Night Road(26)

After class, she joined the throng of kids in the hallway. On either side of her, lockers clanged open and shut; students were laughing, talking, shoving one another. Mia met her outside of her last-period class, and together they walked toward the flagpole.

Zach came up alongside Lexi and slung an arm around her as if it meant nothing, but at his touch, her whole body came alive. She was attuned to his smallest movement; the breath he took, the hair that fell across his eyes, the finger that stroked her upper arm.

She pulled away. It was meant to be a casual move, but she overdid it and stumbled into Mia.

“Hey,” Mia said, laughing. “You new to walking?”

Lexi looked at her best friend. “I need to talk to you.” She didn’t dare look at Zach, but she felt his gaze on her, hot as a touch. “Privately.”

“Me, too,” Zach said.

Mia shrugged. No hint of worry crossed her face. Why would it? She trusted these two more than anyone else in the world. Mia led the way to a grassy spot by the admin building, not far from the tree where she and Lexi had met on the first day of school. “Okay,” Mia said. “What’s up?”

Lexi couldn’t speak. She felt exposed suddenly, a liar. She would lose her best friend now. And maybe the boy she loved.

Zach reached out, took hold of Lexi’s hand. “We wanted to tell you we’re together.”

“Uh. Duh. I can see that.” Mia looked back at the row of buses. “Do you see Ty?”

“We’re together,” Zach said again.

Mia slowly turned, looked at them, frowning now. “Together? As in hooked up? You two?”

Lexi nodded.

The color drained from Mia’s face. “Since when?”

“She almost kissed me after the party at the Eisners’ cabin,” Zach said.

“That was weeks ago,” Mia said. “Lexi would have told me. Right, Lexster? You tell me everything.”

“Everything but this,” Lexi admitted. “I didn’t think it would ever happen. I met Zach on the first day of high school—before I met you, even—and I thought … no, that isn’t what I want to say. I always liked him, that’s the point, but I never thought he’d like me back. I mean … he’s Zach and I’m … me. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think … I was one of those girls who’d use you to get to him. Like Haley. It isn’t like that.”

“It isn’t?” Mia said, her mouth trembling. “Why isn’t it?”

“I love her, Me-my,” Zach said. “And we love you.”

“L-love? So all this time, you’ve been sneaking around behind my back? I kept asking Zach what was wrong, and he said nothing. Neither of you said anything. Were you laughing at me the whole time?” Mia said, stricken.

“No,” Zach said. “Come on, you know us better than that.”

“Do I? You’re both liars.” Mia’s eyes filled with tears. She spun on her heels and ran for the row of school buses, climbing aboard just as the doors closed.

Lexi saw Mia on the bus, staring at them through the cloudy window, her pale face streaked with tears, her hand pressed to the glass.

Zach put his arm around her. “It’s okay, Lex. She’ll be okay with this. I promise.”

“What if it isn’t?” Lexi whispered. “What if she never forgives me?”

*

For the next several hours, Lexi sat in her lonely bedroom, staring into a future without Mia’s friendship.

Yeah, she loved Zach. With all of her heart and soul, but she didn’t love Mia any less. It was a different emotion, rounder and softer and more comfortable; maybe it was more solid and reliable, too. All she knew was that she couldn’t trade one for the other. That would be like having to choose between air to breathe and water to drink. She needed both to survive.

She never should have kept this secret from her friend. She should have done the right thing from the beginning—if she had, none of this would be happening now. It was a truth she should have learned from her childhood. Always do the right thing from the start. Instead, she’d done the wrong thing and hurt her best friend’s feelings.

She knew what she had to do. She left her small, tidy bedroom and walked down the narrow hallway to the living room, where she found Eva sitting on the couch, watching TV.

“Can I go to Mia’s house?” Lexi said.

“At this hour? On a school night?”

“It’s important,” Lexi said. She didn’t know what she’d do if her aunt said no.

Eva looked at her. “This about that boy of yours?”

Lexi nodded.

“You going to do the right thing?”

Lexi nodded again, realizing with a jolt of shame that Eva had known what was going on all along. “I have to tell Mia the truth.”

“The truth is always a good thing.” Eva set down the remote. The pleats in her careworn face were emphasized by a smile. “You’re a good girl, Lexi.”

Lexi hated how that made her feel. She hadn’t been a good girl lately. She swallowed hard, smiled one time, briefly, almost desperately, and then she left the house.

In almost no time, the county bus had dropped her off on Night Road. She walked the last few hundred yards to the Farraday house, which was blazing with lights on this dark autumn night. She picked her way through the carefully landscaped front yard and went up to the front door. She hesitated for a moment and then rang the bell.