“I have another question,” he continued. “Why did you get in a fight with Drea that day . . . that night she was studying at my house?”
“I . . . We . . . Well, Drea and I have been spending a lot of time together. As you may know. Because, well . . .” Em blushed, knowing she was hedging the question. She didn’t know how to tell him how jealous she was that night—ragingly, burningly jealous. She stared at the coffee stain on his shirt, trying to piece together a sentence that wouldn’t make her sound idiotic. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” she finished helplessly.
When she glanced up, she saw that JD, too, appeared to be blushing. Her mind leaped to the best-case scenario. Maybe, somehow, he got it. Maybe if she just told him . . .
“I was just wondering,” he said, with a shrug that was more like a jerk of his shoulders. “Seems like a lot of things are hard for you right now. So.” He cleared his throat. “What have you been up to during our, ah, as you so eloquently put it, Reign of Silence?”
Once again Em felt trapped. She wanted to tell him everything. All of it. It was infuriating to feel so powerless. No wonder people called it madness.
She took a deep breath and shrugged. “Just spending a lot of time with Drea’s crew,” she said.
JD made a sound in the back of his throat, a cross between a “Hm” and an “Ah.” Then, definitely red-faced now, he asked, “Anyone specific?”
Em raised her eyebrows. “No. I mean, Drea, obviously. . . . But no, definitely not anyone specific. . . .” Did he know about Crow? Her heart was beating fast now, pitter-pattering in her chest.
“I see.” He didn’t say anything more. Just sat there, looking at her intently, waiting for more. His hands were interlaced in front of him like a therapist’s.
Em felt herself blushing all over. This was it. This was her chance. He was finally ready to talk, to forgive her, and move on.
“Listen, JD,” she said. “I know things between us have been . . . weird over the last few weeks. But there are some things happening to me lately that don’t make a lot of sense. I can’t explain them. But I want you to be in my life. I need you there. I want to just bury the past and move forward.”
Em couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth. She had the powerful urge to hold JD and never let him go—to make everything right between them. She felt their knees touching. Every nerve in her body was on alert.
But then JD jerked away from her. He looked confused—and not exactly on the verge of absolving her sins.
“I’m sorry that you’re struggling, Em, I really am,” JD said. “And I’m glad we got to talk things over. But I’m not sure I can just ‘bury the past.’ Honestly? It doesn’t sound like we want the same thing.”
Em’s joy morphed into mortification. Oh god—he didn’t feel the same way. She was wrong. But how wrong? Had his feelings never existed in the first place, or had they dried up completely? A heavy smoke of anger started to billow inside her. This was all the Furies’ fault. Had they planted false feelings in her, or erased them in him? Either way, they were doing their best to ruin her love story. And it was killing her.
“I’m sorry, JD. I thought . . . I guess I thought that things . . .” She was grasping at straws, and it was starting to seem like there was nothing here to rebuild—like what they’d had together had all been in her head in the first place. She looked at the cowlick over his left temple, the scruff on his cheeks, and she felt lost. She wanted him, but she could see that he was spinning further and further away from her. Or maybe she was spinning away from him.
“I guess I should take off,” she said. “Thanks for listening.”
“Good luck, Em,” JD said, avoiding her eyes. “I’ll see you around.”
? ? ?
Back in her own room, she ran through the various ways in which the night had been a complete disaster. She’d basically confessed her love for JD, and he’d responded with repulsion. He’d rebuffed her renewed attempt at reconciliation. He’d ended their conversation with “See you around,” which basically meant “See you never, I hope.”
She listlessly opened her laptop even though she knew she wouldn’t get any homework done. Tears were welling in her eyes.
Almost instantly a chat message from Drea popped onto her screen.
Hey, Drea wrote, and barreled on without waiting for Em to write back. Need to tell u something.
It seemed, lately, that those words were always followed by horrifying news.
What? she wrote. Curt. Disengaged.
The police found Mr. Landon by the pond in the Haunted Woods, Drea told her. I heard it on the news.
The messages kept popping up, and Em couldn’t look away.
They found something near him.
An orchid.
A red orchid. You know what I mean.
Em’s breathing got shallow.