Claire lowered her eyes. “I knew it that first day at Disneyland, but I lied when he asked me and told him you weren’t interested. Then, before the auditions, I told him to hang out with you and distract you. I just—” Her voice cracked. “I had no idea how far it would go. It’s not his fault, Mac. I made it so he would feel guilty if he didn’t do it. He didn’t want to.”
Mac took a few breaths, trying to process this. It felt good that Claire had come clean. And it felt good that Blake had really been telling the truth. She shot forward and hugged her friend tightly, feeling so relieved. “I love you,” she said.
“Huh?” Claire gave her a strange look. “I just told you that I’m basically a bitch, and you say you love me?”
But that was the thing: Mac did love her, despite everything. Not that this made them equal. Mac would always feel guilty for naming Claire in that conversation. It would always linger in the back of her mind, the one thing in life she wished most she could take back. “I just want us to be friends again,” she said softly.
Claire groaned and rolled her eyes. “Okay, cut the cheesy stuff. Call him back!”
Mac looked at her appreciatively, then swiped at the phone with one finger. “Hi,” she said, a little shyly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CAITLIN SLAMMED HER GYM LOCKER door shut. She was off school for the week, but there was no way she was abandoning her soccer team. Especially not tonight, when they played Bellevue. It was also their first game with the new freshman recruits.
“Let’s go, Caitlin!” Her teammates filed past her, tightening their hair bands and slapping one another with their towels and jerseys. Ursula let out a loud whoooooop! and started a call-and-response cheer as the team jogged through the field house door and into the courtyard. She shot Caitlin a smile over her shoulder, and Caitlin smiled back. It was funny—not long ago, Caitlin had suspected Ursula of being her ultimate enemy. Killing Nolan and framing them. Eavesdropping on their awful conversation in film studies and forming some sort of master plan. It seemed so ridiculous now.
Then again, the truth was pretty unthinkable, too.
Her thoughts turned to Julie. Last she’d heard, Julie had been checked into a high-security mental facility about twenty miles away. It was the type of place where she couldn’t have visitors for a while, as she would be in round-the-clock, incredibly intense therapy. Caitlin tried to picture what her days were like. At least she was in a cleaner, less-cluttered environment. At least there were no cats. Would she be sad to part with Parker? Had that even happened yet? Maybe it was the type of thing that took months, even years. It’s like a death, Dr. Rose had said. Caitlin felt so sorry for Julie, despite everything. She couldn’t imagine having to go through losing Taylor twice.
A whistle blew outside, snapping her back to the present. Caitlin adjusted her shin guards, popped in her mouth guard, and followed the rest of her team. As she crossed the parking lot to the field, she caught sight of her moms on the bleachers and smiled. Things were okay with them again, for the first time in a long, long time. Last night, she’d had a serious heart-to-heart with them, and though they were still upset with her for pranking Nolan—especially because it had been her Oxy—they were on her side again. Caitlin had finally admitted to her moms just how much rage she’d felt toward Nolan, and how much she directly blamed him for Taylor’s suicide. She’d told them how she reread Taylor’s journal a thousand times in the past six months, trying to figure out the exact moment when he had decided to go through with it . . . the exact moment when she had missed the most important clue of all.
Her moms had just gazed at her, their eyes spilling over with tears, their mouths squeezed shut to hold back the sobs. Then they had all cried together, and it was like they had finally acknowledged that . . . thing . . . the shared pain that was there with them every moment of every day but was too great to even speak of. Just knowing that they were in it together made it hurt a tiny, microscopic bit less.
Caitlin was the last one on the field. She closed her eyes to absorb the cool evening air, the clatter of the crowd, the opposing team’s coach calling out warm-up drills, the tooting of air horns. There was only one thing that still wasn’t right, that hadn’t been put back into place. Jeremy. They hadn’t spoken since Nyssa’s party. Even Josh had called her the next day, apologizing for drunkenly calling her out about signing his cast. “Was that why my brother left?” he’d asked.
“Not really,” Caitlin said. And it was true: Jeremy had left because of her feelings, her conflict. She didn’t want Josh back. And Josh probably didn’t want her back, either. She understood that even better after his phone call—but it was nice that they’d come to some kind of peace.