by Jessie Rosen
“For her—to protect her and help her—and for myself,” Charlie said with a look of deep regret on his face. “We thought it would make everything easier, and that it would keep both of our lives on track. Then, once we lied, we had to keep lying.”
Laura understood that part. Stanley would be fired from the team, which would affect Charlie’s soccer career, but that would also reveal that Charlie lied to protect his coach, which was a criminal offense. Laura knew that from all the research she’d done before blackmailing Andrew.
Andrew. Once the name crossed her mind, Laura became even more fueled to complete what she started with Charlie. Stanley did to Amanda what Andrew did to Laura. The only difference was that Amanda intended to let her villain win with Charlie’s help. They destroyed Sarah’s life to protect that secret, Laura realized. The entire cycle needed to be stopped.
“Thank you so much for telling me all that,” she said to Charlie as she took his hands into her own. “I’m so, so sorry it all happened to you. You’re an incredible guy, and you don’t deserve any of this. I’m going to make sure you never get wrapped up with something like this ever again.”
Laura kissed his hands gently before interlacing his fingers with her own. He took her hands and wrapped them behind his chest so that her face was where it had been before she slipped into the bedroom to start this whole scene. Then Laura picked up right where she left off, kissing him quietly on the neck before running her tongue up and down his ear. Soon she would walk him slowly back to the bedroom. Laura decided that Charlie deserved to have a little fun before his entire world came crashing down. If only he knew who he was actually taking to bed.
Charlie
Charlie had never been anywhere as nice as the restaurant where Laura arranged for them to go, and he was nervous. Not only did the old suit blazer he’d worn to every soccer banquet since freshman year make him feel totally out of place, but he was also pretty sure everyone in the restaurant was staring at them because they were so much younger. He did not understand why they weren’t just staying in the cabin and ordering a pizza. It had literally been painful to drag himself out of the bed where he and Laura had enjoyed what was definitely the best thirty minutes of his entire life. But this was her special tradition, and he didn’t want to disappoint her after everything she’d just done for him.
But on the drive over to Laura’s special spot, Charlie got a text that ruined his mood even more than leaving the bed.
Getting together at Kit’s to be there for each other today. Need you here, even though it’s weird.
He hadn’t told Amanda that he was going away with Laura, and now Charlie felt even guiltier. He didn’t deserve to be on vacation with his new girlfriend having sex and dining at some fancy restaurant. It was wrong, once again.
Charlie replied with a simple “Can’t. Sorry.” He didn’t have the energy to come up with a solid lie right now.
Unfortunately, Laura wasn’t helping. She grabbed his cellphone out of his hand after she saw him nervously scrolling through random texts under the table. She ordered some insane appetizer with squid ink that cost more than any entrée at any restaurant in Englewood, and then she got the waiter to bring them two glasses of champagne, claiming it was their anniversary.
“Your grandmother must have had a lot of money,” he said to Laura as they perused the menu.
“She saved every penny for things like this,” Laura said. “She was a foodie before there were foodies.”
The restaurant sat on a beautiful river with a waterfall cascading over giant rocks, but their table was positioned directly in the middle of the room, so they could barely see it. Charlie hoped the meal would make everything worth it because right now all he wanted to do was leave. The one saving grace was that Laura looked incredible, so he didn’t have to concentrate on the room or anything else.
She wasn’t nervous at all around all these rich people in this formal room. Charlie had spent enough time around Amanda’s family to experience some seriously fancy restaurants, but he still felt awkward. One of the things that he loved about Laura was that she didn’t do awkward. She had been to this restaurant before, but she would have acted just as casual and confident if it was her very first time. She didn’t care that all the other woman were wearing boring dresses with blazers that made them look like they were about to go to a seminar or something. She was wearing a low-cut, red dress with a giant, sparkly pin right at a spot on her chest that made it impossible for Charlie to stop staring.
“It’s from the 70s,” she said when she came out of her Gram’s bedroom dressed for the night. “My Gram was obsessed with the 70s, so I got this dress in honor of our weekend doing all her favorite things.”
That was another incredible thing about Laura—she was always thinking. She always had a plan. She didn’t just slug through life doing what everyone else did or wearing what they wore. She was totally and completely original, and she didn’t care what anyone else thought about that fact. If Charlie had learned one thing from this entire crazy experience with Sarah Castro-Tanner, it was that caring what other people think was dangerous. He did what he’d done to Sarah because he was so scared that she might reveal his secrets, but that was all because he was terrified to shatter the image of his perfect life and perfect future. The truth was that Charlie was far from perfect. And he was growing weaker by the day because of the guilt of all his lies. What if he had told the truth from the beginning? All along he felt like he’d been protecting the more important elements—his future, Amanda’s future, and her family—but they destroyed Sarah’s life in the process and let Coach get away with a serious crime. From now on, he was going to try as hard as he could to be his honest self, always. Now felt like the perfect time to start.
“Can I tell you something?” Charlie said.
“Of course,” Laura responded warmly. “It’s just like I said about everything you told me earlier: it’s more important to me that you’re honest rather than perfect, Charlie.”
“I know. I feel weird saying this, but I’m having a rough time today because it’s Sarah’s—”
“I know,” Laura said, interrupting. “I was thinking about that, too. I actually didn’t want to bring that stuff up about Amanda and all before because I figured it was already a hard day. We can leave if it would make you more comfortable.”
“No, no,” Charlie said. “I’m okay. I just wanted to tell you how I feel. I never used to share my feelings like that—well, only one other time…with that Chelsea girl…you know, the one Sarah made up.”
“What made it okay to talk to Chelsea like this?” Laura asked.
“I don’t know. She was just always honest and real, and she didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought,” Charlie said. Then he looked up at Laura with a smile. “Like you.”
Laura smiled back sweetly, and then raised her champagne glass.
“In that case, I’d like to propose a toast,” she said.
“To what?” Charlie asked.
“To Sarah Castro-Tanner,” she said. “Sarah helped you realize you like girls like Chelsea, and I’m like Chelsea, and now we’re together. So that’s one thing to thank Sarah for.”
“Sure,” Charlie said. “That’s true.” He raised his glass, clinked it against Laura’s, and took a sip. Something about toasting to Sarah actually made him feel better—like he was thinking about her in a positive way on the day she died.
“What else did Sarah help you do?” Laura asked. “We could honor her right now at our super fancy dinner. Every girl appreciates a little attention, even a dead one.”
Laura’s choice of words struck Charlie as odd. She was maybe too comfortable now, but in the spirit of full honesty, he gave it some thought.
“Um, she taught me that it’s okay to be really upset and to tell people about it. To get help.”
“Excellent!” Laura said, and they clinked glasses again. “What else?”
Charlie didn’t have an answer. This was
starting to feel weird, plus he knew that he couldn’t say too much without revealing things that Laura still did not know.
“Um, that’s good,” he said. “I actually feel better now.”
“Come on, Charlie,” Laura teased, “You can do better than that. This girl died today and you were kind of involved, from what little I know. Go there! Say something really nice about her!”
Laura was getting all excited now, which just made Charlie more nervous.
“She was quiet…and smart?” he said.
“Boring!” Laura said, then she slammed her glass down on the table. Her face shifted to a very serious look. “Do you know what I think your problem is, Charlie?”
“What?” he asked. He could feel his face getting hot as his nerves returned.
“I don't think you’re sad about Sarah dying. I don't think you liked Sarah very much at all, and you’re happy she died, but you also feel really guilty about that.”
Charlie didn’t know what to say to Laura. Any response except for “you’re right” would have been a lie, and from the totally crazed look on her face, Laura would know.
“And that’s why you can’t get over any of this,” Laura continued. “Because you can’t say what you really think about her to anyone. But what if you could say it to me? I can take it. I’m your girlfriend. I love you. I want you to get better so we can move on.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, but only because Laura paused and looked at him like he’d better say something.
“Good. So let’s do this. Pretend I’m Sarah. Pretend I’m right here sitting in front of you. I didn’t die. I’m alive and well and you can finally tell me everything you’ve wanted to say for exactly two years. Now, say it.”
Charlie’s heart was racing. He could feel his heartbeat inside his fingers, that’s how fast his blood was pumping through his body. Half of him wanted to get up from the table and run away, but the other half wanted desperately to do exactly what Laura suggested—to finally say all the things he wanted to say to Sarah but never could. Somehow, the second half won out.
“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of his mouth.
“Sarah,” Laura said, “I’m sorry, Sarah.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Charlie said. He was trying to keep his voice down because they were still in the middle of a busy restaurant, but he could feel the energy pushing him to be louder.
“That’s it?” Laura asked.
“No. I’m sorry because I hated you so much after you lied to me that I did all the wrong things.”
“What wrong things?”
“I told my friends half the truth. I said that Sarah tricked me.”
“‘You tricked me,’” Laura corrected. “Remember. I’m Sarah.”
“You tricked me by pretending to be Chelsea, but I didn’t tell them that I fell for it completely, and that I was really mad because Chelsea was the first person I really loved and she wasn’t real. No one had ever tricked me like that before.”
“So what did your friends do after you told them?”
“They told me—well, Amanda told me—that we needed to teach her—” Laura eyed him. “Sorry—you—a lesson so you would never do it again.”
“What was the lesson?”
“We scared you.”
“How?”
“We pretended for a week that I forgave you, and that I felt bad for you and wanted to help you be more normal. And then we took you to hang out with us one night, and then we scared you.”
“How?”
Charlie stopped. This was the end. He couldn’t say another word of truth or he would be confessing it all.
“We yelled at you…and threatened you,” he said.
“No, you didn’t,” Laura said.
“What?” Charlie honestly wasn’t sure that he heard Laura correctly.
“That’s not what you really did.”
This time Charlie froze. What did she mean? What did she know?
“You took me to the Navesink River Bridge.”
Charlie did not move a single muscle in his body.
“And then you told me we were going to play this game of trust falls. And first Miller held Kit out over the bridge and she trusted him to grab her legs while her head dangled off for thirty seconds until he pulled her back up. And then you dangled over while the three of them held you. And then it was my turn, and you held me by yourself, and after thirty seconds you were supposed to lift me up.”
“What…? How…?” The minute Charlie opened his mouth to say those jumbled words, he felt his stomach churn. If he opened his mouth again, he was sure he would throw up.
“But then thirty seconds passed and you didn’t pull me up. You leaned over and screamed in my face about how dumb and evil and cruel I was. Amanda said I was a freak and that if I ever talked to you or your friends again, you would kill me. Remember that part?”
Charlie nodded. He didn’t understand what was going on. It was like he was sitting inside some terrifying movie scene.
“And then what happened, Charlie? Tell me.”
Charlie shook his head “no.” He couldn’t speak.
“TELL ME!” Laura yelled. At least a dozen heads turned in their direction. “Or I’ll make you tell me with all of them listening,” she said.
“She fell,” Charlie whispered.
“You, Charlie. Remember. You’re talking to Sarah still.”
“You fell. You slipped out of my arms and fell into the river.”
“Slipped?” Laura asked. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Charlie said. He was certain of that part. Everything he’d done up until that point was wrong and dangerous, but Sarah had really, truly slipped. He did not mean to make her fall. His grip was tight. Somehow her legs just turned and slipped out. He didn’t try to kill her; it was an accident.
“Wrong,” Laura said.
“No,” said Charlie, “She slipped. Or, you slipped. Whatever. I’m telling the truth. I promise. I did not let go on purpose!”
“I know,” Laura said. “But I didn’t slip, either. I wiggled out of your hands on purpose.”
“What?” Charlie said, bewildered. “No, she didn’t. Why would she do that?”
“To teach you a lesson.”
“So then, she did really kill herself?” Charlie asked.
“No.”
“I don’t understand. What are you saying? And how do you know any of this? What is going on?”
“She didn’t really kill herself because she’s still very much alive. And I know all of this because I am her.”
Charlie’s body jolted him against the back of his chair. It was instant, like his muscles had already taken in what his brain could not yet understand. “Ha…wha…I…” He could not form a single word.
“I know it’s a lot to take in, Charlie, so I’ll try to make it simple. I’m Sarah Castro-Tanner. I didn’t die that night. I had a ton of surgery to transform myself. And then I came back to Englewood as Laura Rivers, tricked you into believing I was a real girl, made you fall in love with me, and now here we are. There’s lots more to it, but I feel like that’s enough for now.”
Once again, Charlie’s body acted before his mind. He leapt up from the table, grabbed his coat, and ran away as fast as he could.
Laura
Laura sat on the old, plaid couch eating a slice of pepperoni pizza straight out of the box. She had called ahead to order it before she even left the restaurant. It wasn’t just that she didn’t have much of an appetite while she and Charlie were dining at The Roundhouse. She’d promised Charlie a pizza party for dessert way back when they planned the trip, and if he decided to make his way back to the cabin, she didn’t want to disappoint. Laura put the current odds of a return at 75 percent.
Charlie didn’t have a car—Laura had insisted upon driving them to The Roundhouse because she knew the way. He didn’t have a cellphone—she’d finagled it out of his hands when they got to the restaurant with the claim of it being a spec
ial, romantic date. He could have caught a train, but they stopped running at nine o’clock and it was already nine thirty. He could maybe find the bus, but it only picked up two towns over, twelve miles away, and if there was a cab that happened to be driving around, he certainly didn’t have enough cash to make it all the way to New Jersey. The fact that it was now pouring rain would probably also help inspire him to return; Laura was thrilled by the little bit of extra help from Mother Nature. Right now she envisioned him wandering around the dark, unknown town in the pouring rain, trying to figure out how he had fallen for her game for the second time in his life. Laura suspected he would have some questions, and it turned out she was right. Just as she reached for her second slice of pizza, the knob on the front door turned. Laura held her breath as it slowly opened.
“Are you going to kill me?” she heard a small, shaky voice say from the other side of the thick, wooden barrier. It was Charlie.
“No,” Laura replied.
“How can I be sure?” he said.
“Because if you’re dead, you can’t help me with the very last part of my plan.”
Charlie
Charlie didn’t feel comfortable sitting anywhere near Laura, even though it felt just as uncomfortable to stand and pace in front of the fireplace while she talked. Now that he knew what he knew, he could barely look at her face. When he did, he couldn’t stop seeing everything that he hadn’t seen for months and months. Laura had Sarah’s same eyes, even though they were now, somehow, different colors. Laura’s cheeks were the same as Sarah’s had been: high and round. Laura’s hairline met in the same peak at the high point of her forehead, just like Sarah’s. Every time he found another striking similarity, Charlie had to correct himself in his mind: Laura is Sarah, you idiot!
“Ask me anything,” she said once he finally mustered up the courage to walk through the front door.