by Inda Herwood
“Oh, for crying out loud. This is what you’ve been doing while I’ve been looking for you? Guests started arriving ten minutes ago, and the fire isn’t even started yet!” she yells at us, arms crossed, green eyes furious and furrowed.
“If you’re looking for an apology, you aren’t going to get one,” I tell her, taking Blaire’s hand and leading her out of the closet and past a steaming Leigha.
“Start the fire before I tell Aunt Elise that you stomped all over her Jimmy Chou’s,” she calls back, and I know I’m going to pay for this one later. But right now, I couldn’t care less.
Blaire
He loves me.
It’s the thought that has refused to leave my mind since the moment he said those three words to me, replaying the feel of them said against my lips over and over again, like a beautiful, bittersweet movie. I wanted so bad to say it back, to let him know that he isn’t alone in how he feels. Over these last few weeks I’ve felt every part of my heart give itself to him. It happened when he had lunch with me, my mother, and Nana, smiling through an entire afternoon of being grilled, like he’d gladly do it again if it meant I was happy. It grew when he invited me over for the Lyons’ annual family movie night, and he shared his blanket with me, falling asleep halfway through The Incredibles with his head on my shoulder. Countless days spent in our rooms, listening to music and hanging out together, and nightly walks on the beach under the moon. It’s been the greatest summer I’ve ever had, and now it’s all going to be ruined because I lied to him. The one person I want to know every secret about me.
Warming my toes in the sand while Catcher and Beckham stoke the fire, I remind myself that the lies are stopping tonight. No matter what.
“Konbanwa,” a pleasant, quiet voice greets me, breaking me out of my thoughts. Looking over at the person who just took the beach chair next to me, I see Kaito, wearing a small smile that lights up his dark eyes. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Same here,” I say, though I’m shocked to see him here of all places. Does Leigha know? She must. She’s been planning this thing for weeks now. She would know her own guest list by heart. “How has your summer been?”
“A memorable one,” he says after remaining silent long enough that I thought he hadn’t heard me, his gaze lingering on Leigha, who is stocking the cooler on the other side of the circle from us.
Interesting…
For the next half hour, I chat on and off with Kaito while people filter in, steadily filling the fifteen or so chairs around the bonfire. Some of the faces I remember from the pool party at the start of the summer, but otherwise, most of them are strangers to me. What they all have in common, though, is their air of wealth. You can see it in how they walk, the upturn of their chins, and the way they confidently take their seats, like they own them and the beach they’re standing on. I start to feel out of place, not just because I’ve never acted that way in all my life, and witnessing it is weirdly intimidating, but sitting here in my all white, brought to you by Walmart, T-shirt and maxi skirt, I can plainly see how I stand out from the girls wearing the designer logos. Mom promised me that no one would be able to tell, but I spot a few girls who I’m sure noticed my mistake the second they stepped into the circle.
I ignore the thought as best I can, feeling a wave of relief when Beckham sits down next to me, taking my hand almost immediately. “Having fun yet?” he asks, handing me a soda I didn’t see in his free hand.
“Getting there,” I say, scooting my chair closer to his so that our hands can rest more easily between us. “So, are we roasting s’mores or what?”
“Absolutely,” Leigha says, handing me a long metal stick with a marshmallow already on it. “It isn’t a bonfire without ’em.” Grabbing another stick from her goodies table, she asks everyone, “Who’s next?”
“No way. Those things are pure sugar and full of empty calories,” one of the girls says, giving Leigha’s back a disgusted look, like the suggestion alone was an insult.
“Great, more for us,” Catcher says, holding his hand up. “I’ll take one, Cuz.”
“There you go.” She hands him his stick, all ready to go with a marshmallow, doing this multiple times until a total of ten of us are standing around the fire, our sticks hanging out in the flames. When Kaito takes a stick from Leigha, her eyes light up with a smile I doubt she even knows she’s flashing.
I have so many questions for her later.
When mine is all ready to go, Leigha helps me put a piece of chocolate and two graham crackers on it at her s’more station. Returning to my seat, Beckham stares at the treat like he’d love nothing more than to steal it from me. “If you wanted one, you should have grabbed a stick,” I tell him.
“I was hoping you’d be a nice girlfriend and share it with me,” he says, giving me his puppy eyes.
I take a big bite out of it without looking away from him, feeling the melted chocolate and the sticky marshmallow on my lips when I smile.
He licks his lips, like he’s imagining how it would taste. “You realize that only makes me want to kiss you, right?”
“I know,” I say before taking another bite.
“Did I hear you say girlfriend?” The girl who turned down the s’more in favor of a bottle of mineral water asks, bending forward in her seat to see me better. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with such perfect skin before, or with finer bone structure. She looks like the blonde version of Kendall Jenner. “Is this the girl I’ve been hearing about all summer?” Holding out her hand to me with an obviously fake smile, she says, “Hi, I’m Danielle Astin.”
I take it with an uneasy feeling skirting down my spine, smiling all the same when I say, “Blaire Cromwell.”
“You’ve been quite the topic around here, stealing away the Hamptons’ most eligible bachelor.” She gives Beckham an admiring look, like he’s the dessert she had actually wanted.
Oh, hell no.
“Danielle is the gossip queen,” Beck tells me darkly, scooting even farther away from her, like she’s contagious or something. “If someone breathes wrong, she’ll let you know about it.”
A few people snicker at the comment, causing a sharp edge that wasn’t there before to creep into her brown eyes.
“Now don’t be like that,” she says, her voice too sweet to be real. “Just because I’m friends with Jenna doesn’t mean you have to act like I’m the one who did you wrong.”
The circle quiets uncomfortably, and I feel my hand tense in Beckham’s.
“Danielle, I only let you in because you came with Kevin, and because you promised not to let your bitch-o-meter spike tonight. One more word, and you’re gone. Got it?” Leigha says, and I turn to see her sitting next to Kaito, her eyes sparking with a protective fire. It helps to explain my question of why she would allow someone like Danielle into her party, especially with her link to Beckham’s past.
Danielle throws her hands up in submission. “All I did was tell the truth, hon. Don’t get upset over nothing. Besides, I want to get to know Blaire here better.” Focusing her attention back on me, something I’m really starting to dislike, she says, resting her chin in her palm. “So where are you from?”
I lick my lips clean of s’more before answering, “Maryland.”
“Really? Where in Maryland?”
“Just outside of Baltimore,” I say, noticing that most of the smaller conversations between people in the circle are coming to a close, their attention turning to Danielle and me instead. I tell myself not to fidget under the attention.
“You know, you look really familiar,” she says, her blonde brows moving downwards over her eyes. She tilts her head to the side, asking, “What is it that your parents do?”
I tell her that they’re both retired, the hair on my arms starting to stand the longer she gives me that look like she really does recognize me.
“I know I’ve heard Cromwell somewhere before. Doesn’t that sound familiar, Sabrina?” She looks at the girl sitting
next to her, nearly her spitting image with the ponytail and perfect skin, just with red hair instead of blonde.
“A little,” she says, looking at me closer, her eyes lacking the hard glint of her friend’s. A few seconds go by, and then something like an epiphany crosses over her face. “Wait,” she says, “wasn’t that the name of the family that won the Mega Millions jackpot last year? Demi Collins from Ocean City told me she saw it on the news.”
Panic like I’ve never known before cuts through me like a sharp knife, stealing my air. I drop Beckham’s hand out of reflex, my fingers going numb.
“You’re right. It was in the paper, too. There was a picture. That’s why you look so familiar,” Danielle says, but there’s no surprise in her voice like there was in Sabrina’s. And her expression stays exactly the same, a deadly smile spreading her lips. “That was you, wasn’t it? Your family won the lottery.”
With those final words, and that righteous gotcha look in her eyes, I know for sure now that this was all a setup. This girl came here tonight knowing full well who I was, and with all the facts she needed to out me in front of everyone. She even had the innocent friend with her to help play witness and corroborate her story.
I rack my brain, trying to figure out why she would do this, especially to a girl she’s never even met before, and the only thing I can come up with is what she had said herself: she’s friends with Beckham’s ex.
This must have been some kind of friendly revenge on her behalf.
And now I can’t breathe.
“Blaire, what is she talking about?” Beckham asks me, turning his back on the group to look at me, face half lit by the fire.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Danielle says, placing her chin in her palm, smiling. “Her family didn’t make their fortune in the auto and medical industry like she’s been circulating. She lied.”
“I…” My heart pounds so hard in my ears that I can’t even hear myself think. It’s like I’m inside a vacuum, utterly senseless.
“Danielle, that’s enough. I want you to leave,” Leigha says, standing up and stomping her way over to her, grabbing her by the arm and sending her flying out of her chair.
Taking a stumbled step back, she shoots daggers at her, saying, “You think I’m lying? Just look at this.” Danielle grabs her phone out of her pocket and clicks the screen a few times before showing it to everyone, namely Beckham. When I get a flash of what’s on it, the panic attack starts anew.
It’s the picture they put in the paper of Mom, Dad, Nana, and I holding the giant check, smiling with joy before the consequences of the win could sink in.
“The minute I heard about you I went digging. It didn’t take me long to find the article talking about how your pathetic family lived in poverty before you struck it rich. You’re just a liar, a fraud. You didn’t earn a single –”
Moving faster than I thought her capable of, Leigha’s fist is flying through the air and striking Danielle in the jaw, sending her to the ground in a heap. The girls around the fire scream like they’ve never witnessed such violence before, all crowding around her to see if she’s okay. Leigha rolls her eyes while shaking out her fist. “That bitch deserved it and you all know it.”
“Is this really you?” Beckham asks me with a voice void of any emotion, his eyes still staring down at the screen. It reminds me so much of the way he looked when he mentioned Jenna in the past that I feel tears flood my eyes.
This…this is what I had always feared.
But I have no other choice. Not now.
I nod my head.
“Why did,” he stops himself, closing his eyes, “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
Feeling the tears finally escape, I tell him, “I wasn’t allowed to.”
He turns his head to give me a disbelieving look. “What?”
“My parents.” Sniffle. “They told me I couldn’t say anything about it. But it’s only because –”
He stands up suddenly, knocking the beach chair over, not giving it a second’s glance when he says, “You’re telling me your parents told you to lie about your entire life to me? Why?”
I barely register the feel of eyes on me and the drama unfolding before I hear Catcher and Leigha telling people to go home, herding them back up the beach to give us a little privacy. It’s a thoughtful gesture, one that gives me hope that maybe I didn’t just burn every bridge I had with the Lyons family.
“It’s a long story. If you’d just listen and let me tell you –”
He runs his hands over his head and down his face, saying to himself, “It’s happening all over again.”
“Beckham, I’m not Jenna. I didn’t lie about my background so that you’d buy me things. I did it so that you wouldn’t judge me,” I tell him truthfully, wishing he would just look at me.
As if I hadn’t even spoken, he says, “Was anything you told me the truth? All those times I was with you…was that really you, or the version of yourself you created to fit this?” He points at my beautiful, expensive house in the distance, and a sting goes through my heart.
My cheeks are wet and sticky with tears when I explain, “Everything was the truth, just not all of it.”
He sways backwards, like I just hit him without even touching him. “Are you being serious right now? The truth is all or nothing, Blaire. There is no part of it, or sliver, or any other name you want to give it.” Breathing hard, he stares at the ground, unseeing, while my heart breaks into a billion pieces in front of me. Every shard I had given him, day by day, piece by piece, falls into nothing.
He shakes his head, his words sounding gravelly when he tells me, “I don’t care if it’s not the same thing as Jenna. You still kept the truth from me, Blaire. Even when you knew how much I had been hurt the last time someone did that to me. And not only that, but you lied to my entire family. My brothers, my cousin, my parents…for months.” Staring at the sand, back stiff as a board when I go to touch him, he says, so quiet I almost don’t hear him, “Don’t touch me. Matter of fact, don’t come near me or my family ever again. I…I’m not doing this for a second time. I can’t.”
He’s shut himself down, closed off his emotions like he had when we first met. I can see it in his blank expression, the coldness in his eyes, and that was even before he spoke those horrible, heart-crushing words to me.
In his mind, this is truly and officially over.
He starts to walk away from me, his steps taking him back to the house and out of the glow of the fire. I run after him though I know it’s useless, grabbing his arm and trying to stop him. “Please, don’t do this. Just let me explain before you judge me. Please,” I beg him, my voice tear-stained and scratchy. He pulls away with little effort, not looking back at me though I try several more times to stop him.
Eventually I’m left kneeling in the sand, alone, my vision a blur from all the tears, my body racking with sobs that refuse to stop. Everything hurts, physically and emotionally. Even breathing feels hard, as if my lungs have shrunk three sizes in a matter of minutes.
What have I done?
Sometime later, I feel strong arms lift me up and walk me away, escorting me to my house where I suspect my father takes me back, because I can smell his signature scent of aftershave and car grease on him, holding me close as he takes me to my bed where I quickly pass out.
***
The next morning I wake up to beautiful confusion, wondering why my eyelids feel like sandpaper and my throat is so sore. I mentally retrace my steps as to how I got in my bed, and that’s when it all floods back. I’m thrown headfirst into the pain again as though it just happened, my eyes somehow finding it within themselves to make the tears I didn’t think I had left.
Must be my crying is louder than I thought, because soon my door is being opened and my mom and nana are there, crawling onto my bed and hugging me from both sides, swallowing me whole with their warmth.
“Honey, what happened?” Mom asks, pushing my hair back from my face, my skin
feeling swollen and hot from all the crying. “Catcher brought you home crying last night, but didn’t say why.”
The look of betrayal on Beckham’s face when he saw that picture floats into my mind, and my throat closes, not allowing me to tell them what happened. So instead they just hold me like I’m six years old again and fell off the swing set, skinning my knees. It’s the last time I remember crying this hard.
Later in the morning, they coax me downstairs to get something to eat and to rehydrate, where I force a thing of yogurt and half a bottle of water down my throat, my insides feeling raw. I don’t feel pain anymore, or sadness. It’s just emptiness, my emotions all dried up.
“You finally told him the truth, didn’t you?” Mom says, giving me a sympathetic look, pushing the water closer to me. The thought of another sip makes me nauseous.
“Someone beat me to it,” I say, telling myself not to conjure up the images of last night. I don’t think my eyes could handle any more crying.
“What do you mean?” Nana asks.
I tell them in bare details what happened last night, and how I had planned to tell him the truth after the bonfire. I leave out the part where he told me he loved me. Mostly because I hate to think about how now it’s probably a memory he’d like nothing more than to forget.
“I don’t know what to tell you, sweetie. You’re just going to have to let him be angry for a while before you can explain it to him.”
I shake my head. “He’s right. It doesn’t matter if what I did was technically omission. When he asked me about my life, I only gave him the bare bones of the truth. If things were reversed, I’d feel angry, too. Because it’d make me think he didn’t trust me enough to tell me all of it.”
Silence descends upon the kitchen, letting me know I’m right. I screwed this up more than I could ever fix, and we all know it.
The doorbell rings, echoing throughout the house, and we all turn our heads simultaneously to look at it.
It…it couldn’t be.
No.
Standing up, Mom gives me a wide-eyed look before she walks over and opens the door. From this angle, I can’t see who it is, but my problem is solved a minute later.
