Seven Ways We Lie(54)

“Sure,” I say, feeling numb. The sight of Juniper getting carried out on a stretcher, her face as blue-white as marble, glares in my mind. I can’t be alone right now.

Matt nods. Valentine doesn’t reply, just stalks down the hall, as expressionless as always.

“Is he okay?” Olivia asks, nodding after him.

“I think so,” I say. Down the hall, Valentine enters the guest bedroom where Juniper passed out. I jog his way, and the others follow.

Valentine stands at the foot of the bed, staring at the vomit smeared across the floor, disturbed where Juniper fell into it. It’s reddish, the color of the punch. The sight of it makes me want to throw up, too. I look away, twisting my watch around and around my wrist.

“I’ll clean this up,” Olivia says, waving at the vomit.

“You sure? I can get it,” Matt says, although he looks a hundred times more grossed out than she does.

“Nah, don’t worry. Juni’s vomit and I have gotten real friendly these last couple of weeks.” Olivia points back into the hall. “Can you get the kitchen, or move the—”

Someone’s phone rings. We all check our pockets, but I glimpse a phone that must be Juniper’s peeking out from the bedding. I dart around the vomit and grab the phone, frowning when I see the screen. “She doesn’t have the number saved,” I say. “Should I pick up?”

“Might be important. Let me,” Olivia says. I palm it to her, and she hits accept. “Hello?”

A male voice bursts out on the other end, audible from feet away. After a few seconds, Olivia’s face goes slack. She lets out the tiniest noise.

After a few more moments, the voice on the other end stops.

“It’s n—it’s not Juniper,” Olivia says. Her voice is a hoarse whisper. “This is Olivia Scott. Is this . . .?”

Silence. I trade a baffled look with Matt. “What’s going on?” I ask.

“Dunno,” he says.

Olivia’s voice rises. “Who is this?”

The rest of us flinch, except Valentine. Still staring at the mess of vomit, he has a look of dread on his face.

“Valentine?” I say. He doesn’t move.

The voice on the other end comes back to life. Olivia says quietly, “Is this Mr. García?”

The air in the room gets thick and stifling. “Oh my goodness,” I say, realizing exactly what we’re witnessing. Kat’s and Matt’s faces go as blank as Valentine’s.

A surge of sound comes from the other end of the phone, but Olivia, turning deathly pale, shakes her head hard. “I can’t—I have to go,” she says.

I catch one word as she takes the phone from her ear. “Wait—”

She drops the phone onto the bed, taking a step back from it as if it’s about to spit poison. Disbelief washes over me. I hardly believed the rumor was real, let alone that I’d know the culprit. How can it be Juniper Kipling? Claire never stopped talking about how perfect she was, how she had her ten-year plan figured out to the week, how levelheaded and rational she was . . .

“Well. That’s that,” Valentine says. He sounds like we’ve just heard a weather report, not discovered the school scandal of the century.

“Hang on. You knew already?” Matt asks, pointing at Valentine. “You knew! What the f*ck?”

Valentine gives him the most withering look of all time. “Of course I knew. Why else would I be here?”

“Jesus, I can’t believe it’s her,” Kat Scott says.

“Is it that surprising?” Valentine asks.

“Dude, hello,” Kat says. “Megapopular valedictorian girl, God’s gift to humanity or whatever? Banging a teacher is kind of breaking the pattern.”

Valentine clears his throat and says, “First of all, she’s salutatorian if anything. I’m valedictorian.”

Jeez, Valentine. I nearly laugh.

“Whatever. That is not the point.” Kat tugs a hand through the tangle of her ponytail. “We’re turning them in, right?”

I nod, looking around. Olivia nods hard, looking like she’ll be sick if she opens her mouth. The others nod, too—except Valentine. Doubt tugs his thin lips downward. “Are you sure we should?” he says.

“I mean, we should turn García in, at least,” Kat says. “He’s a friggin’ statutory rapist.”

Everybody avoids one another’s eyes at the word rapist. It sounds like TV-cop-show talk, something for a crime scene, not for five kids trying to clean up after a party. It forces the image of Juniper and García together into my head, and I blink it away.

After a second, Valentine takes his phone out. “How old is Juniper?”

“Seventeen, pretty sure,” Kat says, and Olivia nods.

After a minute of typing, Valentine tucks the phone back into his pocket. “Then it isn’t statutory rape. The age of consent in Kansas is sixteen.”

Olivia speaks up. “That doesn’t make it okay,” she says sharply. “Just because there’s some arbitrary number they pick for consent doesn’t mean he can’t be pressuring her.”

“Did he say they’d had sex?” Valentine asks. “Did she? Did anybody describe to you the level of their sexual involvement?”