She peeked at Ash.
It didn’t surprise her that he was sensitive enough to realize something was up. Everyone at school knew what he’d been through when his dad died last spring. And that was back before he’d had friends to talk to. Lexi swallowed against the pang of guilt when she thought about how she’d treated him in middle school. It had been too easy to go along with everyone, making fun of him for being so totally awkward and clueless. Sure, most of the teasing had been about random things, like him not getting called onto a team for gym class, or being the only one who cared about an upcoming science test. Still, it had been pretty relentless now that she thought about it. But it must not have hurt him too badly. After his dad died, kids had said he locked himself in his room, but when he showed up at school he was fine. Better than fine, actually. Strong. Mature. With a mysterious air of confidence that set him apart from everyone else.
Thankful to have someone strong on her side who understood what it was like to deal with tough family stuff, she told him the latest about Dale and how sad she was that her mom just let it happen. Over and over. And how it pulled the two of them apart. She finished with the weird stuff Dale had said earlier, about coming back because of her.
Ash sent her a quick glance. “Has he—has he touched you before?”
“No.” She grimaced at the thought. “Nothing like that.”
“Tell me if he tries anything. Okay?” He smiled, looking as though he wanted to encourage her. That cute dimple creased his cheek and she didn’t even have to think about smiling back. He focused on making a left, then added. “I’ll help.”
“He’s not going to do anything like that,” she assured him, watching the shops along Grove slide past, dark as tombs. “Besides, now my guard is really up. If he does, I’ll be ready this time. I—”
“There are some things even you can’t control, Lexi.” Ash looked over, all signs of that dimple gone. “Just promise you’ll tell me. Okay?”
Nobody had even been so protective of her before. Not even her own mother.
Maybe that was because she’d never let them. Now might be the time to change that. “I will.”
He downshifted, made a tight U-turn in the center of the street then started another pass down Grove. They sat silent as they cruised by the empty school lot. Too soon he was headed toward her house.
“Um, well, thanks again for everything,” she said, a heavy weight settling over her shoulders as she started accepting that the night had to end. She couldn’t go on pretending that scene in the hot tub hadn’t happened. News of it was probably already all over town. There’d be a new set of rumors, another wave of drama. Tomorrow she’d have to start answering questions. And facing the truth.
“Anything for you, Lexi. People like us have to stick together.” He leaned over, kissed her gently on the mouth. The brush of his lips was too quick, too light. She wanted more.
Needed more.
But he drew back and said good night. “Talk to you tomorrow.”
That heaviness wasn’t quite as bad now. “Okay.”
With him on her side, she could face anything. Jon. Peter. Even her mom and Dale. She grabbed her bag and reached for the door handle.
“Oh, hey,” he said, touching her arm. “Why was Monica looking for you?”
Lexi’s face flashed hot and a lie tumbled out. “I-I don’t know. I, um, never talked to her.” She unlatched the door, pushed against it. The night air spilled in and a draft sliced through the cozy interior of the car.
“You didn’t, huh?” He dropped his arm, set his hand back on the steering wheel. “That’s good. Stay away from her.”
Lexi nodded, mumbled goodbye, then climbed out. The door closed with a solid thud, breaking their contact completely. She waved to him from the front porch as he backed out. Within seconds, he was disappearing down the street, swallowed by the night.
After he’d completely vanished, she turned her phone back on.
Just in case he wanted to say goodnight again.
Chapter Nine
Bedtime Stories
Lexi inched the door open, stepped through, then turned to gently push it closed. Once she was inside, she heard the hum of her phone. It came then went, then came again. And again. No way was she going to answer it. She wasn’t even going to look. If it was Jazz, she’d understand why Lexi wasn’t in the mood to talk. With Ash gone, the loneliness and anxiety had already crept back. All she wanted was to climb into the shelter of her covers and wait for the oblivion of sleep. Tomorrow she’d deal with the fallout from the party. With Monica. Sort out whatever was left of herself.
The house was dark, except for a single red light glowing from the kitchen counter. When she went over to snap off the coffee maker she spotted her mother slumped over the kitchen table, asleep beside an empty Wayne State mug.
Lexi paused, questions crawling through her mind.
Why didn’t her mom see she could get someone better than Dale?
How long until she herself snapped, ended up helpless and pathetic too?
Queasiness curled through Lexi’s stomach. She couldn’t let that happen.
But what if what Ash said was true—that there were some things you couldn’t control?
She gently nudged her mom, but she woke with a start anyway.
“Dale?” she mumbled, pushing her hair off her cheeks.
Lexi’s heart sank. Of course he was the first person she thought of. “No, Mom. It’s me.”
“Oh, Lexi. Hi, honey.” She looked up with sleep-filled eyes smudged with mascara. Even though she was hurting, she still felt sad for her mom. Over and over she let Dale disappoint her. She rubbed her mom’s shoulders, realizing she wasn’t going to tell her about Peter until morning. “Go to bed. You’ll get a stiff neck sleeping like that.”
She pushed herself upright, searching the kitchen with her puffy, tear-stained eyes.
“Go to bed,” Lexi repeated, as gently as she could. “It’s late.”
Defeat lingered in her gaze. “I’m waiting for Dale. I don’t know where he is, he hasn’t called.”
Figures.
“We went to bed, but when I woke up, he was gone.” She looked into her empty coffee cup as though she might find some answers in the cold sludge at the bottom. “You go to bed, sweetie. I’m going to wait up for him.”
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d kissed her mom, but right then she felt so sorry for her that she bent down, placing her lips on her temple. Even though her own world was falling apart, she didn’t feel as miserable as her mom looked. And at least she still had the confidence to fight back, to do something.
And now she had Ash.
“You should go to bed, Mom.”
“Don’t worry about me.” She ran her fingers under her eyelashes, trying to wipe away the makeup smudges making her look hollow. “Your mail stack’s getting pretty big,” she said, forcing her voice to a high, falsely cheerful pitch. “Lots of important-looking college stuff. Why don’t you take it up with you?”
Like that matters.
It does matter, she reminded herself.
It’s your only way out, away from all this.
“Good night,” Lexi called softly, pausing at the bottom of the stairs to grab her overflowing pile of school brochures and test prep postcards.
She bunched the mail together then held it under her elbow as she went to her room. She was alone, but there was no escaping Dale. He’d straightened her things, washed and folded her laundry, carefully made her bed—again. The perfectly tidy room gave the illusion of privacy, the image that everything was right. It made her feel sick.
She passed through the perfect gloom, flipping through the stack of mail. Six college packets and two ads for summer pre-admission programs.
Lexi ran her finger along the edge of the glossy envelope from an out-of-state college. The only way she was going to get that far from Cherry Grove was with a scholarship.
A soft rap on her door made her jump.
“Dale’s home.” Her mom’s bloodshot eyes stared through the dim light. “He says you’re having trouble again. Someone was talking about you down at that coffee shop he likes to go to, saying something about an accident with one of the kids from school.” Her mom paused. “Are you all right, honey?” She moved into the room, the light from Lexi’s desk casting shadows across her face. The frown pulling on her mouth made her look old and tired.
Lexi raised a shaky arm, awkwardly pushing her bangs back. Even if she did want to tell her mom what had happened, she wouldn’t know where to start. It hadn’t made any difference last time, so why bother? And there was Dale, lingering around somewhere, a threat even though she couldn’t see him. “I’m fine, Mom. I stayed up too late, that’s all.”
“There’s too much going on in this town. You need to be more careful.” Her mom sighed, then stood a little taller. “Dale’s right, you need a curfew.”
Fresh anger flowed across the horribleness of the night, but Lexi held still, waiting for it to pool in a place where she could seal it away. Now was not the time to lose it. So she stayed silent, hoping her mom would slump away the way she usually did when Dale was nearby.
Her mom moved back and flipped on the overhead light. “Well, what happened?”
Lexi squinted against the bright invasion. “I’ll tell you in the morning. Okay?”
“No.” For the first time in ages, her mom pressed for an answer. “Dale wants—I want—to know. Now.”
“Really, Mom. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.” Lexi kept her voice low, hoping Dale would stay wherever he was instead of coming in and acting like his opinion mattered. “Rehashing it now won’t change anything, it already happened.”
Slight friction crackled in the room. Lexi found herself half hoping her mom would actually fight back and insist that she tell her everything, show some emotion, some determination, instead of just giving up.
“Mom, Dale is what we need to talk about.”
“No.” Her mom folded her arms across her chest, her elbows poking out of the threadbare robe. “We should talk about you, and what’s been going on lately. Why are you involved in all this trouble? What’s going on with your friends?”
“If you’re not going to talk about Dale, I’m not going to talk at all.”
“Why do you want to talk about him? He doesn’t have anything to do with any of this.”
The strength lingered on her mom’s face for a heartbeat then fell and was replaced with confusion and grief. Defeated, she stepped back and touched the light switch. Darkness crowded the room, the door clicked shut, closing off the opportunity for a real emotional exchange once again.
Lexi slipped out of her skirt, let it puddle at her feet, took off her top and tossed it onto her desk. Not the usual jumble she preferred, but it was a start. She still had the swimsuit on, so she peeled it off, threw it toward the laundry basket.
Her mom wasn’t going to be much help right now. At least she had Ash.
He was solid and real. Someone she could depend on.
Wearing a plain white T-shirt, she crawled into bed. After staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours, she finally slept.
But it wasn’t good sleep.
Questions about Zeke and Monica spun through her mind. Pictures of Peter’s limp body and the rush of her own confusion filled her dreams.
Chapter Ten
Green with Envy
Monday after lunch, as Lexi carved a path through the crowded hallway, splashes of red flickered past. And black. Twelve-thirty and she’d just gotten that it was yet another school spirit day. Like wearing Cherry Grove’s colors was going to make Peter smile down from heaven. How stupid. And morbid.
She caught her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window. An uninspired gray V-neck and Old Navy jeans.
No red. No black.
Like she cared.
The usual swarming mixture of people milled around the main offices. Kids wanting passes because they were late coming back from lunch, teachers complaining about the photocopier being broken, delivery guys trying to wheel the giant cart of juice and Gatorade bottles through the crowd. There were even some parents, probably wanting to check on their kids, make sure nothing had happened to them.
Lexi slid in behind three Goths creeping along the walls and tried to blend into the lunchtime chaos. The last thing she wanted was for somebody to spot her on her way in to see Mrs. Howell, one of the counselors.
Kids in class were already avoiding her. Except for Zoë, the boosters were hardly talking to her at all. And worse than that, Jazz had broken down and told her parents about sneaking out of the house. So they’d taken her phone away and sent her, and several weeks’ worth of schoolwork, to stay with her grandparents in Montreal.
Lexi reached the inside of the office. The counselor’s door stood open, so Lexi dashed in without knocking. Mrs. Howell’s head jerked up, a smile crossing her face when their gazes connected.
“Hi, Lexi. I’m glad you came.” The counselor took off her glasses, closed the file she’d been reading and laid it on top of an overflowing pile. “When I send for students, I’m not always sure they’ll come.”
Lexi dropped into the infamous Head-Shrinking Seat, the chair right across from Mrs. Howell. “I didn’t know I had a choice.” Instead of making eye contact, she looked around, checking out the collection of photographs circling the room. Obviously Mrs. Howell had been all over the world. One photograph was of a group standing in the middle of what looked like a market in some exotic country. The people in the group all looked like total tourists, cameras hanging from their necks and giant hats plopped on their heads. Beside that one was a shot taken on a boat, loads of sunshine brightening the water in the background. There were several more, and even a picture of Mrs. Howell on a camel in front of a pyramid.
“Must to be nice to run away from home on a regular basis.”
The woman smiled but the change in her face was faint, a smile to show understanding, not happiness. “Before becoming a school counselor I taught social studies. I’ve always suffered from a bad case of wanderlust.” She leaned back in her chair. “Maybe I should’ve been a hobo instead of a school counselor.”
Lexi sucked in a deep breath, stared down at her boring Nikes. Her heart thumped and her hands felt weirdly sweaty. Maybe those other kids, the ones who didn’t show up when she sent for them, had the right idea. She leaned forward. “I don’t really have anything to talk about so maybe I should just get going.”
Another of those faint smiles was followed by, “Please stay. I’m glad you came.” Then she slipped over and gently shut the door. “A lot has happened in your life lately.”
A dead guy and a stepfather back from God knows where probably qualified as ‘a lot’. And those were only the things everyone knew about. That night with Monica, parked by the old Westerville field, throwing Jon’s bike into the dumpster. Lexi winced. She wasn’t going to think about the video camera and all that. “I don’t see what there is to talk about, you probably know everything, it’s all in the news.” And the rest, like that she’d been with Peter on Friday, was now buzzing through the halls. Thanks to Monica, no doubt. The cops were going to find out eventually, so now she was just waiting for them to come to her.
The woman steepled her fingers and tipped her head, looking at her with warm brown eyes. Her gaze wasn’t pitying, just thoughtful. “Why don’t you tell me how you feel about what happened? I don’t know that.”
“How should I feel?” Panic had melted away most of her precious control. Her confidence was falling away too. “Sad? Ashamed? Guilty? I’m so confused I can’t feel anything.”
“Is there any one emotion that stands out?”
Lexi stayed silent and tried to swallow away the lump in her throat.
Mrs. Howell lowered her chin, and her clear crystal chandelier earrings jangled. “Do you blame yourself for what happened?”
Blame.
Now there was a loa
ded word.
Lexi looked at the beige-carpeted floor. She had to keep herself together. No matter what. “I haven’t tried to figure out how I feel.” That was the truth. “I feel numb, you know? I hardly knew him. Now he’s dead. If Zeke killed Peter, that means I just missed walking in on one guy killing another.” She crossed her leg over her knee and stared picking at the worn sole of her sneaker. “Everyone’s started calling me the black widow. The guys I had on my auction list made me take them off—like it’s some kind of joke. I don’t think it’s funny.”
Mrs. Howell opened her mouth but snapped it shut when a rumble of commotion came from the hall outside. Once it quieted, she said, “No. It’s not funny.”
Lexi squeezed her legs closer. “And no one knows how Peter died. It’s under investigation. Zeke says he didn’t have anything to do with it. We shouldn’t assume he’s lying. Innocent until proven guilty, right?” From out of nowhere, tears welled in her eyes and her fingers started to tingle.
She tried to shut down her wild thoughts, but the cracks in her strength were too wide, and the spiral of emotions seeped through. “I do feel like it’s my fault.”
“Just because you found Peter doesn’t make it your fault.”
That was easy for her to say. She didn’t have to deal with the stares and whispers. And knowing that she hadn’t spoken up when she should have. But that didn’t really matter now that he was dead. Right?
“How’re your parents handling it? Are they helping you through?”
Lexi’s face flashed with heat. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around her calves. Everything that’d happened in the past ten days had left her weak, drained. She didn’t have the energy to fight.
So there they were. The memories that always came back when she was weak.
Her dad’s funeral.
The annoying way people kept saying over and over how sorry they were. Like that was going to help.
Her mom, spending whole days crying on the couch. Lexi, doing everything she could to get her mom up and moving. Just talking her into doing simple things, like making dinner, had been difficult. But at least she’d felt needed.
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