“I’m not with Bronwyn. We’re murder cosuspects, remember?” I say, and let the door slam behind me. Which is self-defeating, because when it comes off its hinges, again, I’m the one who’ll have to fix it.
Once I’m outside, I don’t know where to go. I get on my bike and head for downtown San Diego, then change my mind and get on I-15 North. And just keep riding, stopping after an hour to fill up my tank. I pull out my burner phone while I’m doing it and check messages. Nothing. I should call Bronwyn, see how things went at the police station. She’s gotta be fine, though. She has that expensive lawyer, along with parents who are like guard dogs between her and people trying to mess with her. And anyway, what the hell would I say?
I put my phone away.
I ride for almost three hours until I hit wide desert roads dotted with scrubby bushes. Even though it’s getting late, it’s hotter here near the Mojave Desert, and I stop to take off my jacket as I cruise closer to Joshua Tree. The only vacation I ever went on with my parents was a camping trip here when I was nine years old. I spent the whole time waiting for something bad to happen: for our ancient car to break down, for my mother to start screaming or crying, for my dad to go still and silent like he always did when we got to be too much for him to take.
It was almost normal, though. They were as tense with each other as ever, but kept the arguing to a minimum. My mother was on good behavior, maybe because she had a thing for those short, twisted trees that were everywhere. “The first seven years of the Joshua tree’s life, it’s just a vertical stem. No branches,” she told me while we were hiking. “It takes years before it blooms. And every branching stem stops growing after it blossoms, so you’ve got this complex system of dead areas and new growth.”
I used to think about that, sometimes, when I wondered what parts of her might still be alive.
It’s past midnight by the time I get back to Bayview. I thought about getting on I-15 and riding through the night, as far as I could go until I dropped from exhaustion. Let my parents have whatever fucked-up reunion they’re about to get into on their own. Let the Bayview Police come find me if they ever want to talk to me again. But that’s what my mother would do. So in the end I came back, checked my phones, and followed up on the only text I had: a party at Chad Posner’s house.
When I get there Posner’s nowhere to be found. I end up in his kitchen, nursing a beer and listening to two girls go on and on about a TV show I’ve never seen. It’s boring and doesn’t take my mind off my mother’s sudden reappearance, or Bronwyn’s police summons.
One of the girls starts to giggle. “I know you,” she says, poking me in the side. She giggles harder and flattens her palm against my stomach. “You were on Mikhail Powers Investigates, weren’t you? One of the kids who maybe killed that guy?” She’s half-drunk and staggers as she leans closer. She looks like a lot of the girls I meet at Posner’s parties: pretty in a forgettable way.
“Oh my God, Mallory,” her friend says. “That’s so rude.”
“Not me,” I say. “I just look like him.”
“Liar.” Mallory tries to poke me again, but I step out of reach. “Well, I don’t think you did it. Neither does Brianna. Right, Bri?” Her friend nods. “We think it was the girl with the glasses. She looks like a stuck-up bitch.”
My hand tightens around my beer bottle. “I told you, that’s not me. So you can drop it.”
“Shhorry,” Mallory slurs, tilting her head and shaking bangs out of her eyes. “Don’t be such a grouch. I bet I can cheer you up.” She slides a hand into her pocket and pulls out a crumpled baggie filled with tiny squares. “Wanna go upstairs with us and trip for a while?”
I hesitate. I’d do almost anything to get out of my head right now. It’s the Macauley family way. And everybody already thinks I’m that guy.
Almost everybody. “Can’t,” I say, pulling out my burner phone and starting to shoulder my way through the crowd. It buzzes before I get outside. When I look at the screen and see Bronwyn’s number—even though she’s the only one who ever calls me on this phone—I feel a massive sense of relief. Like I’ve been freezing and someone wrapped a blanket around me.
“Hey,” Bronwyn says when I pick up. Her voice is far away, quiet. “Can we talk?”
Bronwyn
Tuesday, October 16, 12:30 a.m.
I’m nervous about sneaking Nate into the house. My parents are already furious with me for not telling them about Simon’s blog post—both now and back when it actually happened. We got out of the police station without much trouble, though. Robin gave this haughty speech that was all, Stop wasting our time with meaningless speculation that you can’t prove, and that wouldn’t be actionable even if you did.
I guess she was right, because here I am. Although I’m grounded until, as my mother says, I stop “undermining my future by not being transparent.”
“You couldn’t have hacked into Simon’s old blog while you were at it?” I muttered to Maeve before she went to bed.
She looked genuinely chagrined. “He took it down so long ago! I didn’t think it even existed anymore. And I never knew you wrote that comment. It wasn’t posted.” She shook her head at me with a sort of exasperated fondness. “You were always more upset about that than I was, Bronwyn.”
Maybe she’s right. It occurred to me, as I lay in my dark room debating whether I should call Nate, that I’ve spent years thinking Maeve was a lot more fragile than she actually is.
Now I’m downstairs in our media room, and when I get a text from Nate that he’s at the house, I open the basement door and stick my head outside. “Over here,” I call softly, and a shadowy figure comes around the corner next to our bulkhead. I retreat back into the basement, leaving the door open for Nate to follow me.
He comes in wearing a leather jacket over a torn, rumpled T-shirt, his hair falling sweaty across his forehead from the helmet. I don’t say anything until I’ve led him into the media room and closed the door behind us. My parents are three floors away and asleep, but the added bonus of a soundproof room can’t be overstated at a time like this.
“So.” I sit in one corner of the couch, knees bent and arms crossed over my legs like a barrier. Nate takes off his jacket and tosses it on the floor, lowering himself on the opposite end. When he meets my eyes, his are clouded with so much misery that I almost forget to be upset.
“How’d it go at the police station?” he asks.
“Fine. But that’s not what I want to talk about.”
He drops his eyes. “I know.” Silence stretches between us and I want to fill it with a dozen questions, but I don’t. “You must think I’m an asshole,” he says finally, still staring at the floor. “And a liar.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Nate exhales a slow breath and shakes his head. “I wanted to. I thought about it. I didn’t know how to start. Thing is—it was this lie I told because it was easier than the truth. And because I half believed it, anyway. I didn’t think she’d ever come back. Then once you say something like that, how do you unsay it? You look like a fucking psycho at that point.” He raises his eyes again, locking on mine with sudden intensity. “I’m not, though. I haven’t lied to you about anything else. I’m not dealing drugs anymore, and I didn’t do anything to Simon. I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me, but I swear to God it’s true.”
Another long silence descends while I try to gather my thoughts. I should be angrier, probably. I should demand proof of his trustworthiness, even though I have no idea what that would look like. I should ask lots of pointed questions designed to ferret out whatever other lies he’s told me.
But the thing is, I do believe him. I won’t pretend I know Nate inside and out after a few weeks, but I know what it’s like to tell yourself a lie so often that it becomes the truth. I did it, and I haven’t had to muddle through life almost completely on my own.