Roman Holiday

chapter Twenty-One

I snatch the camera from Maggie and scan through the photos, feeling myself pale at every one. John must've been outside her bathroom window.

The photos aren't close, but you can tell it's Holly. They look like screenshots to a scene in a movie. She's holding a glass of wine in one hand, listening to her iPod, her eyes closed. Her hair floats around her in the bathtub beside candles and incense, nothing more than a soothing bubble bath. She has one foot up out of the water. It's black and blue. Hadn't there been something about a fall the week before in Arizona?

John was nothing more than a peeping Tom.

But then...something begins to go wrong in the pictures. The wine glass tips out of her hand onto the floor, coating the tiles in a blood-red stain, and she begins to sink beneath the bubbles, her hair floating like a wreath around her. First her chin goes under, then her lips, and then sliding, sliding...

My stomach heaves. I shove the camera back to Maggie.

"He must've taken the Lona photos on the local memory," Maggie says, although her heart isn't in it. She shuts off her camera and pops out the memory card again. "Bb, Roman really wasn't there the night she died."

"But John was, and he could've done something."

Maggie shakes her head. She drops her camera back into her purse and begins to pace. She's followed John for a year, kept up with him, idolized him, almost. The confusion on her face is sickening. "That dick-licking bastard. He could've saved her! He could've—but he just—bb, this is big." Then she gasps and seizes my shoulders with her claw-like nails so hard, it makes me wince. "This is our leverage. Two people can play at this game."

I blink. "...I'm not following."

"Hello. Check in, okay? Follow—we got his jerkmeat, right?" She holds the memory card between us. "And he just slut-shamed you on every major tabloid in the world. It's on, bb. It's on like Donkey Kong. We're going to go there. And we're going to fight like real Holidayers!"

"But I'm not a Holidayer."

"You love Roman, don't you?"

I frown. "That doesn't matter."

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Either you're a Holidayer or a Hate-idayer." She sniffs me and cringes. "Take a shower and get adorbs. We're going out."

"Maggie, I'd rather just hide here under the couch for a few years until all of this blows over." I start over to the couch, but she runs in front of me and puts up her hands to block my way. "Maggie," I plead.

"No way, bb. Time to do some retaliation."

I give her a no-bullshit look.

She rolls her eyes. "Where the hell do you think John's gonna be today?"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do."

To prove her point, she snatches up the TV controller and turns it to MTV. It's a full day of live coverage from St. Michael's Cemetery—or it's supposed to be. My big fat face stares at me from over Nick Lively's purple-suited shoulder. She quirks an eyebrow. "Now do you know? I told you, this shit just got real. And I'm not going to sit around and watch my best friend get slut-shamed. Call me classy, but this means war."

I purse my lips together. "Don't you think he should see them first before we just hand them to the public?"

"Yeah, well, he sure blew you off, didn't he? And besides what does it matter? This memory card is his golden ticket to freeeee-dom! If we hand this to the public? Not only will it put John at the scene of the crime, but Roman will totes be off scot-free. He didn't murder Holly. He wasn't even there. So what do you say, bb? Let's give John the old Magbug One-Two?" she offers, holding out her fist.

On the screen, a blue mohawk cuts through the crowd behind Nick Lively. Seeing it, my resolve strengthens. Where Boaz is, I'm sure Roman is soon to follow. But giving the photos to Nick Lively without Roman seeing them first? I just have this horrid mental image of Roman waking up tomorrow morning with new photographs of his dead best friend on the front page of the New York Times. Wouldn't that hurt him even more than her death already has?

Nick Lively pulls up an old yearbook photo from sophomore year of high school when I still had braces and frizzy short hair. How the hell did they get that picture? The caption under the photo reads 'JUNIE BALTIMORE, COMPETING WITH THE DEAD?'

Maggie's right. This is war.

But it's not our move to make.

"We give it to Roman," I tell her, and when she opens her mouth to rebuke I add, "Please?"

She sighs and drops her first. "There goes my fifteen minutes of fame."

"Don't count that out quite yet," I reply, ripping my eyes from the TV screen to get dressed. I don't even bother straightening my hair, I just fishtail it over my shoulder.

Maggie frowns at my Journey t-shirt and frayed shorts. "We're going to war, not a lawn concert, bb."

"I won't stick out then, will I?" I retort.

"You have pink hair."

Maggie drove her neon purple Celica. It smells like roses and old take-out food, probably from the week-old Chinese in the backseat. I shove the library books and magazines onto the floor and buckle up.

"Sorry for the junk," she says. "You never know when the zom-pocalypse will come. And when it does, I'll be ready."

"Shotgun?"

"Double pump action, and just so you know," —and she pats my knee lovingly— "if you go zombie, I'll kill you first."

I laugh. "Thanks, Mags. I'd kill you first, too."

The only think playing on the radio today is Roman Holiday in memory of Holly Hudson. It's either that or NPR. The end of "Crush on You" migrates into "Deep End," a swoony song about—you guessed it—diving off the deep end for love, and then drowning in it. Holly sings most of this one. Sort of ironic, really, considering the photographs. Maggie taps her fingers along to the beat, rocking her head back and forth, as we speed toward Lynn Island. "You know, I always wondered, bb, Roman and Holly are from Myrtle, right? How many people knew them?"

I shrug. "Not a lot, I guess."

"But a good majority of them, right? Holly, at least, because I could totes see her as senior class prez or something. Oh! The viral video—the one at the golf course? Taken right there." She points at Arrg, Pirates! as we drive past. A small smile creeps onto my face. Yeah, I know the place. My shoes still smell like the lagoon.

"Dad loved that place when I was a kid," I reply instead, wanting to keep that night a secret, because it is the only thing that is truly mine anymore.

"OhmyGod, you could've ran into him and not even knew it!"

I think about the shape of Roman's face, and the way his lips turn up when he's amused. I shake my head. "Nah, I think I'd remember if I did."

Maggie rolls her eyes and merges onto the interstate, following the signs to Lynn Island. It's a small town a little past South Myrtle, home to shrimpers and oyster-shucking contests. "You sure? Because do I look exactly like I did when you first met me?"

"Sort of, minus the dreads."

"And the fantastic boobs," she adds, thrusting her chest up. "Think, because Roman doesn't really have orange hair you know—"

"I know! I've watched you obsess over Holiday for five years," I reply, rolling my eyes, and prop my elbow up on the door, putting my chin on my hand.

She huffs. "Jeez, take a chill, yeah?" It sounds like she drops the subject until suddenly, like she always does, she adds, "I just thought you'd have run into him before, is all."

I do everything I can to not groan. "Well, I haven't."

She sneaks a glance at me from the road, thrumming her thumbs on the middle of the steering wheel. "Is something eating you?"

"Sorta," I confess. "What John said last night—about me just being..." I hesitate, pressing my forehead against the warm glass of the window. "I don't wanna be like...you know, just another holiday."

The edges of her rouge-colored lips quirk up. "You love him, don't you?"

The back of my neck prickles with heat. "No." Although, I can't shake last night, not even after his harsh words and hateful glares. When we were dancing cheek-to-cheek, it was...it felt like every love song ever made, and that isn't something that a scornful scowl can erase.

I begin shaking my head. "I shouldn't. He's a rock star."

"Yeah, duh. He's got models lusting after him."

"Yeah," I murmur, sinking further down into my seat, "thanks for that."

"But," she adds as an afterthought, "Deep End" morphing into "Ever for Always." "I've never ever in a billion years thought you'd be on his side on anything. You hated him."

"I still should. I'm being crazy right now. Why the hell should I care what happens to him? Why should he matter so much?"

"Because, because, because," she singsongs. "Next stop, save the Lining, right?"

"Somehow, bb, I don't think we can save that with a memory card, too." I lean up and change the station to classic rock. Guns 'N Roses. "'Sweet Child 'O Mine.'"