Open House(58)

“I don’t, either, actually,” Haley said.

“You don’t?” she asked, and Haley heard the incredulity in her voice.

“I don’t,” Haley said. “It’s a hunch, and it goes against the obvious—a teacher sleeping with and possibly impregnating a student . . .”

Priya flinched. “All of it is so awful.”

“It’s awful that she’s gone,” Haley said. “The other things my sister did, the things people like to blame her for—I can hear it in their voices, that they blame her—is being promiscuous, by some definitions, and drinking that night, or so some reports say, and now, as we know, being pregnant . . . but those things don’t mean she should have lost her life.”

“Of course, you must know I agree,” Priya said. She leaned forward, her legs adjusting themselves beneath the blanket.

“I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know you at all,” Haley said. There was a bite in her words, but they were true.

Priya smoothed a wrinkle in the pillow closest to her. “So now what?”

“I don’t know,” Haley said. “I know you’re here to absolve your husband, but I don’t even know how to help you. I can tell you the cops found suspicious stuff between my fiancé and Josie, and some of that could mean they were involved in some way, and I imagine that’s enough to get the spotlight off your husband for Josie’s attack for the time being. But Brad still slept with Emma, and she was a student, and that’s gonna come out, and you’re going to have to deal with it.”

“I know that,” Priya said, her eyes welling. “Trust me, I know.”

“Can you do me a favor?” Haley asked. She knew there were so many things she should be doing besides talking to this woman right now—like trying to get to the bottom of Dean’s relationship with Josie, or trying to figure out what had happened today at the open house. But the chance so rarely arose, and now that it had . . .

“Can you tell me something about my sister?” Haley asked. “She was your student, an artist like you, and like you said—you were close. Can you tell me something I haven’t heard yet?”

Priya wiped the tears from her face, sat up a little straighter. “Yes, of course I can. What would you like to know?”

“Everything,” Haley said, and she pulled her knees closer to her chest, her entire being lifted as Priya started talking.





FORTY-EIGHT

Emma

Ten years ago

I follow Dean along the trail, wondering if this is how every horror movie starts, with a girl following a guy she doesn’t know well enough into the woods. But of course, this isn’t just some random guy: it’s the guy Josie’s been stringing along. Maybe a part of me gets some sick satisfaction by turning the tables, interfering somehow with a guy who likes her. Isn’t that what she’s trying to do to Noah and me?

In the silence, I swear I can feel something pulsing in the air between us, something that feels like frustration or anger, and I realize, sadly, that that’s pretty much what Josie has made a lot of guys feel since we started at Yarrow. Josie loves being in control; she loves every eye being drawn to her when she enters a room and the way guys hang on her every movement and every word. She knows just how much attention to give someone until they feel special, chosen somehow. And then she snaps it away.

“So you and Josie are really close, right?” Dean asks when the branches start to thin out again. We’re almost at the cliff’s edge—I can hear the river. Dean’s broad back blocks out some of the light, but I’m pretty sure we’re about to see the full moon on the water.

“Yeah, we are,” I say, pushing aside a branch. “I think we’re almost there.” I go on, and a beat later we emerge into the clearing. It’s beautiful up here, the moon so incredibly bright.

Dean surprises me by plopping down onto one of the rocks. “Do you want to sit?” he asks.

I shake my head. He looks up at me with a pitiful look on his face, and I know it’s there because he likes Josie a lot more than she likes him.

“I’m sorry to drag you out here,” he says.

“It’s fine,” I say. I don’t want to talk about Josie, but we don’t have anything else to talk about, so I get right to it. “If you want to know if Josie likes you, I don’t really know the answer to that. She talks about you and everything, but not specifics.”

“I think she tried to break up with me today, actually.”

“Really?” I ask. I don’t know if he has his terminology right: Josie never made it sound like they were anything serious enough to require a breakup conversation. “I didn’t really realize you were together,” I say. “Um, sorry, I’m not trying to make it worse.”

He waves me off, but I don’t seem to have offended him. “You’re probably right,” he says. “That’s not even why I wanted to talk. I wanted to talk to you because she told me she couldn’t see me anymore because of you.”

My pulse picks up. “Because of me? I never told her not to see you,” I say, flustered. “I don’t even know you.”

“No, nothing like that,” Dean says. “She told me she needed to spend time with you because you’d been drinking too much lately and doing drugs, and she was worried, and I just wanted to talk to you, because, well, I guess I got the idea she might be lying, and if that’s the case, I need to just let her go. That’s a crazy thing to lie about.”