Down to the Liar(22)

When Mike finally manages to pry me free from the chaos, he drives me back to his house in silence.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” is the only thing he says to me, for which I’m profoundly grateful. He gets me, I’ll give him that.

But before I crawl into bed, knowing the terrible nightmares I’m going to have, I kneel on the floor and offer up the first real prayer I’ve ever said.

…Our Father, I pray that through Your intercession of St. Nicholas, You will protect the children…

—

The whole school is still on fire with gossip Monday morning. A lot of heads are turned toward me, but nobody’s asking me anything. I almost skipped, but when Dani showed up this morning to drive me, I was too grateful to see her to play sick.

Bryn looks wrecked and Murphy has hardly left her side all day. He walks her to and from all her classes, which is sweet. I actually try to think of a person who owes me a favor that I like enough to force them to walk me to and from all my classes, but I can’t think of anyone. So I walk the halls alone.

When I saw Bryn before school, she told me about the crates and crates of journals they found in Skyla’s room, all of them filled with half normal diary entries, half jumping-off-the-crazy-train entries, which proved that Skyla’s mental illness has been years in the making.

I’m not sure how no one’s caught on before now, but Bryn’s guess is that Skyla’s dissociative state manifested only when she was alone or felt threatened. Which means she must have used her laptop at Garrett’s house to access that first link when he wasn’t around.

The really odd thing is that Skyla has no memory of the times when she’s in demon-Skyla phase. She can’t even physically see the diary entries her crazy half wrote.

I can’t imagine how terrifying all this must be for her. But Garrett’s being a champ about it. He’s staying with her in the hospital until her parents show up. If they show up.

After school, Murphy and Bryn meet me in the student parking lot. Murphy leaves Bryn in my care while he wraps up some loose ends with the tech club. He’s agreed to disable the spyware for me, minus the one on the dean’s computer, so I can sleep at least a little better at night.

“How are you holding up?” I ask Bryn as Murphy heads off toward the computer lab. Her eyes trail after him in a bereft sort of way.

“I’m all right,” she says without looking at me. “I’m just worried about Skyla.”

“I am, too,” I say.

She arches an eyebrow at me, finally turning her head my direction.

I glower back, though not as heatedly as I might under normal circumstances. “She may not be my BFF, but I care about my clients’ well-being.”

“You saying that is not the strange part,” Bryn says. “The strange part is that I believe you.”

I watch classmates chatting around their cars, joking and bickering and bonding like nothing has changed. Like Skyla isn’t broken. Like Tyler isn’t dead.

“What happens now?” I ask, though I don’t want to know.

Bryn fidgets with her bag strap, shifting her weight uncertainly. “Now she goes through a ton of tests and a lot of therapy, and hopefully, she can come out of this in one piece. But she’ll have the best help money can buy.”

“The best help would be her parents’ support,” I point out.

“Like I said. The best help money can buy.”

We stand in glum silence for a moment, and I think of last October and all the ways we sabotage ourselves and the people we love.

“Do you think we’re doomed to repeat our parents’ mistakes?” I ask out of nowhere. I’m not the heart-to-heart type, and even if I were, I wouldn’t do it with Bryn, of all people. But it’s too late now.

To her credit, though, Bryn doesn’t immediately smack me down. She actually thinks about her response before answering, which just shows how distraught she is. “I think we’re doomed to make our own mistakes, whether they relate to our parents or not.”

“Great,” I say. “So we’re doomed and it’s our fault.”

She actually smiles at me. A half of one, but I’ll take it. It’s a rare feat to make Bryn smile.

“Want a coffee?” I ask.

“You paying?” Bryn snaps back. She’s already starting to sound more like her old self.

I start moseying in the direction of the Ballou. “Well, I’m officially broke now, since Skyla’s in no position to pay me for the job I didn’t quite do, and Tog’s still expecting his fee.”