Lindsay? I try to laugh, but it comes out as a garbled squark through my tears. I shake my head. “No, it’s not . . . it’s not that.”
Elise waits, rubbing my back in slow, soothing circles, and eventually—long minutes later—my sobs fade away, leaving nothing but exhaustion and the familiar dull throb of a headache in their place.
“Here.” She wets a paper towel and dabs at my face. I try to duck away again, but she rolls her eyes. “Trust me. That mascara isn’t waterproof.” I quit struggling and let her pull me back together; blotting my red eyes, smoothing back my tangled hair, until there’s nothing left to do, just silence between us in the empty bathroom.
“I’m sorry,” Elise offers finally. Her voice is soft, fearful. “I know I shouldn’t have ditched you like that, but—”
“You think this is about you?” I have to laugh again, harsher this time. “You’re not . . .” I stop, trying to find the words, but there are none. “The world is bigger than high school,” I bite out at last.
She waits.
“You can go back now.” I take a deep breath, willing my pulse to slow. “I’m fine.”
Elise doesn’t move.
“I mean it.” I wipe my face again, blow my nose. “I’m good, see?” I force a smile. “It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit.” Elise’s voice is low but clear. “Come on, Anna. Talk to me.”
She takes my hands again, forcing me to meet her gaze. I take another breath, ready to brush away her concern with some flippant comment or sarcastic crack, but instead, the words slip out of my mouth, unbidden.
“The cancer’s back. My mom . . .” And then my voice breaks, and I collapse into tears again.
“Oh, Anna . . .” Elise pulls me closer. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think—”
The bell goes off, but we don’t move until the door swings open and a rush of sound slips in from outside. “You can’t even ask him.” A familiar voice is midsentence. “I mean, he was—” The voice stops. “Um, hello?”
We look up to find Lindsay and a cluster of other girls in the doorway, looking down at us with matching expressions of disdain. “Elise?” Lindsay frowns. “What are you doing?”
“Find another bathroom, okay?” Elise doesn’t loosen her grip on me. “We’re busy.”
“I can see.” Lindsay’s voice drips with sarcasm. “You guys sure look cozy.”
Elise turns away from her, and back to me. “You think you can get up?”
I nod, wordless.
“Aww, did someone hurt your feelings?” Lindsay crows. I ignore her, taking Elise’s hand and letting her pull me to my feet. “Or did we, like, interrupt something?” She laughs. “Maybe that was the reason you wouldn’t go out with Carter, huh, Elise?”
“Oh, fuck off.” Elise glares at her. There are gasps from the chorus, more of delight than shock. Lindsay’s face changes.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me. And get the hell out of our way.” Elise pushes me toward them, to the door, and I stumble forward, too drained to do anything but go where she points me.
The group parts, all except for Lindsay, who stands firm, blocking our path. “You want to think about this,” she tells Elise, her voice low and furious.
“No, I don’t.” Elise’s hand is on my back, steering me, but I stop. She shouldn’t have to do this, throw everything away because I couldn’t keep it together.
“Don’t worry,” I tell Lindsay quietly. “She was just . . . taking pity on me. She’s not . . . we’re not friends.”
“Anna—,” Elise starts, but I cut her off.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Really. I get it.”
I head for the door. This time, Lindsay moves aside.
“See you in gym,” Lindsay calls after me as I make it to the hallway and start walking away, my head bent in defeat. As I go, I hear her turn on Elise. “This is so not acceptable, do you even know—”
“What?” Elise’s voice echoes after me. “That you’re a skanky bitch with no soul?”
I stumble in surprise. She didn’t . . . ?
But she did. And she isn’t finished. “Sorry to break it to you”—Elise’s voice is loud enough to get the attention of even the students passing in the hall—“but pretty much everyone knows by now! And FYI, we are friends.”
I hear hurried footsteps, and a moment later, Elise falls into step beside me.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say softly, tears welling in my throat again.
“Yes, I did.” Elise links her arm through mine. “Now, tell me everything.”
• • •
So I do.
I thought it would be hard, but I’ve spent so long holding it back that it’s easy this time. A relief. We head downtown again, and the words tumble out as I tell her about what happened last time around. The scans and abnormal tissue samples, and the hours spent waiting on hard plastic chairs in fluorescent-lit hospital corridors. Chemicals and radiation, hair clogging up the bathroom sink in long, curling strands. We tried to make a game of it, with DVDs and trashy magazines, and Popsicle Fridays, sucking ice treats by her bedside during chemo as her skin got paler, and everyone talked too loudly about “the fight” and “her journey” and being a “survivor.” But it was worth it, that’s what they all said. She got better, the tests came back clear, and it was over.
Until now.
“The worst part is, it’s like I’ve already lost her.” The words feel like a betrayal, but I need to get them out. “She faded so fast during treatment last time.” I explain. “Most days she could barely stay awake. And that was okay. I mean, it wasn’t, but I understood. She was sick. And I did everything—I sat with her, and fed her, and stayed up all night. . . . I forgot about everything else. It was like I could make her better just by trying hard enough, you know?”
Elise nods.
“I figured it would be okay. It had to be okay. She’d get better and go back to being my mom again. But, even when it was over, she wasn’t the same.” I stop walking. The streets are dark now, crowded with commuters shoving past, but I don’t move.
“She got . . . obsessed,” I continue, “with health foods, and meditation, and these support groups with other survivors. It’s taken over her whole life. She spends every day off at retreats and the yoga studio. She doesn’t even notice me anymore.”
Elise puts her hand on mine; a dark leather glove over my red mittens.
“I don’t think I can go through this again.” My voice twists. “It was like, I lost myself, trying to make her better, and I never got me back. I can’t do that again, I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
Other girls would speak up now; reassure me that my mom does notice me, love me. That everything will be okay. But Elise doesn’t.
“Then we should do something,” she tells me at last. “Just for you. So you can remember yourself this time.”
“Like what?”
Elise slowly smiles. “Do you trust me?”
I shrug.
“Come on, Anna. Do you trust me?”
I want to laugh it off, but there’s something in her expression that keeps me standing there in the middle of the busy sidewalk: determination. Enough to make me believe what she’s saying, that I don’t have to be lost again. And God, I want it so, so much.
I can’t go through that again.
So I nod.
“I trust you.”
• • •
The pink streak is two inches wide, hidden behind my ear on the left-hand side. Elise had one done too, matching, in deep peacock blue. They’re invisible, until we pull our hair back, and then there they are: bold, bright. Brave.
You wouldn’t think a lock of dyed hair could make a difference, but it does. I look at it every night at home, as the chemo gets under way and my mom fades back into that pale stranger, drinking juice through a sippy cup and sleeping through my days. I stare in the mirror, and remind myself: I’m here, I exist.
I’ll
be okay.
NOW
Everyone is trying to make like it’s my fault. Prosecutors, her parents, reporters, TV. They say I led Elise astray; that I took a sweet, innocent straight-As girl and dragged her down to my level. That I coerced her into skipping school, and staying out too late, and drinking dollar shots in dive bars until she screwed strange guys in the bathrooms of clubs that should never have let us in.
That I made her this way.
It sounds bad, I know, but the truth is, we made each other, like we learned about in science class. Symbiosis. I was the partner-in-crime she’d been waiting for: a hand to hold as she ran, laughing, away from the ivy-covered gates she’d been gazing over her entire life. And Elise . . . She was my catalyst. The glint in my eye, the giddy thrill in my stomach, the voice urging me to be louder, bolder, to blend into the background no more.
We were both responsible for what we became, which I guess means we both have to share the blame. If Elise is the cause of everything that’s happened to me, then I’m to blame for her fate too. It’s both of our faults, equally.
Except she’s gone, and I’m all alone again. And so the blame—the great weight of it, the months of media speculation and fury and bitter, seething outrage—falls entirely on me. Some days, it’s like I’m drowning in it, like I’ll never see the surface again. She was always the one to pull me up, my hand to hold when it felt like I was going under. She saved me, and now she’s gone.
How am I supposed to get by on my own?
THE NIGHT
The first round of questioning is simple: “When did you last see Elise?” “What were you doing that day?” “Did you see anyone suspicious near the house?”
They take us one by one into the interview room, while the rest of the group slouches, tired and weepy on yellow plastic chairs in the lobby of the police station as people mill about us in a state of barely disguised panic. We’ve called our parents, stuttered through the terrible news, and now there’s nothing left to do but wait. Chelsea’s eyes are red and tired. She sits, frozen, clutching Lamar’s hand with both of hers, staring at the bloodstains on her jeans. Melanie huddles her small body into a ball, her arms hugging her knees, her voice raw from sobbing. I can hardly bear to look at them. Every part of my body feels wired with a terrible rush of shock and adrenaline, as if my atoms are about to break apart and spin out into the world.
I leap up. “Mel, you got any quarters?”
She blinks at me from behind straight black bangs.
“The machine, I need a soda.” I nod to the vending machine. Melanie slowly rummages in her purse, like she’s moving underwater, and passes me some change.
I go try the machine in the corner by the reception desk. The precinct staff look as shocked as I feel; over and over again we’ve been told this doesn’t happen here. This is a safe island. Some robbery, a few drunken traffic violations, but murder? The first patrol to arrive at the house didn’t know what the hell to do. One of them just stood there, staring blankly at the blood, while the other vomited in the hallway and stumbled back outside. It took another half hour for more police to arrive, and longer still for anyone to even approach the body. They trampled in and out of the room all night, and it was almost five in the morning before they finally bundled her up onto the stretcher and drove away.
I’ve been feeding the money in over and over before I see that the prices are listed in euros, not dollars. It doesn’t take American currency. I search my pockets, but there’s nothing. After everything, it’s the can of Coke that breaks me; out of reach behind the glass. I slam my hand against the machine and swear, loud in the silence of the room. Everyone looks over.
“Sorry,” I mutter, sliding back into my seat. Tate is sitting on the floor in front of me, his legs outstretched. I put a hand on his head, twisting my fingers in his hair. He turns and gives me a faint ghost of a smile, but it’s enough to calm me. It always is.
“He’s been in there forever.” Chelsea can’t keep her eyes from the interview room door. It’s Max’s turn now, and Chelsea pulls her sweatshirt around her, looking anxious for her brother. “Why are they keeping him so long?”
Silence.
“He was first, to see the body,” I offer. “He saw the room before we all came in. The open balcony door.”
“I still say we shouldn’t be talking to them.” Tate’s foot twitches again. “Not without a lawyer.” He looks to Akshay. “Didn’t your dad say he was finding someone?”
Silence.
“AK?” Chelsea nudges him gently. AK flinches. “Your dad, the lawyer?”
AK shrugs. He has a distant look in his dark eyes, like he doesn’t see any of us at all. Usually he’s the one with a joke and a quip, but now he looks wrung out. Detached
“We’re minors, too,” Tate adds. “We shouldn’t be alone in there.”
“They need to find out what happened,” I tell him gently. “So they can find the guy who did this.”
“What if he’s still out there?” Melanie turns to us, wide-eyed. “What if he comes back to the house?”
There’s a long pause. For the first time, I stop thinking about what has happened and look ahead, to what still may be to come.
“We’ll go to a hotel,” Lamar speaks up, his voice the only steady one. He takes Chelsea’s hand, reassuring us. “We’ll stick together.”
“But he could be after us!” Melanie’s voice cracks. “We don’t know why he came for her. It could be anything; it could be—”
“Mel,” I warn her. “Calm down.”
“How can you . . . ?” The tears are coming now, fast down her cheeks. “You saw—you saw what he did to her! She must have been so scared, and nobody was there, and . . .” She collapses into hysterics, hiccupping for air. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
“Melanie.” Chelsea tries to reach for her, but Mel ducks away. She’s gasping, doubled over, hyperventilating. “Mel!”
“Get a paper bag.” I leap up. “That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? A paper bag?”
I get blank faces. AK is still spaced out, Tate looks lost, and Chelsea is helplessly searching through her purse for something. “Guys!” Melanie’s face is red; she’s wheezing desperately, her whole body shaking, so I cross the waiting area and slap her once across the face, hard.
She stops, gaping at me. Her breathing goes back to normal.
“It’s okay,” I tell her quietly. “But you need to calm down. There’ll be time for that later. We have to stay strong. For Elise.”
Melanie nods wordlessly, but she scooches her knees up to her chest and hugs them again, turning her face away from me. I exhale.
“Sorry,” I tell her quietly. She doesn’t reply.
The main precinct doors swing open, and another serious-looking man strides through. He was part of the crowd back at the house too: squat and bulky and balding on top. Although he’s not in uniform, people quickly move out of his way as he steams across the floor toward us.
“Has something happened?” I ask. “Did you find something?”
He looks at us all for a moment without speaking, then turns and enters the interview room, the door slamming shut behind him.
I swallow. “Maybe you’re right,” I say softly to Tate. “Maybe we should have a lawyer.”
• • •
When Max is done, the bald guy calls Tate back in for another hour. Chelsea and Mel try to get some sleep; stretched on the bank of chairs with sweatshirts draped over their faces to block out the strip lighting overhead. I can’t even try. Every time I close my eyes, Elise is staring back at me, empty and lifeless, so I keep them open—playing Tetris and Super Mario on my phone until my whole world shrinks to the lines of tiny colored blocks and there’s no room even to think. It’s bliss. As long as I keep my mind filled with jumps and moves and left/right commands, I can pretend I’m anywhere—waiting for a ride or killing time in study hall. Anywhere but here, for any reason but this.
“Anna?”
> I don’t register the voice at first, I’m so focused on the tiny screen.
“Anna.” Lamar’s voice is sharper. “Judge Dekker needs to talk to you.” I look up to find the bald guy waiting, his face blank. Tate emerges from the interview room behind him, looking drained, his tall frame slouching.
“I already went,” I tell them.
The Dekker guy gestures for me. “Just a few more questions.”
I don’t want to go back in and talk them through it again; The phone, and the door, and the blood. “I’m tired,” I say, a plaintive note creeping in my voice. “Can’t we do this tomorrow?”
But he’s unmoved. “Miss Chevalier.”
I pull myself upright and stumble toward the room, catching AK’s eye as I go. He looks so freaked, I lean in as I pass.
“It better not take long,” I tell him, managing a weak smile. “I’m so hungry, I could slaughter a goat.”
THE TRIAL
“She said that?” Dekker pauses for effect, a note of horror in his voice. “ ‘Slaughter?’ ”
“Yup.” AK is sitting confidently on the witness chair like he’s slouched on the front steps before class, watching cheerleading practice across the lawn. The dazed confusion and thousand-yard stare from that night are long since gone: This is the AK who has a weekly commentator’s spot on the Clara Rose Show, offering his valuable opinions on news, crime, and—of course—this case. Last week he closed his million-dollar book deal. Today, he’s wearing a designer shirt and a signature red pocket square in his blazer, all the better to pop for the cameras.
He hasn’t looked at me once during his testimony.
“And what was her mood like that night?” Dekker asks.
My lawyer leaps up. “Objection.”
Dekker sends him a crocodile smile. “Let me rephrase. How was the defendant acting? She must have been very emotional. After all, you’d been through such a terrible trauma.”