Four-Letter Word

by Christa Desir

  A spike of guilt pierced through me. I wanted to be a better friend to Melissa. I wanted to be everything that Chloe Donnelly could have been if she hadn’t lied and turned us all against one another. I wanted to be everything Eve could have been if she wasn’t so insecure. I wanted to be everything Holly could have been if she didn’t have to carry the weight of her father’s choices. I silently vowed to be my best self for Melissa. And maybe for me too. “Thanks for coming.”

  She grinned. “Thanks for reaching out to me.”

  “I think you were the one who reached out to me.”

  She raised a shoulder. “Yeah, I did. It’s good to have you back, Chloe.”

  Then I hugged her and she hugged me back. Not totally fixed, but better now. I squeezed her one last time, then stood and headed to the car, checking my phone again in hopes maybe Mateo had responded to my text. I wanted to tell him about the catfishing. I wanted to tell him he was okay, maybe not completely okay but not being actively hunted as a murder suspect. I wanted to tell him Chloe Donnelly’s real name was Lauren. I wanted to tell him I had Melissa now and things were going to be better. But there were no texts or calls from him. Just multiple texts from all the others who’d played Gestapo, asking for updates. I powered my phone off and slid in the backseat of Pops’s car. They could wait. My parents were home and I had a friend coming over who maybe could help me find Mateo. Mateo. Mateo, Mateo, Mateo.

  I powered my phone back on and looked at his I love you too text again. Then I looked at my last unanswered text to him. I typed another one, just in case.

  Mateo. It’s all okay, I think. Please reach out. It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something out.

  Epilogue

  “What do you mean you’re not charging her with anything?” I said to Officer Kay a week later.

  “We don’t have anything to really hold her on. I mean, sure, presenting fake identification to the school, but that’s really not a lot and not worth pursuing. She lied. She played a game, made up an identity, and lied to all of you.”

  He tapped the folder in front of him as if that was the end of the story. I stared at him. I’d been waiting to hear more about Lauren. Waiting to find out anything, and today, finally, I’d gotten a call. She was fine, alive, living in a small apartment with her mom just off of I-80. Her mom had no idea about any of it. She’d been homeschooled through high school and had told her mom she was working when she’d been at GHS. Apparently, she was a genius with computers and incredibly bright, but her mom claimed Lauren had some mental issues that kept her from being able to live on her own.

  “Isn’t there a catfishing charge?”

  He shrugged. “No. She didn’t really do anything illegal, beyond pretending she was a student. No one was hurt, no crime was committed.”

  I felt like I’d been gutted. No crime? Mateo was gone. Mateo had disappeared and hadn’t texted me again. Whether it was because he thought he was a suspect or because his parents forced him to cut ties knowing that they’d never really be safe here, I didn’t know, but I was lost. Lost and heartsick and broken.

  “So she’s getting away with all of it?” I choked out.

  He shrugged again. “I’m sorry, Chloe.”

  “Why would she do this? I don’t understand.”

  “Like I said before, we don’t really know. Maybe she was bored, maybe she was lonely, maybe she wanted to be someone else for a little while. Her mom did mention mental issues. From what I gathered, Lauren had done a pretty extensive amount of research on the internet about the school. She’d practically made a job of it.”

  “Is that how she knew everything? All our secrets?”

  He sighed. “Maybe. Maybe she just listened really well, overheard stuff. It’s not like she had to do any real schoolwork while she was there. You’d be surprised how easy it is to gather information about people. All this stuff online that people post on their social media accounts. It doesn’t take a lot to piece together entire lives. I tell my kids all the time to be careful of what they post, but what are you going to do? Everyone does it.”

  “Mateo,” I whispered, slumping in the chair across from his desk.

  “I really am sorry, Chloe.” But he didn’t sound that sorry. He sounded like he was judging Mateo, like Mateo was the criminal here, and not Lauren Klein.

  I nodded numbly and stood up. Officer Kay cleared his throat. He tapped the folder twice, meaty fingers putting a fine point on its contents. “Lauren works third shift at the Kum and Go on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  “The Kum and Go? Seriously? You said she was a genius with computers.”

  “I also said she had some mental issues. Who knows with kids today. But yes, according to her mom, she works third shift at the Kum and Go.”

  I looked at him for a long time. He was giving me a gift, an opportunity, and I should be grateful. Maybe he did realize what she cost me after all. But did I want to see her again? I stared at my hands. I hadn’t bitten my nails for a week. Not since my parents had been home, trying to orchestrate the transition of new volunteers to move into their village in Burkina Faso at the end of the summer and committing to stay in Grinnell with me until I graduated.

  “I don’t know what to say to her.”

  “Tell her how you feel. Tell her what her lies did to you.”

  “She won’t care. You should have seen her that last night. She’s unstable. This thing she did, people don’t just do that. Not normal, compassionate people.”

  Officer Kay nodded. “Maybe not. And maybe it wouldn’t mean anything to her if you confronted her. But maybe it’ll mean something to you.”

  I told him I’d think about it and walked out of his office. My entire body felt out of sorts. My head was heavy with defeat and my heart hurt from missing Mateo. It wasn’t fair that I only got him for such a short amount of time. It wasn’t fair that he and his family had to set up in a new place, had to start all over because of Lauren Klein. I never even got the chance to meet any of them.

  I checked my phone again, just like I’d been checking every ten minutes for the past week. Nothing. No calls, no texts, no Mateo. I’d been searching the internet with no luck. I’d taken to sending texts daily to his old phone number, knowing he wasn’t getting them but not having any other way to reach out.

  Please tell me where you are.

  We’ll figure out a way to meet.

  I hate being without you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I got into Nan’s car and drove to the Kum & Go. It was hours until the third shift started, but I didn’t care. I stayed in the car, texting my parents that I wouldn’t be home until very late. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t realize they should; it had been so long since they’d had to actively parent. The learning curve was steep, but I thought they’d get it right eventually. Their hearts were in it completely. They just had to match the round peg with the round hole. I went inside and got a crappy burrito that ended up smelling worse than the cafeteria ones and some Vitaminwater. Then I got back in the car and waited.

  At ten forty-five I saw her. She looked smaller somehow, less extraordinary. She was wearing cheap jeans and a bright-pink Kum & Go polo shirt. Pink. Of course. I stared at her and it was as if she felt me because she turned. Her eyes went wide when she saw me, the bright-blue coloring still the prettiest part of her. She stood her ground and lifted her chin, the flickering fluorescent street lamp making the moment almost scary. For a second I saw the Chloe Donnelly who had co-opted my life. Who’d somehow found me and decided to play a game with me and my friends. Who’d taken on my name and driven the boy I loved into hiding. Hate zinged through me. I put my hand on the car door handle but then paused. I leaned forward and her Chloe Donnelly face crumpled. She looked down, her shoulders curling in on themselves. When she looked back up, there was no one but homeschooled Lauren Klein in front of me. A too-smart girl who worked at the Kum & Go and was so bored and un
happy and heartless she invented a life and sought out a group of people to mess with.

  Sadness slipped inside of me. I wasn’t certain what had led her to this, but a tiny part of me almost understood, not the heartlessness but the unhappiness. It was the same part that understood Eve and Holly and how much they were willing to sacrifice in order to be loved. The same part that had been nearly overwhelmed by my own bone-deep loneliness this entire year. I released the door handle and started the ignition. Then I put the car in reverse and pulled out of the parking lot without looking back.

  Acknowledgments

  I first came up for the idea for this book in 1998 while I was hiking with my dear friend Emily Bergl. It took two hours of intense conversation to iron out a plot. And twenty years to get it right. This book has been through an obscene number of drafts, three agents, and more beta readers than I can possibly mention here. If you’ve known me in the past twenty years, we’ve probably talked about this book and you’ve maybe even read a version of it. Thank you, everyone, for being part of this journey.

  Mountains of gratitude to Liesa Abrams and the rest of the team at Simon Pulse. Liesa is an amazing editor-partner, and our conversations about this book, about condoms and orgasms and the difficulty of being a girl, are some of the best I’ve ever had with anyone in this industry. Your notes were exactly what this book needed to turn it into something authentic and full of heart. I’m so glad you told me I didn’t need to add “jazz hands.”

  To Barry Goldblatt, thanks for saying, “Yeah, I like this one,” and for generally championing all the parts of me. You’ve always been very good at looking after me and I’m more grateful than you can possibly know.

  To Jolene Perry, Rhiannon Morgan, Carrie Bouffard, and Carrie Mesrobian: You have all been so involved in this book from the start that it probably feels like it’s your book. Make no mistake, it belongs to you as much as it does to me. Thank you for every minute you spent drowning with me in this. I hope you feel like all your hard work paid off and that I’ve taken your wisdom and done right by it. I love you all very much.

  Special acknowledgment to Dr. Danny M. Cohen for numerous conversations and sensitivity discussions about Jewish plight under the Gestapo, to Silvia Lopez for expertise on the undocumented, to Ally Beckman for her help with Burkina Faso and NGOs, to Scout Slava-Ross for being my Grinnell College student on campus who walked through the game and corrected geography stuff and offered general Grinnell insight. And to Molly Campe, whose enthusiasm about all things Grinnell made me finally figure out that the heart of the book wasn’t in the game but in the location.

  This book is in part a love letter to Grinnell, Iowa, and while I did my very best to make it as close to accurate as possible, I hope readers will forgive some creative license. To the GHS staff and students in particular, thank you for allowing me to turn your school into what I needed it to be for the purposes of this story.

  Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my family. You have stuck with me throughout this writing journey, and I love you so much for your unending support. Julio, Jojo, Bijou, and Butter: Nothing could make me prouder than calling you mine. You’re my first, last, and everything.

  About the Author

  CHRISTA DESIR writes contemporary fiction for young adults. She lives with her family and overly enthusiastic dog outside of Chicago and works as a part-time independent bookseller and freelance editor. Two of her novels were chosen by the Illinois Reading Council as Illinois Reads’ books for high school students. She has also twice been selected for the In the Margins list of top fiction books for youth living in poverty, on the streets, or in custody. She has been a rape victim activist for over twenty years, including providing advocacy services in hospital ERs, working with incarcerated teen survivors, and speaking to high school and college students about sexual violence. Visit her at www.christadesir.com.

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  Also by Christa Desir

  Fault Line

  Bleed Like Me

  Other Broken Things

  Love Blind

  (with Jolene Perry)

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Text copyright © 2018 by Christa Desir

  Jacket photograph copyright © 2018 by Devesh Bora/EyeEm/Getty Images

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  Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman and Sarah Creech

  Interior designed by Mike Rosamilia

  Author photograph by Chris Guillen

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Desir, Christa, author.

  Title: Four letter word / by Christa Desir.

  Description: First Simon Pulse hardcover edition. | New York : Simon Pulse, 2018. | Summary: Sixteen-year-old Chloe’s isolation is relieved when she is drawn into a high-stakes game with potentially dire consequences by a new student, also called Chloe.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017008155 (print) | LCCN 2017034321 (eBook) | ISBN 9781481497374 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781481497398 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Games—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Identity—Fiction. | Family life—Iowa—Fiction. | Iowa—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.D4506 (eBook) | LCC PZ7.D4506 Fou 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017008155