“We can help each other, you know,” I said.
“How?” Shannon asked.
“The cops. They still have lots of questions. I could maybe go to the station with you to tell them everything.”
“The part where everything is my fault, you mean?” Shannon dipped her face into her knees. “If I hadn’t given him that stupid bracelet, he’d be alive right now, Maggie.”
“Shannon,” I said, “I’ve been blaming myself in one way or another since the day he died. But the thing is, while we all played a part in what happened, it was an accident.”
Shannon looked up at me, tears streaking her face. “Yeah,” she said. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Does that mean you’ll go talk to the detectives with me?”
I stood then, holding my hand out for Shannon to grab. She looked at me, her cheeks glistening with fresh tears, and grabbed on tight, letting me pull her up.
“Here,” I said, shoving my hand into the pocket of my shorts and pulling Joey’s bracelet out into the rays of sunlight streaming through Shannon’s bedroom windows. The light winked off the smooth surface of the glass beads, splashing brilliant blue puddles into the space between us. “This is yours.”
“Maggie, I—”
“Shannon. I don’t want it.”
Shannon didn’t say another word as she tugged the leather strap from my fingers and turned, walking to her dresser, arm outstretched toward the velvet-lined box that had housed those turquoise beads for so many years. When she pulled the top off, I saw it buried snuggly within. The picture that had been taken the previous summer at Gertie’s Dairy Farm. The one where all of us had gathered around Joey, arms raised in celebration after he conquered the Ten-Dipper Challenge, mouths spread in wide, carefree smiles. I realized as I stood there in the middle of Shannon’s sunny bedroom that Joey had positioned himself right where he thought he belonged—in the very center of all of our lives.
24
Back to the Beginning
“I like this hiding spot so much better than the other one,” I said as I stepped from the trail, walking to the rock where Adam was standing and looking down at the water. I kicked my shoes off and sat back on the cool rock beneath us, listening to the trickle of the creek as the sun slowly dipped behind the thick of trees just off to our west.
Adam sat next to me, the movement stirring the air enough that I smelled him—the soapy, sweaty, summery scent making my vision swim. Adam tilted his head toward me, his face glowing in the sugary pink tint of the sky.
“I figured you’d never speak to me again,” Adam said. “After the cliff top last weekend.”
“You’re lucky,” I said.
“I know I am.”
We were silent for a while, the good kind of silent you can only have with a close friend. I sat there next to him, breathing in the scent of the summer, listening to the call of the crickets, a lazy breeze blowing through my hair.
“You ready to tell me what happened at Shannon’s house on the Fourth of July?” Adam asked, breaking the stillness that had settled around us.
I shrugged. “You were there.”
“I’m not talking about the stuff I could see. You went into that strange daze again, just like the day of Joey’s accident. Totally freaked me out. I’d appreciate it if you’d stop doing that.” He poked me in the side with his elbow.
“Yeah. I’ll try.” I shoved my hand into the pocket of my shorts, strangely missing the feel of those three slippery beads.
“You remembered, didn’t you?”
I nodded. And then I told Adam everything. He was silent as my words twined around us, soft and bruised, fading into the now velvety blue sky.
“There were so many clues, Adam. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” I turned toward him as his arm wrapped around my side, pressed my face into his neck, feeling the steady throb of his pulse against my whispering lips. “I was so stupid.”
“No, Mags. Our lives, our stuff, it’s all mixed together. Seeing Shannon’s things in his truck or his things in her room shouldn’t have made you suspect a thing. With the six of us, that’s just how it goes.” He held me then. Let me cry. When I stopped, he sighed, but he didn’t say one word.
“I just want to find an end,” I said. “I want to reach the point where I know everything and can be okay with it all.”
“You want me to tell you what I know?” Adam asked.
I didn’t. Oh, God, I didn’t. But I had to hear it. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“You’re sure?”
I tried not to be angry that he knew all the things I didn’t. That he hadn’t told me. I couldn’t let the emotions get in the way. “I’m sure.”
“Okay.” Adam took a deep breath. “If I do this, I have to do it right,” he said. “Which means we’re going all the way back to the beginning.”
Adam looked right at me, took in a deep breath, and then the words poured from him, trailing into what was left of the dim light. “Remember your first night with Joey?”
“The meteor shower?” I smiled. “Of course I remember. He drove me out into the field outside town, and that’s where everything started.” I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs, looking at a twisted pattern of rocks that was scattered across the trail. My movements felt disconnected from reality. Like this wasn’t really happening, me sitting there, about to learn everything Adam already knew.
“He took that from me, Maggie. All of it. I’d told him that I liked you, that I wanted to ask you out. Told him my exact plan—the meteor shower, the crickets, the music. And he couldn’t handle the thought.”
“You … Wait, that was all you?” I thought of the stars shooting across the sky, how Joey and I had lazed under them for hours, kissing, and touching, and giggling. I’d felt so special, thinking that Joey had wanted to share that magic with me. With just me, and no one else. But now my favorite memory of Joey was tainted. Adam would forever be in that field with us, standing off to the side, and I would never be able to push him away. “You’re the one who told him about the meteor shower?”
“And the donuts. He never would have known what you liked and didn’t like. He didn’t pay enough attention. And he didn’t have the patience to find a field with the least light pollution and best angle of the sky. I’m the one who spent weeks scoping out the best spot in town.” Adam sighed. “I don’t want to hurt you any more, but I have to tell you the whole truth. He challenged me. Said if I didn’t ask you out by the Friday before the meteor shower, he’d do it for me. I had no idea he meant he’d steal the whole plan. And you.”
My hands were shaking. My teeth chattering. My entire body started to shiver.
“When I missed his deadline, I didn’t think anything of his stupid challenge. I figured I still had plenty of time before the meteor shower to work up my courage.”
“But Joey asked me out, instead.” I clasped my hands together to stop the shaking. “I remember it was exactly one week before the meteor shower, because I spent every moment of every day wondering what his surprise could be.”
“That’s about right.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I closed my eyes, not wanting to look into his.
“You were so excited, Maggie. I didn’t want to ruin that. And I figured he’d screw it up in a few months, so I just let it go.”
“But then we kept going, Joey and me.”
“Right. You seemed happy with him. And I knew the way I felt about you didn’t matter anymore. You didn’t feel the same. At least not about me.”
Even with all the ways I’d learned to distrust Joey in the weeks that had passed since his death, even knowing that the last year of our relationship had been filled with secrets, I’d never considered that our very first moment had been a lie as well.
“Joey never gave me the chance to find out how I might feel about you,” I said. “But I don’t get what that stuff from way back in the beginning has to do with anything now.”
“Even back then,” Adam looked down at his hands, “I was trying to protect you from finding out who he really was.”
I couldn’t speak. The emotion riding the wave of his words scared me. Deep-down, can’t-move kind of scared.
“It killed me, watching him with you, knowing that it should have been me. But there was nothing I could do.”
“Until you found out about Joey and Shannon.” The irritation that he’d known so much and never shared it with me rippled through my words. “You could have done something then.”
“Yes. I could have.”
“When did you figure it out?”
“Homecoming.” Adam looked toward the creek. “I didn’t know for sure, but that’s when I started to suspect.”
“The night his grandpa had the stroke?” I was confused, my brain trying to catch up with the information Adam had just given me. “Joey left town to go to the hospital that night, how could—”
“He wasn’t at his grandparents’, Mags.”
Those words hit me hard, and I almost told him to stop. Because I knew from just that one sentence it had been worse than I had ever imagined.
“Where was he?”
“Home.”
“The whole night?”
“I’m not sure. I saw the lights on when I drove past after the dance. Haley and I were on our way to the homecoming after party.”
“I remember the party,” I said. “Tanna tried to get me to go.”
Everything in me flipped over everything else, twisted and writhed. One tangled mess. And then it all tripped over to Shannon. Where had she been? At the dance, with everyone else. She’d tried to get me to go, too. Called and called and called. Then, at about ten, Tanna stopped by before everyone in her group headed to the after party, asking if I wanted to join. She’d told me that Shannon was sick and had gone home.
“Shannon skipped that party,” I said. “And she never misses a party. She was at Joey’s, wasn’t she?”
Adam nodded. “I saw her car parked against the house in the shadows where the driveway curves toward the backyard. I could hardly make it out, but I was sure it was hers.”
“Is that when you called me?”
Adam nodded. “I’d been worried about you all night. When I heard that Joey had gone out of town—before I knew he lied about going out of town—I wanted to leave the dance to get you. But Tanna said I shouldn’t. She said I couldn’t afford to piss Haley off on our first date. Not that it mattered, since we never had a second date, but whatever.”
“Then when you saw Shannon’s car …”
“I didn’t know what to think. I wondered if you were with them. If you’d at least heard from him.”
“But I hadn’t.”
“That’s when I knew something was going on.”
“So what’d you do?” I asked. “Did you call him that night?”
“I did. After I dropped Haley off at the party. And again on my way to your house with the pizza. But he didn’t answer.”
“So you came to my house to cover for him?” I asked, anger blazing through my chest. “To keep me from finding out?”
Adam closed his eyes. “Don’t compare me to him. I did it because I didn’t want you to be hurt. And because I didn’t know exactly what was going on.”
“But you figured it out.” I was quiet. Waiting. “Didn’t you?”
“He didn’t answer any of my calls the next morning, either. So I went to his house and when I confronted him, Joey admitted that she’d spent the night there. That he never went to the hospital.” Adam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “He told me it was one time. That they’d kissed, nothing else. He said she just showed up at his house, drunk and crying about some shit with her parents, and as he was trying to calm her down, it happened. He also said they’d talked, and that it would never happen again.”
I balled my hands into fists, wishing I had something to hit. “Why didn’t you tell me then?” My voice was shaky and taut with anger. “Some stupid guy code?”
Adam looked at me. “It wasn’t like that, Maggie.”
“So what happened next? I know there’s more.”
“I thought that was the end of it.” Adam took a deep breath. “Until the day of your ACT.”
“That day in Bradyville? Joey said he was grounded. That’s why he couldn’t—”
“He was with Shannon.”
“When he was supposed to be picking me up? He left me stranded so he could have a morning playdate with her?” My words echoed through the trees, angry and bursting with pain. I tried to stand up, but Adam stopped me with one hand on my knee.
“He told me she was upset about the kiss, that she felt guilty and wanted to tell you.” Adam squeezed my knee. “I honestly thought it ended the night of homecoming. You have to believe me.”
“Well, we know from those pictures that it was going on pretty steadily for most of the year,” I said.
“The pictures,” Adam said.
“You left them, didn’t you? On my doorstep.”
“Shannon was supposed to tell you after the funeral, but she didn’t. And then you found those text messages. I had to do something. So I went to the Walthers’ saying I needed some CD Joey had borrowed, and I searched his room for evidence. I didn’t think I’d find anything quite so extensive, and I knew it would be hard for you to see the album Shannon made for him, but it was the only thing I could figure out.”
“I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me,” I said.
“I didn’t want to be a part of it, Mags.”
“Adam, you already were.”
“But to be the one to tell you? To be the one to take all of your memories and trash them? I didn’t want you to remember that every time you looked at me.”
I sighed. Gazed into the shadows that had overtaken the ground. “What happened the day of the ACT?”
“You can’t hate me for this, Maggie. I did the best I could.” Adam’s voice shook with each word. “The day of your ACT, Joey was flipping his shit when he called and asked me to pick you up. His voice was all shaky, like he could hardly breathe.”
“Of course he was freaking out. He didn’t want her to tell me anything.”
“Obviously, I told him I thought she was right. That’s when the tension started between Joey and me.”
I looked down then. At the way Adam’s hand on my knee felt so normal that I almost didn’t know it was there. Realized he’d scooted all the way up against me, his chest pressed against my side so hard I could feel his heart beating against my arm. Felt the way my hand itched to tuck his hair away from his face so I could see his eyes without their curtain.
“What’d he say?”
“He said nothing was going on, kept insisting it was just the one kiss the night of homecoming.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I believed him, Maggie.” Adam looked right at me. “Until I saw them together the night of Dutton’s party. Behind the garage. Kissing.”
Adam’s hand squeezed tighter. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. The image of Joey and Shannon making out when I was right there, just around the corner, made me feel like throwing up.
“I confronted them,” Adam said, “and Shannon ran away. That’s when I told Joey he had to tell you. That if he didn’t come clean, I was going to tell you myself.”
“So that’s what the phone call was about? The big argument the night of Dutton’s party?”
“He’d texted me that he needed one more day. So I called him to say that he had until we left the Jumping Hole on Saturday, and not one minute more.”
I buried my face in my hands. “He was pissed?”
“So pissed, Maggie. Like, I’m-going-to-rip-you-into-small-pieces pissed. He didn’t appreciate me telling him what to do. Said I had no right to butt in. That he had it under control.”
“Oh, my God.” The gorge. Adam was going to tell me after the gorge. And the accident, it kept everything buried
deep. I went back to that cliff top. To Joey’s smiling face. I heard his words ringing through my head.
You trust me?
“He didn’t want anyone to tell me,” I said. “He knew it would destroy everything.”
“I told him then that he had to be the one to tell you. I knew you’d hate him, both of them, after everything. But if they came clean on their own, I thought that there might be a better chance of you forgiving them. I didn’t want you to lose everything. I never thought all of this would happen. And when Joey died, I was torn. I thought it might be best if you never learned the truth. Then Shannon, she expected me to keep their secret, to say that Joey had been at my house the night of Dutton’s party…. But I couldn’t. I thought if I told one truth, all the others would just follow, that Shannon would have to tell you.”
“I don’t even know what to say.” My mind was like a thrashing whirlpool, churning each thought into the next before I could process anything.
“He never deserved you, Maggie. It was always supposed to be me.”
I buried my face in my hands, stretching my legs out on the rock, swaying with the breeze. “Adam,” I said, looking at him. “Nothing between us can ever be the—”
“Please don’t say that.” Adam’s eyes were intense, glinting in the moonlight. Staring right into me. Those eyes. They were safe. As safe as Joey was dangerous. Everything about Adam was safe.
Adam tipped his head to the side. “I love you, Maggie. Always have. And I’m not going to apologize for doing what I thought was best for you.” His voice was this raspy whisper that made my breath catch in my throat.
Adam grabbed both of my hands then. Squeezed tight. That’s when everything fell away. It was just us. Sitting there together. The cliff top, the pain, the lies—everything—suddenly seemed a thousand miles behind us.
As Adam and I sat on that patch of cool rock, barely breathing, our hands tucked between our chests, I wanted to kiss him. Wanted him to kiss me.
It was this perfect moment of clarity. And I felt things. Things I’d never felt before. Things that didn’t make sense. Until you flipped them over and they started to make the most sense of all.
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