The plate on the table in front of me holds a thick slice of tomato between two slices of mozzarella, drizzled with vinaigrette and sprinkled with cilantro. On what planet is this a salad?
Luke looks just as confounded by his identical serving, but Neda has already cut hers into several tiny bites.
Uncomfortable silence descends as Pen and Holden step into the cabana. She returns to her seat with her spine straight and her head held high, but her eyes are downcast and damp.
Holden sits in the chair across from my cousin and accepts the glass of wine a waiter sets in front of him. He smiles at Genesis, but she stands to address the entire table, as if she didn’t even see him.
“I know this is supposed to be super casual,” she begins while I stare at the artfully arranged hunks of tomato and cheese sitting in front of a gold-rimmed one hundred twenty-five dollar glass of wine. “But I just wanted to say a quick thank-you to everyone for coming. We’ve all been through a lot over the past week and a half, and tomorrow most of us are going back to school. Moving on with our lives. Let’s try to think of this dinner as closure. As putting the past behind us. Will you all toast with me?” She lifts her wineglass, and everyone else mimics the motion.
I raise my glass, but I feel like a kid playing dress-up.
Penelope still has tears in her eyes. Holden looks smug. Neda has her phone in one hand with her camera app open, obviously debating the wisdom of pressing the record button without permission.
“To the future,” Genesis says, and now she is looking at Holden. “May the past burn in hell.”
“To the future.” Luke looks at me as he says it, and in his wide-eyed look of wonder at the display of wealth all around us, I see a glimpse of the boy I invited to tag along on a camping trip that would change both of our lives.
“To the future.” Penelope sounds despondent, while she watches Holden stare up at Genesis.
“To the future.” Indiana’s eyes are closed as he sips from his glass, as if he’s truly thinking about what the toast means.
But I’m not ready to let the past burn in hell. Not quite yet.
We each take a sip of our wine, then silverware clinks as everyone begins to eat.
Except Genesis. She’s still standing, her brows drawn low as she scans the beach, as if she’s looking for something. Or someone. Her posture is stiff. Her glass shakes a little in her unsteady hand.
Something is wrong.
When she excuses herself to head for the bathroom in the main clubhouse, I follow her onto the beach. “Genesis,” I call, and she turns slowly. Reluctantly.
“Ryan was your brother too.” I don’t know where the words came from. I meant to ask her why she’s so tense. But she deserves the truth. “I overheard your dad and my mom . . .”
I let the rest fade between us, waiting for her to draw the painful conclusion and spare me from saying it. But she only blinks at me. Then her gaze drops to our feet, where the toes of her designer sandals and my vintage ones are practically meeting in the sand.
She doesn’t look hurt. She doesn’t even look surprised.
“You knew.”
Genesis’s gaze snaps back up to me. She frowns. “I’m sorry, Maddie. Ryan made me promise not to tell you.”
5 DAYS, 12 HOURS EARLIER
I’m still me.
GENESIS
People turn to stare the moment I step into the marble-floored foyer. That in itself is not unusual. Even in a school populated almost exclusively by children of the extremely rich and/or politically powerful, I am wealthier than most. And I know how to get what I want.
I’ve spent four years crafting my reputation. Building the Genesis I want to be—at least the Genesis I want them to see—out of a careful blend of rumor, fact, and artfully arranged couture ensembles.
That was the whole point behind my campaign, during my freshman year, to do away with school uniforms.
But for the first time in four years, this attention isn’t of my own doing.
I toss my hair over my shoulder and paste on a smile. A small one that says I’ve been through hell, but I’m still strong. I’m still me. I make eye contact with everyone I pass. I nod and murmur hellos, complete with names, and I make it halfway to my locker without betraying the fact that I’d rather be at home on the couch with Indiana. Or under the boardwalk at the beach with Indiana. Or picking up dog poop on the front lawn—as long as it’s with Indiana.
The first person to brave an approach is Hedda Rogers. President of the Unity Club and founder in chief of the local teen chapter of Worth the Wait. The abstinence society. To say we have differences of opinion is like saying the surface of the sun is a little warm.
“Genesis!” She tosses her Givenchy backpack over her shoulder and links her arm through mine as if we’ve been best friends since the hospital nursery. “We’re all so glad you’re home, safe and sound. Is it true you were kidnapped? Because Kaye Williams is saying you just got lost in the jungle, and the whole thing was blown out of proportion to spare your ego. But I told her you would never make something like that up.”
“How sweet of you.” I extract my arm and give her a big smile. “I told her the same thing last year when you were gone for two weeks with mono, and she told everyone you’d had a second nose job. I mean, why would you bother, when the first one was such a success?”
I leave her standing in the middle of the hall, staring after me with a smile frozen in place beneath her totally fake nose.
My locker is fifteen feet away. I’m almost there. More smiles and nods, and a hug from a girl I’ve never seen before who stops to tell me that her church youth group prayed for the Miami Six every night that we were missing and handed out remembrance bracelets at the candlelight vigil.
It’s strange to hear about what happened while we were in the jungle. I’ve worked hard to make sure everyone at school associates the name Genesis Valencia with the version of myself I’ve chosen to show them. And now, suddenly, they all seem to think they know the “real” me.
I dial in my locker combination and open the door, and I’m about to grab my European History text when a set of designer sandals stop next to my feet.
Penelope.
In August, I paid a scholarship student five hundred dollars to trade lockers with her so we could be next to each other. That was before I knew she was in love with my boyfriend.
They both stabbed me in the back. I could kill Holden, but for Pen, I feel only pity.
I close my locker. She’s staring into hers without truly seeming to see it. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” She pulls out an anatomy text. But she doesn’t have anatomy until fifth period.
“Listen.” I lower my voice to keep all the hangers-on from hearing. “I don’t know what he told you last night, but what Holden’s saying in public isn’t true.”
She turns to me, and her gaze is cold. I taught her that look, back in middle school. The key is that the ice has to start in your heart, then slowly work its way out until it’s visible in your eyes. We’ve used it on many a former friend. But we’ve never turned the weapon on each other before.
“Right,” Penelope says. “You’re holding hands on TV because you’re not a couple again. I’m done with you both.” Then she slams her locker and heads off in the direction opposite her first-period class.
So much for putting the past behind us.
I’m ready.
MADDIE
“You sure about this?” Luke already has his hand on the car door handle.
I nod. “I’m ready. I need just another minute.” I picked him up in my mom’s car. She probably won’t be leaving the apartment today, and if she needs to go somewhere, she has Ryan’s . . .
Crap.
“I should have taken Ryan’s car.” I’ve been driving my mom’s because driving Ryan’s is as difficult as going into his bedroom. It smells like him. It feels like him.
My mom isn’t ready to drive around with his ghost in the pas
senger seat next to her.
“So, your uncle bought your brother a car but he didn’t buy you one, and no one got suspicious about his motivations?” Luke’s talking to fill the silence. To try to distract me from my own thoughts.
“He bought me one too. Brand-new. I sold it and gave the money to Habitat for Humanity.”
“You did not.” His eyes are wide again.
“I did. In my father’s name.” Because I was the dumbest, most naive and gullible sixteen-year-old on the face of the planet. “He’d been dead for a couple of months. Or so we thought.”
“Did you at least drive it first?”
“Yeah. I took my road test in it. Then I drove it straight to a used car dealership and cashed out.” I shrugged. “I was trying to make a statement to my uncle, about how I didn’t need his money and he couldn’t buy my love. And I was trying to memorialize my dad.” Another shrug. “I guess I got it half right.”
“Damn.” Luke looks half shocked, half impressed. “I’ve never known anyone better at putting her money where her mouth is than you are.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. That’s the most flattering characterization I’ve ever heard of one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.
“But I guess they helped build a house with the money you donated, so there’s that.”
I laugh again. “They built three houses with the money I donated.”
“Holy crap! What kind of car was it?”
“I can’t tell you that,” I say as I push open my door, indulging an unexpected smile. “It’ll make you very, very sad.”
I own you.
GENESIS
The lunch bell rings, and I head for the parking lot. We only have an hour, but I placed an order online for sushi at my favorite restaurant. I can’t eat in the quad today. Not with Penelope shooting daggers at me and Neda trying to film every word either of us says in hopes that the “exclusive content” will boost her page views.
And Holden . . .
“Hey, beautiful.” He appears out of nowhere in the hallway and slides his arm around my waist. I try to shrug him off, but his grip tightens. “Don’t be a bitch, Gen,” he leans closer to whisper, and I know that to everyone watching, that probably looks like some kind of romantic gesture.
I want to punch him in the groin.
Instead, I stop walking and turn to face him with my most sincere screw-you smile. Then I lean in until my lips brush his earlobe. “The fairy tale you’re telling in public doesn’t change anything between us, Holden. Only a fool believes his own lies.”
When I step back, I expect to find angry-Holden staring back at me. Instead, he’s giving me a half grin I can’t believe I ever found sexy.
“This isn’t about what I believe. It’s about you making everyone else believe. Lucky for you, I’m willing to contribute to the effort.” He wraps one arm around me again, and his hand slides down to squeeze my ass.
I tense, ready to drive my knee into his favorite parts, but for once, he anticipates the blow.
“Twelve hundred bodies,” he hisses into my ear, and I freeze. “Billions in illegal profit. An undead uncle heading up a terrorist organization.” He squeezes me again, and his lips brush my ear as he whispers, “I own you, Genesis. All I’m asking for right now is some public goodwill. A little show for the cameras. But if you piss me off, I might just take this act in a much more private direction. . . .”
“Get your hands off me,” I growl, infuriated by the fact that I can’t afford to shove him off me. Or rupture his scrotum with my Valentino leather wrap sandal.
“You’re not calling the shots anymore.” He slides one knee between my thighs, and bile burns its way up my throat. “I’ll put my hands wherever I want. But all you have to do to stop me is neutralize my threat, Gen. Tell the truth about yourself and your family. Then I’ll have nothing to hold over you.”
He’s daring me to tell the truth. The knowing look in his eyes makes my stomach twist with nausea.
He knows.
Holden knows about the NDA. He knows I couldn’t tell the truth, even if I were willing to sacrifice my family.
He knows his grip on me is ironclad.
Holden gives me one more nauseating squeeze, then lets me go, even as he whispers into my ear, “I’ll let you know when I need you. And you damn well better be available.” With that, he turns and walks off down the hall, humming to himself. While I shake with rage.
When I realize people are staring, I shove my anger down deep and head out the door into the parking lot. The moment I step outside, I carefully scan the school grounds, gripped by a new tension that has nothing to do with Holden. I’ve seen Silvana in Miami twice in the past couple of days, which either means that I’m hallucinating, or she’s actually here.
Stalking me.
I’m so consumed by my search of the grounds—still cursing at Holden in my head—that I don’t even notice there’s a guy leaning against the hood of my car until I’m practically stepping on him.
“I thought you might want company for lunch.” Indiana pushes away from the car and leans in for a kiss. When he tries to pull away, I wrap my arms around his neck and deepen the kiss instead.
“I am so glad you’re here,” I whisper when I finally let him go.
He laughs. “Rough day?”
I can’t tell him about Holden’s new, salacious threat. He’s taken the public appearances pretty well so far, but no boyfriend would be okay with some other guy groping his girlfriend, and if Indiana confronts him, Holden might make good on at least part of his threat.
And that’s when I realize just how bad—and prolonged—this could be. Holden could tell the world that I pressed the button, and still have both my uncle’s and my father’s crimes to hold over my head.
But I have to tell Indiana something, before he figures out the truth from what I’m not saying.
“School doesn’t feel the same.” Though the truth is that school is exactly the same; I’m the one who’s changed. “Penelope hates me, even though she slept with my boyfriend, and Holden is . . . Holden.” I shrug as I press a button on my key fob to unlock the car. “Not gonna lie. There are times I wish he’d never made it out of the jungle.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No.” As badly as I hate Holden, I still don’t want to see him dead. That much has not changed. “But I really needed to say it.”
“Want to eat on the beach?”
“Yes,” I say as I slide behind the wheel. “How do you feel about sushi?”
Indiana sinks into the passenger’s seat. “Not as good as I feel about teriyaki.”
“Coming up.” Pulling forward out of my parking space, I use the hands-free system to call the sushi place and add Indiana’s order to mine and explain—politely—that we’re in a hurry. They know me by name. They’re used to my rush requests. And they know I’ll leave a tip as big as the bill.
As I turn left out of the lot, an uneasy feeling crawls over the back of my neck. As if I’m being watched. I glance into the rearview mirror, my hand clenching around the steering wheel. I fully expect to find Silvana standing beneath the huge oak tree in front of the academic complex—my school’s main building.
Instead, I see Holden, watching with a dark scowl as I drive off with Indiana.
People will listen.
MADDIE
I walk into the cafeteria with Kathryn Coppela, just like I have after fourth period all year long. Trying to pretend this is just a normal day.
Back to school: take two.
Today, I’ve managed to avoid reading about the Splendor victims on my phone and getting called on in physics.
Carrying my tray of lasagna and iceberg salad, I glance at the table where we usually sit. Then I glance at Luke’s table.
Kathryn elbows me and smiles. “You want to sit with him?”
“Is it that obvious?” My face feels warm. I feel like everyone’s watching me. Because they are.
She shrugs.
“I’m just glad something good came out of the whole thing. Especially after . . .”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. It doesn’t matter whether she was going to mention my dead brother, my secretly-not-dead father, or my wishes-she-were-dead mother. It’s the depressing thought that counts.
“Thanks.” I head for Luke’s table, and Kathryn follows me. When I turn back to glance at her in surprise, she shrugs. “Can I sit with you guys?”
“Yeah. Please.”
Luke stands when he sees us coming and introduces Kathryn to Michael, Landon, and Jayesh, who are already seated at the table, along with Jayesh’s girlfriend, Ashley. We’re short one chair, but before I can even ask, Landon has pulled one over from another table.
“Thanks,” I say as I set my tray on the table next to Luke’s.
Kathryn and I sit and everyone is friendly. Everyone gets along. And for just a minute, I feel like two halves of my life have peacefully merged.
Then I notice that the buzz of conversation has gotten much softer than usual. I twist in my chair to find that half of the cafeteria is staring at me. A few people don’t even bother to look away when I make eye contact.
The stares don’t look mean. They just look . . . curious. Interested. I’d hoped that the attention would fade over the weekend, but that clearly hasn’t happened.
Luke wasn’t the only one around here who no one noticed before spring break.
“How long do you think this’ll last?” I ask as I turn back to the table.
“Probably as long as Holden keeps the story alive,” Luke says.
“Well then, that could be forever. He loves nothing so much as the sound of his own voice.”
Ashley gestures in my direction with a cherry tomato speared on the end of her fork. “You know what they say—if you can’t stop people from talking, change the conversation.”