Kendall & Me [discontinued]

12 | Nowhere Near Your Intellectual Level

For a moment, Ashlynn didn’t say anything.  She just stared at me as though she didn’t quite understand what I was saying.  From where I was standing, I could see that she was going through the options—determining what exactly I knew she did.  And from the momentary horror on her face, I’m guessing one of her options was correct.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean,” she said finally, her voice barely over a whisper.

I glanced at Kendall, momentarily stumped.  If I was being at all honest, I’d have to admit that I hadn’t thought this far into the conversation.  I probably should have—I mean, it was always going to come to this.  I mean, I’d never imagined the conversation being this blunt, but this was always the main point of it all.  “You know what I’m talking about,” I settled with, feeling vaguely like we were mocking a scene in a movie.  I turned away from Kendall and looked Ashlynn in the eye, mentally pleading with her to just admit what she’d done so Kendall wouldn’t disappear into oblivion.

Ashlynn folded her lips together.  I watched silently as she twisted her cap back on her lip gloss, slipped it into her purse, and zipped her purse shut.  Distantly, I wondered if she was using this time to formulate a response.  “I didn’t skip English,” she said after her purse was placed on the crook of her elbow.  She wouldn’t meet my gaze as she continued.  “I had an appointment and my mom dropped me off a few minutes ago.”

Kendall scoffed.  “Are you kidding me?  She’s kidding me, right?”

I resisted the urge to look over at Kendall as I glared.  “You know I’m not talking about English, Ashlynn.”  I paused.  “We used to be best friends, and now you can’t even look me in the eye.”

 Ashlynn looked up, her eyes now reaching for my forehead.

“Great, so you have three eyes,” Kendall muttered sarcastically.  “You didn’t tell me you had an eye on your forehead, Isabel.”

“What are you talking about then?” Ashlynn asked, looking like she wanted anything but to know what I wanted to ask, but didn’t know how else to respond.

“Kendall.”

Ashlynn’s eyes snapped down to meet mine, and in that moment I could see the guilt on her face.  Her eyes were pleading with me not to talk about this, not to bring up this incident in the past.  I could see that this conversation was paining her, but I forced myself not to concentrate on that.  Kendall wasn’t an incident.  She was a girl whose life had ended because of Ashlynn—whether intended or not. 

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ashlynn lied, looking away from me and into the mirror.  After a moment her gaze shot down to the floor, our reflections clearly becoming too much for her.

“You son of a—”

Kendall’s venomous snap was cut short as the bathroom door swung open and a girl with frizzy brunette hair pulled back in a messy bun stepped inside.  “Ash?” she called, eyebrows crinkling with concern as she caught the expression on Ashlynn’s face.  “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Ashlynn muttered, bringing a hand through her hair and taking a step away from me.  She forced on a smile.  “Everything’s good, Rach.  I’ll see you in math, okay?”

With that, Ashlynn side-stepped me and hurried out of the room, brushing passed the brunette—Rach—as she did so.  I watched as she left, stomach dropping.  Now she was going to avoid me like Kendall and I used to avoid broccoli. 

Rach eyed me suspiciously as she headed toward one of the stalls, but didn’t say anything.  I didn’t say anything either, just started for the bathroom door.  Kendall followed me without a word, her arms crossed furiously over her chest.