by Tess Sharpe
We both know the answer, but I can’t bring myself to say it. “I wanted to tell you about me,” I say instead. “But I couldn’t without telling you about her. I’m wrapped up in her, Trev. I never learned how to love anyone else because she was there and we were us. We were always just us, and I couldn’t break that without breaking me. Without breaking her.”
“She wanted to hide,” he says. “And you went along with it, because you always did.”
“She was scared,” I say, as if I need to defend her.
But I know I don’t, not to him. He’s telling the truth, too. Mina led, and I followed. She hid, and I was her shelter. She kept secrets, and I guarded them. Mina lied, and so did I. Sometimes we were downright ruthless to each other. For once, it isn’t some cotton-candy idea of her; it’s who she was, in all her maddening, heart-squeezing truth.
“What about you?” Trev asks abruptly. “Were you scared?”
“Loving her was never scary. It was never wrong. It was where I fit. But I wasn’t raised the way you two were, and she thought I had a choice. Because I didn’t like only girls. Because I had…” I can’t finish that sentence.
But he does it for me. “Because you had me.”
I nod, the only thing I can manage.
And he’s right—I had. Trev’s been waiting for me all this time. Between boyfriends, breakups, fights, and more than two years of an addiction I managed to hide until it ate me up, he’s been there, waiting. I know exactly what that kind of love requires.
Because I’d been waiting, too.
Just not for him.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, press my forehead against his temple.
His hands cup the back of my neck; our foreheads slide together, noses brush. I know he won’t kiss me, know he’ll never make a move again. This is up to me and me alone.
I know I can’t kiss him, know I have to draw the line here and now, because I can never love him like I loved her, and he deserves that. Deserves better than me and the empty imitation I can offer.
So I swallow back the tears and the words in my throat, the ones I can’t say, that I wish I could.
If it hadn’t been her, it would have been you.
52
TEN MONTHS AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)
I can’t stop crying as I slip through the back door of the Bishop house. “Mina? Mina, are you here?”
When she doesn’t answer, I open her bedroom door without knocking. She’s sitting on her canopied bed, legs crossed.
She doesn’t ask me what’s wrong.
She’s been waiting for me.
We stare at each other, silent, and I suddenly understand why she looks so guilty. Why she has to force herself to meet my gaze.
She knows.
She’s the one who told my parents where to find the drugs. And the prescription triplicates I’d stolen from Dad’s office.
The betrayal swamps me. I want to punch her. Grab a handful of her hair and pull until it rips out in my hand. Punish her the way she’s been punishing me all along. Is this her new solution—get me sent away so I won’t be a temptation?
“I had to tell them, Sophie,” she says.
“No.”
“I had to.” She gets up from the bed when I start to back away from her. “You don’t listen to me. You won’t talk to me. You need help.”
“I can’t believe you did this!” I’m almost out of her bedroom, horror coursing through me.
“I had to!” She chases after me and yanks me back into her room, slamming the door behind me, locking us in.
My balance, always precarious, is thrown off and I stumble, knocking into her.
“You told me you were getting off those pills,” Mina hisses, all hints of apology or guilt erased now. Her fingers bite into my arm, and I squeeze her wrist tight where I’m holding on to her, because this is what we’re good at: hurting each other.
“I lied,” I say. I drawl it out right in her face.
She goes white, letting go of me so fast, I’m reeling. “How could you do this?” she demands. “Stealing from your dad? That’s not you. You could have killed yourself, taking so many pills!”
“Maybe that’s what I wanted.”
Mina makes a sound, inarticulate and feral. Then she pushes me.
She puts her weight into it, pushes me like she would a steady person. No more careful touches, no arm looped through mine. Now is the time to make me fall, twist me up, ruin me for good.
I topple, but I bring her down with me, reaching out at the last second and dragging her to the carpet. My hands are in her hair, and I pull. Her nails dig into my shoulder.
“Don’t you dare say that,” she gasps. “Take it back.”
“No.” I buck beneath her; she’s half sprawled on top of me. I can’t breathe around the feeling. Her hands press down on my shoulders, pinning me to the floor. My back aches, my leg twisted at a bad angle, but her eyes burn into mine. She won’t look away now. I can’t, because I’ve never seen her this way before, like this is the most dangerous thing she’s ever done. She leans down, so close I can feel her breath against my skin. Her hair spills across my shoulder, brushing my neck.
“Take it back,” she says again.
I lick my lips and shake my head. My final dare.
Mina breaks, and the space between us is finally gone.
She kisses me, and even now I’m amazed that it’s her instead of me who concedes.
“Take it back,” she whispers into my mouth, and my breath hitches, my body hitches, rises up to meet hers when her palms slip underneath my shirt, touching the fragile skin around my belly button.
I trail my hands down the sides of her face, kiss her hard, tongue and teeth. This has never been soft or sweet; we’ve always been more than that, sharpened by time and want, our secret war finally won.
I start to say please, but I really want to say her name, pressed against her lips, mouthed along her collarbone, so I do, murmuring it like a mantra, like a thank-you, like a blessing.
Her hand pushes farther up my shirt. She brushes her knuckles against me, underneath my bra, and I let my body arch into her.
We take forever, kissing for minutes at a time, clothing shed piece by piece, until finally her fingers slip into my underwear and I moan against her neck, jerk beneath her hand as the feeling flutters through me, as her fingers circle and seek and I can’t breathe through it, I can’t breathe at all as I tense and shake and pulse around her.
After, when it’s her turn, when she trembles below me, soft, slick skin and warm hands, her breasts pressed against mine, my mouth, trailing down, down, down, salt and silk and her whispering my name, I’m awestruck.
I want to remember everything because it’s the first time.
Later, I’ll remember everything because it’s the only time.
53
NOW (JUNE)
By the time Trev leaves, I feel wrung out. I walk out to my garden but end up lying down in the grass between the two beds, following the sun’s progress as it fades behind the Trinities.
I’m almost dozing when someone bangs on the back gate. My eyes snap open and I struggle to my elbows as Rachel calls, “Sophie, are you here?”
“Hey, coming.” I get to my feet slowly, my back hurting from lying on the ground for so long.
When I finally get the gate unlocked, I pull it back to find Rachel clutching a plastic baggie to her chest. There are smears of dust across her forehead and arms and a scratch on her leg. She charges forward, waving the bag. “I found them!” she says. “It took forever. Kyle had to ditch me for work around two, but I kept at it. Mina hid them in a big box of Barbies stashed in a mountain of junk. I nearly got buried underneath an avalanche of Christmas crap.”
“She hid them in a box of Barbies?”
>
“Actually, she hid them in Barbie’s car, folded in the little trunk. Mina was tricky. I almost didn’t check there.”
My hands shake as I take the clear plastic baggie from her. Inside, two pieces of white printer paper are folded, so I can’t make the text out. “Did you read them?” I ask. “Touch them? What about fingerprints?”
“Way ahead of you.” Rachel digs in her bag, coming up with a pair of pink dishwashing gloves with daisies on the cuffs. “I used these. I doubt there’s anyone’s fingerprints but Mina’s, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”
It takes me a couple of tries to get the gloves on my trembling hands. “Did you show Trev?”
“He still wasn’t back when I found them. I brought them right over.”
“Seriously? He dropped me off, like, an hour ago.”
Rachel shrugs. “He wasn’t there. Maybe he got home right after I left.”
“Probably,” I say as I open the baggie and pull out the first note, folded in quarters. I unfold it square by square, until the black ink, his words of warning, appears:
SNOOP ANY MORE AND YOU’LL GO MISSING TOO.
I read the words over and over, and press my thumb hard into the bottom of the paper—so hard it crumples.
I want to rip it apart.
I want to rip him apart.
I take deep breaths, in and out, in and out, before reaching for the second note. I unfold and smooth it flat next to the first:
FINAL WARNING. IF YOU DON’T WANT ANYONE HURT YOU’LL LEAVE IT ALONE.
I frown when I see four addresses typed below the killer’s threat: Trev’s apartment in Chico, the Bishop house on Sacramento, Kyle’s house on Girvan Street—and my address, the only one that’s circled over and over in red.
The paper crumples in my hand; I can’t seem to unclench my fist. My fingers are sweating in their pink rubber prison, and my heart beats fast. I turn to look over my shoulder. Dad’s in the kitchen, doing the dishes; I can see the top of his head through the little window above the sink. I can’t help but think about it for a second, about him or Mom having to open the door to the police for the third time.
For the last time.
I don’t want that for them. I’ve put them through as much hell as they’ve heaped on me. Probably more.
But it can’t matter. I can’t let it matter. What matters is finding Mina’s killer.
“Hey, wanna unclench there?” Rachel asks. She shoots a look at the balled-up note in my hand until I relax my fingers. “That’s evidence! Anyway, there’s one more thing.” Rachel gestures at the baggie. I reach inside it and pull out a business card.
MARGARET CHASE
WOMEN’S HEALTH
(531) 555-3421
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” I say. “Did you call it?”
“I was waiting for you,” Rachel says. “But you know, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to make the logical assumption here. You know why girls go to Women’s Health.”
I key the number into my phone. My mind’s racing as it rings and rings. Finally, it clicks over to voice mail. “You’ve reached Margaret Chase, adoption coordinator for Women’s Health. I’m on vacation and will be back at my desk on July eighth. If you leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you when I return. Thanks, and have a great day.”
I hang up, staring down at the phone, my suspicion confirmed.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” Rachel asks. “Jackie was pregnant.”
“Margaret Chase is an adoption counselor,” I say. “And in Mina’s interview with Matt, she asked about his and Jackie’s sex life. He got all offended.”
“Okay…” Rachel says, sitting down on the edge of one of the raised beds, gesturing for me to join her. I take the bed across from her, sitting on the ground with my back against the wood for support instead of trying to balance. “Let’s think about this. Say Jackie gets pregnant.…”
“And she wants to give the baby up for adoption,” I continue, looking down at Margaret Chase’s card. “She’s got college. She couldn’t play soccer with a baby. So, she tells Matt—and what then?”
“A few possibilities,” Rachel says. “Matt could have wanted her to get an abortion. She refuses, so he kills her. Though that seems kind of extreme, especially if she was gonna give the baby up. But a seventeen-year-old with a burgeoning drug problem probably doesn’t want a baby around. And he’s probably not making the most rational decisions.”
“What if he did want the baby, though?” I look down at the two notes sitting in the baggie in front of me. At the way the most important people in Mina’s life are there in black and white, a threat to the heart of her. The only kind that would’ve gotten her to really back off. “Family’s important. And Matt’s dad walked out on him and Adam. Maybe he freaked at the idea of giving the baby to strangers. Killing Jackie might not have been planned. It could’ve been an accident. They could’ve fought about the baby and things got out of hand. He pushed her and she hit her head or something like that.”
“Is he an angry guy? What was he like today when you talked to him?” Rachel asks.
“He seemed…tired,” I say. “Sad. He said that he believes Jackie’s still alive.”
Rachel raises an eyebrow.
“I wish I’d known all this stuff before I talked to him.” I look down at my phone. It’s almost six thirty.
I think about Matt in his apartment this morning, holding on to the six-month chip like it was a lifeline. David had given me a schedule of Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and I’d reluctantly keyed them into my phone’s calendar. I pull it up. The Wednesday meeting is at the Methodist church—it’ll be ending soon. I bet anything he’s there right now. Even if he’s using again, he might go just to keep up appearances.
“Hey,” I say to Rachel. “Want to take a drive?”
The meeting is letting out when Rachel and I pull into the church parking lot. People walk down the steps, mingling at the bottom, a few pulling out cigarettes as they chat.
“Stay close, okay?” I ask her. I’ll need some backup in case it gets ugly.
“Stick around where I can see you,” Rachel counters.
“Deal. Be right back.”
“Remember: subtlety!” she calls after me.
There’s a tall man with his back to me talking to Matt as I approach. When I get to the steps, I realize it’s his uncle. I remember what Adam had said, about family having to make sure Matt went to meetings. I can’t imagine it, sharing like that, and letting your family listen.
“Sophie.” Coach smiles at me. “Your dad is so happy to have you back. How are you feeling?”
“Hi, Coach, Matt.” I look up at the church. “I’m doing good. Feeling kind of stupid right now—I must’ve misread the meeting time. I thought it said seven.”
“No, it starts at six,” Matt says.
Coach’s cell phone rings. “I’ve got to get that,” he says, squeezing Matt’s shoulder. “Good job today,” he says in an undertone. “Sophie, it was great seeing you. Tell your dad I’ll get back to him about the game next Thursday.”
“I will,” I say as he steps away toward the parking lot to take his call.
Matt smiles down at me. “I’m sorry you missed the meeting, but there’s another one tomorrow at the Elks Lodge.”
If I were Mina, I’d smile back and twirl my hair. I’d ask innocuous questions, make him feel comfortable, lull him into my net.
But my edges are too sharp. I want this done.
“I’m actually not here for a meeting. I’m here to ask you if you got Jackie pregnant.”
Matt’s smile vanishes, along with most of the color in his face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Look, I could be all nice like earlier, dodging around the questions, but you’re
a tweeker. Lying is what you do. So—you…Jackie. Did you get her pregnant?”
I stare hard at his face, trying to see the answer in it because I know his words won’t tell me. But there’s only fury pulsing off him. He looks over his shoulder, where his uncle is standing just out of hearing distance.
“You need to get the hell out of here.” He steps toward me when he says it, and I hear a car horn blast from the parking lot—Rachel letting me know she has my back.
“Was Detective James right?” I ask, never taking my eyes away from him. He won’t meet them, and his shoulders shake underneath the baggy polo he’s wearing. “Did you do it? Did you take her? Kill her? Was the baby why?”
“You are so out of line,” he says. “Get out of here.”
“Or what?” I ask. “Are you going to hit me in the head with a piece of rebar again? Try to finish me off this time?”
He backs hastily away from me, all the fight suddenly gone. “You’re a crazy bitch,” he says. “And you need to leave me the hell alone.”
He stalks down the steps toward Coach Rob, and I stare at his retreating back, at the line of his shoulders, trying, trying to recognize something from that night—something, anything in the way he walks or sounds. Rachel comes running up to me, breathing hard.
“Are you okay? What happened?” she asks.
I keep staring after Matt until he turns the corner. “I wasn’t subtle,” I say.
54
ONE YEAR AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)
“Why are you so late?” Mina demands as I get out of my car. She’s perched in the back of Trev’s truck on a plaid blanket she’s spread carefully over the peeling paint. Her legs swing off the edge of the tailgate, a daisy flip-flop dangling from her foot. In front of us, the lake stretches out for miles, nothing but blue water reflecting sky and mountains. The sun’s starting to fade, and we have at least a half hour before the fireworks begin.
I get the plastic bag I’ve stashed in my backseat. “Fourth of July traffic,” I say. “Is Trev here?”
“No, I borrowed the truck,” Mina says. “What’s in the bag?” She makes a grab for it, and I step back so she can’t get it. She pouts, her strawberry-red lips sticking out. “Mean.”