16
Bram’s voice calls after me through the gardens, but I don’t stop.
Instead, I follow Adam over the path and inside the house, through the laughing and dancing student council members in the living room.
He stops in the kitchen, where to my shock, Emma the freshman is perched on the counter, sipping from a red cup.
My relief is tempered by a hot wave of embarrassment.
I can’t believe I ever worried Adam would hurt her.
That I let my imagination—no, Lydia’s imagination—get the best of me.
“Adam, can we please talk?”
His back is to me, and he’s helping himself to a drink. “Go ahead, talk.”
“Somewhere more private, please.”
“Oh, you don’t want to talk about what you were doing out there in front of”—his finger does a turn of the room, brushing over Emma, zigzagging past a couple of girls over at the kitchen nook, and finally landing on the doorway—“him?”
My heart plummets. Henry stands there, brows angled in confusion.
“What’s going on?” he asks, crossing the kitchen and parking himself between Adam and me. “What’s he saying to you?” He peers down at me with concern, like I’m a lost kitten in need of protection.
“Yeah, Hayden,” Adam taunts. “What am I saying to you?”
“Nothing. Just—I need to talk to Adam. Somewhere else.”
“Aw,” Emma complains. “Adam was going to fix the lights, so we could do the maze.”
“He can fix the lights in a minute,” I say. “Please, Adam.”
“Fine,” he says, topping off his drink with vodka. “Let’s go talk.” He plods out of the kitchen.
I offer Henry an apologetic look. “I’ll be right back.
It’s about…you know.” I tilt my head in Emma’s direction, as if to imply that Adam and I need to discuss our murder investigation, away from others.
Henry nods, looking torn about letting me go.
As I follow his brother out the door, I realize with a sick twist in my stomach that I’ve just lied to the boy I love.
Out in the living room, I catch Bram in my peripheral vision. He’s leaning with an elbow on the grand piano, watching us.
Upstairs, Adam closes the door to his room behind us and gestures to the desk chair with a great swoop of his hand. “Have a seat.”
“Okay, I just want to—”
“No, you’re going to listen,” he says. “Because it’s the only way to save yourself.”
I bristle and want to ask what he means by save yourself. But I consent, noting the fist-sized hole in the wall above the chair before sitting down.
Adam knocks back his entire drink in front of me, then plops onto the edge of his unmade bed.
“I guess the story starts back in sophomore year,” he says thoughtfully.
“I met a girl named Mariana Sanchez, and she and I started hanging out. I’d never met anyone like her before.
I was even planning on asking her to the fall dance.
And then, two weeks before the dance, Bram asked her out.
She said yes and then acted like I never existed.
” His words are starting to slur. Before tonight, I’ve never seen one of the triplets drink alcohol, and now Adam’s suffering the effects of that moronic bad boy display he just put on for me.
He starts to crush the plastic cup in his grip, as if blaming it for his current state.
“He didn’t even ask her to the dance,” Adam continues.
“Just brought her here to the house. Called sitting on the couch a date. I’d planned on taking her on a road trip to see all the flowers in bloom.
I’d planned a lot of things for us, mostly outdoors, because Mariana loves to get out of the library and be in nature.
The first time I met her, she had a wildflower tucked in her hair.
” His fingers move to his ear, gaze veering from the floor to the window.
“But Bram didn’t care about what she wanted.
He stole her away and stuck her in this damned museum. ”
Something about Adam—about the way he tells the story—seems off to me. There’s a shiny, almost maniacal look in his eyes. I don’t know what to believe. Still, my heart breaks for him. He doesn’t shed a tear, but I feel his pain. “That’s terrible, Adam. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, I’m just getting started.” His lips curve as he stares into the crinkled, empty cup. “They were together for a whole year before I found out what he was doing behind her back.”
He looks up at me, and when his blue eyes meet mine, fear lances through me, so sharp and acute that my upper body goes numb.
“Bram was cheating on Mariana. He stole her from me, and then he couldn’t even stay faithful to her. He couldn’t be content with the one thing I wanted more than anything.”
I try to swallow. “No,” I say, “he wasn’t cheating. You’re wrong.”
“I saw him. I saw her too.” He smiles, and suddenly, I want to get up and get out of this room. I want to run down the stairs, out the front door, and never face him again.
That day with Bram in his closet by his painting—or later, when he chased me into the woods—flickers in my mind like a fire, growing and consuming my thoughts. Heating my body to such a degree that I can’t take it. I don’t ask who the girl was. I won’t.
Adam didn’t see us that day. He couldn’t have.
“The day Mariana died, I told her the truth about Bram.”
No. I feel dizzy. Adam, his smashed cup—they’re coming in and out of focus. Even his voice is deep and distorted, like it’s been altered by one of those voice changers.
“She said she was going to break up with him,” Adam says, almost a bittersweet note to his now-warped voice. “An hour later, Mariana was dead.”