So Over It
Page 20
“My friend saw them with roofies. He said Sarah’s boyfriend—Nate, I think—had them.”
Aaron shrugged yet again. Did he ever express himself any other way? “It’s possible. So Nate had them. What does that have to do with me? I mean, maybe your friend saw them because he was buying them. Ever think of that?”
I shook the question away. It couldn’t be Eli. It just couldn’t. But if it wasn’t Eli, and Aaron was being honest, who did that leave?
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to walk through those early moments with Aaron. When he’d left to get me a drink, Jodi came to talk to me. She looked over at Aaron and said—
I snapped my eyes open. “You were talking to Sarah Humphrey. In the kitchen. When you were getting my drink.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“No, I saw you.”
“I talk to Sarah a lot. She’s Nate’s girl.”
“Did she give you the roofie?”
Aaron sighed. “No, okay? I’ve told you, like, a thousand times I’ve got nothing to do with this.”
“Do you remember anything you talked about with her that night?” I could hear the desperation in my voice. I wanted answers so badly.
“I go to lots of parties, okay? I don’t remember a specific one from a whole year ago.” He looked ready to return to the reception, but I got in his way. I couldn’t give up yet.
“Do you remember why you were there?” I asked. “Sarah and my friend don’t get along.” I remembered what Jodi had said to me that day at Panera when we ran into Sarah. “Jodi heard Sarah came just to get back at her, but nothing happened.”
Something seemed to click in Aaron’s mind. “That party . . .” He loosened his tie again. “Yeah, I remember now. After you made your dramatic exit, I went downstairs and all my friends had bailed.”
“Was Sarah getting back at me too?” I asked, thinking of how I’d handed Jodi the scissors. How over the last couple years, Sarah’s angry glare went first to Jodi and then skittered to me. “Is that why she helped you drug me?”
“For the last time, I didn’t drug you.” Aaron’s hand ran through his hair. “Okay, that night . . . that night . . . you said you wanted a drink, so I went to get you one. Right?”
I nodded.
“When I went to get you a drink, Sarah came to talk to me. And . . .” He blinked at me several times. “What’s your friend’s name?”
“Jodi.”
“Jodi,” Aaron repeated. “I think that’s right. Okay, I remember what happened. Sarah gave me a cup. She said it was Jodi’s and asked me to give it to her. That’s it. That’s all that happened.”
I leaned against the wall as the pieces came together. Sarah watching for the perfect opportunity to pay us back, like she’d come there to do. Then fleeing the scene before anything unfolded.
“Did she ever touch my cup?”
Aaron blinked. “What?”
“My cup! Did she ever touch my cup?”
He blinked even more. “I don’t know. I maybe handed it to her for a second while I refilled mine, but—”
“Did Sarah ever say anything to you about Jodi and me? About”—I swallowed—“getting her hair cut off at a party?”
His eyes narrowed. “That was you?”
I nodded. “And she got us back, didn’t she? She encouraged you to come talk to me, and then she fixed up our drinks when you weren’t paying attention.”
“I . . .” Aaron swallowed. “I mean, Sarah’s got kind of a vengeful streak. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to hear she’d done something like that, but I never saw anything.”
I took a deep breath and leaned against the wall. “You can go now.”
He lingered. “Look, you’re not gonna press charges or—”
“Just go away!”
He hesitated only a second longer, then scurried back to the reception.
I closed my eyes and slid along the wall to the ground. What did I do with this now? Did it mean anything? So Aaron hadn’t drugged me. So what? He hadn’t felt reservations about taking me upstairs. And he still might have done something had Eli not interrupted.
And what about Jodi? She’d said at Sheridan’s that she passed out before Aaron and I even went upstairs. What had happened to her when I wasn’t watching?
“What happened?”
I opened my eyes to find Connor squatting on the floor in front of me. Eli and Jodi hovered behind him. All three watched with big, concerned eyes.
I released a shaky breath. “Aaron says he didn’t do it. And from what he said, I think . . .” I looked at Jodi. “I think it was Sarah. I think she put something in both our drinks.”
Jodi’s eyes grew wider and her legs trembled. She sat, her raspberry-colored dress flaring around her. “Of course. That makes so much sense. All year Sarah kept saying this really weird stuff to me. Strange stuff, like . . . well, I shouldn’t repeat it now that I’m a Christian. But . . .” She grabbed my hands. “Oh, Skylar, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault this happened to you. If I hadn’t been so set on revenge with her, this never would’ve happened, and—” Jodi dissolved into tears and I hugged her close.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’m okay. I’m worried about you. About what might have happened.”
She pulled away, shaking her head. “Nothing happened. I woke up in my room the morning after.”
“How did you get up there?”
When she didn’t answer right away, I swallowed hard.
Jodi blinked rapidly. “I don’t know.”
Eli cleared his throat. “I carried you up there.”
We turned to him and his face reddened. “I thought you’d just drunk too much. I didn’t want to leave you in the living room, so . . .” He shrugged, then looked at me. “That’s when I found you and Aaron. I heard you crying.”
Jodi pressed trembling fingers to her mouth. “And that’s my fault.” She turned her big, teary eyes to me. “Oh, Skylar, if only I hadn’t done that thing to Sarah. If only I’d let those rumors about her and Trent slide, then she wouldn’t have retaliated and—”
“And nothing would have changed,” I said. “None of this would’ve happened. None of the good stuff.”
Jodi bit her lower lip. “I keep picturing all these things that could’ve happened to you—”
“But they didn’t. I’m fine, Jodi. We’re fine.”
She knit her fingers in her lap. “I’ll never be able to forgive myself for this. For what I caused.”
“You will,” I said, “because I’ve finally forgiven myself for what happened. I’m 100 percent, truly, totally over it.”
29
Pastor Greg smiled at the few of us seated in the sanctuary. “We’re gathered here today because Teri and Paul Hoyt have requested to renew their wedding vows in front of their family and close friends.”
Mom looked away from Greg for a second to wink at me. I winked back.
“It’ll be a simple service,” Mom had said back in August when she and Dad told Abbie and me. “Dr. Prentice thinks it’s a good idea. It’ll be just you girls, Grammy, and the Rosses. We’ll all have dinner together afterward. Very casual, very low-key. Just a . . .”
“A celebration,” Dad finished for her.
“Right.” Mom smiled. “Of our renewed commitment to each other.”
“Right,” Dad said, and they beamed at each other like newlyweds. Which would have gagged me had I not felt so relieved.
And now a month later, Connor’s fingers entwined with mine as we watched Mom and Dad take communion together.
My cell buzzed on my lap. “It’s from Jodi,” I whispered to Connor. It read, What am I missing? I grinned and tucked my phone away. There’d be time later to text her back.
Jodi had been at Vanderbilt for a few weeks, and it sounded like she’d settled in okay. She liked her roommate and she’d already been asked out a couple times. Typical Jodi. Something I couldn’t say about her too often anymore.
“Paul
Hoyt, do you agree to renew your commitment to love and cherish Teri . . .”
I smiled as Greg read the traditional vows, the same ones my parents had pledged to each other almost twenty years ago. A wedding where I’d also been present. Although to this one they’d invited me.
We cheered loudly when Greg presented my newly recommitted parents. Until Dad drew Mom into a long kiss, then Abbie and I both groaned a good-natured, “Ew!” which made Owen giggle. At six and a half months old, he thought everything was funny.
As we all filed down the aisle, Abbie murmured in my ear, “I’ve gotta go change his diaper.”
“Now?” I asked, gesturing to the important moment going on.
“I know, I know, but he went as Mom walked down the aisle. I can’t just let him sit in it.”
Connor made a face. “That’s enough describing, okay, Abbie?”
“I’ll be back as soon as possible,” she said and headed across the sanctuary toward the bathrooms.
“How’s she doing?” Connor asked.
“Better. She’s gone back to totally freaking out when things go wrong. I never thought I’d be grateful for that, but I really am. I think she’s done punishing herself for Owen. She’s decided it’s okay to be upset when”—I glanced at Chris, who stood oblivious across the room—“things don’t go her way.”
Connor rested his hand on the nape of my neck, squeezing in a way that made me tingle. “You’re a good sister.”
“I wasn’t always.”
“You are now.” He pulled me close and kissed me. “That’s what matters.”
I watched Mom and Dad smiling at each other as if their years of miserable marriage hadn’t happened. As if there’d been no affair, no packed suitcases, no squabbles about taking out the trash or who said they’d pay the electric bill but didn’t.
Sometime when I hadn’t been paying attention, they’d achieved that balance, the one I’d strived for since July 14. To not let my past take over my life, but to let it slowly and surely refine me into something new, something beautiful. Something reinvented.
Acknowledgments
I’ve been overwhelmed with encouragement and support since learning the Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series would be published. Many thanks to:
My husband, Ben, who told me I absolutely had to read The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis, a tool that fleshed out Heather’s background and her feelings. Thank you for your patience while I struggled to find the balance of the whole mom/writer thing. Couldn’t have done this without you and your belief in me.
My daughter, McKenna. Thanks for not caring at all what I do for a living. You keep me grounded.
My parents, Steve and Beth Hines. There isn’t room enough to list all the ways you’ve helped with the creation of this series, but here are a few highlights: encouraging my writing obsession from the beginning, free babysitting, randomly bringing over dinners, and promoting the books practically as much as I do.
My in-laws, Ann and Bruce Morrill. Thank you for adopting me into your family long before we shared a last name. And thank you for loving on my little girl while I work.
My one and only brother, Chris. Thanks for hanging around at book signings and being totally worthy of having a character named after you.
Bus, Janna, Leia, and Kylee Tarbox. Your enthusiasm for Skylar Hoyt caught me totally off guard. I’m so fortunate to call you guys family.
Roseanna White. Thank you for two and a half years of rejoicing when I rejoice and mourning when I mourn. And for regularly dispensing your grammar wisdom. God went above and beyond when he answered my prayers for a writing friend.
Debbie McCool, who’s my real-life Heather. I’m so thankful for your wisdom and your belief in me.
Kelli Stouder, for your awesome gift of discernment.
Dr. Amy Knapitsch, who’s stopped saying, “Uh, what’s this for?” when I ask weird medical questions.
Elfie Rosario, my Hawaii expert. Thank you for not only sharing the books with your students but also educating me on Hawaiian customs.
The fabulous girls at Notre Dame de Sion high school here in Kansas City. Your support has been amazing and gives me energy.
My home church, Southwoods, and my “extended church family” at LifeStream. I’m grateful for how you embraced this series and supported me in my journey.
And the whole team at Revell. Thank you for all your hard work and for making me feel comfortable asking my newbie questions. Special thanks to Jennifer Leep for taking a chance on me, and Jessica Miles for your keen editing eye.
Stephanie Morrill is a twentysomething living in Overland Park, Kansas, with her high school sweetheart-turned-husband and their young daughter. She loves writing for teenagers because her high school years greatly impacted her adult life. That, and it’s an excuse to keep playing her music really, really loud.
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Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS