Being Sloane Jacobs (27 page)

“You’re sorry?” he echoes incredulously. He rakes a hand through his hair. “So why did you do it? Why did you lie in the first place?”

“I had to!” I burst out, as if shouting it at him is going to make him understand.

“What did you think I was going to do, rat you out?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“That’s crap, Sloane. You lied to me because you couldn’t trust me with the truth. You should have said something that first night we kissed.”

A huge lump is building in my throat. “I know, I should have—”

“But you didn’t,” he says, and any hope that he’ll forgive me fades away. “You just kept lying.”

“Matt, I—”

He cuts me off. “I don’t want to hear it. It seems like you guys are in kind of a hurry, anyway. You better get going.”

Tears are welling up in my eyes now, and I don’t try to stop them. “Can I please call you?”

“Sure,” he says tonelessly, then steps out of the doorway so that Sloane Devon and I can pass through it. “I can’t promise I’ll answer, though.”

Since Ivy’s told Sloane Devon she’d only turn her in if she stayed, I figure we’re safe if she crashes in my room. Ivy will just think Sloane ditched out like she was told. After checking to be sure Melody isn’t around, I sneak Sloane Devon into my room with strict instructions not to leave unless she has to pee, and even then, that should be somewhere around four a.m., when no one will be awake.

I find flights for us both for the following morning. With all the excitement and bustle surrounding tomorrow night’s games, it should be easy for me to slip out undetected. I use the emergency credit card my mom got me when I started driving. She probably imagined me using it for gas if I was stranded, to book a hotel room if I got caught driving in a storm, or even to buy myself an emergency dress for a gala event. I’m pretty sure she never imagined she’d be facilitating my escape from a not-so-foreign country.

The thought of my mother sends my brain spiraling down a “what’s going to happen now?” path that sort of drops off over a dark, stormy cliff. I have to stop my brain before I go tumbling over into an abyss so deep I can’t even see a reasonable punishment at the bottom.

I can’t worry about that right now. I can’t think at all. I just need to go home—if there’s even a home to go back to.

The next morning, I send Sloane back to figure skating camp with strict instructions to stop for no one. She has sixty minutes to pack her bags and meet me at the airport, an hour before our noon flights are scheduled to leave. It takes me about ten minutes to cram all of Sloane’s clothes into her duffel and repack her gear bag, which for me feels about nine minutes too long. I want out of here. Now.

CHAPTER 24

SLOANE DEVON

When I get back to my dorm, I find Bee sitting on the plush carpet outside my door. “What in the name of Chef Boyardee happened to you?”

“You haven’t heard?” I sigh. I managed to rinse the marinara out of my hair during a covert middle-of-the-night bathroom run with Sloane Emily, but my clothes are still splattered with red, and I suspect I missed a few spots around my neck.

“Yeah, I heard, but I want you to tell me.”

I hesitate for a split second. Sloane Emily made me swear I would speak to no one—just hustle her things into her suitcases and take off.

“Come inside,” I say. I push the door open and usher Bee in. She takes a seat on my bed and crosses her arms in the same way an assistant principal might when he or she calls you to the office.

I try to remember what Sloane Emily said to Matt. It came out really fast and easy, like ripping off a Band-Aid. I start by telling Bee that I’m not a figure skater. I tell her I play hockey, that I’m from Philadelphia, and that though my name is Sloane Jacobs, I’m not the figure skating Sloane Jacobs who’s supposed to be spending her summer here. I tell her about Ivy and the magazine, careful not to mention the sex scandal, because that’s not my information to share. Besides, I imagine pretty soon everyone in the world is going to know the details about Sloane Emily’s family. Bee will hear about it eventually.

Then I tell her that I went to see Sloane Emily, and that we’re on our way out of the country. When I finish my story, Bee’s eyes are so wide they look like they’re going to take over her face.

“I guess I can see why you did it. I mean, how often do you meet someone with the exact same name?”

“Exactly,” I say. Man, I hope my dad and Coach Butler see it the same way. I’m reminded of the
Twilight Zone
–style vertigo I felt back at the hotel when Sloane and I first figured out we shared a name, a height, and the same dark hair.

“But you had to learn to freaking figure skate.” She shakes her head. “You had to give up most of your summer. Why would you want to go through all that?”

“
That’s
why,” I say.

“I don’t get it.” She furrows her brow.

“I was trying to ignore some things, get away for a
while, you know? I wanted to give up my whole summer. I wanted to give up
me
. Which is also the reason I didn’t tell anyone the truth. Because then I’d have to talk about the exact things I was trying to get away from in the first place.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize they’re true.

“Well, you can talk about them now,” she says.

“I have to finish packing.”

“Fine,” she says. She stands up and flings my suitcase up onto the bed, flipping the lid open. “Pack and talk.”

I start pulling articles of clothing off the hangers and shoving them into the suitcase. I take the tissue-paper-thin gray cami that I wore the first day I was Sloane Emily off the hanger. I remember thinking this whole thing was only going to last a day, two days tops. And now here I am, almost four weeks later, shocked and more than a little sad that it’s actually all falling apart.

“My mom is in rehab,” I blurt out. I keep my focus on the gray cami. It’s the first time I’ve ever said it out loud, and I have to slam my mouth shut to keep a gasping sob from following it. I take a deep breath and glance over at Bee, who is still calmly and methodically folding a stack of jeans.

“It’s been a couple years coming, and she finally got in an accident while she was, you know.” I can’t quite bring myself to say the ugly word out loud. “Drunk.” It sounds so dirty and gritty, like I’m living in an episode of
The Wire
, which is probably what most of these preppy kids would
think if they knew the truth about me. Bee still doesn’t say anything, just places the stack of jeans in snug next to Sloane’s hoodie, the only one she packed, with big block letters spelling out “Brown.”

“Things have been so crappy. I haven’t felt right, you know? And I kept exploding on the ice.
My
ice. I play hockey.” I’m surprised by how strange it feels to say that out loud, in this nice room, surrounded by an explosion of Ivy’s pink things.

Bee just nods and keeps packing, folding all the items I toss onto the bed. Now that I’ve started speaking, I find I can’t stop.

“I got into a big fight at my last game. I started it. My coach talked to my dad, who, by the way, has barely spoken to me since Mom’s accident, and the next thing I knew, I was getting shipped off, just like my mom. Only I was supposed to spend four weeks at hockey camp. And then I met Sloane—the other Sloane, I mean. She had this perfect life. You should have seen her hotel room. It was the size of my whole house! So when she suggested the switch, it seemed like the perfect solution. The best way not to think about the things that make me feel like I’m cracking up, was to not, you know,
be
me.”

Bee takes the gray cami out of my hands, folds it, and places it on top of a stack in the suitcase. She flips the lid closed and pushes it back, making a space on the bed next to her. Then she turns her green eyes to mine. “Sloane, sit down.”

I sit, but I’m still stiff as a board. My hands are clenched
tight, as if I’m holding my tears in my palms and if I loose my grip, they’ll come tumbling out.

“Sloane, I understand. I really do—more than you know. When my dad’s alcoholism got bad, I would have done anything to just run away and hide from the problem.”

She says it like it’s nothing. “Alcoholism.” Clinical, but the weight of the word makes me stop and look hard at her. She’s said the word a lot, but it still hurts her a little, I can tell.

Bee finally breaks her gaze and looks down at her hands, which are folded in her lap. “Things were bad. He got so drunk at one of my brother’s basketball games that he got in a fistfight with one of the other dads. It took three other parents plus two security guards to break it up, and the whole thing ended up on the local TV. It was so embarrassing. It wasn’t long after that when he finally admitted what his problem was and got help.”

“Did it work?”

“Well, it’s not a cure, but he did the whole twelve-step thing, making amends and all that. And I couldn’t forgive him right away. I still can’t. But things get better a little bit every day.”

“That’s good,” I say, barely able to breathe. I wonder if Mom’s going to apologize, if we’re actually going to talk about things no one has mentioned in my house for years—that I used to have to carry her up to bed. That she missed birthdays. That she put me in the car with her when she was drunk.

Bee smiles at me and squeezes my hand. “Do you want me to help you finish getting your stuff together?”

“No, thanks,” I say. “I need some time alone, I think.”

“All right.” Bee reaches over and envelops me in a hug. A real hug, one that tests my ribs and squeezes the air out of my lungs. “I’m so bummed I won’t get to see you skate. You were getting so good. I would have loved to see your big moment out there.”

“Thanks, Bee,” I say into a big tuft of her red curly hair.

“Stay in touch. You can call anytime. I’m happy just to listen, okay?”

“Thanks,” I say again, only this time it comes out as a tiny whisper. The lump in my throat is rising dangerously high.

When Bee stands up, I swipe at my cheeks. As soon as the door closes behind her, I go to the last item in the closet, Sloane Emily’s fleece jacket. I pull the stack of letters from my mother out of the pocket and sit back down on the bed. I find the one with the oldest postmark, the one that came first, then slide my finger under the seal.

Dear Sloane,

Before I say anything else, I need to tell you that I’m so sorry.…

And then the lump in my throat explodes. The tears pour out. They run down my cheeks, my neck, and pool in my collarbone. I gasp so hard from the sobs that I start hiccuping. The tears are so thick that I can barely keep reading.

But I do.

CHAPTER 25

SLOANE EMILY

The Montreal airport is a cavernous, glass-paneled building with soaring ceilings. I’m parked on a bench by the ticketing kiosks scanning the crowd for Sloane Devon. I look down at my watch: 11:20. She needs to get here in the next ten minutes if we’re going to make check-in for our flights.

There’s a bank of TV screens hanging over the automatic doors across from the benches. The chattering of travelers and the squeak of suitcases rolling across the floor means I can’t hear, but the subtitles are nice and large.

The first screen is showing an infomercial for some product that consists of elastic bands and multicolored balls that’s supposed to make you buff like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The next is showing a cartoon flashing so many colors I’m surprised children don’t get seizures while watching it. The next three are all showing cable news, two from
the U.S. and the third from some Canadian equivalent of CNN. As I watch, all three screens flip to the same image.

I blink a few times, but the image doesn’t go away.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Washington loves a sex scandal.

My dad steps out of a building I don’t recognize and approaches about a million microphones all pointed directly at him. I see him smooth his tie, a nervous habit he’s had since his very first election. He never speaks without smoothing his tie.

His mouth starts to move, but I can’t hear. It takes a moment before the closed-captioning catches up with him.

TODAY I HAVE DISGRACED MY OFFICE. I HAVE DISGRACED MY CONSTITUENCY. WORSE, I HAVE DISGRACED MY FAMILY, AND FOR THAT I AM TRULY SORRY. I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ALL HAVE JOBS TO DO, AND THAT THIS IS A STORY YOU FEEL YOU NEED TO REPORT. I ONLY ASK THAT YOU RESPECT THE PRIVACY OF MY WIFE AND CHILDREN, WHO WILL BE HAVING A HARD ENOUGH TIME WORKING THROUGH THE HURT AND ANGUISH I’VE CAUSED THEM. THEY DO NOT DESERVE WHAT I’VE DONE TO THEM, AND THEY DO NOT DESERVE TO BE TORMENTED FOR MY MISTAKES. SUSAN, JAMES, AND SLOANE, I AM TRULY SORRY.

All three screens switch back to a studio shot, where three overly coiffed anchors immediately start dissecting
his apology. I want to throw something heavy at all five TVs, the infomercials and cartoons included. I want to break things. I want to scream.

But most of all, I want to run away. I want to run farther and faster than I did four weeks ago when I decided to be someone else.