White Rabbit(20)
“What were they fighting about?” Sebastian asks next, and then stuns me by suggesting, “Drugs?”
A security shutter drops down in Lia’s eyes, and she takes a step back. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Please. Everybody knows Arlo and Fox deal shit,” he says, totally matter-of-fact, but I give him another wild-eyed look because—of course—I knew no such thing. As I digest it, though, the statement isn’t so hard to believe; Arlo’s family isn’t wealthy, and he only works part-time at a grocery store, but he’d managed to buy himself a very expensive motorcycle a few months back. I’d never bothered to wonder how he’d pulled off such a trick. And Fox … well, I’ve overheard him and his friends make enough casual re-marks to understand how disturbingly fluent they are with drugs.
“I’ve got nothing to say about that,” Lia avows firmly. “Arlo is a good person, okay? And if he and Fox got into a fight about … that, then it would’ve been because Fox was trying to do something shady and Arlo didn’t want any part of it. But I didn’t say that, because I don’t know anything about any of it. Okay?”
“Understood.” With thoughts of Lia’s bruise in mind, I shift out of the light myself. My shorts are still clammy with moisture, and I’m aware that I have bloodstains on my tank top. “So did Arlo leave after the fight?”
“Yeah, basically.” If she finds the question odd, she doesn’t challenge me on it. “He went to go cool down and stuff, but the party … it kind of broke up a little while after that anyway, and we all left.”
“All at the same time?”
Now she seems baffled. “Pretty much, yeah. What difference does it make?”
“I’m worried about April,” I repeat, as if that explains it.
Lia sighs extravagantly. “Race took off first, and then Peyton, and then Arlo and me a few minutes later. We passed both of them on the road.”
“So where’s Arlo now?”
“At home, probably.” She’s clearly tiring of the conversation. “Not like I keep tabs on him, but that’s where he said he was going when he dropped me off. Why?”
“I don’t want to go all the way out to Fox’s lake house if it turns out nothing’s up, so I just want to hear what Arlo has to say first. Where does he live?”
“He’s not going to have anything to say except for what I already told you. And April was hitting the bottle pretty hard tonight, you know? She probably passed out.”
“Humor me,” I propose. “Give me his address, and we’ll leave you alone.”
“Promise?” She asks sarcastically. It does the trick, though, and she directs us to a neighborhood that’s conveniently close by. With a pointedly coquettish smile for Sebastian, she purrs, “Tell him I said hi, okay?”
There’s still one thing I don’t understand, though. Something about the timeline that’s coming together doesn’t quite add up, and it’s begging for attention like a mosquito bite. If Arlo got kicked out, and was so pissed he needed to “cool down,” then why was he last to leave? “It’s not like Arlo to just back down from a fight like that. To let Fox kick his ass and walk away.”
A curious thing happens; Lia goes completely still, her eyes flashing open wide for a split second before she gets her reaction under control. Her tone is so casual it’s almost flippant when she asks, “What the hell would you know about it?”
“Considering that I’m one of the guys he beats on the most, let’s just say it’s something I’ve noticed about him,” I return coolly, studying the forced blankness in her expression. There is no smoke without fire, or so they say, and Lia’s shabby performance of indifference is giving off smoke like a few hundred acres of smoldering California brush. “Arlo doesn’t like losing face. He’s a score settler.”
“Oh, please, like you’d even know.” She speaks quickly, tossing her hair again, an agitated gesture. “They got into a fight. Boys fight sometimes. They got into it, he got over it, we left, and we came straight here. Ask him when you see him—he’ll tell you the same thing.”
I’m sure he will, I think, but do not say out loud, because you’re going to text him the second you get back inside your house.
“Thanks for answering our questions,” I reply instead.
“Don’t come back,” she instructs imperiously. And then she spins around and sails up her front walk without a backward look.
6
Sebastian is quiet as we turn and start for the Jeep, his eyes downcast and troubled. Before I can stop myself, I blurt, “You and Lia broke up?”
It sounds so needy and weak that I curse myself the second the question is out of my mouth, but Sebastian doesn’t even look at me. “Yeah. A few weeks ago. It was kinda ugly.”
I set my jaw. If he wants sympathy, he’s not going to get it; I spent the entire month of June indulging in lurid, punishing fantasies about Sebastian and Lia groping each other and sharing their Starbucks and shouting a lot right before they went back to groping again, and the whole time I was wishing a plague on both their houses. Finding out their reconciliation barely lasted until summer break should feel rewarding, but in fact it does nothing to assuage my anguish. I still hurt inside.