Chapter 8
HENLEY HOUSE
pikachoose_me: I’m sorry but you can’t trust a throwaway account there isn’t any proof.
sourpatch_kid: the proof is rocky wasn’t the kind of guy who’d do something like this. No history of violence. No suicide note. No reason.
douevenliftbro: Who here remembers the fight she and Lynette had last year outside the science wing, raise your hand
The morning sun angles through the gap in my curtains, but I shift to avoid the glare, scrolling through the Sekrit threads.
There are 103 replies to Rockytruther’s post, the latest one time-stamped 8:47 AM.
There are a few usernames I recognize, but a lot of people are responding under throwaway accounts—most of those calling me a bitch or a snob or, yes, a murderer.
A new text message comes in on the group chat.
HAYDEN
Are you scrolling? Stop scrolling.
A moment later, Sophie replies.
SOPHIE
Seriously log off and touch grass.
It’s not like their texts make me feel better, but they are enough to snap me out of autopilot.
I throw the phone down. My ceiling fan rotates slowly, rustling the papers on my desk, the curtains at the window.
Everything in my room is sunny and gentle, the walls white and painted with gold metallic stripes, the bedspread pale pink, the hardwood floor shiny and clean, but I can feel shadows welling up in the corners of my vision.
It’s something I remember from those first days after what happened: the way darkness could pull my attention more easily than light.
The way things felt fractured and dirty, even when they weren’t.
When I swing out of bed all my muscles complain—my calves, my thighs, my abs.
I slept all night in a clenched little ball.
Suddenly I am looking forward to that shower more than anything else in my life.
Hot water. Steam. A place I literally cannot take my phone.
I knock at the door to the bathroom that adjoins mine and Noelle’s room.
Behind it I can hear Noelle’s old-school goth pop: boys …
don’t … cry. Her thin voice singing along.
I press my forehead against the white-painted wood. “Noelle, I have to get ready for practice, how long are you going to—”
The door swings inward and I jump back with a scream.
The face that looks out at me is otherworldly and pale, the lips twisted in a rictus snarl.
Almost like a corpse, except instead of the livid shadows you expect on the dead, there’s an unsettling glimmer to the skin.
It’s strange and beautiful and terrifying, and my heart, already on alert from a night of bad dreams and worse reality, howls in my chest, ready to send me fight-or-flighting in the direction of my choice.
And then I blink, and it’s my sister, a wig cap snapped over her short curls, her face caked in theater makeup.
“Jumpy much?” she says.
She turns back to the sink in our shared bathroom. I take in the absolute catastrophe of the countertop. There are makeup sponges, uncapped tubes and bottles, a smear of something pink across the tile. And of course she’s going to leave it like that.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask.
“I’m getting ready for the con,” she says. She leans over the sink with a fake eyelash in one hand, holding her eyelid shut with the other. She’s wearing some kind of jumpsuit, low-cut at the front, and I have to keep from laughing as I realize she’s padded her bra to its bursting point.
My sister is usually low maintenance in the extreme.
She wears oversized T-shirts and shorts every day.
She lets her short shaggy curls air-dry.
She doesn’t bother with makeup. In fact, the mess in here is extra galling because of the number of times she’s howled outside the door while I finished my eyeliner before school.
The exception is when she cosplays. She and a couple of her friends spend all their time sewing and gluing and painting and practicing makeup effects.
They even started a club at school. If I’m being totally honest, it’s cool to see some of the looks they come up with—but I’m also kind of baffled by the whole thing.
Noelle could put an iota of that energy into how she looks at school every day, but she doesn’t.
She doesn’t seem to care that people think she’s weird and plain.
It makes me the tiniest bit jealous. Which I will definitely never tell her.
“Is that my Diamond Bomb?” The words erupt out of my mouth in a scream.
Because there right next to her is an open compact, FENTY BEAUTY on the lid, the contents inside scraped empty.
A few tragic grains of glitter sparkle up at me from the plastic.
It’s suddenly clear just why my sister’s skin looks like snow.
“God, Noelle, you used the whole thing?”
Her eyes dart down to the compact, and for a half second she looks ashamed. Then she shrugs. “I’ll get you more. Calm down.”
“It’s thirty bucks!” I pick up the empty container and throw it hard into the trash. She flinches, the eyelash still on her fingertip, and watches me warily.
“It’s perfect for Emma Frost’s diamond skin, though,” she says, the faintest sound of a whine in her voice. “Look!” She holds out her arm to show me the shimmer.
“I know how it works,” I snap. I turn away from her and jerk the faucet on. “Whatever. I’m getting in the shower. I have to get ready for practice.”
“No, Iris!” She turns around and stares at me. “The humidity will mess everything up. I’ve been working on this all morning!”
“Go to the other bathroom, then.”
“All my stuff’s in here already!” she says. “The light’s better here. And Sarah’s mom is going to pick me up in like twenty minutes. You go to the other bathroom.”
Suddenly, Mom’s head appears in the doorway. “What’s all the yelling about?” She looks back and forth at both of us, her eyes flashing. “Noelle Henley, this bathroom is a disaster area, what do you think you’re doing in here?”
“She won’t let me shower!” I say. I’m not above Mom justice. Not when I’m this exhausted and this pissed about my favorite highlighter being used for some kind of special effect. “And she used my makeup without asking.”
Mom’s eyes narrow. She takes in Noelle’s outfit and purses her lips a little at the bustline.
“Go use the downstairs bathroom,” she says to Noelle. She shakes her head. “You look ridiculous. It’s not Halloween.”
For a moment, Noelle seems to shrink. Her makeup, which a second ago scared the living crap out of me, looks gaudy and ridiculous. A little girl playing dress-up.
Then she laughs, and it’s almost scary how brittle that laugh sounds, how hard it makes her look again.
“It’s the Austin Comic Convention. Everyone there’s going to be dressed like this. And for your information, this is every bit as valid an activity as shaking a pom-pom and showing your ass during halftime.”
She whips a long blond wig off the towel rack where it’s been resting, grabs her stained makeup bag, and jerks her bedroom door open.
Mom watches, eyes narrow, until she’s slammed the door behind her.
“What is this stuff she’s into?” she asks. “You think it’s a cult?”
I’m too tired to answer. I turn the water back on as hot as it will run.
When I look up, she’s looking at me in the mirror.
We look a lot alike, me and my mom, though Mom’s caramel blond is from a bottle these days.
She frowns a little, and I catch a glimpse of myself for the first time next to her—I’m the one who really looks like a corpse, my eyes baggy, my features drawn.
A fleeting thought: Have the rumors made it to her? Sekrit is encrypted. No one would leak it to an adult. And Noelle hasn’t seen it yet today, or she’d have let me know.
But what if?
“You got to watch what you get up to at those parties, baby,” she says. She gives a conspiratorial little smile. “You’re looking a little puffy. Make sure you drink some water before you head out today.
With that, she leaves, shutting the bathroom door behind her.