She swipes at a fresh tear. “Did you know he was in the passenger’s seat? Did you know that?”
I look up, meeting the intensity of her stare. “What?”
“He was in the passenger’s seat.”
“Wait. Max wasn’t driving?”
She shakes her head and sniffs. “He was in the passenger’s seat. The cops told me. Someone else was driving. Someone killed him.” She chokes out a ragged breath. “And the murdering asshole doesn’t even have the balls to come forward and admit it.”
A million thoughts race through my mind. Max wasn’t driving. Someone else was behind the wheel of Adam’s car. “But why didn’t Max...?”
“Why didn’t he get out of the car when it went over the jetty?” She wipes away another tear from her cheek. “They can’t say until they get the toxicology report back, but the police think he may have been incapacitated.”
“As in, high?”
“Yeah. That’s what they’re saying.” She rolls her eyes.
“What, you don’t buy it?”
“Max wasn’t high. No way. He didn’t do drugs, ever. He never wanted to lose control like that.”
I grope for words. “Maybe it was just one time.”
She grimaces. “No, Jenna. He’d drink, sure, but he was always in control. He got mad at me once for smoking pot.”
“What are you saying? You think someone spiked his drink?”
She holds my gaze. “I was with him until about midnight that night. He was fine. He was going to go to bed after I left. And then, somehow, a few hours later, he’s so off his head that he can’t get out of a car that some shithead drove into the ocean?”
“Oh my god,” I murmur. My heart starts beating double time.
“Who would do that to him? Who would be so sick?”
“I don’t...”
“Who would hate him that much?”
Colleen.
I don’t know why her smiling picture pops into my mind. Colleen is dead, and Max was her friend. But there’s a chance that Max was the one who killed her.
Now Max is dead.
And it’s looking like someone killed him.
* * *
“I need a ride tonight.”
Colleen’s voice rebounds across the locker room after gym class.
I look over at the vanity station, where Serena, Imogen, and Brianna have been huddled for a while, immersed in applying their makeup. Colleen pushes herself forward, landing the prime spot in front of the mirror.
“Which one of you girls is driving tonight?”
There’s a pause.
“Driving where?” Imogen asks.
Colleen rolls her eyes. “Where do you think? To Rookwood. Obviously. Same as every other Friday night.”
“Were you invited?” Serena’s voice is clipped.
“Of course I’m invited.” Colleen matches her tone. “I’m there every week.”
I watch them out of the corner of my eye as I lace up my sneakers. Serena’s dark stare lingers on her own reflection in the mirror.
“Oh,” she says, and her gaze travels over the reflections of Imogen and Brianna. There’s something, a look, a tension between them and Colleen.
But Colleen doesn’t seem to notice. Or care.
“So?” Colleen says. “Answer, please. Which one of you bitches is giving me a ride to Rookwood tonight?”
Serena pops the cap off her lip gloss and dabs on a layer. “Why can’t you drive yourself?”
“Because I plan on getting annihilated, and I could do without a DUI.”
“I can drive,” Imogen says, and Serena jabs her in the ribs.
“Speaking of DUIs...” Colleen lowers her voice. “I heard the Rooks are getting some quality produce in tonight. Are you guys buying?”
The trio swap another look.
“Uh, no,” Brianna says. “Colleen, you shouldn’t be buying either. You don’t even know where it’s coming from. It could be anything.”
Colleen snorts. “Okay, Mom. Maybe you should try something, Bri. It might loosen you up.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Your loss.”
“She’s right, though, Colleen,” Serena says. “It makes you look trashy and desperate. Like, you’re all over the guys when you’re wasted.”
“Get a grip, Serena. I’m just having fun.”
“You’re making a fool of yourself, creeping around all the Rooks like a dog in heat.”
Colleen smirks. “Oh. You poor thing.”
Serena turns to face her. “What?”
“I’m not interested in your boyfriend, if that’s what you’re getting at. I don’t do leftovers. We’re friends, that’s all.”
Serena gives a tight laugh. “He’s not interested in you either, Colleen. Not even as a friend.”
“Okay.” She flips her hair and turns on her heel. “Whatever, jealous,” she calls as she struts out of the locker room. “Pick me up at eight, Imogen.”
The door thuds shut behind her.
I see Serena’s jaw clench in the mirror. When she notices my gaze on her reflection, she forces a smile.
I muster one back.
ADAM
I walk around aimlessly in the darkness, just pacing through the forest, because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know where else to go.
Max is gone. And it’s my fault. I should never have told Jenna about him cheating. I screwed him over. That’s probably why he drove my car off the jetty.
If it gets back to the cops about him and Colleen, that’s motive. That’s his ass on the line. Anyway, without Serena, his plans for the future were screwed too. And it’s my fault.
I lean against a tree and close my eyes, pressing my palms against the rough bark.
Max took my car. He wanted to send me one last message.
One last “fuck you.”
Because I killed him.
That’s what happens to people who get close to me. Sooner or later, they’re going to wind up dead.
JENNA: Meet me?
ADAM: I can’t.
JENNA: Please. We need to talk.
JENNA: Adam?
ADAM: I’ll be there.
JENNA
It’s dark out. I follow the path of lanterns down to the craggy beach. Adam is already there, sitting on the rocks. He’s toying with a pebble, tossing it into the air and catching it in his palm. Even in the darkness I can see how restless he is. How uneasy he is.
His gaze stays trained on the water as I sit down beside him. I brush the sand off my hands. “Thanks for coming. Sorry, I know it’s late.”
“It’s alright. I was awake.” His voice is low and quiet, nearly swallowed by the sound of the surging waves.
I hesitate, focused on the tide. “Why didn’t you want to meet?”
“I wanted to.” His eyes are lost on the black ocean. “But I shouldn’t. You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t be around me. I’m no good for you.” He throws the pebble, and I hear it clink in the darkness.
“Adam, I have to talk to you about something. There’s no easy way to say this.”
He turns to face me.
“I was just at Serena’s house,” I explain.
“Yeah? How is she?”
“Not good.” I shiver. It’s colder today, the night air is damp and tastes salty as it rushes around us. “Serena told me something that I feel like you should know too. Max wasn’t driving your car.”
There’s a beat of silence.
He shakes his head, confused. “What?”
“Max wasn’t driving. Someone else was.”
Frown lines crease his brow. “What do you mean? Who was driving?”
“I don’t know, but Max was in the passenger seat when the car went into the water.”
/>
He stills, and his lips part. “No. Max was driving. He killed himself.”
I touch his shoulder. “Max didn’t do this,” I murmur.
“I don’t...” He drags his hands over his face. “Are you sure Serena’s got this right?”
“She seems pretty convinced.” I exhale into the night. “I’m sure this will all be made public, anyway. Once the press finds out.”
He stares back at me, silently.
“I wanted to tell you before you heard it from anyone else,” I say. “I thought you should know.”
“You’re sure he wasn’t driving?”
There’s nothing more I can say.
He lets out a shattered sound and scrubs his hands through his hair. “So, who was?”
I don’t answer. I don’t know how to.
“You think she did it?”
For a second, I wonder if he means Colleen, just like my mind had jumped to her when I was faced with the same question. But then I remember. “No,” I tell him, softly. “I don’t think Serena did it.”
“Did you tell her? About Max cheating on her?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“That night, the night Max died, you said you were going to tell her.”
“I know. But I didn’t. I still haven’t.”
“The last time I saw him...” He pauses, lost in his own words. “The last time I saw him, I came clean to him about what I told you. About him cheating. That was the last conversation I had with him.” A few long seconds pass before he speaks again. “How are you so sure that Serena doesn’t know about Max cheating?”
“Because I know Serena.”
“You think you know her.”
“She was home by midnight,” I relay to him. “Her mom has given an alibi that she heard Serena come in around that time and she didn’t leave again after. What happened to Max happened way after she left the cabin.”
“You’re sure?” he presses.
“Yes. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s true. Serena was at home when this happened.”
“And she couldn’t have come back?”
“She was home. The alarm system in her house has all the times logged.”
I fall quiet, listening to the hiss of the surf as the gale drives the breakers into the shore.
Adam’s gaze becomes distant, lost on the moonlit ocean again. “The cops questioned me. They would have known that Max wasn’t in the driver’s seat. They didn’t tell me.” He laughs under his breath. “They must think it’s me. They must think I was driving.”
“You can’t jump to conclusions like that. You don’t know what they’re thinking.”
“It was my car.”
“Well,” I say, and blow out a breath, “plenty of people would have seen you at the cabin or in the dorms. You’ll have an alibi.”
He catches my gaze. “I wasn’t at Rookwood on Friday night. Not the whole time.”
I stare back at him for a long moment. “Where were you?”
There’s another pause before he answers. “Your house.”
“What?”
“After I told Max about you knowing that he’d been cheating, he took off. I couldn’t find him. And I couldn’t find my car keys.” He grimaces as he relives the memory, and my pulse starts to quicken. “I started thinking maybe he’d gone looking for you, so I went to your house. I wanted to make sure that Max hadn’t tracked you down.”
I scramble for words. “How do you even know where I live?” The surreal memory of someone standing on my lamplit street flashes through my mind.
Adam.
“We talked about it. You told me. Way back when we first met.” His eyes skate over the dark shore. “Maybe you don’t remember it, but—”
“I do remember.” My voice is quiet.
“After what happened to Colleen, I couldn’t... I would never have forgiven myself if I didn’t...” The words fall away from his lips, and he winces. He offers me a wry smile. “Do you think I’m a creep for showing up at your house?”
I gaze down at my hands. “No.”
“I just didn’t want to take any chances. Turns out, I was following the wrong person. Or at least for the wrong reasons, anyway. I should have been watching out for Max.” He pauses and rubs his hands over his face. “The last time I spoke to him, it didn’t end well.”
I draw in a slow breath.
He picks up another stone and tosses it into the night, way more forcefully this time. “I won’t get a chance to make things right with Max.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. And in that moment, sitting beside Adam, here, on our beach and seeing the pain in his gaze, I feel the urgency of life, as though any minute he could disappear. All of this could disappear. I could disappear.
“I’m sorry too,” he replies, his eyes shifting back to the waves crashing in front of us. “I never wanted to lie to you. I don’t know if you can believe that, but I swear it’s true. From the moment I met you...” The sentence trails off.
“What?” I ask softly.
He musses his hair. “I don’t know. From the moment I met you, I knew I needed to know you. Your perspective, your intuition. You make me feel like I’m more than what I am.”
And suddenly I know what I’ve been hiding from myself, what I’ve been pushing aside amidst all of this chaos.
I want him, and I can’t pretend that I don’t. Not in this moment, when it’s just the two of us, with nothing but the rush of the ocean and the tick of time passing us by.
Before I even know what I’m doing, I lean in to him and my lips brush his. I pull him closer to me, feeling his cool lips on mine, tasting the salt air between us. His breathing quickens.
It’s just the two of us—the rest of the world has melted away. My hands are on his arms, and then the nape of his neck. I feel his heart beating fast against mine, his breath on my lips.
I pull him closer, and the darkness covers us.
ADAM
For the first time in a really long while, I feel like I have something to lose.
It’s dawn by the time I get back to Rookwood. Tommy is comatose in his bed, breathing steadily beneath the covers. I let the dorm door slam shut, waking him.
“Where the hell have you been all weekend?”
He blinks back at me in the dull light. “What?”
“Where were you all weekend? I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“Does it matter where I was? I’m back now.” His voice is bleary, thick with sleep.
“You weren’t answering my calls.”
“My cell died.”
It’s a lie. I know it is. But I don’t challenge him.
He stares at me, strangely. “What’s up with you?” he asks.
“Max was in the passenger seat of my car.”
Tommy sits up and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. His hair is wild and falling over his brow. “What are you talking about?”
“Max. He was in the passenger seat of my car.”
His face is blank.
“Someone drove my car off the jetty,” I tell him. “You haven’t heard?”
“Shit.” He yawns into the heel of his hand. “Is it a write-off?”
My car. He thinks this is about my car.
“Max...” I swallow hard. “Max drowned. He’s dead.”
Suddenly, Tommy is alert, sober. “What? What do you mean?”
I stand near his bed, tense. “Max is dead.”
“No.” He shakes his head, then rakes his hands roughly through his hair. “No way. He can’t be. He isn’t.”
I search his eyes. My next words jump from nowhere, rushing to the surface before I can pull them back. “Did you do it? Were you driving?”
His jaw drops. “What?”
I suck in my lip
. “Were you the one behind the wheel?”
He starts to laugh. It’s a hollow sound. “I can’t believe you’re saying this to me right now. A minute ago I was asleep, Adam. You wake me up, tell me my buddy’s dead, and then, what? Accuse me of killing him?”
“Someone took my car.”
“You’re losing it, man—”
“Alright.” My throat burns and my voice is shaking. “But you disappeared. You’ve been MIA all weekend. Your phone’s been off—”
He shrinks back from me. “So? That doesn’t mean I killed Max. Why would you even think that?”
I take a breath, trying to steady myself. “I’m sorry. I don’t really think that. I’m just...” I trail my knuckles over my mouth. “Max was hiding something, and now he’s dead. And we still don’t know anything. First Colleen and now Max... On top of all of that, you’ve been avoiding me all weekend. I needed your help, and you weren’t here.”
“Okay. I—”
“Why weren’t you answering my calls, Tommy?”
He doesn’t speak. He just stares down at his hands.
“Because I saw you with that guy?”
He sucks in a rough breath. His neck flushes red.
I cross the room and take a seat on my bed, facing him. “Tommy.” I try to catch his wandering gaze. “You can talk to me. If you want. I’m not going to judge you or treat you any differently.”
He won’t meet my eyes.
“You don’t have to hide who you are,” I tell him. “Not from me.”
There’s a silence between us, as the wind outside rattles the windowpane.
When he finally speaks, he sounds tired. “I wondered if you knew. Before.”
I nod but say nothing.
He gnaws on his lower lip. “His name’s Chris.”
“Maybe you’ll introduce us sometime.”
We fall quiet again.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
His jaw clenches as he swallows. “Max’s dead.”
I stare down at the floorboards, breathing slowly.
“Is this real?” Tommy murmurs.
My heart aches at the question. “I wish it wasn’t.”
Tommy bows his head. After a moment, he speaks again. “You ever worry about the future, Adam?”
This Is Why We Lie Page 16