Chapter 22
The guilt ate at me for days.
For nearly a week, I didn’t know what to do about Will and Alex.
I had come home that night fully intending to tell him about what happened at the party, but then I’d look at him and know I couldn’t.
It would devastate him. I sat in my bedroom wondering if lying by omission made me a coward. I couldn’t decide.
It was taking over all my thoughts. I only had a few weeks of school left, so everything was winding down in classes and thankfully I didn’t have to pay as much attention as I usually did.
I was barely present during the day, answering teachers’ questions only with a mild “huh?” or “yeah?” When I got home, I sat in the dark ignoring texts and calls from Cassandra.
I was avoiding Will too, afraid that if he looked at me a certain way he would be able to figure out what I was keeping from him.
Every time he smiled at me or asked me to pass the bread, I thought I might explode.
The only time I felt anything other than guilt was when Alex would drop by.
She had been popping in and out of the house more than usual, staying for dinner and movies on weeknights and sitting in the kitchen with my mom and Will chatting about their upcoming graduation.
Every time she looked in my direction, I felt rage.
I couldn’t remember feeling so angry before that.
She was doing this on purpose. She knew I hadn’t said anything to my brother yet, and she was reminding me of why I couldn’t.
Every time Will stared at her with adoration or held her hand, she’d cast me a smug look that seemed to say, Go ahead. Tell him. Destroy him.
Unfortunately, she was right, so I kept my mouth shut.
By the time their graduation came around, I was a ball of anxiety, jumping when people closed doors too quickly. It was on a Friday, and both Tommy and I, as well as Cass and Victoria, were skipping school to attend the ceremony. I didn’t know how I would get through it.
At the fairgrounds, waiting for the ceremony to begin, I was forced to listen to Mom and Dad make small chat with Mr. and Mrs. Hopely, while Sam stood beside them, pretending to be an adult too.
Victoria ignored everyone, mostly texting on her phone and only occasionally saying hi to people she knew.
Tommy was off to the side holding Hazel’s tiny hand and walking around with her, so she’d be tired enough to sit through the ceremony quietly.
“I’m thinking you should sleep over tonight,” Cassandra whispered as we took our seats in the crowded auditorium. She had been pestering me about a sleepover for days, but I had been avoiding the conversation so that I didn’t have to go over there and see Alex.
“I don’t think I can. My family might be celebrating,” I said, making up an excuse.
Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Come on, you know Alex and Will are going to be off doing whatever it is they do. We haven’t hung out in days.”
Between that and her recent barrage of texts, she didn’t seem to want to let it go, so I relented. “Okay, fine.” If Will was going to be with Alex anyway, it didn’t matter whether I sulked in my room or Cassandra’s.
I was quiet during the ceremony except for the part when Will’s name was called, then I screamed alongside everyone else in our row. I kept quiet when Alexandria Sarah Hopely received her diploma. She was lucky I didn’t boo.
After the ceremony, Will gave Alex the Tiffany necklace in the parking lot.
Everyone watched in delight as she teared up and thanked him.
He placed the silver chain around her neck and kissed her tenderly on the forehead.
She pressed her hand over it and told him how much she loved it and him. I could barely stand it.
The four parents had decided we would all go to a late lunch together afterward, and so at Alex’s insistence, we ended up at Longhorn Steakhouse, a place I had been to exactly twice, and both times with the Hopelys. I didn’t want to eat. I felt too sick.
“What is going on with you?” Tommy asked, Hazel on his hip while we waited at the entrance for the Hopelys’ car to arrive. Will and our parents had gone into the restaurant to put our names down.
“Nothing,” I said, too quickly. Hazel was yanking on his tie, playing with it like a rope. Tommy frowned at me. “Seriously, Rosie. What is it? You’ve been in a mood for days, and you haven’t spoken all morning. It’s Will’s graduation day and you’re being kind of—”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” Tommy said, holding one hand up defensively. “Snippy, I guess.”
That was all it took for the tears to start rolling down my cheeks. My chest shook as I cried.
“Rose?” Tommy asked. “What’s wrong?”
I wiped at my eyes with the backs of my arms, not caring if I smudged the eyeliner and mascara I had carefully put on that morning. I told Tommy everything. What I had seen in the woods, and Alex’s threats afterward. Tommy stood very still, listening intently, looking stunned.
“What a bitch,” he swore, and I nodded miserably. It felt so much better to tell another person, like I was releasing some of the poison out of my body. I was relieved not to be living with this secret all by myself.
“You have to tell him,” Tommy said finally. He bounced Hazel, who had started to whine.
I stared at him. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“Are you insane?” I asked. “You heard what she said she’ll do.”
Tommy looked at me as if I were missing something obvious.
“Of course she won’t say that to him. She was bluffing, and even if she wasn’t, she’ll look like a liar if you tell Will that was her plan before he confronts her.
That’s why she threatened you. She knows he’ll believe you. You’re his sister. Why wouldn’t he?”
He gave me a long look. “Come on, Rose. You have to tell him. He just gave her a four-hundred-dollar necklace. He has a right to know what she did. To him and to you.”
It made so much sense. I couldn’t believe I had spent all this time worrying that Will wouldn’t believe me. How couldn’t he? If I laid it all out like that.
“Where were you a week ago when I was stressing over this?” I said to Tommy, with a hint of a smile.
He winked. “You didn’t ask.”
Just then the doors to the restaurant opened, and Will strode out in his navy suit. The graduation robe had long since been ditched but he still wore his cap, showing it off proudly.
“Hello, fellow Dearling spawn,” he said as he approached. He looked so happy that it made me feel sick again. “It’s going to be about a fifteen-minute wait or so. I texted Alex already—they got stuck in the traffic leaving the fairgrounds.”
Tommy gave me a knowing look to say, Here’s your window. He propped Hazel back up on his hip. “I’m going to take this little gremlin to Mom.” He strode off inside, leaving Will and me alone.
“This feels so weird,” Will said, moving his tassel from one side of the hat to the other. “So adult, you know?” He shimmied his shoulders, seemingly laughing at the idea of him being an adult.
I took a deep breath. Things were about to get a lot more grown-up. “Will, can I tell you something important?”
Will looked confused. He cautiously nodded his head. “Do you not like Longhorn? I know you choked on a mozzarella stick here that one time, but it’s been years.” He chuckled.
I waved him off. “It’s about Alex.”
“Did she not like the necklace?” he asked, his face going serious. “I can return it—”
This was going to be worse than I imagined.
“It’s not the necklace, Will. I have to tell you something really bad.
” I took a deep breath. “When we went to that party last weekend? Well, at one point I needed to pee. Like really bad. Bad enough that I couldn’t wait in line, so I went into the woods.
” Another deep breath. “I heard this moaning. I was still tipsy at that point but not drunk anymore.” Will needed to understand that I knew what I had seen.
“Tipsy, not drunk. Got it,” he said, not registering the gravity of what I was saying.
“And I saw these two people …” I felt my neck get hot. This was humiliating. I shouldn’t have to talk about this with my older brother. “Having sex against a tree.”
Now Will looked embarrassed too. He glanced down and scratched at his cap. “I don’t know if I’m the best person to talk about this with, Rosie …” He faltered, looking back inside the restaurant. I realized he thought I was going to ask him something about sex. I shook my head.
“You don’t understand, Will. It was Alex. She was having sex with someone else.”
Will’s hand dropped to his side, his brow furrowing. “What?”
“Alex was having sex with someone in the woods,” I repeated. “At that party.”
I watched the confusion drift across my brother’s face and switch to dread. “I don’t understand. You’re saying she cheated on me at that party?”
I gave a small nod.
“With who?” His eyes were big, his forehead pulled tight as he waited for an answer. He didn’t look like an adult at all now. He looked so young, like he could be my age.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know,” I said miserably. “I didn’t see his face. His back was to me.”
Will gulped. “Well, if you couldn’t see, how do you know it was Alex?”
“She looked right at me, Will. She was facing me, holding on to that guy.” The words tumbled out of my mouth. “She chased after me when they were … done.”
Will let out a low breath. He reached for the bench, taking a seat, looking like his entire world had come apart in front of him. His eyes stared forward, unblinking. He was silent for almost a full minute before he turned back to me.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure.”
He rested his head in his hands. “I can’t believe this. I actually cannot believe this.” He leaned farther forward so his head was between his knees. His cap slipped off and onto the ground.
“There’s more,” I said, looking up at the sky, wishing I didn’t have to say it. He was already so devastated, but I had to tell him everything so that Alex couldn’t lie to him later.
“More?” There were tears on Will’s cheeks. I hadn’t seen him cry in a long time. Not since we were kids. I would have done anything to stop this from happening.
“Alex told me I couldn’t tell you. She said sex wasn’t that big of a deal and that if I did tell you the truth, she’d tell you that she was raped.”
“She said that?” Will’s eyebrows were raised in anger now. I gave a dejected nod, and he pulled his hands through his hair.
“What the actual fuck was she thinking?” he demanded, more of himself than of me. I just stood there, watching the scene and feeling terrible. This was what I had wanted to avoid. Watching Will’s heart break was horrible.
He wiped at his eyes, aggressively rubbing them red. He was still staring forward, chewing on his bottom lip, when the Hopelys’ van pulled into the parking lot, followed by Alex’s Volkswagen. He quietly stood up and straightened his pants as Alex bounded toward him.
She was walking a little ahead of her family, her fingers clutching her necklace happily. She faltered when she saw us, stopping abruptly on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. She looked from Will’s dead-eyed expression to my tear-stained face, and she sighed. She knew.
“Will, I—” she began, but Will shook his head. “This is our graduation lunch,” he said evenly, his voice devoid of its usual love for her. “Our families are here. You and I can talk about this later.”
He turned and headed for the restaurant without another word.