I could eat in the restroom, I guess. How gross. As I trail a herd of students into the cafeteria, I see my regular spot is empty—the place where Swanee and I used to take up residence. Someone has even confiscated the chairs and left the table deserted. I look around as if I’m seeing the cafeteria for the first time. How all the cliques sit together. The jocks and the cheerleaders, the stoners, the loners, the Hispanics, the blacks. How depressing. So much for diversity training.
I hear the gays laughing and joking around, and I know I could go sit with them. But I haven’t been to the GSA in so long I sort of feel like an outsider now. Raucous laughter a few tables over draws my attention. Betheny’s eyes catch mine and hold. I wish I could go back in time to when we were BFFs. She glances away before I can even toss her an offhanded smile. That bridge went up in flames because of me. Relationships can’t be reconstructed from ashes.
I can’t stay here. I go to my locker, take out my coat, and eat outside at one of the picnic tables where all the smokers gather.
My fourth period is English and Mrs. Burke assigns a persuasive paper on the topic “Ignorance Is Bliss.” I’m so distracted I miss the part where she asks for volunteers to take sides so we can discuss it next week. “Alix,” she says, “would you mind taking the opposite position?”
I’m jolted awake by the sound of my name. “Which is what?” I ask her. Ignorance is ignorance?
“Yeah,” someone else says. “What is opposite?”
“You’ll figure it out,” Mrs. Burke says.
Ignorance is bliss is easy. Until I knew about Swanee’s death, I was ignorant of the true depth of pain a person could suffer.
Like Liana. She had two more weeks thinking Swan was alive. Maybe what I did wasn’t so horrible. Saving someone the agony of loss can’t be all bad.
Back home, as I’m lying in bed listening to music, my cell rings. No ID. It must be Joss, calling to ask if I’ve found Swanee’s cell.
When I answer, Liana says, “I assume you know where Swan lives.” She sounds pissed off. She has no right to be mad at me; I didn’t do anything—that she’s aware of. In fact, if I’d known about her, I never would’ve started dating Swanee. That’s not the kind of person I am.
“Would you take me there?” It’s more an order than a request.
So that means she was never in Swanee’s room? Never stayed the night? It’s a stretch, but maybe they didn’t do it?
“Alix?”
I’m torn. I understand her needs, and wish I didn’t. She has to touch and smell and sense what’s left of Swanee. If I were selfish, I’d say no, what’s left of Swanee is mine. But what does it matter now?
She adds, “We don’t have to go inside or anything. I just want to see how far her lies extended.”
How far is heartbreak and back?
“If you don’t want to—”
“It’s no problem,” I cut in.
“When are you free?” Liana asks.
“Whenever.” It sounds like I have no life. Which I don’t.
“How about now? As soon as I can get there? I could meet you at Arvada. I’d like to see her real school, too.”
“Okay. That’d work.”
“I’ll be driving a red Jetta,” she says.
We disconnect and I link to her Facebook page. Just to remind myself what she looks like. As if that’s necessary. Liana could be a supermodel.
Chapter 10
Her Jetta is already parked in the lot when I enter. I park next to her, but she doesn’t get out. I open my door and circle her car. She rolls down her window.
“Do you want to follow me, or are you legal to drive other people by yourself?” I ask. Because there are laws.
“I can drive,” she says. “Get in.”
As I’m latching my seat belt, she adds, “I’ll drop you back here afterward so you can pick up your car.”
Without even thinking, I say, “It’s my dad’s car. I don’t have my own.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She probably thinks I’m deprived by not having a car—which I am. No life. No car. No nothing. “I live close enough to walk to school.” On rare days Swanee would finish her run in time to pick me up. She’d park a block away from my house, and when I saw her pink Smart car, a rush of excitement would flow through me. Thinking about it now, it feels as fresh as yesterday.
“Thanks for doing this, Alix. I know I’m being a pain.”
“It’s fine.” I wish she’d drop the nice act. I can handle her bitchiness better, since she has every reason to resent me. We drive out of the lot and I say, “Take a left.” She shifts gears and I ask, “Did you and Swan always meet at your house, then?”
Liana blinks at me and shakes her head. “My parents didn’t like her, and vice versa. She met them a couple of times and said they gave off hater vibes.”
My jaw drops. “That’s the same thing she said to me.”
Liana meets my eyes. “At least she was consistent.”
I almost laugh, and then realize it’s not funny. Liana can’t be nice and funny.
We head to Swanee’s cul-de-sac and Liana says, “Can I ask you a question? It’s been bugging the hell out of me. I shouldn’t say hell, but what the hell?”
I can’t help cracking a smile. “Sure.”
“Why would Swan pose as someone else? She had to jump through a lot of hoops to keep her real identity a secret. Because the more I think about it, the more I wonder if everything she told me about herself was a lie.”
Why am I the one who has to end up hurting her again and again? “She was going with someone else when she met you. She didn’t want either of you to find out.”
I hear a small intake of breath. Liana goes, “Did she break it off with this other girl?”
I tell her the truth. “Yeah. In October.”
Liana turns slowly and stares at me.
I can’t look her in the eye. I lower my head. “I’m really sorry.”
“Why? It’s not your fault.” She looks away.
No, it’s not. So why do I feel like shit?
“I was wondering…” Liana lets out a long breath. “I’m trying to pick up some extra hours at work to pay for the engagement ring, since I charged it on my sister’s MasterCard.”
“Engagement ring?”
“We bought engagement rings for each other.”
But Swanee would’ve taken it back after she met me. Right? Right?
“I went ahead and gave her mine at Christmas, but she wanted to keep hers on layaway until she could pay it off.”
Liana sounds furious, the way I feel, or felt. I can’t even begin to fathom this depth of deception.
“Anyway,” she says, “I want my ring back.”
I don’t blame her.
“Have you seen a diamond ring in her room? She probably hid it from her parents. Or maybe she flaunted it, if what you say is true.”
I shoot her a dirty look. Why would she have reason to doubt me? She doesn’t know about my texting her, and she never will.
“Turn right here,” I say. We pull into the cul-de-sac and I tell Liana to park at the curb behind Genjko’s van. There’s no danger of us blocking him in, since all four of his tires are flat, not to mention he’s still in Hawaii, as far as I know.
I get out and shut my door, and then head up the sidewalk. Liana’s not behind me. I go back and lean down to the window. She cracks it open an inch. “Are you coming?” I ask.
“I don’t want to meet her family.”
“They’re not home. They went to Hawaii.”
She gives me that same bewildered look Mom did.
“Hang on.” I walk to the porch and ring the doorbell. A minute passes and no one answers. I signal to Liana to come.
She seems reluctant to approach the house. I find the key under the frog and open the door. It’s cold inside. Freezing. Maybe I should’ve turned up the thermostat the last time I was here.
Liana stands outside, peering in through the doorw
ay.
“It’s not haunted,” I say. But my eyes stray to the urn of ashes and I wonder.
Liana finally steps inside so I can close the door. Her eyes dart around. “Huh,” she says. “It’s definitely not what I expected.”
That makes sense. If Swanee said she lived in Greenwood Village, Liana would expect a mansion.
“She said her parents were loaded—like country-club types. Which is one reason she couldn’t come out to them. Their reputations, you know?”
That makes me laugh out loud. “Asher fixes foreign cars, and Jewell works part-time as a caretaker for a man with Alzheimer’s.”
Liana’s big eyes narrow.
“Do you want to see her room?”
Liana shrugs one shoulder. “I guess so. It’d be nice to find that ring so I don’t have to work my butt off for the rest of my life.”
On the way down the hall, I ask, “Where do you work?”
“Victoria’s Secret.”
A visual of her in a skimpy bra and a thong flashes through my mind, and I get this little thrill. Feeling ashamed, I push it down. Swanee owned a ton of provocative underwear. Did Liana use her employee discount to buy it all for her?
I never thought I’d be back here, and I wish I weren’t. But I suppose after so many lies, Liana deserves as much truth as Swanee’s room will reveal. “It’s here.” I point to the closed door.
She hesitates the way I did, maybe hoping this is all a dream and Swan will emerge. Liana clasps the handle and turns it slowly. Inside, emptiness. She enters, while I sit cross-legged just outside the threshold.
I try to see the room through Liana’s eyes. There are rainbow buttons and stickers all over Swan’s mirrors. The Johnny Depp posters. The bag from the hospital on the bed.
“What are all the trophies for?” Liana asks.
“Track and field,” I say. I’m surprised Swan didn’t tell her that, at least. But then I realize Liana could’ve looked it up. “She was a runner. Last year she won the sixteen-hundred and thirty-two-hundred meters at State, and raced in the relays. She was practicing for the upcoming season when…”
I wonder if Liana’s thinking the same thing I am: How does a person who’s in phenomenal shape just drop dead? Don’t they have to get sports physicals?
Liana picks up the essay notebook. “I wrote these poems to her,” she says, more to herself than to me. “I put my heart and soul on these pages.” She opens the cover and flips through it. “There are pages missing.”
Shit. “If it makes you feel any better,” I say, “she kept it right there on her nightstand.”
Liana turns and meets my eyes. “Here’s how it makes me feel.” She rips out the rest of the pages and flings them across the room. She throws the notebook like a Frisbee and it clunks against the opposite wall. Picking up a sweatshirt, she shakes it out. It’s the blue one I rolled up to rest my head on. The back reads UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN COLORADO IN GREELEY. “This is mine,” she snarls. She hugs it to her chest, then kicks through the junk on the floor and grabs the necklace with the cross off the desk. “This is mine, too.” She digs through the rest of the crap on the desktop, and then clears it with a swipe of her arm. “Where’s the ring? I know you know where it is.”
My cheeks flush. “I don’t! I swear.”
She charges toward me like she’s going to kick me and take me down, but she vaults over my body instead. A moment later, I hear the front door shut.
Bitch, I think. The least you could’ve done is take me back to school.
As I’m locking the front door behind me, I see Liana sitting in her car, her forehead pressed to the steering wheel. Waiting for me? When I head down the walk, she guns the motor and tears off.
That night I call Joss and ask when they’re coming home.
“Soon, I hope,” she says. “I hate this fucking family, if that’s what you even want to call it. Every minute with them is like living in the fiery pit of hell.”
Always the drama queen. “But you don’t know when?”
“Why? Do you miss me?”
When I don’t answer right away, Joss laughs bitterly.
I don’t want to go back in Swanee’s room. Not ever. But I may have to. “Do you know where the engagement ring that Liana gave Swanee is?”
“The what!”
She sounds genuinely shocked. “Swan didn’t tell you they were engaged?”
“No way. Who told you that?”
“Liana.”
“Why are you talking to her?”
I’m not going to tell Joss we’re trading war stories and basically trashing her sister. “So you never saw a ring?”
“There’s no fucking ring. Swan would’ve shown me.” Joss clicks her tongue. “Engaged. I’m so sure. Have you found the cell or car keys?”
“No. Sorry.”
“You better, because Jewell is threatening to put a lock on Swan’s door.” She ends the call.
The way she reacted, I believe Joss didn’t know about the engagement. Now I have all these doubts floating around in my head again. I know Swanee lied to Liana about her identity, but now I wonder if Liana’s lying to me about the engagement. To make me feel worse? Or more inadequate than I already do? I try to put myself in her shoes and can’t. Her six months trumps my six weeks.
I feel a connection with Liana that I wish I didn’t. Not only did Swan lie to both of us, in her wake she left a path of emotional devastation.
I open a blank document to start my persuasive paper and key in the title: “Ignorance Isn’t Ignorance.” That can’t be right. A wall goes up and I don’t want to scale it, or even figure out the topic of this paper.
I link to my Facebook page and see that I have a message; it’s from Liana. My stomach does a little flip. Maybe she’s going to ask for forgiveness. She doesn’t even realize what it took for me to willingly share Swanee with her.
The message reads: I can’t be your friend. Sorry.
I check out my friends list and see that she’s no longer there. It’s not like we ever were friends, really, but no one’s ever unfriended me. Not even Betheny.
Chapter 11
I wake to the smell and sound of bacon sizzling downstairs. My nose leads me to the kitchen, where Dad’s fixing Sunday breakfast. Mom’s there, feeding Ethan a bowl of watery baby cereal. Her beeper goes off and she curses under her breath. She says to me, “Would you mind?” Meaning taking over the feeding. That I can do, as long as other people are around in case I screw up. I slide into her chair as she hurries to the phone to call the hospital.
Dad sets a plate of eggs, hash browns, and bacon in front of me.
“Thank you.” I rub my hands together. “I’m starving.”
He plants a kiss on the top of my head. If I hadn’t felt it, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Mom hangs up and says, “I’m sorry. I have to go.” She hustles over to Dad and gives him a peck on the cheek. Slowing behind me, she pats my shoulders. “How are you doing, sweetie?”
Is there an answer to that? “Okay.”
Dad sits down with his plate and says to me, “What’s on your agenda for today?”
Sleeping. Zoning. “Nothing. Why?”
“I thought we’d all go tubing at Winter Park.”
“Seriously?” My spirits lift. We haven’t done that since I was a kid.
“Depending on how long your mom has to work.”
I slump. She’ll be there for hours, and by then it’ll be too late to drive to the mountains.
Ethan clamps his lips together every time I lift the spoon to his mouth. Like he’s afraid I’m going to poison him. Meanwhile, my eggs and bacon are congealing. I give up on Ethan and dig into my breakfast, and Ethan lets out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Alix,” Dad says.
“Well, he won’t let me feed him.”
Dad scoots his chair down to take over, and suddenly Ethan is all smiles. It hurts that he hates me. What’d I ever do, except nearly kill him?
A
fter eating and cleaning up, I go to my room and dig Dad’s old fishing-lure box out of the closet. I sit on my floor to make jewelry. In the box are rolls of colored wire and dental floss, beads of every shape and size, old buttons I’ve collected over the years. I have squares of colored paper for origami, along with posts and gold loops. There’s an earring on top that I started and never finished. It’s braided wire with colored beads in the order of a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.
It was for Swanee, of course. I don’t know why I kept making them for her when she never wore them. Except she did always say she loved them.
I can’t finish this one; I can’t even stand to look at it. I set it aside. The buttons I’ve collected over the years have come from clothes I bought at thrift stores and Goodwill. I sort through them for a matched pair to make earrings for someone—maybe Jewell. She wears lots of beads and bangles. Or Joss. I feel guilty about not defending her to Liana.
Joss texts me around nine AM to tell me they’re home AT LAST!!!! She asks if she can come over. I text her that we’re going to Winter Park today.
She texts:
Can I go?
I don’t want her to. Not today.
I lie:
Dad says he wants it to be just family
A minute later she texts back:
Then can you drop me off at a friend’s before you leave?
I can do that.
Sure
Mom’s still at the hospital, and Dad’s in the living room, giving Ethan a bottle. “I need to run out for a minute,” I tell Dad.
He glances up. “How long’s a minute?”
I mock sneer at him. “Like, half an hour.”
“No more than an hour,” he says. “And if your mom gets home early, we’ll call you.”
I take the keys and dash to the garage. When I ring the bell at the Durbins’, Joss answers.
“Hi,” I say. “How was your trip?”
“Awesome,” she deadpans.
Genjko passes behind her with his duffel and heads for his room, giving off an aura of live ammo. Lost his Zen, I guess.
“We’re outta here,” Joss mutters.
Jewell snags Joss’s sleeve. “Where are you going?”