Every name I consider makes my heart break. I circle back to Aubrey, because Cinna’s logic was solid and because Aubrey did mention her jealousy. And, more than anyone else, she’s the kind of person who could rationalize cruelty.
But then I think about the way Aubrey showed up at my door with Thai food after I got a horrible grade last semester, and the way she sat on my bed and said, “If you need to scream, scream. I’ll sit here and make sure nobody calls the cops.” She stayed for four hours, and she never once looked at her phone.
That’s not the behavior of someone who’s trying to destroy you.
Six. Seven.
But, like Cinna said, people do crazy things when they’re hurt enough. Maybe Aubrey is really hurt and doesn’t know what to do with the pain, so she’s trying to hurt everyone around her.
I don’t know. I just feel so lost.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and my whole body flinches in dread. I stop walking. I’m on the path near the old maples behind Founder’s Hall, and the clock tower above me chimes the half-hour, a single low note that fades into silence.
I almost don’t look. But ignoring it doesn’t make the texts go away. Better to just face it.
I pull out my phone.
It’s not a text.
It’s a calendar notification for an event two weeks from now. There’s a small gray rectangle at the top of the screen with a single word in the event title:Gravesite.
My knees weaken, and I lean against the nearest maple and press my back into the bark because without it I’m not sure I’d stay upright. The roughness of the trunk bites through my jacket and into my shoulder blades, and I focus on that sensation because the alternative is focusing on the date, which is an anniversary—the day I go to the cemetery and lay flowers on a grave I try desperately not to think about.
Because of a choice when I was eight years old.
Tears flow out because I need a good cry right now. The maples above me are beginning to turn, green giving way to the hints of cadmium orange at the tips, and through the blur of my tears the colors bleed together until the canopy looks like a painting left out in the rain.
I slide down the trunk until I’m sitting on the ground with my knees drawn up and my phone in my lap. Somewhere across campus, someone is laughing, and the sound reaches me, arriving from a world I’m not currently part of.
Two weeks.
Gravesite.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JUNE
Mom and I are in the kitchen. She’s at the island with her reading glasses on, reading a book, with a mug of chamomile between her palms. I walked in here pretending I needed a sandwich but now I’m just hovering with the fridge door open, staring at all the food but not moving.
“Talk to me,” she says without looking up.
I sigh and pull out the stool across from her. The wood creaks. “I got another nasty message, but before you ask, I really don’t want to tell you what it said.”
She closes her book and sets it down gently, then folds her hands on top. She doesn’t say anything, which is a very therapist thing to do.
I start worrying my hands together in my lap. “Anyway, I have reasons to believe, I mean, I’m worried that the person spreading rumors is one of my friends.”
She pushes her reading glasses up into her curls and reaches across the island. Her hand touches mine. “Who?”
“Aubrey.”
Her eyes are shocked but then her brow furrows and I can tell she’s really considering it. She doesn’t try to defend Aubrey, just nods.
Her lack of defense creates an even bigger pit of worry in my stomach. Ifshe’sthinking Aubrey is a likely suspect, then…
It hurts too much to think about. How could one of my friends betray me like this?
“Have you thought about talking to her?” she asks. “Directly. Not just accusing her. I think you need an open conversation about what’s going on.”
