Mark My Words

80 | Conspiracy Theorizing

"Just before New Years, the girls' soccer team championed Regionals. The winning score against the Groton Memorial Tigers reigning Regional champions was made by our very own Juliana Lane on an assist from Erin McAlister—final score, 1-2."

Rosalie's second hour class roared awake with a wave of congratulatory claps. Neither Juliana nor Erin were in the room, but all attention went back to where Rosalie sat, stiff in her chair, at the end of her and Joanna's lab table. Rosalie dropped her gaze, but she heard the rustle of everyone turning back around a second longer than necessary.

They're all looking at it, she thought, a hand clutched over her cheek.

She glanced to the side, away from where she could see the junior at the table in front of them looking back at her. He turned back around, and Rosalie felt a tense shiver crawl up her spine and settle in her hunched shoulders.

Joanna had her head down and turned to the window, elbow propped up on the ledge of the counter stretched adjacent to their lab table. Her hair was slicked back into a ponytail—her curls frizzy were barely managed by the hair tie. Joanna propped her hand against her forehead and glared ahead. Rosalie looked and found the junior still staring at her.

"You want me to punch your nuts, Lawson? Because I will," Joanna said.

The guy's lab partner hit him in the arm and made an oh shit look. He turned bright red and raised a hand in surrender before turning back around and away from where Rosalie felt her own embarrassment gathering, white hot, under the tingling skin of her scar.

The announcements were winding down as Rosalie caught Joanna's eye and mouthed, "Thank you." Joanna huffed and went back to surveying the fields down below, still covered in a thick blanket of snow. The hills were all torn up, though, from the underclassmen gym classes coming through for ski practice. By now, the students from gym class were filing out in their biggest winter jackets and snow pants after listening to announcements.

"Alright class, I hope you all had a splendid winter break," their teacher said, standing at the front of the room.

Rosalie kept her eyes forward, her attention thinning by the second. She felt her eyes drifting elsewhere, and before long, she was looking at Joanna again. Joanna's focus was forward, but she hardly seemed pleased about it. When she caught Rosalie looking, Joanna turned her eyes to the window. Rosalie turned back to their teacher with a tense, strained frown.

Classes went on after that initially terrifying day. People still stared in the cafeteria, sure, or in passing down the halls, but that was all a consequence of going to a school with over three thousand students. She was seeing new faces every day—new faces that knew her, and knew all of the rumors that spread. It was difficult for people to forget fights like the one Joanna started on the very first day, when she put the school board on her tail for the soul purpose of keeping an eye on her. A thin veil of protection against Arden Dodge. If people had their eye on Joanna, Joanna couldn't disappear without causing some sort of concern.

But the rumors that spawned because of that... made people whisper.

"Rosalie," Juliana said, hushed, at the cafeteria table late that day. French class had just ended, and so she tagged along after Lennie and Jamie-Lee to their study spot at the far side of the cafeteria, in the shadow of a massive, concrete pillar. They had spent all of last semester there.

"What is it?" Rosalie said, pausing as Juliana got to her feet and hurried to catch Rosalie by the arm. Rosalie glanced back at Jamie-Lee, who shrugged and waved farewell as Juliana dragged her to the outskirts of the cafeteria.