Thorn Abbey

by Ohlin, Nancy

  I imagine Becca and Max taking long walks on the beach, their heads bent together. Or them lying on a blanket, kissing and caressing.

  I imagine the two of them on their date, last May. I imagine them arguing, her running off. I imagine her hurrying down to the marina and taking out one of the boats. I imagine the wind picking up and snapping the sails. I imagine her terror as the storm intensified and swells battered the hull. I imagine her boat capsizing. I imagine her drowning.

  She died that night, and yet, she’s not dead. Because no matter how hard I try to fight her, she’s in my head. Under my skin. And tonight, I’m even wearing her dress and her perfume.

  I step closer to the edge.

  Footsteps crunch in the snow behind me.

  “Max?” I turn, feeling sick with hope.

  But it’s not Max. It’s Devon, a glamorous fur coat draped carelessly over her pink fairy princess gown. She’s carrying my parka and a bottle of something.

  “Get back from there, you idiot!” she orders me.

  “Go away! I hate you!” I scream. I must look crazy: standing in the freezing cold in Becca’s dress, mascara streaking down my face. But I don’t care.

  “Tess, don’t be stupid. Let me explain.”

  “This is all your fault! You made me wear Becca’s dress so Max would freak out and break up with me. Why? Why would you do this to me? Why now?

  “Tess!” Devon drags me back from the precipice. She thrusts my parka at me. “For God’s sake, put this on. You’re going to catch pneumonia.”

  “I don’t care!”

  “Max is still in love with her.”

  I flinch. “What are you talking about?”

  “I tried to tell you before, ages ago. But you wouldn’t listen.”

  “You’re wrong!” I close my eyes and try to understand what Devon is saying. It makes no sense. “Besides, what does that have to do with tonight?”

  “He came to see me a few weeks ago. He was drunk. He wanted to talk to me about Becca.”

  No.

  “He said he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He said he thought he could move on, with you. But he can’t. He was beside himself.”

  No, no, no. Max wouldn’t betray me like this.

  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Devon continues. “I had to show you how he felt. You were so focused on finding the perfect dress for the dance, and Becca had this replica made in Philadelphia, just for last year’s ball. I still had it in my closet, from after she died. So I convinced you to wear it. I didn’t realize you and Max had your first kiss at the statue and all that.”

  “That’s insane,” I whisper.

  “I don’t blame you for being pissed off. But I had to make you see. If Max didn’t care about Becca anymore, he wouldn’t have remembered the damned dress.”

  I glare at her. “How do you even know what happened at the dance? You weren’t there.”

  “Franklin told me everything, so I went to find you. I saw you from a distance, and then I tracked your prints in the snow from the trail. Aren’t I clever?”

  “No, you’re not clever. You’re horrible.”

  “I didn’t want to keep seeing you get hurt. You might not think so, but you’re my friend.”

  I feel my body trembling. I’m crying again. Or maybe I’m freezing to death. Whatever.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Devon wraps my parka around my shoulders and hands me the bottle. “Here, drink this. It will warm you up.”

  “What is it?” I ask suspiciously.

  “Trust me, you need it.”

  I take a tentative sip. Whatever it is tastes like honey and fire and burns all the way down my throat. I take another, longer drink.

  “I thought he loved me,” I moan.

  “That asshole! He told you he loved you?”

  “No, he never told me using those words. I figured he was just waiting for the right moment.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Devon repeats with a heavy sigh.

  “I’ve never been in love before, do you know that? I’ve never even had a real boyfriend. And then I met Max. At first, I thought there was no way I could ever compete with Becca because I wasn’t pretty enough or clever enough or popular enough. But Max told me he liked me for me. He said so. Was he lying?”

  Devon takes a sip from the bottle, too. “It’s a guy thing. They say stuff like that.”

  “But Max isn’t just any guy.”

  “In some ways, no. But in other ways, he’s just like the rest of them.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “Believe it. It sucks, being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back. I’ve been there.” Devon smiles bitterly. “Drink up.”

  We stand near the cliff for a while, trading the bottle back and forth, listening to the roar of the sea. Does love always hurt like this? Like your insides have been ripped out, like you’ve been staked through the heart? If so, I never want to fall in love again. Ever. I’d rather spend the rest of my life alone.

  I’m not sure how much time passes. Minutes? Hours? The bottle of honey-fire is almost empty. Devon starts telling me a story about a girl she once knew. A girl she used to love . . .

  But I’m not paying attention because someone else is talking to me now: Max doesn’t want you. Nobody wants you. Why don’t you just disappear?

  My head is spinning and whirling. I hear Devon calling my name.

  “Tess!”

  My legs give way.

  “Tess! Grab my hand!”

  I’m falling, falling into the abyss.

  Someone laughs: a shrill, vindictive laugh.

  Now I’m the one who’s drowning.

  33.

  I AM WALKING DOWN THE PATH, THE ONE THAT WINDS THROUGH the woods by Thorn Abbey and leads down to the beach. The air is cool and wet with rain, and my footsteps are light on the carpet of brown, fallen leaves as I hurry down to the place where I know he is waiting for me. My cheeks are cold, and my heavy wool sweater scratches against my skin, but I don’t care because I can already feel his strong arms around my body and his warm lips against mine.

  And then I am at the bottom of the hill. The beach rises above the horizon, endless and gray. Suddenly, I feel exposed. Frightened. The air is different here: bigger, less forgiving. It smells like the sea and salt and dead things.

  I move closer to the water. A wave rushes up to my boots and then snakes away, leaving two identical dark stains. I shudder against the chill and look around. Where is he, and why is he late?

  Another wave comes up, more imposing than the last, and I step back. But the wave doesn’t retreat. It keeps rising toward me, not cresting or breaking. I cry out and stumble backward. The wave grows larger, more menacing, finally overtaking me and sucking me into its icy deep.

  Hands, fingers, hair. Her hands, her fingers, her hair. They wrap around me, colder than death, and pull me under as I scream. Her face—her beautiful, perfect face that he loved with a passion he will never feel for me—is the last thing I see as my lungs fill with the brackish water and I black out into the nothingness, still calling out his name in vain.

  “No!” I shout, startling awake.

  I’m shaking all over. My skin is hot and cold at the same time, and my head feels like a thick slab of cement.

  Where am I? In bed. My bed. My sheets are sweaty and stale and tangled.

  I have wispy memories of recent events. Or were they just dreams? The cliff. Devon half-carrying me to the clinic. Coming back to Kerrith. Somebody feeding me broth, juice, saltines. Devon sitting beside me, stroking my hair with this creepy focus, like she was in a trance.

  Then she was talking to someone, crying, pleading. But I don’t remember anyone else being in the room.

  I reach over to my nightstand and paw through the museum of my illness: wadded-up tissues, plastic cups, bottles of medicine, a thermometer.

  Ah, there it is. My phone. The screen says it’s 9:05 a.m. on February 17.

  How surreal. Th
ree days have somehow passed since that awful night. Three days of lying in bed, burning with fever, having the same terrible dream over and over again. The one where she’s trying to kill me.

  Unless it’s not a dream?

  Obviously, on top of everything else, the fever has gone to my brain and made me crazy, crazy, crazy.

  I have a bunch of text messages. I scroll through the list groggily. There’s a message from Devon telling me she’s in class all day but that she’ll check in on me around five. There are multiple get-well messages from Priscilla, Elinor, Yoonie, Franklin, even Killian, whom I haven’t spoken to in ages. There are two voice mail messages from my mom, asking me if I’m feeling better and should she FedEx me some homemade chicken soup—or come to Thorn Abbey to take care of me?

  There’s nothing from Max, though. Not that I was expecting to hear from him ever again.

  I slump back against my pillows, cradling my phone to my chest. Now what? Maybe I could transfer back to Avery Park High. It’s mid-semester, but my mom could talk to Headmaster Henle and Principal Fowler at Avery Park and convince them. She could tell them there’s a family emergency.

  Or maybe I could just drop Mr. Bagley’s seminar. That way, I wouldn’t have to see Max anymore. Or much, anyway.

  I’m so tired. I want to go back to sleep, except I’m terrified of dreaming that dream again . . . .

  Max is standing over me.

  “Tess? It’s me,” he says softly.

  My eyelids flutter. “This is a much better dream,” I mumble.

  He cracks a smile. “You’re not asleep. I’m here. In your room.”

  Oh. My. God. Max is in my room.

  I sit up hastily and run a hand through my greasy, disgusting hair, which I haven’t washed since Valentine’s Day. “What are you doing here?” I ask in wonder.

  “I was worried about you.”

  “Y-you were?”

  “You weren’t in Bags’s class this morning. I asked Mrs. Frith, and she told me how sick you’ve been,” Max explains.

  “You asked her about me?”

  “Yeah. She even gave me special permission to come up for a few minutes, as long as I leave the door open. Listen, Tess . . .” Max sits down on the edge of my bed. He glances around; I can tell by his expression that he’s rattled. It’s probably been a while since he was in Becca’s old room. The last time he was here, he and she were probably . . .

  No, no. Don’t think about that.

  “Franklin told me. That you didn’t know about the dress,” Max says after a moment.

  “He did?”

  “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. It’s just that, well . . . it’s kind of a bizarre coincidence that you’d wear the exact same dress, right? What was I supposed to think?”

  “But it wasn’t a coincidence,” I say quickly. “Devon still had the dress in her closet. I had no idea it was Becca’s dress. She tricked me into wearing it. Because of what you told her.”

  Max frowns. “Because of what I told who?”

  “Because of what you told Devon. A few weeks ago. About how you’re still”—I drop my gaze, struggling to keep my voice level—“how you’re still in love with Becca. Devon told me everything, after you left. She said she thought it would be a good reality check for me to wear the dress to the ball and see your, you know, reaction.”

  “Are you fucking joking?”

  I cringe. Why is Max so angry? Because Devon betrayed his confidence? “No, of course I’m not joking! Devon told me how you came to her all drunk and depressed and missing Becca.”

  Max jumps to his feet and begins pacing around the room. His fists are knotted so tightly that his knuckles turn pure white.

  “Max? What is it?” I ask him worriedly.

  He whirls around. “Devon is a damned liar. I never had this conversation with her—not a few weeks ago, not ever.”

  “What?” I’m so confused. Who am I supposed to believe?

  “And, more importantly, I’m not still in love with Becca because I’ve never been in love with Becca. She was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” he spits out.

  I stare at him, stunned. And ecstatic. Max doesn’t love Becca. He never loved Becca.

  Unless he’s lying to me.

  No, he looks totally sincere.

  It takes me a long time before I can find my voice again. “I—I don’t understand,” I finally manage. “Devon said . . . I thought you and Becca were the couple on campus or whatever. Becca was beautiful and perfect, and you were obsessed with her.”

  “Yeah, she was beautiful,” Max says. “And she seemed perfect, on the outside. If you met her, you’d think she was the sweetest, kindest, most together girl. Everyone loved her.”

  Ouch. “Why was she the worst thing that happened to you, then?”

  “Because it was all an act. She was super-insecure, deep down. She craved constant attention. At parties, she would flirt with every guy in the room. Then we’d have a big fight about it afterward, and she would cry and apologize and tell me how she wanted me and only me.”

  I chew on my thumbnail. I’m relieved that Becca wasn’t perfect, but this isn’t exactly fun to hear.

  “Our relationship only lasted for a few months. We started dating in January, February. I thought about breaking up with her. Several times, in fact. But every time I tried to talk to her, tell her things weren’t working out, she’d cry and beg me to stay. She said she would change. And I believed her.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then the accident happened.” Max looks away and falls silent.

  “Max?” I reach over and squeeze his hand. Killian told me how Becca died and how Max felt responsible for her death. The memory must still be so traumatic for him.

  “We had another fight that night,” Max continues, gazing out the window. “She took off for the beach, and that was the last time I saw her. There was a big storm that night, and she never came back to her room. One of the teachers found the boat onshore the next morning. Becca loved to sail, and she must have gone out by herself. The police found her body sometime after that.”

  “I’m so sorry, Max,” I say, meaning it.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  He doesn’t speak for a long time. When he finally meets my eyes, he seems afraid. Haunted. I’ve never seen him like that before.

  I wish I could ask him exactly what he is feeling. But he seems really upset now, and I don’t want to push him.

  I also have a million other questions. Like, why does Max still have that book of love poems Becca gave him? And why did Devon lie to me about Max’s relationship with Becca?

  Of course, Devon is the only one who can answer that question. As soon as I see her, I’m seriously going to strangle her with my bare hands.

  “Listen, I’m sorry to dump all this on you,” Max says quietly.

  “No. I’m so glad you told me. I always thought Becca was this perfect girlfriend I could never live up to.”

  “Hardly.” Max hesitates. “You know, I’m not perfect either. Far from it.”

  I smile. “You’re perfect to me.”

  He smiles back—sadly, wearily. “I hope you’ll always think so.”

  He cradles my face and kisses me. We sink back against the pillows, his hands caressing my white cotton nightgown. I barely even think about whether or not he used to kiss Becca like this, here, in this bed.

  He’s mine. He was never hers. He’s mine, forever.

  34.

  I DON’T SEE DEVON FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. AROUND SIX, I consider texting her about why she didn’t check up on me as promised, but I’m too mad to deal with her. Tomorrow. I’ll be able to talk to her without killing her tomorrow.

  I eat a box of saltines for dinner and turn in early. I’m actually feeling better. It must have been Max’s visit. In the morning I might try walking over to the Lanyon Commons for real food.

  Just before I fall asleep, Max sends me a text:

  Can we celebrat
e Valentine’s Day again? Dinner soon? Maybe Saturday if you’re feeling up to it?

  I smile and type:

  Yes!!!!

  I hug my phone to my chest as I switch off the light. In a funny way, this belated Valentine’s Day dinner will be my first real date with Max. Because now, I know the truth about him and Becca. I’ll be able to sit across from him without wondering if he’s lost in old memories, if he’d rather be with her than with me.

  A brand-new beginning. I can’t wait.

  When I wake up the next morning, I see that Devon’s bed hasn’t been slept in. Where is she? Maybe she knows I’m furious with her and wants to avoid me.

  For the first time in days, I feel strong enough to take a shower and get dressed. I grab my towel and tote, and I head down the hall to the bathroom.

  Yoonie is at one of the sinks, brushing her teeth.

  She spits. “Hey, you’re alive. How are you? We were all super-worried.”

  “I feel like I had the black plague, though I’m way better, thanks. Listen, did Devon crash with you guys last night?”

  “Noooo. I haven’t seen her since, like, lunch yesterday,” Yoonie replies.

  Where could she be? “She didn’t sleep in our room last night,” I explain.

  Yoonie puckers her lips and slides on red lip gloss. “She probably slept over at Leo’s. I think his roommate’s out of town, and”—she smiles into the mirror—“you know our Devon. Do you want me to text her?”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  Yoonie pulls her phone out of her pocket and types with one hand while poking at her eyelashes with the other. Wow, that’s talent. I step into a shower stall and turn on the faucet. Soon I’m in a veritable paradise of hot water, Ivory soap, and strawberry shampoo. I haven’t been this clean in nearly a week.

  “Hey, Tess?” Yoonie calls out.

  “Hmm?”

  “She didn’t text back, so I called her. It went straight to voice mail. Then I texted Leo. He says he hasn’t heard from her either. Devon was supposed to meet up with him last night, and she never showed.”

  “What?” I rub the water out of my eyes and peer out from behind the shower curtain. “Where is she?”