Chapter 23
“Want to sit in there and talk about some things?” Travis asks my mom when I walk into the kitchen.
“Things?”
“Yes, things,” he repeats with a knowing look.
“Oh, those things. Yes, I do,” she says, turning to me. “I’m glad you’re here, Jasmine.” She grabs a slice of pizza and drops it on her plate.
“We all are, right, Kayla?” Travis prompts.
Kayla sits at the table, scrolling through her phone without looking up. I take a seat right across from her.
“Enjoy dinner, ladies. I ordered way too much, and I promise this is the last pizza order for the month. Two in three days is a bit much.” Travis laughs and pats his stomach. He and my mom step into the sunroom and close the door behind them.
Kayla takes a bite of her pizza.
“What’s on that?” I ask, pointing to the slice.
She stares at me blankly. “Banana peppers,” she says in a duh kind of voice.
“Yeah, but I’ve never had those on pizza.”
“They’re spicy. You’d hate it.”
I smile. She rolls her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“You should be.”
“I know.”
“You were acting like I sent the message to Deanna or something,” she says, and I can hear the hurt in her voice.
“I was just overwhelmed by the whole thing. I understand if you can’t forgive me.”
She looks at me. “It hurt my feelings way more than I expected it to,” she admits.
“Clearly communicating isn’t something I’m good at right now. I’m sorry,” I say again.
Her expression softens. “I mean, your whole life was kind of exploding.” She sighs deeply. “I’m sorry, too.”
“Thanks for saying that.” I glance over at the sunroom and see Travis and my mom quickly turn their heads.
“They’re so annoying,” Kayla says with a chuckle. I missed her laughter.
“Seriously,” I agree. “So, what now?”
“Maybe we need therapy or something.” She laughs. “Because having a sister is harder than I thought.”
“Tell me about it.”
“But I think that’s probably how it is, like there’s always going to be something, but we can’t tear each other apart. It’s never going to be perfect,” she says.
“And honestly, I wouldn’t believe it if it was. I like us how we are—weird,” I say.
“So, can we promise to just be real? Like really real, and honest?” I nod, and she makes a face. “You have to say you promise, Jasmine, or it’s not official.”
“I absolutely promise,” I say. “Are you still happy I’m here?”
Kayla shrugs and then notices I took her too seriously. “I’m kidding. Of course I am,” she says. “Really.”
“Phew.”
“And one day, I hope you’ll tell me the rest of the story about your time in that place. I want to know everything.”
“Really?”
She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “Yeah. If I knew you were meeting Amari’s hating ass, maybe I could have stopped it. I don’t know. But there’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re still sisters forever.”
I try not to burst into tears. I needed to hear this so badly.
“Unless you do that shit again,” she adds firmly.
I laugh. “I won’t.”
The door to the sunroom opens. “Language!” Travis says, walking over to the table.
“Sorry, but you’re not even supposed to be in here,” Kayla says. “We’re bonding.”
He grabs a slice of pizza. “All right, all right.” He smiles at us both. “Happy to hear it.”
Kayla and I smile at each other too, and it feels like something new. Something solid. Something more real.
I think about her request to hear my story and realize that answers my question about who will care enough to listen.
The next day, I still haven’t spoken to any of the girls except Kayla.
I was surprised at how easily we slipped back into our routine.
She lay across my bed after dinner and helped me figure out how to approach the girls at school.
She suggested I focus on Deanna and wait until lunch to pull her aside.
I agreed. And truly, besides Kayla, Deanna is the only other person I owe something to.
“Oh, brother,” Kayla moans as she pulls into a parking spot.
I follow her gaze to the path and see Kenny, Mel, and Alice standing there, waiting.
I almost swallow my gum and start coughing.
“Don’t die! We can just walk right past them,” Kayla jokes.
I laugh.
Most of the students are heading toward the school entrance, but Kenny and Mel make a beeline straight for us. Alice lags behind.
“Please don’t hate us, Jasmine,” Kenny says, coming to a stop in front of me. “Even though you can if you want.”
“Jasmine!” Mel shrieks. “We’re so sorry for being assholes.”
“Me three.” Alice surprises me by chiming in. “We don’t care what you’ve done or where you’ve been. You don’t even have to explain.”
“Well—” Kenny starts, and Mel shoots her a look. I almost laugh. She loves drama and she can’t even help it.
“You’re the most interesting one of us now,” Mel says.
“So…?” Kenny presses.
I shrug my shoulders and decide they should sweat a little more.
“Maybe buy her lunch or something,” Kayla says with a wink, linking our arms as we start toward the path.
I turn to see that Deanna has just arrived and is standing next to Kenny and Mel. Our eyes meet for a second before she walks away.
Kayla pulls me inside. “Talk to her after school,” she says. “You got this.”
I really hope she’s right.
I’m most nervous to talk to Deanna because she doesn’t know anything but the lies. A part of me is hopeful that she’ll hear the reasons and understand. Another part of me thinks it’s too late for them to matter.
I make my way to the courtyard where we agreed to meet up, and it reminds me of my first day here—the quiet hallways, my jittery nerves.
No more lies. I repeat it softly.
I cut through the empty cafeteria and see Deanna waiting outside. I take a deep breath and open the door.
“I was just about to leave,” she says. Her expression is blank and cold.
“I’m sorry, I basically ra—” I stop myself. No more lies. “I’m sorry. I took my time getting here because I was nervous.”
“You’re not now?”
I want to tell her that seeing her makes me happy, but I know this isn’t the time for that. “I am,” I say.
She looks at me, but her expression doesn’t change.
“Thanks for meeting me.”
She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t want to. Kayla basically begged me.”
I cringe. “Oh, she didn’t tell me that.” I feel my hope start to dwindle a bit and straighten myself up to take on whatever is next.
“Well, she lied to me too, so…” Deanna throws her hands up.
“Yeah, but she didn’t have a choice,” I say.
“So that’s everyone’s story, I guess. Kayla said the same thing about you.”
I don’t respond because even though it’s true, I know she doesn’t want to hear it.
“I wanted to tell you. I’m really sorry.”
“You could have. I wouldn’t have said anything,” she says. “You know that, don’t you?”
I nod.
“Then why didn’t you? Besides your mom telling you not to. Because who always listens to their parents?”
My palms start to sweat when I realize that what I need to say probably isn’t going to make things better. “Would you have wanted all of this? If you knew the truth?” I ask.
“All of what?”
“This, with me.”
Her expression softens. “You didn’t give me a chance to figure that out,” she says, “so it’s not really a fair question.”
I pause, thinking about those early days. How everything went down. How hard it was to lie at first, and how much easier it became. “After a while, it wasn’t the worst thing to be someone else. You guys liked me because of it.”
It’s quiet for a moment and I’m grateful for the silence.
“I think we liked you for you,” Deanna says. “And part of me hopes some of that is real.”
“It is.”
She sighs. “I want to be so mad at you.”
“And I get that. I would be too. I just don’t know what else to say except I’m sorry.”
“That I know or that you lied?” she asks, and it’s a good question.
“I’m still figuring that out. It felt good to be accepted.
And at some point, having that clean slate felt worth all that I was doing for it.
A lot of the other girls in there don’t get a chance to start from scratch like I did.
Some of them go to jail next and never get another chance again.
I was really grateful, and after a while, it didn’t feel like a lie. I didn’t want it to be.”
“If you’d just told us, we would have been fine,” she says.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t have thought of me differently if you knew I was in a detention center?”
“You’re right. I guess we can never really know.”
“So, what happens now?”
She fidgets with her skirt. “You tell me about Amari.”
I draw a breath as deeply as I can without being too obvious. I was waiting for this moment. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
“Are you over her?”
No more lies.
“I’m not interested in her,” I say, “but I do think we need closure.”
Deanna nods. “How do I know you’re not lying?”
“You’re gonna have to tru—”
“Trust you?” she finishes with a smirk. “Yeah, way too soon.”
“Then nothing I say is gonna matter, Deanna.”
She senses my frustration and backs off a bit. “I don’t want to be a jerk, but this is hard. I’m scared to believe you.”
“I’m scared too.”
She looks relieved.
“I hate being a disappointment to people I care about,” I say, and that’s exactly what I felt like when this whole thing happened. Especially with my mom. “What can I do to fix this?”
Deanna leans back on the bench and stares up at the sky. “Nothing’s broken,” she says, “just a little bent.”
I smile. “Then how do I straighten it out?”
She stands and brushes the wrinkles out of her skirt. “Let’s just go get something to eat. Okay?” She holds her hand out.
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing it and pulling myself up.
Deanna looks at me the way she did on that walk around her block, like she was the happiest she’d ever been.
“Are we okay?” I ask. “Is that it?”
“You in a rush to get to the rest?”
I smile again.
“Yeah, we’ll get to it,” she says.
“Yeah, we will. I look forward to it,” I say.
She pushes the door open with one hand and pulls me through with the other.