Alex took a step forward, his body suddenly within inches of mine. I could smell his cologne, see the smooth lines of his jaw and the tiny spot he’d missed when shaving this morning. “You have to trust me on this. You need to keep your distance from her, at least until things settle down and you’re feeling more like yourself.”
The pain in his voice stabbed at my heart and I shook my head. There was a fear behind his words, a fear that I would change my mind and reveal a secret I didn’t even know. My reply was easy, I wouldn’t tell Molly anything—not because I was trying to protect him or my sister, but because I had no clue what he was talking about.
“I wasn’t planning on telling Molly anything,” I said.
I felt his relief and offered him my hand. He took it and laced his fingers through mine. “What happened with Molly is in the past, Maddy, and it needs to stay there.”
Every part of me was begging to ask him what he was talking about. I searched his expression for a clue as to what was going on between Alex and Maddy, and what Molly had to do with it. I got nothing.
I tried to think of a time when something seemed off between them. I remembered the muffled conversation in the bathroom the week before Maddy died—the one about some plan of Maddy’s going wrong—and I remembered the tears streaming down Maddy’s face at the party. But other than that, everything between Maddy and Alex had seemed fine. Perfect, actually.
Alex took my silence for indecision and reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I made sure everything went away. Made certain you got to be co-captain of the field hockey team, prom queen in junior year, the girl everybody wants to be, didn’t I?”
I nodded because agreeing with him seemed like the logical thing to do.
“Seven more months and we’re out of here. We can start over and forget everything that happened. I can keep things together for you until then, but you’ve gotta stop trying to make amends with Molly and remember who you are, how you got here, and what you’ve been willing to do to make sure nobody, including Molly, stands in your way.”
Whatever this was, whatever lie my sister and Alex were covering up, I hadn’t agreed to it. I thought I could put on her clothes, sit in her classes, talk to her friends, and make everybody so happy she was alive that they’d overlook tiny mistakes I made here and there. But this was different. Complicated. Too complicated.
I stared at Alex, unable to speak, unable to wipe the look of sheer confusion from my face. I would have been more than happy to hand the crown of popularity over to Jenna and sink into the background. But what I wanted didn’t matter. The most important thing was keeping Maddy’s life intact, every piece of it, including this.
Alex caught the frustration on my face, his tone purposefully gentling as he pulled out his phone and started to dial my dad’s number. “Maybe your parents were right. Maybe it was too soon for you to come back to school. Maybe you should go and talk to the therapist with your parents, give yourself some more time before—”
“I don’t need to talk to anybody.” I reached for the phone and hit the Off button before the call connected to my father’s office. “I’m fine, Alex, honest. People are acting weird around me, and it makes me … I don’t know, edgy.” The words tumbled out as I desperately tried to bluff my way through the rest of the conversation. Until I figured out what I’d walked into, I needed to keep my cards close. Watch more and say less.
“Probably because you’re acting weird around them,” he said. The concern and confusion that had dampened his features for the past month were suddenly gone, the confident Alex I was used to seeing with Maddy back in place. “Plus, edgy is good. That’s what they’re used to. It’s freaking out in class and hiding in the bathroom that is going to get you in trouble.”