“He’s overreacting, Mom. Everything is fine. It was just one bad test. Mr. Beaumont is letting me retake it on Monday.”
“Is there something going on, honey?” Dad asks. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Everything’s fine.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes are pleading. He wants me to know I can tell him anything, but... I can’t. I don’t think that’s what they really want, anyway. No parent really means that. They just want me to be perfect. A little trophy they can celebrate and fawn over when things go right. They don’t want a cheater, someone who inflicted pain on others without a second thought. They don’t want to know how I’ve corrupted Jared beyond repair, or how I’m terrorized at night wondering who really killed Shaila—and if everything we know is a lie. They can’t know the dozens of ways I let them down.
“Everything is fine,” I say again.
“Okay, then,” Dad relents.
Mom’s shoulders tense and she takes another sip, smacking her lips together. “Look,” she says. “I don’t have to tell you howhard we’ve worked to keep you and your brother at Gold Coast, how much we’ve sacrificed. You’ve done so well under all this pressure and you’ve already gotten into Brown. You’re so close. You’ve made us so proud. Let’s just keep it up, you know?”
She tries to relax, offering a sad half smile, but her eyes betray her. Worry. Doubt. Iknowthey’re both thinking about the Women in Science and Engineering scholarship and how I desperately need to earn it in order to actually go to Providence. It’s not over yet and we all know it.
The lines around Mom’s mouth are deeper than they’ve ever been and I try to think of all the things they didn’t have because they decided to send us to Gold Coast. To find the money for uniforms and field trips and fancy meal plans and Science Bowl dues. To make us feel like we belong. To give us the world.
I used to think that by getting tapped to be a Player, I had earned a golden ticket, been given entry into the upper echelons of society. I did what my parents wanted. I became the trophy. I became worthy.
But I didn’t. It was all a lie. Fake grades. Fake friends. Dead friend.
I have to make this okay.
“I know,” I say softly.
“Good.” Mom picks up the wineglass and brings it millimeters from her mouth. She inhales deeply then drains the whole thing.
FIFTEEN
I MANAGEA93 on my English makeup test and a small burst of pride flames in my chest when Mr. Beaumont drops the paper on my desk.Better, he wrote in his thick red pen.Much better.I smile to myself, knowing that this time hardcore studying actually paid off. I earned this one on my own and no one can take that away from me. Maybe Icanactually nail Brown’s scholarship test. My brain begins plotting a study guide, spinning through figures and equations I’ll need to memorize.
I pass Henry in the hall and resist the urge to reach out and grab his wrist, to share the good news. He keeps his eyes straight in front of him, nodding to the undies as he makes his way to the locker room. I wonder if he’s hurting, if he’s really wearing armor just to make it through the day, too. He disappears into the gym with his lacrosse gear and I turn the corner, gunning for the front door.
January wind whips my hair around my face. Being so close to the water makes winters here unbearable. It’s why so many people escape to Palm Beach or the Caribbean for spring break. Only 4 p.m. and the sun’s almost gone.
I rub my hands together in the front seat of Mom’s car—she let me take it this morning—and wait for the heat to kick in before I start driving. Then my phone buzzes.
Please let it be him, I think. It’s been a week since I heard from Adam. He went to some school-sponsored writer’s retreat in Oregon where, he warned me, he didn’t have Wi-Fi. He should be back already. He should have texted.
But it’s not Adam. It’s Rachel.
So...
It’s a menacing word, unrelenting with a million possibilities.
Last chance... I’m going to visit Graham this weekend. I think you should come.
I inhale sharply. I shut my eyes and try to imagine Graham wherever he is, his angled chin, his sandy hair. He was always broad, not muscly like Henry or soft like Quentin. Just kind of solid, like a wall or a couch. His confidence was in his walk, the cocky way he held his head. He played football in the fall because he said he liked to hit people and see the fear in their eyes when they saw him coming. Lacrosse in the spring, for the same reasons. He wanted to check kids hard in the chest with a metal stick and watch them writhe. But he was always jovial after games, relentless in his need for people to tell him they were okay. “It’s just fun,” he’d say, shoving Henry a little too hard in the shoulder.
Mr. Calloway never showed up to any Gold Coast game, not a carnival nor a fundraiser, even though he was a student here himself. That school stuff was for his wife, Muffy Calloway. She was the ultimate society woman, turning her nose up at my mom for being a sculptor and a teacher, for not being a member of the Gold Coast Country Club, for being Jewish. She had sucha fantastically absurd name that elicited the kind of lewd jokes you’d expect Graham to make. But anytime someone tried—Robert once—he’d ball his hand into a fist and feign a stomach punch. Fire in his eyes and a crooked smile on his face, Graham wouldn’t take that shit. Better to be inside the joke than out of it.
In the middle of freshman year, I learned that Muffy Calloway wasn’t always a white-blonde sad sack who only wore monogrammed cashmere, pearls in her ears, and a thick strand to match around her neck. She was once Monica Rogers, just another Mayflower chaser from somewhere outside Philly.
Graham revealed that to me one night at his house when his parents were out of town. Shaila was gone, in another room, somewhere else entirely, and Graham had snagged a bottle of sake from thegoodliquor cabinet. His breath reeked of pepperoni and I wondered if mine did, too. “Let’s split this,” he said, laughing. “Quick, before anyone finds out.”
I giggled and followed him into the study. A few sips later, we had entered some weird alternate universe where our brains had melded and it was normal to share secrets with each other. I confided in him that I was worried Shaila and I were drifting.
“She has you,” I said sheepishly.
