We Were Liars(32)

I think he avoids being alone with me.

I avoid being alone with him, too, because my whole body sings to be near him, because every movement he makes is charged with electricity. I often think of putting my arms around him or running my fingers along his lips. When I let my thoughts go there—if for a moment Johnny and Mirren are out of sight, if for even a second we are alone—the sharp pain of unrequited love invites the migraine in.

These days she is a gnarled crone, touching the raw flesh of my brain with her cruel fingernails. She pokes my exposed nerves, exploring whether she’ll take up residence in my skull. If she gets in, I’m confined to my bedroom for a day or maybe two.

We eat lunch on the roof most days.

I suppose they do it when I’m ill, too.

Every now and then a bottle rolls off the roof and the glass smashes. In fact, there are shards and shards of splintered glass, sticky with lemonade, all over the porch.

Flies buzz around, attracted by the sugar.





47




End of the second week, I find Johnny alone in the yard, building a structure out of Lego pieces he must have found at Red Gate.

I’ve got pickles, cheese straws, and leftover grilled tuna from the New Clairmont kitchen. We decide not to go on the roof since it’s just the two of us. We open the containers and line them up on the edge of the dirty porch. Johnny talks about how he wants to build Hogwarts out of Lego. Or a Death Star. Or wait! Even better is a Lego tuna fish to hang in New Clairmont now that none of Granddad’s taxidermy is there anymore. That’s it. Too bad there’s not enough Lego on this stupid island for a visionary project such as his.

“Why didn’t you call or email after my accident?” I ask. I hadn’t planned to bring it up. The words spring out.

“Oh, Cady.”

I feel stupid asking, but I want to know.

“You don’t want to talk about Lego tuna fish instead?” Johnny vamps.

“I thought maybe you were annoyed with me about those emails. The ones I sent asking about Gat.”

“No, no.” Johnny wipes his hands on his T-shirt. “I disappeared because I’m an asshole. Because I don’t think through my choices and I’ve seen too many action movies and I’m kind of a follower.”

“Really? I don’t think that about you.”

“It’s an undeniable fact.”

“You weren’t mad?”

“I was just a stupid fuck. But not mad. Never mad. I’m sorry, Cadence.”

“Thanks.”

He picks up a handful of Legos and starts fitting them together.

“Why did Gat disappear? Do you know?”

Johnny sighs. “That’s another question.”

“He told me I don’t know the real him.”

“Could be true.”

“He doesn’t want to discuss my accident. Or what happened with us that summer. He wants us to act normal and like nothing happened.”

Johnny’s lined his Legos up in stripes: blue, white, and green. “Gat had been shitty to that girl Raquel, by starting up with you. He knew it wasn’t right and he hated himself for that.”

“Okay.”

“He didn’t want to be that kind of guy. He wants to be a good person. And he was really angry that summer, about all kinds of things. When he wasn’t there for you, he hated himself even more.”

“You think?”

“I’m guessing,” says Johnny.

“Is he going out with anyone?”

“Aw, Cady,” says Johnny. “He’s a pretentious ass. I love him like a brother, but you’re too good for him. Go find yourself a nice Vermont guy with muscles like Drake Loggerhead.” Then he cracks up laughing.

“You’re useless.”

“I can’t deny it,” he answers. “But you’ve got to stop being such a mushball.”





48




Giveaway: Charmed Life, by Diana Wynne Jones.

It’s one of the Chrestomanci stories Mummy read to me and Gat the year we were eight. I’ve reread it several times since then, but I doubt Gat has.

I open the book and write on the title page. For Gat with everything, everything. Cady.

I head to Cuddledown early the next morning, stepping over old teacups and DVDs. I knock on Gat’s bedroom door.

No answer.

I knock again, then push it open.

It used to be Taft’s room. It’s full of bears and model boats, plus Gat-like piles of books, empty bags of potato chips, cashews crushed underfoot. Half-full bottles of juice and soda, CDs, the Scrabble box with most of its tiles spilled across the floor. It’s as bad as the rest of the house, if not worse.

Anyway, he’s not there. He must be at the beach.

I leave the book on his pillow.





49




That night, Gat and I find ourselves alone on the roof of Cuddledown. Mirren felt sick and Johnny took her downstairs for some tea.

Voices and music float from New Clairmont, where the aunts and Granddad are eating blueberry pie and drinking port. The littles are watching a movie in the living room.

Gat walks the slant of the roof, all the way down to the gutter and up again. It seems dangerous, so easy to fall—but he is fearless.