Dead Girls Society

by Michelle Krys

  Falling, falling,

  Falling.

  When I wake up next, the tube is gone. Dad is gone too. Could be in the cafeteria getting a bite to eat, or could be halfway to New York and a new, skeezy moneymaking venture. I find I don’t actually care. Mom is here.

  She’s sitting on the bench seat under the window, frowning at a crossword puzzle. There are purple-black bruises under her eyes and deep wrinkles in her T-shirt. She hasn’t left the hospital in days, at least.

  She notices I’m awake and jumps up, the pencil clattering to the ground.

  “Hope!”

  “Mom,” I manage. My throat burns, and I swallow to moisten it.

  “How are you feeling? Are you okay? What can I do? Do you need water?” She hovers over the bed, and I shake my head.

  “Lyla,” I say.

  Mom’s mouth screws up tight, and she sits down hard.

  She knows. I don’t know much, but she knows.

  “Is she…?” I ask. “Do they have her?”

  She jerks her head once, a resigned no. I’m breathing faster. Harder. She’s out there, and she wants me dead.

  “There’s security posted outside the room twenty-four seven,” Mom says, guessing my thoughts. “They’ll find her soon. She can’t hide forever.”

  I nod mutely, eyes wide, and Mom tucks my hair behind my ear, then pulls my head to her chest. She smells like Chantilly perfume over hospital shampoo.

  She’s out there. She’s free.

  “Oh, Hope,” she whispers. “What happened? How—how did any of this happen?”

  I don’t want to tell her. I’m so humiliated and ashamed and horrified and utterly, utterly devastated that it got to this point, that I did this to her. That a girl—a friend—is dead from our game. But she’s going to have to find out sometime, and I can’t keep hiding the truth from her forever. Lyla is out there, and she’ll come after me again. After Jenny. After her.

  So I take a deep breath and…spill.

  I’m out of breath when I’m finished, and I can tell Mom doesn’t know whether to scream at me or cry. And I understand. I can hardly believe any of this happened either. That Lyla, the girl I was starting to think of as a real friend, could have betrayed me the way she did, carried such a darkness inside her that she wanted me dead, wanted us all dead. I don’t know if I’ll sleep well at night ever again, if I’ll ever not feel guilty for being the one who survived instead of Hartley, who had a full life ahead of her. If I’ll always taste dirt in my mouth.

  Mom’s jaw works, and she swallows hard, but then she pulls me back into a hug.

  “I’m never letting you out of my sight again,” she whispers.

  I close my eyes against a rush of tears. It’s over, and I should be happy. I’m safe. I’m alive. They’re going to find Lyla. I have a mother who loves me. Everything else shouldn’t matter.

  But it does.

  I try to hold it in. It’s not the time. But what has logic ever had to do with any of this? A small, pained sound escapes me.

  Mom pulls back sharply and looks me over for injury. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Do I need to call the doctor?” She starts to stand again, but I grab her arm, fingers digging into tender flesh.

  “No,” I say, then release my grip. She rubs her arm, staring at me gimlet-eyed, and then sits down again.

  I know I made a lot of mistakes. I was reckless, I pushed myself too far. I did damage to my body, maybe even irreparable damage—the body she worked so hard to keep in shape. But I’m not prepared to go back to my old life. With Mom so desperate to make sure I don’t die that she won’t let me live. To sit in that apartment collecting dust until I can’t breathe anymore. Until I turn to dust.

  I can’t live with fear and limits dictating everything I do.

  “Mom, I love you,” I say. “But…we need to talk.”

  ONE YEAR LATER

  I crash through my room, my still-damp hair leaving a trail of wetness down the back of my shirt. My boss will kill me if I’m late for my second day of work.

  I kick through a pile of laundry, tear through my drawers. Finally I heft back my comforter. There it is. I don’t know how the hell my uniform top got under there, but I have a feeling it has something to do with a certain little sister and her snoopy tendencies. I slip the nasal prongs off my face, pull off my T-shirt, and throw the white polo over my head, teasing the wires back into my nose. Then I tip back my oxygen tank and turn around.

  Jenny is standing in the doorway.

  I gasp. “Jesus, Jenny.”

  “A letter came for you.” She pulls an envelope from behind her back. I feel all the color slip out of my face.

  She realizes her mistake and quickly backtracks. “Not that kind of letter!”

  I exhale as I step closer to take the envelope from her. It’s a standard white business envelope, not the creamy cardstock Lyla used for her invitations. The return address is the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in France.

  I glance at Jenny. She clasps her hands together, nodding at me to open it. My hands shake as I slide my finger under the tab and rip open the envelope, pulling out a folded sheet of paper. Somehow my heart races faster than when I thought it was an invitation, the game following me still, even as Lyla faces a zealous prosecutor in court. Faces life in prison.

  They found her three days after she tried to bury me alive. She’d sent a school-wide email exposing Farrah’s, Nikki’s, and Hartley’s secrets. Authorities traced the IP address back to a public library in Breaux Bridge and nabbed her the next day, trying to buy a bag of chips at a gas station. She’s in jail now, awaiting trial, but I know I’ll live with this fear until she’s locked away for good. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to trust the system and let go.

  “Open it already!” Jenny cries.

  I hesitate, a dizzy feeling washing over me. I blow out a pressurized breath. This is silly, how nervous I am. It doesn’t matter if I don’t get in. I can go to college here, apply again next year. I can do anything I want. Life will not end if this place doesn’t want me.

  I unfold the paper.

  Dear Student,

  Congratulations! You have been selected for admission to the Honors Social Work and Applied Social Studies program.

  The committee especially enjoyed your essay submission….

  I bite back my tears. With Tucker expelled as he faces charges of attempted murder—charges his father is fervently attacking— I had to do my history midterm alone. But instead of Walt Disney, I opted to focus my paper on someone else important in history—my personal history. My mom. The paper earned me an A-plus, so I recycled it for my essay submission.

  “Well?” Jenny asks.

  I stare at the paper. I read it again and again and again.

  “What is it?” Jenny repeats. “Yes or no?”

  I can’t talk.

  My hand trembles as I hold out the paper. She snatches it and quickly scans the letter, then shrieks so loud I think my eardrums might pop, and she tackle-hugs me. I stumble back, laughing and crying and sobbing and just so utterly happy.

  “What’s going on?” Mom appears in the doorway. She eyes us and the paper warily.

  I swallow, sobering in the face of the reality that not everyone is going to be happy about this.

  Mom will lose it. She’ll say I’m too sick. That my health is fragile and international travel could be dangerous. I’ll have to get used to a whole new set of doctors—doctors who don’t know me—and I’ll have to do it alone. She’ll say I need her.

  And she’ll be right.

  Of course I need my mom. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her making my health her top priority for seventeen years. I needed her to take care of me when I couldn’t—and sometimes wouldn’t—take care of myself. In France I’ll have to do it all alone.

  But it’s time I started looking after myself. I’m almost an adult, and I can’t live my life holding her hand. I need her, but what I need most is her love
and support. I have to do this, even if it feels like the scariest dare I’ve ever faced.

  I hand over the letter, then pull Mom into a hug.

  The door swings shut behind the last customer. I exchange a glance with Casey, my fellow Bourbon Beignet employee, and then look over the sea of tables cluttered with china and powdered sugar, the café heavy with the scent of floral perfume.

  “Holy shit,” she says. “That was insane.”

  I wasn’t in the door for five minutes before a literal busload of seniors poured into the shop and wreaked havoc on the place for two hours. If my apron wasn’t heavy with change (and hard candy), I’d be just as annoyed as Casey.

  Mom didn’t want me to get a job, and I didn’t blame her. After everything I put her through, I’d want to chain me to a bed too. But I told her I needed independence, needed to be a regular teen, and after I showed her I could be responsible—taking my meds on my own, cooking my own high-salt, high-calorie meals, making my own doctors’ appointments—I was able to eventually wear her down. Some days I feel tired, some days I’m not sure I can do it, but mostly, mostly, it makes me feel good. I’ll never go back to life on the couch, worrying what might happen if I breathe wrong. If Hartley’s death has taught me anything, it’s that your life can be cut short at any time. You have to live it as if any day could be your last.

  Besides, I don’t have a magical hundred K to save the day—even the pin was confiscated by authorities as evidence—and I have to pay for university somehow.

  Casey tosses me a rag, and we get to work cleaning up the mess. My phone buzzes in my apron. I pull it out. Farrah.

  Mall tomorrow?

  You know my feelings on shopping.

  Come on! Nikki’s coming.

  I don’t wannnaaaa.

  Pick you up at eleven!

  I smile and stow my phone. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since Farrah, Nikki, and I sat next to each other in the second-row pew at St. Anna’s Episcopal Church, gripping hands so hard it was a miracle that bones didn’t break. A year since Farrah looked across at me and said, “I did love her.”

  A year since we buried Hartley.

  We’re a strange assortment of friends, from all different social groups—we have next to nothing in common but the game, our twisted experience—but somehow we make it work. We have to, for Hartley.

  I’m piling a tray high with coffee cups smeared with lipstick when the door swings open. I groan. If it’s a drunk—which happens pretty often, considering that the shop is on a street people come to specifically to get drunk—I won’t hesitate to get my boss.

  I look up, and Ethan is there. His hair is still wet from the pool and sticks out in slick ribbons around his ears. He gives me a smile meant just for me, and my stomach turns into a warm puddle.

  “I’ll just bring these dishes to the back,” Casey announces loudly.

  Ethan hefts his backpack up on his shoulder and crosses the café toward me.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  He circles an arm around me and pulls me into a kiss, long and slow and agonizingly perfect. But instead of making me happy, a sad feeling hollows me out.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks against my lips.

  The acceptance letter burns a hole in my apron. In my heart. I should tell him. Right now. But the words won’t come out. I don’t know how to bring it up. I’m sorry, but I’m leaving you.

  I can’t do it. After everything I went through, after all the hard work I put in to get accepted, I can’t do it.

  I have to do it.

  I swallow the lump in my throat and peck him once more. “Nothing. Now you better stop kissing me before I get fired.”

  I twist out of his grip and drag my O2 tank over to a nearby table, pulling out a chair. Ethan gives me a funny look, but he drops his bag and sits down. We both notice the newspaper sitting on the table between us, the headline LYLA GREENE TAKES THE STAND IN NEW ORLEANS DARE CLUB MURDER TRIAL staring up at us in big, bold print.

  He raises his eyebrows at me.

  “Go ahead,” I tell him. He picks up the newspaper. I’ve practically got the article memorized, but I don’t stop him as he reads it aloud.

  Lyla Greene, who is on trial for the first-degree murder of Hartley Jensen in the New Orleans Dare Club scandal, took the stand in her own defense on Monday. Under questioning by her defense attorney, Greene described her mind-set following the suicide of her stepsister, Samantha MacNamara.

  “I didn’t understand why it happened,” Greene said. “I blamed myself. But then I started to remember all the things Sam talked about—all the things that made her sad, and I realized it wasn’t me. It was them.”

  The “them” Greene refers to are the four girls she pitted against one another in a twisted, sadistic dare game that has riveted the nation.

  “Once I realized who was really at fault, it was easy. I knew what I had to do,” Greene said.

  The seventeen-year-old, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to one count of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, one count of aggravated assault, and five counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, has admitted to exploiting her parents’ positions at a local meat factory and swamp conservatory to construct elaborate dares she forced her victims to complete in using threats, bribery, and gifts.

  Greene says she didn’t necessarily mean to kill the participants during the dangerous dares, which she admits to carefully picking based on the players’ worst fears, but to “make them suffer.”

  “Why should it be easy for them?” Greene said. “It wasn’t easy for Sam.”

  Trial continues on Tuesday, when Greene’s mother takes the stand in her defense.

  Ethan looks up at me. “Wow. This is…”

  “Crazy. I know.” It doesn’t matter how often I’ve seen the story in the news, I still can’t believe that it happened to me. That Hartley is really gone.

  Ethan puts the paper down.

  “So,” he says.

  “So,” I answer.

  He drums his fingers on the table. That’s when I notice it. Ethan’s acting different. And not just because of the article.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask. He stares at me for a moment, and dread coils in my stomach. “What, Eth?”

  “Something came in the mail today.” He pulls a letter out of his bag. My breath hitches painfully in my chest.

  He got his letter too.

  I knew this moment was coming, that I’d have to confront it sometime. I thought I was ready for it, but now that it’s actually here, I think it might kill me. I try not to cry as he fidgets with the envelope, then slowly peels out a folded paper.

  “Well, are you going to tell me what it is or just torture me with it?” I ask.

  He looks up. God, his eyes are gorgeous. Golden brown, with flecks of gold around the irises. I love those eyes. I love him.

  “I have to tell you something first,” he says. “Something I should have said a long time ago.” He takes a deep breath. “You blame yourself for everything that happened, but…I was the one who was wrong. About Tucker.”

  “But we’ve talked about this before,” I say. “You were just trying to help—”

  “I know you said it’s fine,” he interrupts. “But it’s not. I didn’t know about the charges or anything else before I went digging—”

  “But you had a feeling. Your gut told you he was bad.”

  He shakes his head. “All I knew was that he was rich and popular and good-looking. I was jealous. I didn’t want you to be with Tucker because I was scared you’d realize he was better than me.”

  “He’s not,” I hurry to say, taking his hand. I make him look up at me so he knows how deeply I mean it. “Not even a little bit.”

  But I understand his feelings. They’re feelings I had too. Maybe feelings all piss-poor kids have. Being less. Wanting more. Thinking you’re not good enough for that more. It’s probably a part of why I tried
to like Tucker, even though I knew he was wrong for me. I wanted his approval. As if Tucker liking me made me better. If someone worthy approved of me, then that must mean I was worthy too.

  Ethan smiles softly, and my heart warms. But then he sits up abruptly, shattering the moment.

  “Now that I said that…” He slides the envelope across the table. I pick it up.

  Congratulations! You have been accepted…

  “It’s from NOLA U,” he says. “I got in.”

  I drop the letter so that he won’t see how badly my hands are shaking.

  “That’s great!” I say, forcing a cheeriness I don’t feel. If I try hard enough, maybe I can get through this without his noticing I’m completely falling apart inside.

  “I got in everywhere, Hope. All the places I applied to.”

  But he’s not smiling. A frown turns down his lips, and that same hollowness I felt when we kissed is in his eyes now.

  “Then why don’t you seem happy?” I say. “This is amazing news. We need to celebrate!”

  He shrugs, looking at his hands. “I still don’t know what I want to do.”

  We’re both carefully avoiding the elephant in the room. That I only applied overseas. Not a single place stateside.

  “You don’t need to know,” I say. “You can change your major. People do that all the time.”

  “I know, but…” His words trail off.

  The sound of the dishwasher whirring to life in the kitchen comes into focus. I clear my throat. “So where will you go? Columbia’s your top choice, right? School in New York would be amazing.”

  My voice cracks. Dammit. I look away. Tears pool in back of my eyes. I can’t talk. If I talk, I’ll cry.

  “Yeah,” he agrees. “New York would be amazing….But I hear they have great movie theaters in France.”

  I take in a sharp breath as he slides a different paper across the table. A paper that exactly matches the one in my apron.

  I clamp a hand over my mouth, tears filling my eyes.

  “I hope you don’t think it’s weird,” Ethan says. “Like I’m following you or something. I just—”