We Were Liars(9)

I stopped writing and deleted all the emails from my sent mail folder. They were weak and stupid.

The bottom line is, Gat bailed when I got hurt.

The bottom line is, it was only a summer fling.

The bottom line is, he might have loved Raquel.

We lived too far apart, anyway.

Our families were too close, anyway.

I never got an explanation.

I just know he left me.





13




Welcome to my skull.

A truck is rolling over the bones of my neck and head. The vertebrae break, the brains pop and ooze. A thousand flashlights shine in my eyes. The world tilts.

I throw up. I black out.

This happens all the time. It’s nothing but an ordinary day.

The pain started six weeks after my accident. Nobody was certain whether the two were related, but there was no denying the vomiting and weight loss and general horror.

Mummy took me for MRIs and CT scans. Needles, machines. More needles, more machines. They tested me for brain tumors, meningitis, you name it. To relieve the pain they prescribed this drug and that drug and another drug, because the first one didn’t work and the second one didn’t work, either. They gave me prescription after prescription without even knowing what was wrong. Just trying quell the pain.

Cadence, said the doctors, don’t take too much.

Cadence, said the doctors, watch for signs of addiction.

And still, Cadence, be sure to take your meds.

There were so many appointments I can’t even remember them. Eventually the doctors came through with a diagnosis. Cadence Sinclair Eastman: post-traumatic headaches, also known as PTHA. Migraine headaches caused by traumatic brain injury.

I’ll be fine, they tell me.

I won’t die.

It’ll just hurt a lot.





14




After a year in Colorado, Dad wanted to see me again. In fact, he insisted on taking me to Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and Scotland—a ten-week trip beginning in mid-June, which meant I wouldn’t go to Beechwood at all, summer sixteen.

“The trip is grand timing,” said Mummy brightly as she packed my suitcase.

“Why?” I lay on the floor of my bedroom and let her do the work. My head hurt.

“Granddad’s redoing Clairmont.” She rolled socks into balls. “I told you that a million times already.”

I didn’t remember. “How come?”

“Some idea of his. He’s spending the summer in Windemere.”

“With you waiting on him?”

Mummy nodded. “He can’t stay with Bess or Carrie. And you know he takes looking after. Anyway. You’ll get a wonderful education in Europe.”

“I’d rather go to Beechwood.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she said, firm.



In Europe, I vomited into small buckets and brushed my teeth repeatedly with chalky British toothpaste. I lay prone on the bathroom floors of several museums, feeling the cold tile underneath my cheek as my brain liquefied and seeped out my ear, bubbling. Migraines left my blood spreading across unfamiliar hotel sheets, dripping on the floors, oozing into carpets, soaking through leftover croissants and Italian lace cookies.

I could hear Dad calling me, but I never answered until my medicine took effect.

I missed the Liars that summer.

We never kept in touch over the school year. Not much, anyway, though we’d tried when we were younger. We’d text, or tag each other in summer photos, especially in September, but we’d inevitably fade out after a month or so. Somehow, Beechwood’s magic never carried over into our everyday lives. We didn’t want to hear about school friends and clubs and sports teams. Instead, we knew our affection would revive when we saw one another on the dock the following June, salt spray in the air, pale sun glinting off the water.

But the year after my accident, I missed days and even weeks of school. I failed my classes, and the principal informed me I would have to repeat junior year. I stopped soccer and tennis. I couldn’t babysit. I couldn’t drive. The friends I’d had weakened into acquaintances.

I texted Mirren a few times. Called and left her messages that later I was ashamed of, they were so lonely and needy.

I called Johnny, too, but his voice mail was full.

I decided not to call again. I didn’t want to keep saying things that made me feel weak.

When Dad took me to Europe, I knew the Liars were on-island. Granddad hasn’t wired Beechwood and cell phones don’t get reception there, so I began writing emails. Different from my pitiful voice messages, these were charming, darling notes from a person without headaches.

Mostly.

Mirren!

Waving at you from Barcelona, where my father ate snails in broth.

Our hotel has gold everything. Even saltshakers. It is gloriously vile.

Write and tell me how the littles are misbehaving and where you are applying to college and whether you have found true love.

/Cadence

· · ·

Johnny!

Bonjour from Paris, where my father ate a frog.

I saw the Winged Victory. Phenomenal body. No arms.

Miss you guys. How is Gat?

/Cadence

· · ·

Mirren!

Hello from a castle in Scotland, where my father ate a haggis. That is, my father ate the heart, liver, and lungs of a sheep mixed with oatmeal and boiled in a sheep stomach.