Seven Ways We Lie(83)

My words spiral out into the sky. Huge and irretrievable.

I breathe hard. White mist uncoils before me in the cold.

She’s about to say we’re done—I know it. Between this and my not calling her when she got out of the hospital—she’s going to friend-dump me, and I’ll be alone, and I’ll deserve it, won’t I? Won’t I deserve it?

“I thought you knew me better than that,” she says quietly.

I try to swallow. My tongue is harsh and dry. “That’s why I didn’t call on Sunday. When I heard you landed in the hospital, I . . . God, it’s horrible. But part of me was like finally, you know? She finally does something that doesn’t make the rest of us feel inadequate. Make me feel inadequate.”

Her eyes crease with—is that sympathy? I can’t look long.

“And it’s not just that you’re so smart, and that everybody’s in love with you, and that you’re amazing at everything you do. I mean, that’d sure as hell be enough, but it’s—it’s the way you act.” I look down at my sneakers. “When you sleep over, when it’s the three of us . . . even in private, you’re never mean. You’re never insecure or angry or . . . how do you do it? How are you real, you know? Years of us being friends, and I still feel like it’s not fair, that somebody can be so—”

“Claire,” Juniper says, “it was me.”

“What was you?”

“Mr. García. He was with me.”

Something ruptures in my chest. I stare. Her gray eyes are calm and serious.

The knots in my mind come loose, unleashing the force of a million memories.

Strangely, the first thing that comes to mind is the mess of frizzy hair I had in fourth grade; I remember wanting miles of flowing blond hair, Cinderella’s or Rapunzel’s or Juniper Kipling’s, because even back then she was the golden girl.

I remember starting to detest my eyes in the mirror, their color, their shape, their short lashes. I remember sixth grade, the stick-thin prepubescent frames of the popular girls, Juniper the most graceful and most beautiful of all. I remember wanting to be like her so viciously, so fiercely, that when we first became friends, I dreamed that I could absorb something of her into myself, relinquish who I was and what I’d been given.

I remember last May, the end of sophomore year. One day Juniper was joking that Lucas and I would be engaged soon. The next day, he dumped me. When it ended, the choke-chain of a million clichés constricted around my throat, and I didn’t—couldn’t—speak about it. Heartbreak reduces you to what a million other people have suffered a million times before.

I remember feeling too much, and then feeling nothing, and when my heart turned back on, it had a blinking red light to warn off anyone who might try to get close. I remember staring at Juniper, wondering how her hair fell just so. How long had she spent on it? I started wondering where Olivia got her allure. Was it something she bought? Something she sacrificed her integrity for? That had to be it, right? Little by little, my makeup turned from self-expression to war paint, and day by day, my jokes turned into fine-tipped barbs.

And now, staring into Juni’s eyes, it feels like I could summon up every tiny jealousy, every tiny hatred of the last six months. Comparing my grades to Juni’s, my height and weight to Olivia’s, my eyes and skin and face to theirs. As if it were a contest. As if we were placed on two sides of a scale, and I could never measure up.

All my preoccupations, all these months, and here Juni’s been, hiding the secret of a lifetime, not sparing so much as a moment to pit herself against me.

“Oh my God,” I choke, tears burning at the back of my throat.

“Nobody’s perfect, Claire. Everybody’s got shit they want, shit they can’t have, and shit they’ve got to deal with. You know that.” Juni hoists her backpack higher on her shoulder. “I’m no different. Do you understand how often I’ve wished I were you or Olivia since summer? How much simpler things would’ve been?”

I could sink into the ground. I have been so resolutely blind.

The tears spill over. “I—I’m so sorry,” I hiccup. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

She hushes me gently. “I miss you,” she says. “I miss us. I don’t want you to be anybody else, and I’m not expecting you to do everything right. I sure don’t do everything right.” A line draws down between her eyebrows. “But what you did to Lucas, that’s wrong. That’s not you, Claire—who is that?”

“I don’t know.” I sniff. Look up at the sky. It swims. “I would do anything to take it back. G-God, it was twenty seconds and he’s going to deal with that for the rest of high school. The rest of his life. It’ll be one of his coming-out stories, and it’ll be the most horrible one.” I wipe my face. Wipe the tears from beneath my eyes. “Shit, I don’t know what to do.”

Juniper tilts her head. “You always know more than you give yourself credit for,” she says. “I’m sure you know what to do.”

Everything I can, says Grace’s voice in the back of my head.

Looking at Juni, I take a too-deep breath. Tears dry on my cheeks, and pain needles the bottom of my lungs. “I’ll find you later, okay? Can I do that?”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Juni says, her voice shot through with relief.