Seven Ways We Lie(58)

“So,” she says. “Start of school, I switched into AP to get out of his honors class. We didn’t see each other at school. Maybe two or three times, so it’s just our shit luck someone found out. And when he heard what the assembly was going to be about, he broke things off.” Her voice falters. “Right now we’re . . . I don’t know what we are anymore.”

Juniper sinks under her covers. I don’t move. I doubt I could if I tried.

“I don’t know.” She stares ahead at the mirror above her bureau. She looks like a specter, drained and pale. “I feel like I’ve been doing this forever, not five months. Not just covering it up; I mean needing him. Being in love with him is like this steady . . . like music playing in the background. All the time. Sometimes it’s comforting, and sometimes it drives me insane.”

She frowns, as if trying to understand her own words. “He’s brilliant, you know. There’s some people—you don’t get how they fit together, they’re so full, there’s so much there. That’s how he is, and I knew it from the first time we talked.” She takes her hair out of its messy ponytail, letting it fall in a thin blond line over one shoulder. “It’s funny, because I never believed in the whole . . . but sometimes you just know, I suppose.” Her gray eyes glow in the lamplight. For the first time, I see the full weight of exhaustion behind them. I feel as if I might cry, looking at her.

Her eyes plead with me. “You can’t tell the school, Olivia. Nobody’s going to care that we met like two normal people over coffee; nobody’s going to care that he ended it. Nobody’s going to care that we haven’t even—” She clears her throat. “You know. Had sex. All they’ll hear is ‘teacher-student affair,’ and his life is over.”

I bite my lip. We’ve reached the question I don’t want to ask and have to ask most. “Sorry, but . . . you guys haven’t had any sex? Like, no type of sex?”

Juni blushes all the way out to her ears. “I mean, it is legal. But he didn’t feel comfortable with it, so we haven’t. Strict cutoff at second base.”

Relief floods me. That makes me feel a hell of a lot better about García’s motives. If he was using her, screw what I promised Valentine—I would turn García over in a heartbeat. And if Juni hated me for it, well, too bad. I’d take the hit to keep her safe.

“Does anyone else know?” I ask.

“Not even my parents.” Juniper’s thin lips tighten. “I don’t know, maybe they haven’t noticed anything’s different. They’re so busy, and they’re getting scatterbrained . . . but still. They ignore me doing anything wrong. No consequences. And that sounds great in theory, but it’s its own type of invisibility, and it’s peculiarly awful.” She sighs. “I need to tell them—I know I need to. They don’t see it by themselves, though, and it’s so much easier not to say anything. But when they open their eyes, then what?”

I flounder in the deluge of her words. How has she been holding all this in?

At a loss for what else to do, I lean forward, wrapping her in an awkward bed hug. Her arms close around my back, crushing the air out of me. After a minute, I pull back. Tears rest in the corners of her eyes, but she blinks them away.

“The worst part was him ending things,” she says. “He was the one person I could talk to about it. The last couple of weeks, I’ve been on my own, feeling like . . . I don’t know. Marooned.”

“Well, you’ve got me now, for what that’s worth,” I say. “I’m not going to give you horrible lines over coffee, but you can tell me anything you need.”

Her smile fades as fast as it came. “I don’t know what to do about Claire.”

I furrow my brow. “I texted her. Like, a lot. Did she get in touch?”

“No.”

“Jeez.”

“I know,” Juni says. “I thought this might . . .”

“Knock her back to her senses? Me too,” I mumble, checking my phone. She still hasn’t replied to my texts, let alone called back. “I hate to say it, but I’d keep quiet. God knows what it would do at this point.”

“Yeah,” Juniper says. “It sucks, because I know she would want to know.”

“Hey, look.” I give a reassuring pat to a lump of covers that looks as if it could be her knee. “Seven people know, and it has to stay that way. She’d understand.”

Juni hugs Prisoner of Azkaban to her chest and stays quiet.

I check my watch. “I’ve gotta run a couple of errands, then get home.” She nods, and I hop off the bed, leaning down to give her a less awkward embrace.

Mid-hug, she says, “I’m scared.” Hearing her admit it terrifies me.

“I’ll do everything I can to keep this quiet,” I say. “I promise, Juni.”

“Thanks. For being here.” Her words are strained in my ear. “It means a lot.”

“Of course.” I back up toward her door, doffing an imaginary cap at her. “Sleep well, fair maid. Die not of consumption.”

She smiles as I shut the door.





“AND I’M DISAPPOINTED, VALENTINE.”

I’ve been lectured before, but nothing has ever sounded as gentle or as horrible as that phrase. If lectures are declarations of war, “I’m disappointed” is like a guerrilla attack, not least when it’s sprung on the way home from the grocery store. My mother strategically waited to start this conversation until I couldn’t escape without jumping out of a moving vehicle. Clever.