Chapter 18
HENLEY HOUSE
Mom and Dad are blessedly out at a movie when I get home. Hayden and Sophie left me feeling grilled enough about my little trip to the sheriff’s department; I don’t want to have to explain things to my parents too.
Noelle is sitting in the living room watching anime, reclining on the sofa with a cheeseburger perched dangerously on her stomach.
Which of course is breaking every rule of Mom’s tasteful ecru living room, so I guess both of us are enjoying our brief time as latchkey children.
I stop in the doorway and watch as, on the TV, a girl in a sailor suit raises her bow and arrow and shoots at a giant centipede.
It takes a moment for my sister to notice me.
“There you are,” she says. “I thought I was going to get a call from jail.”
“Oh, like you’d be my one phone call.” The words are snide, but there’s no heat in it.
Without my parents around, our barbs are more like the mild shit-talking you do during a board game.
Which is honestly so fucked up, because neither of us really likes our parents, and we still let them pitch us against each other.
“What’d Ramos have to say to you? Are you, like, a suspect?” she asks.
I hesitate. Yeah, I do get along better with Noelle when my parents aren’t around—but that doesn’t mean I trust her.
“In what, the destruction of my own locker?” I say. “Or the cyberbullying? No, he just wanted to hear what’s been going on.”
“The marching band has a betting pool going,” she says, sitting up a little. “Over how long it’ll take you to completely lose your mind.”
“That’s nice. I hope you’re getting good odds.”
“Hey, I don’t bet against my own family. Even if they’re all a bunch of assholes. I’m like Tyrion Lannister that way.”
“Sure, sounds good.” I know perfectly well who Tyrion Lannister is, but part of our whole routine is to mock the other for being weird or nerdy or basic. “You’d better clean up this mess before Mom gets home. If she sees that burger wrapper in here you’re dead.”
I head upstairs before she can answer, slinging my backpack onto the floor of my room. I shut the door firmly behind me and take a deep breath.
Then I fall back on my bed, exhausted.
By the time I left Hayden’s, we’d made nice, but the truth is I’m still stinging over the way she talked about the accusations against me. She’d acted like I should be a suspect. Like she could imagine a world where I would kill someone.
Has she always felt that way? Has she, and everyone else, been wondering all this time: What if Iris did it?
I roll over onto my side and pick up my phone. My fingertip hovers over Sekrit for a moment. But I already know everything that app has to tell me about what people think of me. Instead, I open up my messages.
Jonah texted me about ten minutes ago. He’s sent another photo, this one a slightly blurry shot of him grinning with an ice cream cone.
JONAH
Got strawberry because it made me think of you.
That sends a little glow of warmth through my stomach—the first good feeling all day. He used to tease me at camp because I got the same strawberry yogurt bar every day for dessert.
ME
That looks like chocolate.
He replies almost right away.
JONAH
Well, yeah, I put chocolate syrup on it because I don’t hate myself. Who gets just strawberry?
ME
Someone who needs to stay light enough to be thrown in the air a few dozen times a week. But I’m starting to think you’re right that it requires a little bit of self-hatred too.
JONAH
Whoa
I didn’t mean to touch a wound. You ok?
I start typing “yeah” but then I delete it.
ME
Not really. Having a hard week I guess.
JONAH
Anything you want to talk about?
Yes. But no. But yes. I still don’t want to tell him about the things going on online. I still want to keep this relationship sweet and innocent and uncomplicated. But the problem is that it’s increasingly obvious my life isn’t sweet or innocent or uncomplicated.
ME
It’s around the one year anniversary of when Lynette and I stopped being friends. I guess she’s been on my mind more than usual lately.
JONAH
That must be hard.
ME
I feel like my brain is holding me hostage sometimes. Every time I think I’m ready to get over it and move on, more memories start coming up.
JONAH
More memories? Like what?
ME
Random stuff. We were friends for a really long time and we went through a lot together.
IDK, lately I’ve been thinking about when she got kicked off the team.
How she just didn’t even want to talk to any of us after that, even though some of us still tried to be friends with her.
She chose being a pariah over being friends with us.
Sorry for the brick of text, I am just sad tonight
JONAH
Don’t apologize. I don’t ever mind when you share things.
JONAH
Did she ever say why she didn’t want to be friends? Or say anything to make you realize?
No. No, but if I am honest with myself, absolutely honest … I know why. I bite my lip. Then I make my decision.
ME
She never said. But I know why.
I haven’t told anyone this
I accidentally got her kicked off the team and I think she knew or maybe just suspected.
I watch the screen for his response, my nerves on fire. It almost comes as a surprise, how nervous I am. When I think about Lynette being kicked off the team I usually focus on the fallout—the end of our friendship, her cheating with Rocky, the violent end.
I don’t like to think about the role I played in it.
It’s a few minutes before he replies, and I feel every second of them.
JONAH
oh wow
how exactly did you get her kicked off?
ME
I sent an anonymous note to the coach that Lynette was using
JONAH
Why??
I fight a flare of irritation. Everyone seems to be judging me today. First Hayden, now Jonah.
ME
IDK
I didn’t mean for her to get kicked off. I thought it’d force her to get some help.
She was spiraling. All summer long she was moody and rude and barely showed up for practice, and we counted on her! She was top girl. She was supposed to be the best of us and she was a mess.
I suddenly realize my breathing has gotten fast. I close my eyes, try to calm down.
It was true, I tell myself. Lynette had needed help.
Maybe I hadn’t done a good job of getting it for her—but how was I supposed to know what to do?
I was sixteen. I’d trusted Gloria to do what was best for all of us.
But that does nothing to still that little kernel of doubt in the corner of my mind—the voice that says, Sure, but you also wanted her spot, didn’t you? With her gone, you were top girl. With her gone, you were the best.
JONAH
Sorry if I sounded judgy. I’m just trying to understand.
It sounds like it’s complicated. I get it though. Trying to figure out how to help your friends when they’re hard to help.
What did your other friends think about Lynette’s drug use? Were any of them worried?
ME
People were worried, yeah, but also wanted to distance themselves.
JONAH
How so?
ME
I mean a lot of the time people don’t like it when someone in the friend group is falling apart because it makes them think about their own bullshit.
Even now that she’s dead everyone’s got this invisible line between her mistakes and theirs.
Like, Sophie’s a stoner, which isn’t a big deal, but when Lynette was out of control it made us all wonder if it was actually a big deal.
Like if Lynette was kicked off the team Sophie should be too, if you’re being super honest with yourself. No one likes to think about that.
JONAH
Lynette was kind of a scapegoat
ME
yeah I guess so
ME
It’s the same with Hayden. People always talk about how Lynette was cheating with Rocky but Hayden has cheated on Carter at least three times that I know of. But no one says anything because Lynette’s there to point at.
JONAH
wow
His window goes still for a few minutes. I wonder if I’ve finally scared him off. The thought makes me more weary than sad, at least in this moment. Because I’ve been carrying these thoughts and doubts and secrets so long, and I’m tired of their weight. I know they make me look bad.
But it’s exhausting, trying to look good all the time.
After a few minutes, though, Jonah replies again.
JONAH
That’s a lot
It sounds like you’ve been hurting over this stuff for a long time
I draw in my breath. The fact that he’s still talking to me is nice. The fact that, having heard the worst things I think and feel, he still has some kind of sympathy for me? That feels like more than I could have asked.
Sometimes, it feels like more than I deserve.