Chapter
TWENTY-TWO
It was hard enough not knowing what the hell was going on, who to tell, how to stop it. But something about the fact that JD didn’t understand made Em’s heart hurt in a way she’d never felt before.
Forever and always, JD had been the one she trusted. When she was scared to jump off the dock at Galvin’s Pond when they were ten, he did it with her—even though there was goopy pond grass floating nearby. When she told him stories, she never felt like she had to edit out the weird stuff—the strange places her brain went, the seemingly nonsensical connections she made between things. When she’d told him about Zach, even . . .
But now she felt like she was behind a wall. If JD didn’t understand, who would?
His texts started up the moment she was back in her house.
Em. I’m sorry. Come back and talk to me.
E L I Z A B E T H M I L E S
Or I can come over there?
Hello? Emerly? Silent treatment?
She powered off her phone without responding. She felt humiliated; she’d exposed herself to him, and he had treated her like a child. She trudged upstairs, leaving the kitchen light on. She noticed her parents had left a note saying they’d gone out for dinner. They would be home in a few hours.
In her room, Em flipped open her laptop.
There he was again, trying to chat with her now.
Em? I can see you’re online. Can we just talk?
I’m sorry if I was a jerk. I don’t even know what I did.
What’s going on???
She shut her laptop with a bang. She thought about turning on her iPod but there wasn’t a single song she wanted to listen to. She pulled off her jeans and changed into her UMaine sweats. She shut off the light, then thought better of it and switched on her desk lamp.
She’d had enough of the dark.
Then she slumped into bed without even brushing her teeth. She lay there, listening to the clacking radiator, rolling from one side of the bed to the other. She couldn’t get comfortable. In a fit of frustration, she dumped all her pillows onto the ground, keeping just one for her head. Finally, her eyes felt heavy. And just as she might have fallen asleep, Em heard frantic, furious knocking at the front door. She jolted awake.
It couldn’t be her parents; even if they’d forgotten their keys, both sets, they would have dug around for the spare, hid-278
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den under a rock beneath the deck. It had to be JD, coming to apologize and talk in person.
For a second she debated just leaving him there in the cold.
He’d have to give up eventually. But the knocks kept coming, echoing through the empty house.
With a sigh, she got up, slipped her bare feet into the puffy slippers next to her bed, and headed back downstairs. She told herself she was not going to forgive him. At least being mad gave her something concrete to focus on.
In the foyer, she steeled herself, cleared her throat, and flung open the door.
“JD—” But the words dried in her throat. Because there, on the Winters’ rough granite stoop, stood the girl. Ali.
She was smiling brightly. In her hand was a gleaming red orchid. Beautiful, translucent, like something blown from glass.
“Hi, again,” the girl chirped. Her tiny nose quivered like a rodent’s and her teeth gleamed white. “Santa never found out you were naughty. But we did.”
The words crashed through Em’s skull. Santa never found out you were naughty. It was almost exactly what Zach had said to her that night, the first night they’d kissed.
She slammed the door in Ali’s face and for a moment stood frozen, heart pounding. There was a rasping sound coming from somewhere; it took Em a moment to realize it was the sound of her own breathing.
“Knock, knock,” came Ali’s singsong voice from the other side of the door.
Em unfroze. Terror coursed through her and she tore into 279
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the living room, then to the dining room, then to the kitchen, locking all the windows and pulling the drapes. She felt prickles along her shoulder blades, as though Ali were right behind her with every step.
She was being punished for what she had done with Zach.
She was sure of it now—Ali had parroted Zach’s words to her almost exactly. She would pay for her sins the same way Chase had paid for his. Are you ready for your turn to pay, Em?
She was crying now, whimpering. “Please leave me alone.”
She whirled around to scream at every skating shadow, yank-ing closed curtains and blinds. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She froze in the foyer, not daring to look outside, terrified of what she might see. “I didn’t mean it. It just happened. It’s not my fault.
It wasn’t even worth it.”
In the hallway—as far from any windows as possible—she backed up against a wall and sank to the floor, trembling, draw-ing her knees to her chest. Barely breathing. She didn’t hear anything. She pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt down around her thumbs and bit them—a habit from childhood, from being freaked by scary movies and ghost stories.
That’s what this was: a ghost story.
And then the knocking started again.
“No, please!” Her sobs rang out in the empty house. “Leave me alone! I said I was sorry. I’m trying to fix things. It—it was a mistake. Please just leave me alone!” She brought her knees to her chest, rocking, letting tears run into her mouth. “I didn’t mean to let it happen.” Her voice was rising hysterically. “It wasn’t even f*cking worth it!”
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And then she heard Gabby’s voice—sweet, familiar, beautiful.
“Em? Em, are you okay? Are you in there?”
Em raised her head, wiping her nose and face with the cuff of her sweatshirt.
“Em? It’s Gabs. Please let me in. We need to talk.”
Em stood up shakily, wiping her sweaty palms on her pants. She took one tiny step forward, calling out tentatively,
“Gabby?”
Gabby’s face appeared, also tentative, also miserable, in one of the small rectangular windows next to Em’s front door. She pointed to the doorknob.
“Em, please let me in.”
Em opened the door and after a moment’s hesitation, Gabby stepped into the foyer. Em scanned the lawn quickly. Nothing.
Ali was gone. But after she closed the door, she made sure to double lock it.
Gabby was standing awkwardly in the dark foyer, wearing a puffy jacket Em didn’t recognize and that was too big for her.
“I tried calling,” she said. “You didn’t pick up.” She was chew-ing on the inside of her cheek, and her face was streaked with tears and mascara.
“I was in bed.” Em’s voice was hoarse, and she swiped her eyes on the cuff of her sweatshirt when Gabby wasn’t looking, hoping she wouldn’t notice that Em, too, had been crying. “I turned my phone off.”
“I drove by and saw your light was on . . .” Gabby fidgeted nervously with her zipper.
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“I’m glad,” Em said, wishing things didn’t feel so awkward.
For a moment they stood in silence.
“Oh, Em,” Gabby gasped out suddenly. “I saw him. I had to go to Portland for a new pair of gloves and I saw him kissing some girl outside some restaurant. I almost crashed my car when I saw it. . . .” Gabby was blubbering. “He never takes me out to eat!”
Without thinking about it—without worrying about the fact that the last time they had seen each other, Gabby had pushed her into a coatrack—Em stepped forward and put her arms around Gabby, their mismatched frames fitting together as they always had. She could smell Gabby’s signature vanilla body spray and breathed it in. They stood there for a while, hugging and sniffling.
Then Em pulled her into the living room and sat her on the brushed-suede couch. The Winters didn’t use their living room very often—most of their limited family time happened in the den, on old and comfy beige sofas, in front of the TV.
Em associated this room with holidays, with reciting poems for her grandma.
“Wait here,” she said, once Gabby was seated. She went into the kitchen, ripping into the cabinets for some Swiss Miss.
The two minutes and thirty seconds that it took for the micro-wave to heat up the water felt like forever. “I’ll be right in, Gabby,” Em called, shifting her feet in front of the buzzing machine. She was so happy Gabby was here, in her living room, sitting on her couch, she felt like she could cry again. Part of her wanted to spill her guts about the fact that a freaky blond girl 282
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was skulking around in her yard, but she didn’t know how to say it. And Gabby clearly needed her.
Em thought about what Drea had said: When you’re ready to talk, find me. Oh, Em was ready. She was ready to find out what Drea knew, what the hell was going on, and how to stop it once and for all. But tomorrow was time enough to find Drea and figure out what the hell was going on. Tonight, it was Operation Win Gabby Back.
It had to be a good sign that she was here. If they could patch things up, maybe this would all be over.
On the way back into the living room, she checked to make sure the front door was still bolted. Then she settled onto the couch with Gabby, setting both mugs of hot cocoa onto the coffee table.
“I broke your Cabo mug,” she said guiltily, as though Gabby would have noticed or cared that she was drinking from a plain white coffee cup.
Gabby didn’t respond, but picked up one of the cocoas and blew at it, staring at the floor.
“I . . . I brought back these special licorice candies from Spain”—her voice wavered as she spoke—“and I couldn’t share them with you,” Gabby said.
Em nodded. She knew what she meant. Gabby and Em both had an obsession with all types of licorice. But they never ate it alone. They always shared.
There was a noise outside, a rustling. Em stilled, listening hard. But then everything was silent again, except Gabby’s sniffing.
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“Do you still have them?” Em asked.
“Yeah, there are some left. Zach doesn’t even like licorice, you know—” Gabby broke off, crying again. Em saw a tear-drop fall into the steaming hot chocolate. “I was wrong about him,” Gabby said finally. “After I saw him with that— whoever she was—I went to his house and waited for him. When he showed up, I confronted him about it. Just blew up. And he told me—” Em could see, from the way Gabby couldn’t meet her eyes, that she felt mortified.
“He told you what?” Em prodded.
“He told me that yeah, he’s been with other girls. Who knows what else he’s done. He’s sorry. Bullshit. He said some stuff about not being able to choose. And then I threw my earrings at him—the ones he gave me for Christmas—and took off. And came here.” Her tone made it clear that she’d done so because she felt it was her only option.
“Gabs, I’m glad you came.” Em was.
“I don’t even know who to trust anymore.” Gabby put her head in her hands.
“You can trust me,” Em said, feeling the ache throbbing in her chest, the ache of missing Gabby.
Gabby looked Em straight in the eyes. “Can I?”
Em leaned forward, willing Gabby to believe her. “Yeah, you can trust me. I know it’s hard to believe right now, but you can. Gabs—”
Gabby interrupted: “I didn’t want to come here, you know.
But . . .” She shuddered. “God, Em, you’re my best friend. Even after what happened. You’re still my best friend. No one else 284
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understands.” She quickly added, “But don’t think I’m not still, like, completely furious with you. Completely.”
Em’s mouth was dry. She shook her head. “I know. I don’t expect you to just forgive me out of the blue. But I want you to know my side. He screwed us both. I mean, not literally, of course,” she rushed to add. “But he’s an a*shole. A manipulator.
He uses people, Gabs.” Em shivered, remembering when JD
had told her just that.
“That doesn’t make it any better that you just fell for it. I know that you can, like, express this stuff so much better than I can, Em. You know what words to use. I don’t. All I know is that I feel like total shit.”
Em picked up her mug, then set it down again. “I know, Gabby. Believe me, I know.” She sighed. “I’m so sorry.”
Gabby drew the quilted throw blanket from the back of the couch down onto her lap. “How much of the other stuff did you know about?” Her voice had a tiny quiver in it. “The fact that Zach was . . . with other girls?”
Em told her everything. What Chase had said, how Zach’s own best friend had described him. What Zach had revealed himself, the night she confronted him. She kept tucking her hair behind her ears, watching as Gabby sank deeper and deeper into the couch.
“I tried to tell you, Gabs. I wanted to talk to you so badly.”
Em cleared her throat. “He’s so good at making people feel like they’re special. Like what he feels for them is unique. That’s what he did to me. I really felt . . .” She sighed and let it spill out. “I really felt like we had something that was different. And 285
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I knew I was doing something terrible but at the same time I couldn’t fight it. It was like it was my only chance to have this earthshaking love that people talk about. That you had. That I thought you had. Your perfect life. Your perfect relationship. I just wanted . . .”
Gabby was staring at her stonily. Em pushed ahead: “But it wasn’t earthshaking. It wasn’t anything other than him seeing how far he could go, how much he could get away with. And you have to know that I’m so sorry. Sorrier than I’ve ever been about anything.”
She meant it, too. She was sorry. In the back of her mind, as she spilled these secrets, she felt like she was putting her conscience through the car wash. If Gabby could understand, did that somehow wipe the slate clean?
“Oh my god.” Gabby again dropped her head in her hands.
“This is just so embarrassing. How am I supposed to show my face at Ascension ever again? And the pep rally is tomorrow. . . .
We were supposed to go together. . . .”
“It’s not about that, Gabs. This is bigger than that. You are bigger than that.” Em touched her best friend’s arm. “Gabby?
Will you . . . will you ever forgive me?”
Gabby moved her arm away, but looked up at Em as she did. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper. “I don’t know, Em. I just . . . I need you.”
“I need you, too, Gabby.” Em was crying again, softly. “My parents have been all on my case—‘Where’s Gabby? Did you two have a fight?’”
“Oh my god, mine too. It’s almost easier to just be friends 286
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again.” Gabby sat up straighter. She smoothed her hair down around her temples. “Jesus. What a jerk. What a complete and total idiot. I hate him. And you know what? I hate him as much for what he did to you as for what he did to me.”
That, Em realized, was why she loved Gabby so much.
Because even as Gabby grappled with the crumbling of the perfect life she’d built, she still felt Em’s pain too. Maybe Gabby thought about what other people felt more than she let on. She got it. From now on, Em would be strong for Gabby—she owed her that.
But would Em be strong enough to save herself?
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