11. Jayne #2
I wave them off and breathe a sigh of relief when the door shuts behind them. Finally, I have the house to myself. I’m looking forward to a quiet night in.
Evan’s name lights up my screen as I’m changing into my sweats.
I can’t help but smile. He might have ditched me for the weekend, but at least it left the night open for a different kind of fun.
I tell him the game is on. I don’t have to say anything else.
Evan already knows what I mean. I’m just about to collapse on the couch a few minutes later when a text from my mom comes in.
On our way home. Dad forgot his meds.
Well, this was definitely not part of my plan.
It’s a little past nine p.m. I check the recipients—me and Sadie.
I quickly send back a thumbs-up, hoping that will stop my sister from responding with anything that she thinks seems normal but would not be remotely close to the response a sober person would have.
Sadie is like that, the sort of drunk girl who thinks she still seems sober.
My first thought is that this is not going to end well. Sadie is going to end up in deep trouble. My second thought is that I’m going to have to scrap my other plans for a quiet night in.
I text Sadie and ask her what time they’re going to be home. It’s a ridiculous question, because they only just got to Trevor’s an hour ago. When I don’t get a response from her, I try texting Liz. Still nothing.
Based on the time, my parents are definitely already at the lake, and they’ve probably been there for a few hours.
It’ll be at least three hours until they’re home, but with Sadie and Liz both not responding, it’s becoming clear pretty quickly that I’m going to have to go to Trevor’s to get them.
I text Evan about how my plans for the night have been so rudely interrupted, and he gives me some ridiculous platitude about joining them if you can’t beat ’em.
I stare at Evan’s words. He’s not entirely wrong…
If I have to haul myself to Trevor McClain’s cornfield, I can at least have a little bit of fun with it.
That’s why I decide to put on an outfit like the one Sadie was wearing when she left—a black crop top and loose low-rise jeans.
We do this sometimes, Sadie and I. Dress alike just to mess with people.
Hopefully, she won’t mind if I do it tonight.
And to be honest, I’ve made such a big deal about not having any interest in parties like this one that if I get confused for Sadie while I’m there, it will actually help save my reputation a little bit.
And if I’m sober and not making an idiot out of myself, it might help save Sadie’s reputation a little bit too.
“What game were you referring to in your text to Evan Garfield?”
“It’s just something we say to each other,” I explain, wondering why that’s the thing she’s choosing to focus on from my story. And why I even mentioned it.
“Okay, and so the matching outfits… that’s why you and Sadie were dressed exactly alike?”
“Yes. It seems so silly now, especially because—” I feel the tears start to flow again, but I make myself say it. “Because that might be the reason she’s dead.”
“You had no way of knowing what Mason Vreeland was planning.”
“Do you think he was? Planning it, I mean? Like, it was premeditated?”
“We don’t know. That could be true, but it could also be true that Sadie rejected him or did something else that upset him, and he lashed out.”
“I’m not sure which is worse.”
“Either way, the result is the same.”
My face must change as soon as she says those words, because Detective Budd quickly adds on, “I’m sorry, Jayne. I don’t mean to be harsh.”
“It’s all right,” I reply. “I always appreciate people who tell the truth, no matter the circumstances. It’s amazing how many little lies people tell every single day. I prefer to live as honestly as I can, and I’m drawn to people who live that way too.”
“Is your friend Evan one of those people?”
I smile in spite of myself. “Absolutely.”
By the time I get to Trevor’s, I still haven’t heard a word from Sadie or Liz.
Reception isn’t the best this far outside of town, but as much as I’d like to chalk it up to spotty service, I know the truth is that they’re both wasted, and at this point, Sadie has probably had some kind of fight with Ben and thrown her phone at him.
I know my sister, and I know her relationship with Ben.
It isn’t a mystery that her fuse with him has gotten shorter ever since what happened with Liz last year.
He’s basically walking on eggshells, and the slightest thing—being late for a date, not meeting her outside her English class so they can walk to lunch together, promising to wear one shirt to a party and then showing up in a different one—can light the match these days.
I know I shouldn’t be so happy about the current state of their relationship, but I’ve always said that Sadie can be so much more than just Mrs. Carrera, no matter how much she doodles in notebooks or types it into the Notes section of her phone (don’t get me started on the photos she’s saving in an album she calls “Future Wedding”).
If the situation with Liz and Sadie’s inability to truly, deeply forgive Ben for it is the thing that ultimately pushes them apart…
I don’t know. I’d be there for Sadie, of course, but I would also be cheering louder than anyone when she finally realized everything with Ben was just a high school dalliance.
As luck would have it, the first person I make eye contact with when I walk through the door is Mason Vreeland.
He’s talking to a group of guys from school, but I don’t know any of their names.
Mostly art kids, I think, and I once again find myself surprised that he actually came to this party.
When our eyes meet, I’m not sure what to do with myself.
The first instinct I have is that I desperately need a drink, but the warm beer in kegs and cheap gas-station vodka are a far cry from what I would normally stomach.
Still, with Evan’s text echoing in my head—if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em—I head for the nearest massive black trash can full of a mystery mixed drink and dunk a plastic red Solo cup into it. I take one sip and nearly gag. Absolutely not.
“You can’t run away forever, you know.” Mason has appeared next to me, brushing his dark brown hair away from his eyes.
He has brown eyes, and they have a habit of looking as though they’re piercing into your soul.
It would be unnerving under normal circumstances to be this close to him, but after what I saw in the photography lab, I feel even more like a cornered animal. It’s not a feeling I enjoy.
“Back off, Mason. I have nothing to say to you.”
I say it more to get out of the conversation, but when I move away, Mason puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Hold on,” he says. His tone has completely changed. “Jayne? Is that you?”
For a moment, I think he’s kidding me, but then I realize it’s a serious question. And of course it is. I’m dressed like Sadie, and no one expects me to show up at this kind of thing. Of course he thought I was my sister.
“Guilty,” I say. “But if anyone asks, I’m not even here.”
“Not a word. Cross my heart and hope to die. But do me a favor. If you see your sister around here, tell her that our conversation isn’t over.”
“So you interacted with Mason Vreeland at Trevor’s?”
“Yeah. Like I said, he thought I was Sadie, but he… obviously he knew I was there after that. The interaction felt so creepy. And it was strange, how he started the conversation—saying, ‘You can’t run away forever.’ Telling me that his conversation with Sadie wasn’t over.”
“Did you ask him what he meant or confront him about the picture in the photography lab?”
“No. I thought about it, but I didn’t see the point. He had obviously been drinking—”
“What makes you say ‘obviously’?”
“Well, he had a drink in his hand. And he smelled like alcohol. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
And there was just something about seeing him there.
I had always thought Mason didn’t care about what other people thought of him, that he was above it.
I thought he saw through all the petty high school nonsense like I do.
But I think maybe he did care. Seeing him last night proved that to me.
He was trying, in his own way, to fit in with the rest of them. ”
“And do you have any idea what he might have meant about his conversation with Sadie?”
I take a deep breath.
“I think they were fighting about me,” I say finally.
“I think Mason might have been harassing my sister last night, following her around and trying to get her to agree to talk to me for him, explain something about the photo, maybe? Like I said, he asked me out a while back and just got very strange about it when I said no.”
“Isn’t it possible that he had transferred his affections to Sadie?”
“What?”
“You rejected him; he knew he had no shot. Maybe he was interested in Sadie.”
“No, that’s not it.” I see the way the detective is looking at me. I need her to understand. To believe me. “Everyone knew Sadie was with Ben. Mason never would’ve had a chance against Ben, and he knew it. Besides, I could tell he was still into me. You know how you just know?”
She nods. She’s a pretty woman; she knows what I mean.
“My sister is dead because of me. I’m sure of it.”