One of Us Is Next(68)
Which, I’m only starting to realize, is something I need to sort out if I’m ever going to truly move on from being the sick girl. For most of my life, I’ve gotten a free pass for the things I do wrong. Hardly anyone gives me a hard time or holds a grudge. Even Knox came around once leukemia reared its ugly head again.
It’s not a crutch I ever asked for, but I’ve been leaning on it anyway.
I send one final text to a number that I saved to Contacts instead of deleting like he’d suggested:
Hi Luis, it’s Maeve. I’ve been meaning to thank you for the video. It was helpful. Also, I’m sorry for what I said at Cooper’s game. I didn’t mean it. Not that this is any excuse, but I was having a bad day and took it out on you.
I really am sorry.
I’d like to talk more sometime, if you would too.
Then I drop my phone in my bag. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Phoebe
Thursday, March 26
The graffiti scrawled across the dividing wall next to the paper towel dispenser in the girls’ first-floor bathroom is brand-new, written in wavering blue ink. Phoebe Lawton is a total…Except I can’t read the last word, because somebody crossed it out with a black Sharpie. Thank you, unknown benefactor who is probably Maeve. Then again, no. She’d have covered the whole thing so I wouldn’t see my name.
My hands don’t even shake as I’m washing them. At this point, personalized graffiti in the bathroom is nothing. In the past few days I’ve gotten two more Instagram messages from Derek, cleaned up after my sister twice, and flunked a science test because I can’t concentrate in this hellhole. Plus Maeve keeps texting me screenshots of that forum she’s gotten obsessed with all over again, where somebody named Darkestmind constantly yells WHERE ARE YOU BAYVIEW2020? Like it’s some kind of Missed Connections board for freaky loners.
Me? I’m just relieved that school is over for the day, and I can forget about Bayview High for a few hours.
I’m pulling a paper towel from the dispenser when the door opens, and a second later Jules appears. “Oh, hi,” I say, flustered. I haven’t talked to Jules since I watched the video Luis took from Sean’s phone. I barely see her at school anymore, unless you count all the times I’ve skulked past her hallway makeout sessions with Sean.
“Heyyy,” Jules says, her eyes flicking toward the graffiti. She doesn’t look surprised. I’d love to think she’s the one who halfheartedly crossed it out, because at least that would mean she still cares a little bit about me. But it’s just as likely that she wrote it in the first place, considering how far up Sean’s ass she is now. She’ll even lie for him—something I’d never have believed possible if I hadn’t seen the video with my own eyes.
I toss my wet paper towel in the wastebasket. “How’s Sean?”
Her mouth purses as she pulls out a tube of lip gloss and unscrews the top. “Don’t pretend you care.”
Watching her outline a perfect pout makes me acutely aware of my own dry lips. I pull a tube of Burt’s Bees lip balm from my bag, grimacing when I realize it’s coconut flavored. My least favorite. I swipe it across my mouth anyway. “He must miss Brandon, though.”
Jules’s eyes go flat as they meet mine in the mirror. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrug. “Nothing. I just feel bad for him.” Even to my own ears, the words sound fake. Sean hasn’t been acting like someone who lost his best friend. If anything, he’s swaggering around Bayview High more than ever.
Do you think there’s any possibility that somebody wanted Brandon to get hurt?
Knox asked that, and I brushed it off as too ridiculous to even consider. Still, Sean was standing right next to Brandon when he died, egging him on. Sean sounded shocked and terrified in that video, but let’s face it—he’s proved since then that he can play a part when he has to.
I gaze at my reflection in the mirror, and tug on my ponytail to tighten it. “Pretty scary to know it could have been any one of you, huh?” I ask.
“What?” Jules blinks at me, confused.
“Any one of you could have fallen through that landing. Since you were all going to take the same shortcut.”
Jules’s face is blank for a few seconds too long. She’s not a particularly good liar once you know to look for it. “Oh yeah,” she says finally.
“Just random chance that Brandon went first,” I add. I don’t know why I’m still talking, or what I’m hoping to get out of the conversation. Jules won’t confide in me. She picked her side a while ago. But there’s still part of me hoping to spot a crack in her armor, some sign that we could talk like we used to.
Hey, Jules, did you know that lying to the police could get you in trouble?
Don’t you think Brandon’s parents deserve to know what really happened?
Did you ever think your new boyfriend might be a sociopath?
“I don’t really like to talk about it.” Jules smacks her lips and drops the tube of gloss in her bag, then flips her hair over one shoulder and turns for the door. “I have to go. Sean and I have plans after school.”
“Me too,” I say. Her eyebrows shoot up. “I mean, I have plans too.”