“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know that doesn’t even begin to make up for what happened to you, but I don’t know what else to say. Don’t know how to make it right.”
Molly shook her head, a look of complete disbelief clouding her expression. “I don’t get it. You, I mean Maddy, talked to me at the party before she left, told me she’d pick me up early the next day so we could go check out Lincoln High’s sweeper, that she was one of the best in the state and if we could figure out her weakness, then we’d have the upper hand.”
“She still is,” I said. I knew exactly what girl Molly was referring to. Maddy had idolized her, talked about her constantly during field hockey season, how she wished she had half that girl’s skills. “Except now she plays for Boston College, not Lincoln High.”
Somehow what I was saying finally clicked and she stood up, her chair falling to the floor behind her as she leaned across the table so her face was mere inches from mine. “Who else knew?” Her voice came out in a shudder, like the words were stuck there and had to be shaken free. “Who else knew that she drugged me?”
I saw Alex make a move toward me, Jenna dropping into the chair behind him. Alex had nothing to be afraid of. He’d had no part in this. In fact, he’d tried to talk my sister out of it for days. And as for Jenna, she still wasn’t worth the effort.
“Nobody,” I said, and I swear I heard a collective sigh of relief. “No one else knew. But I’m sorry. My sister was, too, and I wanted you to know that.”
Molly fell forward onto the table, her hands bracing herself at either side of her head as she fought to fully understand the weight of what I’d unloaded on her.
“Here,” I said as I dropped the letter to the table. I’d written it last night in front of Josh’s house. It explained what my sister had done to Molly and why. I went so far as to say it was Maddy and Maddy alone who had concocted the crazy plan. Not for Jenna’s sake—God knows I didn’t care about her—but for Alex’s. Jenna would surely try to implicate him. I didn’t want to destroy his chances at playing college soccer like Maddy had destroyed Molly’s chances of playing college field hockey.
I’d signed my sister’s name to the confession, then dated it the day before the accident. I understood the pain and guilt Maddy had been carrying around, her desire to tell the truth, and the fear that came along with that. This was my way of giving her the forgiveness and the sense of peace I was still struggling to find, of letting her apologize to Molly the way I knew she’d wanted to … like she had planned to. Plus, I hoped Molly could use it to get into college, maybe explain to the scouts why they needed to take a second look at her.
“I don’t know if it will help, but it’s spelled out there for everybody to see. What Maddy did to you was unforgivable, and I think she knew that. I think that was what she was trying to tell you that night at the party.” The last night any of us saw her alive, I silently added. “But I am sorry for lying to you, for lying to everybody.”
I turned and walked through the doors, intent on making it out of the cafeteria and out of the school before I lost the courage to come clean to my parents.
I wasn’t more than a few steps out the door when the cafeteria erupted into chaos, everybody talking and reaching for their phones. In less than a few seconds, everything I had said would be broadcast to the world, uploaded and texted to everybody … including my parents.
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