Where the Truth Lies (6 page)

“My father works for the government. You know, top secret kind of stuff.” Del seems proud of the fact. “And his wife—my mom—she’s a dermatologist.”

“Why did they send you here right away?”

He shrugs. “It’s not that interesting. I lived with them for something close to three years, and I went to Howard Academy the whole time. Boarding school’s nothing new.”

“But how did you even get in here? We never take new students like this.”

He smiles. The expression goes right to my gut and makes me feel like I’ve been punched in the best kind of way. For just a moment, the coolness of the stream vanishes, and I’m warm all over.
Say my name say my name say my name
. “You ought to know, Emily. Big checks can do big things.”

The explanation seems simple enough. I nod. “Right. I guess they can.”

“And what about you? You’ve always gone to school here?”

“Yes. My dad is the headmaster, so I started in seventh grade. It’s like a family.” I swallow. “You’ll like it here.”

He stares at me. “I already do.”

I have never even kissed a boy. Del is a good six inches taller than me, so as he leans in, he seems much older. I have no doubt he’s more experienced than I am. I feel almost dizzy as he gets closer, a sense of suffocation surrounding me. He smells like cigarette smoke and kerosene and sweat.

“Del? Can I ask you something?”

He bites the edge of his thumbnail. “Sure.”

“Why did you leave your last school?”

He shakes his head ever so slightly. “It’s not important.”

I hesitate. I wonder if he knows about all the rumors going around. “Well, then, what was it? Did you get kicked out?”

“No.” He tilts his head downward. That
smell—
it’s both delicious and gross. But his mouth is so beautiful, his lips full and teeth slightly crooked, so I can tell he’s never had braces. “Can I tell you something?”

I don’t know what I’m doing out here with him. I feel like a little kid. “Sure.”

“I like you, Emily.”

I feel numb. “Del,” I inform him, “you like Stephanie.”

“Do I, now?” He grins.

“Yes. Yes, you do.”

“Stephanie’s a pretty girl.” He considers. “She’s a beautiful girl.”

“Right,” I say. “She’s popular, too. And rich.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Good for Stephanie.” He’s so close to me now that our foreheads are touching. “But I like you.”

I pull away. He reaches out and holds on to my arm. “You don’t know me at all,” I say. My voice is breathy. “And I don’t know anything about you.”

“You know about my family. You know I didn’t learn to swim until I was fifteen.”

“That’s not anything. Tell me something else.” I pause. “Where’d you get your tattoo?”

He shakes his head. “Not important.”

“You’re seventeen. You shouldn’t have one of those yet.”

“Emily, shhh.” He tugs on my arm. “Come here. I want to kiss you.”

For a second, I freeze. He doesn’t like Stephanie. He likes me. We’re alone in the woods. He’s holding on to me. There is nowhere else to go.

He glances down at the tattoo. “If I tell you where I got it, will you kiss me?”

“No. We should go back.”

But he ignores me. “A few years ago, my sister and I were in the same foster home. It was the last time I saw her. Her name is Melody.”

“You told me her name already.”

“It wasn’t a good place. Sometimes people … they take in kids just for the money, you know?”

I giggle. “Kind of like here?”

“No,” he says, serious. “Not like here. This place is different.” He licks his lips. “Anyway, my sister hurt herself. She felt like … I don’t know, like damaged goods, I guess. So we had this neighbor who owned a tattoo parlor, and we convinced him to give her a tattoo on her wrist. We convinced him to give one to both of us.”

It occurs to me that what he’s describing is exactly what Stephanie wants to get with Ethan—matching tattoos. Funny, though—the way Del’s telling the story makes it sound interesting and intimate, almost beautiful. Not gross.

“She was hurting herself?” I ask. “What do you mean? Like, she cut her wrists?”

Del nods. “Something like that.”

I can’t even believe what he’s saying. “And you were
fourteen
when you got the tattoo?”

“Yes. I’ve been in foster homes my whole life. My parents now are really good people, though. I got lucky.” He looks at the apple. “My adoptive mom wants to help me get this removed. But I’ll never let them take it.”

“Why not?”

He inches his face closer to mine. “My sister. I don’t know when I’ll see her again. I don’t know where she is. The tattoos are the only thing we have that keeps us connected, you know?”

I nod, but I don’t know. I just know that, as scared as I am, I don’t want to move; I could stay here all afternoon with his breath on my face. It’s like a slow asphyxiation that feels better than anything I’ve ever known

“Why an apple? Why the bite?” I ask, my voice lowered to a whisper.
I’m so sorry, Steph
.

He slides both of his hands to the back of my neck. “Because of sin,” he says. Then he kisses me. His mouth feels almost hot. I hear the stream, the sound of water rushing past me, but I don’t feel cold anymore. I don’t feel scared anymore, either. Del nudges me back against the ground until he’s resting above me, his hands moving from my neck to my hair to my body.

I feel safe. I feel warm and protected, unafraid of the water that’s so nearby. I feel as if, all these years, I’ve just been waiting for him to show up.

Del pulls away for a moment. “Emily,” he asks, “what’s your middle name?”

I smile. “Alice.”

“Emily Alice Meckler.” He traces my lips with his fingertip. “Tell me something else about yourself.”

“I like to sing.”

“Oh yeah? Are you good at it?”

“Yes.” I nod. “Now you tell me something. What’s your middle name?”

He kisses me again, for a long time. I almost think he’s forgotten about the question. Then he pulls back and says, “I don’t know my middle name.”

“What do you mean?” Our lips are touching as we speak.

“I mean I don’t know. I don’t even know if I have one.” There is a part of him that is so unbelievably sad.

I want to stay here with him all afternoon, to make him feel safe and happy. I’ve never felt this way with anyone until now.

“I shouldn’t be out here with you,” I say.

He laughs. “Too late.”

“People will talk about us.” I think of Max and Hillary earlier in Winchester. “They already are.”

“Oh yeah? What will they say?” And he takes his fingertip and brushes it over my eyelids so that they fall closed.

“They’ll say we’re going to get into trouble.” I can feel his face close to mine, his breath against my cheek. “Are we?”

“Yes,” he tells me. “That’s the plan.”

chapter five

About a week after that first afternoon next to the stream, I wake up in the middle of the night. At first I think I’m at home, in my room, and that my mother is trying to wake me up from a night terror. But I’m not; I’m in my dorm room, and before I realize what’s happening Franny smacks me across the face. I take a deep breath and realize that I wasn’t breathing.

This happens sometimes; I lose my breath. It’s just a few seconds’ pause now and then that I have to struggle to get past. Officially it’s sleep apnea, which can be deadly in extreme cases, so it’s horrifying when I wake up trying to gasp, air everywhere and not a drop to breathe.

Even though the smack is justified, I can’t help myself from shoving her away, hard, as I suck in a deep lungful of air. For someone so tiny, she can
hit
.

“God, Franny, what are you doing?”

She blinks. “Waking you up. You seemed like you were having trouble breathing.”

I rub my cheek. “Thanks. What time is it?”

She doesn’t answer. Her typically dull eyes flash with excitement. “I thought someone was breaking in. Look!”

I glance at the clock. It’s past one in the morning; there’s no sound from Stephanie and Grace’s room. Then my gaze drifts to the floor, to the moonlight spreading across it. The light bathes the hardwood floor in a glow, revealing shards of broken glass from the window. Beside it, red and shiny, is an apple.

“What the …”

Franny rubs her hands together in excitement. “It’s for you.” Then, lowering her voice, she whispers, “It’s
Del
.”

She doesn’t have to tell me; only Del would throw an apple. But Franny doesn’t know that.

“Did you see him?” I ask.

She nods. “He’s right outside.”

“Shit,” I say, feeling myself start to panic. “It didn’t wake up Steph?”

Franny shakes her head. Her face is scrunched into a tiny, excited grin. “Emily … do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I say. “We’re friends, that’s all. We spent a lot of time talking the other day. Maybe he can’t sleep.”

Franny isn’t buying any of it. She might be a lot of things, but she isn’t stupid. “Ohhh,” she says, still keeping her voice at a whisper. “You bad friend. Bad
girl.
Stephanie is gonna be
pissed
at you.”

I haven’t talked to Del since last weekend. I don’t know what to say to him; I’m embarrassed by what we did, by how close I let him get to me. The entire afternoon was so out of character for me, I can’t imagine how we could possibly move forward from here. And there’s Stephanie to think of, too. I feel terrible for having sneaked around with Del behind her back; I don’t know how I’ll possibly tell her what happened. My only solution is to pretend that it didn’t happen at all. It’s not going so well; even though I haven’t talked to Del, I can’t stop thinking about him. I can feel him looking at me at mealtimes, and every time we pass each other in the hallway. I know I can’t avoid him forever.

But even though she has her suspicions about what might be going on, Franny doesn’t know about what happened by the stream last weekend, or that I’m eventually going to
have
to tell Stephanie that Del isn’t interested in her; all she knows is that the new, hot boy has just broken our window with an apple and some excellent aim.

The only person who knows what happened over the weekend, besides Del and me, is Renee. I don’t know why I confided in her. Maybe it’s because Stephanie has been in an ongoing session with Dr. Miller for the past four nights, ever since she came home from the weekend at her parents’ house, and I can’t bear the idea of hurting her right now. Or maybe it’s because, unlike the other girls, Renee doesn’t seem at all overwhelmed or intimidated by Del Sugar. She’s just as curious as everyone else, sure, but she’s been around enough famous people to know that, deep down, he’s just like any other boy.

Except I feel like he’s not.

Franny looks at me. In a silent, calculated motion, she reaches toward her face and plucks a single eyebrow from above her left eye.
Gross. “
The doors downstairs are locked,” she says. “There’s only one way you’re getting outside, unless you want to wake up a prefect.”

We both glance toward Steph and Grace’s closed door. “I know,” I say. I bite my lip hard.

“I’ll shut the light off in here,” she offers, “and you can crawl in like a ninja.”

It’s not totally dark in Steph and Grace’s room; Stephanie has a Sleeping Beauty night-light that she’s owned forever, and it’s glowing in the corner of the room, directly beside her bed. It was a birthday present from her parents when she was, like, eight years old. Ethan, I happen to know, has a matching one, except that it’s Prince Charming. They are both extremely attached to their respective night-lights, which I find kind of weird and sad and lovely all at once. I can just imagine Steph showing up at college with hers, trying to explain why she doesn’t want to go to sleep without it.

I creep across their floor on my belly. I crawl to Stephanie’s bed and start feeling around for the rope ladder. So far, she and Grace haven’t stirred.

Until now. Just as my hand closes on the ladder, Grace sits up in bed. I can’t see her, but I can hear her weight shifting on the mattress. When I look up, unable to contain a guilty expression, she’s leaning over the top bunk, staring at me upside down. “Emily,” she whispers. “You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing?”

“I’m—uh—” I tug the ladder out from under the bed, still crawling on my belly, and press a finger to my lips. “Shhh. Don’t wake up Steph, okay?”

Grace’s eyes go wide. “You!” she says, her voice so loud that I cringe. “You’re going to meet Del Sugar, aren’t you? You’re going to fall in love with him. Oh my God, is he outside now?” She’s wide-awake, sitting all the way up in bed.

“Shhh!” Franny hisses from our bedroom. “Emily is being a ninja. We need quiet!”

“I just want the ladder,” I say, refusing to elaborate.

“What for? Sneaking out? Ohhhh, Emily, you’re so bad! What are you doing? You’re going out with Del, I
know
it.” She pauses. “Sometimes I think I might have psychic abilities, Emily.”

“Okay, well, we can talk about that later.” I’m almost out of their room. I tug the door shut, stand up, and go to our other, unbroken window. As I’m tossing the rope ladder out, Franny shakes her head at me.

I pause. “What?”

“Emily Meckler, I didn’t know you had it in you.” She tugs at another eyebrow. “Should I wait up?”

I hesitate. I want to say no, but I know I’ll want to talk to
someone
about what’s happening. Besides, I don’t want Franny to be stuck cleaning up the broken glass all by herself.

“Yes,” I tell her. “I won’t be long.”

And then I hoist myself over the edge of the window and climb down. The whole thing—the apple, the ladder, the secrecy of everything—feels like a fairy tale. I can’t believe it’s really happening. Not to someone like me, not with someone like Del. I can barely do long division, and he’s a genius. Why is he interested? What could we possibly have in common?

Once I see him, I can’t even force myself to be angry that he broke my window, and that I’m going to have a hell of a time explaining what happened. But I do my best to pretend.

“Are you aware that you broke my window?” I ask, trying to glare at him. “Do you know how much trouble I’m going to be in?”

“You can blame it on me.” He smiles. “I don’t care.”

“Del … ,” and just as suddenly as I’ve managed to muster it, my confidence is lost. I stare at the stone patio beneath us. We are illuminated by a bright moonlight, the rest of campus so quiet that I can hear the wind moving downhill through the branches on the trees. I feel my heart beating faster, blood rushing behind my ears as Del takes a step closer and puts his arms around me.

“You’ll be in big trouble,” I tell him. “I’m serious.”

“I was talking about you with Ethan Prince,” he continues, as though the broken window is nothing at all to be concerned about.

“What did you tell him?” I ask, curious. Why were Del and Ethan talking about me?

“He was telling me all about what a wonderful singer you are,” Del says. “He said you have a voice like an angel, and he doesn’t understand why you won’t join his band.” And he leans in closer to me, kisses me on the forehead. “I told him you were too shy, like you said earlier. But he said he’d known you for years, and that once you worked up the courage, you’d be fine.”

“He said that?” I don’t care anymore, though. I close my eyes as Del kisses my cheek, and then my lips.

“Mmm-hmm. He said you’re in the chorus and you sing in front of other people just fine.”

“That’s different,” I murmur. “Lots of people are in the chorus.” I open my eyes to watch him curl a piece of my hair around his finger.

“Do you ever sing by yourself?” he asks. His pupils are dilated in the almost-darkness.

“Yes. Sometimes I sing when I’m alone, and I feel like I want to … I don’t know, to disappear.” I’m so nervous, it takes real effort to swallow. “When I was a little girl, I used to sing myself to sleep at night in my crib. At least, that’s what my parents tell me. I don’t remember anything like that.”

“Hmmm.” Del tugs at my hair wrapped around his finger. “You get more interesting every day.”

I shake my head. “I’m not interesting. I’m boring.”

“You are interesting. You’re beautiful, too.”

“I’m
not
. I have a pretty voice, that’s all. Having a pretty voice is … it’s nothing.”

Del lets his fingers slide all the way into my hair as he pulls me closer, stepping toward me until our bodies are pressed together. “If you only knew how
not boring
you are, Emily. You don’t see what I see.” He hesitates. Then he says, “Well, it’s good that you aren’t going to be in the band.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because,” he says simply, “I don’t think it would be right for my girlfriend to spend so much time with a bunch of other guys. All those rehearsals together … I’d be jealous.” He smiles. “I’m the jealous kind, you know.”

My girlfriend.
I’ve never had a boyfriend. I don’t know how to be somebody’s girlfriend. Before I have a chance to gather my thoughts, to say
anything
to him, Del asks, “Can you sing me something?”

I shake my head. “No. I told you, I’d be too embarrassed.”

“Come on.” He sniffles. I’ve noticed that he’s had the sniffles since he got here tonight.

“Are you okay? Do you have a cold?”

“Don’t change the subject. I want to hear your voice.”

“What else did Ethan tell you about me?”

Del looks me in the eye, shrugs. He wasn’t kidding; he almost seems jealous already. I can’t believe he’s just
presuming
that I’ll be his girlfriend. But I’m not arguing. “Why does it matter?” he asks.

“Because you were talking about me behind my back.”

Del kisses the tip of my nose. “He said you were a sweetheart. Sweetest girl a guy could hope to know.” He sniffles again. “Sing me something. Please?” His gaze is so sincere, his eyes so big and beautiful, I can’t bring myself to tell him no.

“What do you want me to sing?”

He shrugs. “Anything.”

“Okay … ,” and I start with the first thing that comes to mind, the most innocuous song I can think of: a lullaby.

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do.

I’m half crazy all for the love of you.

It won’t be a stylish marriage,

I can’t afford a carriage.

But you’ll look sweet upon the seat

Of a bicycle built for two.

I close my eyes and go somewhere else while I’m singing, someplace where I’m safe, unafraid, and unembarrassed. It’s the only time I feel truly free.

But Del yanks me out of the moment. Before I’m finished singing, he kisses me hard, stepping backward until we’re both against the outside wall of my dorm, the two of us intertwined and sweating in the warm night. As he’s kissing me, I don’t care about the window, or how late it is, or anything at all. All I want is to be with him.