13 to Life by Shannon Delany

already cooking up in her head.
    The room grew completely still as Jenny entered playing with her bleached blond bangs, curling them with her fingersinto a sweep over the bridge of her pert ski-slope nose (which she covered with an ice pack) and her left eye.
    As Jenny turned to sit, the bangs swayed away from her face a moment. I almost gasped. The skin around her left eye was swollen and bruised, leaving the eye barely able to peek out. I wondered if her right eye would do the same. Surely a far cry from the look she was probably going for at Homecoming.
    “Ladies,” Perlson said softly.
    I mentally questioned his choice of the term, but Jenny and Macie seemed to recognize it as somehow applicable to them, and nodded in his direction.
    Derek sat down and took Jenny’s hand, guiding her into the seat beside him.
    I froze.
    He patted her hand reassuringly, whispering encouragement into her ear. She smiled at me.
    I couldn’t even blink. I felt like I’d been socked in the gut—betrayed. My eyes dried up like raisins.
    “Miss Gunders,” Perlson asked, “could you please tell us about the situation in the ladies’ locker room today?”
    Macie looked at Jenny. Something passed between them that I couldn’t understand. I hated how it seemed the popular kids communicated at a different mental wavelength from me. It was a look laced with hidden meaning.
    I knew my fate was hidden in that single glance, but I couldn’t read it. I could pick apart Shakespeare, analyze Freud, but understand cheerleaders? No. They were a different species, predatory and lethal.
    Derek sat silently at Jenny’s side, placidly stroking her hand.
    “Miss Gunders?” Perlson tried again.
    Macie nodded. Her eyes were cold. “We were all in the locker room aftera game of basketball.” She leaned around Jenny and addressed Derek. “Good game, Derek.”
    “Thanks, Mace.” He didn’t falter stroking Jenny’s hand.
    Glaring at me with fresh ferocity, Macie continued, “We were all getting changed and we saw a note fall out of
her
locker.”
    She wouldn’t say my name. Was I so far beneath her? I rubbed the stone until I thought my thumb would callous.
    “And then?”
    “Jenny picked it up.”
    “Did Miss Gillmansen ask for it back?”
    “Yes,” Macie admitted. “She even said
puh-leez,
” she added. But it was far less a note about my polite behavior than a verbal swipe. As if saying “please” was a sign of weakness.
    “Hmm. Who was the note from?”
    “Her mother.”
    “Oh.” Perlson paused. “Then what happened?”
    “Well, we read it, of course.” Macie rolled her eyes.
    “Out loud?”
    “Yes.”
    “And then Miss Gillmansen attacked you?”
    “No.” It was Jenny. She peered at me with her one good eye. “I was going to shred the note.” She gave Derek’s hand a squeeze. He squeezed back reassuringly. “It was a really bitchy—oops.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Sorry.”
    Perlson nodded, excusing her faux pas and signaling her to continue.
    “It was a really
nasty
thing for us to do. I can’t blame her for snapping. I mean, that whole mess with her mom—”
    Derek squeezed her hand again, and I saw something different behind his eyes. But Jenny kept rattling on; and Derek keptpumping her hand—to silence her or encourage her? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t be sure of anything.
    Jenny was babbling. “You know—surviving the sophomore slump, trying to deal with poor mental Sarah”—she set the ice down long enough to spin her finger in the air near her ear—“and the way Derek’s been stringing her along just to make me jealous . . .” She shook her head sadly.
    Derek released her hand. His eyes met mine. There was no message there—no meaning for me to read. I felt sick. Stringing me along? As much as I didn’t want to believe it, every one of my doubts and insecurities agreed until I did. Guys like Derek didn’t waste time on girls like me.
    “Derek,” Harnek said, her tone meant to