People Like Us(48)

My phone buzzes halfway through and I look down to see Brie calling. I silence it. I can’t think of what to say, and one more ounce of pressure will split me in half right now. Nola glances at me curiously and I shrug it off. But I’m pretty sure she can guess.

“Nola.” She looks at me. “What would you do if you found out I killed Jessica?”

She looks stunned and a little suspicious, as if she’s trying to figure out what trap I’ve set for her. “Call you a liar?”

“Play along.”

She studies my face. “Ask you why.”

I shake my head. “Not allowed to ask. Just react.”

She laughs nervously. “What new devilry is this?”

“I don’t know who to trust anymore. Everything is strategy. School, soccer, relationships, the police. What do you say, how do you say it, when do you say it to get what you want. I’m worse than anyone. Greg trusted me and I told the police to look at him. Brie was my best friend and she stabbed me in the back. And I think Spencer tried to get back together with me today and that is the opposite of what needs to happen.”

Nola raises her head with interest. “Perfect Brie is a backstabber?”

I pick up an amaryllis plant and stroke the silky petals. It’s the first time I’m saying this out loud and I can’t bear to see Nola’s reaction. “She set Spencer up with Jessica. I have no idea why she did it.”

Nola slips her hand into mine. “I’m sorry.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and finally look up. Her expression is soft and sympathetic. “Let’s make a pact. Our friendship is strategy-free. No bullshit. I need that right now.” My lips feel wobbly and I tighten them. I thought I had that with Brie. I was wrong.

Nola reaches behind her and grabs a pair of hair scissors and slices a small cut in her index finger and then offers it to me. “Blood promise,” she says eagerly. “It’s tradition.”

I look distastefully at the reddened tip of the scissor. “Do you have anything to disinfect it?”

“Just use the other blade,” she urges.

I hesitate. “Sorry, I have a germ thing.”

She spins the scissors around her finger skeptically. “The whole point of a blood promise is sharing blood.”

“We unburied and reburied a cat together,” I remind her. “That’s a bone promise. Way more hard-core.”

She wipes her finger on a tissue, seeming satisfied. “Fair enough. But we have to seal it with something.”

“I know a kick-ass handshake,” I offer.

But Nola crawls toward me, and before I can respond, she presses her lips against mine. They are delicate, waxy with Chapstick, and her breath is sweet like honey and chamomile. The smell of baby powder deodorant mixes with her citrusy perfume as she scoots closer and presses her body against mine, softly and seductively. Not like the way we usually touch, not even like the way Brie and I touch. It might feel nice except for the terrible guilt, the dark feeling that drops like a panic from my chest down to my gut and floods me with memories, the sounds of Tai and Tricia screaming with laughter, the sound of my laughter, of Nola’s glossy eyes, of words, words, words. Necro. She touches my face with her cold hand, and I spring back from her, feeling like I can’t breathe.

“Sealed,” she murmurs, brushing her lips once more against mine.

“Nola?”

She looks at me, something like fear flashing in her eyes.

“Let’s not do that again.”

She shrugs. “Fine by me.”

She switches the light off, and I curl into a corner of the bed. She faces the other way and we lie back to back silently. I feel her pull her robe off and toss it onto the floor and then curl her body up into a little ball, and the guilt washes over me again. It’s now or never.

I clear my throat. “I’m sorry we were such bitches to you when you first came to Bates.”

She is silent for a long moment. “How so?”

“You know.” I grope for the right words. “What Cori said. Sometimes jokes are funny for the person telling it, not so funny for the person it’s about.”

“You’re not that funny, Kay. None of your friends were funny, either.”

I pause. “I agree. I was just trying to apologize.”

“I appreciate it.”

My entire body relaxes. But it’s hard to get those images out of my head now that they’ve been revived. And they’re mashed up now with the scent of Nola and the feeling of her lips on mine. And that awful image that keeps revisiting me of Spencer and Jessica together. The longing I feel to see him mixed up with the pain that results every time I do. My last memory of Megan, slamming her door in my face, and of Todd, a coffin closing on his. A dozen envelopes, sealed and labeled Dear Valentine, that would set this nightmare in motion. And Brie. Brie when she was so close, I could never imagine her being lost. The shock and pain of her betrayal. But I’m grateful for all of it. Because it pushes Maddy out of my mind. In the morning, I’ll have to face her death again.





15


When I wake up, Nola is seated at her desk, staring gravely at her computer screen.

I sit up groggily, and she brings me a mug of chamomile tea. “Stay sitting,” she says.

“What’s going on?” I wipe my eyes, trying to orient myself. I don’t remember right away that I fell asleep in Nola’s room, and then last night rains down on me in fragments like shards of broken glass. Maddy, Spencer, Greg, that awful note I left Brie, the kiss, my conversation with Detective Morgan, every horrible emotion I had. My head is pounding painfully, and my nose is stuffed and itchy. I sneeze violently, and Nola hands me a box of tissues. I blow my nose and look instinctively at the Matisse calendar hanging on her wall. I’m sick, the murder investigation is still on, and there are only a few scheduled games left before the end of the season. They won’t start up again until the investigation ends. I need to keep running, keep my speed up.