Two Truths and a Lie(26)

“They won’t even notice if we leave,” said Caitlin. “I just walked by Ethan’s bedroom and they’re absolutely one hundred percent glued to Minecraft.”

“Well, I’m not leaving,” said Destiny. “You guys go if you want.” The wind gave an extra-loud howl, as if it wanted to remind them that winter wasn’t over yet, and that it could send the water crashing over the Plum Island dunes anytime it wanted to.

Alexa glanced at her phone. She had three texts from Tyler practically begging her to go to the party. Can’t, she texted in reply. Hanging with the girls.

Caitlin looked uncertain and then she said, “Never mind. We’ll have our own party here. We can stay over, right? We’re staying over?” She looked to Destiny for confirmation and Destiny nodded. Caitlin opened the liquor cabinet and poked through it. “Jeez, Dest, did your parents start marking the bottles?” She was examining a fifth of Tito’s. “I think they did it wrong though. This line doesn’t even match up.”

Destiny yawned. “Yeah,” she said. “They did. But I heard Savannah’s mom telling my mom the trick about turning them upside down to mark them so we can’t just fill them up with water like we used to.”

Caitlin frowned at the bottle. “It’s kind of a good trick,” she said. “I can’t figure out how we’d fill it to the right place.” She turned the bottle upside down, then righted it, then, shrugging, returned it to the cabinet. “Leave it to Savannah’s mom,” she said.

Alexa knew she should be joining the conversation but she didn’t really feel invested in it, or even interested. She wondered if she should just go home, where her mom and Morgan were finding their way around their reordered family. Her mom and Morgan were probably cuddled up together on the couch, watching one of those interminable Disney Channel shows that Morgan loved, or else a movie featuring strong female central characters: Brave, or maybe The Hunger Games, although the latter was likely too violent for Morgan, who disliked blood and spears.

Caitlin rummaged in the very back of the cabinet and found a bottle of triple sec that was so old and irrelevant that nobody had bothered to mark it. “Here we go,” she said. “Party time!” She took out three juice glasses and lined them up, sloshing the triple sec more or less equally into them. More than a shot, less than a juice serving. She pushed one toward Alexa and one toward Destiny. Alexa took a sip of hers and coughed a little. It tasted like a clementine and a bottle of cold medicine had decided to have a child together and had put that child into Alexa’s juice glass. “I don’t think I can drink this,” she said.

“Of course you can,” said Caitlin. “Pretend it’s Tito’s.”

“We need a game,” said Destiny. “A drinking game! Quarters? Thumper? Buzz?” Destiny had gone on a college visit to UMass the month before.

“You need more people for all of those,” said Caitlin authoritatively. She sipped pensively at her triple sec. “I’ve got it!” she said suddenly. “How about Two Truths and a Lie?”

“I don’t think that’s a drinking game,” said Alexa.

“It can be,” said Caitlin. “Anything can be a drinking game if you drink while you’re playing it.”

They repaired to the living room, taking their glasses and the bottle of triple sec with them.

“I’ll go first,” said Destiny. She looked to the ceiling for a moment, thinking. “Okay,” she said. “Ready. One. I have never been to China. Two. I made out with Shane Miller in ninth grade. Three. I cheated on my Spanish exam first semester junior year.”

“Okay, wait,” said Caitlin. She had knocked back her entire serving of triple sec and was already looking bleary as she poured herself another. (Caitlin was such a lightweight.) “I know for sure that you have never been to China.”

“I could have gone to China,” said Destiny. “I didn’t meet you guys until we were ten. Maybe I went to China when I was seven.” Destiny had moved to Newburyport from Nashville in the fourth grade.

“I’m pretty sure you would have mentioned it,” said Caitlin. “So that’s a lie or a truth? I have never been . . . A truth. Okay, let’s see. And you would have absolutely told us about Shane Miller when it happened, right?” Destiny’s face gave away nothing. “Alexa? Would she have? What do you think?” Without waiting for Alexa’s answer Caitlin said, “So that’s a lie. Right? That’s a lie. Which means that you did cheat on your Spanish exam?”

Destiny’s head made a tiny nod and she said, “Amber’s older sister sold me a copy of hers from the year before. I aced that thing.”

“Aha!” cried Caitlin. “Drink!” Then, “Wait. Who drinks? Me, because I figured it out? Or Destiny? Because I figured it out.”

“I guess all of us,” said Destiny. She tipped all of the triple sec into her mouth and made a face. Alexa pretended to take a sip of hers and wondered if she could excuse herself to go to the bathroom and pour it down the sink.

“Your turn,” said Destiny, pointing her glass at Alexa. The wind huffed and puffed some more, and Alexa wondered if it might actually blow the house down. Had her mom made her special Dutch oven popcorn with plenty of salt and pepper?

“Go,” said Caitlin bossily. “Alexa. Go.” Alexa searched her mind and came up empty. “If you don’t go,” said Caitlin. “I will.” She refilled Alexa’s glass, which didn’t need refilling. And for some reason that very causal gesture set something loose in Alexa. It was something about the presumption of the triple sec, about the alcohol-softened, expectant, predictable faces of her friends, maybe about the fact that they still had their fathers and Alexa no longer had Peter, or maybe, beyond that, the fact that they didn’t know grief. They had never known real grief—they were untouched by its cold, dark fingers, and that wasn’t their fault, obviously, but it somehow made her unable to stomach being in the same room with them, especially when her mom and Morgan were cozy at home together. Without Alexa. She half-hoped the wind would blow the roof off. She wished, illogically, fervently, for something to happen that would take her attention from the sorrow and the rage she felt bubbling up inside her, that she could tell was about to spill over onto Caitlin and Destiny, whether she liked it or not. It was preordained. (It was Destiny.)