by Olin, Sean
“Jesus. That’s horrible,” he said.
“Your friend Lilah could get herself in real trouble if she keeps acting like this.”
“I—like I said, I don’t really talk to her anymore.”
After he hung up the phone, Carter lay back on his bed and thought about the things Kelly in admissions had just told him. He thought about his broken leg. He thought about the cruel things Lilah had done to Jules.
For the next hour Carter lay there motionless, running through scenarios, working through all the possibilities, regretting more and more that he’d ever gotten involved with Lilah. If the way he’d treated her today didn’t stop her, he was pretty sure nothing would. She’d be chasing him forever, destroying everything and everyone he ever touched.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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43
On Monday afternoon, Jules’s mom closed the crystal shop early and drove over to Lilah’s house for a discussion. She shifted her weight back and forth as she waited for someone to answer the door, struggling to hold on to her Buddhist presentness.
The door opened a crack and Lilah’s mother, her hair blown out into a perfectly quaffed helmet, peeked through. The expression on her face was guarded and pinched. When she opened her mouth, her voice was nervous and sharp. “You’re—”
“Jules’s mom.”
Lilah’s mother pushed the door wider to let Jules’s mom in. She was an anxiously polite woman with strangers, and her emotions twitched at the corners of her mouth as she led Jules’s mom into the kitchen and pulled out a chair at the sun-drenched table there for her.
“Please sit down,” she said. “Would you like something? Coffee? Tea?”
“No. I’m fine.”
Hovering over the counter and compulsively wiping nonexistent crumbs from its marbled surface, Lilah’s mom asked, “Have you decided what you’re going to do yet?”
Jules’s mom shot her a dumbfounded look. “What would you do if you were me?” she asked. “I can’t let this continue. I have to press charges.”
Lilah’s mom suppressed a frown. This woman might be messy in ways that made her cringe—those jean shorts, that loose-fitting spaghetti-strapped top, a sense of style fit more for a coed than a mother—she may have instinctively disliked the woman, but the details she’d presented on the phone were too specific; they explained Lilah’s nervous, secretive behavior over the past couple months too perfectly. Much as she didn’t want to, she knew the things Jules’s mom had told her must be true.
“There’s no other option?” she asked.
“Do you see any other option?”
“I was hoping—Lilah’s always been a troubled girl. Since we talked this morning, I’ve learned that she hasn’t been following her treatment. I’m going to make sure that changes, of course, and . . . I thought maybe, if I promise to monitor her . . . I’m hoping we can maybe work this out between ourselves.”
Jules’s mom contemplated this for a moment, her pulse slowly beginning to pick up speed. Her beliefs preached mercy and compassion, and though she could be vigilant when she needed to, she strove to be a force of positivity in the world. But no matter how troubled this Lilah girl was, she had hurt and degraded her daughter in front of hundreds of people. Keeping her composure right now was taking up all the energy she had.
“Does she understand how wrong what she’s done is?” she asked, her hands trembling a little. “Whatever mistakes Jules may have made, there’s no way she deserved that kind of public humiliation. And the stalking? I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it.”
“I know. It’s hard to know what goes on in Lilah’s head. Her father and I, we’ve tried so hard with her. But it’s . . . she’s too much for us. Too much for anyone, actually.”
Jules’s mom raised an eyebrow. She would never say anything like that about her daughter, no matter what her problems were. It almost made her feel a little bad for Lilah. Her parents had obviously given up on her.
“We’re sending her back to the doctor. In a few days,” said Lilah’s mom.
“I’d say that’s long overdue. Wouldn’t you?”
Lilah’s mother narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth as though to defend herself against this sharp criticism, but then closed it again and nodded. “Let me go get Lilah,” she said. “She’s upstairs. We’ll be down in a moment.”
Lilah’s mom disappeared around the corner and up the stairs, leaving Jules’s mom alone to study the watercolor fruit on the wallpaper. The house was beautifully decorated, everything so appropriate, the correct tables in the correct places with just the right bland pictures mounted above them. She felt like she’d walked into a Pottery Barn catalogue, and again her heart went out to Lilah. It must be hard to live in such a sterile house. She herself had grown up in a home like this one. She understood the expectations a place like this held, the pressure to keep up appearances whether you agreed with them or not. But none of this justified the horrible things the girl had done to her daughter.
Lilah’s mom returned as promised, trailing Lilah behind her.
So there she was, the girl who’d been making Jules’s life such hell for these past two months. She didn’t look the type, unless maybe she did. Her straight shoulder-length hair was too perfectly combed, too carefully situated under her headband for a day of lounging around the house. Her skirt was too well pressed. Her blouse too buttoned up. She looked like a doll that had been dressed up by someone else. But underneath this costume, Jules’s mother noticed, was an insolence that couldn’t be disguised. She kept picking at her clothes. The looks she gave her mother behind her back were icy, like something a prison inmate would give the jailor who’d just taken his privileges away.
“Lilah, this is Mrs. Turnbull,” her mother said, with a hint of an edge in her voice.
“Cara is fine,” said Jules’s mother. “Do you know who I am, Lilah?”
Lilah immediately put the pieces together. Mrs. Turnbull, who wanted to be called Cara. With a loosey-goosey beach-bum attitude about her. She slouched in her chair. Her long arms and legs flopped out every which way. There was someone else Lilah knew who was comfortable with herself like this. Someone who’d stolen her boyfriend. She wondered what this Cara thought of her daughter now that she knew the girl made porn videos of herself.
“Don’t you have something to say to Mrs.—to Cara?” said her mom, tapping her finger nervously on the table.
The words, as they came out of Lilah’s mouth, had a rehearsed quality. “I’m sorry for all the things I did to Jules. I won’t do it again.”
Jules’s mom glanced skeptically at Lilah’s mom. The woman’s expression had a pleading, fretful quality to it. She felt bad for her for a second. She could imagine how terrified she’d be herself if she thought Jules was about to go to jail forever. But from the few minutes she’d spent in this house, Jules’s mother couldn’t help but assume that this woman had neglected her child, or at least turned a blind eye when Lilah began spiraling out of control.
“Are you sorry, Lilah?” Jules’s mom asked. “Do you have any idea what you’ve put my daughter through?”
Lilah braced herself for the lecture she knew was about to come, squeezed her lips tight, waiting for it to be over.
Jules’s mom listed all the things Lilah had done and explained all the ways she’d broken the law. Vandalism. Threats. Stalking. Harassment. Not to mention theft and illegal distribution of child pornography.
Lilah let the words wash past her. She had to sit here. She didn’t have to pay attention.
As the woman went on and on about this stuff, Lilah refused to even glance in her direction. She focused on the grandfather clock against the wall, on the carnival glass her mother had mounted above the table, on the stupid dolphins she collected, lined up on the window ledge, and pretended to listen. Her leg bounced uncontrollably.
&nb
sp; “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” asked Jules’s mom.
Lilah rolled her eyes. This was such bullshit.
“He was my boyfriend. You know that, right? Mine. Not hers. Mine,” she barked, suddenly looking directly at the woman, letting her hatred flash out toward her before turning back to the wallpaper.
Lilah’s mother called her name, once, in warning. Then, turning to Jules’s mom, she pleaded, “Like I said. Too. Much.”
“I’m sure Jules has some regrets, Lilah,” said Jules’s mom, ignoring the girl’s mother entirely. “But if you don’t show some remorse for the terrible things you’ve done to punish her—show me that you realize you went way over the line—then I promise you, from now on this situation will be handled by a group of lawyers.”
Jules’s mother didn’t like to use threats. It wasn’t something she believed in. But she had to drive the point home that she wasn’t someone to be messed with, or afraid of what Lilah might do. She held all the cards this time.
“Tell her you’re sorry now,,” Lilah’s mother said tersely. “Tell her you’ll leave her daughter alone.”
“I already did that,” said Lilah.
“Well, do it again.”
Lilah did as she was told. “I’m really sorry. What I did was wrong. I won’t bother Jules anymore,” she said ironically, sarcastically, not even trying to give the impression that she was doing anything but going through the motions.
Jules’s mother looked at Lilah’s mother again, and then back to Lilah. She wasn’t sure she could trust either of them, but she took a cleansing breath and tried to open her heart to the possibility that the universe would undoubtedly make sure justice was served.
She would help it along a little, though.
“I think the best course of action is to get a restraining order on you. Do you understand what that means?” Jules’s mom said to Lilah.
Lilah refused to let the relief she felt leak out. “I’m not stupid,” she said. “I watch TV.”
“Good, so you know that if you come within one hundred yards of Jules, they’ll arrest you. And then there won’t be anything anyone can do to help you.”
“That won’t happen, right, Lilah?” said Lilah’s mother.
As Lilah screwed a fake smile onto her face and nodded at Jules’s mother, she felt reinvigorated. She might be beaten for now, but that didn’t mean that the war was over. It just meant she had to bide her time and prepare herself for the battle to come. And make sure she didn’t get caught next time.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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44
All Carter could think about was Jules. In the days after the catastrophic graduation ceremony, while he sat around the house with his broken foot propped up, he’d gone over and over the details in his head, chastising himself for not having seen what was happening sooner, lambasting himself for not having protected her from the danger he’d unleashed in her life. And yet he couldn’t stop searching the usual spots—Google Chat, Facebook, Twitter, the rest of them—for some sign that she was okay now.
What he found was nothing. Not a trace of Jules. She’d disabled her chat. She’d gone off Twitter. She’d deleted her Facebook account, and he knew it wasn’t an issue of her unfriending him, because when he had Jeff, who’d never been her Facebook friend, search for her, he came up with the same nothing result.
He ached to text her, but no text could contain the depths of his remorse.
Finally, he conscripted Jeff to drag him and his broken foot around town in search of her. They’d gone to her house, but there’d been no one home. They’d gone to Waxidasical, where they’d discovered that she’d quit unexpectedly after one too many snarky comments from the customers. They’d trolled the sun-bleached streets of Dream Point hoping she’d materialize on Flamingo or Pelican Drive like she’d been waiting there for them to roll by.
There was one place they hadn’t tried, where Jules might be. Harmonic Convergence, her mother’s crystal shop. Carter wasn’t even sure if she ever helped out there, and he could just imagine the hard time her mother would give him if he showed up to bother her daughter again.
They had to stop every hundred yards or so for Carter to rest and adjust his crutches, but eventually they made their way past the carnival crowds around Harpoon Haven, past the sleek hotels and the tiki bars and takeout joints, all the way to the far end of the promenade, where the freakier, less brightly scrubbed shops were located.
They walked right past the bench where he and Lilah had carved their names. Seeing it, seeing the names still etched in the wood, Carter shook his head in regret.
Then, finally, they were standing out front of Harmonic Convergence, staring up at its flaking, hand-painted sign, listening to the tinkle of the wind chimes mounted above the door. The airy curtains in the window and the wall of beads hanging across the open door made it difficult to see who was inside the space, but it somehow felt like destiny that Jules would be there. It would only be fitting for Carter to have to face her mother and show he wasn’t afraid, before being allowed to hold her in his arms.
“Wait here,” he told Jeff, and then he pushed the beads aside with a crutch and stepped inside.
And there she was.
She sat on a high stool, nestled in among the cases of glimmering rocks in a back corner of the small room. She was wearing one of the flowing, low-slung Mexican skirts she liked, aqua blue, and she was reading a book of monologues for women.
She was so absorbed in this book that she didn’t notice when he entered the store. She looked so peaceful there. He almost didn’t want to disturb her. Just to look at her—that would almost have been enough. Just to take her in and savor the fact that she was alive.
When Jules guardedly looked up, they gazed at each other silently for a moment. With his crutches, he looked vulnerable and sad. She wanted to forget the past few months. Forget that Carter had told her that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her, ever again. When he’d said it, she knew it was something he could never promise. He just wanted so much to make things right. And him showing up here, all battered and broken from the altercation she’d heard he had with Lilah after graduation, proved he was still trying to look out for her.
But so much had happened, perhaps too much to get past, although deep down she hoped that wasn’t true.
“Hi, friend,” Carter said, hoping the inside joke would make her smile.
He ran his hand through his hair, flopping it in that cute way of his.
“You’re hard to find nowadays,” he said.
“That’s by design.”
“I sort of had to stalk you to track you down.”
Okay. She acknowledged that was a pretty good joke, but only with a smile. She wasn’t ready to let her guard down yet.
“Think I could persuade you to take a little walk?”
“I’m the only one here.”
“I’ll make Jeff watch the shop.”
“Oh, Jeff’s here, too?” she said, her voice laced with sarcasm or disappointment—Carter couldn’t tell which.
Carter gestured toward his foot. “He’s my driver.”
Jules considered her options. “Okay,” she said. “Briefly.”
Outside, Carter instructed Jeff to go man the cash register. He and Jules leaned against the railing of the promenade. They watched the waves lapping against the beach. Neither of them knew quite where to start.
“Are you gonna get in trouble? For the video, I mean,” Carter asked.
She shook her head. “I’m eighteen now, and luckily, the time stamp on the video is dated to the day Lilah uploaded it to the school computer system. There’s no way to prove I was underage.”
They gazed out at the beach some more. A seagull bounced around below them, pecking at something half buried in the sand.
“That’s good,” Carter finally said.
They watched the seagull again. There weren’t many sun worshippers this far out—most people clung to northern end of town, the ritzy areas near the hotels. There were so few people around that they could almost imagine they were totally alone.
When Carter spoke again, he risked slightly more. “I’m so, so sorry, Jules. I tried to stop her,” he said.
Jules cautiously turned to face him. “I know. I can’t . . . I can’t believe you broke your leg. Are you okay?”
“I don’t care about me, I care about you,” Carter said. “I don’t expect you to forgive me or anything. I fucked up. I get that. But I want you to know I tried, at least. I threw her phone into the ocean. I didn’t realize she’d made other copies of the video and . . .” He went dreamy for a second, trying to find the words that would honestly, nakedly explain himself. “I keep wondering why I didn’t see what Lilah was up to sooner. It’s like I was afraid to see it. I think the mistake I made was in not admitting from the start that I loved you, not her. And I won’t—”
His confession came out so casually, more an explanation than an admission, that Jules almost missed it.
“What—wait—what?” she said.
He came out of his dream and was as confused as she was. “What, what?” he said.
“Did I just hear what I think I heard?”
“I don’t know. What did you hear?”
“That you, um, love me.”
Carter blushed. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah. I guess I did say that.”
Jules’s heart did a backflip. She remembered, in flashes, the hero who’d raced in to help her and Lauren sophomore year, that sensitive charmer she’d seen at Jeff’s house and gone on that spectacular “nondate” with—he must still be in there somewhere, right? Seeing him now, leaning on his crutches, that blue boot thrust out in front of him, she couldn’t help but feel like she was seeing the Carter that she’d fallen in love with reemerge.