by L. E. Flynn
I figured he would heal with time, that everyone would. I was right about everyone else, but Beau never did.
26
JASPER FOLLOWS ME back into the school. I’m not sure what I’m going to say to Mr. Thorpe, or if he’s even the right person to ask. Robson High has at least three different science teachers, and I don’t know which one taught Trixie. I almost turn around when we’re in the hall, because I can just imagine how insane it’s going to sound.
Hey, Mr. Thorpe, remember Trixie Heller? Yeah, can you tell me who her lab partner was two years ago? Or maybe it was three years ago? Why do I want to know? Funny you should ask …
“Hey,” Jasper says, trailing behind me. “Let’s just go somewhere and talk. We can go back to my place. I have this globe she used to love to spin and put her finger on. Maybe we can see if that means anything.”
But I’m on a mission. I’m not letting this go. I know I’m right, even if I don’t know exactly what I’m right about. Besides, a globe is the whole world. I need to start smaller.
Mr. Thorpe is leaving the lab when we round the corner. His back is to us and he’s pulling the door shut. I start talking before I can listen to the voice in my head telling me to stop. Which sounds an awful lot like Jasper’s calm, measured voice.
“Mr. Thorpe,” I say to his back. “I have a really random question I was hoping you could help me with.”
“Fiona,” he says when he turns around, clasping his hands together. “Of course, I’m happy to help. Is it about today’s experiment?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s something else. I’m just wondering if you ever taught Trixie, uh, Patricia Heller. If she was in one of your classes.”
His forehead creases and his beady eyes fill with something that looks a lot like pity. He shakes his head slightly. He doesn’t know anything and now he probably thinks I’m depressed; I already know Jasper thinks I’m reading too much into this. Maybe they’re both right. Maybe I should have just listened to Mom and seen Dr. Rosenthal and started talking about my feelings.
But Mr. Thorpe scratches his bald head and starts to nod. “I did teach Patricia, back in her junior year. She was excellent at experiments. Had a real brain for the math involved.” He stares at me with a furrowed brow. “Is there any special reason why you’re asking?”
A million butterflies are beating their wings inside my chest. “Yeah. By any chance, do you remember who her lab partner was?”
Mr. Thorpe stares at the ground. “My classes are always alphabetical. I do it that way to be fair. Don’t want anyone to get left out because they’re not the most popular.”
“So, who was hers?” I stammer.
“Hers was Toby Hunter,” he says with a deep sigh. “It’s such a terrible tragedy, what happened to both of them. I know you were close to her, Fiona. I’m sorry for your loss.”
His words stab me. Not just the ones that clarified my theory about Toby Hunter being her lab partner, but the last ones he said, the ones still hanging in the air. I’m sorry for your loss. Mr. Thorpe is the only person who has said those words to me. At the funeral, everyone said them to Mr. Heller, not me. And I’m surprised by how soft they make me feel, like I’m gauzy cotton that could dissolve if I let myself cry.
“Thanks,” I manage. “Thanks for telling me.” I turn to leave and almost crash right into Jasper, who is staring at the wall. I forgot he was even there.
“If there’s anything else you ever want to talk about, come and see me anytime,” Mr. Thorpe says, almost warily. I’m sure he wonders why I wasted his time.
“He could have answered your question too,” Mr. Thorpe continues, gesturing behind me with his index finger. “Jasper Hart. He was in the same class. Sat one desk over, with Michelle Green.” He jangles his keys and drops them in his lab coat pocket before walking the other way down the hall.
Suddenly, I feel like I did when I was ten years old and fell out of a tree house at summer camp. I had landed on my stomach on the ground and panicked because I couldn’t breathe. The wind had been knocked out of me, my camp counselor said. It would come back as long as I held it together.
This time, I’m not so sure.
27
YOU SAID SOMETHING I’ll always remember. You told me lies were some people’s version of a flower bouquet. Sweet and pretty, and too fragrant for the recipient to smell any bullshit. But then they’d start to wilt and the water in their vase would get filmy and brown, and once the decay set in, so would the truth.
Jenny used to lie in little ways. She was a chronic exaggerator, the type of person whose stories would gain momentum as she told them. I never called her out on the details she added because it never seemed like a big deal.
Alison lied by omission. She would just nod her head and let you think whatever you wanted to think without correcting you one way or another.
Beau lied to me once. He told me, during a party in Brad Colton’s basement, that he wasn’t ever going to get drunk, because he didn’t want to do anything he couldn’t remember.
“My dad drinks sometimes,” he told me when we were sitting side by side on an ottoman, since all the couches were taken. “He says things, like how he should be living a different life. In the morning he never mentions it. I don’t want to turn into him.”
“You won’t,” I said, but maybe I lied too.
28
JASPER WON’T LOOK at me. He peers intently at his shoes, long after Mr. Thorpe has disappeared from view. I try to think of something to say. An accusation, something sharp. But I can’t think of anything that fits. The words get caught in my throat, too big to come up such a small pipe.
“Look, I didn’t know how to tell you,” he finally says, his words cluttered together. “I only took the class because my parents made me, and I went along with it since Trixie was there. Toby was, let’s just say, difficult. So cocky, always late, never wanting to do what he was told. Trixie hated sitting there. She and I did our homework together and she complained about him nonstop. Trust me, if there was something going on, I would have known it.”
I shake my head. “The first day I met her, she said something about her lab partner. And then she never mentioned it again. Why would she even mention it if it wasn’t important?”
Jasper presses his lips together. “I don’t know. Maybe she was talking about me. We were supposed to be lab partners. Hart and Heller. Then Michelle Green came in at the last minute and everything got shifted around.”
I stare at the bank of lockers behind us, then grab Jasper’s hand and start pulling him down the hall. “If that’s not enough for you, I’ll show you something else.”
Jasper’s hand is sweaty in mine by the time we arrive at my locker. I’m the first one to let go to pull the lock open, reading out the numbers as the dial hits each one.
“Eight. Thirty-one. Seventeen. That was her locker combination, Jasper. Do you still think all this adds up to nothing?”
He rakes his hand through his hair. The same hand that was just holding mine. His fingers are long and pale, and I imagine them on Trixie’s face, the same way he touched mine at the beach.
“I don’t know what that even means. I’m sorry. It’s just a locker combination.”
“Eight. Thirty-one. Seventeen. August thirty-first. The day Toby Hunter died.”
Jasper doesn’t say anything. It’s like he’s a machine, processing the new information. When he does speak, it’s rushed, not measured like when he usually talks. “Well, maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought. Maybe she wanted it that way. She could’ve had feelings for him. It’s not like I was ever her boyfriend, remember? But he’s dead, and she’s gone, and we’ll never know the truth.”
My head swims. Part of me knows he’s right. The sensible version of me, the one that never skipped a class or flaked out on plans. The part that would have still been on the surface if I hadn’t gone to my car that day instead of cheerleading practice.
But an even bigger part of me—this version, the o
ne who doesn’t fit into her old clothes or her old life—knows there is more to the story.
“We might never know the truth,” I say slowly. “But I have a theory.”
Jasper’s eyes widen. “What’s your theory?”
I clutch the lock in my hand, the dial digging into my palm. “What if Toby’s alive?”
“Three people saw that guy go in the water. There’s no way he’s not dead, unless he grew gills and turned into a fish. Or grew wings and learned to fly. Anyone who thinks otherwise is in serious denial.”
I click the lock into place. “So maybe I’m in denial. But I’m going to find out what happened. I owe her that much.” I turn my back on Jasper and start to walk away.
“Why do you owe her anything?” he calls after me, his voice echoing down the hall. “What did she ever do for you?”
She made me feel like I was the only person in the world, I want to yell back. She liked me for who I was, not who she wanted me to be. She let me be myself. But as quickly as the thoughts rush through my head, I wonder if they’re even true. I’m not sure she ever got a chance to know me, because I didn’t even know who I was with her. I shaped myself into whoever she wanted me to be the second I listened when she told me to drive. I had lots of chances along the way to tell her I didn’t eat meat, I didn’t lie to my mom, I liked cheerleading, I loved Beau Hunter no matter what anyone said. But I never took them. I kept being who I thought she wanted me to be.
“Let’s go somewhere,” Jasper says, quieter this time. “Let’s just go talk. Not about her. We can do something normal. Like, see a movie. Or get food. Whatever you want. We have to move on with our lives.”
I guess he has a point. If Trixie is gone, not dead, she took great pains not to leave a mess in her place. So why am I making one, smearing all of our memories and everything she ever told me onto what should just be left a blank canvas?
I want to say all of this to Jasper. My heart is wedged somewhere it doesn’t even fit and my head is fuzzy. I want to say so much, but instead I just shake my head.
“I can’t move on. I need to figure out the truth. I need to know if she’s still alive.”
29
YOU WARNED ME about Jenny. “Girls like that won’t stab you in the back,” you said. “They’ll put the knife right in your chest.” I didn’t want to believe you, even though she had already broken the skin.
They were standing there. Right in front of the locker Jenny and I shared. By the time Jenny and I became best friends, lockers had already been assigned, but she bribed some girl into switching. I couldn’t even count the times I had stood there and braided my hair or listened to gossip or bitched about a stupid teacher.
But there she was, with her back pressed against our locker, with her fingers laced around Beau’s neck. It was dark, but I could see her hip jutting into his. His head bent.
I expected it to hurt, seeing them together. But I didn’t expect it to hurt that much. Part of me hoped they would go on one date and realize they had nothing to talk about. I was realizing they didn’t have to talk at all.
I spun around and stormed back to the parking lot. I just wanted to be alone, to cry and pound my steering wheel and scream. But Trixie was there, sitting on the curb.
“Hey.” She stood up and dusted off her jeans. “What do you say we buy some beer with my fake ID and go to the beach?”
I almost told her about Beau and Jenny then. I almost told her everything. Instead, I said something else.
“Hey, do you think we could share a locker?”
Later that night, my head buzzing, I stood on my bed and tore down the collage. The pictures got ripped to pieces and thrown in the trash can beside my desk, along with the swatches of fabric for dresses I didn’t want to make. I shredded the stupid smiling photos, the ones of me and Jenny and Alison in a mall photo booth, the team shot from last year’s cheer meet. We looked so young, so wholesome, and it was such a lie.
The next day, I purposely left my cheerleading uniform at home. And the day after that.
When Jenny finally cornered me in the bathroom at school, asking why I moved my stuff out of our locker, I told her things had changed. I wanted to give her the same line she had fed me. It’s not like I could say no.
30
JASPER’S WORDS ARE the soundtrack of my drive home. He talks about moving on with our lives like it’s some milestone we can achieve together, and maybe he’s right. But I don’t want to need someone else that badly. Everyone I’ve ever needed hasn’t needed me back.
When I pull into the driveway, Mom’s car is already in the garage. Normally, she works late and I always beat her home, so I’m surprised to see her. I’m even more surprised when she’s sitting at the kitchen table, leveling me with a disapproving stare.
“What?” I ask.
“I got an interesting phone call today,” she says, crossing her arms. “From Dr. Rosenthal’s office. It seems that you missed your appointment. The one you told me went well.”
My shoulders go up around my ears. I can’t think of a lie to get out of this one. Mom asked me about Dr. Rosenthal and I told her I was glad I went, that I learned a lot about myself.
“What’s going on here, Fiona? Did you have something better to do than keep the appointment I booked for you?”
Yes, I want to say. I was searching for my best friend. The one you disapproved of. The one I know isn’t actually dead.
“I guess I was just scared,” I tell her, and her face softens. She takes off her glasses, rubs the bridge of her nose, where they always leave a mark.
“I told you I’d go with you, honey. I just need you to go, at least once. It doesn’t make you weak to talk to someone. You know, I talked to Dr. Rosenthal after everything that happened with Leslie. He really helped me. And talking about it helped me and Leslie become close again.”
I didn’t know that Mom had talked to Dr. Rosenthal too, or to anyone. My aunt Leslie is an alcoholic and Mom likes to refer to whatever she did as “everything that happened,” which I’m sure is a euphemism for something really bad. But now Aunt Leslie is sober and has a nice apartment in Costa Mesa and she and Mom talk on the phone almost daily. She’s all about yoga and hiking and making her own skin care products out of things in her kitchen. Even if she weren’t my only aunt, she would be my favorite one.
“I’ll go,” I say quickly. “I promise. But I don’t want you to go with me.”
“I’ll be calling the next day to make sure you actually went,” she says. “I’ll make you another appointment, and this time there will be consequences if you don’t keep it.”
I don’t really want to know what she means by that. Mom has never been very good at being a disciplinarian. She’s so much younger than all of my friends’ moms and sometimes she treats me more like a friend than a daughter.
“Why do you really want me to go?” I say before I can stop myself. “Is it because I’ve gained so much weight and you’re ashamed of me?”
Her face is a mask of shock. “Honey, how could you think that? I could never be ashamed of you. I love you more than anything. And you’re beautiful, no matter what. This has nothing to do with what weight you are. It’s about what’s going on up here.” She taps her head.
“But all the health food and everything. I thought—”
“I think what we put into our bodies makes a huge difference in how we feel. All I’m trying to do is set us up to be the best versions of ourselves.” She pauses. “I’d love you at any weight. I just want you to be happy. You deserve that.”
I try to believe her—that she really doesn’t think I’m fat, and that she thinks I deserve to be happy. I help Mom prepare dinner—zucchini pasta made with her new spiralizer—and it feels almost normal, the two of us spending time together. When I go upstairs afterward, I open my desk drawer where I keep my junk food and stare at packages of licorice and bags of chips and rolls of Life Savers and twist-tied bundles of Sour Patch Kids. My myriad of rebellions. B
ut they don’t look tempting anymore, just gross. So instead of opening something, I toss the entire stash into the garbage can beside my desk. That’s when I see what was buried at the very bottom of the drawer.
My fake ID, the one Trixie got me. The one I brought when she made me go to clubs with her. I was somebody named Beth Winchester. I felt pretty the first night we went because a guy hit on me. He asked what my name was and I told him Fiona. Trixie had jabbed me in the ribs with her bony elbow.
“Don’t use your real name,” she hissed.
“Why not? I’ll never see him again,” I said.
“Exactly.” And she went right up to the same guy and introduced herself as Sarah. Sarah Brown, the girl on her fake ID, who didn’t really exist.
That’s when it hits me.
Maybe I don’t need to look for Trixie. Maybe I need to look for someone else.
31
I HATED BETH Winchester. I was offended because I thought she was ugly, with a round face and thin eyebrows that made her look scared. I was afraid her face was what people saw when they looked at me. I didn’t want you to see me like that, a chubby-cheeked nobody. But you just told me to shut up, that you were taking me to the club.
I liked being drunk. I liked being weightless, losing my inhibitions. When I danced, I felt sexy, like I had stepped outside my own body and become someone else. Someone I wanted to be, someone like Trixie. Trixie, who liked to wear little backless tops that showed her sharp shoulder blades, and sometimes grinded against random guys.
When summer started, we went out more often. Mom wasn’t around to make comments about how late I slept in, and I didn’t care if I was hungover, because I never had school the next day. And it’s not like I was going to cheerleading camp, like I had done for the past three summers, even though Mom left the brochure on the counter like it would make me change my mind. The days stretched on, sated with food and wine coolers and bright pink sunsets.