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Chapter 23
EMILY’S SUCH A PUSHOVER
The following afternoon, Emily pulled into the parking lot of the Stockbridge trail and immediately spotted Kelsey’s black Toyota hatchback in one of the front spaces. Last night’s rain had stopped, and the sun had come out again, making all of the trees look extra green and lush.
Before she got out of the car, she turned and squinted at the vehicles swishing back and forth on the winding road. When a Mercedes coupe whizzed past, she watched it carefully. Was that Spencer’s car, or was hers more silvery? Emily bit a fingernail. What would Spencer say if she saw Emily and Kelsey together? When Kelsey had emailed Emily that morning asking if she wanted to go on a hike after school, Emily had hesitated, thinking about her meeting with Spencer and the others last night. But after a moment, she’d said yes. Spencer couldn’t tell her who she could or couldn’t be friends with. The photo of Tabitha on Kelsey’s phone worried Emily, but just because Kelsey had been to Jamaica at the same time as Emily and her friends didn’t mean she was A. Either way, hanging out with Kelsey today was Emily’s chance to suss out some information and prove Spencer wrong once and for all.
She locked her car and strode across the lot toward Kelsey. Kelsey was taking a big swig of water, dressed in khaki cargo pants, hiking shoes, and a black North Face hoodie that looked almost exactly the same as the one Emily was wearing. There was something jittery about her walk, her legs moving choppily, her body having lots of bounce. It was as though she’d just drunk a bunch of cups of espresso.
“This is one of my favorite places,” Kelsey said, her voice a little on the peppy side, too. “I used to camp up here all the time. ”
“The trail is gorgeous. ” Emily followed Kelsey past the large sign that listed the path’s hours of use and a bunch of warnings about Lyme disease and ticks. “I was never allowed to come here when I was younger. My mom was sure it was full of kidnappers. ”
“And did you believe it, too?” Kelsey teased.
“Maybe,” Emily admitted.
“And here I thought you were a badass. ” Kelsey pinched Emily’s arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe from the big bad kidnappers. ”
They started to climb the narrow slope. An older couple with a golden retriever passed them in the other direction, and three runners disappeared around the bend. Emily paid close attention to her footsteps, careful not to trip over any of the scraggly branches that had fallen across the path. The coconut scent of sunscreen wafted down from a higher point on the trail, and the photos from Jamaica Spencer had stolen from Kelsey’s phone flashed in Emily’s mind again. She cleared her throat. “I like camping, but it’s not my ideal vacation. I’d rather go to the ocean. ”
“I love the beach,” Kelsey gushed.
“Have you ever been to the Caribbean?” Emily asked. Her heart pounded hard, anticipating Kelsey’s answer.
Kelsey skirted around a large rock. “A couple times. I was in Jamaica just last year. ”
“I was in Jamaica last year, too. ” Emily prayed she sounded sufficiently surprised. “Did you go during spring break?”
“Uh huh. ” Kelsey turned around, an intrigued smile spreading across her face. “You too?”
Emily nodded. “Next we’ll discover we stayed at the same hotel,” she joked. Or at least she hoped it sounded like a joke. “I stayed at a place called The Cliffs. It had these amazing rocks you could dive off into the ocean. And a really great restaurant. ”
Kelsey stopped on the trail and blinked. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Emily shook her head, her mouth bone-dry. She searched her friend’s face for any signs of awkwardness or deceit, but Kelsey looked so guileless, truly caught off guard. If I see a squirrel in that tree, Kelsey is innocent, she told herself, gazing at a big oak in front of her. Sure enough, a squirrel scampered along one of the high branches.
“What week did your school go on spring break?” Kelsey asked.
Emily told her, and Kelsey exclaimed that was when St. Agnes had been off, too. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice you,” Kelsey said after a moment. “Just think. We could have become friends so much sooner. ” She touched Emily’s arm. “Or maybe more than friends. ”
All the nerve endings in Emily’s arm tingled. When she breathed in, the air smelled dewy and fertile, like everything on the trail was sprouting. She gazed into Kelsey’s bright green eyes. Either she was an incredibly skilled liar, or she really knew nothing. She might have met Tabitha at The Cliffs, but there was no way she knew what had happened to her. She certainly didn’t know what Emily and the others had done.
Suddenly, Emily noticed a familiar fork in the path. “Can we make a detour for a sec? I want to see if something is still here. ”
Kelsey nodded, and Emily trekked a few steps down the fork and came upon a small stone water fountain that stood on the side of a sharp, muddy slope. There were two handprints in the cement. One print was labeled Emily. The other said Ali.
Kelsey bent down and touched the cement palm. “Is this yours?”
“Uh huh. ” Emily felt choked up looking at Ali’s slender hands, preserved in perpetuity. “Ali and I sneaked out here once. They’d just poured the cement for this fountain, and she suggested we leave our mark. ”
She remembered that day like it was yesterday. It had been spring, a few months before Emily’s fateful kiss with Ali in Ali’s tree house. On their walk up the trail, Ali had listed off boys in their grade, asking Emily if she thought any of them were cute. “You need a boyfriend, Em,” Ali had chided. “Or are you saving yourself for someone special?”
Now, Kelsey shook her head solemnly. “I don’t know what that must be like to lose such a close friend. ”
A bunch of kids passed on the main trail, laughing loudly. “I miss her, but now I’m not sure what I can miss,” Emily said in a small voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, take the bowling alley we went to the other day. Ali brought me and my three other friends there when we first started hanging out. She was all, ‘I want us to spend some alone time to bond. ’ I used to think that was so cool, like she really wanted to get to know us, but now I wonder if it was just because she was Courtney, stepping into Ali’s life and pretending to be her. Maybe hanging out there had nothing to do with new friendships but just needing some time to get her bearings and not hang around the popular Rosewood Day kids her sister had once known so well. ”
“That’s a lot to take in,” Kelsey said, eyes wide.
“I know. ” Emily stared up at the canopy of trees. “I miss my old memories of Ali. The ones where I just thought she was an amazing new friend. Now I have to revise my entire history with her. Everything I thought was true was a lie. ”
“It must mess with your mind. ”
“It does. Especially because . . . ” Emily trailed off, thinking about all the dreams she’d had about Real Ali this year. All the flashes of blond hair she swore she’d seen, all the haunting whiffs of vanilla soap she’d smelled. Her firm belief that she was still out there, watching her every move. “I try to think only about the good stuff with Ali and block out what really happened. It’s easier that way. So, like, in my head, My Ali is still this bubbly, intoxicating girl who had everyone wrapped around her finger. ”
“I guess that’s one way to cope. ”
Emily tilted her head and smiled at Kelsey. “You remind me of her a little. ”
“I do?” Kelsey pressed a hand to her chest, looking a little sickened.
Emily touched Kelsey’s shoulder. “In a good way. Nothing fazed her. She was kind of . . . amazing. ”
Kelsey pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. She eased a little bit closer to Emily until Emily could smell the faint tinge of bug spray on her skin. “Well, I think you’re pretty amazing, too. ”
Lightning bolts zinged up and down Emily’s arms. She leaned closer. She expected Kelsey to pull away, but s
he remained where she was, inches from Emily’s face. Emily stared at Kelsey’s long, pale eyelashes. The freckles on her earlobes. The tiny speck of gold in her green eyes. Their lips touched. Emily’s heart banged hard.
After a beat, Kelsey pulled away, a shy smile on her face. “Wow. ”
They leaned into each other, about to kiss again, when a group of boys pushed through the clearing for the water fountain. Kelsey turned away. The boys ogled Kelsey and Emily and grunted out hellos. Kelsey glanced at them, her fingers twitching. Her expression was nervous, a complete transformation from what it had been moments before.
“Do you mind waiting here for a sec?” Kelsey whispered in Emily’s ear after a moment. “I have to pee. ”
“Sure,” Emily said.
As Kelsey trekked off into the bushes, Emily remained where she was, studying her phone so she wouldn’t have to make conversation with the boys. After they’d all had a drink of water, they disappeared through the bushes again and started back up the trail.
Footsteps sounded down the slope, followed by the screech of a hawk. Then, all went silent. The trees seemed to close in around her, making her claustrophobic. When the sun went behind a cloud, it was downright dark out. Emily stared into the trees, wondering what was taking Kelsey so long.
All of a sudden, Emily heard a whooshing sound of a body moving through the brush. A split second later, two strong hands shoved her between her shoulder blades. “Hey!” she screamed, staggering forward. Her feet went out from under her, slipping in the soft mud. Before she knew what was happening, she was tumbling down the sharp, muddy hill, her arms flailing to grab on to something to stop her fall. Branches and shrubs and stumps rose up before her, and she barreled into them, sharp brambles cutting her skin. She rolled onto her side, hitting her elbow hard. Sharp pain shot through her, and she screamed out. Finally, after digging her nails into the earth, she felt her body slow. She came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, caught in a tangle of briars and dead tree limbs, mud covering her jeans, her hands and her arms. She tasted blood in her mouth and felt something wet and sticky on her cheek.
Heart pounding, she turned and looked up. A figure stood at the top of the hill next to the water fountain, half in the shadows. Emily gasped, taking in the person’s blond hair and lithe frame. A haunting giggle snaked through the trees, filling Emily’s body with shivers. Ali?
“Emily!”
When Emily blinked, the blonde was gone. A moment later, Kelsey was standing in her place, her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God!” she screamed. She started down the hill, grabbing on to branches for balance, her shoes sliding in the mud. By the time she’d reached Emily, Emily had stood up and determined that no bones were broken. But she was still practically hyperventilating at what had just happened . . . and who she’d just seen.
Kelsey studied Emily at arm’s length. The corners of her mouth turned down anxiously, and beads of sweat stippled her forehead. She still had that same jittery look on her face, and her hands were trembling. “Are you okay? What happened?”