Pushing Perfect(49)

Alex looked uncomfortable. She’d had the same expression on her face when we’d first realized Justin was involved. And there were all those cryptic comments she’d made about how well she knew him. Alex and Justin clearly had more of a history than I knew. But why wouldn’t she have just told me? “I don’t know about the whole Justin thing,” I said, “but Isabel and I are not on good terms. I can’t imagine her being Blocked Sender, but maybe she knows who is. I have to talk to her.”

“I don’t think ambushing her is such a good idea,” Raj said. “It didn’t work so well with Justin.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do, then?” I asked.

“I say we keep playing detective,” Alex said. “If she’s not Blocked Sender, then she’s got to be bringing the pills to someone. We should follow her and see where she goes.”

“That’s crazy. We have no idea when she would do it, and we can’t just tail her every day. I need to confront her.”

“What are you going to do, just wait for her outside rehearsal and start screaming? It’s not the best strategy.”

Alex was right. I had to make a plan. “Can we get screen shots from that video?”

She nodded, smiling. “Of course. That’s a good start.” She turned to the computer and started going through the video, clicking away.

“Should we go talk to her together?” Raj asked. “Like we did with Justin?”

“That didn’t go so great. I should do this alone.” Besides, I wasn’t sure what she would say, and not just about Blocked Sender. I was better off on my own.

He looked at his watch. “You guys can handle things from here? I have to get home.”

“No problem,” Alex said. “You go. We’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

Raj left as Alex was putting together an online folder of pictures. We’d stopped watching as soon as I recognized Isabel, but the camera had still been playing, and there were some great shots that made it very clear who we were looking at. Alex had arranged the screen shots like a narrative: Isabel coming up to the bookshelf, getting the pills, inspecting one, putting the bottle in her pocket, checking to make sure no one was watching her, and then heading out. The story was pretty clear, at least to me.

“I’m emailing these to you. Do you want the video too?”

“This should be enough.”

“What are you going to say?”

That I hadn’t thought through yet. “I don’t know.”

“It’s worth thinking about,” she said. “I should have strategized better when you told me about Justin, but there wasn’t enough time.”

“You did seem really surprised about him,” I said. “And maybe I was reading things wrong, but . . . you seemed pretty angry, too. I mean, we’re all pissed off about everything, but it felt different with you guys.”

“It was. We’ve known each other for a long time.” She paused, and I waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t.

I guess we all still had our secrets.





19.


I decided I’d wait for Isabel after rehearsal the next day and find her before she left. She’d be exhausted, I was sure, and maybe it would be better to catch her off guard. I wasn’t optimistic that it would be easy to get her to open up to me; it had been so long since we’d talked. I didn’t know how long rehearsal would go, though, so I sat on the linoleum floor outside the entrance to the auditorium and waited. Which gave me a little too much time to think. And of course, since I was waiting for Isabel, I thought about her and Becca. Mostly Becca, though.

After I’d ditched swim tryouts freshman year and Isabel and Becca had started sitting with their new friends at lunch, I’d worried that I’d ruined everything. And for a while, it seemed like I had; though I’d called Becca a bunch of times to apologize, she was really mad. I pulled Isabel aside and asked what she thought I should do, but she said, “Just give her some time,” and so I did. I stopped calling every day and settled for sending text messages every so often, and I stuck to my lonely lunches with the Brain Trust.

Finally, after a couple of weeks, I decided I needed to do something more drastic. I wasn’t about to let things end this way. So I showed up at Becca’s house when I knew her parents were out and she was home, gathered my courage, and knocked on the door.

I wasn’t sure if she would answer, but she did. She opened the door and just looked at me. “Hi,” I said. Now that my plan had worked, I realized I didn’t actually have much of what I wanted to say figured out.

“Hi,” she said.

“Can I come in?”

She just turned around and went back in the house, but she hadn’t closed the door on me, so I figured I was supposed to follow her. She went back to her room and sat on one of her armchairs; it felt weird to sit in my normal spot, so I took Isabel’s usual place on the loveseat.

“I’m really sorry about tryouts,” I said.

She stayed silent, waiting for me to say something else. Something that would explain, that would make everything make sense.

I had no idea what that was. Other than the truth, which somehow was wrong. I couldn’t make her understand how awful my skin problem made me feel, how I left the house every day terrified that something would happen and everyone would find out. If I told her that was the reason I couldn’t swim anymore, I worried she’d think it was petty. And maybe it was. But not to me.