“I tried to actually,” she told him from under her pillow. “When you told me about why you couldn’t play football, I almost told you I have epilepsy.”
“But Margaret, you should have told me another time. I—I had no idea what was going on. Tyler waved down my dad and if he hadn’t come along right then...I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine. I just forgot to take my pill is all. It’s been months since I had a seizure. I thought they were over. My fault. Dumb mistake.”
“You scared me.”
“Well, sorry!” she snapped, sitting up. Also a bad idea.
“No, I was scared for you. I thought you might be dying or something. I’d never seen it.”
“I’m fine now,” she repeated, lying back. She felt so sore and exhausted.
“I’m glad,” he said weakly, staring at the floor of her room. She watched him a moment, wishing she had forgotten what he had said just before her seizure as she had everything that had happened since.
She sighed, staring at her boring, white ceiling.
“Why did you get so angry at me?” he asked.
“Are you kidding?” she scoffed. “You said if Amanda were still alive that we wouldn’t even be happening. It’s like you felt relieved she was gone and it made you feel guilty.”
He stared at her from the dark corner of her room. She looked away, unable to look into his eyes. She heard him get up, take a couple of steps forward. “Margaret, that’s not what I said at all. If she had not died…” he struggled. She faced him again, squinting. “If she had not died, I would still be with you.”
It registered slowly. She did not dare hear what he was saying. Painful as it was for him to admit, he swallowed and clarified for her. “I still would have kissed you. I have no doubt.”
“Got some tea,” her mom reentered. “It’s nice of you to wait, Tommy, but she really needs to rest. And she might be grounded for at least tomorrow. I’ll be home all day.”
“Okay, ma’am,” Tommy nodded politely. “Feel better, Margaret.” He touched her blankets and left.
Her mother did not want to allow Maggie to move on Sunday, but she had to give in a little, so she let her move inside the house. That was it. Cassidy Brennan did not know whether to be angry with her daughter or worried about her so they usually ended up blended together. Maggie wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone, despite the fact that her phone kept buzzing with messages which made her curiosity gnaw at her. But she was also smothered with attention and waited on hand and foot. It made for a weird compilation, but she was used to it.
Ms. Brennan cooked dinner, or tried to at least. Stir fry could not have been very difficult, but for some reason, the vegetables were too hard and the meat too chewy and they were both drowning in soy sauce. Maggie said nothing about it, though. It’s not as if she could do any better.
“How’s your case going?” she asked her mom. She wouldn’t get a full description, as her mom kept some details private, but at least it was a change in subject from what she had been doing at Tommy’s.
“It’s a big corporate scandal,” she said as if filling Maggie in on their favorite juicy TV show. “This company I’m working for has been up to less-than-legal extracurricular activities, but we couldn’t figure out how they were getting rid of the evidence. Well, recently I’ve got in good enough to do some nighttime grunt work. Looks like they are driving the stuff out of town with some office supply recycling. But I haven’t been able to confirm. Bit obvious and subtle at once, really, Trojan recycling,” she babbled on as Maggie nodded, trying to pretend to be interested.
Maggie knew her mom would let her pick the TV show that night, so she purposely chose a zombie program with lots of guts. “Ew,” Cassidy Brennan cringed, still refusing to leave the room. She clamped her eyes shut. “Ew, ew, ew. How do you watch this?”
Maggie laughed, snapping into a veggie. It earned her a stabbing glance from her mother. Apparently, she was still in trouble. Or whatever she was in.
By the time she got her cell phone handed back to her Monday morning, the inbox was full. Maggie deleted all the texts at once rather than go through them all individually. If it was important, they would send it again. She would probably see everyone soon enough anyway. Whatever it was could wait until then to tell her in person.
To her surprise, Tommy was outside when she went to wait for Becca, needing a mom-free breath. “Hey, what are doing here?” she asked.
“Driving you,” he answered quickly, opening the door. “Get in.”
She did not question it. “I texted Becca,” he told her. She was not sure where she and Tommy stood. He didn’t kiss her when he picked her up. He didn’t mention kissing her before. But he had come to get her, so it hadn’t scared him off too bad, had it?
“You okay?” she asked, to make sure.
He shot her a faint smile. “Yeah. Are you?” He eyed the spot where the pavement had scraped her face a little.
“Just embarrassed. Hope it didn’t scare you away.”
“Kind of the opposite,” he said quietly. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but before she could ask, the school was in sight. She heaved a sigh, really wishing those quiet, early morning rides were longer.
“I wish I lived further from school,” she thought aloud.
“Why?” he asked.
She looked out the window as they stopped, knowing she had to answer. “So the ride would be longer.” So our ride would be longer, she meant. Tommy didn’t say anything. She didn’t hear him get out of the truck, so she turned to see what he was doing. He was looking at her, his expression impossible to read again, but before she could ask him what it meant, he had eliminated the space in the cab in between them. He had her face in his hands, long fingers twisting her hair. His smell was swirling all around her, his tongue swirling along her mouth.
It was urgent kissing, the kind that felt like it might end at any minute, like they might get caught. It was excited, busy, and ungraceful. The kind of kissing where lips got bruised slightly and hair got pulled and fingers pinched as they moved uncoordinatedly and frantically, hands grabbing, mouths pressing. But no one minded. Her phone vibrated; she ignored it. No one cared. Nothing mattered except that they were touching. They were warm. The bell rang.
“Crap! We’re going to be late.” Rushing inside, Mags shoved her books into her clean-faced locker haphazardly, shyly smiling at Tommy then looking away as she hurried to Mr. Garrett’s class. She slipped in right as the bell rang.
Maggie was safe in the classroom, especially this one. No one dared gossip about her. No talking was permitted by Mr. Garrett. No one could ask if she destroyed the poster or if she set the police on Mark, their quarterback. They couldn’t even spend much time looking at her, not if they wanted to pass anyway. Their eyes were trained on the board, scribbling notes too quickly to make them legible, (in her case at least). She felt her phone shake with impatience again, but thankfully Mr. Garrett did not notice. She silenced it.
As class neared its end, Mr. Garrett explained the homework assignment. He did not like to waste even the last thirty second of class, and he chose that last thirty seconds to mention something that changed Maggie’s day entirely. “Oh,” he said as if it had almost escaped his mind. Not bothering to turn around completely as he wrote on the board, he said, “I am supposed to announce that the police have concluded their investigation. They won’t be talking to any more students.” There were gasps and murmurs. Luckily, he could ignore them as the bell rang and they were no longer his problem. Maggie sat still, stunned, for a moment. Then, she smiled. It was over. Sadly, sure, but it was over.
Maggie stood then, gathering her stuff, realizing she had left her chemistry book in her locker and she would have to race to make it there and upstairs. She checked her phone anyway. Becca had texted her several times. The most recent ones read: I NEED to talk to you. And, I know who killed Amanda.
“Miss Brennan? Maggie?” she vaguely heard
Mr. Garrett say. She did not answer, staring at the last text. She read it again. I know who killed Amanda.
She got another message. Where are you?!”- Becca
As she was replying, Becca walked in, flustered. “There you are!”
“What’s going on? I thought they closed it?” Maggie asked at the doorway.
“They did!” Becca hissed. “I figured out who did it. The police won’t listen to me. Please, Maggie, you’ve got to help me. I know how we can get the proof!”
“How?” Maggie asked.
“We have to get it. Now. Come on.” Becca was pulling her down the hall. The girl was frantic. Maggie felt a thrill. They were going to figure it out at last. They were going to get proof. Surely she could justify leaving class temporarily for that.
They scurried past everyone else, most oblivious, and Mags all but threw her books in her locker as they passed. It didn’t shut properly as she swung it closed. She had to dash back to close it. “Hurry!” Becca urged.
“Maggie?” someone called down the hall, but Becca had picked up the pace, her graceful legs longer than Maggie’s. Whoever it was would have to wait. Her heart was pounding, racing.
She was burning full of adrenaline as Becca made it to the yearbook room where they had once built Amanda’s collage. Maybe it was wrong, but she was excited. No, she was elated.
So was Becca. The halls were a blur of white noise outside the door. Becca locked the door with a soft click. Maggie stopped searching the room for evidence, turning to Becca.
“What is it, Becca?” She looked at the empty table, the dark computer screen, Becca’s stiff face. She didn’t see anything conspicuous. “What is it?”
Becca was leaning against the door, her feet crossed. She stared at Maggie, just stared. Then her head dropped down as she stared at the ground. As Maggie approached her, she realized the girl was crying. “Becca, what’s wrong?” she asked, concern mounting. “Why are we in here? What’s wrong? Talk to me.”
Becca shook her head, her curtain of brown hair swinging gently as she looked in Maggie’s face. “Why won’t you just confess?” she said.
“W-what?” Maggie stuttered, taking a step back.
“You played us! You lied.” With her eyes narrowed, Becca’s words seemed to reach Maggie slowly. She understood the body language immediately—threatening—but the words seemed nonsensical.
“What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t know anything about cheerleading!” Becca threw up her arms. “I made sure when I asked you to cheer with us. You were so cryptic about your silent, missing father, no social media footprint, and your mom’s ‘business’ job.” She did quotations in the air, walking towards Maggie with each word. Unsure what else to do, Maggie backed away. “You had been to so many schools you thought you could just reinvent yourself as anyone you wanted. So you chose her.”
Maggie scrambled to defuse the misunderstanding. “Okay, Becca, I lied about being a cheerleader. I’m sorry, okay?” Maggie yelled.
Becca laughed, but her face was furious.
“That’s not all you lied about. You told me your car was in the shop. That’s why I’ve been driving you back and forth to school, isn’t it? But you told Mark you didn’t have a car. So you had to have been lying.” She glared down at her, a hawk about to swoop on its prey and dig in its talons.
“You’re right,” Mags tried calmly, hands out flat in peace. “I don’t have a car. I didn’t feel like explaining—”
Becca cut her off. “Which was the same conversation in which I realized that you said you had driven into town the week Amanda died, driven back out of town at night. And you had come from Texas, meaning you would have taken the highway heading south out of town...”
Maggie was shaking her head as fast as it would go, trying to undo the thoughts snapping into place like puzzle pieces.
The highway out of town. Maggie remembered the exact spot, recalled the last time she had been out there in the pitch black night until the light had hit upon a figure.
“I saw her,” she whispered.
Rather than acting skeptical about the apparition, Becca threw her head back and laughed again. Maggie reached for the wall behind her, her arms pressed up against it, clutching it for dear life.
“You saw Sarah,” she explained as if Maggie were the stupidest person alive. “In a wig.”
“Why?” Maggie blinked, understanding the pain, the betrayal faster than the exact facts.
“I was trying to make you feel guilty, so you’d confess. I thought you might if you thought you had seen her where it happened. But still, nothing. No feeling at all. You didn’t dare tell us what you’d seen though, did you? We might catch on. But I knew it was you,” she growled.
“The cops said it was probably someone passing through. Someone who didn’t know Amanda. You were passing through that week. You didn’t know her. Your car was damaged. And that’s why you lied about it.” She crossed her arms, proud of her detective work. “There was no other reason for you to lie.”
All this time Maggie had thought they were on the same team, tracking the clues together. But unbeknownst to her, she was being hunted.
“Then, there was all that talk about knowing how to keep a secret…” Okay, maybe that did sound kind of bad. “And then you practically pretending to be her.”
“Did Mazy tell you that?”
“Mazy?” Becca asked hysterically. “You think Mazy needed to point it out to me? You had Amanda’s locker, her boyfriend, jumped on her best friend immediately—”
“I didn’t know—”
“Even took her spot on the cheer squad!”
“I was assigned that locker! And you asked me to try out!” Maggie tried desperately to point out, feeling her face heat up too. Everyone was so loud moving in the hallway outside they couldn’t hear the raised voices inside the locked yearbook room. The warning bell rang.
“Don’t even try to defend this!” Becca stuck her finger out dangerously. “I told everyone what I was thinking. Mark jumped the gun, wanted to nail you. Guess that came off,” she huffed cockily.
So that’s why Mark took her up there—to scare her into confessing or to make her take the blame? His bizarre behavior did finally make a little sense, but then...
Becca continued, “So we invited ourselves over to look through your stuff. Search for evidence.”
Maggie froze. They had been going through her stuff when they helped her unpack. She felt violated; her skin crawled. “Unfortunately, your house is empty as a stock photo. But that’s when you gave me the idea: get you to help me make a memorial collage, the ultimate confess trigger. But you’re amazing, you know that?” Becca scoffed. “You actually sorted through her entire life for hours, hundreds of pictures, and didn’t even flinch. But you couldn’t stand it, could you? Her being there at the dance, watching you with Tommy? You tore it to shreds!”
“I did not! I did not!” Maggie repeated helplessly. The second bell rang and she thought she heard someone call her name again. But maybe it was just wishful thinking.
Becca had it all sure in her mind. Maggie was never going to change it. She needed help.
“Who else would do it?” Becca demanded as Maggie eyed the locked door behind her, the opaque glass where shadows passed on the other side.
“Especially the corner of her and Tommy. Who else was at Tommy’s every time I left you alone? You had even told me at lunch you were hiding something, like we couldn’t figure it out. You said that the truth coming out would only hurt more people. Yeah, you,” she let out a strangled sob, wracking her thin form.
“You actually started playing detective with me, threw suspicion on everyone else: Mazy, Mark, Ashley Monroe. All the time just mocking me. M did it? This mysterious note no one else saw?” she demanded, bearing down on Maggie hard. “M, huh? Maggie!”
“No! I’m not M. I couldn’t even have put that in—”
“Oh? In your own locker?” she spat. “E
ven the spray paint didn’t make you come forward. The note was to you: ‘Tell the truth, M.’”
Damn punctuation, Maggie thought. A dash and it meant it was from M; a comma and it meant it was directed at her: M meant Maggie. But, only Mazy had called her that…
“I told the police everything, but you went in there and charmed them like you charmed Tommy. I don’t know what you told them, but,” she drew in a shuddering breath, continuing. “I had to go down to the station to keep Mark from getting in trouble. He couldn’t have done anything!” she growled. “He was with me! Do you have any idea how humiliating that was to tell them?”
“I—I didn’t,” Maggie’s voice faltered. Becca wept bitterly, actually stamping her foot in frustration.
“She was my BEST FRIEND! And you took EVERYTHING from her!” Becca screamed with all her might, her voice carrying through the door now, bouncing off the walls of Wilbur Mason’s past yearbook covers.
Maggie knew instinctively to move. She didn’t actually think of it, her body did it for her scrambling out of Becca’s path. But it didn’t stop her. They were on opposite sides of the table now, equal distance from the door.
Someone was looking for them in the hallway, Maggie was sure she heard it now.
Becca didn’t notice. Her eyes were predatory. “You took her life and then you took her place. And you won’t even confess. They said the only way to get any charges against you is a confession. So do it. Confess.”
Maggie stared at Becca, whose face was as livid as it was desperate, and tried to figure out the safest course of action. She couldn’t confess to something she did not do just to pacify Becca. The girl might be recording it to give to police, and given the way she had pointed out the details, it would do more than look incriminating; it would be incriminating.
She could try to get to the door first, but Becca may beat her to it or chase her. Running, too, might make her look guilty.
What could she do?
The doorknob rattled. “Becca? Maggie?” a voice called.
“We’re in here!” Maggie squeaked.
“Tell the truth!” Becca growled, launching towards her with her hands out to attack. In an instant she had slammed Maggie onto the table, pounding her face with one arm and ripping her hair from the roots with the other.
Keep Your Friends Close Page 26