Back inside my house, Mia is standing by Dad’s closed door, actively not looking at me as I walk in her direction toward the stairs.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, not looking at her either. “I was terrible. You didn’t deserve that.”
Before Mia can respond—if she’s even going to respond—the doorbell chimes.
“Shoot, that’s Liam, I bet…I know you don’t owe me any favors, but can you just tell him to leave?” I ask, eyes pleading with her.
She pauses for a moment, nods. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
“Thank you,” I say, already halfway up the stairs when the door opens. I dive for the landing, pulling my legs quickly out of view.
“Hello there, I—” Mia breaks off. Is it not Liam? Could it be Oliver? No doubt he’d want the truth straight from me. He’d hold out on believing any nasty gossip until he heard it from my lips.
But it’s not Oliver’s voice that carries up the stairs, paralyzing me against the railing. This voice is female. Cool and clipped.
“Hello. My name is Susan Van Buren. I’m here to see Thistle.”
fifteen
The movers were coming tomorrow, and Marigold couldn’t leave the portal. Not before she found her mom.
She called Jonah to say she was coming over, and he was waiting for her, bundled up on his front steps.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his breath a white cloud.
“I have to leave for a little while,” she said.
“So the Afterworld, I’m guessing, not Florida. For how long?”
“I’m not sure. I’m going to leave a note for my dad tonight. Tell him that I’m staying with a friend he doesn’t know, in Philly. That I won’t move.”
“Will you pack food and water?”
“I put some water bottles and protein bars in my bag, just in case. But I told you, I don’t get hungry or thirsty when I’m there.”
“I’ll miss you. Tell Colt I love him and miss him.”
“I will. But he knows.”
And before she could stop Jonah—but no, she wouldn’t stop him if she could, would she?—he was kissing her.
Marigold was kissing the person Colton loved most in any world—his brother.
—EXCERPT FROM LEMONADE SKIES, BOOK 2: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
It’s not true, is it?”
Susan’s eyebrows lift dramatically high as she asks the question, her sharp eyes squinting from behind round tortoiseshell frames.
We’re sitting at the kitchen table, Susan and I, so close that I’m sure she can hear my heart slamming against my rib cage. After Susan introduced herself at the door, Mia came up and took my hand, eased me down the stairs. She led us both into the kitchen and poured glasses of water before heading upstairs, away from this. Susan and I gave each other cold, detached hugs and settled onto our chairs in silence. There was no pretense of chitchat, no asking about my dad or compliment on our house, which she’d never seen before today.
“Can I get my dad?” I ask, desperate for some sense of protection. I don’t want to do this alone. “I feel like he should be here for this conversation, and—”
“No. Right now I’m interested in hearing what you have to say. I’ll talk to your father later if need be. My pleasant Saturday morning was imploded by this story, and I dropped everything to be on the next train down here. So again…Thistle, tell me, please, that this isn’t true. Tell me that I overreacted when you weren’t picking up my calls.”
It occurs to me now that I could lie. I could say that of course it’s not true, that Elisabeth Early never liked me, that there was no evidence whatsoever to prove her claim. What was Liam’s word against mine? My dad would back me up. Fans would want to trust us—would want to believe so they could preserve everything they loved about Marigold, about me.
I could say that Liam had lashed out after I’d broken his heart. I could undo everything he’d done. I could make this all go away.
I could. But I don’t. I can’t.
“It’s true,” I say instead. “All of it.”
“How dare you?” She stands from her seat, towering over me. She’s not yelling, but she doesn’t have to—her lack of composure is scary enough. I’ve never seen this side of Susan, red-faced and eyes bulging, her mouth gaping open, fumbling for what words to say next. “How—how—how dare you and your father lie to me all this time? After everything I’ve done for you? You haven’t just ruined your career, you know. You’ve ruined mine, too. My career. What will my other clients think of me? You’ve destroyed my name. My agency. And for what? Why lie? These books were good. No—they were fucking exquisite. No one had to lie.”
“That’s not true,” I say quietly. I make myself look at her as I talk. I deserve to suffer. “Dad queried agents with other projects for years. Years. My whole life, really. And he never got a single bite. He was just one of thousands of wannabe writers, and it was eating away at him. Ruining him. It was bad. Really bad. He thought that maybe if agents believed a teen wrote Girl in the Afterworld, there’d be a hook. He was so happy when it worked, and I—I couldn’t take that away from him. We needed the money. And I needed him to be happy.”
Susan tilts her head, considers this for a moment. “But did he ever try to send Girl in the Afterworld to other agents first? Had people rejected it thinking it was Theo’s?”
Had they? “No. At least I don’t think so.” It all feels so long ago now.
Susan sighs. Her face is slightly less red, her breathing slower. She looks more deflated than angry. I preferred the anger. Her rage made sense to me—it was her well-earned right.
“That’s what I thought,” she says. “No competent agent would have rejected it, whoever wrote it. You never had to lie, Thistle. That’s the most frustrating part of this whole mess.”
This—somehow this is worse than anything else Susan could say. The idea that my dad could have been a success in his own right, proudly taking credit for his own masterpiece—it razor blades right through my gut. I could have had a normal life, been a proud daughter watching her dad’s career from the sidelines. Not this.
“I don’t even know what else to say right now.” Susan turns away from me, her gaze fixed toward the window in the back door, my dead garden. “I have to speak to Elliot. Tell him everything. Unless…” She pauses for a beat, shakes her head. Sighs again. “No. No, I will not in any way suggest maintaining this silly lie. I don’t know what Martin Davis and Zenith will do next. I really don’t. In my thirty-five years of experience, there’s never been a case quite like this. Legally, I’m sure they’ll go easy on you—you’re the minor who was pushed into this unethical disaster. But your dad…I don’t know. And the fans. God help you with the fans, Thistle, because I guarantee that it won’t be pretty.”
I can’t see her face, but I wonder if there’s a tiny smile on it now. Satisfaction at the fact that I have no plausible chance of escaping unscathed.
Susan turns around sharply, and if there was a smile, it’s already long gone. “I’m leaving. I’ll call Elliot from the train, ruin his weekend, too. I imagine he won’t have any immediate answers. He’ll have to go straight to Martin.” She grabs her purse from the table, giving me one clipped nod before starting across the kitchen. “I’ll be in touch.”
“But—” I jump from my seat, following her into the hallway. It seems like there is so much more to say, to be decided and strategized. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk to my dad? We can get him in the wheelchair and bring him out to—”
“I have nothing—nothing—to say to Theo. I can’t see his face right now. I wouldn’t trust myself if I did. Just assure him that he’ll be hearing more once Zenith has decided how to handle things.”
“Susan? Is that you?” my dad calls out from behind the closed office door, just a few steps from where Susan stands. “I’m sorry, I had headp
hones on. I didn’t know you were here. Can we talk? I just need help getting into my wheelchair.”
She stops for a beat. Takes a deep breath. And then she keeps moving forward. The door slams behind her, picture frames rattling against the walls.
“It’s over,” I say, not bothering to open Dad’s door. “I told her everything. And you were right, by the way. It was Liam who did this. So, congratulations.” I turn away from his room and walk slowly up the stairs.
My phone’s ringing as I walk into my bedroom. I let it ring through to the end without seeing who it is. It stops for a few seconds, rings again. And then again. I grab for it. Oliver Flynn. There’s no point in putting off the inevitable.
“Hello?” I answer cautiously. I can hear my voice shaking.
“Thistle! I’m so glad you picked up, I’ve been trying you all morning.”
“You have?” Of course he has. He’s been just waiting to tear into me. “I’m sorry, things have been crazy here, as I’m sure you—”
“No worries, it’s fine. I’m sorry for being so needy. It’s just…Emma’s not doing well. They decided on surgery for sure, and I’m a total wreck.”
“Oh my god, Oliver. I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t know.
There is more to this universe than the plight of Thistle Tate and Marigold Maybee.
There is chronic sickness and suffering, blood and needles and risks—cutting open a girl’s body, sewing it up again in a way that hopefully, fingers crossed, makes her at least a little bit better.
“What can I do?” I ask, desperate to do something, anything, during this small grace period before everything is destroyed for good.
“Can I come over? I need to escape the hospital. Escape everything.”
“Of course,” I say, before I think about the many potential ugly complications of this decision: Dad, no doubt fretting downstairs in his lair; Mia, a relative stranger who now despises me and who also knows my deepest, darkest secret; and Liam, who could come over at any moment, begging for forgiveness or yelling at me more for cheating, for the lies. It’s too late to take it back, though. I’ll have to sweep Oliver up to my bedroom before anyone else has a chance to lunge.
“I can be there in ten minutes if that’s okay.”
“Sure…yeah, that’d be fine.”
“Super, see you soon then,” he says, and hangs up.
I glance around my room, taking in the chaos. It would be abundantly clear to any observer that this is the nest of a recluse who rarely has contact with the outside world. I start shoving dirty underwear and pajamas in the hamper and chocolate wrappers and tissues in the trash can. I pull my blankets up over my pillows in a weak attempt at bed making, push books into stacks off to the side of the room and old plates and cups under my bed. I turn to my laptop then, powering it off before snapping it shut and burying it under some piles of papers on my desk. I can’t take any chance of him seeing the morning’s big news.
The window—the clear view to Liam’s room. I yank the curtains shut, blocking any unwanted surveillance. It’s not his business who comes over, not anymore, but I don’t need to add fuel to his fire. I’m lucky I have a second window along the back of the house for light, because I think this curtain will be closed for the foreseeable future.
I give the room a last once-over. It’s messy still, a layer of dust glistening on my nightstand and bookshelves, and with decor that looks decidedly more thirteen than seventeen: framed Harry Potter posters—including two personally signed prints from J. K. Rowling, which I’ll have on my wall until the day I die, when they’ll be ceremoniously taken down to go in the coffin with me—a glow-in-the-dark galaxy on the ceiling, a unicorn lamp and bobbleheads of Archie and Betty and Veronica on the dresser, a framed picture of me and Liam in Mickey ears. Only Dad and Liam have ever seen my room. I’ve never had to look at it with fresh eyes.
It’s fine, though, or as fine as it will be, so I run down the steps and wait by the door.
Oliver drives up a few seconds later, exactly ten minutes after our call.
“Thistle!” he says when I yank open the front door, and the look he gives me tells me everything—I’m the person he wants to be with when he’s having a bad day.
But this will be the last time he looks at me this way. He’s going to find out. And that’ll be it. This will be done. Before we barely had a chance to start.
He steps inside and I fall into him, hugging him against me as tight as I can. “I’m so sorry,” I say, and I mean it in so many ways.
“She’s going to be okay.” He hugs me back, just as tight. “It’s scary right now, but I know it’s going to work out. I just hate seeing her like this.”
“I know.” I’m fighting back tears that aren’t fair to cry. He’ll think I’m crying about Emma—and I am, partly. Though I’m crying for me, too. Crying because I’m so terrified for this hug to end. I don’t want to let go. But I need to. I need to tell him.
We stand that way for a few minutes, Oliver rubbing circles on my back, a feeling that is so beautiful and so perfect that I want to sear it into my neurons and remember the sensation forever. This day has had so much ugliness: Elisabeth Early, Dad, Mia, Susan. Liam. But just a few minutes with Oliver makes the rest fade.
I hear a shuffling noise coming from the hallway behind us, and I jump back, pulling free of Oliver’s arms as I spin around. It’s only Lucy, though, giving me a long, slow look before she turns toward the kitchen.
“Let’s go upstairs. My dad’s sleeping down here until he’s able to do steps again.”
We walk up in silence. I close the bedroom door behind us—a gesture that I hope Oliver doesn’t assume means more than it does—and finally bring myself to face him. My cheeks feel too flushed. Standing this close to him, five feet from my bed.
“When is the surgery?” I ask, desperate to think about other things. Emma is why he’s here, why he’s standing next to me in my bedroom, looking frazzled, his messy red hair shoved into the hood of his black sweatshirt. Emma is what matters.
“Monday morning.” He moves toward my bed, perches on the edge. I sit next to him, close, but not so close that we make contact.
“Can I come see her?” One last time, I don’t say.
“Of course, but probably not until after surgery. She’s exhausted, and I know all she’d want to do if she saw you is to keep talking about the outline. I swear, even when she’s asleep she’s mumbling about Jonah and Colton and destiny. I just hope she’s relatively healthy when the book comes out, because she’s going to lose it when she sees any of the things we talked about in actual black-and-white in a published book.”
He grins at me but I can only nod, pretending it doesn’t feel like I’m falling apart on the inside.
“I’m loving these sick Harry Potter posters, by the way. Can’t say I read the books—I’m more a Lord of the Rings guy—but the movies were pretty sweet. How come you don’t have any Lemonade Skies posters? Are they framed in gold in an office somewhere?”
“Ha. I spend enough time with Marigold. I don’t need her staring at me while I sleep.”
I could tell him now. I could. While we’re talking about Marigold. I open my lips, the words somewhere deep, deep down in my throat.
“I have to—” I start, but Oliver is talking, too, louder than me, my words disappearing under his. “Do you want to go for a ride?” I drop my sentence, relieved and disappointed in myself.
He should be at the hospital with his sister, and I should stay home…doing what? Waiting to hear more from Susan and Elliot. Scrolling through social media and the blogosphere to see just how badly my fans are taking the news. Read the scathing e-mails that are no doubt flooding my in-box. I have no actual work to do, not anymore. No schoolwork until my dad is up for it again—if that ever happens—and for the first time in years, no Lemonade Skies deadlines. B
ecause there won’t be a third book.
I laugh out loud. All that work, the planning, the fighting with Dad over how it would all end, the brainstorming session with Emma and Oliver, the outline that I had felt so very proud about. It was all for nothing.
“What’s so funny?” Oliver asks, cocking his head, studying me with those catlike eyes.
“Oh, nothing. Everything. A ride sounds great. I need a break.”
He stands up, bowing like a perfect gentleman before offering me his hand. His hair has fallen out of his hood, red waves across his forehead. I want to brush it back, run my hands through it, tug it out from his bun, and lose myself in it.
I resist, though. I reach out and just take his hand instead.
He smiles and I nod, and off we go, escaping this day for as long as life will let us.
sixteen
Marigold couldn’t look Colton in the eyes when she got there.
“I’m so tired,” she lied. “And I feel guilty about leaving Dad.”
“It’s the best thing for both of you,” Colton said, hugging her with arms that felt exactly like Jonah’s arms, arms that would always remind her of betrayal. “He would want you to find your mom, if he knew. And besides, being here means you and I have more time together.”
Marigold dreamed about the accident that night, her first full night in the Afterworld. But the dream was different: it was before the crash, and her mom was yelling from the driver’s seat, telling Marigold how selfish she was, how needy and spoiled.
She had said all those things exactly, hadn’t she?
Somehow in the aftermath, Marigold had forgotten those details. She’d forgotten a lot of things: how many other times they’d had similar screaming matches—how many times she’d seemed to be a disappointment to her mother. She woke up, crying and breathless, with the most terrifying question playing over and over through her mind: What if her mom didn’t want to see her again?
The Undoing of Thistle Tate Page 16
