You can’t buy innocence, you can only buy time. And at least it would give them that. Who knows how much any of us have anyway?
Xavier took a breath. “Here’s what’s going to happen.”
August 13, 10:36 p.m.
Gwen: Where are you now?
Ivy: At the Everglades
Gwen: when are you coming back?
Ivy: Not sure . . . He says he wants to stay here for a while
Gwen: I still don’t know who HE is, you haven’t told me
Ivy: Of course you do. He’s the one I met that night in the city after you went home
Gwen: wait THAT guy? Do you even know his last name?
Ivy: NOPE.
Gwen: Ivy that is insane even for you
Ivy: Psssh. Don’t be jealous
Gwen: and you’re camping? You hate camping
Ivy: We’re having fun, it’s okay. I said I wanted to maybe stay in a hotel but he got kind of weird about it and I don’t have any money, so it’s whatever
Gwen: weird about it how?
Ivy: I have to go, he’ll be back soon.
Gwen: so what?
Gwen: Hello?
Gwen: Ivy???
Ivy: he gets jealous
Gwen: I’m calling you
Gwen: I called you
Gwen: Ivy?
Ivy: don’t worry. Just don’t call again
Gwen: you’re scaring me now, where are you?
Ivy: oh god calm down . . . what are you, my fucking mother? I’m in the same place as before
Gwen: tell him you want to come back . . . or leave
Ivy: Stop being so dramatic, I’m having fun
Gwen: Ivy COME BACK I’m serious. I don’t think this is good . . . should I call your mom?
Ivy: NO. Jesus. Don’t you dare. I will never speak to you again and I will get in so much trouble. Everything is FINE.
Gwen: What do you guys even do all day?
Ivy: Mostly we just hang out. . . . He wants us to go on a hike tomorrow
Gwen: you hate hiking
Ivy: guess I’m learning a lot about myself. Haha
Gwen: Have fun I guess
Ivy: Thanks. Anyway he’s back I have to go.
Gwen: But WHY?
Ivy: he doesn’t like me texting too much
Gwen: I’m your best friend
Ivy: Of course. But don’t text again. And don’t tell anyone. I’ll see you when I get back, okay?
Gwen: When will that be?
Gwen: Ivy?
1 year later
She is sitting in a booth at the diner when Xavier walks in. He turns like he’s looking for her, even though she knows that can’t be true, shouldn’t be true. They do not talk anymore, they haven’t in a long time.
They lock eyes. Neither waves, but something passes between them. It’s his eighteenth birthday.
“Babe?” Her boyfriend Steph touches her hand from across the table. “Are you done?” The server is waiting to take her plate.
“Oh, sorry,” Sasha says. “Yes, I am.”
It took five weeks for them to find the body.
Sasha had been waiting in line at a gas station when the news finally broke. She saw the report on the TV behind the register. She forced herself to breathe. She finished paying. Then went into the bathroom and threw up.
A man had been illegally fishing in that lake, caught something heavier than a fish on his hook, tugged and tugged, and then pulled up a whirl of dark hair that looked human. He wasn’t surprised, he said on the news. “If I was going to dump a body, this is where I’d do it.”
A year has passed since all of this began. Sasha tries her best not to think about Ivy. But Ivy’s always there, simmering at the back of her awareness with every heartbeat.
Steph is holding Sasha’s hand now. He smiles at her, big and bright. They are both heading off to college in the fall. He wants to stay together, but in her mind they have already broken up and she is long gone. But also part of her will never leave this place, will never leave the lake and the woods. Nothing will ever change. But already some things are so different.
Up at the counter, Xavier is still watching her. Eighteen, an adult now. And a child and a boy and a baby and no one. And no longer her best friend, but her first love, her true love. Her still love. And he always will be. Sasha stares at him. She was not his first, but she is the one who made him whole and the one who broke him.
It matters, but it doesn’t.
They are all so good at pretending now.
When the police found the body, Gwen came forward. She’s the only one who knew much of anything, it seemed. She told the police first, and then later anyone who would listen: about the guy Ivy had met while the two of them were out one night, how Gwen didn’t think much of it at the time, because with Ivy, there was always someone. They were in the city and it was dark and Gwen never really got a good look at him. Ivy said he was super persistent—she never even gave him her phone number, just told him where she lived and where she went to summer school, and he kept showing up. He took Ivy on a road trip. Ivy texted Gwen the whole way, at least at first. And then Ivy stopped texting. And Gwen got a little worried, but she didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t want her best friend to get in trouble. She was only ever trying to protect her. And then Ivy’s body was found. And there was an investigation.
It is open and ongoing. No one has turned up anything so far.
Gwen stopped going to school after that. There are rumors that she missed Ivy so much she tried to kill herself. There are rumors she did too many drugs and got sent to rehab. There are rumors she had something to do with Ivy’s death, and went on the run. But no one really believes that. Hardly anyone, really.
Sasha, Xavier, Gwen, the three of them are tied together forever, tied so tightly they will never truly be rid of each other.
They’ve made their choices, and there is nothing left to do but live with them the best they can.
Xavier turns away now. He hasn’t moved from the counter. Sasha thinks for a moment that maybe he is alone on his birthday. And something happens in her heart. She feels herself starting to stand. And she thinks maybe she will go over to him. Maybe they can start again, or pretend just for today that that is even possible. But, no. No. She sits back down as Xavier’s parents walk up behind him.
Steph gives her hand a squeeze. “What do you want to do this afternoon?” he says. “A movie and then the dog park?” He is good. Sweet and kind. A solid, honest person. She does not deserve him. She probably does not deserve anything. But she will take it anyway. She is a monster, but maybe everyone is. Or could be.
Ivy’s body had decayed by the time she was found. That was the word that stuck with Sasha from the report: decayed. You hear a word like that and you can’t help but picture it, you can’t help but picture what warm water does to soft skin when it is left soaking for far too long and longer still, grows spongy and starts to peel away.
It was national news, a big, splashy front-page story. Everyone loves a pretty dead girl, and to be reminded of what happens to girls who aren’t careful.
There’s a message board in an online forum now, devoted to Ivy. It’s mostly used by conspiracy theorists, armchair detectives, and lonely, horny men who have fallen in love with Ivy’s picture, the same way they always did when she was alive. Sasha used to read the board sometimes, until one day someone started posting too many things that were too close to the truth. Their username was ParallelWorlds. They wrote in manic bursts late at night. They sounded, sometimes, unhinged. Sasha stopped looking after that.
The police are still searching for the man Ivy had met out one night in the dark, and who knows what they will find. The truth always comes to the surface, that’s what Sasha believes. It always comes to the surface.
Except when it doesn’t.
Xavier is picking up their order now. His mother is paying. His father is getting extra ketchup, extra napkins. They are walking out.
Sasha and Xa
vier will leave this town behind soon and try not to look back. She still loves him. She will always love him. Her love is pure and frozen in time. But love is dangerous.
Where do we hide the secrets we keep? Lodged in our bellies, in our chests, in our throats?
Xavier looks at Sasha one more time before he steps through the door. When their eyes meet, she wants to smile, but she doesn’t. Their faces show no expression. And then he is gone.
She tells herself maybe somehow, one day, they will find their way back to each other. In the future, in some other life, they will find their way back home to each other. She pretends to believe it.
She will have to pretend forever now.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped with this book, and I am hugely grateful. Thank you so much to:
My wonderful editor and friend, Liesa Abrams Mignogna, for being endlessly brilliant, kind, patient, funny, and fun. I feel so lucky to get to work with you.
The excellent people at Simon & Schuster, including: Mara Anastas, Mary Marotta, Catherine Hayden, fantastic publicist Jodie Hockensmith, Christina Pecorale, Gary Urda, Karen Lahey, Victor Iannone and the rest of the sales team, Katherine Devendorf, Sarah Creech, Sara Berko, Jennifer Rothkin, and Ian Reilly. Extra-special thanks to the delightful Jessica Smith for the invaluable editorial feedback and notes.
The marvelous Regina Flath for the stunning US cover.
My incredible agent, Jenny Bent, for everything, including: brainstorming, advice giving, being hilarious, and all the help along the way.
The amazing team at The Bent Agency, especially: Victoria Lowes, Sam Brody, John Bowers, and Molly Ker Hawn. And extra-special thanks to the lovely Nicola Barr.
My fabulous UK editor, Stella Paskins. And the team at Egmont Electric Monkey: Alice Hill, Samuel Perrett (for the gorgeous UK cover and interiors), Anna Robinette, and Amy St Johnston.
My wonderful parents, Cheri Weingarten and Donald Weingarten!
My great pals who helped: Melanie Altarescu, Sarah Rees Brennan, Brendan Duffy, Adele Griffin, Brent Hagen, Micol Ostow Harlan, Aaron Lewis, Michael Northrop, Dan Poblocki, Siobhan Vivian, and Melissa Walker. Extra thanks and ice cream sandwiches to Robin Wasserman for, among many other things, the enormously smart notes. To Lee Overtree for discussing every aspect of this book over one million times and having excellent suggestions all along the way. To Mary Crosbie (and Whiskers!) for the last-minute read to make sure it all made sense.
And thank you so much to anyone who has taken the time to read this book. And even the acknowledgments. All the way to the bottom!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynn Weingarten is the author of five young adult novels, including the New York Times bestselling Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Find Lynn on Twitter: @lynnweingarten
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Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition October 2017
Text copyright © 2017 by Lynn Weingarten
Jacket photograph copyright © 2017 by Ashraful Arefin/Arcangel Images
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Weingarten, Lynn, author.
Title: Bad girls with perfect faces / by Lynn Weingarten.
Description: First Simon Pulse hardcover edition. | New York : Simon Pulse, 2017. | Summary: Seventeen-year-old Sasha, desperate to save her best friend Xavier from more heartache, creates a social media trap for his ex-girlfriend with the hopes of exposing her cheating ways, but Sasha’s plan takes a dangerous turn that dramatically changes the course of everyone’s life.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017015886 (print) | LCCN 2017030007 (eBook) | ISBN 9781481418621 (eBook) | ISBN 9781481418607 (hardcover)
Subjects: | CYAC: Best friends—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Social media—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.W43638 (eBook) | LCC PZ7.W43638 Bad 2017 (print) |
DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017015886
Bad Girls with Perfect Faces Page 17