Part 31 (1/2)
”And what? You find out he really is just as bad as you thought-h.e.l.l, worse than that-and suddenly you think he's hero of the day?”
”I d-didn't say that. I'm still not sure what I think of him.”
I glance outside the back door again. He's still there. ”I know what I think. I think he betrayed me.”
Maggie sinks into a chair, sighing. ”Yeah, well, d-don't start flinging stones in your little g-gla.s.s house.”
”What does that mean?”
Mags looks at me with a flinty expression. ”It means you b-betrayed me too.”
I wince at her words, torn between curiosity and dread. ”What happened, Mags? Tell me what happened to us.”
”They happened to you, Chloe.” Her face goes dark and sad. ”I t-told you that group was wrong. It was almost like a cult. You hung out at the same places, wore the same kind of clothes. You started d-dating each other, for G.o.d's sake.”
I shake my head. ”It still doesn't make sense, Maggie. We didn't stop being friends when you went through your Danny obsession or when I was on the volleyball team and at practice ten thousand times a week.”
”That's because you didn't insult me!” She takes a shuddery breath, and I can see that her eyes are too bright. Her chin trembles when she speaks again. ”When I t-told you something felt wrong, you said I was paranoid. Time after time you blew me off, and then when ignoring me wasn't enough, you staged an intervention. You sat me d-down with a couple of your study b.i.t.c.hes and t-told me you wanted to help. You told me that maybe if I spent a little more t-time centering myself that maybe I w-wouldn't, that m-m-maybe I wouldn't...”
I fill in the blank with a hollow voice. ”Stutter.”
It can't be true. I can't be capable of that. But somehow, her words p.r.i.c.kle at my mind, whispering of a memory that's waiting to be recovered.
”You always p-protected me,” she says, swiping tears off her cheeks angrily. ”Even way b-back in the second grade, you never t-treated me different. Not until that d-day.”
I slump back against the wall, my heart in pieces.
We're both crying now, quiet sniffs punctuating the silence of her kitchen. I finally brave my voice, which is every bit as weak and shaky as I feel. ”I don't even know what to say. I know sorry isn't enough. I don't know what would be. I don't know how I could ever believe...”
She picks up where I trail off, stepping closer. ”They made you believe. You b-believed these people and all the b-bulls.h.i.+t they fed you, Chloe. Maybe not as much as the others, but they had you.”
I repress a shudder, still revolted by the idea of those words on my lips. Maggie isn't looking for me to talk yet though. She looks right past me to the back door where Adam is still waiting. I see his hard profile in the moonlight, his sharp jaw and thin nose.
”They had him too.”
I step outside and he turns to me. He is prettier than a boy has any right to be and far too beautiful for the ugly things he's done.
”I don't trust you,” I say.
He doesn't look at me, but he flinches like it stings. But also in a way that tells me he gets it.
”It doesn't change the fact that I want to help,” he says.
”Maybe I don't want your help.”
Adam turns toward me then, his expression stony. ”Then I'll go to the police and tell them everything I know.”
”What?”
”You heard me.”
I feel fury under my skin, heating me up despite the snow. ”If you do that, we have nothing. We might never find the evidence I had.”
Adam shrugs and I feel my jaw clench.
”It'd be my word against Daniel Tanner's, Adam! Do you understand that the only proof I have was stolen from a recent murder victim? He'd come through this smelling like a rose, and I'd probably look like the killer!”
”I don't care.”
”You don't care? You don't care about the possibility of me being a murder suspect?”
”That's right, I don't! Because you'd be alive! If I go to the police, they'll launch an investigation and you will be watched. Protected. He'd be too smart to come after you then because it would lead a trail of bread crumbs back to the study group and eventually to him.”
”So you'd let him get away with what they did to Julien? You'd just walk away?”
He closes in on me, his head bending down until his face is lost in shadow. His hand reaches for my cheek, and I hold my breath. When he speaks again, his voice is so low I can feel it as much as I can hear it. ”You have no idea what I'd do to keep you safe, do you?”
The back door opens, and Maggie lets herself out. I'm half irritated when I turn to her, but the look on her face shuts my mouth. Her skin is pale and her eyes are wet. Too wet.
”What's wrong?” I ask her.
”Look,” she says, pointing blindly back to the house. Her laptop is open on the kitchen counter. ”I was j-just checking my stuff, and-”
”And what?” Adam asks. He moves his head, like he wants to see the screen. ”Are they looking for us?”
Maggie shakes her head, and I see that her cheeks are wet. She's crying. I reach for her hands. She's cold. Shaking. ”What is it, Mags?”
”It's Julien. She's d-dead.”
The bright future of a former local honor roll student was cut tragically short when she took her own life- I stop reading. I've already read the post a half dozen times. We all have. I don't know why. Maybe we think reading it over and over again might make it untrue.
But it is true. Julien is dead. Mrs. Campbell found her hanging in her bedroom two days ago.
I try to think of Julien dead, but the truth is, I don't really know what death looks like unless you count my glimpse of Dr. Kirkpatrick. I mean, I saw my grandpa Frank at his visitation, but I was eight and all I remember thinking is that he looked kind of orange and that he probably wouldn't really like the lacy satin pillow under his head.
But he was old and Julien isn't.
Wasn't.
G.o.d, this just shouldn't be possible. I'm pretty sure I should feel something other than this. Because I don't feel anything. I'm just...numb.
Adam lets out a low sigh and pushes his fingers into his hair. Maggie sniffs into a tissue, and I wince. Her crumpled face makes me ache, but is that for Julien or for Maggie?