“Yeah, I did. And now I regret that. I was angry at her for what she did to you, and I didn’t think she deserved you, and I was jealous you thought she was perfect. I wanted you to see she wasn’t.”

Brooke had forgotten all about her food by this point. All she could do was sit and stare at me. “Wow.”

“I am so sorry that I didn’t tell you. It was wrong, and so selfish, and I can’t even say I didn’t know what I was doing, because I did. It was really manipulative of me, and I’m fully aware of that, which is why I’m telling you now.”

But Brooke had torn her eyes away from me to frown at the table. “Wait, you were running the locker when Jaz and I got those weird responses telling us to stay away from each other.”

And as much as I knew she’d realize this sooner or later, I truly felt that I would’ve rather been shoved inside the locker and left there to starve to death than face Brooke with this. If time travel existed, I would grab hot coals or swallow wet concrete or rip my chest clean open in exchange for the chance to take it back.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“You were jealous,” Brooke repeated. There was an understanding beneath her words. I couldn’t meet her eyes, and my cheeks were burning so hot they were surely only moments from blistering. It had clicked. It’d finally clicked. And she was looking at me with something that could only be described as disdain. Time seemed to be warping, going simultaneously slower and faster. “Okay. To clarify. You didn’t tell me about the locker, let me write to you with private information not knowing it was you, abused that position to wreck something I had going with someone else because you were jealous, then did it again with Ray because you were jealous. And at no point did you tell me you were jealous, or why that might have been. Have I missed anything?”

“I am so sorry, you have no idea, I can’t even begin—”

“I’m not mad at you,” she said over me, raising her voice. “Because mad would be the understatement of the century.”

“If there’s anything I can do, anything, I swear—”

“I don’t even know you,” she cried, standing up. A few people looked over at us curiously. “Who are you? How could you do that? I don’t … I just … I can’t believe this. I can’t believe it. You liked me, and instead of telling me, you ruined all of my relationships?”

I couldn’t get words out anymore. My throat had completely closed over. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep the tears from spilling.