Lies You Never Told Me(13)

I cock my head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you have a vulnerability that some of these other girls have taken pains to hide. You really get at Juliet’s . . . hope. Juliet’s not stupid. She knows the risk she’s running, and she still takes it. She takes it out of hope and out of love, and it leaves her . . . really exposed.”

“It also ends in death,” I say.

“Well, sure,” he says seriously. “Everything worth doing has the possibility of ending in pain.”

I bite the corner of my lip. I want to argue, to say something light, amusing. But I think of my mom fading by the day. I think of how my dad left her in the months after the accident; I think of the one postcard I got from him, written from a prison cell in Idaho. Put some money in my commissary, it said. It had arrived two days before my birthday. I think of the treasures I’ve lost over the years being evicted from apartment after apartment—the tiny diamond studs my grandma gave me, the crumbling cardboard box of secondhand Barbies I’d played with as a little kid. I think of the contours of my life, sparse and small and drab.

“Everything does end in pain, sooner or later,” I say softly.

He looks up at me, his eyes flaring slightly. “Not everything.” He takes my hand, gives it a quick squeeze before he lets go. “You’ve got something special, Elyse. You may not know it yet, but I can see it. I believe in you. And with some work, I think the sky’s the limit for you.”

My breath seizes up in my throat. I don’t know what to say.

“Anyway, don’t bolt on me because of one bad rehearsal.” He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “I have an idea. Why don’t you come in Sunday afternoon? Three P.M.? We can work on some of the scenes one-on-one.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I say quickly, turning pink. I don’t want him to think he’s got to put in extra work just because I’m not good enough.

“I don’t mind,” he says. “I’m going to be here anyway—I have a lot of papers to grade. It’ll be a nice break. And I think you’ll get it really fast without so many people around.”

I wrap the end of my ponytail tightly around the tip of my finger. As embarrassed as I am to need extra help, the idea of getting special attention from him makes my toes squirm with pleasure.

“Okay,” I say. My voice is soft, but steady again, thank God. “Thanks, Mr. Hunter.”

“Great.” He finally smiles. It’s dazzling. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have to go through it all again: the snickering, the staring. The snide whispers. Another burst of anxiety hits me.

If I fail, I’ll be worse than invisible. I’ll be pathetic.

Almost like he’s reading my mind, he gives me a serious look. “You weren’t cast by mistake, Elyse.”

“Now I just need to prove it to everyone else.” I square my shoulders. “Thanks, Mr. Hunter. For everything. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I step out of the theater with a fresh sense of determination. Between Brynn and Mr. Hunter, I’m not just going to learn this role. I’m going to own it.





SEVEN


    Gabe




“Jesus, Sasha, slow down a little.” I brace myself against the dash, gritting my teeth as we hurtle through the darkness. She just laughs and turns the sound system up, Pretty Lights blaring from the speakers, the beat pulsing through my bones.

We’re on our way to Savannah Johnston’s party in Westlake. Sasha’s been particularly prickly all day. This morning, instead of going with her to the mall, I went to my little sister’s soccer game. Then I spent the afternoon doing my homework instead of running straight to her. By the time Sasha picked me up in her electric-blue Mini Cooper, she was in a foul mood.

“Scared?” she asks, a thrill in her voice.

I just look out the window at the dark shapes of trees flying past.

She doesn’t like being ignored. “Fine. Be that way.”

And that’s when she snaps the headlights off. The road disappears out from under us. There’s nothing around us, no streetlights, no houses, no stores—only rolling hills, hunched forms in the darkness.

“Jesus!” I grip my seat belt in both hands. The car vibrates as it swerves across the rumble strips at the side of the road and then corrects its course. I can hear the engine whine as she presses further and further on the gas pedal. “Sasha! This isn’t fucking funny.”

She laughs again. The needle creeps up the speed dial. The music is a howling, blaring chaos, thrumming against my skull. For a minute I’m back in the middle of the road, the night of the accident. I’m airborne. I’m flying, out of control, and there’s time to think about how hard the ground is beneath me, how heavy and fast the car, how flimsy my body . . .

And then, all at once, the road is back. She’s snapped the headlights back on. The car starts to decelerate, still too fast, but not quite so wild.

Sasha says, smirking, “This from my edgy skate-punk boyfriend.”

“Did something piss you off tonight?” I ask. “Or are you just in a mood?”

The playful sparkle disappears from her eyes. Her fingers tighten around the driving wheel, the sneer on her face lingering.