Seven Ways We Lie (36 page)

There's a long pause. Then Emily says, “I mean . . . as long as nobody's stopping us, I guess . . .?”

I smile at her. She looks as if she might pass out. It occurs to me that probably none of these people has ever seen me smile.

Lara says, “All right. Everyone, get into costume. Crystal, go start the preshow music. Half an hour until curtain goes up.”

The cast doesn't say a word to me as we head downstairs to the changing rooms, but I catch them giving me glances. And for once, I don't wish they would stop. For once, I meet their eyes unafraid.

ON THURSDAY, I WAKE UP WITH MY THOUGHTS KNOTTED
and tangled. I hardly slept an hour.

I roll out of bed and smack my hair into place, wishing the impact would dislodge some of the clutter from my mind. I eye myself in the mirror. Have you ever felt as if your face isn't your own, but an elaborate forgery, a parody, maybe? The eyes staring out from the mirror don't look like mine. I've been disconnected from my reflection, unhooked, unmoored.

I don't line those eyes. I don't glue anything or brush anything or draw anything onto that girl. I walk downstairs barefaced for the first time in God knows how long.

“Claire bear, you okay?” Grace asks, stirring her oatmeal. She doesn't have class today, because apparently that's a thing in college, having no class for a whole day. “You look tired.”

I tilt my head. My sister's sea green eyes shine. “Have you ever messed something up?” I ask, my voice gravelly with morning raspiness. “Like, so badly, it feels like you'll never fix it?”

“Of course.”

“What was it?”

“That time junior year.” Grace twines a lock of her sandy hair
between her fingers. “I was driving home and hit Mr. Fausett's dog.”

“But that was an accident.”

“Still,” she says, her voice shrinking by the word. “He had this look on his face . . . just,
God
, you know?”

“What did you do after?”

“Everything I could,” she says. “Just everything I could, you know?”

The drive to school is a stupor. Pressure clutches my shoulders.

I consider turning back. Hiding in my bed. Hiding in the dark. Unwilling to face myself.

IN FIRST PERIOD, PRINCIPAL TURNER'S VOICE RINGS
over the intercom. “May I please have your attention for the morning announcements?”

I look up at the black speaker, imagining her talking to Dr. Norman. Imagining him going home, thinking about what he might do if he lost his job. Is he married? Does he have a family? Has he had to tell them about this? And Lucas . . . I imagine myself yelling,
Lucas McCallum is now out of the closet
over that intercom, which is essentially what I did.

“Students and staff,” Turner says, her voice heavy, “we have reached closure on the issue we spoke about during our assembly two weeks ago.”

I freeze in my chair. They couldn't have found Dr. Norman guilty based on my twenty-second-long, cowardly impulse—that's impossible. There's no evidence.

Voices rise around me. Eager muttering.
Norman. Lucas. Norman
.

Turner goes on: “Our junior honors English teacher, Mr. David
García, has come forward and confessed to having a romantic relationship with a student.”

Everything goes quiet. We all stare at the intercom, smacked into silence.

It's a testament to how much everyone liked Mr. García that people hardly joked about the idea of it being him.

“Disciplinary action has been taken,” Turner says, “and Mr. García is under investigation by the police. We ask patience from all his classes while we locate a permanent substitute. A news station plans to arrive after school to ask questions of the student body. We ask that you remain respectful and truthful, and most importantly, that you disregard previous allegations, as they have no foundation in truth. Thank you for your attention.”

When she goes quiet, part of me wants to cry with relief—and with remorse. Dr. Norman's job isn't on the line anymore. Maybe people will leave Lucas alone. Maybe this has undone some of the damage I did.

TEN MINUTES BEFORE SECOND PERIOD, THE HALLS
are quiet. People have finally seemed to realize that this is a big deal. A teacher they liked is gone for good—is that what it takes?—but I still hear them murmuring about who the student could be. I don't hear Lucas's name once.

With every step I take toward the classroom where he sits, my insides twist tighter. My sneakers squeak on the freshly waxed floor, its chips of mica glaring at me like fireflies.

I knock into somebody and mutter a halfhearted apology without looking up. Then a hand is on my shoulder. I look up, and there's Juni, folding her arms.

“What's wrong?” she asks.

I don't bother trying to tell her it's nothing. With a pained look on her face, she steers me past the stairwell and out the side entrance.

“I have something to tell you, too,” she says. “You want to go first?”

I shrug and think distractedly,
God
,
I need a thicker jacket. It's so cold out today
.

“Okay,” she says. “Explain.”

“No, I . . .” I stare down at my shoes.

“Tell me what's up, Claire. Please. Look at me.”

It's hard to look up, and when I do, she has that sternness in her eyes. She cares fiercely, Juni. I feel as if she knows already. I hate her for it. I love her for it.

A plane hums overhead, leaving whiskers of white exhaust behind. The breeze sighs in my ear. “I did something bad,” I say. “You know how Lucas . . . you know how people thought he was the one who . . .?”

“Yeah.”

“That was me. I turned in a form saying it was him.”

Her eyes go wide.

Words keep rushing out of my mouth. “I wasn't thinking, I—I got angry, and I couldn't talk with anyone, and I—”

“You could've talked to me. I know we fought, but you still could have—”

“No, I couldn't have,” I burst out. Her mouth closes, and I rush on. “I'm so tired, Juni. Don't you get it? I lost it with you two last week because I'm sick to death of you guys being so much better than me, Olivia drowning in attention, you being so fucking
perfect
!”

My words spiral out into the sky. Huge and irretrievable.

I breathe hard. White mist uncoils before me in the cold.

She's about to say we're done—I know it. Between this and my not calling her when she got out of the hospital—she's going to friend-dump me, and I'll be alone, and I'll deserve it, won't I? Won't I deserve it?

“I thought you knew me better than that,” she says quietly.

I try to swallow. My tongue is harsh and dry. “That's why I didn't call on Sunday. When I heard you landed in the hospital, I . . . God, it's horrible. But part of me was like
finally
, you know? She finally does something that doesn't make the rest of us feel inadequate. Make me feel inadequate.”

Her eyes crease with—is that sympathy? I can't look long.

“And it's not just that you're so smart, and that everybody's in love with you, and that you're amazing at everything you do. I mean, that'd sure as hell be enough, but it's—it's the way you
act
.” I look down at my sneakers. “When you sleep over, when it's the three of us . . . even in private, you're never mean. You're never insecure or angry or . . . how do you
do
it? How are you
real
, you know? Years of us being friends, and I still feel like it's not fair, that somebody can be so—”

“Claire,” Juniper says, “it was me.”

“What was you?”

“Mr. García. He was with me.”

Something ruptures in my chest. I stare. Her gray eyes are calm and serious.

The knots in my mind come loose, unleashing the force of a million memories.

Strangely, the first thing that comes to mind is the mess of
frizzy hair I had in fourth grade; I remember wanting miles of flowing blond hair, Cinderella's or Rapunzel's or Juniper Kipling's, because even back then she was the golden girl.

I remember starting to detest my eyes in the mirror, their color, their shape, their short lashes. I remember sixth grade, the stick-thin prepubescent frames of the popular girls, Juniper the most graceful and most beautiful of all. I remember wanting to be like her so viciously, so fiercely, that when we first became friends, I dreamed that I could absorb something of her into myself, relinquish who I was and what I'd been given.

I remember last May, the end of sophomore year. One day Juniper was joking that Lucas and I would be engaged soon. The next day, he dumped me. When it ended, the choke-chain of a million clichés constricted around my throat, and I didn't—couldn't—speak about it. Heartbreak reduces you to what a million other people have suffered a million times before.

I remember feeling too much, and then feeling nothing, and when my heart turned back on, it had a blinking red light to warn off anyone who might try to get close. I remember staring at Juniper, wondering how her hair fell just so. How long had she spent on it? I started wondering where Olivia got her allure. Was it something she bought? Something she sacrificed her integrity for? That had to be it, right? Little by little, my makeup turned from self-expression to war paint, and day by day, my jokes turned into fine-tipped barbs.

And now, staring into Juni's eyes, it feels like I could summon up every tiny jealousy, every tiny hatred of the last six months. Comparing my grades to Juni's, my height and weight to Olivia's, my eyes and skin and face to theirs. As if it were a contest.
As if we were placed on two sides of a scale, and I could never measure up.

All my preoccupations, all these months, and here Juni's been, hiding the secret of a lifetime, not sparing so much as a moment to pit herself against me.

“Oh my God,” I choke, tears burning at the back of my throat.

“Nobody's perfect, Claire. Everybody's got shit they want, shit they can't have, and shit they've got to deal with. You know that.” Juni hoists her backpack higher on her shoulder. “I'm no different. Do you understand how often I've wished I were you or Olivia since summer? How much simpler things would've been?”

I could sink into the ground. I have been so resolutely blind.

The tears spill over. “I—I'm so sorry,” I hiccup. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry—”

She hushes me gently. “I miss you,” she says. “I miss
us
. I don't want you to be anybody else, and I'm not expecting you to do everything right. I sure don't do everything right.” A line draws down between her eyebrows. “But what you did to Lucas, that's wrong. That's not you, Claire—who is that?”

“I don't know.” I sniff. Look up at the sky. It swims. “I would do anything to take it back. G-God, it was twenty seconds and he's going to deal with that for the rest of high school. The rest of his life. It'll be one of his coming-out stories, and it'll be the most horrible one.” I wipe my face. Wipe the tears from beneath my eyes. “Shit, I don't know what to do.”

Juniper tilts her head. “You always know more than you give yourself credit for,” she says. “I'm sure you know what to do.”

Everything I can
, says Grace's voice in the back of my head.

Looking at Juni, I take a too-deep breath. Tears dry on my
cheeks, and pain needles the bottom of my lungs. “I'll find you later, okay? Can I do that?”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Juni says, her voice shot through with relief.

I smile. It's weak but genuine. I feel like somebody who hasn't stood in months, finding her feet under her again. Complete with the rush of blood from my head. “Okay. I will. I'll see you.”

Then I head inside. Down the hall, toward the office, gaining speed. I gather my courage, clenching it in my fists, ready to tell them that I'm the one who lied.