Chasing Truth

by Julie Cross

  “What are you? The apartment fire marshal?” I demand. What is he still doing here? It’s not like we’re throwing our problems into the pool. This is private property.

  Harper is too pissed to talk about anything rationally and also very aware of this fact. She storms off to her and Aidan’s bedroom and slams the door. A second later, she opens it again, poking her head out. “Don’t you dare clean up my mess! Either of you.”

  I exhale and set the fire extinguisher on the table. My heart is finally coming down from the adrenaline rush. I look over at Aidan and see him lower the waffle maker, a smile playing on his lips. He taps the garbage can with one foot and drops the burned appliance inside.

  “She’s right, you know,” Aidan says to me. “A preschooler could probably do this without setting anything on fire.”

  “Duh.” I take in the destroyed kitchen and sigh. “I’ll take care of this. Go do whatever it is you do to make her happy again. And refrain from sharing any details.”

  “Doughnuts on me.” Aidan sets a hand on my head, rubbing my wet hair. “Just give me thirty minutes.”

  He’s already nearly to the bedroom door, but I can’t resist adding, “Thirty minutes? Is that all it takes these days?”

  “Stuff it, Eleanor.”

  I laugh after he’s behind the door. I didn’t get to see his face, but it’s the kind of comment that would make Aidan blush. Only because it’s me saying it. My laughter is cut off quickly, though, when I glance around me. Miles Beckett is still here, and the kitchen is trashed.

  “Jesus,” I mutter under my breath. I slide the garbage can over to the counter where the waffle maker went up in flames. I’d planned to sweep everything into the bin, but the foam from the extinguisher has hardened and appears to be stuck.

  “You’ll need to add a lot of water to get rid of that,” Miles says. And then he has the nerve to walk farther into my apartment, planting his overconfident feet right beside me. “We should unplug the microwave first.”

  “We?” I say, lifting an eyebrow. “Your services are no longer needed. Unless”—I clutch the plate of waffles, now half covered in chemical foam, and turn to face him, grinning—“you’re hungry?”

  “Um…no.” He swipes the plate and dumps it into the garbage.

  “Thanks. Now you can go.” I wave a hand toward the balcony. “Just slide down the fire pole and be on your way.”

  He laughs. “I bet you’re a real blast at parties.”

  I lean on one elbow and allow my eyes to meet his—just checking to make sure I’ve still got it. “I bet you’re really wondering how much damage you’ve done this morning. Showing me your dirty laundry. Literally.”

  He cocks an eyebrow but says nothing. He’s cute. I’m not too proud to admit that. And I’m not too proud to admit that his hotness makes this way more enjoyable.

  “Good thing for you,” I say, keeping my voice soft. “I’m the last person to judge anyone by his dirty laundry.”

  My mother told me that a lie is so much more effective when it’s wrapped in truth. This is the most useful piece of information my parents have provided me.

  He gives me a grim smile. “That makes one of us.”

  I can’t hide the shock from my face—not what I expected him to say. But Miles is already on his way to the front door, his back turned to me so he can’t see my face.

  “See you at school on Monday,” he says before walking out the door.

  I stand there for a few seconds, trying to figure out what kind of nerve I may have hit, and then eventually I decide it’s not worth caring about. I work on the kitchen until Aidan emerges and, as promised because he is a relentless promise-keeper, he leaves for the doughnut shop. I head to the master bedroom and stand in the doorway. Harper is wearing a sundress now, tossed over her swimsuit. She’s sitting on the perfectly made bed flipping through a magazine I’ve seen at the grocery store checkout counters.

  I step inside the room and open a dresser drawer, picking out a T-shirt to borrow. Harper and I are exactly the same height—five foot five. But that’s where the similarities end. She has our mother’s light hair and fair complexion and I have my father’s brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles. My sister and I look nothing alike, but luckily we can still share clothes.

  “This fucking thing says ‘easy thirty-minute meals,’” she tells me. “None of these meals were easy or made in thirty minutes. Can’t we sue for false advertising?”

  “Let’s do it. My physics lab partner has two lawyer parents. We can hire both of them.” I flop beside her on the bed.

  “Can’t believe I paid five bucks for this.” Harper sighs and then tosses the magazine onto the floor. “You cleaned up the kitchen, didn’t you?”

  “Not completely,” I say, hiding my guilt. I look her over and finally ask the question. “Why is it so important to you? Being good at cooking? Aidan doesn’t care.”

  “But he will,” she says, her gaze fixed on the TV in front of her.

  At twenty-four years old, my sister is almost eight years older than me, but when she says things like that, I get a glimpse of this naive side of her. One that keeps her from seeing the truth, even when it’s right under her nose. I can’t decide if I’m lucky to not have that or unlucky. But then again, I missed a big chunk of Harper’s life. Until eight months ago, when she came looking for me, I hadn’t seen my sister in years. I thought she’d abandoned me—not just our family but me. I thought she didn’t care. It turns out that she just couldn’t find me.

  I scoot close enough to rest my head on her shoulder. “Let’s find a class to take. Together. We can tell everyone you’ve been in a coma for eight years and when you woke up—”

  “A handsome man was beside my bed and already in love with me,” Harper says, joining my story-time adventure. “A man with a good job and medical benefits.”

  “Too many holes in this story.” I reach across her and open Aidan’s bedside drawer where I know he keeps a constant supply of Sour Patch Kids. “Start over.”

  Harper watches me pop a couple of pieces of candy into my mouth. “You know what we use those for, right?”

  My jaw freezes mid-chew, my eyes widening. I can’t think of a single thing—which is not a good sign. Harper bursts out laughing, her blue eyes now dancing with amusement. “If I can do that to you, I’ve definitely still got it.”

  I don’t say anything out loud, but it helps to know that I’m not the only one who feels that need to test out my skills every once in a while. Until recently, being able to con people was all I had. Kinda hard to shake that.

  “You know what?” Harp says. “We could just sign up for a cooking class as us.”

  “True…”

  “Good.” She’s back to her usual assertive self. “I’ll take care of that. And you take care of being a better welcome wagon to the poor boy next door.” She turns her head, watching me.

  I’m not stupid enough to react. I continue eating more of Aidan’s candy. On the right side only, to avoid yesterday’s root canal. Harper must be too distracted to notice, otherwise she’d swipe the candy from me. “Some angry topless girl was throwing his clothes off the balcony into the pool this morning. I’m not sure he’s the kind of friend you want me to make.”

  “Seriously?” She snatches a few pieces of candy from the box, and I nod. “Jesus. Well, there’s got to be a good story behind that.”

  “Or there isn’t.”

  “You know,” Harper says, “it doesn’t make you weak or vulnerable, opening up to someone. It can be pretty great.”

  “Like Simon?” I remind her, knowing the expiration date on that conversation ender is nearing.

  Her expression turns grim. “I know I only met him once, but he didn’t seem suicidal. I still don’t get it.”

  Neither do I. But like I said, there are still so many questions. It’s a rabbit hole I need to not go down. And what if Harper and my gut feeling are right? If Simon didn’t kill himself last June, how did he
die? More importantly, who killed him?

  “I get what you’re saying, Harp. It’s just that making friends, like at school, and not telling them everything about me…” I glance away from her, a clue to let her know I’m being honest. “It feels like another con, you know?”

  “It doesn’t have to,” she argues. “You don’t have to be defined by our parents and what they’ve done. You’re allowed to be you. Whatever or whoever that is from this point on.”

  The front door opens and I pull myself off the bed, more than ready for doughnuts and an escape.

  “Ellie,” Harp says. Waiting.

  I sigh before turning to face my sister. “That’s the thing…I am defined by them.”

  More accurately, I’m defined by me. Because it’s not just my parents. It’s me. I’ve done things. Very wrong things, and I can’t say that I didn’t know what I was doing because I did. I still know. Without putting that on the table, I’m not really being me, am I?

  CHAPTER 3

  “Is the bus always this late?” Miles leans past me, peering around the corner. “My schedule says six fifty-eight.”

  “I think you’ve just brought up an important philosophical question.” I glance at my cell phone. “Does the term ‘late’ apply when the time reaches six fifty-nine or when it reaches six fifty-eight and one second? Because by my calculations, it’s six fifty-eight and twenty-two seconds…twenty-three…”

  “Right. I get it,” he grumbles, still looking around the corner for the yellow school bus. “Punctuality equals not cool.”

  I give him a look. “Even the word ‘punctuality’ equals not cool.”

  If I thought our last exchange weirded me out, that is no comparison to this conversation. Miles reeked of cool, smooth guy Saturday morning when he was planting his feet beside me, showing off his abs and Spider-Man-climbing my balcony. Now he’s too early, too pressed, too tucked in, and way too combed. He’s wearing the same white school polo and khakis as I am, but the perfect creases down the legs of his pants, the shiny black dress shoes, make his outfit completely different from mine.

  All weekend long, I haven’t seen one person besides Miles emerge from the apartment next door. But maybe his mom is in there ironing her life away so he can look like a can of spray starch attacked him on his first day at a new school.

  “Right,” Miles says again, this time without sarcasm. Like he’s taking notes. The bus comes thundering around the corner and screeches to a halt in front of us—at sixty fifty-eight and fifty-seven seconds—and Miles gives me a polite smile. “Thank you for reminding me to trust the system.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I laugh. “You won’t ever get that reminder from me.”

  I hop on the bus before him and slip into the last seat on the driver side. Miles takes his time walking down the empty aisles—we’re the first stop—until he finally decides to sit beside me. I lean back and look at him. “Seriously? Dude, there’s, like, every other seat to choose from.”

  He shoves his backpack—navy blue, of course—between his feet and pulls a folded paper from his pocket. “Yeah, but isn’t it bad for my rep to sit alone?”

  “No.” I keep my voice flat. “It’s bad for your rep to have topless girls run out of your apartment.”

  Where was his ironing mother when that was going down? At the store buying spray starch?

  “I see.” He looks at me, his brown eyes all wide and innocent. “Guess that dirty-laundry thing wasn’t so true?”

  That’s right, I had said yesterday that I wasn’t one to judge people by their dirty laundry. Is that his angle this morning? Going from dirty boy to squeaky-clean just in case? Okay, I’m sort of impressed if that’s true. Well done, Miles Beckett. I shake my head and hold out a hand. “Let me see your schedule.”

  He hesitates and then finally hands over the now unfolded sheet of paper on his lap. “You think it’s a good idea for me to go out for the football team?”

  “When?” I ask, quickly reading over his schedule. AP calc and he’s a junior. Impressive. “Next year? Because they started practice in, like, July or something. Where were you last week, anyway?”

  Kinda weird to miss the first week of school.

  “Uh,” he says. “Summer camp?”

  Why is he asking me? “What kind of camp?”

  He shrugs. “Oh, you know, the regular kind.”

  “Miles Beckett, calculus extraordinaire. Where are you from?”

  “Where am I from?” he repeats. A clear effort to stall. “Well, it’s a small town…”

  “In Transylvania?” I suggest because seriously? What’s the big deal, saying where you’re from? That’s never the information I’m reluctant to share, and I’m a professional secret keeper.

  “California, actually. A small town outside San Jose.” He leans closer, pretending to study the schedule, but surely an AP calc student would already have it memorized.

  “A West Coast guy,” I say as the bus jerks to a stop, sending both of us forward, foreheads slamming the seat back in front of us. “Should be an interesting transition for you. Just don’t say anything about Stanford or the cost of living in California. D.C. people are very proud of their outrageously expensive homes.”

  He nods, and I quickly realize he took all that seriously.

  Whatever. I can spot a lie a hundred feet away, and it’s clear he’s lying. But I’m not sure exactly what part of his story is false—being from California, summer camp, his brand-new starched-up look.

  Two sophomore girls get on the bus. I know of them because they are the notorious, popular volleyball-player type. They both eye Miles, and he surprises me yet again by leaping up from his seat and sticking out a hand to the redhead who stands in front of her friend. “Hi, I’m Miles. Resident new guy.”

  The girl stares at his hand, and I’m sure she’s about to laugh in his face, but then her gaze roams up, taking in all of Miles, and she quirks an eyebrow. Instead of laughing, she looks over her shoulder at her friend and clearly mouths, Hotty, then turns to him and shakes hands. “I’m Gabby. And this is Laura.”

  “What year are you, Miles?” Laura asks.

  “Junior,” he says right away. “I’m seventeen.”

  Now that came out much easier than the rest of his story. The girls both look at each other again and giggle. Then Gabby glances my way and says, “Hey, Ellie, how’s it going?”

  I’m a little taken aback, but then I realize she’s done this before. And I’ve given her a polite nod and nothing more. Maybe Harper is right. Maybe I do need to up my effort with the kids at school. “Hey, Gabby.”

  The bus is back to full speed, so Miles returns to his seat. He looks at me as if to say, How am I doing so far? When I don’t honor him with a response, he eventually asks why there aren’t many kids on the bus.

  “Holden Prep costs thirty thousand dollars a year. How many families, paying that much for school, do you think would put their kids on a yellow bus?”

  He angles himself to face me. “Probably only the ones not paying thirty thousand a year.”

  Aidan had to pull a ton of strings to get me financial aid at Holden. He insisted I go to the best school nearby and also that private schools tended to be more lenient on proper documentation. But the waiting list is long and kids start the application process for East Coast prep schools before middle school. Which makes me wonder about my neighbor beside me… Was he on that waiting list?

  “Exactly.” I nod. “Practically everyone in school has a giant house and a personal driver.”

  When I started last spring, everyone assumed I had transferred from another fancy prep school. Apparently that can make it easier to get into a school so late in the game. If one top school accepted you then you must be worthy of their school… That’s the mindset, anyway.

  “Except us, apparently,” Miles says.

  I’m not sure how much I like being lumped in with him. Not after that comment about my freestyle. “Apparently you weren’t stud
ious enough to do your homework on Holden before today. If you had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Believe me, I’m all about homework.”

  I laugh. “Well, you’ll fit right in.”

  “Right. Because Holden sends fifteen percent of its graduates to Ivy League schools every year,” he says.

  “Two gold stars for you.” I give his shoulder a pat. “You memorized the big flashing words from the front page of the school website.”

  “I also know the senator from California’s son went to Holden,” Miles adds, and a chill immediately runs through my body. “The kid who killed himself last June? It was all over the news back home.”

  It was all over the news here, too. It’s not like I hadn’t expected him to know about Simon. But the way he says it, like a challenge, like he’s asking me personally what I know, it hits a nerve. “Yeah, well, everyone around here is a little bored with that story.”

  I unzip my bag and busy myself with my U.S. history book. But I don’t miss Miles stiffen beside me. His expression hard. Almost like it was on Saturday when I made the dirty-laundry comment. Like I’ve offended him, which doesn’t make any sense, considering I’m the one who knew Simon. I’m the one who’s been around for three months dealing with all the questions.

  I’m the one who saw him last.

  Miles Beckett has no right to come in here and bring the Simon Gilbert gossip mill back to life just because he heard about it on the news. Just because he’s from California—if that’s even true. Simon lived here.

  The brakes squeal, and we jerk to a stop. I look out the window and see one of my awesome classmates, Bret Thomas, in a brand-new red Mustang, turning into the parking lot right in front of us. Across the aisle, out the opposite windows, I get a perfect view of a red car taking a sharp turn. I gasp out loud, and several others on the bus do the same. Bret’s car stops a few inches from a girl. She spins around, her eyes wide. Bret lays on the horn until the girl, who stood frozen for several seconds, finally shuffles out of the way.

  I clutch my chest with one hand at the same time Miles mutters, “Jesus Christ.”