True: An Elixir Novel

by Hilary Duff

  “That’s the strange thing,” Mom says. It’s late, long after her phone call with Nico’s mother, and she’s wrapped in her robe. She and I both sit on the bed and stare at the TV. I like to keep it on, as long as it’s nothing too dramatic. Even my standby reality TV has had too much emotion lately, so I’ve been watching game shows. The old episodes of Match Game and $25,000 Pyramid are my favorites; lots of sixties and seventies fashions to check out. If I were ever leaving the house, I’d want a pair of Brett Somers’s sunglasses.

  Mom likes to join me here in the evenings. Dad visits too—he brings my dinner up on a tray. He never says much, just pats me on my arm before he leaves the room to go downstairs and eats with Mom, then Mom comes up for dessert. Tonight we’re sharing a plate of brownies and staring at an episode of Family Feud from sometime in the eighties, where Richard Dawson is making out with every woman on the show.

  “What’s the strange thing?” I ask. I assume it’s some weird kind of custom you do when your family’s part of a bizarro cult and people die a lot.

  “I asked if the funeral would be open casket. I thought you’d want to know if you were going. She said no . . . because they don’t have his body.”

  Something prickles over my skin, and I sit up straighter. “Why not?”

  “She said it wasn’t found.”

  “I don’t understand. How do they know he’s dead?”

  “Believe me, I asked. She said they spoke to enough people who were there when it happened—whatever exactly happened—and they know.” Mom reaches over and strokes my hair back from my forehead. “So what I’m saying, baby, is that if you do want to go, you won’t have to see anything you don’t want to see.”

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I still don’t want to go.”

  I’m speaking, but my nerves are on fire and my mind is a million miles away.

  There is no body.

  Does that mean Nico could be alive?

  His family doesn’t think so, but with everyone dying so young, his family must be all kinds of messed up, right? Nico expected to die by the time he was thirty; they must have thought so too. They were probably waiting for a call that he was dead. Hell, Nico probably could have called himself and said he’d died and they would have believed him.

  He might still be alive. He might.

  “Rayna? Did you hear me?”

  Oops. Mom said something.

  “Sorry. Zoned out for a second.”

  “Rayna.” Mom looks deep into my eyes, as if trying to read my thoughts. She does a pretty great job of it too. “His mother did talk to people who were there. She didn’t go into detail, but she made it very clear that he’s really gone.”

  “I understand,” I say, by which I mean that I understand his mother thinks he’s really gone, but she’s almost 100 percent certainly wrong. I try to keep my thoughts a secret, but I suck at that kind of thing, and it doesn’t help that I suddenly can’t sit still. I jounce my knees up and down and drum my fingers on the mattress. Mom looks sad, and I know she doesn’t want to see me get my hopes up for nothing, but she doesn’t know the whole story, and there’s no way I can explain it.

  I jump out of bed and get into Mountain Pose, then do some Breath of Fire to let out the energy swirling through my body. Thirty seconds of superfast, super-deep inhalations, in through the nose and out through the mouth, fully inflating and deflating my abdomen each time. From there I take a long, deep cleansing breath to get me centered and focused.

  It works. I know exactly what I have to do. I sniff at my T-shirt and decide it’s decent enough, then go to my closet and pull on a hoodie.

  “I have to go see Clea,” I tell Mom, and I’m halfway out the door when she stops me.

  “Wait, baby,” she says. “There’s one more thing.”

  “Now?” I whine like an impatient child and bounce on my toes.

  “I found something today. In the stables. You know the little desk we have in there? It was tucked in the back of the drawer. I imagine he wanted to surprise you there.”

  I immediately stop bouncing. “Surprise me with what?”

  “I almost didn’t show you,” Mom admits. “I don’t want anything to make it worse. But it’s for you, so it’s your right to have it.”

  She reaches into her robe pocket and pulls out a small box wrapped in plain white paper. Scrawled on top of the box in Nico’s handwriting is my name and a message. To Rayna, it says, One Day . . . Looking at his loopy print makes my heart hurt with anticipation. He’s alive. I’ll see him again. I’m sure of it, and whatever’s in this box is just something to tide me over until it happens. I tear off the wrapper to find a completely nondescript cardboard box, the kind you’d buy at Office Depot.

  I take off the top, and my heart stops.

  A ring. Is it his grandmother’s wedding ring? But before he left he said he didn’t have it yet, that his mom was going to send it.

  I spill the ring into my palm. This is no wedding ring, and it did not belong to a woman. It’s huge—a thick gold band with a raised engraving of three swirls, each growing out of the same central spot. The swirls are surrounded by a thick outer circle in gold.

  One Day, the box said. It sounds like a message for a promise ring—exactly the kind of thing he wanted to give me. I try to slip the ring onto my thumb, but even that’s too thin by half to fit the wide circle. Did he maybe think this was the ring he wanted, and only later realize it would be enormous on me? It is the sort of ridiculously cute thing he’d do, but come on, did he honestly think my fingers were anywhere near this thick?

  Mom’s apparently thinking the same thing.

  “Maybe he meant it to be a necklace,” she says. “Or a paperweight.”

  Paperweight probably not so much, but I head to my wall, where a series of hooks poke out from among the collage of random keepsakes, each one dripping with a tangle of necklaces and bracelets. I detach an empty gold chain from one of the hooks and string it through the ring, which drops like a lead weight.

  My new necklace might be heavy, but I’ve never felt lighter. I bounce to the side of the bed, hand the chain to Mom, and spin around, lifting my hair so she can clasp it around my neck.

  “You sure you don’t want to use it as a paperweight?” she asks as the ring thumps against my chest. “You’ll get backaches wearing this around. It’s enormous.”

  I drop the ring under my T-shirt so I can feel it against my heart. Or maybe not—I think your heart is on the left side, and the ring falls pretty squarely in upper-cleavage land, but it’s way more romantic to imagine it against my heart, so I’m going with that. It is heavy, but I’m only wearing it until Nico and I are back together again. Then he can wear it, and I’ll wear his grandmother’s ring when his mom sends it. Hopefully she won’t do anything crazy like get rid of that ring now that she thinks he’s gone, or bury it in his honor or something. No worries—if she does, we’ll get another made instead. One just like the behemoth around my neck, but small and delicate.

  I spin back around to face Mom. “Thank you,” I say, and kiss her on the cheek. “I’ll be back. I’m going to go see Clea.”

  I run downstairs and stop by the selection of keys hanging on small hooks by the front door. Mom is the key master—she has copies of keys to everything on the property, from the stables, to the cars, to the ancient wood box full of tennis equipment. She used to keep them all in a lockbox . . . until she lost the key to it. Now they’re out in the open, but there are so many, and they’re labeled in such a random way, that even if a thief did manage to get past the outer gates and alarm system and into our house, he’d never know what to do with them.

  I don’t have that issue; I know most of the keys by sight. I grab the one to Clea’s place, then sprint across to her front door. As I use the key to let myself in and climb the steps to Clea’s room, I think about how Clea told me the news about Nico. She never said she saw a body. What did she see to make her believe Nico was dead? She must believe it—t
here’s no way she’d tell me Nico was gone if she didn’t think it was true. No matter how mad at her I’ve been, I know she wouldn’t do that to me. I need to know everything she saw. Then we can figure out what really happened, where Nico is right now, and why he hasn’t come back for me, which he would unless he was hurt . . . or had amnesia.

  I’m going with amnesia. It’s so romance novel. He has amnesia, and he’s wandering the streets somewhere . . . or maybe he’s hurt and has amnesia, and he’s in a hospital somewhere thinking he’s someone else entirely, but I’ll find him, and my mere presence will bring back his memories little by little. . . .

  Yes. That’s how it’s going to happen. I’ll find him. Clea will help me. I was awful to her, but I was so hurt. She’ll understand, and we’ll work together to track down Nico. Sage can help too. And Ben. Hell, we can even bring Suzanne, so Ben has someone. It’ll be an adventure, and it’ll end like a romantic comedy, with all of us paired off with the perfect person for each of us.

  Clea’s bedroom door is wide open, so I run inside . . . but I can’t make sense of what I see. Even when it comes together, it doesn’t click. I only know there’s molten lava filling my stomach and I want to be sick.

  It’s Clea, and she’s wrapped in someone’s arms, and they’re kissing like they can’t get enough of each other. . . .

  But the man she’s kissing isn’t Sage.

  “NICO?”

  The two of them spring apart and turn to face me. They’re bookends of shock.

  “Oh no,” Clea says. She jumps between Nico and me as if she could hide him with her body. “Rayna, it’s not what you think.”

  “Really? What are you doing? You told me he was dead!”

  “I know I did, and I wasn’t lying—”

  “He’s right in front of me, Clea!”

  She’s still standing in front of him, like she’s guarding him. Clea’s the one who needs guarding. I’m pacing in front of her like a pitbull waiting for the right moment to spring, and I’m ready to draw blood.

  “I knew he was alive. That’s why I came over. I knew it! But stupid me, I thought you didn’t know. I thought you made a mistake and you’d be so happy to help me find him once you knew he was alive because you’re my best . . . freaking . . . friend! What are you doing, Clea?”

  I attack her as I scream. I grab her arms and shake her, digging my nails into her flesh. It feels good, but it’s not enough until I swing back and land the perfect slap right across her face.

  “Stop it!” Nico cries.

  “Oh, you’re going to take her side? I hate you! I’ve been a mess for days! I haven’t left my bed! What kind of crazy assholes come up with death to cover up cheating? Your mother is having a funeral for you!”

  “My mother? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You told me you loved me! I’m wearing your stupid-ass ring.” I tug it toward him, brandishing it in front of me. “ ‘One Day,’ you said. Were you two already together? Or is that what it meant, ‘One day I’ll be screwing your best friend’?”

  Nico just stands there, his arms crossed, his face cold and stormy. I can’t believe it. It’s like he doesn’t even care I’m here.

  “You’re out of control,” he says matter-of-factly.

  “I’m out of control? You said you wanted to marry me!” I lunge for him, but Clea jumps in front of me, pushing me back.

  “Stop!” she says. “You don’t understand!”

  “Get off me!” Clea has her hands on my shoulders, so I reach out and grab a fistful of her blond hair. I tug until a clump rips free in my hands, and I laugh when Clea screams and drops to the floor.

  “Get away from her!” Nico growls to me.

  “Stop defending her!”

  Without Clea in my way, I storm to Nico and beat on him again and again and again. I know I’m not hurting him—he’s a tank—but I just want to have some effect on him, make him say or do something, even acknowledge what he did. But all he does is stand there and say in a voice as cold as ice, “Cut it out.”

  “No! I won’t! You lied to me!”

  “Stop it!”

  “No!”

  “I said STOP IT!”

  Searing pain as he catches my fists in his hands and squeezes, hard. My fingernails pierce into my palms and my bones feel like they’re crushed. I look up at Nico, and there’s nothing but blank darkness in his eyes.

  His eyes.

  His brown eyes?

  The pain is unbearable, and I collapse to the ground, but he doesn’t stop squeezing. The world is getting fuzzy, but I see Clea stagger upright and hurl herself at Nico. She grabs his arm and screams, “Sage! Stop it! Let go of her! Sage!”

  Sage . . . Sage is inside Nico’s body. . . . But how . . . ?

  Darkness.

  seven

  CLEA

  “Rayna . . . Rayna?”

  She’s unconscious on the ground, and I can’t believe Sage did this to her. I don’t even know if he believes it, or remembers it, or even knows he did it. He plopped down on the bed when Rayna collapsed, and he’s still there, staring into nothingness.

  “Rayna, please be okay. . . . Rayna?”

  Her eyes flutter open, and she winces. “My hands . . .”

  “Can you move them? Are they broken? Try to open and close your fist.”

  Slowly, she brings her fingers in and out. I can see the bloody crescents where her nails dug into her palm, but the bones aren’t broken.

  “You called him Sage,” she says.

  I nod.

  “How?”

  I start to tell her everything, picking up from when Nico, Ben, and I left her, but she’s distracted. She keeps darting her eyes to Sage, and every time it’s the same: She looks over, lights up with hope for the briefest of seconds despite herself, then remembers all over again that it’s not him and sniffs away the tears. Sage is oblivious. I’m not even sure he’s back to himself. At the risk of setting him off again, I sit next to him on the bed.

  “Sage, maybe now would be a good time to rest.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah, I think it would.”

  He lies across the bed, but I stop him with, “I was thinking maybe in the spare bedroom. Alone.”

  I say it gently, and grit my teeth for the snap, but it doesn’t happen. He just stops himself halfway to the pillow and changes direction, rising to his feet. He bends down to kiss me good night, but I give my head the smallest shake and he backs away with a sheepish half smile. “Good night,” he says. “I’m—I—”

  Is he going to apologize? Does he realize there’s a reason to apologize?

  “Good night,” he says again after a long, deep sigh. He waves as he heads out of the room. Rayna watches him go, her eyes soaking in every movement and gesture.

  “It’s so weird,” she says solemnly. “It’s him, but it’s not him at all. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you found his long-lost twin.”

  “I’m glad you see it too,” I admit. “Sometimes I think I want to see Sage so badly that I worry I’m projecting.”

  “You think you can project a whole new pair of eyes?”

  “You noticed?”

  A cloud drops over Rayna’s face. “Yes, Clea, I noticed that the man I love has completely different-colored eyes from the last time I saw him. Is that so bizarre to you? Do you really think you’re the only person in the world who would notice something like that?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I think you do. I think you believe no one but you and Sage can truly love each other in a life-altering way.”

  “That’s not true.”

  I say it, but in a way she’s right. Not about Sage and me being the only ones to have an all-encompassing love, but maybe about assuming her connection with Nico wasn’t as deep and meaningful as she said it was. I’ve known her since birth. She met her first “love of her life” when she was three years old—a blond boy named Alexander in our class at preschool. Even then she swore it was for
ever, and huffed and tossed her mop of red curls whenever anyone belittled it as “puppy love.” For Rayna, falling in love is like breathing—she can’t live without it.

  Did it seem like she was particularly connected with Nico? Sure. But the two of them had only been together about a month. And yes, a month was a pretty good run for Rayna, but Owen, her junior-year boyfriend, had lasted six months. She was so sure she’d end up with Jackson, her longest-term boyfriend after that, she dragged him to an astrologist to figure out the most auspicious post-high-school wedding date. That was two weeks before she stormed into my room freaking out because Jackson liked to rub his stocking feet together when he studied, and the shush-shush noise was making her rip her hair out and she refused to be bald by eighteen.

  Were Rayna and Nico really soulmates? If he’d lived, would they have stayed together forever?

  I don’t know. And the truth is, it doesn’t matter. Rayna believes it, and if I’m really her friend, that should be all I need.

  “Life isn’t all about Clea Raymond,” she mutters. “The rest of us aren’t extras here to fill in your life story.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “You didn’t have to. It’s how you live.”

  “It’s not! Rayna, it killed me when you wouldn’t talk to me, and not just because of the massive lie it left between us. That was awful, but worse was you not being in my life. We say the men we love are our soulmates, and maybe they are, but if anyone in this world is part of my soul, it’s you. You’re more than my best friend. You’re my sister. You’re more than my sister, even. You’re a part of me, and I’m so sorry if I’ve ever made you think you’re anything less.”

  Rayna doesn’t say anything to me for a while, but then she smiles.

  “That was good,” she says. “Where’d you read that?”

  “Shut. Up.”