My father stands, slapping both hands flat on the desk as he glares at me. “Sophie Topper Quinn, I won’t hear you speak like that in my house.”
He sounds angry, like when I was a child and he would draw out my name to let me know how much trouble I was in.
Sophie Topper Quinn, for a spanking and a week grounded.
Sophie Quinn, for no TV and early to bed.
And, once upon a time, I was just Sophie, for love and kisses and my arms around his neck after six months apart.
Quietly I say, “So you do remember my name? I wasn’t sure anymore.”
My father says nothing. I’ve pushed him too far. He will not engage. I leave him in his office, but before I go I tell him, “She’s asked me to move in with her until I leave for college.”
I wait. For anger. For blame. For a crack to show. But there is only rebar reinforcing steel. Big, strong Lieutenant Colonel Cole Quinn is too weak to talk about the past.
The movies have everything wrong, it turns out.
Those big reunions where everyone apologizes and the family lives happily ever after? They’re such bullshit.
The truth is, some apologies never see the light of day.
* * *
On my way to my room, the phone rings. I pick up the receiver of our old rotary phone from the table in the hall. “Hello?”
“Quinn.”
His voice sinks me to the floor like a stone to the bottom of a pond.
“Carey.”
“It’s Mr. Breen, Quinn.”
The difference in their voices finally penetrates. No, not Carey at all.
“Hi, Mr. Breen. How is he?” Carey’s parents have been in Germany with him, sending bits of news back to the town through Blake. It’s taken two weeks. Two weeks for one of them to call me.
There’s a long pause. Finally, he says, “Well. As well as can be expected, considering.”
That is not the same as “good” or “better,” but I’ll take it.
“I’m glad,” I say. “I’ve been worried about him.”
And it’s true. Staying home after George died, there had been nothing to do except watch the news, raking through reports on Carey for some tidbit of truth. Everything’s “he’s a hero,” but nobody will speak of how said hero is holding up. He would hate the kind of attention he’s getting.
There’s another pause. When Mr. Breen speaks, it’s like the words are pulled out of him. “He asked me to call you.”
Mr. Breen did not want to make this call, I realize. Did not want to speak to me.
My heart sinks. I wait, and Mr. Breen does not disappoint me.
“He asked me to give you a message.”
“Did he?” I ask. It’s so obvious Mr. Breen thinks he’s passing along a message to his son’s cheating ex, and it makes me physically sick. Carey’s back, but he’s still keeping secrets.
“He said to tell you he can’t do what you asked. Maybe someday, but not now.”
Anger sweeps through me, burning everything in its path, but it puffs out suddenly in a smoke-ridden cloud of grief. My best friend has let me down. He’s let his family, my family, and all our friends think the worst of me. Perhaps it’s expecting too much of him to admit the truth right now, after everything he’s been through. And yet . . . it kills me that his father must think I’ve asked Carey to forgive my cheating ways. Condemnation rings in his voice, and I can’t swallow any more shame.
Suddenly I am done. I have nothing left to give Carey. He’s taken everything. All my self-respect and pride. Him, Blake, my parents. The only person who didn’t steal a piece of me is dead.
“Mr. Breen,” I say, “will you tell him something for me?”
His silence is angry, but he grunts in assent.
“Tell Carey . . . tell him I said not to bother.”
“Excuse me?” he says, confused.
“I really hope he gets well, Mr. Breen. I can’t imagine what he’s been through these past months. I know he’s a hero, and I’m so proud of him for that.” I can’t believe I’m saying my second good-bye in as many weeks. “But he’s let me down. And I can’t . . .” I break on a sob, one of those hiccupping ones that dissolves into a series of sighs.
“Quinn?” Mr. Breen asks, and finally there is an ounce of concern in his voice. Too little, too late.
I take a deep breath. “My name is Sophie.”
With shaking fingers, I hang up the phone, covering my face as I cry.
Down the hall, my father closes the door to his study.
Chapter Thirty-One
It’s June now, and I’m leaving Sweethaven.
There’s nothing left for me here, and I feel like I will never be able to make a fresh start in this town. I will always be Sophie Topper Quinn, the slut who cheated on our hero. So between school and my work at the hospital, I pack my life into boxes and crates that will go to my mother’s.
Sweethaven High has come alive, buzzing with news of Carey coming stateside. Mrs. Breen takes a leave of absence to move to Bethesda so she can be near him at the hospital in Maryland where he will make his recovery. I am happy for him. Happy he’s pulling through and happy his mother will have her son back.
But I am not happy.
I’d always thought school would end with a bang. An explosion of trashed homework, fond memories, and signed yearbooks. Instead, I’ve regained my magical powers of invisibility. With Carey found, I’m no longer important.
I am merely a blip in his primetime 20/20 story—the part before he became a hero.
* * *
On the last day of school, I clean out my locker, piling my few belongings into my bag. I’ve never left much in the locker, for fear that Jamie would destroy everything, so it doesn’t take long. I snap the door shut one last time, and my hand lingers on the marks scratched into the surface. Mr. Dupree had done his best to paint over the words, but I can still make them out.
TRAITOR.
WHORE.
I wish the words didn’t hurt. The best I can say is that I no longer believe they are true.
“Hey, Q.”
Angel stands behind me when I turn. At some point in the past weeks, she’s gone back to her brunette color. It looks better on her than the cool blond she’s worn all year.
“Hey, Ang.”
“I bet you’re glad to get out of here,” she says, nodding at my locker.
I shrug.
“I heard you’re moving to live with your mom.”
So they are still talking about me. The only people I’ve told are my parents. But then, I’ve had to buy boxes and supplies to pack my things. And I guess I should have expected gossip to fly with my mother popping up around town. She’s determined to be part of my life, and she doesn’t care who knows it.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Well . . .”
Angel’s reaching for something to say. Maybe she wants me to excuse how she treated me, or how she let the others treat me. Then again, I’ve seen her with Blake lately and maybe the two of them are together now and she suspects something about us. She could just want to bridge the gaping hole in our friendship. Whatever she wants, I’m not the person to give it to her anymore.
I’m moving on.
I zip up my bag, toss it over my shoulder, and give my locker one last, hard look.
“Q?” she asks, when I walk away.
“Good-bye, Ang,” I say. “Take care of yourself.”
And I leave her and this whole miserable place behind.
* * *
Graduation moves me more than I thought it would.
Not because getting my diploma feels like being handed the key to the cell I’ve been locked in; it’s only a little of that. Mostly I’m freaked out by my father, mother, and Uncle Eddy sitting out with the families in the crowd. They do not sit near each other—that would cause hell to freeze over—but they’re in the same town and the same gymnasium.
That’s enough. That’s a lot.
After the ceremo
ny, my father takes me out to dinner. It’s my choice because I felt I owed him that much, and it’s my last night in our house together. Since I told him I was moving, he’s been quiet. Too quiet. They haven’t been the punishing silences of the last year, but more thoughtful silences. I catch him watching me with an emotion I can’t read.
Dinner is strange, with lots of awkward pauses. When we get home, my father enters the house ahead of me, and I wander out to his garden shed, glad for the reprieve. With everything that’s happened, I’ve never switched the bottles of plant food and weed killer back. He’s remained mystified by the barren state of his garden.
I should feel guilty, and I do, a little. Enough that I toss the two containers in the trash, feeling a pang of regret for taking the one thing he loves from him.
But I wanted so much from my father, and he disappointed me.
Some people just don’t have it to give, though.
I sit on the porch to catch my breath in the evening summer heat, curling up on the swing where Carey once turned my life upside down. Tucking my skirt around my legs, I’m half-asleep when I hear a truck pull up.
Blake doesn’t get out right away. He stares at me through the windshield, and I think maybe he’s been crying. Even from this distance, I can see how red his eyes are. He finally gets out and I meet him on the steps, clenching my hand around the banister for support.
“Is Carey okay?” I ask, worried.
His hands clench into fists.
“Blake?”
“Yeah.” He laughs, but the sound of it is angry. “That bastard is just fine. I just got off the phone with him. He told me the truth, Q.”
Shocked, I sit on the top step with a thump that jars me. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s gay. He’s fucking gay, and he let you take the rap for him this year. He says he didn’t know how everyone treated you, that you never told him. But fuck, what did he expect?”
“You told him?” I ask, though I can see the answer on his face.
“Every damned insult,” he says vehemently. “The ones I know about anyway.”
Well, I think. At last. I should feel vindicated. Triumphant because the truth is out. I can’t figure out what emotions are winding through me, but none of them resemble happiness. I wonder who else knows and what the consequences will be for Carey.
“I want to hate him,” Blake continues, sitting on a step below mine. “But he cried like I was breaking his damned heart. I’ve never heard him cry.”
He shakes his head. “How could he lie to me like that, Q?”
“Sophie,” I say quietly.
“What?” he says.
“My name is Sophie. Not Quinn. Not Q. It’s Sophie.”
Nobody gets why this is important to me, but I’m done being who they think I should be. I am Sophie, whether they like it or not.
“Okay,” he says, sounding confused.
“I don’t think he lied,” I answer. “Not to hurt you, anyway. Maybe he hid who he was because he didn’t know if you’d still be his friend.”
Blake glares. “That’s bullshit. Like I care about that crap.”
“Hey,” I say, holding up my hands. “I didn’t say that’s what I thought. I said maybe that’s what Carey thought. Imagine how I felt when he told me.”
His shoulders stiffen, and I say, “You’re angry at me.”
“I guess I don’t understand why you’d cover for him. Why do you always put him first?” Blake asks. He’s not accusing, but sadness thickens his voice.
“You tell me. You did the same thing,” I remind him gently. He looks down, and I hug myself. “It’s a bad habit I’m trying to break. I suggest you do the same.”
I explain about the night Carey came to me, beaten and bloody. He sacrificed so much to serve, and what did it get him? Even knowing that, my guess is that he’d do it again because, like George, Carey believed in something bigger than himself.
“I didn’t know what else to do, Blake. Do you know how hard it was to see Carey like that? What would you have done in my place?”
After a while he says, “He told me about the night he confessed the truth. The night you and I . . .”
His voice trails off, and I sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m not proud of my reasons for going to you that night.”
He swallows. I know I’ve hurt him when he asks, “Did you ever feel anything for me?”
I kneel down in front of him, placing my hands on his knees. I wait for him to meet my eyes. “That first night, I was confused. I didn’t know what the hell I felt, except a lot of pain. But I figured things out pretty quick.” I touch his cheek, stroking my fingers across his whiskered skin. “I fell in love with you, Blake.”
He twines his fingers through mine, his eyes serious. “You never said. Even after that night in Grave Woods.”
That surprises me. I thought I’d told him how I felt. “Is that why you’ve been ignoring me?” I ask.
“Yes. I couldn’t wait around for you to toss me aside again. Especially once we heard Carey was coming home.”
“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Ditto,” he says.
He tugs me into his arms. Maybe we are both thinking about the damage the three of us have done to one another. Best friends, lost friends. When I can’t take the tension anymore, I move to sit beside him. Blake’s shoulder brushes mine, and sparks zing through me. I wonder if that will ever go away and know I will miss it if it does.
Suddenly his tone is fierce. “Do you think we could start over?”
Part of me wants to. Desperately wants to. I would love to give us a chance to put aside everything that’s happened and see where we could end up. But another part of me knows that the wounds we’ve inflicted are too deep. We can’t pretend they don’t exist.
And I need to leave. If I stay in Sweethaven to be with him, I will be putting him first. Substituting Blake for Carey. I can’t do it. I need to be first for once.
He can read my answer on my face and sighs. “I had to ask. I should go.”
He stands, and I notice his T-shirt for the first time. In cursive writing, it reads Third grade lied, I never use cursive. I smile and shake my head, climbing to my feet on the step above him. I really do love him.
“Blake?”
He turns to face me, and I kiss him, surprising him. With sudden strength he pulls me closer, squeezing the breath out of me. And then he holds me for a long time with my head on his shoulder. Another good-bye.
My heart breaks a little more.
Finally he steps back and walks to his truck, opening the door. I call out, “Why did he tell you now? Carey, I mean. Why confess he’s gay now?”
Blake shrugs. “I don’t know. Something about a message you gave his father. He said he’d let you down by asking you to cover for him. And me.”
Before he climbs into his truck, he gives me one last, long look. “I’m going to miss you, you know?”
“No, you won’t,” I say lightly. “You’ll forget all about me.”
He shakes his head. “Never. I love you, Sophie.”
He says it like a promise, and closes his door before I can respond. I watch his truck disappear around the corner, and when he’s gone I rise, brushing off my skirt.
I find my father standing in the open doorway. I think he’s overheard enough to guess the truth when his shoulders drop. He knows what I did for Carey. He knows I’m not who he thought I was. And I didn’t have to break my promise to tell him.
I wait for him to say something, and when he does, I’m stunned.
“I’m sorry,” my father says, his voice cracking. “I was wrong.”
And the world turns upside down and everything I think I know about people flips end to end once more.
Sometimes people can admit when they’re wrong.
I hear George’s voice. You’re the one in control here. Be kind.
I walk into my father’s arms, and he says, “Please forgive me, Sophie.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Since Carey came out to his family and friends two months ago, everything has changed.
My “friends” crawled out of the woodwork, calling me to commiserate about what I went through. Few of them apologized for their part in it, including Nikki, who reprimanded me for not telling her the truth. I hung up on her.
Angel, on the other hand, wouldn’t stop apologizing. Pragmatically I asked, “How could you have known what I couldn’t tell you?”
My own response came as the biggest surprise. Released from lying, I do not feel the urge to scream the truth from the mountaintops. The people I care about are the ones who believed in me all along—like George. The rest of them no longer matter. And I’ve come to realize something: George was right; I was the one in control all along. I kept Carey’s secret, but nobody really forced me to do it.
As for Carey . . . he hasn’t called. At first, the media swarmed around him. The MIA Marine found alive after months of torture. For weeks, daily reports shared how he was recovering, until one day it seemed like the world outside of Sweethaven forgot he existed.
Then, about a week before I’m to move to Boston, Mrs. Breen calls. Before I can say more than hello, she launches into a breathless plea.
Carey isn’t recovering at all. He’s refusing to do his physical therapy, and the doctors say he won’t walk if he continues on that way. Days, he sits in his room, staring at the walls. Nights, he wakes screaming from nightmares about things he won’t speak of. He’s dying in front of her, and she doesn’t know what to do, God help her.
She’s sorry, she says. Carey needs me, but he won’t let anyone call me. She will get down on her knees and beg if it will help. Please, please, she says, and she sobs.
And I tell her I’m on my way.
* * *
It takes more than six hours to drive from North Carolina to Bethesda, Maryland.
My mother didn’t want me to make the drive alone. She fussed over me, pointing out every car accident or carjacking that had been in the news in the past five years, until my father finally told her, “Sophie, let the girl alone. If anyone can take care of herself, she can.”
If I Lie Page 19
