Emily stepped toward her mom. “It’s so nice to see you home,” she said shakily. “How are you feeling?”
Mrs. Fields stared at her hands. All at once, her breathing began to quicken.
“Tired?” Emily tried. “Did they feed you okay in the hospital?”
Mrs. Fields was actually wheezing now. Carolyn let out a whimper. “Dad, do something.”
“She shouldn’t be here,” Beth said quickly, sharply.
Mr. Fields rose from the TV stand. He had disconnected the cable box from the television. Were they so broke that they couldn’t even afford cable anymore? “You need to go back upstairs,” he said firmly to Emily, his eyes cold.
“I’m sorry, everyone,” she eked out. “I’m really, really sorry.”
Then she fled back upstairs, holding in her sobs only until she was safely behind her closed door. Her phone was flashing on the bed. GOOGLE ALERT FOR THE PREPPY THIEF, said the screen. Emily scanned the headlines. Jordan’s sentencing trial was scheduled for next week. Experts say her sentence will be somewhere between twenty and fifty years.
Emily threw the phone against the wall. Jordan would have been fine if it weren’t for Emily. She’d ruined her life, too.
All at once, she thought of Derrick, her pal from last summer. How many times had he held her hand in the break room when she’d poured her heart out about how scared she was about having the baby? How many times had she called him in the middle of the night because she couldn’t sleep? She’d seen him not too long ago, when A was tormenting her about Gayle, so she knew he was still around. Maybe he’d listen. Maybe he’d understand.
She scooped up her phone from the carpet and dialed his number, but the call went to voicemail. Emily hung up without leaving a message. What if Derrick saw her number and hit IGNORE? Maybe he thought she was a killer, just like everyone else did. Maybe he was still upset that she’d cost him his job with Gayle, because she hadn’t given Gayle her baby—the last time she’d seen him, he’d mentioned it. She’d negatively impacted Derrick’s life, too.
She was the opposite of King Midas—everything and everyone she touched turned rotten, and there was so little now she could fix. Suddenly, something occurred to her. A lot of this was out of her control, but there was a way she could make her family happy again, get their money back, and heal their mother. She could disappear completely.
But did she dare even think it?
Emily squeezed her pillow hard. If she weren’t here right now, if she weren’t a constant stressor, her mom would recover. But when she thought about vanishing, she didn’t mean simply leaving town. It was a bigger, scarier, more definite decision than that.
She’d save her family. And who would miss her?
A laugh exploded from downstairs. Someone opened a door and shut it again. Emily rose from her bed and stood in the middle of the room, fingertips twitching. All at once, she couldn’t get the thought out of her mind. It made so much sense. She couldn’t live like this. She couldn’t let her family suffer. She couldn’t go to Jamaica, either. Maybe the rumors weren’t swirling because Ali and her helper planted them. Maybe everyone thought it was the next logical step.
Emily shut her eyes and thought for a moment. The Rosewood covered bridge came to mind. Most of the bridge had a roof over it, the inside walls coated with graffiti, but there was a tiny walkway on the outside that was open to the water below. The stream was deep this time of year from all the melted snow. It would still be cold, too. Numbing.
Heart pounding, she pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. Then, gathering up her courage, she hefted open her window, crept onto the roof, climbed onto the oak tree, and slid down the trunk, the way she always did when she snuck out. The bridge was about a twenty-minute walk. By the time her father checked on her—if he even did check on her—she’d be long gone.
27
FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS JUMP
That same morning, Spencer and Melissa stood on the Rosewood Day Commons. All one hundred and six of Spencer’s senior classmates, dressed in white and black graduation gowns and blue-tasseled caps, sat on folding chairs in front of a makeshift stage. Spencer, however, was in a plain cotton dress and wore no cap at all.