Page 65 of Turn

“No,” I said rather flatly. That wasn’t true. I remembered.

Tanya’s smile faltered, just a little. “Oh.” She shrugged. “Well, it was a really really long time ago,” she said as if we were talking in terms of centuries instead of merely half a decade. “I mean, who the hell can remember everything that happened in high school, right? It doesn’t even matter anyway.”

Tanya tapped her long acrylic nails on the table and looked over at the bar where her friends awaited.

“I’m really glad I ran into you guys,” she said. “We’ll have to plan something, a night out with a bunch of us survivors from San Verde High. Who says it’s too soon for a reunion?”

“I have memories I’d like to talk about, Tanya,” I said a little sharply. “Other memories. They’re not as cute and nostalgic as yours.”

She started to slide out of the booth. “Oh. Well, like I said it was a different era.”

“Yes, an era when you wrote the word ‘Slut’ on my locker, spread the lie that I blew half the football team in the boys’ locker room for twenty bucks, and bashed me all over social media while encouraging everyone else to do the same. That’s the era I remember far more clearly than giggling at cheerleading practice.”

Tanya Rowley was no longer smiling. A fleeting look of embarrassment crossed her face and then her pouty lips flattened into a hard line. “I didn’t have anything to do with all that.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

“Double bullshit,” Debra chimed in. “I was in cheerleading too, Tanya. You turned bullying Cassie into a goddamn crusade.”

Tanya glared. “I wasn’t exactly the only one who had an opinion on the subject when it came to Cassie.”

“You were the worst,” I said quietly. “The others on the squad just followed your lead. And then so did the rest of the school.”

“And you did nothing, I suppose,” Tanya spat, her fake veneer of friendliness fading completely. “That’s right, you did nothing to deserve the whispers and the gossip. You were completely innocent.”

“I didn’t deserve that,” I said. “I messed around with a guy at a party. So what? Seriously, so fucking what? That did not justify what came next. The way I was treated, the way you all ran me out of school. You know damn well I didn’t deserve it.”

Tanya lifted her chin and fixed me with a look of contempt. She remembered. She remembered all of it. And she wasn’t the least bit sorry. She felt no sense of accountability for her actions. I certainly wouldn’t be getting an apology out of her.

“Hey Tanya, I think Ryan needs to talk to you,” said a voice. I looked up into the apologetic face of Parker Neely and could tell he’d heard at least a little bit of the conversation.

Tanya threw one more glare in my direction and then removed herself from our table, heading over to the bar where she could commiserate with like-minded individuals about what a heinous bitch Cassie Gentry was for having the bad manners to tell the truth.

“Sorry about that,” Parker said to me.

I gave him a hard look. “Yeah, we just keep running into each other, don’t we?”

He glanced over to his friends. “We’ll leave, okay? I’ll tell them we need to go somewhere else.”

“That’s not necessary. We’re all adults. Some of us even act like it.”

A vague smile crossed his face. “Tanya will still be no better than a snotty teenager in twenty years. What are you gonna do?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Debra spoke up. “Maybe you could stop hanging out with assholes.”

Parker blinked and it seemed he’d just noticed that she was even sitting there. “Oh, hi, um…”

“Debra,” she finished.

“Right, Debra. I remember you.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Parker, I don’t care if you stay,” I said. “Just do me a favor and try to keep your rabid pets on a leash, okay?”

He chuckled. “You got it.”

The conversation could have ended there but he lingered at the table and kept looking at me.

---