“What are you talking about?” Palmer asked, looking at me as my pulse started going double time. This was happening. It was happening right now.
And there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.
“Done!” Bri said triumphantly, emerging from the bathroom smiling at us. It faltered, then faded, when she saw Toby. “What’s going on?” she asked, and I saw her eyes dart from her phone to Toby’s face and then to mine. I gave my head a tiny shake.
“Why is Wyatt texting you?” Toby asked, her voice was trembling. “Why is he telling you that he misses you and it’s been too long and he needs to see you tonight?”
“Wait, what?” Palmer asked, her jaw dropping open. She looked at Bri. “Is this a joke?”
“I . . . ,” Bri said, looking at me, then back to Toby. “Okay, so . . .”
“You’ve been hooking up with Wyatt?” Toby asked, her voice rising. “My Wyatt?”
“He’s not yours,” Bri said softly, and I closed my eyes for a moment, wishing that we’d talked about how to handle this if Toby found out. How had we not had a contingency plan in place?
“What?” Toby asked, looking like she’d just been punched in the stomach.
“He’s not yours,” Bri said, and I could see she was blinking fast, the way she always did when she was starting to cry but was trying to fight it. “You guys made out once. It’s not like you two were even together—”
“Seriously?” Toby asked, shaking her head. “You’re seriously saying that?”
“Okay,” Palmer said, looking at me, clearly wanting backup. “Let’s—”
“Here’s the thing,” I said in my most soothing voice, taking a step forward. “I think we all just need to take a breath and focus here. If we just—”
“If there was nothing wrong with what you were doing with Wyatt, why didn’t you tell me?” Toby asked, still gripping Bri’s phone. “Why keep it a secret?”
“Because I knew you’d do this,” Bri said, her voice breaking. “I knew you wouldn’t get it.”
“So you’ve just been lying,” Toby said, and I could tell that she was still struggling, on some level, to understand what was happening. “You’ve been lying to all of us all summer.”
“It was for the best,” Bri said a little desperately, shooting a look my way. “And it was . . . for all of us. For our friendship . . .” She looked at me again, like she was waiting for me to jump in and fix this. “Andie, tell her.”
Toby whipped around to face me. “You knew about this?”
“I only just found out,” I said. “But—”
“You kept this from me?” Toby asked, her voice breaking. “You lied to me?”
“And me,” Palmer said, shaking her head. “How could you do that?”
“I was just . . . ,” I started. “It was the only thing that made sense. There was no reason for Toby to get hurt if it could be avoided.”
“Oh my god,” Palmer said, shaking her head in disgust. “Don’t try to spin this, Andie. Are you kidding me?”
“That was not your call to make,” Toby yelled at me, her face getting red.
“I just wanted us to stay friends,” I yelled back, and Toby let out a short mocking laugh.
“Well, that worked out really well, didn’t it?”
“Toby—” I started, looking around the group, at all the people who were currently furious at me, willing myself to think fast enough, to figure out how to fix this.
“You were supposed to be my best friend,” Toby said to Bri, and I could see that she was crying now too, tears she tried to wipe away with angry swipes across her face.
“I am,” Bri said, looking up at Toby, her voice anguished.
Toby shook her head and dropped Bri’s phone on the counter. “No,” she said quietly, sounding shattered. “You’re not.” She walked across the lobby, yanking the glass door open and then pausing once she got outside, looking around for a moment before turning right and walking toward the parking lot, her shoulders hunched.
Bri looked down at her phone on the counter, then swallowed hard as she picked it up and put it in her back pocket. “You guys should probably go,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Bri—” Palmer said, but Bri was already talking over her.
“Really. I just want to be alone, okay?” Palmer and I looked at each other, and I knew we were both weighing the same thing—trying to decide if she really meant it, what we should do in this totally uncharted territory. “Please,” Bri said before either of us could come to a decision. “Please just go.”
Palmer gave me a tiny nod, and I took a step toward Bri—not sure what I was even going to say but feeling like I couldn’t just leave like this, without a word. But Bri crossed her arms tightly over her chest and looked down, giving me every indication that she meant what she said—that she wanted to be alone.
Palmer walked toward the door first, and I followed, still a little unable to believe that this had happened, was still happening, right now. It was like a slow-motion car accident that nobody was doing anything to stop. I followed Palmer out the door, out of the air-conditioned theater and into the hot, humid night, the cicadas sounding even louder than usual somehow.
“Toby was my ride,” Palmer said, and I nodded.
“I’ll drive you.” It felt like we were trapped in a bad play, neither one of us saying what we really wanted. We started to walk to the parking lot, and I looked back one more time to see Bri, looking lost in the empty theater, her hands over her eyes, her shoulders shaking.
I made myself look away, and Palmer and I walked to my car, not speaking to each other while she canceled her diner order and I texted Clark to let him know about the change of plans. I unlocked the car and Palmer got in, slamming her door hard and then turning to face the window. I looked over at her as I started the car, practically feeling the anger and resentment coming off her in waves. We didn’t say a single word on the way back to Stanwich Woods. Every time I’d take a breath to say something—I didn’t even know what—Palmer would turn away from me more in her seat, until she was totally facing the window and all I could see was her back.
When I went through the gatehouse, Jaime barely looking up from his novel to wave me in, Palmer said, “You know, Tom’s been acting really weird.”
Normally I would have made a joke here, asking her how can you tell? or something along those lines, but I knew this was not the moment for that. “He has?”
“Yes. Like he’s been hiding something.” She turned to face me. “He knows, doesn’t he? You told Clark, and he told Tom.”
I nodded, swallowing hard. I was almost to Palmer’s house, and even though the street was deserted, I put on my blinker to turn into her driveway. “But—”
“So not only were you keeping a secret from me, you were making my boyfriend lie to me.”
“I had to tell someone,” I said. “I was doing the best thing I could think of to keep us together and I just wanted to know—”
But she was already unbuckling her seat belt, shaking her head as she got out of the car. She slammed the door hard and walked fast across her driveway, not once looking back at me.
• • •
When I got home, my dad wasn’t waiting up to talk to me. I could see the light was on in his study, but I didn’t make a move to walk down the hall. What could he possibly do in this situation? And I didn’t want to tell him about what had happened. Because even if he had advice that was helpful, I couldn’t let myself get used to it—because who knew if he’d be here the next time I needed him.
I shut the door to my room behind me and leaned back against it for just a moment. I pulled out my phone, hoping against hope that there would be a text chain going, everyone admitting that they were sorry, and that we could all move past this. But there was nothing. I started to send a message, then stopped when I realized I had no idea what I would say. I selected just Toby’s name and started to write, trying not to see the last time we’d texted, when she
’d been excited about the movie.
ME
Toby, I’m so sorry.
Are you okay? I’m worried.
I looked down at the screen, waiting, hoping she would respond. After a full minute I set my phone down on my nightstand and started to get ready for bed, even though it was only a little after ten. I felt like I was moving underwater as I brushed my teeth and washed my face, then turned off my light and got into bed. I’d just rolled over onto my side when my phone dinged with a text message.
TOBY
I waited to see if there would be more, but nothing else followed. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to that—had no idea how I was going to make any of this right, or if that was even possible. I looked at my phone, glowing in the darkness of my room, for a long moment.
Then I turned it off.
Tamsin looked across the shadows of the dungeon at the old man who always sat huddled against the stone, the one whose voice was like the rattling of bones, the one who hadn’t seen sunlight in fifteen years. He’d asked her to describe the sun when she’d first been thrown in here, which she had thought was ridiculous. Who could forget what it looked like when light dappled across leaves in the forest? She could recall them so easily—the early-morning light, so cool and blue and not yet warm; the way sunsets in Castleroy seemed to linger, putting on their best show before disappearing for the night.
But now, though it had been only three months, she was beginning to understand better. She’d forgotten about warmth, forgotten that once, she’d been lucky and free and able to raise her face to the sunlight, closing her eyes and breathing in the day. Once, she never could have imagined herself in a place like this. Now she was having trouble remembering that she’d ever been anywhere else.
“The Elder is dead,” she said out loud for the first time. As soon as she said it, she knew it was true. He would have come for her if he hadn’t been. He would have done something. She would not have still been in here if he could have prevented it. “I’m all alone.”
The old man in the corner turned to face her, moving inch by inch, until she could see his face, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the light of the flickering torches. “We’re always all alone,” he said, his voice cracked and worn.
Tamsin shook her head. She knew that wasn’t true. She had years of proof to the contrary. “No,” she said. “Not always. Not even often.”
“Oh,” the old man said, with a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his being. “I forget you’re still young yet.” He coughed then, a dry, rattling sound. “Sometimes we get a little bit of a facade. We think we have people. Family, friends . . . but in the end, it’s just you and the darkness. Everyone leaves eventually, my young friend. It’s better, really, to learn it early. This way, you can save yourself some disappointment.” He sighed then and slumped back against the wall once more. “Because believing you’re not alone is the cruelest trick of all.”
—C. B. McCallister, The Drawing of the Two. Hightower & Jax, New York.
Chapter SEVENTEEN
I stood in the back of the Stanwich Community Theater, clutching my iced latte and a blended java chip drink for Palmer. I’d been at Flask’s, getting my usual, when I’d found myself blurting out Palmer’s order as well. I decided, there in the coffee shop, that I’d bring it over to her as a kind of a peace offering and hope she’d forgive me, so that we could start to sort this out. Because the longer my phone stayed silent, the longer there was no communication on our group text, the more worried I was getting. Toby and Bri were both equally stubborn, and I didn’t want to know what would happen if more than a few days of this standoff went on. I was afraid that at some point this would just become our reality. This had to change, and I knew I couldn’t do it without Palmer, especially since Toby wasn’t mad at her, as far as I knew.
But now, standing at the very back of the theater, looking at Palmer sitting at her stage manager’s table, her bright hair glowing in the dimness of the room, I was starting to get nervous about my plan. I ran my thumb over the condensation on my cup as I walked down the aisle to the row where her table was set up, telling myself not to be ridiculous. This was Palmer. I shouldn’t be nervous about talking to Palmer. But that didn’t change the fact that I was.
I hesitated at the end of her row, shifting my weight from foot to foot, waiting for her to notice I was there. But her eyes were fixed on the stage, where Tom was being yelled at by the actress playing Camp Director Arnold. I walked down the row, hesitating for a second before taking a seat next to her and placing her drink in front of her. “Hi,” I whispered.
“Ready follow spot forty-seven,” Palmer said, but under her breath, like she was saying it to herself. “Forty-seven, go.” She looked over at me, then turned to face the stage again.
“Palmer,” I said, leaning forward so that I would be in her line of vision. “Come on.”
“Ready sound forty-eight,” she said, half under her breath, her eyes moving between the stage and the marked-up script in front of her, making tiny check marks with a pencil. “Forty-eight, go.”
“Hold!” The bearded director stood up and started making his way to the stage, shaking his head as Tom and the actress moved downstage to talk to him.
Palmer looked over at me, then sighed and put her pencil down. “I can’t really talk,” she said. “I’m practicing calling the show.” She looked at the drink in front of her, and it was like I could practically sense her struggle before she picked it up and took a sip.
I took a sip of my own, to give me some courage, then blurted out, “I’m so sorry, Palmer.”
She looked back at the stage, where the director was now standing next to Tom, gesturing big, while Tom nodded and scribbled notes in his script. “What are you sorry about?” she asked, not looking at me. “That you lied to me about what was happening with Bri and Wyatt? That you asked my boyfriend to keep lying to me?”
“You don’t think I wanted to tell you?”
“But you told Clark,” Palmer said, looking at me evenly.
“I did,” I said quietly, knowing there was no way out of this. “But we have to fix this, P.”
“Yeah,” Palmer said quietly, reaching for her drink but just holding it for a moment and rolling it between her palms. “But I don’t know if we can.”
I sat back in my seat. This was what I’d been worried about, when I’d even allowed myself to go there. But hearing her say it was something else. The fact that she wasn’t seeing the best and looking on the bright side was almost more than I could take.
“What are you saying?” I asked, my voice coming out unsteady. “That we’re all just done? Friendship over?”
She took a long drink and then set her cup back down. “I don’t know.”
“Okay!” the director yelled, walking back down to the auditorium from the stage. “We’re picking it up from Duncan’s line, people. Let’s go!”
“I have to do this,” Palmer said, picking up her pencil again and flipping a few pages back in her script binder.
I nodded and shouldered my bag but didn’t leave yet. I still didn’t know where we stood, and the thought of leaving with things so unsettled was making me feel panicky. “So,” I started, then hesitated. “Are we okay?”
Palmer looked over at me for a moment before looking back at the stage. “I’m not sure,” she finally said.
I nodded, swallowing hard. “Okay,” I said as I stood up. I paused there for just a moment when I realized there was nothing else to say. I walked up the aisle, to the back of the auditorium, looking at the stage one last time, where Tom and the camp director were starting the scene over again, having made their adjustments, trying to get it right this time.
The afternoon dragged on, one of the worst of the summer, time seeming to crawl. I ended up just driving around aimlessly, from Flask’s to the beach to the Orchard, but no place felt right, and I didn’t stay in any of them for more than a few minutes. I couldn’t go home, because Pe
ter was there. I couldn’t hang out with any of my friends. Two of my constants had vanished, and I was getting more agitated with every hour that passed. I didn’t know what my life looked like if we weren’t all still friends. It was a reality I couldn’t even fully grasp. For the last five years, it had been the four of us, what I had always believed to be an unshakable unit. The thought of not having them—the thought of some reality I might have to accept where I didn’t have them—was making me feel like I wanted to scream, cry, and throw up, all at the same time.
These feelings were reaching a boiling point when I pulled into Clark’s driveway to walk Bertie. I was angry and on the verge of tears, always a dangerous combination. A tiny voice in the back of my head was whispering that I should just leave, come back later, that I was spoiling for a fight and in no condition to see anyone, much less Clark. But I ignored it and got out of the car, heading up the walkway and letting myself in the side door.
“Bert,” I called as I stepped inside the house. The dog was standing in the kitchen, giving me his biggest doggy smile. His tail was wagging so hard his butt was shaking back and forth. “Now, Bertie,” I said, in a tone that was intended to let him know I meant business. “I don’t want to do this today.”
But Bertie didn’t seem to pick up on any of this, and as I took a step closer, he did a little leap into the air and galloped out of the room. When Clark did Bertie’s inner thoughts—in a voice Bri had told me sounded like a decent Jimmy Stewart impression—he always said, “The game, Andie. It’s afoot!” when Bertie jumped like that and went running off. Normally, this routine cracked me up, since Bertie always seemed so pleased with himself, like he was sure he was getting something over on us. But today it was just irritating me.
“Stupid dog,” I muttered as I walked into the kitchen, getting his leash from the cupboard and making sure I had enough plastic bags with me, then slamming the cupboard door harder than I needed to.