The Lying Game #5: Cross My Heart, Hope to Die

by Shepard, Sara

  “Ethan!” she yelled, but the crowd shifted and he disappeared from her line of sight.

  “So which one of them are you bringing to my party in two Saturdays?” Charlotte asked with a smirk.

  “You’re having a party? Since when?” Madeline interrupted, fingering the collar of her T-shirt, which she’d cut into a boat neck.

  “Since about an hour ago,” Charlotte said coyly. “I just found out my parents are going to Vegas that weekend. We can’t let an opportunity like that pass us by, can we?”

  “Nice,” Gabby whispered, reaching for her iPhone and starting to type. Lili followed suit. In twenty seconds, the whole school would know about it, thanks to their Twitter feeds.

  “Well, I’m taking Ethan, obviously,” Emma said. She looked for him across the field again, hoping she’d just imagined the terrifying look he’d given Thayer. A headline popped into her mind, an old habit from the days of imagining herself an investigative journalist: Rumored Love Triangle Drives Teen Couple Apart; Details on Page 11.

  The referee blew his whistle, signaling the players to assemble in the middle of the field. Emma, Madeline, and Charlotte were with Mr. Mercer on the red team. Ethan joined them, giving Emma a kiss on her cheek. Laurel and Mrs. Mercer stood on the other side in blue, along with Nisha and Thayer.

  “You’re going down!” Laurel screamed at Emma from across the field. Emma rolled her eyes good-naturedly. Not long ago, a threat like that from Laurel would have scared her, but she and Laurel were now on good terms. And Laurel definitely wasn’t Sutton’s murderer.

  “Okay, everyone,” Mr. Mercer said, tucking a yellow flag into his waistband and gesturing for the group to huddle. “Madeline, Charlotte, you girls flank us and keep those blues off our backs. After the snap, Sutton, you run downfield as fast as you can. I’ll pass it to you when it looks clear.” Then he squeezed her arm. “I’m glad you’re playing this year.”

  Emma couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Since she’d discovered Mr. Mercer was her grandfather, she’d felt close to him, not just as Sutton but as herself. But then the usual guilt flooded back. He didn’t know her secret. And as much as she wanted to tell him, she couldn’t. She thought about the locket tightening around her throat at Charlotte’s house, the stage light that had crashed dangerously close to her head, all the times the murderer had warned her never to tell anyone. She couldn’t bear the thought of her grandfather being hurt—and if he knew the truth, his life would be in danger, too.

  The referee blew the whistle again. Emma saw the ball snap back and bolted, weaving quickly in and out of blue cotton shirts. The Twitter Twins’ high voices chanted from the sidelines: “We’ve got beauty, we’ve got class, the other team can kiss our …”

  “Sutton!” Mr. Mercer cried, drowning out the rest of the cheer. Nisha was in front of him, trying to grab the flag from his belt, but he danced backward a few steps and threw.

  Emma’s body tensed as the ball hung in the air. It fell neatly into her arms, and she took off toward the goalpost.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” From the corner of her eye she saw Mrs. Mercer come her way. Her grandmother was surprisingly dexterous, limber from the hot yoga she did three times a week. Emma zigzagged around her and put on a burst of speed. Laurel joined the chase, and she and Mrs. Mercer flanked Emma as she pelted up the field.

  Emma’s hair came loose from its knot and billowed behind her. I was pulled along by her speed, but I couldn’t feel the wind in my hair or the earth pushing away under my feet. I wondered how many times I’d gone to this tournament only to stand on the sidelines with my friends, complaining about the heat. Maybe I should have actually played once, just to experience it for myself.

  The goalpost loomed in the distance, so close Emma could taste it. Suddenly, a pair of arms encircled her waist. She tumbled to the ground, the football rolling away from her. When she flipped to her back, Thayer’s face hovered over hers. “Gotcha,” he said softly, in the same feathery tone of voice he might use to say I love you.

  Time stood still for a moment. Emma smelled the sweet grass, saw the light freckles on his cheeks. His face was so close to hers, she thought they might kiss.

  I would have given anything in that moment to be able to feel what Emma did.

  Then Thayer cried out as someone lifted him from behind. Emma looked around, confused, and saw Ethan shoving Thayer to his feet.

  “This is flag football,” Ethan said angrily. “You’re going to hurt someone.”

  Thayer pushed Ethan away. “Touch me again, man, and I’ll hurt you.”

  “Oh yeah, you going to knock me down like you did my girlfriend?” Ethan shoved him again, this time a little harder.

  Thayer took a few steps back. A dangerous grin broke over his face. “I’m going to enjoy kicking your ass,” he snarled. Then he lunged. Soon the two were a tangle of limbs and dirt thrashing around on the ground.

  “Stop it!” Emma cried, struggling to her feet. There was blood on Ethan’s cheek. Thayer’s shirt was torn at the collar. The referee’s whistle blasts kept breaking through the air uselessly. Spectators stood with their hands clapped over their mouths. People ran toward them, including Mr. Mercer.

  “Break it up, boys!” he yelled. But only a few feet from the fight, a divot of grass snagged his foot. He went flying face-first into the turf, rolling a few feet before coming to a stop. A low groan of pain escaped his mouth. Ethan and Thayer stopped fighting and stared at him.

  “Dad!” Laurel screamed, dropping to his side. Emma and Mrs. Mercer were just behind her.

  Mr. Mercer let out another groan. Both of his shins were skinned, and blood trickled into the grass. He clutched his left knee, which had already swollen to twice its usual size.

  “Oh, man,” whispered Thayer, wiping his own blood from his purpling nose.

  Mrs. Mercer looked into the impotent crowd, her face pale. “Can someone help me get him to the car?” she asked firmly.

  Thayer and Ethan scrambled to either side of Mr. Mercer. Between the two of them, they managed to get him unsteadily to his feet, guide him across the field, and angle him into the family SUV. Mr. Mercer groaned the whole way. Emma followed, her heart pounding loudly in her chest. She barely felt Madeline’s hand on her shoulder or heard Charlotte’s promises that he was going to be okay. She and Laurel climbed into the backseat, and Mrs. Mercer turned the ignition. No one spoke as they pulled out of the space.

  Emma turned and stared back at the parking lot. Ethan and Thayer stood several feet away from each other, looking sheepish. Ethan’s arms were crossed over his chest. Thayer rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

  “Still think they’re not fighting over you?” Laurel mumbled.

  Emma didn’t answer. She didn’t want to be squabbled over like some medieval damsel. Maybe they’d learned their lesson since Mr. Mercer had been hurt.

  Don’t count on it, I thought, remembering Thayer’s almost-kiss when he’d tackled my twin. The only way he’d stop fighting for me was to find out the truth—that I was dead and Emma was simply standing in.

  4

  KARMA’S A BITCH, AND SO AM I

  News of the fight between Sutton’s two boyfriends was all over the school by Monday. Emma had to deflect constant questions about the quarrel, the details getting more exaggerated as the day wore on. Ethan had almost strangled Thayer to death. Thayer’s leg had miraculously healed, and he’d given Ethan a deadly kick to the groin. Thayer was going to hire a hit man from his shadowy past to finish Ethan off. Ethan now carried a gun to school.

  Emma tried to shrug off the stories, but they dogged her even when she got to tennis practice that afternoon. As she joined the rest of the team on the courts, girls kept asking her about it as though she’d literally been caught in the middle of the fight. “I heard that Ethan and Thayer are going to have a rematch on Friday,” Clara Hewlitt, a sophomore, said wistfully.

  “How very Clint Eastwood of them,” Emma joked. But sh
e felt uneasy. She hadn’t said much to Ethan after the fight except to send him a few texts, yelling at him for being so rash. Ethan had apologized, as had Thayer. But Emma didn’t exactly like having the two of them fighting over her.

  The late fall air was dry and hot, the sky a robin’s-egg blue beyond the mountains. The moon hung visible even in the afternoon, a pale disc in the cloudless sky. The courts were busy with girls warming up, adjusting ponytails and gossiping—probably about the fight.

  Laurel nudged Emma. “Check out the new girl,” she giggled, thankfully changing the subject.

  Emma glanced up at the thin, elfin-looking girl standing a few feet away. Her long blond hair was swept back in lots of little braids, and she had about a dozen earrings in her earlobes, and silver rings shaped like ankhs and Wiccan spirals and Celtic crosses on every finger. While the other girls on the team were doing deep, athletic-looking stretches and exercises, this girl stood on one leg in some kind of yoga pose, her hands at her chest in prayer position. She hummed distractedly to herself as she lifted her arms in the air, balancing perfectly. Emma recognized Joni Mitchell’s “Free Man in Paris,” which Ursula, one of her old foster mothers, used to play nonstop.

  Charlotte snorted. “What’s she doing, balancing her chakras?”

  Laurel laughed, and the girl’s eyes snapped open. She gazed at them as if she was seeing them through a deep mist and could just barely make them out.

  “Be quiet, Charlotte, you’re disturbing the cosmic forces,” Laurel teased, slapping her friend lightly on the arm.

  Emma shifted her weight, a twinge of guilt gnawing at her. She’d been the new girl often enough in her life to know how hard it could be. She straightened her spine and strode across the court toward the strange girl.

  Practically everyone on the team stopped what they were doing. Nisha paused mid-push-up to follow Emma with her eyes. Clara, who’d been demonstrating a backhand grip to some low-ranked players, dropped her racket and openly stared.

  It wasn’t the first time Emma had been struck by the power of popularity. When Sutton Mercer talked, people listened. Sometimes that influence made Emma uncomfortable—she’d never had that kind of sway in her own life, and she’d been on the receiving end of the popular kids’ cruelty a few times herself. But now she had the opportunity to use her role as Sutton Mercer to do some good.

  “Hi,” she said, holding her hand out to the new girl. “My name’s Sutton.”

  The girl didn’t budge from her yoga pose. After a moment Emma was forced to lower her hand awkwardly. It was only then that the girl gracefully dropped back to a standing position, opened her eyes, and gave Emma a big smile.

  “Sorry about that—I like to see how long I can balance in vrksasana. My record is twelve minutes thirteen seconds.” She blinked placidly. “My name’s Celeste. Do you practice yoga?”

  Emma pursed her lips. “Uh, no …”

  “You totally should,” Celeste said, a languid smile on her face. “Not only does it improve your focus, but it can really put you in touch with the flow of the universe. My tennis game has improved so much since I started. Once you learn to move with the racket, it’s like it just finds its way to the ball.”

  “That’s … cool,” Emma said.

  Celeste grabbed a SmartWater from the bench and took a long swig. “We moved here from Taos. Daddy got a new position in the art department at the U. He’s a painter. He just finished a big exhibition in Berlin.”

  Emma perked up. This at least sounded more interesting—she was a huge fan of art, especially photography. Ethan had taken her to an opening a month ago, and she’d loved it. “What kind of work does he do?”

  “You like art?” A hint of skepticism had entered the girl’s voice. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. Daddy’s work is very conceptual. People don’t get it most of the time, at least not in Arizona.” She wrinkled her nose.

  Emma frowned. “Arizona’s not so bad.”

  “Oh, it’s fine, I suppose,” Celeste said. “I’m just used to Taos. It’s so beautiful there, and the people are all brilliant. They all live in such harmony with the earth. Tucson is, well … different.”

  “The university has a great art department. I’m sure your dad will be really happy there.” Emma glanced around her, looking for a way to escape the conversation. Celeste was kind of snooty. She took a step backward. “Anyway, it’s nice to …”

  But then Celeste cocked her head curiously. “You know, Coach Maggie told me all about you, Sutton. But I thought you’d look … stronger.” Her eyes went up and down Emma’s frame, clearly giving her the once-over, and she smiled dismissively.

  Emma gritted her teeth. “Good things come in small packages,” she mumbled.

  Thankfully, Coach Maggie chose that exact moment to blow her whistle. “Gather round, girls!”

  The team trotted over to Maggie, a short, muscular woman who wore a baseball cap over her strawberry-blond hair. When Maggie put a hand on Celeste’s shoulder, Celeste bowed her head like a Buddhist monk. “All right, everyone, this is our newest Lady Chaparelle, Celeste Echols,” Maggie said. “She just moved here from New Mexico.”

  Laurel nudged Emma. “What did she say to you?”

  “You know who she is, right?” Clara whispered beside them in a reverent tone. “Her grandma is Jeanette Echols.”

  “Who’s that?” Laurel crinkled her nose.

  “The novelist?” Emma asked, before she could stop herself.

  Charlotte, Laurel, and Nisha turned to stare at her. “When was the last time you opened a book?” Charlotte asked, a hand on one hip.

  Emma feigned a cough to hide her misstep. One of her foster moms used to be into Jeanette Echols, who wrote fat paperbacks about vampires and witches and bloodthirsty fairies. When she was bored one day and couldn’t catch a ride to the library, Emma had finally caved and started to read the whole series. But they definitely weren’t the kind of thing Sutton would have read.

  “Please make her feel welcome,” Maggie continued. She looked at Emma. “Sutton, are you ready to scrimmage?”

  “Born ready,” Emma said, marching toward the court. For once she actually believed her own Sutton bravado. How big of a threat could Celeste be?

  Celeste pulled her mass of braids up into one large ponytail and gave Emma a placid smile. “I should warn you, Mercury’s in retrograde and I’m really sensitive to that. I’m a Virgo.”

  “Got it,” Emma said. She exchanged glances with Nisha, the only girl close enough to overhear. Nisha made a tiny index-finger-circling-the-ear gesture. Crazy, she mouthed. Emma giggled.

  Maggie blew her whistle as a signal to play. Emma bounced the ball twice on the ground, stepped up to the baseline, and hit a hard serve over the net. Celeste returned it effortlessly, dropping the shot in the far left corner of the court. The ball sailed easily past Emma’s outstretched racket.

  “Love-fifteen,” Maggie called out, pointing to Celeste’s side.

  Emma gritted her teeth, twirling her racket. She crouched low and tried to refocus, but the same thing happened on the next serve. Celeste sent the ball back to Emma with a graceful swing, somehow finding a pocket of the court Emma couldn’t reach in time.

  “Emma!” I groaned, wishing I could cover my eyes. She was destroying my badass tennis image.

  “Love-thirty,” Maggie called.

  Even the girls who were supposed to be involved in their own scrimmages stopped to watch. All Emma could do was shrug and serve again. This time she was able to return Celeste’s backhanded volley, but it arced straight up in the air as a lob. Celeste smashed it back down onto Emma’s side of the net, as easily as if she were swatting a fly.

  “Nice try,” she said, her voice oozing sweetness. “I’m sure you’ll get the next one.”

  But Emma didn’t hit the next one, or the next. Forty-five minutes later, Celeste had trounced her in five straight matches. Emma braced her hands against her thighs, panting, as the team stared in confusion, no
one daring to clap against Sutton. Only when Maggie encouraged everyone did a few of the girls muster up halfhearted applause. Laurel and Charlotte crossed their arms over their chests, looking disgruntled. Nisha had done the same. Emma shuffled to the sidelines in humiliation.

  “That was something else, Celeste!” Maggie cried, clapping loudly to make up for everyone else.

  Celeste smiled, a thin sheen of perspiration glowing on her skin. She bowed her head to Emma. “Namaste.” Then she drifted off to one of the far courts. A few girls trotted behind her, and Emma could hear them talking about astrological signs and yoga poses.

  Charlotte shook her head in wonderment. “Who does she think she is?”

  Emma tried to look disdainful as she wiped the sweat off her face and shoulders, but a flutter of anxiety twisted her stomach. Her twin would have decimated that girl, she was sure of it.

  “We’re done for the day!” Maggie called a few minutes later, guiding the girls to the locker room. Emma had never been more relieved for practice to be over. Steam billowed through the green-tiled room, the sound of the showers hissing in the background. Colorful shower poufs hung outside some of the lockers, laced through the combination locks to dry between uses.

  Emma hooked Sutton’s basket of toiletries over her arm, threw a towel over her shoulder, and slid out of the aisle of lockers. On the end wall was an oversized display case that said HOLLIER HIGH CHAPARELLES MVP across the top. It featured the MVPs through the years, from girls with big eighties hair and massive earrings all the way to Sutton’s photo from last year, her dark hair sleek and straight, her eyes bright. Emma paused to look at it for a moment, suddenly sad. Someone stopped beside her and gasped.

  “Who is this?” Celeste asked, her voice low and tremulous. She pointed at Sutton’s photo.