“You know,” Spencer urged. “You know everything!”
Kelsey stared at them for a beat, then squeezed her eyes shut. “My head really hurts. They have me on so many meds here.” She pushed back her chair and stood. “Frankly, this is kind of weird. I mean, thanks for apologizing and whatever. And . . . here.” She reached into the pocket of her pajama pants and pulled out a folded piece of lined paper. “I wrote this for you, too, Spencer.”
Kelsey pushed the letter into Spencer’s hands. “Have a nice life, guys.” And then she shuffled out of the room, her pajama bottoms dragging on the ground. A nurse stopped her outside the guest area and led her into a small office with transparent windows. The girls watched as she slumped onto a blue plastic chair. The nurse said something to her, and Kelsey nodded limply, her face expressionless.
Hanna leaned across the table. “What the hell was that?”
“She seemed so . . . different.” Emily stared at Kelsey across the hall. “So hopeless.”
Spencer twisted her silver ring around her finger. “Why did she say she didn’t know Tabitha? She has to know her. She had those pictures on her phone. She sent me that text!”
“She was lying,” Aria said matter-of-factly. “She had to be.”
Then Spencer unfolded the letter Kelsey had given her and laid it flat on the table. Everyone hitched forward in their seats to read it. A single paragraph was written in leaky black pen.
Dear Spencer,
Apparently one of the steps to getting better in rehab is letting go of bad blood between people, so I guess I’ll start with you. I’m not mad at you anymore. I mean, I was pissed at you for months after I went to juvie, wondering if you had something to do with getting me in trouble, but I never knew for sure until Emily told me on Friday. So you saved yourself; good for you. I don’t really blame you, I guess. When I texted you on Friday about how we needed to talk, I thought I could keep my cool, but then I saw you and I got so angry. Then again, you were angry, too. But I even forgive you for hurting me. I don’t know what your problem is, but you seriously need help.
Good luck with everything. Think of me when you’re at Princeton—yeah, right.
Kelsey
“Whoa,” Hanna said when she finished.
“I don’t understand.” Spencer looked at Emily. “She didn’t know what I did until you told her? If she’s A, how is that possible?”
“She did seem surprised when I told her at the cast party,” Emily murmured. “But then, at the quarry, I figured she was lying—that she knew all along.”
Hanna pointed to Emily’s letter. “What does yours say?”
Emily looked nervously at each of them, almost as if she’d rather read the missive in private, but then she shrugged and unfolded the letter.
Dear Emily,
I suppose I have some explaining to do. I totally screwed up, and I dragged you into it, and I’m so sorry. But I’m mad at you, too. You kept a huge secret from me.
When I met you, I was clean and sober. Happy. Excited to make a new friend. But then I made the connection of who you were and who you knew. That made me think of Spencer, and all the bad memories flooded back. So I started on pills again. I popped them before we hung out at the bowling alley and before we walked on the trail. I popped them at the play. You asked me what was wrong, but I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d try everything in your power to stop me, and I didn’t want to stop.
As soon as you told me what Spencer did, I drowned my sorrows, taking more pills than I could handle. I was out of my mind when we were at the quarry, and I’m sorry if I put you in danger. I can’t thank you enough for pulling me back from the edge, and although I’m pissed to be in rehab, my therapist says that if I give it time, maybe I’ll really get better. You never know.
The thing is, I’m a liar, too. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, things no one would ever put on her bad-girl bucket list. I cheated on my SATs. I bribed a teacher sophomore year to give me an A by making out with him in the supply closet. And when I was on spring break in Jamaica, I met this guy the first afternoon and left with him hours after getting there, going to the other side of the island and leaving my friends without a car or money.
So see, you’re not alone in being a shitty person. I forgive you, and I hope you can forgive me, too. Maybe someday we can be friends again.
Or maybe life sucks, and then you die.
Kelsey
When everyone finished reading, Emily folded the letter back up, tears in her eyes. “Poor Kelsey.”
“Poor Kelsey?” Spencer exploded. “Poor you!”