Warren burst out laughing.
I blinked at him. What the fuck?
“I mean, you already did Chris,” Warren added. “When is it our turn?”
He might as well have stabbed me in the chest. I stood there, gaping, as they walked away. What the actual fuck? He’d told them? After swearing me to secrecy?
What exactly had he told them?
Who else knew?
My heart thudded like a drum in my chest. I pulled my phone out to find a flood of messages parading across my screen.
Radha: wow hello Autumn long time no see *eyeroll*
Dani: oh ok so now you’re talking to us again . . . that’s cool
Crystal: um, Christina said you went partying over the weekend? Guess that’s why you were too busy for us.
Radha: I heard you slept with your brother . . .
Kristin: Is that real??
Crystal: apparently she was alllll over him at the party.
Radha: gross . . .
Dani: my mom even heard about it.
Kristin: if you didn’t want to hang out with us you could’ve just said so.
Crystal: cutting class, sleeping around, drinking?? what happened to you, Autumn, it’s like we don’t even know you anymore
Kristin: I mean, if there was a party, you could’ve invited us—just saying
Radha: why didn’t you text us afterward??
Dani: I gotta be honest, I’m a little mad that my best friend lost her virginity and I heard about it from someone else . . .
A wave of silence followed, then another text from Dani popped up on my screen in a new window.
Dani: lmao can you believe Autumn right now
I stared at the message, clearly not intended for me. They hadn’t stopped responding in the group chat; they had formed another chat—one without me in it.
Water blurred my vision. What was happening?
My phone vibrated with a new notification—some anonymous account tagged me in an Instagram post. Pulse racing, I clicked the image.
My own face filled the screen. There I was, Saturday night, practically passed out drunk on Warren’s navy-blue couch. My mouth was hanging open and makeup was smudged beneath my half-closed eyes. A red plastic cup was clenched in my right hand, and I gave a halfhearted middle finger with my left. Black bra straps were poking out beneath my discombobulated silver tank top, which had scrunched up, exposing my stomach. Several upperclassmen sat around me, giving middle fingers and peace signs to the camera, like I was some hilarious piece of art to pose with. I don’t even remember having that picture taken.
I scrolled down to the caption.
Autumn Casterly had fun this weekend #Drunkslut #Takeitoff #skankpatrol
91 likes, 24 comments, growing by the second. I scrolled to the first one.
wow, nice outfit—guess we know what she was after
My face heated. I’d thought I looked hot in that outfit, with my boobs hanging out, but now, seeing it on the screen, I felt like a slut. No wonder everyone said I was throwing myself at Chris—I clearly had been.
she was practically giving Chris a lap dance on the couch lol
Holy shit. I didn’t. I couldn’t have. What was wrong with me?
wow real classy! Was that pic before or after the drunk sex? I can’t tell
Anger seared hot and red inside me.
Fuck my friends. If they didn’t want me, I didn’t want them, either.
* * *
—
It was three years ago, but it may as well have been a lifetime. I shake off the memory and return my attention to my sister. I need to focus.
Ivy studies the screen for a minute before clicking out of Chrome, and it’s like I’ve been holding my breath for an hour when I finally let it all out.
My sister starts scrolling through my documents file. Annoyance buzzes through me like a fly I can’t swat.
“Yes, by all means, please keep reading my homework, this is so helpful.”
I sigh, watching her examine last year’s AP history final, that awful Faulkner paper, and my SAT prep test.
“Satisfied?”
Ivy must sense my irritation, because she starts humming that “Satisfied” song from Hamilton. She cocks her head and clicks the file labeled Pervert In Chief.
My muscles tense. I totally forgot about that. I could kick myself for not deleting it from my hard drive last year. Coach Crespo is a perv who should be fired. He purposely spies on girls in the workout room. Everyone knows he does this shit. Do something about it.
Ivy claps a hand over her mouth.
Well, this is something I’d hoped would never be traced back to me. And yet, here we are.
Our school takes gym class way too seriously. If you miss class, you have to make it up by coming in before school and using the exercise bikes for forty-five minutes. Honestly, their priorities are screwed up, because they don’t give a shit about literally any other class this much. But some people love it because riding the bikes alone is less objectionable than team flag football or whatever other nightmare they subject us to. So some people skip on purpose. Jaclyn is one of those people.
“Let me explain,” I say, even though I know she can’t hear me. “My friend Jac cut gym and went to the morning makeup class on the exercise bikes. No one else was there, so she just wore her sports bra and shorts. It’s like a free gym membership, you know? Then after pedaling and getting all sweaty for twenty minutes, she looks up, and bam! There’s Creepo, staring through the glass in the door.” She didn’t know how long he’d been watching her, but it was sketchy as hell. “So I left the note. That’s it.” No one would’ve known about the note if Connor Gardner hadn’t seen it on the principal’s desk and told everyone. “Greenwich didn’t even do anything about it, and no one knows it was me. Case closed.”
I don’t even know why I did it. Leaving an anonymous note was just shouting into the void, but sometimes shouting into the void can be cathartic. For a moment, you can pretend someone’s listening.
Ivy stares at the Word doc for a good five minutes. I can almost see the cogs in her brain working. Finally, she slams my laptop shut and buries it back beneath my dresser.
She tries the closet next.
Hangers rain from her hands as she tugs them out one by one. She takes my gray hoodie and hugs it to her chest for half a second before continuing her raid on my closet.
“Why are you doing this?” My heart sinks. Why are you looking for me when I’ve been such an ass to you?
Ivy doesn’t respond, obviously. When the rack is empty, she starts tearing through the shelf above it. I’ve got all kinds of crap wedged up there—old school projects, crafts, random junk.
Ivy takes out an old drawing I did of our former guinea pig, Roger. He looks like a fat potato—but to be fair, he looked like a fat potato in real life, too.
Ivy unfolds it. “Oh man. Roger.”
Roger was our first pet. Everyone said guinea pigs wouldn’t live longer than five years, but he lasted almost eight. Probably because Dad fed him organic veggies and Poland Spring water. What a spoiled little piggy.
“You probably don’t remember this,” I say. “But when you were eight and I was ten, we built him an obstacle course out of foam blocks and laid carrot sticks all through it so he’d actually do it. We called it—”
“Feeding Frenzy.” The moment Ivy says it, she glances around the room before returning to my closet.
Ivy grabs my box of tampons and peels it open, revealing cash and plastic baggies full of pills. Everyone knows I deal, so I’m not sure why I suddenly feel so bad about it.
“Oh, Autumn.” She shakes her head, setting the box back where she found it. “I don’t even know you anymore.”
I scratch the tattoo on my wrist. I don’t know her much anymore, eith
er, I guess. I used to.
When did we become strangers?
Ivy sits cross-legged on the carpet and starts digging through the boxes on the closet floor.
“What are you looking for?”
Ivy finds a bedraggled old box in the back corner. She gently peels open the lid, and the smell of mothballs fills the space. My sister pulls out the most recent pair of those old reindeer pajamas and slippers. I totally forgot those were in there. I used to get so excited opening new ones every Christmas Eve.
The smallest hint of a smile twitches at the edges of Ivy’s mouth. “I thought you threw these away.”
I sit down beside her and tap an old shoebox. “Check this one.”
Ivy reaches for the box. She coughs into her elbow at the thick layer of dust floating up from the cardboard. I haven’t touched it since we moved into this house a couple years ago.
She takes a stack of old photos from the box.
On top is my ninth birthday party. I’m sitting in a deck chair in my pink-and-yellow bathing suit, surrounded by a bunch of other girls in their swimwear. I’d wanted a pool party, but we didn’t have a pool, so Mom set up a Slip ’n Slide in the backyard. Ivy’s got her arm wrapped around me, and we’re making silly faces at the camera. Mom was so sick at that point but still tried to make everything nice for us.
Mom had kind of a crappy childhood. She and her sister went back and forth between living with their young mother, who was an alcoholic, and their grandparents, who were extremely uptight; they were “spare the rod, spoil the child” kind of people. I’m pretty sure she went out of her way to make sure we would have better childhoods than she did. I don’t wonder if she’d be proud of who I’ve become, because I already know the answer.
I miss my mom a lot. Sometimes it hits me harder than others. Random things trigger memories that bring waves of sadness with them. A line from a movie Mom loved. The smell of cooked celery, which used to make me gag and now makes me think of Mom’s Thanksgiving stuffing. She used to doodle a lot; after she died, I found an old notebook she’d used in group therapy, and the margins were filled with drawings of dogs and flowers and my and Ivy’s names. I cried for like an hour when I found it, making sure I stowed it away and dried my tears before anyone else got home.
“Remember when Mom and Dad used to grill?” I ask Ivy now, brushing my finger down the photo. “And we’d make s’mores on the charcoal?”
I swear my sister’s head dips into a slight nod. Ivy flips to the next photo. It’s our church’s Christmas pageant, back in the day. Ivy’s clamped around my waist, looking like she’s about ready to faint, dressed like a donkey, and I’m wearing a set of angel wings and a halo headband. I’m missing both front teeth. That was the year everyone kept quoting that ridiculous “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” song at me. I still hate that song.
“You had the worst stage fright.” I touch the photo. “I had to read that line about the angel Gabriel visiting Mary, and you wouldn’t let go of my arm.”
“I remember this pageant,” Ivy whispers. “You made a joke to the entire congregation about having a clingy ass and got in trouble. But everyone laughed.” She’s not saying it to me, not really. Still, somehow, I feel like she can sense my presence.
Ivy flips through a few more photos. There’s one of Mom, Ivy, and me putting our hands on that electricity ball at the Boston Museum of Science. Then there’s preteen Ivy casting a spell on me with a plastic wand our uncle brought her from Harry Potter World. Finally, there’s a shot of Ivy and me in our soccer uniforms in elementary school. We used to go to each other’s games, and sometimes made giant colorful posters to wave from the sidelines, cheering each other on. The memories feel sweet and prickly at the same time.
Sometimes I think of feelings as giant tidal waves capable of completely overwhelming me and throwing me off my guard. A burst of anger can rage as quickly as a surge of joy. But this feeling seeps in slowly, softer than a whisper: I miss my sister.
Ivy tugs out a crisp photo from the back. I knew it was coming, but my stomach still lurches when I see it.
Dad and Kathy’s wedding day. I force myself to focus on Ivy, me, and Dad. The people who matter.
Ivy and I are standing there in our bridesmaid dresses beside the happy couple, smiling. Kathy let us pick the dresses. I chose pink and Ivy picked blue. I still can’t believe I wanted to wear that horrible poufy thing. I look like a pastry.
The first day I met Kathy, I thought she was Dad’s way of rebounding from Mom. He had driven us down to Bedford for free pancake night at IHOP and randomly struck up a conversation with her on the benches by the door while we were waiting for a table. By the time our buzzer went off at the end of the forty-minute wait, Dad had asked them to seat us as a party of five rather than three. Ivy, Chris, and I sat and colored the menu while they chatted. My first impression was that she was nice—maybe a little overbearing, and she wore too much perfume—but she made Dad smile. It was the first time I’d seen him happy since Mom died, two years earlier. I honestly never thought she’d stick around. But eight months later, they were married.
Sometimes I hate myself for suggesting pancakes. If I hadn’t begged to go, Dad never would’ve met her. Maybe things would’ve been different.
I look away from the photo.
As if Ivy can sense it, she puts the picture away, slides the box back into my closet, and leaves the room.
IVY
Dad keeps sneaking glimpses of me out of the corner of his eye at the dinner table. It’s like he’s scared I’m going to spontaneously combust or something. He never looks at Autumn this way. It’s like he knows I’m the weaker child, the one who needs protecting. Autumn doesn’t need anybody.
I slide a piece of pizza onto my plate, shifting away from Dad’s gaze. But then I’m stuck facing Autumn’s empty chair, and that’s worse. I hate this.
As always, Kathy sits next to Dad, directly across from me. Muffled sounds from her iPad broadcast a replay of this afternoon’s Michigan State game. Apparently, Chris scored a touchdown and it was a big deal. Kathy’s been watching the same clip on repeat for the past twenty minutes between bites. I can tell it’s the same one, because some frat guy who was probably sitting right next to the camera shouts, “Purdue’s getting raped!” the moment the touchdown hits. Every. Single. Time. The crowd explodes in cheers, then the announcer says, “Touchdown scored by Spartans junior Chris Pike,” followed by Kathy whispering, “That’s my boy.” I’ve heard the trifecta a dozen times now, to the point where I’ve started mentally saying it the moment they do.
I know nothing about football, and I don’t care about Chris, so I try tuning it out. My stomach won’t stop wrestling with itself. The last thing I feel like doing is eating, so I pick at my pizza instead. I pull a pepperoni off my slice and pop it in my mouth.
“You okay, Ivy?” Dad’s brow creases. “You’re not eating.”
I shrug. “I’m not really hungry.”
I keep ruminating over everything I found in Autumn’s room. The college sites. The anonymous letter.
Then there’s that photo in Autumn’s closet. Why’d she keep it all these years? I guess I didn’t expect her to be sentimental. About anything, but especially about Dad and Kathy’s wedding.
It was a super-casual ceremony. We went to City Hall. Dad wore his Sox tie over a blue button-down, and Kathy wore a silky purple evening gown. Chris was the lone groomsman. Dad’s brother was supposed to drive up from New York, but he got caught in a snowstorm, so the only guests were us and Kathy’s huge family. After the ceremony, we all drove down to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, where we clinked our glasses every five seconds to get them to kiss.
Everyone was happy. Dad beamed ear to ear the whole day. You see stories about blended families where the weddings include drunken vengeance toasts and brawls, but not here. Kathy’s sisters kept hugging
Dad; her brother made a toast, at which the whole restaurant clapped; I danced with Dad, Chris danced with Autumn, and Kathy danced with her elderly stepfather, and she even got him to sit on the infamous Texas Roadhouse saddle.
But that’s not what I remember the clearest. What I remember most of all were their wedding vows.
Kathy had written the usual spiel—how Dad was her best friend, how she’d thought she’d never find love again, how he changed her life. But then, halfway through the vows, she turned around to face Autumn and me, standing there at the altar beside them.
“When people ask about my children, I’ve gotten so used to saying I have a son. Not anymore. Now I’ll tell them I have three beautiful children: a son and two daughters. Girls, I know I’ll never replace your mother, and I never want to. But I want to make a vow to you both today. I promise to always be there for you, just like I am for Chris.”
The problem with wedding vows is, they aren’t different from any other promises. They’re only as good as the person making them.
“Are you feeling sick?” Dad’s still watching me. “She’ll turn up, sweetie.”
“I’m fine.”
I can’t take his third degree, so I text Patrick instead—how’s it going at your dad’s?
Usually, Dad yells at me for playing with my phone at the table, but I guess he can’t tonight since Kathy’s been watching that stupid football clip on repeat the whole meal.
“Purdue’s getting raped!” the guy says again.
The announcer’s deep voice proclaims, “Touchdown scored by Spartans junior Chris Pike.”
And of course, “That’s my boy.”
A V indents itself in Dad’s forehead, and I can tell he’s contemplating saying something, but he doesn’t. So I do.
“Can you turn that down?”
Kathy startles, like she’s just remembered there are other people sitting at the dinner table. “Oh, sorry, Ivy.” She clicks the volume buttons on the side. “Just watching your brother’s game.”
The Last Confession of Autumn Casterly Page 14