“And that actually bothered you?” I say before I can stop myself. Mom glares at me. “Sorry,” I mutter.
“I know we’re in a fight, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss you,” Lacey says, wounded. “Anyway, I went outside and called him back, and he told me you left the wedding a total wreck, and that you obviously needed me but were too proud to ask for my help. And…I don’t know, I felt something click, like I had a way to make this all magically okay after we’d been so pissed at each other. I just don’t know how Clive knew what I was going to see once I let myself in.”
“There is no way he could have known,” I say. “Clive is a dick, apparently, but he’s not magic.”
“I think he played a hunch, and got lucky,” she says. “He didn’t have anything to lose. If nothing was going on, sending me there would just make him look thoughtful. But if he was right…” Lacey takes a deep breath. “At first, I only listened, but then I looked. I left when Freddie really went for it with you.”
“You should’ve come in,” I say lamely. “We could have explained.”
“It seemed clear enough to me,” she says. “The way he touched your face, and kissed you, saying it wasn’t the first time…I was so angry. So jealous. I didn’t think. I just ran.”
“Straight to Clive,” I guessed. “Who apparently hates me even more than you do.”
“That’s not how it happened, and I told you, I don’t hate you,” she insists. “I can’t hate you, Bex. I wish I could. It would all hurt so much less.”
“So instead of hating me, you hurt me back as hard as you could?” My resentment bubbles. “Newsflash, Lacey. These stories always have at least two sides. Not everything is only about you.”
“No, it’s too busy only being about you,” she fires back, her tone escalating. “Do I need to remind you that you got mad at me for not toeing the line, when you’re the one making out with your fiancé’s brother? You already have Nick. Did you want to collect the complete set? Or just make sure you had it all so I had nothing?”
Lacey’s vitriol catches me off guard, though I guess it shouldn’t. “Wow,” I say. “You may not hate me, but you do apparently think I’m a monster.”
“I don’t! It’s just…You’re getting me all worked up again,” she flounders.
“You’re worked up?” I say, hearing my voice turn shrill. “I have eight hundred guests picking up their dry cleaning today for a wedding that might not even happen if I don’t agree to be Clive’s mole.” My eyes fill with tears. “I either betray Nick, or…betray Nick.”
“Don’t you think you already did that?” Lacey says harshly.
The wind ekes out of me.
“Lacey.” My mother shakes her head.
“No. She’s right. I did.” I press the heels of my palms to my eyes. “And it wasn’t the first time. The night that, um…” I can’t say the words Dad died. “At that house party, Freddie and I kissed then, too.”
Lacey closes her eyes. “I know,” she says, pained. “I mean, I didn’t, not for sure, but at one point Clive said he saw you both sneaking out of a closet that night, or something, and he always thought it was fishy.”
“We’d been drinking,” I said. “We didn’t even know what we were doing. But, you know. Full disclosure.”
Mom lets out a low whistle.
“You channeled Dad right there,” I say, missing him fiercely.
“Earl Porter had a way with sound effects,” Mom says with a sad expression. “Reminds me of you.” She shakes her head as if to knock out a cobweb. “Don’t get off-topic. When does Clive come back into this?”
“Clive told me he was still at the wedding, but I guess he followed you guys back to London and, like, staked the place out,” Lacey says. “He saw me leave crying. But he didn’t come find me until later. I guess he thought it was smarter to hang around, see if Freddie left, maybe get a time-stamped picture. Which he got. After what, I don’t know.”
“After nothing,” I insist. “Do you really think I’d sleep with Freddie?”
“I didn’t even think you’d kiss him, yet here we are,” Lacey says plainly. “The guy I was in love with, the guy you told me I couldn’t have because it would look bad. Do you know what it felt like, hearing him say things to you that I’d been dying for him to say to me? Honestly, my first instinct was to run in there and punch you both. Which is totally what you would’ve done before you were Princess Perfect, by the way.”
“I know. And I swear, it caught me by surprise. Emotions were running high. I wish I had a better explanation than that,” I say. “There’s just a finite number of people who understand what it’s like inside that family, and it turns out Freddie has been unhappier than anyone noticed, and he got carried away…I guess we both did.”
“But from where I was standing, it looked like you’d spent all that time warning me away from him so you could have both Prince Charmings to yourself,” Lacey says.
It stings that she ever could have thought this. And if she did, other people probably will, too.
“It was never like that,” I tell her. “You have to believe that.”
“This was all an accident,” she counters. “You have to believe that.”
We lock eyes. And then, just as it always does when my twin looks miserable, I feel my hardness start to smudge. What’s the point of making our bad deeds a comparative science? We both messed up. For the first time, I keenly see that we are both each other’s collateral damage.
Mom clears her throat subtly. “You two made quite a bed for yourselves,” she says.
“Clive really got to me,” Lacey admits. “He came over the next day, checking in, and found me all splotchy and puffy. Totally gross. I’d been crying for like twelve hours straight. He was so concerned, and so nice.” She looks crushed. “Stupid, pathetic me, that’s all it took. I played right into his hands. He must’ve been rejoicing inside when he realized what he had.”
“You’re not pathetic, or stupid. He’s just good,” I said. “And he must really hate me.”
Lacey looks over at me. “He does,” she says. “I went for drinks with him and Joss a lot over the last few months, and we’d always end up bitching about you and Nick like some bitter little support group. I’m not proud of it. But I thought I was safe with him. We were friends. He got every complicated feeling I had without ever judging any of them.”
I rub my temples. How did Lacey and I get so far away from each other that we couldn’t hear each other’s complicated feelings as nonjudgmentally as other people did? But I can’t say I don’t understand her actions. Clive—and even Joss—had never been anything but kind to her, and once Freddie disappeared, she’d have had no other sounding board.
“There’s more.” Lacey looks queasy.
“How much more could there be?” Mom asks.
Lacey covers her face with her hands. “The thing is, even though he’s still with Pudge, I was really into him after a while.”