Where the Staircase Ends(58)

“We don’t need them,” she said. “Let’s show them how much we don’t need them.”

In the morning, after he left and she was alone in her bed, the shame washed over her like an ocean, so deep she thought she might drown.

Blink.

Sunny was stretched across one of the lawn chairs in her backyard. Her face was pale and unsmiling as she watched Jenny execute a series of butterfly kicks down the length of the pool. Jenny slapped her palm against the wall and popped out of the water, her head bobbing up and down as she frowned in Sunny’s direction. She waved her cast triumphantly in the air, this time wrapped in a thick layer of plastic wrap to protect it from the water.

“Why are you defending her?” Jenny asked. “Considering everything she did to Logan, is it that hard to believe she’d get it on with a teacher?”

Sunny looked down at her hands, swallowing back the lump forming in her throat. She hadn’t meant for it to get so out of hand. She didn’t mean for it to go so far.

“Regardless of what happened between Taylor and Logan she would never do that. She thinks Mr. Thomas is disgusting. Can’t you see? Tracey is lying and using this as an opportunity to make people forget about what a skank she is.”

“How do you know? It seems to me there are a lot of things we didn’t know about Taylor. I really don’t understand why you’re getting so defensive, anyways. She’s getting exactly what she deserves.”

Sunny swallowed thickly, her eyes lingering on the empty lounge chair I usually claimed during our summertime tanning sessions. There was a sour taste in the back of her throat. She felt like she was going to be sick.

“What if I told you none of it was true?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “What if I told you that I made it all up?”

Jenny doggy paddled to the edge of the pool and gripped the blue tiled rim. “What are you talking about?”

Sunny stared into space until her eyes lost focus. She licked her lips. “Tracey was going to tell the store manager I stole the pills. They would’ve called the police, and Tracey would’ve told everyone. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. And then the lies just kept tumbling out of my mouth … ”

Pool water dripped from Jenny’s curls as she pulled herself out of the water. Her feet slapped wetly against the concrete when she stomped towards Sunny’s chair, determination pulsing from her narrowed eyes.

“Listen to me.” She grabbed Sunny’s shoulders and shook her back to reality. “I’m going to pretend I never heard that, okay? And you can never tell anyone else what you just told me, do you understand?”

“Why?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. “She doesn’t deserve this. I do.”

“Do you want everyone to hate you? Do you want to be a social outcast? Because that’s exactly what will happen if people find out that you lied about your best friend. No one will ever believe anything you say again, and you will have no one. Do you understand me? No one.”

Fear bubbled inside Sunny, and beneath that I could feel the suffocating loneliness that she fought so hard to hide from everyone. It was horrible. I could barely breathe for it. How had I never noticed it before? It was a living thing inside of her, with hands that squeezed her and feet that ran sprints up and down length of her body. Its voice was deep and gravelly, whispering hotly in her ear. You will always be alone. No one will ever love you. Your mother left because she didn’t love you. Your father can’t stand the sight of you. Do you really want the rest of the world to know what you did? To see you for what you really are?

Her loneliness was all-consuming, and as she listened to Jenny, it drowned out the rational part of her brain that wanted to do the right thing. At least she had Jenny. As long as she had someone she could keep the loneliness at bay. If everyone found out and hated her because of it …

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she said to Jenny. “But I don’t want everyone to hate me.”

“Then we’ll just pretend this never happened. Your secret’s safe with me, but you have to promise me you won’t ever mention it again. Okay?”

Sunny nodded. “I promise,” she said, shaking off any remaining inclinations she might have had to tell the truth. She stood up, straightening her shoulders as a wicked grin spread across her face. “I bet I can do more flips then you can.”

“No way. I’ll totally kick your ass.”

The girls dove into the pool, leaving Sunny’s confession behind them.

Blink.

I was back on the steps, the rain pounding against my skin like nails.

I was Sunny’s best friend. I was her buoy against all the bad things in her life—the mother who abandoned her, the father who might as well not be there. She was like part of my family. Hell, she was my family. What did it feel like, listening to her crush and her best friend rip her apart? How much did it hurt when she heard me say I’d be better off without her in my life? As soon as I thought of the question, the answer was there, as clear as if I’d plucked it straight from Sunny’s head. I was like her mother. I was like her father. Everyone she ever loved left her because she wasn’t good enough for them. I was one more person to add to the growing list of people who had abandoned her, only I was worse than all of them, because I promised I would never leave her.