One of Us is Lying(79)
“What’s wrong with you?” she hisses. “Being so rude to a handsome boy like that! It’s not as if they’re beating down your door anymore.” Her eyes flicker over my purple-streaked hair. “Given the way you’ve let yourself go, you should consider yourself lucky he wanted to spend time with you at all.”
“God, Mom—” Ashton says, but I interrupt her.
“I’m not looking for another boyfriend, Mom.”
She stares at me like I’ve sprouted wings and started speaking Chinese. “Why on earth not? It’s been ages since you and Jake broke up.”
“I spent more than three years with Jake. I could use some downtime.” I say it mostly to argue, but as soon as the words come out of my mouth I know they’re true. My mother started dating when she was fourteen, like me, and hasn’t stopped since. Even when it means going out with an immature man-boy who’s too cowardly to bring her home to his parents.
I don’t want to be that afraid to be alone.
“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s the last thing you need. Have a few dates with a boy like TJ, even if you’re not interested, and other boys at school might see you as desirable again. You don’t want to end up on a shelf, Adelaide. Some sad single girl who spends all her time with that odd group of friends you’ve got now. If you’d wash that nonsense out of your hair, grow it a little, and wear makeup again, you could do much better than that.”
“I don’t need a guy to be happy, Mom.”
“Of course you do,” she snaps. “You’ve been miserable for the past month.”
“Because I was being investigated for murder,” I remind her. “Not because I’m single.” It’s not one hundred percent true, since the main source of my misery was Jake. But it was him I wanted to be with. Not just anyone.
My mother shakes her head. “You keep telling yourself that, Adelaide, but you’re hardly college material. Now’s the time to find a decent boy with a good future who’s willing to take care of y—”
“Mom, she’s seventeen,” Ashton interrupts. “You can put this script on hold for at least ten years. Or forever. It’s not like the whole relationship thing has worked out well for either of us.”
“Speak for yourself, Ashton,” Mom says haughtily. “Justin and I are ecstatically happy.”
Ashton opens her mouth to say more, but my phone rings and I hold up my finger as Bronwyn’s name appears. “Hey. What’s up?” I say.
“Hi.” Her voice sounds thick, as if she’s been crying. “So, I was thinking about Nate’s case and I wanted your help with something. Could you stop by for a little while tonight? I’m going to ask Cooper, too.”
It beats being insulted by my mother. “Sure. Text me your address.”
I scrape my half-eaten dinner into the garbage disposal and grab my helmet, calling good-bye to Ashton as I head out the door. It’s a perfect late-fall night, and the trees lining our street sway in a light breeze as I pedal past. Bronwyn’s house is only about a mile from mine, but it’s a completely different neighborhood; there’s nothing cookie-cutter about these houses. I coast into the driveway of her huge gray Victorian, eyeing the vibrant flowers and wraparound porch with a stab of envy. It’s gorgeous, but it’s not just that. It looks like a home.
When I ring the doorbell Bronwyn answers with a muted “Hey.” Her eyes droop with exhaustion and her hair’s come half out of its ponytail. It occurs to me that we’ve all had our turn getting crushed by this experience: me when Jake dumped me and all my friends turned against me; Cooper when he was outed, mocked, and pursued by the police; and now Bronwyn when the guy she loves is in jail for murder.
Not that she’s ever said she loves Nate. It’s pretty obvious, though.
“Come on in,” Bronwyn says, pulling the door open. “Cooper’s here. We’re downstairs.”
She leads me into a spacious room with overstuffed sofas and a large flat-screen television mounted on the wall. Cooper is already sprawled in an armchair, and Maeve’s sitting cross-legged in another with her laptop on the armrest between them. Bronwyn and I sink into a sofa and I ask, “How’s Nate? Have you seen him?”
Wrong question, I guess. Bronwyn swallows once, then twice, trying to keep herself together. “He doesn’t want me to. His mom says he’s … okay. Considering. Juvenile detention’s horrible but at least it’s not prison.” Yet. We all know Eli’s locked in a battle to keep Nate where he is. “Anyway. Thanks for coming. I guess I just …” Her eyes fill with tears, and Cooper and I exchange a worried glance before she blinks them back. “You know, I was so glad when we all finally got together and started talking about this. I felt a lot less alone. And now I guess I’m asking for your help. I want to finish what we started. Keep putting our heads together to make sense of this.”
“I haven’t heard anything from Luis about the car,” Cooper says.
“I wasn’t actually thinking about that right now, but please keep checking, okay? I was more hoping we could all take another look at those Tumblr posts. I have to admit, I started ignoring them because they were freaking me out. But now the police say Nate wrote them, and I thought we should read through and note anything that’s surprising, or doesn’t fit with how we remember things, or just strikes us as weird.” She pulls her ponytail over her shoulder as she opens her laptop. “Do you mind?”