I Kissed Shara Wheeler(86)

At a red light, she thinks about how Shara could have taken what Rory gave her to the grave.

Shara could have let her dad keep terrorizing teenagers from the Willowgrove throne until he retired, and it would have been easy. Collect college tuition, have an expensive wedding to some guy in a camo tux, settle down for a long, comfortable life as the queen of False Beach, the heiress of the perfect family.

That’s what everyone expected of her. It’s certainly what Chloe expected.

But instead, Shara logged into her dad’s email and printed every receipt she could find. She plastered the school with them to make sure he couldn’t hide it. The church board may not care if the principal is a bigot, but it’ll be harder to make this go away.

She did it even though she knew she’d be taking herself down with him.

When Chloe gets home, she goes straight to her bedroom. She changes out of her uniform, and then reaches for her nightstand, where a creased, grass-stained pink card waits. She hasn’t opened it, but she couldn’t quite stop herself from salvaging it from the flowerbeds.

Chloe,

I threw it away because it meant too much to me . I hope you understand .

Yours,

Shara

P. S . As a graduation gift to you, I promise this is the last card you’ ll ever get from me. I’ ll leave you alone . Cross my heart.

She sits down on the bed.

Somewhere, glowing in Chloe’s mind, Shara is tearing apart a library trash can and telling her parents a lie about a broken clasp in PE class. She’s praying alone in an empty sanctuary. She’s drawing the blinds so nobody can see her faking sick while Smith is on TV. She’s shredding the sheet music she read for Ace while she uploads a stock photo of a mission trip that never happened. She’s covering her own tracks. She’s coming all the way to Chloe’s house to leave one last card, smoothing the tape onto the glass with her finger, letting her go.

Shara doesn’t throw things away because they mean nothing to her. She throws things away because they mean too much.

It’s a standardized logic and reasoning question: If it’s true that Shara did the terrible things in her notes, and it’s also true that Shara can only tell lies, then the terrible things must be only part of the story. The other part, still hiding behind all the smoke and mirrors and studied indifference, is somebody who cares. A lot, in a very specific way, about a few, select people and a few, select things.

If there’s one thing Chloe knows, it’s the danger of being yourself at Willowgrove, in False Beach. Everything she likes about herself is a liability here. You hide the things that matter most before anyone can use them against you.

That’s what Shara did. That’s what Shara does.

Finally, finally, she gets it.

Shara isn’t a monster inside of a beautiful girl, or a beautiful girl inside of a monster. She’s both, one inside of the other inside of the other.

And that truth—the whole truth of Shara—leaves no room to pretend anymore. Neither of them did all this for a title. That’s what Chloe was afraid of her friends seeing. That’s where the trail led. That’s why she couldn’t let it end.

“Oh my God,” Chloe says out loud. Her brain is overheating, probably. “I’m in love with a monster turducken.”





FROM THE BURN PILE


Comments from Shara’s ninth-grade report card from her English teacher, folded up very small and forgotten in an old binder

Shara is an absolute pleasure to have in class. She is well-liked and punctual, follows directions, and often volunteers to lead the class in prayer. She is an exceptionally bright student with insightful and clear thoughts on the readings, though getting her to share them in class is difficult. She was also happy to tell me what brand of shampoo she uses when asked for advice on achieving shinier hair. All in all, a perfect example of the type of young lady every Willowgrove girl should strive to be.





22


DAYS UNTIL GRADUATION: IRRELEVANT


The ugly dolphin fountain looks different from last time—still ugly, but now it’s also overflowing with thick clouds of lilac-scented suds. Someone put laundry detergent in it. Even rich kids get bored, Chloe guesses.

She doesn’t head straight for the house. Instead, she loops around Rory’s driveway, ducking behind the Beemer and slipping unseen to the front door. She rings the doorbell, waits thirty seconds, and jabs it two more times.

“Yo, chill,” Rory is saying before the door is even open, and when he sees Chloe, he rolls his eyes like, I don’t know who else I expected.

“I,” Chloe says. She forgot to prepare a cover story. “I need to borrow your ladder. For, uh. My gutters.”

“Your gutters?”

“Yeah. My gutters. They need … adjusting.”

Rory sucks on his tongue, nodding slowly, then leans back into the house and yells, “Smith!”

Smith appears at Rory’s shoulder, a bit rumpled and in a radiantly good mood, until his eyes land on Chloe.

“Oh, hey, Chloe.”

She stares at him. He stares at Rory. They all stand there, staring at one another. Looks like those “plans” Rory mentioned were six feet of quarterback.

“Chloe needs to borrow my ladder,” Rory says.

“Oh, uh, okay,” Smith says. “Want me to bring it out to your car?”