6. Liz
LIZ
“SO, HOW LONG have you been carrying on with Ben Carrera?”
I’m not sure what kind of response I was expecting from Detective Norris after all that.
I mean, I just gave him a gold mine of information about the Cooper family dynamic and dropped the truth bomb that Steven is apparently a chronic cheater and dirtbag of a husband, and the detective’s only takeaway is that I sent some flirty text messages to Ben?
“Um.” I pause, unsure why I feel like the one on trial all of a sudden. “I only mentioned the texts with Ben because that’s why I was awake and overheard the fight between Steven and Carly.”
“Duly noted. Now, please answer my question. How long have you and Ben Carrera been getting together behind your so-called best friend’s back?”
“What the hell? This isn’t about that at all. I’m trying to tell you about Sadie’s homelife. Isn’t that something you wanted to know? There was nothing—Ben and I aren’t anything. That’s not the point.”
“Calm down, Miss Stratton, and answer my question, or I will stop asking nicely.”
It feels like I’m talking to a brick wall right now, and Detective Norris seems to have roughly the same level of emotional intelligence. Maybe less.
What happened in Key West is the real reason I started drinking more toward the end of junior year.
The Coopers were the only family I ever knew who gave me even the vaguest sense of normalcy, and after what I overheard…
it suddenly sounded like even that had been built on a lie.
And if they weren’t so perfect after all, then Sadie and Jayne weren’t so perfect after all.
So I kept talking to Ben. Fine, I can admit that.
It made me feel powerful, I guess. But then I got too drunk at this party I went to when Sadie was sick with Covid.
The one where Jayne and her friend Evan showed up, and Ben and I were flirting too much, and somehow my world started spinning out of control.
That’s what I would tell Detective Norris if he were someone else. An actual human being with a shred of empathy. And if I were the kind of girl who could be honest about who she really was, who could admit when she made a mistake. But he isn’t, and I’m not, and so I keep the rest of it to myself.
“Ben and I were just texting,” I say instead. “That’s all. We might have been flirting a little bit, but so what? That’s not a crime, is it?”
“Are you sure nothing else happened between you?”
“Yes.”
I’m lying through my teeth.
“Interesting,” Detective Norris says, scribbling something in his notebook. “And what if I told you that that isn’t what we’re hearing from Jayne Cooper?”
Of course Jayne told them.
“I’d say she can go to hell.”
Jayne promised she would never tell. I admitted it to Sadie. Ben and I came clean, Sadie forgave us, and Jayne said that she would let it go. Not hand the fucking police a reason to dig into something that has nothing to do with any of this.
“Hey,” Detective Norris says sharply. “I told you to quit it with the attitude.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I only listen to people I respect.”
“You’re on thin ice, kid. Enough about spring break last year. Let’s get back to what happened yesterday afternoon, leading up to the party…”
I take a deep breath and will myself to stop feeling so defensive. This will all be over soon enough, and then I can go home. Of course, all that’s waiting for me there is a stepdad who never wanted me in the first place.
Sadie and I didn’t even need to ask Jayne if she was going to the party at Trevor’s that night; we already knew the answer was a resounding “Hell no.” It’s not like Jayne never goes out, although, between her and Sadie, she’s definitely the one more likely to stay in reading a book on philosophy and convincing her dad to give her a whisky to sip along with it.
Jayne prefers the kind of parties you could call get-togethers.
Sadie and I prefer ragers. We’re in high school, for fuck’s sake.
If I want to sit around in dead silence and read a book written two hundred years ago, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to do that in fifty years.
That’s the kind of joke Sadie would have loved, and she would have said that we’d be reading those books together in the nursing home. The crazy old ladies always up to something.
The image is a lot less funny when I’m alone in the picture.
Jayne wanders over to the espresso machine that sits gleaming on the marble countertop and starts to make herself a coffee. Her hair is still wet, soaking through her Alo Yoga top. “So, enlighten me. What’s the special occasion that merits a new top from Urban?”
“I mean, how else is she going to get Justin’s attention tonight?” Sadie replies.
“Hey! I could get his attention without the top, thanks very much.”
“Oh, without the top, you would be getting everyone’s attention,” Jayne cuts in. “Can you imagine? Just showing up at Trevor’s totally naked? It’s a good thing you stopped drinking, Lizzie, or that’s exactly the kind of thing you might do.”
I give Jayne a cold look. First of all, I hate being called Lizzie.
Second of all, she never seems to miss an opportunity to reference the hot mess express I was after spring break last year.
I did plenty of embarrassing shit, but while Sadie lets me forget about it, Jayne never seems to miss an opportunity to rub it in my face.
And while I hate her for it, I also can’t entirely blame her.
She’s Sadie’s sister, after all. I’m sure she just feels like she’s protecting her by humiliating me, somehow getting back at me because Sadie refused to punish me adequately—at least in Jayne’s eyes—for what happened with Ben.
Jayne has never directly mentioned it again, just like she promised, but the constant hints and jabs are almost worse.
“Anyway,” Sadie says loudly. “Let’s not, shall we?
Jaynie, we’re too busy actually enjoying our senior year to be bogged down by your bitchiness.
So, let’s skip the part where I ask if you’re going to Trevor’s and you say no, and just get to the part where you promise you’re not going to tell Mom and Dad. Cool?”
Jayne heaves a sigh. “You know going to Trevor’s is asking for trouble, Dee. Seriously. If nothing else, you and Ben will end up getting some weird disease from a tick or something from screwing each other in the cornfield.”
“Gross!”
“Facts. How do you think Emma Jordan ended up getting Lyme disease last year? It’s not like she hikes.”
Sadie laughs like Jayne just said the wittiest thing ever. “Ugh, fair enough. Look, I can promise you, no cornfield sex. Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?”
I look from Sadie to Jayne. Sometimes I feel like I get whiplash trying to keep up with them. Sadie goes from being totally annoyed with her sister to being totally cool with her in two seconds. It can be exhausting.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here and just chill out and binge some Netflix?”
“Pass,” Sadie and I both say in unison, even though I’m pretty sure I wasn’t even part of the invitation.
“Binge-watching is for getting through Saturday morning hangovers,” Sadie says. “Friday night is for getting the hangover.”
Jayne shrugs. “Suit yourself. Just promise to call me if you need a ride home, okay? Mom and Dad aren’t going to be around, so it’s no big deal if I have to take the car out at two a.m. or whatever.”
“Oh, I’m driving us,” I say. “So no worries.”
Jayne gives me a look that says, despite knowing I quit drinking months ago, she does not believe a word I say.
“Yeah,” she replies, arching a perfectly plucked eyebrow. She walks across the kitchen to put her empty cup in the sink. “Like I said, Dee, call me if you need a ride. Promise?”
Sadie shoots me an uncomfortable glance before nodding. “Promise.”
They each hold up their pinky from across the kitchen in a long-distance pinky promise.
They were always doing that, and it always irked me.
This reminder that, no matter what, they were sisters.
Twins. Closer than any two people on earth could ever be.
And while I was Sadie’s best friend, I still wasn’t her twin sister.
She didn’t do pinky promises with me from across the room. She never would.
“And I’m serious about not telling Mom and Dad about the party,” Sadie says. “You know how they were after Trevor’s last party.”
“In fairness, they freaked out because one of Trevor’s buddies literally just left you here, passed out on the front lawn. Not a good look.”
Sadie shrugs. “Hey, at least I had all my clothes on.”
I know she doesn’t mean it as a dig at me—a dig at what happened last year—but I still feel my cheeks start to burn.
“Oh shit.” She gives me a pitying look. “Sorry, Patch. I didn’t mean… I mean, you know what I meant.”
I try to laugh it off. “Don’t worry about it. And you’re right. At least you did have all your clothes on.”
The last time I was left passed out on someone’s lawn (well, back deck, if you want to get specific), my shirt was definitely missing, and it became the biggest topic of gossip at school for the next week.
To Sadie’s credit, she came to my defense every single time someone called me a slut, which practically became her full-time job.
“You still haven’t answered, though,” Sadie says to her sister. “About keeping this between us. Deal? And I promise I’ll call if I need a ride home, and I won’t drink too much. Liz will keep an eye on me. She’s an angel these days!”
It looks like Jayne is going through a serious internal struggle. Finally, she nods.
“Fine,” she says. “I won’t say a word. Just be… careful.”