Seven Ways We Lie(53)

Olivia lifts a hand, and Dan says, “You look great tonight,” looking her up and down, and I get this embarrassed, self-conscious feeling like, Why didn’t I tell her she looks great? because she does, wearing a flow-y black tank top and skinny jeans that don’t quite reach down her long legs, and call me old-fashioned, but looking at her bare ankles—that weirdly personal inch of skin—makes heat creep up the back of my neck.

“Thanks,” Olivia says. “Dan, you haven’t seen Juniper, have you?”

“Nah.” He takes a step toward Olivia, and I notice her leaning back an inch. An instinct to punch him in the eye flares up, but I keep myself from reacting. Not my business getting protective.

“You want to go get a drink?” he asks her, closing in toward her ear, and she says, “No, thanks,” and he says, “Why not? Come on, Matt, let’s get the girl a drink,” and she says, “I’m serious. I need to find Juniper and start shutting this thing down. Also, I don’t drink, so there’s that whole thing.”

Dan laughs. “I like that. I like you. You’re not like other girls.”

Olivia raises one eyebrow. “Something wrong with other girls?” she asks. And Dan says, “No, you’re just, you’re funny,” and Olivia says, “You’re in luck. Plenty of girls are funny.”

Dan shoots me an exasperated look and says, “I’m trying to compliment you,” and Olivia says, “I mean, that—” and Dan doesn’t wait for her to finish. “I’m glad I ran into you,” he says. “I thought you might’ve left.”

Dan gives me another look, and this one reads, Be a good wingman and leave, already. But like hell am I leaving, when apparently Dan never learned how to read basic social cues. “Yeah, no,” Olivia says, “I’m cohost, can’t leave,” and he says, “Hey, want to go somewhere quieter to talk?” and she says, “No, I’m—”

“Come on,” he says, putting a hand on her hip, and she takes a full step back, and he’s like, “Don’t be like that.”

I break my silence. “Man, didn’t you hear her? She said no. Jesus Christ.”

Dan stares at me with disbelief. Anger mixes into his expression like blood uncurling in water, and I wait for him to square up to me, tell me to shut up, and start a drunk fight or something.

Then we hear sirens. The tiniest whine at first, but the three of us freeze as one, trading looks. “Is that—” Dan says, and I’m like, “Yeah,” and then Olivia charges forward, yelling, “Turn off the music! Everyone out. Everyone, get out—”

Nobody’s listening until she bellows, “POLICE!” and then someone kills the music, the siren slices through the air, and panic crashes down like an avalanche.

They run. I’ve never seen a charge like this, a clot of people dashing for the nearest exit, cramming themselves through however possible. I press back against the wall, hoping to ride out the storm, but a voice says, “Hey!” and I look to my left. A wild-eyed Valentine Simmons forces his way upstream, battered back by person after person, his desperate words not stopping anyone. “Help—anyone—Juniper’s in a room over there. She locked herself in, and I can’t get her out.”

I yell Olivia’s name, and Valentine beckons frantically. The three of us duck between fleeing people down the mile-long hall to the locked door. Lucas McCallum is kneeling in front of it, rattling the knob.

As we skid to a halt, Olivia yanks a bobby pin from her hair and snaps it in half. “Let me,” she says to Lucas, and as he moves back, she hunches over the doorknob, bending one side of the pin. “Someone check for the police,” she says, and I sprint down the hallway, the tasseled rug slipping askew under my feet. I dodge the bathroom door opening as Kat Scott peeks out. By the time I rush into the foyer and stop at the wide-open door, kids are flooding down Juniper’s lawn like ants.

It’s not police cars at the curb—it’s an ambulance.

And a sleek black car is pulling up the driveway, two horrified adults sitting stiffly behind the windshield. Juniper’s parents are home early.





EARLIER TONIGHT, EVERY PERSON WHO SET FOOT IN this house said, “Holy shit,” but I haven’t let myself stare. Most of my friends here assume I’m rich, because I went to Pinnacle and dress like a Pinnacle kid. If somebody asks, I’m not going to lie, but I’m not going to give away the game by gawking, either.

Now the house merits a “holy shit” for other reasons. The crowd demolished it the way someone might demolish a decadent dessert. Every rug is out of place, their corners folded up. A pair of stout leather ottomans in the front lounge are on their sides. A crystal decanter lies in shards on the yellow wood floor of the dining room, bathed in a pool of whisky that probably cost more than my truck. The hallways ring in the aftermath of Lil Jon’s sneering rap, silent now.

Five of us stand in the foyer, watching the ambulance wail away from the house into the night, Juniper’s parents following in their Mercedes. Valentine, to my left, shifts his weight from foot to foot as if he’s standing on burning sand. By the door, Olivia and Kat Scott argue about something in low voices. Matt Jackson hovers nearby, shooting Olivia looks every so often.

“Okay,” says Olivia, turning to the rest of us. Her sister wears the scowl of the century. “We’re going to clean up before we head out. Do any of you think you could stay and help?”