Where the Truth Lies

by Jessica Warman

  I’m impressed. Even my roommates won’t listen when I ask them not to smoke.

  “I like your hair,” Del says, stepping closer to me. He leans forward and touches one of the braids lightly. “Neither of your parents has red hair, do they?”

  “No.”

  He looks at my face, into my eyes. “Where did it come from?”

  “I don’t know.” It’s warm enough that Del is wearing a short-sleeved white T-shirt. I stare at his tattoo.

  “It’s a mystery, then?”

  I’ve never thought of it that way. “I guess.”

  “I see.” He nods toward the path at the edge of the woods. “Well? Are you ready?”

  After a few moments of walking along the path, we meet up with a stone wall that surrounds campus. On the other side of the wall, there’s a stream. Without saying anything, Del takes me by the hand and helps me as we both climb over the rocks.

  Being so close to the water gives me chills. It isn’t only the water in my dreams that scares me; it’s running water, still water, all water. Even if there’s no breeze, even if I’m standing in a hot shower in my own house, it chills part of me right down to my bones. I hate it. It terrifies me like nothing else—nothing except fire.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Del asks.

  I give the stream a hesitant look. It’s not just being near the water that makes me uncomfortable; it’s being alone with Del, who I barely know, and who I shouldn’t even be out here with. “I thought we were going for a walk.”

  “We did.” He follows my gaze. “What’s the matter? You don’t like water?”

  “Not really.”

  “It’s just a stream, Emily.” He tugs me gently to the ground. “Relax. I won’t bite.”

  We sit quietly for a few minutes, both of us staring at the water. Del leans back on his elbows and gazes at the clear sky. “I like it here, in Connecticut,” he says. “It’s nice being near the ocean.”

  “Where does your family live?”

  “Outside Boston.” He bites his lip. “If I tell you something, do you promise you won’t laugh?”

  I nod. “Yes. I promise.”

  “I had never been to a beach until a few years ago.”

  “Really?” Even though I don’t like water, I’ve still been to the beach a million times with my family and my friends. Who hasn’t?

  “Really,” he says. “Nobody ever took me when I was in foster homes.”

  “Wow. That’s … too bad.”

  He swallows. “That’s not all. I didn’t even learn to swim until I was fifteen. Nobody ever thought to teach me, not until my parents—I mean, the people who adopted me—found out I’d never had lessons.” He squints at the stream. “My adoptive dad took me to a swimming pool one Saturday and taught me how. You should have seen me in the water with all those kids. There were six-year-olds swimming circles around me.” He continues to stare at the sky. “I looked ridiculous. It was pretty awful.”

  The breeze is chilly. I pull my knees against my chest, trying not to shiver. My braids are so long that I can feel them resting halfway down my back. For a second, I remember the rumor that’s going around about him taking a baseball bat to someone at his last school. I can’t imagine Del hurting anyone.

  “So … you’re adopted,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “What are your parents like? I mean, your adoptive parents?”

  “My father works for the government. You know, top secret kind of stuff.” Del seems proud of the fact. “And his wife—my mom—she’s a dermatologist.”

  “Why did they send you here right away?”

  He shrugs. “It’s not that interesting. I lived with them for something close to three years, and I went to Howard Academy the whole time. Boarding school’s nothing new.”

  “But how did you even get in here? We never take new students like this.”

  He smiles. The expression goes right to my gut and makes me feel like I’ve been punched in the best kind of way. For just a moment, the coolness of the stream vanishes, and I’m warm all over. Say my name say my name say my name. “You ought to know, Emily. Big checks can do big things.”

  The explanation seems simple enough. I nod. “Right. I guess they can.”

  “And what about you? You’ve always gone to school here?”

  “Yes. My dad is the headmaster, so I started in seventh grade. It’s like a family.” I swallow. “You’ll like it here.”

  He stares at me. “I already do.”

  I have never even kissed a boy. Del is a good six inches taller than me, so as he leans in, he seems much older. I have no doubt he’s more experienced than I am. I feel almost dizzy as he gets closer, a sense of suffocation surrounding me. He smells like cigarette smoke and kerosene and sweat.

  “Del? Can I ask you something?”

  He bites the edge of his thumbnail. “Sure.”

  “Why did you leave your last school?”

  He shakes his head ever so slightly. “It’s not important.”

  I hesitate. I wonder if he knows about all the rumors going around. “Well, then, what was it? Did you get kicked out?”

  “No.” He tilts his head downward. That smell—it’s both delicious and gross. But his mouth is so beautiful, his lips full and teeth slightly crooked, so I can tell he’s never had braces. “Can I tell you something?”

  I don’t know what I’m doing out here with him. I feel like a little kid. “Sure.”

  “I like you, Emily.”

  I feel numb. “Del,” I inform him, “you like Stephanie.”

  “Do I, now?” He grins.

  “Yes. Yes, you do.”

  “Stephanie’s a pretty girl.” He considers. “She’s a beautiful girl.”

  “Right,” I say. “She’s popular, too. And rich.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good for Stephanie.” He’s so close to me now that our foreheads are touching. “But I like you.”

  I pull away. He reaches out and holds on to my arm. “You don’t know me at all,” I say. My voice is breathy. “And I don’t know anything about you.”

  “You know about my family. You know I didn’t learn to swim until I was fifteen.”

  “That’s not anything. Tell me something else.” I pause. “Where’d you get your tattoo?”

  He shakes his head. “Not important.”

  “You’re seventeen. You shouldn’t have one of those yet.”

  “Emily, shhh.” He tugs on my arm. “Come here. I want to kiss you.”

  For a second, I freeze. He doesn’t like Stephanie. He likes me. We’re alone in the woods. He’s holding on to me. There is nowhere else to go.

  He glances down at the tattoo. “If I tell you where I got it, will you kiss me?”

  “No. We should go back.”

  But he ignores me. “A few years ago, my sister and I were in the same foster home. It was the last time I saw her. Her name is Melody.”

  “You told me her name already.”

  “It wasn’t a good place. Sometimes people … they take in kids just for the money, you know?”

  I giggle. “Kind of like here?”

  “No,” he says, serious. “Not like here. This place is different.” He licks his lips. “Anyway, my sister hurt herself. She felt like … I don’t know, like damaged goods, I guess. So we had this neighbor who owned a tattoo parlor, and we convinced him to give her a tattoo on her wrist. We convinced him to give one to both of us.”

  It occurs to me that what he’s describing is exactly what Stephanie wants to get with Ethan—matching tattoos. Funny, though—the way Del’s telling the story makes it sound interesting and intimate, almost beautiful. Not gross.

  “She was hurting herself?” I ask. “What do you mean? Like, she cut her wrists?”

  Del nods. “Something like that.”

  I can’t even believe what he’s saying. “And you were fourteen when you got the tattoo?”

  “Ye
s. I’ve been in foster homes my whole life. My parents now are really good people, though. I got lucky.” He looks at the apple. “My adoptive mom wants to help me get this removed. But I’ll never let them take it.”

  “Why not?”

  He inches his face closer to mine. “My sister. I don’t know when I’ll see her again. I don’t know where she is. The tattoos are the only thing we have that keeps us connected, you know?”

  I nod, but I don’t know. I just know that, as scared as I am, I don’t want to move; I could stay here all afternoon with his breath on my face. It’s like a slow asphyxiation that feels better than anything I’ve ever known

  “Why an apple? Why the bite?” I ask, my voice lowered to a whisper. I’m so sorry, Steph.

  He slides both of his hands to the back of my neck. “Because of sin,” he says. Then he kisses me. His mouth feels almost hot. I hear the stream, the sound of water rushing past me, but I don’t feel cold anymore. I don’t feel scared anymore, either. Del nudges me back against the ground until he’s resting above me, his hands moving from my neck to my hair to my body.

  I feel safe. I feel warm and protected, unafraid of the water that’s so nearby. I feel as if, all these years, I’ve just been waiting for him to show up.

  Del pulls away for a moment. “Emily,” he asks, “what’s your middle name?”

  I smile. “Alice.”

  “Emily Alice Meckler.” He traces my lips with his fingertip. “Tell me something else about yourself.”

  “I like to sing.”

  “Oh yeah? Are you good at it?”

  “Yes.” I nod. “Now you tell me something. What’s your middle name?”

  He kisses me again, for a long time. I almost think he’s forgotten about the question. Then he pulls back and says, “I don’t know my middle name.”

  “What do you mean?” Our lips are touching as we speak.

  “I mean I don’t know. I don’t even know if I have one.” There is a part of him that is so unbelievably sad.

  I want to stay here with him all afternoon, to make him feel safe and happy. I’ve never felt this way with anyone until now.

  “I shouldn’t be out here with you,” I say.

  He laughs. “Too late.”

  “People will talk about us.” I think of Max and Hillary earlier in Winchester. “They already are.”

  “Oh yeah? What will they say?” And he takes his fingertip and brushes it over my eyelids so that they fall closed.

  “They’ll say we’re going to get into trouble.” I can feel his face close to mine, his breath against my cheek. “Are we?”

  “Yes,” he tells me. “That’s the plan.”

  chapter five

  About a week after that first afternoon next to the stream, I wake up in the middle of the night. At first I think I’m at home, in my room, and that my mother is trying to wake me up from a night terror. But I’m not; I’m in my dorm room, and before I realize what’s happening Franny smacks me across the face. I take a deep breath and realize that I wasn’t breathing.

  This happens sometimes; I lose my breath. It’s just a few seconds’ pause now and then that I have to struggle to get past. Officially it’s sleep apnea, which can be deadly in extreme cases, so it’s horrifying when I wake up trying to gasp, air everywhere and not a drop to breathe.

  Even though the smack is justified, I can’t help myself from shoving her away, hard, as I suck in a deep lungful of air. For someone so tiny, she can hit.

  “God, Franny, what are you doing?”

  She blinks. “Waking you up. You seemed like you were having trouble breathing.”

  I rub my cheek. “Thanks. What time is it?”

  She doesn’t answer. Her typically dull eyes flash with excitement. “I thought someone was breaking in. Look!”

  I glance at the clock. It’s past one in the morning; there’s no sound from Stephanie and Grace’s room. Then my gaze drifts to the floor, to the moonlight spreading across it. The light bathes the hardwood floor in a glow, revealing shards of broken glass from the window. Beside it, red and shiny, is an apple.

  “What the …”

  Franny rubs her hands together in excitement. “It’s for you.” Then, lowering her voice, she whispers, “It’s Del.”

  She doesn’t have to tell me; only Del would throw an apple. But Franny doesn’t know that.

  “Did you see him?” I ask.

  She nods. “He’s right outside.”

  “Shit,” I say, feeling myself start to panic. “It didn’t wake up Steph?”

  Franny shakes her head. Her face is scrunched into a tiny, excited grin. “Emily … do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “We’re friends, that’s all. We spent a lot of time talking the other day. Maybe he can’t sleep.”

  Franny isn’t buying any of it. She might be a lot of things, but she isn’t stupid. “Ohhh,” she says, still keeping her voice at a whisper. “You bad friend. Bad girl. Stephanie is gonna be pissed at you.”

  I haven’t talked to Del since last weekend. I don’t know what to say to him; I’m embarrassed by what we did, by how close I let him get to me. The entire afternoon was so out of character for me, I can’t imagine how we could possibly move forward from here. And there’s Stephanie to think of, too. I feel terrible for having sneaked around with Del behind her back; I don’t know how I’ll possibly tell her what happened. My only solution is to pretend that it didn’t happen at all. It’s not going so well; even though I haven’t talked to Del, I can’t stop thinking about him. I can feel him looking at me at mealtimes, and every time we pass each other in the hallway. I know I can’t avoid him forever.

  But even though she has her suspicions about what might be going on, Franny doesn’t know about what happened by the stream last weekend, or that I’m eventually going to have to tell Stephanie that Del isn’t interested in her; all she knows is that the new, hot boy has just broken our window with an apple and some excellent aim.

  The only person who knows what happened over the weekend, besides Del and me, is Renee. I don’t know why I confided in her. Maybe it’s because Stephanie has been in an ongoing session with Dr. Miller for the past four nights, ever since she came home from the weekend at her parents’ house, and I can’t bear the idea of hurting her right now. Or maybe it’s because, unlike the other girls, Renee doesn’t seem at all overwhelmed or intimidated by Del Sugar. She’s just as curious as everyone else, sure, but she’s been around enough famous people to know that, deep down, he’s just like any other boy.

  Except I feel like he’s not.

  Franny looks at me. In a silent, calculated motion, she reaches toward her face and plucks a single eyebrow from above her left eye. Gross. “The doors downstairs are locked,” she says. “There’s only one way you’re getting outside, unless you want to wake up a prefect.”

  We both glance toward Steph and Grace’s closed door. “I know,” I say. I bite my lip hard.

  “I’ll shut the light off in here,” she offers, “and you can crawl in like a ninja.”

  It’s not totally dark in Steph and Grace’s room; Stephanie has a Sleeping Beauty night-light that she’s owned forever, and it’s glowing in the corner of the room, directly beside her bed. It was a birthday present from her parents when she was, like, eight years old. Ethan, I happen to know, has a matching one, except that it’s Prince Charming. They are both extremely attached to their respective night-lights, which I find kind of weird and sad and lovely all at once. I can just imagine Steph showing up at college with hers, trying to explain why she doesn’t want to go to sleep without it.

  I creep across their floor on my belly. I crawl to Stephanie’s bed and start feeling around for the rope ladder. So far, she and Grace haven’t stirred.

  Until now. Just as my hand closes on the ladder, Grace sits up in bed. I can’t see her, but I can hear her weight shifting on the mattress. When I look up, unable to contain a guilty expression, she’
s leaning over the top bunk, staring at me upside down. “Emily,” she whispers. “You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing?”

  “I’m—uh—” I tug the ladder out from under the bed, still crawling on my belly, and press a finger to my lips. “Shhh. Don’t wake up Steph, okay?”

  Grace’s eyes go wide. “You!” she says, her voice so loud that I cringe. “You’re going to meet Del Sugar, aren’t you? You’re going to fall in love with him. Oh my God, is he outside now?” She’s wide-awake, sitting all the way up in bed.

  “Shhh!” Franny hisses from our bedroom. “Emily is being a ninja. We need quiet!”

  “I just want the ladder,” I say, refusing to elaborate.

  “What for? Sneaking out? Ohhhh, Emily, you’re so bad! What are you doing? You’re going out with Del, I know it.” She pauses. “Sometimes I think I might have psychic abilities, Emily.”

  “Okay, well, we can talk about that later.” I’m almost out of their room. I tug the door shut, stand up, and go to our other, unbroken window. As I’m tossing the rope ladder out, Franny shakes her head at me.

  I pause. “What?”

  “Emily Meckler, I didn’t know you had it in you.” She tugs at another eyebrow. “Should I wait up?”

  I hesitate. I want to say no, but I know I’ll want to talk to someone about what’s happening. Besides, I don’t want Franny to be stuck cleaning up the broken glass all by herself.

  “Yes,” I tell her. “I won’t be long.”

  And then I hoist myself over the edge of the window and climb down. The whole thing—the apple, the ladder, the secrecy of everything—feels like a fairy tale. I can’t believe it’s really happening. Not to someone like me, not with someone like Del. I can barely do long division, and he’s a genius. Why is he interested? What could we possibly have in common?

  Once I see him, I can’t even force myself to be angry that he broke my window, and that I’m going to have a hell of a time explaining what happened. But I do my best to pretend.

  “Are you aware that you broke my window?” I ask, trying to glare at him. “Do you know how much trouble I’m going to be in?”

  “You can blame it on me.” He smiles. “I don’t care.”