Good Girls Lie(39)

“Then stick around. Drink your tea.”

“It’s terrible,” I blurt, slapping a hand over my mouth.

Rumi laughs. “What did I do wrong?”

“You scalded it. And the teabag is old.”

“An espresso, then? I opened a new bag of beans an hour ago.”

He makes two, sets the tiny cups on the table, one for me, one for him. I take the sugar this time, drop it in, stir. Rumi waits patiently until I take a sip and nod approvingly before touching his own cup. His fingers are long, the nails clipped short, and I want to touch them. I want them to touch me.

I don’t understand myself. I’m furious with him, but I also want to see what it would feel like if he put his arms around me. He narrows perfectly from shoulder to waist. We’d fit well together.

Get a grip, Ash.

“Talk to me. I’m a good listener,” he says, sitting again.

What do I have to lose? “The coroner’s court found my father’s death a ‘misadventure.’ That’s the official story.”

“Makes it sounds like he was a pirate on the high seas. What’s the unofficial story?”

“A pirate. Oh, yes. He was. Until he took a handful of pills. When my mother found him dead in the dining room, she freaked out and shot herself.”

“Damn.”

“I found them.”

“Double damn.”

“We’d had a fight earlier in the day. We fought all the time, he and I. He...” I gesture to my cheek and Rumi’s lips thin as he grasps what I’m saying.

“Bastard.”

I shrug. “You can understand why I don’t want everyone at school talking about it. It’s bad enough they’re dead, and in such a splashy way. But these girls, they live for the details. They’ll be after me nonstop. And I can’t stop seeing it. Reliving it. They were so... And my mum, too...”

Shit, now I’m crying again. Twice in one hour, on two different shoulders. Am I so starved for compassion? Or have I kept everyone at arm’s length for so long I don’t know how to properly connect with people anymore?

Rumi hands over a napkin.

I gather myself, wipe my eyes. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’ve been through a lot. But you have to give the girls here a chance. They all come from some sort of dysfunction. Privileged people are all kinds of fucked up, and they fuck up their kids. Honestly, if you’d just been up-front about it, they wouldn’t be watching you like hawks. Why’d you change your name?”

“I wanted to forget. I wanted to run away and forget everything. It was stupid, I know. But the dean agreed it was for the best. We thought it would give me time and space to heal.”

“Well, Ash, your time is up. You’re not going to be able to run away anymore. They know, and it’s best to fess up and get on with things.”

I drain the cup. There are sugar crystals creating sweet espresso mud at the bottom. I resist the urge to lick them. He’s giving me good advice.

I turn the spotlight on him, instead. “Why are you here? In Marchburg, I mean?”

“I’m a Russian mole. I’ve had plastic surgery and am hiding out on top of this mountain.”

“Stop. I’m serious.”

“You really don’t know?”

“No.”

“You’re probably the only one.” His voice sounds inexplicably sad. He rubs a hand over his dark curls. “You’ve heard about the murder in Selden Arboretum, haven’t you? Ten years ago?”

“I was warned never to go there alone. It’s haunted.”

Rumi spits a mirthless laugh. “Haunted. Right. It was my father who committed the crime.”

Now it’s my turn to be taken aback. “You mean, he murdered that girl?”

“He did. I was just a little kid at the time, only ten.” His dark eyes grow distant, sad. “My mother split when I was a baby, and my dad, he wasn’t ever totally right in the head after. The night...the night it happened, the police came to the house, broke down the door, found him in the living room with—”

Flustered, he slams the rest of his espresso. I recall what Piper said. ...he carved out her eyes and took them home with him. They found them on his mantel. Really freaky shit.

Holy mother.

“Anyway, he went to jail, and I went to the state. Foster care sucked, so I emancipated when I was sixteen and came back to Marchburg. Dean Westhaven hired me on the spot, set me up in one of the little cabins on the edge of the forest. She’s always been cool. Some of the parents balked when they found out, but she said it was her duty to the school and to the town, that I was as much a victim of my father as Ellie Robertson had been that night. She’s a good lady, the dean.”

“Wow.”

“You sound downright American, Ash.”

“‘Wow’ is a universal exclamation, Rumi.”

“I guess so. My point is, we aren’t so different, you and I. We both had horrible fathers, and we’re both trying to escape our pasts.” He glances at the clock. “You should let me drive you back now.”

I peer at the clock, too. It’s nearly ten. If I hurry, I can make the second half of the tutorial.

“No, that’s all right. Thank you for talking to me, Rumi. I feel better.”