16 Things I Thought Were True

by Janet Gurtler

  I’m embarrassed that I’m kind of digging the kids swarming over me. It’s not such a bad thing to have gorgeous guys telling me my butt is cute. Most of these kids go to my high school, and a few of them are in the super popular group. Lexi would freak out if she knew they were sucking up to me now. I imagine telling her. All I have to do is call her back. We could be hanging out with them our senior year. Things would go back the way they were. Better. We’d be the it girls we always wanted to be.

  It would change everything for us.

  And then I look around.

  I remember why I’m really here, why I’m doing this. It’s because of Amy. Because she asked me to take back my life, to stop hiding. Sure, it’s awesome that I’m being embraced instead of ridiculed, but honestly, it could have gone either way.

  It wouldn’t have mattered. I’m not the same person I was. Because of her. And yes, because of me.

  I glance across the room to the table where the managers hang out, ostracized by the rest of the staff. No one wants to hang with fun-suckers. Adam is at the table, chewing a sandwich, watching me and pretending not to be. He pushes his glasses up his nose and I smile, thinking of his lips—and how much I like him. And how incredibly true and brave Amy is and what a good friend she is to both of us. A real friend.

  “Thanks,” I say to the guy who got me the chair as I stand. “But I came here to sit with my friend.”

  I wave at Adam and he looks around to make sure I’m waving at him and then he lifts his hand. The uncertainty makes my heart fill with a fierce protection.

  “You’re friends with Goggles?” someone says.

  His nickname.

  “That Adam dude is a dickhead,” someone adds.

  I smile. It doesn’t matter what these people say about us. It really doesn’t. “They pay him to be a dickhead,” I say. “And he’s an awesome kisser.” The table falls completely silent and then I walk toward Adam. The smile he’s trying to hide behind his sandwich is the best thing I’ve seen all day.

  Hunter, another younger manager, grins at me when I sit beside Adam. “Oh, look who’s joining the cool kids table. It’s Adam’s girlfriend.”

  Adam pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Yeah. It is,” he says and puts his arm around me.

  I pull out my phone and take a picture of the two of us at the table so I can show it to Amy later. “You making new friends?” he asks, gesturing to the table of red shirts.

  “Nah. I just tripped on the way in. Amy made me face them. And she made me use my Twitter voice out loud. It worked. I think they actually liked me.”

  “They’ve always wanted to like you. You’re famous.” He smiles. “Amy also ask you to Harlem Shake the masses?” He grins. “This girl can dance,” he says to Hunter.

  “I heard,” Hunter says with a grin.

  Adam smacks him, and it makes me like him even more.

  There’s a new text on my phone, so I open it.

  It’s Lexi. You getting these texts?

  A few seconds later, she wrote one again.

  I’m sorry. :(

  The happy bubbles in my brain begin popping.

  “What’s up?” Adam asks as he sips at his Coke. He’s learning to accept my phone habit, which bodes well for our future.

  I hold up the phone and show him the message. He lifts his eyebrows, takes another bite of his sandwich, but doesn’t comment. He chews, watching me type.

  “I forgive you,” I type. But that’s not the whole message. I type more.

  I forgive you, but I can’t hang out with you anymore. Friends don’t do that to each other.

  She has to deal with what she did, as much as I do. I glance at Adam, dying to add something about my fabulous new boyfriend. And my new best friend. But I think of Amy. And how brave she is. And I want to be a little more like her. I press send and let her go. And then I tuck my phone in my pocket.

  “It’s not fair,” I tell Adam.

  “What Lexi did?”

  “No. Amy. She’s done nothing to deserve being sick. Nothing.”

  He nods and I lean closer to him, wishing we could make her better.

  My phone beeps again to let me know I got another text. I glance at it, frowning when I see it’s from Jake.

  Come right home. Right now.

  chapter twenty-four

  17. In the end, people get what they deserve.

  #thingsithoughtweretrue

  Adam holds my hand. “It’s going to be okay,” he says for the millionth time. I can hardly breathe. Jake’s not picking up his cell phone or answering my frantic texts back. I’ve tried the home line, but no one’s answering that either. I want to scream at Jake for not picking up.

  It’s my mom. I know it. My mom and I haven’t talked since the fight. Not really. She’s been falling all over Adam, practically greeting him at the door with a shoe in her mouth when he comes to get me. Now I’m horrified how badly I’ve been treating her.

  When we finally get home, I run through the front door. Jake meets us in the doorway, staring at us with wide eyes.

  “Morgan.” He looks like he’s trying hard not to cry.

  “What?” My mom is dead. I know it. Her heart has gone and done what she predicted—failed. “Is it Mom?”

  It’s my fault. I did this. By refusing to forgive her. She died thinking I hated her, that I would never forgive her. Adam steps closer to me and his body heat warms my side. I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t hate her. Not really. I thought I had time to work things out in my head. I needed time. I planned on talking to her when I was twenty-one or something. A sob escapes from my chest. I figured I had lots of time.

  Jake grabs me by the shoulder. “No. Listen to me. Mom is fine. She’s with Josh.” His face is so pale he looks like he’s going to be sick.

  “Where’d they go? Jake, what the hell is going on?”

  “Amy’s parents called. They had Mom’s cell number because of your trip.” Jake presses his lips tighter. “I saw her this morning. I was planning to ask her out. When she got better, you know. She’s supposed to get better. She’s so cute. Real. We had a, like, a…connection.” He shakes his head.

  “Oh my God—Amy?” I say.

  The walls of the hallway tighten and the air becomes harder to breathe. I step away from Adam, trying to get space, to breathe.

  “She’s gone, Chaps.” Jake’s voice fades out, as if I’m listening to him from inside a tunnel. “Her surgery was moved up. She went into cardiac arrest on the table. She died almost instantly.”

  I’m the one shaking my head now. “No, she didn’t.”

  I wrap my arms around myself. I’m freezing.

  “Shit,” I hear Adam say, but he’s in a tunnel too. I can’t feel his warmth even when he wraps both arms around me and pulls me into his chest.

  “No, she didn’t.” I stare at Adam’s shirt and see it’s getting wet. But I’m not crying. I’m not making noise. My body makes no sense to me.

  The doorbell rings. We all stare at it.

  “She can’t die. She’s only eighteen,” I say to both boys. It’s not possible. Not fair. It’s not fair. Jake walks to the front door and opens it.

  Lexi is standing outside. I stare at her. Jake stares at her. Adam has no idea who she is.

  “You can’t forgive me?” she says. She glances at Adam with his arms wrapped around me. Her eyes flash with something. Hatred? Envy? “You knew. You pretend you had no idea, that you’re the innocent one. But you knew I posted that video.”

  “What the hell?” Jake says.

  I’m shaking. I know what she’s talking about, but it’s so incredibly stupid I can’t even believe I thought it mattered. None of that matters. But here she is. Because it makes no sense at all.

  “Lexi,” I say, and my voice sounds calmer than it should. “This is not a good
time.”

  “Why? You don’t want your boyfriend to find out the truth. Adam Ranard? Really? I thought we had standards, Morgan.”

  “Morgan,” Adam says, “who is this?”

  “Lexi,” Jake says, and she takes that as some sort of invitation and steps inside the house.

  “We go to the same school, Adam,” she tells him. I know her well enough to know it pisses her off that he doesn’t know who she is. I stare at her like she’s a stranger.

  “I need to go,” I say. “I need to go right this minute and see Amy.”

  “You can’t go there now,” Jake says. “It’s too late.”

  “Who the hell is Amy?” Lexi demands.

  “Lexi, you need to leave,” Adam says kindly, despite her earlier insult.

  Jake puts a hand on my back, trying to move me to the living room. I grip my toes to the uneven tiles in the hallway, a project that we never get around to fixing. “We need to go see Amy.” I try to shove past Lexi, but Adam and Jake each grab me. Adam puts his arm around my shoulder again and Jake lets me go.

  “Morgan. We can’t.” Jake runs his hands over his short hair.

  Lexi frowns, clearly not happy she’s not getting the attention she thinks she deserves. “She knew,” she repeats to us all. “She pretends she didn’t know, but she knew I posted that video. She could have stopped me before anyone saw it. This is just as much her fault as it is mine.”

  My cheeks burn but my hand clenches into a fist.

  Jake’s mouth drops open and he finally looks at Lexi, stares at her really. “Are you kidding me?” he shouts. “Get the hell out of this house. Someone we care about just died and you’re here to try and blame your stupid decisions on my sister? Go.” Jake grabs Lexi by the arm, opens the front door, and pushes her outside.

  My ears are burning; my head is a mess. None of this makes sense.

  My phone rings. I glance around and automatically grab it from my pocket and click it on. “Hello?”

  Adam is frowning like there’s something wrong with me. He’s right. There is.

  “Morgan. It’s, um, Bob. Bob White.”

  I stare at the phone. Shocked. Now?

  “What?” I ask bluntly.

  “Um. I want to talk to you. I’ve tried calling a few times and you haven’t called back.”

  He has no idea how colossally bad his timing is. But it’s like I can’t stop making things worse for myself. “That’s because I don’t want to talk to you.” In some far-off part of my brain, I realize he doesn’t deserve such fierce anger. Am I punishing him, or am I punishing myself?

  He’s shocked into silence so I make it easy for him and hang up. I hear the door to my dad slam shut. I close my eyes and see Amy’s face. Her disappointment. I struggle to keep in the tears. I’m ruining things. But it’s what I deserve. I deserve this. I deserve to have him hate me. I’m a horrible person and I do horrible things.

  “Who was that?” Adam asks softly.

  “Wrong number.”

  The three of us stand in the hallway, trying not to cry, not able to talk, trying to figure out what to say or do when we hear a car pull into the driveway. I follow Jake outside. Adam is beside me, his arm still around me. Lexi is gone.

  Mom’s in the passenger seat of Josh’s car. She jumps out with the car still running and hurries toward us. She rushes at Jake—and then she runs past him and comes for me.

  Adam lets me go and my hands fall to my side. “Mommy,” I whisper. She wraps her arms around me and holds me in tight. I inhale the familiar scent. She smells better; the smoke scent is gone.

  “It’s okay, Morgan,” she says in my ear. “Everything is going to be okay.” I cling to her like a little girl. I’d forgotten these—her soothing hugs. The hug when I didn’t get the badge I wanted in Girl Scouts. The hug when the other girls made fun of me for bringing my mom for the father-daughter picnic. The hug when Greg Pierce, the boy I liked in sixth grade, asked Lexi to slow dance instead of me. The mom who had my back.

  Some things have changed. Her body is bonier. Her long hair gets caught up in my teeth. But the hug is the same. And with a rush, I wish I could take back what I said to Bob. But he’ll probably never forgive me.

  “I had a dream about Amy last night,” she says. And I listen to her tell me her dream the way I’ve listened to hundreds of dreams before. And she doesn’t let me go but leads me back inside the house, explaining that Amy is going to be fine now. That’s she’s at peace.

  As short as the time was that I knew Amy, I know nothing will be the same without her. And I know I let her down. I wonder if she knows. And if she’ll ever forgive me from wherever she’s gone to now. I hope it’s a better place. She deserves a better place.

  chapter twenty-five

  I’m alone in my room. Adam’s gone home, and the boys and Mom are chatting quietly in the living room. I feel like I’m holding my breath. I can’t get full sips of air. I sit cross-legged on the bed, staring at the blank wall.

  I need to call Amy’s parents, offer my condolences. Say something. Do something. Show them people care. But my insides feel grated and chopped up. I swallow and swallow and finally reach for my phone lying at my feet. Taunting me. I turn it on and click to my Twitter page. My heartbeat spikes when I notice the follow status. I’m at 5,002 followers. I made it.

  I close my eyes and imagine Amy squealing and jumping up and down. I imagine her so excited the words tumble out over top of each other. So much for that. This doesn’t change one single thing. Reaching five thousand followers brought the opposite of good.

  There’s a knock at my door, and it pushes open before I can respond. Jake walks in. His face looks how I feel—wrecked.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “Not really. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she’s gone. It doesn’t seem real.”

  “I know. I keep expecting her to text me. I keep finding myself about to text her,” he says.

  “People my age shouldn’t die.”

  “No.”

  We’re both quiet, thinking how wrong it is. And how unreal. It’s so hard to digest. How could this happen? Amy was good. She’d been through so much. She had so much ahead of her.

  Jake shifts from foot to foot and stares at everything in the room except me. “I know it’s not a good time to ask, but I really need to know. Is it true?” he finally asks. “What Lexi said?”

  I blink. Frown.

  “Did you know she posted that video of you online?”

  I hear the disappointment in his voice, and it adds a layer to the shame I’ve tried to bury. Jake is struggling with this on top of everything. He doesn’t want to believe the worst about me. My heart aches more. “Does it matter?” I ask softly.

  He hangs his head and then slowly shakes it. “No, I guess not, not in the whole scheme of things,” he says softly, but then he sighs. To him, it does; it matters a little. He doesn’t want it to be true. “I believed in you, Chaps. And so did Amy.”

  I stare at him. And then I nod. For Amy, I’ll tell him the truth. Exactly what I’ve told no one else. Amy would want me to tell the truth. I close my eyes and breathe, still not wanting to accept that she is gone.

  “I knew,” I tell him softly. I sigh. “I saw Lexi post it. I didn’t stop her.”

  His eyebrows lift.

  “I thought, you know, it’d be funny. Maybe people would think I was cool. I didn’t know what it would turn into. I didn’t know it would go viral and everyone would see it. I erased it after she left. But it was too late.”

  “You erased it?”

  My cheeks burn and my body folds up even more. “I’ve been so ashamed. I mean, Lexi was right. I wanted people to like me.” I take a deep breath and tell him the rest. “I found out later Lexi also e-mailed it to a boy at school—from my account. She thought he had a crush on me, so I think
she was trying to get back at me, because she had a crush on him too. She was always so competitive about boys. Anyhow, he sent it to other people. And from there…”

  He shakes his head. “You erased it though. She did this by e-mailing that boy. It got out because of them. There was nothing you could do about that once it was sent.”

  I raise my eyebrows. Shrug. I never thought of it that way before. “Maybe. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. I’m the one who did the dancing.”

  “Everybody does stuff like that, Morgan. But you didn’t post it. To me, it matters,” he says. “I knew it wasn’t you.”

  “It shouldn’t matter,” I tell him.

  “I know. But you’re my little sister. I didn’t want it to be you. And you didn’t ask her to post it. Or send the e-mail. She did it behind your back. She set it in motion. Not you. There’s no way you had control over what happened.”

  My relief makes me feel weak. “Do you think so?”

  “I do. This wasn’t your fault, Chaps. No matter how hard you’ve been trying to convince yourself it was. You didn’t ask her to do it. She did it and she’s the one who was wrong. Not you.”

  God knows where Jake picked up his values in our faulty family tree, but I’m grateful for them. And for his support.

  “Thank you,” I tell him, and maybe I don’t quite believe it yet, but I’m starting to.

  I remember how many times he’s stood up for me over the years. My protector.

  “It was my dad who called,” I tell him. “When Lexi was here.” I stare down at my feet, at my chipping toe nail polish, blushing. “I told him to never call me again.”

  Jake sighs and walks to the bed and sits down beside me. “Yeah. I kind of figured. It was bad timing, you know. You just found out about Amy. You can call him back. Explain it. He’ll understand.”