Truth or Dare (18 page)

“Oh, yes, they will. I'll talk to Val, my new best friend.”

That was too warped for my brain to process. “Okay, but even if they
do
come, the thing is, I'm not sure I
want
to be friends with them after all the stuff that's happened.”

“Buttercup, let me share a little wisdom. In life, it's so important to get things out in the bright sunshine, share your feelings, come to a mutual understanding, and then move on. Otherwise all that negative energy just sits like a dark cloud over your universe. Look at Val and me.”

Was she joking? “Aunt Shelby, you
didn't
share your feelings with Val! For
twenty-five years
! I shared them
for
you!”

“And I'm deeply grateful, Lia. I feel like you made the sun come out for us. But now it's my turn to be there for
you
.”

I bit a hangnail on my pinkie. “What will you do?”

“Don't worry. I have an idea.”

“Okay, but what is it?”

“It's a whole creative process. I'm still feeling it out.”

“Aunt Shelby—”

“You just leave it to me, niecelet. I'll see you tomorrow night!”

♥  ♥  ♥

I guessed that Dad thought I was talking to my aunt about bras or bobby pins or something equally girly, because he let me stay on the phone for more than an hour. When I
hung up he didn't ask me what we discussed; he nuked my spaghetti in the microwave and even let me take it up to my room.

But I couldn't eat.

The relief I'd felt evaporated almost immediately. What exactly would my crazy aunt do? How exactly would she solve all my problems? Even
she
admitted she always “messed up” when it came to “daughter stuff,” so it was hard for me to trust her, especially with a situation this hopeless. And the party idea made zero sense. I couldn't imagine even sitting in same living room as my ex-friends—any of them, including Marley.

And speaking of Marley: If Aunt Shelby asked her new BFF, Val the Former Bully, to force Abi, Jules, and Mak to show up, that wouldn't mean a thing to Marley. If this party was seriously going to happen, I'd need to invite Marley on my own.

But first I'd need to think of a reason for her to accept.

HOW DO YOU INVITE FRIENDS who aren't your friends to a party that isn't a party? That you don't know anything about? That you're not even sure
you
want to go to?

I sat at my desk for almost an hour, puzzling it out. I couldn't just text everyone since I didn't have a phone, and even if I borrowed Nate's, texting seemed kind of weird if we weren't talking. Plus, texts were easy to ignore, and I probably should know who (if anyone) was coming.

It occurred to me that I could make a big-deal invitation if I used a few of my five hundred name labels:

Amalia Jessica Rollins requests the honor of your presence—

But that sounded too wedding-y. And too dress-uppy. Better to make it sound ultracasual:

Please come to a thing

Where: Here

When: Sat @ 6 p.m.

Why: Not sure. Something about dark clouds in the universe?

Finally I gave up trying to do invitations. I just wrote
Lia's, Sat @ 6 p.m.
on four small strips of paper, each about the size of a cookie fortune, and stuffed the strips into seashells from my collection. I had no choice but to give these out tomorrow, because tomorrow was Friday, and this party-ish event was happening Saturday.

♥  ♥  ♥

The next morning outside homeroom, I gave Mak a seashell.

“There's something inside,” I told her.

She looked grossed out.

“Don't worry; it's not alive,” I explained.

I watched her pull out the fortune-cookie strip.

She read it, frowned, then looked up at me. “You know, Lia, I really didn't mean to hit you with that ball.”

“I know.”

“And I'm still so mad at Abi for laughing.”

“Me too.” Then I stopped myself. For all I knew, Mak and Abi could be having one of their five-minute feuds; it would be pointless to get in the middle of it. “So you'll come?”

“Yeah, why not.” She didn't say anything else, or ask any questions about my mystery gathering, which was kind of funny; I mean, I could have been inviting her over to floss teeth. On the other hand, “yeah, why not” counted as a yes, which was the main thing.

I decided to invite Jules and Abi together. Jules would follow Abi's lead in any direction; if Abi was coming (because Val forced her), so would Jules. If Abi refused to come (because she hated me for all eternity), neither would Jules—although she'd probably act all sweet and sorry.

After French, I hurried to PE. I stood in front of Jules's gym locker with the seashells poking out of the pocket of my yoga pants. Finally they both showed up in matching sideways ponytails.

“Can I give you guys something?” I asked. Not waiting
for an answer, I handed them seashells. I'd been wondering if Mak had texted them during the morning, or met them for a secret rendezvous to warn them I was distributing shells—but by the startled looks on their faces, I could tell she hadn't. “There's a note inside,” I explained.

Jules dug it out with her fingernail. “What is this, like, a party?”

“Exactly—it's
like
a party,” I answered. “Can you come?”

She glanced at Abi, who shrugged sullenly.

“Will there be chocolate?” Jules asked.

“Ridiculous amounts.”

Jules smiled. “Sure, we'll come. Thanks, Lia.”

Abi glared at me, but she didn't contradict Jules. Obviously, Aunt Shelby had spoken to Val, and Val had scolded Abi, although who knew about what.

So that meant three ex-friends were coming. Woo-hoo. Marley was going to be the hardest to invite. For one thing, I didn't know her schedule—she was in my homeroom but not in any of my classes, and sometimes she worked in the Resource Room with an aide or a special ed teacher.

Plus, she hadn't spoken to me since the day of Abi's “fun” body-switching question. I knew it was stupid, but I'd kind of thought she'd slip me a drawing—maybe that fantasy tree I'd admired in her sketchpad—as a way of making up after
all the upsetting stuff she'd said. But she hadn't. She didn't make eye contact with me in homeroom or in the hallway. Once I saw her after school walking in the direction of the diner, so I waved—but I couldn't tell if she waved back, or was just pushing her bangs out of her eyes.

Still, I told myself, Marley had only said she “didn't know” if she wanted to be friends—which meant that
possibly
there was a
slight
chance she'd show up at my sort-of-party. Anyway, if we weren't friends, we couldn't be non-friends even worse than now—so there was nothing to lose by handing her a seashell, right?

Since Graydon tutored Marley, I thought he might know where to find her. He and his friends played their card game in the computer lab during lunch sometimes, so I went there as soon as I'd grabbed a yogurt from the cafeteria. And to my shock, there was Marley—in the computer lab—playing the Phantom game with Graydon, Ben, and Jake.

“I AM INVINCIBLE,” she shouted, slamming a card on the table.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ben said impatiently. “Your turn, Gray.”

Graydon looked up. “Hey,” he said, seeing me standing by the door. “You wanna play, Lia?”

“No. I mean no, thanks,” I said hurriedly. “Marley, can I talk to you a second?”

“Now?” She frowned.

“When you're finished?”

“Sure. First I have to annihilate these miserable wretches with my cunning gamesmanship.”

“Shut up and play,” Graydon muttered.

I sat there, eating my yogurt and watching the game. As far as I could tell, Marley was dominating.

Finally she shouted, “VICTORY!”, stood, and did a sort of spazzy touchdown dance that was mainly just flapping her elbows and twirling in a circle. My first reaction was,
Good thing Abi isn't here to see this
. My second was,
So what if she were?

When Marley finished, she came over to me with a grin so wide I could see her green and orange rubber bands.

“You really rock at that game,” I said.

“Yeah, I do,” she stated, as if it were just a fact. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

I handed her a seashell. “Can you come?”

She ran her fingers through her messy bangs.

“I really hope you can,” I added.

“I dunno, Lia. Who else is coming?”

“Well, our other ex-friends.”

“Our?”

“Yeah, I'm not friends with them either now.”

“Huh.” She nodded thoughtfully. “Why are you inviting them, then?”

“It's more like my aunt is.”

“Your
aunt
?”

“Yeah, I don't get it either. She refuses to tell me what she's planning. It'll be something weird, though.”

“Weird how?”

I rolled my eyes. “She's into botanicals and soup and crystals, so it could be anything. And she has these theories about clouds and, I don't know, negative energy in the universe.”

“I'm sorry, what?”

“Yeah, I know. I don't get it either.”

“Well, it doesn't sound like another boring pizza-and-bowling party. But . . .” She shrugged.

“Marley,
please
come. I'm begging you. I need you there for sanity.”

“That's a nice compliment,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Plus, there'll be chocolate,” I added.

She sighed. “All right. I'll come. But I have to warn you, Lia: If anyone picks on me, I'm fighting back.”

“Good. Me too.”

Marley returned to her game. I could have gone to the cafeteria then, but I stayed in the computer lab, watching them play.

WHEN AUNT SHELBY DROVE UP that evening in her rusty old pickup, all she'd tell me was that she had “stuff planned” and tomorrow was “going to be awesome,” and I should “just try to relax.” But relaxing was out of the question. Ever since the Accident, I hadn't been a huge fan of surprises. For me to relax, I needed to know details. And the more Aunt Shelby refused to answer my questions, the more unrelaxed I felt.

At breakfast early Saturday morning, she suggested a distraction: bra shopping. At first I thought she was joking.

“You mean you really want some
blueberry pancakes
, right?” I said.

“Okay, I deserved that,” Aunt Shelby admitted, smiling. “But this time, Lia, no fibbing. I promise.”

I thought about it. “I don't know. Last time you forced me to get what
you
wanted.”

She clasped her hands on her chest. “I won't even come inside the store. You can get whatever you want. Within my budget, of course.”

I almost said no. But then I remembered about the volleyball incident and Ms. Bivens recommending a sports bra for my “girls.” I also considered my maybe-possible boob sighting in the bathroom mirror. Plus, I could see that my aunt was trying to make up for stuff. And if I could shop at Shy Violet's without her interference . . . I said yes.

By ten o'clock we were at the mall. Aunt Shelby had brought along her laptop so she'd have something to do while I was inside the store. I watched her sit herself on a bench, open her computer, and then just space out looking at three teen girls who were debating Starbucks versus Dunkin' Donuts.

Something weird must have happened to my brain, because I decided to ask her to help me shop.

“Niecelet, I think I'm going to cry,” she said. I could see she meant it too. She pulled a tissue out of her computer bag to dab her eyes.

I made myself laugh. “Why? Because we're buying sports bras?”

“Don't make fun, Lia. It's just the whole thing.” Her voice was quivery. “Your mom taking me bra shopping when I was in seventh grade, now me taking you. It's like one big circle, you know?”