by Sara Shepard
Neither did the compliments. It was weird: All her life, Ava had known she was beautiful. Plenty of people told her so: photographers, modeling managers, even a guy who once wanted to make an avatar of her for a video game he was creating. But only when Alex said it did it actually feel real—because, unlike everyone else, he actually cared about her, Ava, not just what she looked like. Alex made her feel special all the time, and he had the unique ability to keep her sane and grounded in the overly competitive world of Beacon Heights.
Alex’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled away to look at the screen. “Crap,” he said. “I didn’t realize how late it was. My parents will kill me if I miss curfew.”
“Stay,” she said. “You know your parents love you.” Much more than mine do right now. The truth was, she hated being alone right now. Whenever she was, panic about Nolan—and about her slipping grades—began to overtake her. Thanks to her evil stepmother, her relationship with her father was tenuous at best. If he ever caught wind of the Nolan rumors, that would be it.
“Are you still upset about that paper?” he asked, as if reading her mind, his brown eyes warm with concern. “That was really harsh of Mr. Granger.”
Ava suddenly flashed back to that day in class, when she and the other girls in the group had discussed vengeance and ended up talking about Nolan. What about Oxy? she heard their voices say. Not too much—just enough to knock him out. Just enough to take some incriminating pictures.
She gritted her teeth. Stop thinking about it.
“Yeah, that sucked,” she said aloud. “I wonder if I should talk to him. See if I can rewrite it?”
Alex’s gaze darted to the left. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Ava looked at him sharply. “Why would you say that?” Instantly she thought of the rumors about her. But Alex didn’t buy into them. “It was your idea,” she added.
Alex shrugged. “Never mind. You’re right. You should try to change the grade.”
“Okay.” Ava gave Alex’s hand a squeeze. She felt a little uncertain after Alex’s comment, but maybe Granger rubbed guys the wrong way for the same reason all the girls liked him. “I’ll ask him about it.”
They walked down the grand staircase to the first floor. Instantly, the heady scent of the room spray Ava’s stepmother used assaulted her nostrils. Even though her father had been married to Leslie for several years, Ava still found the smell offensive. God forbid the house smell like the Iranian spices her father used in his cooking. That would be too foreign and weird.
Of course, the rest of the place had changed as well. Gone were the Persian rugs her father and mother had bought in Tehran during their last visit, replaced with two beige couches and a leather recliner that Leslie had picked out. Gone were the gold-footed coffee table and the silk swags on the windows that Ava used to play among when she was little; in their place was a glass table and modern wooden blinds. Ava wasn’t sure what Leslie was trying to erase—her husband’s heritage, or his ex-wife’s legacy.
They reached the front door, and Ava went up on her tiptoes to give Alex one more good-bye kiss. Ava was tall, but he still had a good six inches on her. “Call me when you get home,” she said.
He nodded. “Love you,” he said, kissing her lightly on the forehead before stepping outside.
“Ava?” she heard from upstairs, as she shut the door behind him. “Is that you?”
Her father appeared at the top of the staircase wearing a white terry cloth robe he would have never bought for himself—clearly a Leslie purchase. His graying hair was mussed, the way it always looked when he was working late, and his wire-frame glasses hung low on his nose. “How’s my girl?” he asked, just the hint of an accent left in his voice.
“Everything is great!” Ava winced, realizing she’d injected far too much enthusiasm in the lie. But to her surprise, her father didn’t catch it.
“I’m glad. Good night, jigar,” he said, using their old Iranian term of endearment. Ava felt a sudden rush of affection for her father. With all her stress about the Nolan stuff, she hadn’t spent enough time with him lately. She resolved to change that.
“Good night,” she replied, watching as he headed back into his room. She started up the stairs, then changed her mind and went to the kitchen for a glass of water, fumbling for the light switch on the wall.
“Hi, Ava,” came a slurred voice from the darkness.
“Leslie!” Ava jumped at least a foot into the air. Why are you sitting in the pitch-darkness like a total creep? she wanted to ask. Her fingers found the switch, and the kitchen was suddenly flooded with light, revealing another room she barely recognized, with its glossy granite countertops and new cabinetry. Leslie sat perched on one of the stools, her long, tanned legs crossed, her blond hair loose around her face, and an empty bottle of Chardonnay next to her on the table.
Just looking at Leslie filled Ava with frustration. Her mother had been short and frumpy, with frizzy reddish hair that she kept in a bun. Nothing like this hard, brittle woman. And her father had loved her mother for her mind: She’d been the head of the math department at UDub, brilliant and flustered and funny. Ava still wasn’t sure if Leslie even had a mind. And what brains she did have, she seemed intent on drinking away.
“I think the question is, what were you doing, sneaking your boyfriend out late at night?” Leslie challenged.
“It’s nine PM, and we were watching a movie in the den. Last I checked, that was still allowed.” Ava crossed her arms over her chest defensively.
“I think you’re spending too much time with him. I’d like it if he didn’t come around here anymore,” Leslie said slowly.
“Oh yeah?” Ava shot back. “Well, good thing it’s not really up to you.”
Leslie barely flinched. “I’m worried about you, Ava.” Her voice dripped with false concern. “I heard some troubling things about you recently, about the sudden . . . upturn in your GPA. I’d hate to have to share them with your father.”
Ava gasped. How in the world would Leslie hear those rumors? Another mother? Did lots of parents know? “Th-those are just nasty rumors that an ex-boyfriend started,” she stammered.
“See?” Leslie smiled, showing her too-white teeth. “It’s always about boys with you, Ava. What am I supposed to do except ask you to stop seeing this Alex person?”
Ava’s hands clenched into fists at her sides, and she struggled to control her breathing. Even in death, Nolan Hotchkiss was still managing to ruin her life.
The spring of sophomore year, Ava and Nolan had dated for several months—Ava didn’t normally run with his crowd, but Nolan had sought her out and had been so persistent that Ava couldn’t say no. And while certain things about Nolan annoyed her, she had to admit it had been, well, fun being Nolan Hotchkiss’s girlfriend. Freshman girls parted for her in the hallway, the way they normally did for Julie Redding and Parker Duvall and their minions. Everyone kept offering her things, study guides and hall passes and invitations to country clubs and lake houses. When she heard that Nolan was bragging about how he was going to sleep with her after junior prom, she wasn’t even as bothered by it as she should’ve been—and she hated that now, hated that she hadn’t had the self-respect to see what a scumbag he was. She’d been too wrapped up in his dazzling smile and his lying words, and she went ahead and did everything he wanted.
It was afterward, while Nolan was in the shower, that she picked up his iPhone to put on some music—and saw the texts. There were naked shots from dozens of girls in their class, including one from Delia Marks just an hour earlier. I want to see you, she had texted. Tomorrow night, Nolan had replied—while he’d been with Ava. Can’t wait to see you. Every inch of you.
Much more calmly than she felt, Ava had stood up, pulled on her rumpled Zac Posen dress, and slammed the door on her way out.
But Ava had learned the hard way that no one broke up with Nolan Hotchkiss without suffering the consequences. In retaliation, he told everyone tha
t she’d been sleeping her way through the male faculty at Beacon Heights High—and maybe one or two of the females, too. Everyone knew that Ava had been getting better grades for the past year, and they were more than happy to believe Nolan’s explanation. “Pretty girls don’t need brains,” Nolan would say loudly in the hallway whenever Ava was around. “They have other ways to get what they want.”
It was awful at first—people wrote Slut on her locker every day for a week. Guys followed her around asking for details of her exploits. Girls stopped talking when she came into a room. She’d texted Nolan in a blind rage: If you keep telling lies about me, I’ll kill you. But this was Beacon Heights, and the damage had already been done.
Most of it had blown over by the beginning of junior year—everyone had moved on to other scandals, and Ava’s friends knew Nolan was a lying scumbag anyway. And then she’d started dating Alex, who loved her for who she was, not how she looked. But Ava knew that the rumors were never truly gone. Every time she caught a group of girls whispering and shooting glances her way, or saw a boy giving her a once-over for a second too long, she wondered if it was because of what Nolan had made up about her.
She thought back to that night, at Nolan’s party, when Caitlin had talked her into leading him upstairs. It has to be you, Ava. Say you want to get back together with him. He’ll love that. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women.
And Caitlin had been right.
A cold, hard pit formed in her stomach, just like it always did when she thought about the prank. Nolan had been so willing to go upstairs with her, like he really believed she wanted him back. Ava didn’t dare tell Alex about what she’d done; she was sure he’d get a little jealous about her seducing her ex. But more than that, he’d be afraid of how it now connected her to Nolan’s death. Ava certainly was scared. The others kept insisting that his death was a coincidence, but she felt haunted. She had been the one to lead Nolan upstairs. She had been the one to feed him that spiked drink. But she knew exactly how much Oxy Caitlin had put in there: one measly pill. Just enough to make Nolan loopy. Not to kill him.
So how had it?
“Fine.” Ava turned to Leslie and sighed. “You win. I won’t bring Alex over here anymore. Just don’t tell my dad about those stupid rumors.”
Leslie smiled, looking pleased and amused. “I’m so glad we agree, Ava. I just want what’s best for you. You know that.” She turned and headed up the stairs without another word.
Ava was so angry she was shaking. This shouldn’t really be a surprise, she thought. Nolan’s rumors had been tormenting her for over a year now. Why would the tormenting stop, just because he was dead?
CHAPTER TEN
AFTER SCHOOL ON TUESDAY, JULIE sat in her sleek, spotless bedroom, wedged between two cushy throw pillows with a faux-fur blanket wrapped around her legs. Light poured through the window, making the room look clean and cheerful and, most of all, normal. Like the nice, normal bedroom of a normal girl, who had a normal mother and a normal house. A normal girl who had not possibly accidentally killed a classmate in a prank gone terribly wrong.
Don’t think about it, she commanded herself. It was a coincidence. A horrible, awful coincidence that they had written on him just before he died. But nobody would believe that if she didn’t believe it herself.
Police officers had popped into classrooms yesterday, asking questions. A few kids said they’d already been interviewed about the night of the party, though Julie hadn’t been called in. What if someone had seen her go upstairs? What if someone had heard their conversation in film studies? Someone must have, right?
Only . . . who?
Now, all Julie wanted to do was lie in her bed with her head under the covers, but she had to be normal, perfect Julie. And normal, perfect Julie was happy and popular. So she had Nyssa on her phone and her friend Colette on hold. Natalie was IMing her on her MacBook Air, she had fifteen Facebook messages to read, and she had three hundred “likes” on an Instagram selfie she’d posted only last night.
“And someone told me they were making out in the photography darkroom,” Nyssa was saying in Julie’s ear, punctuating the gossip with a snicker. She was talking about Rebecca Hallswell and Corey Grier, the newest couple at Beacon, scandalous because they’d both cheated on their exes. “I mean, get a little creative, Corey! The poor girl’s hair is going to smell like fixer for the rest of the day!”
“Seriously,” Julie said, rolling her eyes. “Although there is something romantic about the darkroom, you know? That dim lighting. And all those black-and-white photos hanging on clothespins . . .”
“Julie!” a voice called.
“Weirdo,” Nyssa joked. “Although I’d go to any darkroom with Mr. Granger. Photography is hands down the best club ever.”
“Julie!” said the voice again. Then she heard a hacking cough.
“Who’s that?” Nyssa asked, sounding a little grossed out.
“Um, our cleaning lady,” Julie said, her heart beating hard.
“You should send her home. She sounds sick,” Nyssa said. Then she groaned. “My mom’s calling me. What are you doing this afternoon?”
“Julie!”
“Um . . .” Julie needed off the phone fast. “Actually, I gotta go, too. Call you later.”
She hung up. Then she stood from her desk, her heart beating harder and harder. Her mother called her one more time, her voice rising with urgency. “Coming,” Julie said, her voice choked with a sob.
And then she opened the door.
Every square foot of carpet was crammed with boxes or furniture or Rubbermaid crates full of random collections. She squeezed through the hallway, shoving her way through a maze of boxes. Plastic garbage bags were piled so high they blocked out the sconces. Her heart thudded against her sternum, a familiar nausea blooming in her stomach.
Every step she took she felt cats brushing her shins, swarming around her ankles. In the kitchen, broken appliances cluttered the floor, old stand mixers and ice-cream makers nestled between paper sacks full of the fragments of shattered dishes. An unusable vintage stove Julie’s mother had scavenged from somewhere sat under the window, piled high with stained and swollen cookbooks. Stacks of old newspapers and magazines tied with twine stood five feet tall against the walls. A dingy white cat was curled sleeping on top of one pile, while another sharpened its claws on the stack, leaving tendrils of newsprint drifting across the floor. Cat hair hovered in the air around them, swirling up in eddies every time Julie moved.
Calm down, Julie told herself. She began to count. One, two, three . . .
A cat’s tail brushed against Julie’s bare leg. She thought she might lose her mind. Four, five, six . . .
“Julie? Are you coming?”
Dwarfed by the teetering piles, her mother sat at the table, letting a small gray tabby lap the milk out of her cereal bowl. Four more cats swam around the woman’s pudgy ankles, mewling for food. Mrs. Redding wore a pink quilted housedress, gray at the hem and stained with food. Her face was soft and doughy, her skin dull-looking. Julie fought the urge to run the kitchen scrub brush over her mother’s flesh, to scrape away the outside layer of dirt and neglect. And then turn her sights on the rest of the house. Throw out everything. Burn the place to the ground. Seven, eight . . .
“I’m here,” Julie said, sweeping into the room. Julie snatched the bowl and brought it to the sink, knowing that if she didn’t clean it, it would sit there for weeks, or maybe even months.
“I wasn’t finished!” her mother cried. Then her eyes boggled. “And don’t throw that away!”
She gestured to Julie’s hand, which held a crumpled-up piece of newspaper on the sink as well as a newspaper circular boasting sales that had ended weeks ago. Why her mother needed those two items, she had no idea. But, wilting, she placed them back on the counter. On top of some stacked dirty dishes and a pile of other newspaper circulars that were probably equally as obsolete.
Nine. Ten. Eleven. Don’t get mad. You’l
l make her cry, and that’s the worst. Twelve. Thirteen. Julie squeezed the sponge tightly, watching the suds ooze out of its pores.
“I was just trying to help, Mom,” she said, her voice steady. She rinsed the last of the breakfast pans and unplugged the drain. Of course there was nowhere to stack the clean dishes—except for on top of the other dishes. She wiped them down with a dish towel, and then carefully stacked them on the teetering pile. “So, um, you were calling me?”
“Yes. Can you deposit my check today?” her mother said. “And get some kitty litter from the store?”
Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Of course her mother needed kitty litter. And god forbid she left the house herself. Then again, Julie was grateful for that: Her mother might admit Julie was her daughter to someone who’d pass it along to kids at school. And then the jig would be up. “Uh, sure.”
“And can you get me an Entertainment Weekly while you’re out?”
A sudden hysterical need to laugh bubbled up in Julie’s throat as her eyes slid over the towers of paper around the kitchen. “I don’t know, Mom,” she snapped, unable to resist. “Maybe you want to catch up on your back issues first?”
She had a fleeting glimpse of her mother’s hurt face before she managed to wiggle her way past a cardboard box of Christmas ornaments and into the hallway. Guilt flooded her. She knew her mom was sick, that this was an illness, as Dr. Fielder had said, but Julie couldn’t help but feel angry at her.
She squeezed into the bathroom, which smelled like the bleach she’d scoured the small room with and was stuffed full of bulk boxes of macaroni and cheese, opened bags of kitty litter, used toothbrushes, empty shampoo bottles, and god knew what else.
She took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror. Her glossy auburn hair was sleek and straight. Her pale green blouse was crisp and wrinkle-free.
“You are not your mom. You will not become her,” Julie repeated to herself. She calmed down a little, but she knew she had to get out of the house to keep from losing it. Pulling out her phone, she dialed Parker. “I need some retail therapy—stat. You in?” Julie said when Parker answered.
