“I can’t think of anyone. I mean, everyone’s making the wrong choices, everyone’s copping out, or not being here. No one is ever around, no one is a friend, no one is good!” I am still eating the doughnut, but I’m crying now, again, which would have struck me as high irony at another time, since the vanilla dip with sprinkles is the happiest of all the doughnuts. But I’m really having a go at crying, blubbering away with sprinkles all over my bloody lips. Dee hands me a napkin and I wipe my face, and that just makes me think of Pete and his handkerchief and what a jerk I was to him.

“And Reg, that asshole. He’s, like, brainwashed my mom. And it’s not even like I can leave. I mean, I am so fucking stuck.”

“Jesus.” She looks out the window.

“Yeah. And also there’s Pete. I cannot believe that he is leaving. When he was a mom, he never left.” I sniff and wipe my nose, knowing how stupid I sound, but I don’t care. “And Lottie. I don’t even know what happened with us. It’s just, like”—I make a poof gesture with my hands—“gone.”

“Her loss.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” I pause. “I mean, it’s not like she’s actually gone. She just doesn’t want me anymore.”

“Wanna go for a walk?”

I nod. She leads, which is what she does now, and I follow, which feels so much better than doing nothing.

We walk behind the Tim Hortons, where there is a path that leads to the Bruce Trail beside the creek. The water moves around a whole bunch of crap in the bed of the creek, like a grocery cart lying sideways, and Tim Hortons cups that look like they’re trying to swim upstream. The path leads to a small bridge, and we stand in the middle looking down at the water, which is rushing like crazy. We don’t say anything for a while, and I start thinking about why no matter what I do, I fuck things up, and the only thing that makes me feel better is pushing back.

Dee is looking at her phone. She chuckles and holds it up for me to see: a new Twitter account called @WE_ARE_ALL_HEATHER claims to be POSTING ON THE PAYBACKS AT WHS. There are a ton of posts already, blurry pics of fights after pranks happened, of lockers that were defaced, of some of the early LOVE, HEATHER pranks and some I didn’t know about until now.