Chapter 14 The Lie She Keeps Telling
PENNY POV
Tutor.
Informal tutor. That is the word she has decided on, and she is keeping it.
She lies on her bed at eleven-fifty with the ceiling above her and the word in her head, and it makes perfect sense. Tutors sit at tables with students. Tutors help with essays. Tutors do not think about the way someone said you're good at that in a quiet voice, like it was something they'd been holding for a while before deciding to let it out.
Tutors do not notice voices.
Penny closes her eyes. Opens them. The ceiling is still there.
She replays the evening in her head because, apparently, she is determined to make this as difficult as possible for herself. Jake came back inside from the porch. He sat at the table. He watched her help Lily finish her drawing homework without saying a word for ten whole minutes. Then he said it.
You're good at that.
And she said as if she didn't know, as she needed him to clarify, like she wasn't just buying herself a second to get her face under control.
He said: Explaining things so they make sense.
She said: You had good ideas. You just needed help organizing them.
All true. Very safe. Very tutor-appropriate.
Then he said he had another essay in three weeks and looked at her.
And she looked at him.
And neither of them said the actual thing, which is that sitting at opposite ends of a kitchen table doing homework in the quiet is not a tutor situation. Tutors get paid. Tutors have schedules. Tutors do not feel the specific kind of awareness that comes from knowing exactly where someone is in a room without looking up once.
She is a tutor, she tells herself.
She almost gets three minutes of sleep before her phone buzzes.
It's one in the morning.
The text is from a number she doesn't recognize.
You should know Brianna has been in the group chat all week. She knows your schedule. She knows which classes you have with Jake. She knows you tutor him. She's planning something bigger than a post.
Penny sits up.
She reads it three times.
She types back: Who is this?
Three dots appear. Then: someone who thinks what they did to you wasn't funny. That's all I'm saying.
Then nothing. The dots disappear. The number goes silent.
Penny sits in the dark with her phone in her hands. Her heart is going fast, but her brain is already moving, already sorting, already making a list. Brianna knows her schedule. Brianna has been watching. The posts, the smoothie, the comments on the old photo, those weren't random. Those were steps.
She opens her evidence folder. Twenty-two screenshots now. She adds the text exchange. She labels it: anonymous tip, 1:04 am.
She puts her phone down.
She picks it back up and reads the text one more time.
Someone who thinks what they did to you wasn't funny.
Someone in Brianna's circle who has a line they won't cross. She files that information away carefully. She does not know what she'll do with it yet. But she keeps everything.
She lies back down.
She does not sleep for a long time.
Wednesday morning is gray and cold.
Penny gets up at six-thirty, goes to the kitchen, and starts the coffee. She counts five raisins for Lily's oatmeal automatically, muscle memory now, and while the kettle heats, she thinks about schedules and plans and a girl who ended things with Jake but cannot stand watching him be okay without her.
She thinks about that longer than she means to.
Jake comes downstairs at six fifty-five. He stops when he sees her. He looks at the two mugs already on the counter. He looks at her face.
"You didn't sleep," he says.
"I slept fine."
"You have the look."
She turns around. "What look?"
He points at his own face, specifically the area around his eyes. "The one where everything is completely controlled, and that is the problem."
Penny stares at him. "That is not a look."
"You do it when something's wrong, and you've already decided to handle it alone."
She opens her mouth. She closes it. She turns back to the counter because he is correct, and she is not ready to deal with how well he has apparently been paying attention.
She pours the coffee. She puts his mug in front of him. She says, "I got a text last night."
She tells him about it. Not everything. Just the relevant parts. Schedule. Group chat. Something bigger is coming. She watches his face while she talks. His jaw gets tighter with each sentence, but his eyes stay steady.
When she finishes, he says, "Send me the screenshot."
"Jake"
"Not to do anything. Just to have it." His voice is very calm. "Please."
She looks at him. She sends it.
He looks at his phone. He looks back at her. He says, "Nothing happens to you at school today. I'll make sure of it."
"I don't need"
"I know you don't need it," he says. "I want to do it anyway. There's a difference."
Lily runs in before Penny can answer. Full speed, dinosaur shirt, one sock half off, demanding to know if it is a pancake day. Jake says no. Lily says she is renegotiating. Jake says you can't renegotiate a no. Lily looks at Penny.
"Don't look at me," Penny says. "It's not a pancake day."
Lily sighs so heavily that it moves her whole body.
The morning moves fast after that. Lily gets ready. Jake drives her to school on his way. Penny walks her own way, a different direction, and the morning is cold enough that she can see her breath.
She thinks about it. I want to do it anyway.
She thinks about how nobody has ever said that to her before.
She gets to school. She goes to her locker. She gets through first period and second period, and halfway through third period, she gets a folded note passed to her from two seats over.
She unfolds it.
It's not a mean note. It's not a threat. It is a hand-drawn chart. Someone has mapped out, in messy handwriting, every class Penny shares with Jake, with small stars next to the ones where Brianna also knows someone in the room. At the bottom, it says: watch these specifically. a friend.
Same handwriting as the anonymous text last night.
Penny folds the note carefully.
She looks around the room slowly, face neutral.
Her eyes land on Sofia. The girl from the second period who turned around to show her the post. Sofia is looking at the board. But her pen isn't moving.
Penny looks back at her notebook.
She has an ally.
She doesn't know what to do with that either. Allies are new. Allies means someone else could get caught in the middle of this, and she is not sure she wants that on her conscience.
But the note is in her pocket now.
She is keeping it.
After school, she picks up Lily, and they walk home, and Lily talks about a song she learned, and Penny listens and holds Lily's hand at the crosswalk.
They get home.
There is a note on the kitchen table.
Not a sticky note this time.
A real piece of paper, folded once. Her name was on the outside in Jake's cramped handwriting.
Lily sees it first. "It has your name, Penny."
Penny picks it up. She unfolds it.
It says: I looked up who runs the anonymous account. You were right. Don't do anything yet. But I know.
She reads it twice.
Her heart does the unreasonable thing.
Then she flips the paper over because she is starting to expect more on the back of things from him.
There is more.
Also, you're not just a tutor. Stop calling yourself that in your head. I can tell.
Penny puts the paper down on the table.
She stands in the kitchen with Lily, humming beside her.
She presses her lips together very hard to keep from smiling.
It doesn't work even a little bit.