Chapter 52
HENLEY HOUSE
“If you can’t hold still I’m not going to be able to get the shading right.”
It’s Halloween night, one week after the night Carter and Hayden took me out to the ranch.
Just one week, and yet it might as well be an entire epoch between now and then.
I am sitting in my bathroom in costume, getting ready for a Halloween party, which is normal enough. The thing that is absolutely bizarre?
I’m getting ready with my sister.
“Sorry,” I say. “This is just so weird. I can’t believe you’re better at this than me? I mean, I was a cheerleader, you’d think I’d have an edge on makeup.”
“You’d think,” Noelle says brusquely. “But honestly, your contouring game has always been pretty weak.”
“The nerve,” I say, but I’m not mad.
The truth is it feels like a luxury, sitting here while someone else fixes my face. It makes me feel loved, taken care of. It’s a feeling I’ve gone without for a while now.
We are going as Anna and Elsa from Frozen.
She’d pitched Loki and Thor, but I’d worn her down.
“I had to be a superhero last year,” I whined.
“I want to be a princess.” So she’d busted out her sewing machine.
The costumes are super simple, not as detailed as she’d like—she muttered about it the whole time—but it looks great for something thrown together in a couple days.
I may even have to tell her that out loud at some point.
It breaks my cardinal rule of saying anything nice to my sister, but it’s like I said before—the norm sucked. So why not try something else?
Besides, like my grandpa used to say, you can’t get some horses back in the barn. Meaning things with my friends—even the ones that have apologized for believing the rumors—are never going to be the same.
So I’m not going to the party at Molly Jun’s McMansion on the lake, even though she invited me. Not because I’m scared to face those people, but because I don’t want to spend any more time with them than I have to.
I’d planned to spend the night giving out candy at our own door. But Noelle had surprised me by informing me that I had to accompany her to Sarah Braun’s costume party. “It’s a ton of cosplayers, so it’s always really fun,” she’d told me.
“I’m not going to that,” I’d answered. But Noelle is nothing if not a total pain in the ass, and by Thursday I was helping her pick out blue glitter tulle for my dress.
I’m still not sure I’m in the mood for a party. But the fact that my sister is trying to make amends? That’s worth the effort.
My phone chimes. I make a move to grab it, but Noelle cups my chin in her hand. “Don’t … you … dare,” she says, putting the finishing touches on something and then pulling back with makeup brush in hand. “Okay. Now you can look.”
“It’s Jonah,” I say. I show her the picture he’s sent: He’s dressed up like an eighties glam rocker, complete with face paint and a truly unhinged wig. He’s got his tongue out in a waggling leer. It makes me grin to imagine him out like that, goofing off with his friends.
Noelle gives it an appraising glance. “He’s kind of cute, actually.”
“Yeah,” I say. He is. But I’m not expecting anything to come out of this. Things are just too weird.
We’ve been texting again—or, I guess, texting for the first time, since the other version was just Hayden all along. The other day we actually FaceTimed so I could explain what’d happened and apologize again for dragging him into the whole thing. He was really sweet about it.
“Are you safe now?” he’d asked.
“Yeah. I mean, as far as I know.” I laughed a little, adjusting in my desk chair. I was in my room, the blinds closed tight against the sight of Max’s house. “Unless someone else wants to reveal something.”
“Maybe your high school’s been a CIA operation all this time, and you’re part of an experiment!” he said.
“Maybe this is an Inception dream, and I’m going to wake up and it’ll turn out none of this was ever real,” I agreed.
We laughed, and then we were quiet for a moment. Because it’s actually scary, realizing how many things in your life could be lies.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
And so I’d smiled. Because, yeah, everything could be a lie. But who wants to live in that world? Better to find people you think you can believe. Better to risk it, sometimes, than to think everyone is out to hurt you.
Now I look up at Noelle. She’s already done her makeup, and she’s wearing a red wig with two braids. It’s really cute. “Are you almost done with me?” I ask. “I want to send him a picture back.”
“One more thing.” From the depths of her giant stained makeup bag, she takes a fresh, unopened jar of Diamond Bomb. She twirls her brush inside of it. I watch in fascination as she picks up the glittery grains.
“Close your eyes,” she says. I do. The brush flies over my face, soft and swirling.
It brings back a sudden memory: the last time someone else did my makeup.
Back in my sophomore year, when Lynette and I were getting ready for our first game together on the varsity cheer squad. The way she dusted my face with powder.
“You’re lucky,” she’d said to me then. “You don’t ugly-sweat like me. I’ve got to reapply this shit every ten minutes out there.”
“No one even notices, Lynette. You’re so good, who even cares?”
My eyes were closed, so I couldn’t see her expression.
But I could envision it. Because I’d witnessed her mask slip often enough by then to sense it more than see it.
Her party-girl affect would fall flat sometimes, and you could see that she was keeping that persona going through force of will alone.
That underneath, there was something sad and hard and tired.
“People notice” was all she’d said. Then she gave me another quick going over with the brush. “But you are ready to go out there and shine.”
Now my sister pulls back her brush. “See, I told you this stuff made for good special effects. Check it out.”
I stand up and take off the towel she’d draped across my front. Then I step next to her and look at the mirror.
We’ve been transformed into princesses in wigs and fake lashes. She’s got Anna’s purple cloak, Anna’s pink cheeks and nose, Anna’s freckles. Meanwhile I look … magical. I’m a being of snow and ice, pale and glittering.
“When you’re right, you’re right,” I say. “The Diamond Bomb really is perfect for ice powers.”
She grins, then punches me in the arm. “This is so weird. But it’s cool. You look amazing.”
“So do you. You kind of upstaged yourself with my makeup though.”
“Story of my life,” she says with a shrug. “It’s okay. I’ll get the credit I want for it—everyone at the party’s going to know I made the costume.”
“They’d better.” I look down at my body, admiring the way the dress hits my hip. “This is really impressive, Noelle.”
Under her makeup she flushes for real, a wry little smile at the corner of her mouth. She’s so odd, my sister; she has to smirk even when someone’s being genuine. But I’m starting to learn it’s not personal.
Someone knocks at our door, and then Mom comes in, dressed in a witch hat to hand out candy. She does a little double take when she sees us.
“Well look at you,” she coos. “My girls, all gussied up.” She gives Noelle a sharp look. “Now why can’t you be bothered to put yourself together like this all the time?”
Noelle doesn’t bat an eye. “Because I’m not like this all the time, Mom.”
And all at once I get it—I get the way Noelle has made herself free to try things on, to decide who she wants to be every single day. How this is one way to resist the assumptions people want to build around each other.
I don’t know that her way is ever going to be my way.
But I don’t have to wake up feeling trapped in other people’s expectations every day either.
We let Mom take a bunch of pictures, and then we gather up our accessories—Noelle’s got an Olaf-shaped backpack she puts her phone and wallet into—and head out into the night.
Ghosts and superheroes and pirates and princesses already roam the neighborhood.
Another, smaller, Elsa stops to admire us while we get into my car.
And I think, tonight we’ve decided who we are.
But tomorrow we get to decide again. And the next day, and the next.
You only lose that choice if you stop living, Lynette says sadly in my mind.
Then you’re stuck where you are forever, Rocky adds.
I close my eyes for a moment. No, I think.
I’ll take you with me. Wherever I go, I’ll take you with me.
So will Kendra, and Max for whatever that’s worth, and everyone else who knew you and loved you.
We’ll take you everywhere. We’ll change and we’ll decide and we’ll fuck up and we’ll heal, and you will be a part of that.
“Ready?” Noelle asks.
I take a breath. I start the car.
“Finally,” I say. “I think I am.”