped up they had been in each other’s lives, spending all their time talking, texting, messaging, giving each other breathless updates on the most tedious of details minute by minute. For so many years, that unending connection had felt like a lifeline, a natural extension of herself.
It was funny that they’d even been best friends at all, since they were so different from each other. Whitney was sparkly. Social. A people person. She cared what people thought about her, so her whole vibe was about striving to be the best, the most, the top. She thrived on attention and people sure did love giving it to her. People gravitated to Whitney because she portrayed sweetness and light, like a bottomless bottle of frothy bubbles.
That’s not why people wanted to be in Jordan’s orbit. They loved her sarcasm and endless bag of one-liners. Unlike Whitney, she didn’t care if people liked her or not, which made her even cooler, because she gave zero fucks. Her father always said she was one cigarette and a leather jacket away from being James Dean, whoever that was.
Despite the polarity in their personalities, Whitney and Jordan had balanced each other out, becoming a one-two punch in popularity, from elementary school onward. Two peas in a pod, who giggled endlessly over their many inside jokes and had each other’s back. They’d planned to attend college somewhere on the East Coast and be roomies. They were supposed to be best friends forever. At least that had been Jordan’s plan.
Which made the bullshit Whitney pulled on her over the summer all the more stunning. Worse, Whitney hadn’t thought it was that big a deal—had laughed about it and told Jordan to grow up and stop acting like a baby.
If Whitney had only apologized, told her it was a stupid mistake, that she was sorry, that she hadn’t been thinking, Jordan would have forgiven her.
But she couldn’t—or wouldn’t.
So, Jordan had to walk away.
And it broke her heart.
She picked up her phone and finished archiving her text messages for the day on the secret cloud account she had. When Jordan was eleven, she’d caught her mom looking through her diary. It had made her furious, especially when she didn’t even apologize, saying that as her mother, she had a right to know what was going on in her life. It was beyond humiliating. Not that there was anything in it—mostly about boys she thought were cute, or how much she hated when it was fish stick day at school. It didn’t matter. Her privacy had been breached, so Jordan threw the diary in the trash. The following year, when she got her own phone, she’d gotten in the habit of deleting her text messages, only leaving anything she wasn’t worried about her mother seeing. When she found out she could archive them, she started doing that every night. There were just no lines her mother wouldn’t cross to poke around in Jordan’s life.
There was a timid knock on her door. Jordan rolled her eyes. Her mother’s knock, which meant peace was shattered and she was home. She quickly exited out of her account.
“What?”
The door creaked open and sure enough, her mother was peering around it. “Honey, do you have a minute?”
“No,” Jordan said, her eyes never leaving her computer screen.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said.
“I said I was busy.”
Her mother came over and stood next to the desk, barely able to keep from smiling. “It’s important.”
Jordan heaved a sigh and leaned back in her desk chair, arms crossed. “What?”
Her mother thrust a large purple envelope in her face, the smile no longer contained. Jordan’s heart sank. She knew exactly what this was.
“Mrs. Dean came over yesterday morning to drop this off and she said they’d love to have you at Whitney’s Sweet Sixteen.” She beamed. “See? It’s official now.”
Jordan stared at her mother, her jaw hanging open in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”
“I know, I know, there’s not a lot of time, but I can take you shopping tomorrow after school and—”
She shot out of her chair until she was face-to-face with her mother. “Seriously, what part of leave it alone, give it a rest, stop, do you not understand?”
“Jordan—”
“Why can’t you let this go?”
Her mother sighed. “All right obviously you’re too worked up right now to appreciate what a really nice thing Mrs. Dean did for you. What I did for you. Why are you so ungrateful?”
“I never asked you to do this!” she screamed as she went to step around her mother. “I’m not going.”
“I’m so disappointed in you, Jordan.” Her mother’s voice wobbled and tears ran down her face. “When did you become such a spoiled brat?”
“Why are you always butting into everything?”
“All right, you know what? Your father is at his dinner tonight,” her mom said, digging her phone out of her pants pocket, holding it up. “You want me to interrupt him so he can talk to you?”
The image of the blistering vein on her father’s forehead and creeping red stain on his neck whenever he got angry flashed across her mind. And it wouldn’t just be being pissed about the interrupted dinner, though that was enough to make the lava erupt with roaring fury. If there was one thing they all knew, it was that you didn’t mess with her father’s business.
It was about her mother. He always took her mom’s side. Always. He’d stand in the middle of that restaurant and rip her a new one. Then, he’d come barreling through the door when he got home to scream at her some more—even if it meant waking her up—to yell at her about treating her mother with respect, no matter what asinine, nosy thing she did. His blind devotion to her mother’s lunacy pissed her off almost as much as her mother’s lunacy.
She folded her arms across her chest and looked away. “No.”
Her mother cocked her head to the side as she shoved the phone back in her pocket. “I didn’t think so.”
Jordan clucked her tongue against her teeth, venom burning inside her. Tears threatened to slip out of her eyes, but she held them in. Sometimes, she hated her mother so much.
“Well?” her mother asked.
“Well, what?”
“Are you going to apologize?”
Jordan exhaled, pinching her face together to keep the tears in. “I’m sorry for yelling.”
“Good. I accept your apology.” Her mother stood in the doorway for a few more seconds before slamming the door behind her.
She flopped down on the bed, her breath roiling in her chest as the tears exploded. She pushed her face into her pillow, the wetness soaking into the pale white cotton.
Across the room, her phone dinged with a new tweet. She looked up at the ceiling, debating about whether she even wanted to deal with Twitter or anything right now. Turning out the light and crying herself to sleep seemed like a better idea.
A flurry of pings bombarded her phone, so she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stumbled toward her phone on the desk next to her laptop.
Hey, @itsJordanBaby Who’d you bang?
Her heart jumped, her eyes narrowing.
@itsJordanBaby - Ho
@itsJordanBaby - Trash
@itsJordanBaby - Skank
@itsJordanBaby THOTTHOTTHOTTHOTTHOT
@itsJordanBaby will sleep with your man. Watch. Your. Back.
She jabbed at the screen, stunned as she scrolled through the barrage of garbage clogging her Twitter feed. Tweet after tweet. Because of pom, she had been required to keep her account private and had never gotten around to changing the setting. So, she knew these handles.
She knew every last one of these bitches.
And she knew who the head bitch was.
Her phone continued to ping as she threw it down, her breath coming in short, heavy spurts as she paced the length of her room. She undid her ponytail holder, running her hands through her hair repeatedly. She had warned Whitney, had made it clear she couldn’t start stuff and not have it come back on her.
And now this. Like she was taunting her, daring her to do something about it.
Jordan snatched up her phone, finger hovering over the screen to fire off a series of angry, seething text messages, to let Whitney know her time was up.
Her gaze landed on the sparkly purple envelope her mother had just delivered. Jordan sniffed as she picked it up, tracing the embossed silver letters. She’d already told Whitney not to mess with her. She didn’t need any more warnings.
It was time to teach her a lesson.
11
CARLY
Carly scrolled through her Twitter feed, lit up with Jordan’s handle and all kinds of super nasty things. She had to give Dionne credit. The girl worked fast. There was no way Jordan would want anything to do with Whitney now. She’d be mortified. Totally humiliated. Maybe it would get so bad, she’d have to transfer to another school or her family would have to move.
No, Whitney and Jordan definitely wouldn’t be making up.
As long as no one found out she’d been the one to turn Dionne loose, she’d be fine. Totally fine. She didn’t do anything. Not really. Dionne was the one with the big mouth.
Carly bit her thumbnail, her whole body shaking. If Dionne got the chance to throw her under the bus to save herself, she’d do it in a heartbeat. Everyone would be mad at her. She’d be the one in trouble.
But she didn’t tell Dionne to go blab all over social media. She’d barely said anything. And technically, she hadn’t lied. Whitney had said Jordan was a skank and that she couldn’t be trusted. She was simply repeating what she’d heard. Dionne jumped to her own conclusions.
That would have to be her story. Dionne totally got confused about what she was saying. So, really, this would still be Dionne’s fault.
Everything would be fine.
Her phone dinged.
W: WTH?
C: This is sooooooo crazy!! What happened??
W: No clue.
C: Hav u heard frm Jordan?
W: Not yet. But I will. Trust that.
C: U think so?
W: Of course I will cuz she’ll think it ws me.
C: But you didn’t do anything.
W: Jesus, like that will stop her. Seriously, think.
Carly bit her lip and swallowed hard. The last slot she wanted to occupy in her life was next to Jordan on Whitney’s shit list.
C: Totes just thought of this … maybe she’ll die from humiliation and then you’ll never have to see her again.
W: I wish.
Carly’s breath eased out of her slowly like a tire hissing air. Everything was good. They were still tight.
She responded with a laughing emoji and waited a few minutes before Whitney texted back to say she was wiped and going to bed and would talk to her in the morning. She couldn’t help herself. She went back on Twitter to see Jordan’s feed had virtually exploded with endless variations of “ho,” “skank,” “thot,” and “trash.”
And Jordan hadn’t responded to a single tweet.
Carly slowly put on her pajamas, her heartbeat thundering in her chest as she kept an eye on her phone. As she crawled into bed, she continued scrolling through Twitter until she fell asleep and her phone thudded to the floor below.
12
ERICA
Erica grabbed her coffee mug with both hands, taking a slow sip. The fight with Jordan kept her alternating between crying and tossing and turning throughout the night. Jay slipped his arms around her, holding her close, whispering soothing words into her ear before she drifted into a light, troubled sleep around three. She finally pushed herself out of bed at five, sitting glumly in her office and staring out the window, watching the sun swallow the mist of early morning, Jordan’s fury repeatedly slicing into her like a million little paper cuts.
She’d been so disappointed when Jordan told her last year she didn’t want to do a Sweet Sixteen party. At first, Erica thought she didn’t want the competition with Whitney, even though Jordan’s birthday was in August, Whitney’s in September. Turns out, she didn’t want to do anything, opting instead for a movie and dinner at Old Orchard with two friends whose names Erica had never even heard before. Jordan had allowed the family to give her a small cake and candles beforehand, and had, of course, accepted the gift of the brand-new BMW, though she grumbled the whole time before slamming out of the house to meet the two mystery girls.
She really hoped Whitney’s party would be a turning point back to her old self. Jordan had always been spirited. Feisty. Funny, no-BS Jordan, a one girl Greek chorus who called it like she saw it. Erica could do without the surly, put-upon creature who had moved in over the summer, the one who snapped and snarled at the wind blowing the wrong way. She’d even quit the pom squad before school started, saying she wasn’t into it anymore, which Erica could not comprehend. Jordan was a phenomenal dancer. Powerful and athletic with a flair for the dramatic, she executed every move with flawless precision and played to the crowd like a natural. Coupled with Whitney’s natural grace and poise, they would have made for formidable co-captains their senior year.
Until this past summer. Whispers of a falling out echoed across the Mitchell house and suddenly the lifelong friends were mortal enemies. She didn’t think it had anything to do with a boy, though she supposed it was possible. It could have even been something as stupid as fighting over who wore a lipstick when. A borrowed sweater. An overblown social media slight. Teenage girls were trivial and melodramatic that way. Whatever it was, Whitney was persona non grata in the Mitchell household. No more parties, sleepovers, hanging out, texting, or phone calls—nothing. Every time Erica attempted to ask her daughter about it, an explosion of sound and fury detonated, followed by stomps and slammed doors. At times, it was frightening, this flip in her daughter’s personality. Jordan had always been a confident girl, verging on cocky at times, but never mean. These days, however, she was venomous. Erica could only hope her fits of rage were due to the unfortunate condition of being sixteen and saddled with the world.
Kennedy’s soft, yet insistent footsteps sounded on the stairs before she padded into the kitchen, dressed for school, humming quietly to herself as she parked herself at the kitchen table.
“Cereal, please,” she said, beaming, her hands folded in front of her.
Erica cocked her head. “You know, Kennedy, I’ve seen you feed yourself cereal a hundred times. I have every faith you can make it a hundred and one.”
Kennedy gave her a solemn look before bursting into laughter. “Gotcha!” she yelled, before sliding from her chair and heading for the pantry and the cereal.
“Your smoothie is in the fridge, sweetie,” Erica said as Jay lumbered down the stairs behind her, the clean, crisp spice of his aftershave racing into the room ahead of him. He leaned down, nuzzling her neck.
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?”
“Terrible.”
He kissed the top of her head before coming around to stand in front of her. “Try not to let it bother you. You were only doing something nice for your daughter. Nobody can fault you for that.”
She scoffed. “Jordan can.”
“Don’t worry about her. One day, this won’t even matter.”
“Jordan’s a terrible, terrible daughter,” Kennedy said solemnly as she resumed her spot at the table, her blue glass bowl teeming with Cheerios. “Just terrible.”
“Hey!” Jay snapped. “You be nice to your sister.”
Kennedy shrugged, unfazed as she lifted a spoonful of cereal to her lips. “Well, she is.”
Erica stopped herself from agreeing with her youngest, instead resting her forehead against Jay’s shoulder, pressing against him like the life preserver he often was. They both turned at the sound of Jordan shuffling into the kitchen, a sheepish look on her wan face, dark crescents of her own sleepless night beneath red, droopy eyes. Erica cleared her throat and looked down into her coffee mug while Jay poured himself a cup, as Kennedy continued eating her cereal, not even acknowledging her sister’s appearance.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning.” Jordan set her book bag down onto the empty bar chair next to Erica before reaching into the refrigerator for a blueberry Greek yogurt and a bottle of water. She plucked a banana out of the green glass bowl on the counter. Erica resumed sipping her coffee, the tension stretching across the room like a rubber band bound to snap loose at any minute.
“Did you know that the Great Pyramid of Giza is located in Egypt?” Kennedy asked.
“Did you know the most annoying sister in the world is named Kennedy Mitchell?” Jordan spat.
Jay slammed his hand against the kitchen counter, causing the sisters to jump in unison. “Hey! Both of you, shut up!”
Both girls complied and for several moments, the only sounds in the room were the insistent clank of Kennedy’s spoon against her cereal bowl, the slurp of Jay and Erica’s coffee, and Jordan’s quiet chewing of her banana.
“I’m sorry about last night, Mom,” Jordan finally murmured as she picked at the foil flap on the yogurt, her eyes pinned to the table.
Erica’s insides melted, runny as ice cream at this more sincere apology as she looked over at her oldest child, the child she’d desperately wanted for so many years, the child she thought would be denied her. Wordlessly, she set her coffee mug on the counter and pulled Jordan into a bear hug. Tears of happiness pricked her eyes as she inhaled the Juicy Couture perfume lining the folds of her daughter’s neck and strawberry shampoo woven through her hair.
“Oh, honey.” Erica leaned back, cupping her daughter’s face in her hands. “Thank you. That means so much.”
