Projection (20 page)

Ariel was pleased with how quickly she’d been able to think on her feet—and implicate Jessica, to boot. But Nick gave her a disapproving look and pulled away again. “You’re
taking drugs now? Ariel, I’m all for partying, but it’s not cool for you to take something and not tell me.”

Ariel scoffed. “Oh, so you don’t think that’s cool, but it’s okay for you not to tell me that you and Rob are dealing? Don’t you think that’s a little hypocritical?”

“Is that what Jessica told you? That I’m dealing?” He shook his head angrily. “I’m not a drug dealer, Ariel. Look, people know I’m friends with Rob, so they ask me to ask him to hook them up. That’s it. Neither one of us makes money from it.”

So then what’s the mutually beneficial relationship you have with him?
She was dying to ask him, but she could never explain how, when, or where she and Rob might have come to have that conversation.

“Then why does he do it?” she asked instead.

Nick shrugged. “I don’t know. I think the dude just likes for high school kids to think he’s cool. I don’t get the sense that a lot of adults feel that way about him.”

“No, I think you’re right about that.”

Nick moved close to her again, put his arms around her waist. “You really don’t remember fighting with me last night?” he asked.

“I swear I don’t. But if I said anything mean, I’m really sorry.”

Nick sighed. “Okay. But listen, the next time you take something, just tell me, and we can do it together.” He shook his head. “Jessica’s cool and all, but that girl is trouble. She’s perfect for Connor.”

Ariel smiled to herself. If Jessica and Gretchen wanted to keep things from her, then they were going to have to re-strategize. The three of them were a team now, for better or worse. But the smile quickly faded. She couldn’t ignore the gnawing realization: the only reason they’d break a rule and
still keep something from her or trick her after they’d projected was because they still must have believed, deep down, that she’d murdered Gretchen’s mother.

In English class on
Monday, Ariel stared out the window, trying to block out Mrs. Porter’s screechy, high pitched voice. She’d known that Mrs. Porter was originally from Chicago, but she’d never noticed before how annoying her accent was, particularly the way she said her Os.
It’s Ah-thello!
Ariel wanted to scream at her. Not
Aw-thello
!

The knot that had formed in Ariel’s stomach since Nick’s visit yesterday was still there. And it was showing no signs of subsiding. She’d barely slept.

“What do we think about Desdemawna?” Mrs. Porter asked the class. “Is she just a passive victim of Aw-thello?”

Ariel closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her palm. She’d read the play just last week, but last week felt like so long ago.

“He murdered her,” someone answered. “I’d say that makes her a victim.”

Ariel flinched at the word
murder
. She just couldn’t understand why Gretchen still thought she had anything to do with her mother’s murder. Sure, they didn’t get along in the eighth grade, but murder? It occurred to her that maybe Gretchen really was crazy. Maybe she and Jessica were lying to her about boarding school. Maybe Gretchen was in an institution, after all.
And if that’s the case, what is she planning on doing to me?

“Yes,” Mrs. Porter answered. “There’s no question that she’s a victim. But is she a
passive
victim? When Awthello verbally abuses her, does she keep her head down and take it, or does she stand up to him and assert her own beliefs?”

That’s it
, Ariel thought. She bolted upright, causing her chair to loudly scratch against the linoleum floor. Everyone turned to stare at her.

“Sorry,” she said to no one in particular and slumped back down. The class lost interest and went back to discussing Desdemona, but Ariel was energized.
I can’t just sit by and let them frame me for this. I’ve got to
do
something
. In a moment of terrified clarity, she suddenly saw what she had to do: the only way she could prove to Gretchen that she didn’t kill her mother was to prove that someone else did. And once she did that, Gretchen would have no choice but to drop this crazy plot of hers to take Ariel down.

But who
, she wondered.
Who would have wanted Mrs. Harris dead?

When class was over
, Mrs. Porter tapped Ariel on the shoulder as she was packing up her things.

“Is everything okay, Miss Miller? I’ve noticed there’s been a lot of staring out the window lately.”

Mrs. Porter was the second teacher today to ask her if everything was all right. If she didn’t watch it, someone was going to call her mom. “Everything’s fine.”

Mrs. Porter looked at her skeptically. “Nothing’s going on at home? No problems with the boyfriend?”

“No, no. Nothing’s going on. I’m just … feeling a little overwhelmed. Junior year is really hard. You know, college pressure and all.”

“We do have a school psychologist, you know.” Mrs. Porter’s tone had changed from unconvinced to wearily sympathetic, as if she’d heard this story a thousand times before. “You could go talk to Mrs. Lackman. It’s all cawnfidential.”

Ariel nodded earnestly, trying not to cringe at the
accent. She hadn’t gone to see Mrs. Lackman once this year. But she’d learned that with adults, it was easier to say yes and then ignore them than it was to argue.

“That’s not a bad idea,” she lied. “Maybe I will.”

The days were getting
shorter now that it was fall, so they were able to meet at the teepee in the park earlier than they had even just a week ago. Dead leaves loudly crunched beneath Ariel’s feet as she approached, and when she ducked her head into the teepee, she found Gretchen and Jessica sitting on the ground, their backs leaning against the curved, molded plastic.

“Hey,” Ariel said, pretending not to notice the way the air hung with the uneasy silence of people who’d quickly stopped talking.

“Hey,” Jessica said hastily. “Listen, I’m sorry about Nick, okay?”

Ariel cocked her head. She didn’t believe a word that came out of Jessica’s mouth. “Why didn’t you tell me you got in a fight with him?”

Jessica sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, I knew you already thought I was trying to break the two of you up, so I didn’t want to tell you that I’d started some big fight. I figured it would just blow over. It wasn’t important. I broke the rule for your sake.”

“What did you fight about?” Ariel demanded.

“He wanted to have sex with you! Starting a fight was the only thing I could think of to get out of it. So I said that I thought he had a thing for me and that I didn’t like watching my boyfriend flirt with another girl.”

Ariel shook her head.
Unbelievable
. “Really. And what did he say to that?”

Jessica frowned. “He said that I’m not his type. And that
the reason he loves you is because you’re so sweet and easygoing, while I’m a pain in the ass, and he doesn’t know how Connor deals with me.”

Ariel tried not to laugh.

“He’s not wrong,” Gretchen said. “You are a pain in the ass.”

Jessica smacked her playfully on the arm. “Whatever. You’re just jealous because you never got past holding hands with him.”

The two of them laughed.

Ariel glanced from Jessica to Gretchen and back again. “Wait, Gretchen, you and Nick were together? When?”

“We weren’t together,” Gretchen corrected. “We held hands for five minutes at the end of eighth grade. It was nothing.”

Ariel hesitated.
Great. Add one more reason for her to hate me to the list
. “So, are you mad that he’s my boyfriend now or something?”

Gretchen rolled her eyes. “No, Ariel. I was gone for two years. I didn’t expect him to wait for me, like some girl whose boyfriend has gone off to war. And anyway, I don’t care about Nick Ford anymore. Honestly. I mean, yeah, he’s hot shit in Delphi, but spend five minutes in the real world, and you might see him a little differently. But whatever. I’m not even interested in guys right now. I’m not interested in anything except finding out the truth.”

Ariel recoiled the slightest bit. Gretchen could be so blunt sometimes. But was she was right? Was Nick just some dumb, provincial lacrosse player from Delphi? And was she too dumb and provincial to even see it? Ariel had never been out of California, let alone out of the country.

“Okay. I’m sorry I asked. It’s just still hard for me to
believe that we’re really friends. You know, after everything that happened.”

Jessica reached out and grabbed Ariel’s hand. “Look, Ariel, we were really mean to you in middle school. It was stupid. I don’t blame you for putting out that video. I probably would have done the same thing if I were you.”

Ariel glanced at Gretchen. Sometimes she felt like they were both just being themselves. Sometimes she felt like they were playing good cop, bad cop with her. It was impossible to know what was really going on. She almost said something—almost just blurted out how she was feeling—but she bit her tongue. It was better just to plow ahead and go along with them. Their power was greater than hers.

“Soooo,” Ariel said. “It’s you and Gretchen tonight, right? I’m going to be the witness?”

Gretchen looked up. “Actually, I was hoping that you and I could project tonight.”

Ariel felt a shiver run down her spine. “I don’t understand,” she said, keeping her voice even. “I thought that Jessica always had to do it. I thought she was, you know, ‘the leader.’ ” Ariel said this last part in air quotes.

“Whatever. I’ve been Jessica a dozen times!” Gretchen shouted. “I don’t need to be Jessica anymore!”

Ariel put her hands up defensively. “You don’t have to get upset. I’m just trying to understand how this works.”

“Gretchen and I were talking about it, and we both think that there’s no reason why it has to be me every time,” Jessica explained, her wary eyes on Gretchen, who was staring at the ground. “Gretchen knows the words. She knows how to do it.” She shrugged. “She should have been the one who was chosen anyway.”

Ariel tapped her fingers up and down on her jeans. Being
Gretchen could be a huge opportunity for her. She could do some snooping, maybe find out what Gretchen was up to. Maybe even get a better handle on who might have wanted her mother dead. But she didn’t trust Gretchen, and she worried about what might happen if Gretchen went around pretending to be her. After all, she could do something that might implicate Ariel in the murder. She could confess to the police, even. It was a gamble any way you looked at it.

Ariel’s fingers stopped tapping. Her mom had told her very few details about her father, but she knew one thing about him: on more than a few occasions, he’d almost lost everything he had at a blackjack table in Las Vegas. Gambling was in Ariel’s blood. It was part of the reason she liked to shoplift. Or so said Mrs. Lackman …

She smiled at the two girls sitting across from her. “Okay then. Let’s do it.”

Jessica grinned and elbowed Gretchen in the ribs. “Just remember Rule Number Three, Gretch. No fooling around with Nick Ford.”

Gretchen’s house was big
. Not mansion big—but big in a high ceilings, spacious rooms, generous backyard kind of way. She walked through the empty first floor, recalling how she’d stared at the rooms through a side window three years ago on the night of their graduation from eighth grade. Of course, Ariel hadn’t been invited to that party. No, Gretchen had made a point of inviting every single member of their class
but
her (or so it seemed), so she’d crashed the party in retaliation. Well, if “crashing” could be defined as sneaking in through the side gate, looking through the window, and then chickening out and running away.

The only person who knew she’d gone there was her mom. At dinner that night they’d argued about it. Ariel had wanted to show them all that they couldn’t just keep pretending that she didn’t exist. Ignoring her wasn’t going to make her go away. But her mom disagreed. She thought crashing the party would just be giving them exactly what they wanted.
Better to ignore them back
, her mom had said.
Let them think you
have better things to do than go to their stupid party
. It wasn’t until Ariel actually got there and saw them all having fun without her, watched them not even giving her a moment’s thought, that she realized her mom was right.

She was still standing outside the window when she heard the screams, and she ran away before she even knew what had happened. The next day, when the murder was all over the local news, her mom had burst into her room with a serious look on her face.

Did anyone see you?
she’d asked. She’d been hidden in a shadow, and all she’d done was peer through the window. She hadn’t seen anyone, and nobody had seen her. She was sure of it.

You were never there
, her mother said sternly.
Whatever happens, you were never there
.

And when the police had knocked on their door that night, asking “routine questions” about whether they were at the party and where they’d been that night, Ariel and her mom were as calm as the ocean on a windless day. They’d gone out to a celebratory dinner, just the two of them, then went home and watched a movie. End of story. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that Gretchen had started sending her those texts.

At first, Ariel had been freaked out.
She knows that I was there
, she kept thinking.
Somehow, she knows that I was there
.

Every time the doorbell rang, every time she heard a car pull up in her driveway, she expected it to be the police, coming to take her away. But as time went on and the police never came, and as the texts from Gretchen got stranger and stranger—accusing her of murder and of wanting to bring down the Oculus Society—Ariel started to think that maybe Gretchen didn’t know anything after all. That maybe Gretchen was just a sad, grief-stricken girl looking for someone to blame. And
then Gretchen went away, and the texts stopped coming, and Ariel had nearly forgotten all about crashing the party that night … and had almost convinced herself that it had never even happened. Until now.