“What was your first clue?” She twists my arm. “God, you really are a genius, aren’t you?”
“There was never a prize,” I pant. “You wanted to get back at all the people you think made your sister kill herself.”
“Think?” I don’t have to see her face to know it’s twisted with rage. “Try know. But who cares what you did to her, right? Who cares, because Farrah’s dad gave us money, and aren’t we so lucky to have so much money now?”
My breaths wheeze out in short gasps. Even if I could get away from her, I couldn’t run.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Lyla. You have to know that.”
“You’re joking, right?”
I give my head a minuscule shake. I don’t know what to say, what to do.
“She was your best friend,” Lyla says.
“No. I barely knew her.”
She gives a cruel, humorless laugh. “You really have no shame, do you? At least the other girls can admit they did something wrong. Do you have any idea how hard it was to sit there at that diner while you spewed lies about my sister? I wanted to scratch your eyes out.”
“Whatever she told you, it’s wrong,” I say. “I know you don’t want to see your sister like this, Lyla, but I barely knew her and she was calling me her best friend. She dyed her hair like mine after a week of knowing me. She started wearing all the same clothes as me, showing up everywhere I went. It wasn’t normal.”
“It’s not normal to love your friends? And no one else can have blond hair but precious Hope?”
“It was the exact same color! She said, ‘We match now.’?” I shiver, remembering the day she turned up at my door looking like a carbon copy of me.
Lyla’s grip loosens a fraction.
“You must know it’s true, Lyla. You know me. I’m your friend.”
She hesitates, but then her fingers dig into my arms harder than before. “You’re a liar,” she spits, breath hot on my neck.
“No!”
“I know my sister. She told me everything. You betrayed her. You went to the principal and said she was stalking you.”
“She was! I was scared, Lyla. I didn’t know she would— I had no clue what she was going to do.”
“I guess you had no clue when you ditched her that day too, huh? Told her you would meet her at the library and then screwed off with Ethan to the Grill instead while she burned in that place?”
“How was I supposed to know there’d be a fire? It’s not like I wanted her to get hurt! Lyla, you know me. You know I wouldn’t do that.”
“I know she was going to give you that brooch that day. She saved up for a month to get it for you because she knew you couldn’t have real flowers.”
The rose pin, I realize. The gift we got at the warehouse.
“Yeah. That’s how much she cared,” Lyla says. “And you weren’t even sorry after. You should have been on your hands and knees begging for forgiveness, and you didn’t even come to see her.” Spittle hits my neck with the force of her words.
I look around for an escape. A weapon. Some way.
But there’s nowhere to go.
“She wouldn’t want this,” I say, changing tack. “Sam—she wouldn’t want you to do this.”
But she doesn’t take the bait.
“You know, at the Pavilion they talked a lot about the five stages of grief,” Lyla says. “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Can you believe that? Acceptance—as if I would ever get over this. What you did. For the longest time I thought they were a bunch of quacks. But the more I thought about it, I realized I could get over it if you weren’t flouncing around scot-free. It’s you girls who were holding me back.”
“But I didn’t—”
“You were mean,” she interrupts, shoving me forward. I grunt in pain, stumbling up the sloping, grassy embankment. “You made her do this. She could have gotten past everything if you were just there for her like you should have been. But you weren’t. And now you’re going to pay.”
Fog floats over the twisting, root-covered paths, moonlight casting deep shadows onto broken, moss-covered gravestones that stick out of the ground like rotten teeth. No city lights. No traffic whirring close by. We’re alone out here.
Lyla fists a handful of my hair and gives me a vicious shove. I squeeze my eyes shut against a rush of tears. She pulls me up short in front of a giant pile of fresh-tilled dirt. Next to it is a hole that stretches several feet beneath us. A wooden casket lined with pale satin glints from down below. An open grave, ready and waiting.
“Jenny and Tucker aren’t the only ones in my pocket. Pretty neat, wouldn’t you say?”
“No.” I shake my head and stumble back.
Lyla grabs me roughly.
I haul back and spit at her. It lands right on her cheek. The condescending smile drops off her face, morphing into one of undiluted hatred. The spit slides slowly down her cheek, and I hold my breath, waiting for her to strike. The waiting is almost worse than the hitting.
Almost.