I turn to her in surprise. I hadn’t thought we were at that point in our…acquaintance, I guess. Friendship still seems like a strong word. “Um, yeah. Sure.”
“My mom’s having her book club, so…maybe I could come to your house?”
“All right,” I say, picturing my own mother’s reaction to Janae after being used to a house full of pretty-perky Keelys and Olivias. The thought brightens me up, and we make plans for Janae to stop by after school. On a whim I text an invitation to Bronwyn, but I forgot she’s grounded. Plus, she has piano lessons. Spontaneous downtime isn’t really her thing.
—
I’ve barely stowed my bike under the porch after school when Janae arrives dragging her oversized backpack like she came to study. We make excruciating small talk with my mother, whose eyes keep roving from Janae’s multiple piercings to her scuffed combat boots, until I bring her upstairs to watch TV.
“Do you like that new Netflix show?” I ask, aiming the remote at my television and sprawling across my bed so Janae can take the armchair. “The superhero one?”
She sits gingerly, like she’s afraid the pink plaid will swallow her whole. “Yeah, okay,” she says, lowering her backpack next to her and looking at all the framed photographs on my wall. “You’re really into flowers, huh?”
“Not exactly. My sister has a new camera I was playing around with, and…I took a lot of old pictures down recently.” They’re shoved beneath my shoe boxes now: a dozen memories of me and Jake from the past three years, and almost as many with my friends. I hesitated over one—me, Keely, Olivia, and Vanessa at the beach last summer, wearing giant sun hats and goofy grins with a brilliant blue sky behind us. It had been a rare, fun girls’ day out, but after today I’m more glad than ever that I banished Vanessa’s stupid smirk to the closet.
Janae fiddles with the strap to her backpack. “You must miss how things were before,” she says in a low voice.
I keep my eyes trained on the screen while I consider her comment. “Yes and no,” I say finally. “I miss how easy school used to be. But I guess nobody I hung out with ever really cared about me, right? Or things would have been different.” I shift restlessly on the bed and add, “I’m not gonna pretend it’s anything like what you’re dealing with. Losing Simon that way.”
Janae flushes and doesn’t answer, and I wish I hadn’t brought it up. I can’t figure out how to interact with her. Are we friends, or just a couple of people without better options? We stare silently at the television until Janae clears her throat and says, “Could I have something to drink?”
“Sure.” It’s almost a relief to escape the silence that’s settled between us, until I run into my mother in the kitchen and have a terse, ten-minute-long conversation about the kind of friends you have now. When I finally get back upstairs, two glasses of lemonade in hand, Janae’s got her backpack on and she’s halfway out the door.
“I don’t feel well suddenly,” she mumbles.
Great. Even my unsuitable friends don’t want to hang out with me.
I text Bronwyn in frustration, not expecting an answer since she’s probably in the middle of Chopin or something. I’m surprised when she messages me back right away, and even more surprised at what she writes.
Be careful. I don’t trust her.
Cooper
Sunday, October 21, 5:25 p.m.
We’ve almost finished dinner when Pop’s phone rings. He looks at the number and picks up immediately, the lines around his mouth deepening. “This is Kevin. Yeah. What, tonight? Is that really necessary?” He waits a beat. “All right. We’ll see you there.” He hangs up and blows out an irritated sigh. “We gotta meet your lawyer at the police station in half an hour. Detective Chang wants to talk to you again.” He holds up a hand when I open my mouth. “I don’t know what about.”
I swallow hard. I haven’t been questioned in a while, and I’d been hoping the whole thing was fading away. I want to text Addy and see if she’s getting brought in too, but I’m under strict orders not to put anything about the investigation in writing. Calling Addy’s not a great idea, either. So I finish my dinner in silence and drive to the station with Pop.
My lawyer, Mary, is already talking with Detective Chang when we get inside. He beckons us toward the interrogation room, which is nothing like you see on TV. No big pane of glass with a two-way mirror behind it. Just a drab little room with a conference table and a bunch of folding chairs. “Hello, Cooper. Mr. Clay. Thanks for coming.” I’m about to brush past him through the door when he puts a hand on my arm. “You sure you want your father here?”
I’m about to ask Why wouldn’t I? but before I can speak, Pop starts blustering about how it’s his God-given right to be present during questioning. He has this speech perfected and once he winds up, he needs to finish.
“Of course,” Detective Chang says politely. “It’s mainly a privacy issue for Cooper.”
The way he says that makes me nervous, and I look to Mary for help. “It should be fine to start with just me in the room, Kevin,” she says. “I’ll bring you in if needed.” Mary’s okay. She’s in her fifties, no-nonsense, and can handle both the police and my father. So in the end it’s me, Detective Chang, and Mary seating ourselves around the table.
My heart’s already pounding when Detective Chang pulls out a laptop. “You’ve always been vocal about Simon’s accusation not being true, Cooper. And there’s been no drop in your baseball performance. Which is inconsistent with the reputation of Simon’s app. It wasn’t known for posting lies.”
I try to keep my expression neutral, even though I’ve been thinking the same thing. I was more relieved than mad when Detective Chang first showed me Simon’s site, because a lie was better than the truth. But why would Simon lie about me?
“So we dug a little deeper. Turns out we missed something in our initial analysis of Simon’s files. There was a second entry for you that was encrypted and replaced with the steroids accusation. It took a while to get that file figured out, but the original is here.” He turns the screen so it’s facing Mary and me. We lean forward together to read it.
Everybody wants a piece of Bayview southpaw CC and he’s finally been tempted. He’s stepping out on the beauteous KS with a hot German underwear model. What guy wouldn’t, right? Except the new love interest models boxers and briefs, not bras and thongs. Sorry, K, but you can’t compete when you play for the wrong team.
Every part of me feels frozen except my eyes, which can’t stop blinking. This is what I was afraid I’d see weeks ago.
“Cooper.” Mary’s voice is even. “There’s no need to react to this. Do you have a question, Detective Chang?”
“Yes. Is the rumor Simon planned to print true, Cooper?”
Mary speaks before I can. “There’s nothing criminal in this accusation. Cooper doesn’t need to address it.”
“Mary, you know that’s not the case. We have an interesting situation here. Four students with four entries they want to keep quiet. One gets deleted and replaced with a fake. Do you know what that looks like?”
“Shoddy rumormongering?” Mary asks.
“Like someone accessed Simon’s files to get rid of this particular entry. And made sure Simon wouldn’t be around to correct it.”
“I need a few minutes with my client,” Mary says.
I feel sick. I’ve imagined breaking the news about Kris to my parents in dozens of ways, but none as flat-out horrible as this.
“Of course. You should know we’ll be requesting a warrant to search more of the Clays’ home, beyond Cooper’s computer and cell phone records. Given this new information, he’s a more significant person of interest than he was previously.”
Mary has a hand on my arm. She doesn’t want me to talk. She doesn’t have to worry. I couldn’t if I tried.
—
Disclosing information about sexual orientation violates constitutional rights to privacy. That’s what Mary says, and she’s threatened to involve the A
merican Civil Liberties Union if the police make Simon’s post about me public. Which would fall into the category of Too Little, Way Too Late.
Detective Chang dances around it. They have no intention of invading my privacy. But they have to investigate. It would help if I told them everything. Our definitions of everything are different. His includes me confessing that I killed Simon, deleted my About That entry, and replaced it with a fake one about steroids.
Which makes no sense. Wouldn’t I have taken myself out of the equation entirely? Or come up with something less career-threatening? Like cheating on Keely with another girl. That might’ve killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.
“This changes nothing,” Mary keeps saying. “You have no more proof than you ever did that Cooper touched Simon’s site. Don’t you dare disclose sensitive information in the name of your investigation.”
The thing is, though, it doesn’t matter. It’s getting out. This case has been full of leaks from the beginning. And I can’t waltz out of here after being interrogated for an hour and tell my father nothing’s changed.
When Detective Chang leaves, he makes it clear they’ll be digging deep into my life over the next few days. They want Kris’s number. Mary tells me I don’t have to provide it, but Detective Chang reminds her they’ll subpoena my cell phone and get it anyway. They want to talk to Keely, too. Mary keeps threatening the ACLU, and Detective Chang keeps telling her, mild as skim milk, that they need to understand my actions in the weeks leading up to the murder.
But we all know what’s really happening. They’ll make my life miserable until I cave from the pressure.
I sit with Mary in the interrogation room after Detective Chang leaves, thankful there’s no two-way mirror as I bury my head in my hands. Life as I knew it is over, and pretty soon nobody will look at me the same way. I was going to tell eventually, but—in a few years, maybe? When I was a star pitcher and untouchable. Not now. Not like this.
“Cooper.” Mary puts a hand on my shoulder. “Your father will be wondering why we’re still in here. You need to talk to him.”
“I can’t,” I say automatically. Cain’t.
“Your father loves you,” she says quietly.
I almost laugh. Pop loves Cooperstown. He loves when I strike out the side and get attention from flashy scouts, and when my name scrolls across the bottom of ESPN. But me?
He doesn’t even know me.
There’s a knock on the door before I can reply. Pop pokes his head in and snaps his fingers. “We done in here? I wanna get home.”
“All set,” I say.
“The hell was that all about?” he demands of Mary.
“You and Cooper need to talk,” she says. Pop’s jaw tenses. What the hell are we paying you for? is written all over his face. “We can discuss next steps after that.”
“Fantastic,” Pop mutters. I stand and squeeze myself through the narrow gap between the table and the wall, ducking past Mary and into the hallway. We walk in silence, one in front of the other, until we pass through the double glass doors and Mary murmurs a good-bye. “Night,” Pop says, tersely leading the way to our car at the far end of the parking lot.
Everything in me clenches and twists as I buckle myself next to him in the Jeep. How do I start? What do I say? Do I tell him now, or wait till we’re home and I can tell Mom and Nonny and…Oh God. Lucas?
“What was all that about?” Pop asks. “What took so long?”
“There’s new evidence,” I say woodenly.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
I can’t. I can’t. Not just the two of us in this car. “Let’s wait till we’re home.”
“This serious, Coop?” Pop glances at me as he passes a slow-moving Volkswagen. “You in trouble?”
My palms start sweating. “Let’s wait,” I repeat.
I need to tell Kris what’s happening, but I don’t dare text him. I should go to his apartment and explain in person. Another conversation that’ll kill some part of me. Kris has been out since junior high. His parents are both artists and it was never a big deal. They were pretty much like, Yeah, we knew. What took you so long? He’s never pressured me, but sneaking around isn’t how he wants to live.
I stare out the window, my fingers tapping on the door handle for the rest of the ride home. Pop pulls into the driveway and our house looms in front of me: solid, familiar, and the last place I want to be right now.
We head inside, Pop tossing his keys onto the hallway table and catching sight of my mother in the living room. She and Nonny are sitting next to each other on the couch as though they’ve been waiting for us. “Where’s Lucas?” I ask, following Pop into the room.
“Downstairs playing Xbox.” Mom mutes the television as Nonny cocks her head to one side and fastens her eyes on me. “Everything okay?”
“Cooper’s being all mysterious.” Pop’s glance at me is half shrewd, half dismissive. He doesn’t know whether to take my obvious freaking out seriously or not. “You tell us, Cooperstown. What’s all the fuss about? They got some actual evidence this time?”
“They think they do.” I clear my throat and push my hands into my khakis. “I mean, they do. Have new information.”
Everybody’s quiet, absorbing that, until they notice I’m not in any hurry to continue. “What kind of new information?” Mom prompts.
“There was an entry on Simon’s site that was encrypted before the police got there. I guess it’s what he originally meant to post about me. Nothin’ to do with steroids.” There goes my accent again.
Pop never lost his, and doesn’t notice when mine fades in and out. “I knew it!” he says triumphantly. “They clear you, then?”
I’m mute, my mind blank. Nonny leans forward, hands gripping her skull-topped cane. “Cooper, what was Simon going to post about you?”
“Well.” A couple of words is all it’ll take to make everything in my life Before and After. The air leaves my lungs. I can’t look at my mother, and I sure as hell can’t look at my father. So I focus on Nonny. “Simon. Somehow. Found out. That.” God. I’ve run out of filler words. Nonny taps her cane on the floor like she wants to help me along. “I’m gay.”
Pop laughs. Actually laughs, a relieved kind of guffaw, and slaps me on the shoulder. “Jesus, Coop. Had me going there for a minute. Seriously, what’s up?”
“Kevin.” Nonny grits the word through her teeth. “Cooper is not joking.”
“Course he is,” Pop says, still laughing. I watch his face, because I’m pretty sure it’s the last time he’ll look at me the way he always has. “Right?” His eyes slide over to mine, casual and confident, but when he sees my face his smile dims. There it is. “Right, Coop?”
“Wrong,” I tell him.
Addy
Monday, October 22, 8:45 a.m.
Police cars line the front of Bayview High again. And Cooper’s stumbling through the hall like he hasn’t slept in days. It doesn’t occur to me the two might be related until he pulls me aside before first bell. “Can we talk?”
I peer at him more closely, unease gnawing at my stomach. I’ve never seen Cooper’s eyes look bloodshot before. “Yeah, sure.” I think he means here in the hallway, but to my surprise he leads me out the back staircase into the parking lot, where we lean against the wall next to the door. Which means I’ll be late for homeroom, I guess, but my attendance record is already so bad another tardy won’t make a difference. “What’s up?”
Cooper runs a hand through his sandy hair until it sticks straight up, which is not a thing I ever imagined Cooper’s hair could do until just now. “I think the police are here because of me. To ask questions about me. I just—wanted to tell somebody why before everything goes to hell.”
“Okay.” I put a hand on his forearm, and tense in surprise when I feel it shaking. “Cooper, what’s wrong?”
“So the thing is…” He pauses, swallowing hard.
He looks like he’s about to confess something. For a second Simon flash
es through my mind: his collapse in detention and his red, gasping face as he struggled to breathe. I can’t help but flinch. Then I meet Cooper’s eyes—filmy with tears, but as kind as ever—and I know that can’t be it. “The thing is what, Cooper? It’s all right. You can tell me.”
Cooper stares at me, taking in the whole picture—messy hair that’s spiking oddly because I didn’t take the time to blow-dry it, so-so skin from all the stress, faded T-shirt featuring some band Ashton used to like, because we’re seriously behind on laundry—before he replies, “I’m gay.”
“Oh.” It doesn’t register at first, and then it does. “Ohhh.” The whole not-into-Keely thing suddenly makes sense. It seems like I should say more than that, so I add, “Cool.” Inadequate response, I guess, but sincere. Because Cooper’s pretty great except the way he’s always been a little remote. This explains a lot.
“Simon found out I’m seeing someone. A guy. He was gonna post it on About That with everyone else’s entries. It got switched out and replaced with a fake entry about me using steroids. I didn’t switch it,” he adds hastily. “But they think I did. So they’re looking into me hard-core now, which means the whole school will know pretty soon. I guess I wanted to…tell somebody myself.”
“Cooper, no one will care—” I start, but he shakes his head.
“They will. You know they will,” he says. I drop my eyes, because I can’t deny it. “I’ve been hiding my head under a rock about this whole investigation,” he continues, his voice hoarse. “Hopin’ they’d chalk it up to an accident because there’s no real proof about anything. Now I keep thinking about what Maeve said about Simon the other day—how much weird stuff was going on around him. You think there’s anything to that?”
“Bronwyn does,” I say. “She wants the four of us to get together and compare notes. She says Nate will.” Cooper nods distractedly, and it occurs to me that since he’s still in Jake’s bubble most of the time, he’s not fully up to speed on everything that’s been going on. “Did you hear about Nate’s mom, by the way? How she’s, um, not dead after all?”
One of Us Is Lying Page 20