Where the Truth Lies (7 page)

He pulls away suddenly. For the first time since I’ve met him, he seems shy, almost embarrassed. He keeps his arms around me but stares at the ground for a minute.

“Hey,” I say. “What’s wrong?”

He looks up at me. “I have one good memory of my mother. At least I think it’s my mother. You know what—I’m sure it was.”

“How do you know?”

He blinks. His pupils grow larger. “Because I just know. And it’s the memory of her singing that song to me.” He shakes his head. “How could you know that?”

I shrug. “I didn’t. I just sang the first thing I could think of.”

He laces his fingers through mine. “We have a connection, Emily.”

“Del?”

“Hmm?”

“When did you go into your first foster home?”

He pulls away. He rubs his tattoo. “I was three. My sister was four. They put us in the same place for about a year, and after that it was hit or miss. My whole life was like that until Doug and Sharon Marshall came along.”

“Those are your adoptive parents?”

He nods. “Yes. But you know … they’re too good for me. I don’t know why they even wanted me.”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so sad. Even being sent away to boarding school in seventh grade seems far better than going from temporary home to temporary home. Better than not knowing where your own sister is.

“What happened to your real parents? Why were you taken away?”

Del shakes his head. “I’m not telling you that.” He’s suddenly, obviously uncomfortable. “I should go. I’m sorry I broke your window. I’ll take all the blame, Emily.” He pauses. “How did you know that song, anyway? Did your mother sing it to you?”

I think about it for a second. “I don’t know. I guess she must have.” I know the song because it’s a popular lullaby, but I can’t remember my mom ever singing it to me. I don’t remember much of anything from when I was young.

“Well, look at what we got here. If it isn’t the headmaster’s little girl with the new bad boy on campus. What would Daddy think of all this, you suppose?”

Digger shines his flashlight right in our faces. Then he shines it past me, against the dorm wall, illuminating the rope ladder. He doesn’t say anything about it, just looks at us with what almost seems like admiration. I can tell he’s pleased with his discovery. “You know what time it is, kiddos?”

Del and I quickly pull apart, shaking our heads. Del shades his eyes as Digger shines the light in his face.

“I’ll tell you what time. Time for all the good girls and boys to be in bed, that’s for damn sure.”

It’s, like, his favorite line in the world. He’s probably been saying it for years to students who are out after bedtime.

Del puts his hands up. “We’re going, man. It’s not her fault. I came over here and woke her up.”

“Uh-huh. You two know you got an audience?” He points his flashlight at Stephanie and Grace’s bedroom window, which is open all the way. Grace, Stephanie, Franny, and Renee are all crowded in the frame, staring down at us. When Digger’s light hits them, they freeze for a moment. Then, one by one, as though we don’t know they’ve been watching us, they lower slowly out of sight. Once they’re all gone, a lone arm—I think it’s Stephanie’s—reaches up to close the window. A few seconds later, the light goes out.

Digger’s flashlight doesn’t shine on my broken window, and he doesn’t say anything about it. But I know he must have noticed.

I work my way up the ladder with unsteady hands, terrified that it will snap and send me falling onto the stone patio below. When I finally climb inside the window, I look to my right and see my roommates, along with Renee, sitting in Grace and Stephanie’s room, waiting for me.

Steph is the first to speak. She’s in a foul mood already because of her parents—not that I blame her. But she really unloads on me, tears welling in her eyes, and I feel so guilty. I am a terrible best friend. What kind of girl steals the boy her best friend likes? A bad girl, that’s who. A bad friend.

“First of all, Emily, I don’t know how you’re going to explain that broken window.” She glares at me. On my way in, I’d noticed that someone—undoubtedly Steph, who is the neatest of the four of us—had already swept up the glass. And she’s right, there really is no good explanation.

“Emily,” Renee says, “we heard you singing to him. What were you
doing
?”

I stare at her. I don’t even know how she got in here; Franny must have woken her up, since she knows Renee and I have been spending more time together lately.

“Yes, our little songstress. Illuminate us, will you? Why were you singing?” Steph snaps. She won’t even look at me now.

“He wanted me to sing something,” I say, hoping it will be enough of an explanation, hoping I don’t have to elaborate:
And somehow I ended up choosing the only lullaby that he remembers his mother singing to him before she lost custody of her children.

It’s weird; I know that. But it’s also sad and touching and just so … fascinating. There are so many unanswered questions surrounding Del, and I have so many unanswered ones of my own. Somehow, even though we barely know each other, I feel like the two of us could find answers together.

My friends are not convinced. “What did you do with him?” Stephanie demands, wiping her eyes.

“Steph, nothing.” I shake my head, maybe a little too insistently. “All we did was kiss. It was a mistake.”

“He’s got
issues,”
Franny says. “Emily, he’s from a foster home. Those kids have experiences we don’t even know about. My first stepfather was a family court judge, and I used to hear all about how screwed up foster kids were. He’s been around, Em. He’s going to …
expect things
.” She stares at her hands. “But I guess they all do, huh?”

“But he’s so
hot
,” Grace chimes in. I can always count on her to be the voice of reason. “So if he wants Emily, I say go for it.”

“He broke our window! With a freaking apple! What are we going to tell people?” Stephanie puts a hand to her forehead in frustration. It looks like she’s about to start crying again. “This is the worst week of my life.”

“Steph, I’m sorry. … Look, I’ll take the blame for the window—”

“I don’t think you should do that,” Renee interrupts.

“Oh, really?” Steph snaps. “Who should we say did it, then? The bogeyman? I think we should just be honest.” She crosses her arms and shoots a glare at Renee. “What are you doing in here, anyway?”

Renee stays calm and cool. She ignores Stephanie. “Say you woke up and found it that way. Say it was vandalism.”

The four of us pause, considering. It’s actually a good idea. Every once in a while, kids from the local public school will come onto campus and mess something up. It wouldn’t be completely unbelievable.

“We’ll have to lie to
Dad
,” Stephanie points out.

Renee smirks. “Like she hasn’t lied to her parents plenty of times before.”

Renee is wrong. I’ve almost
never
lied to my parents. But this situation is different. I’d do anything to avoid getting Del in trouble. “Okay,” I say, “that’s what I’ll do.” I look around at my roommates, at Renee. “It’s late. I’ll go see my dad in the morning. Right now, we should all go to bed.”

Franny falls asleep right away; the girl requires something like ten hours a night just to be functional. It hasn’t been more than ten minutes before I can hear her breathing deeply above me. I’ve always wondered what she dreams about.

There’s a light, almost imperceptible knock on my door. When I open it, Renee is leaning in my doorway, wearing her loosely knotted bathrobe and nothing else.

“We should talk,” she says.

“Right now? We should
sleep
.”

“Like you’re anywhere near sleep.” She tugs me by my elbow into the hallway. We slide down against the wall and sit cross-legged in the dark.

She puts her head on my shoulder. For a moment, I’m surprised by the easy act of affection. Then I’m surprised by how natural it feels. “You really like him?” she asks.

Being close to her is comforting, almost totally relaxing. “I really do, Renee. I’m sorry about Stephanie, but I can’t help how he feels.”

“What do you know about him?”

I shake my head, thinking about the question.
Not much … but it’s enough.
“I know that he’s had a tough life. And I know that he likes me.”

“Lots of boys like you.”

“Oh, they do not.”

“Yes, they
do
. You just don’t realize it.” She sighs. “But Del isn’t ‘lots of boys,’ is he?”

I shake my head again. “Nope.”

“I just want you to be careful, Emily. He was a foster kid. I’m sure he’s seen and done a lot that you can’t even imagine.”

“I know that. I can’t help it.”

She doesn’t say anything. She just reaches over to hold my hand, and we sit that way in the dark, alone, for several moments.

The closeness between us almost feels wrong—like it’s something I should be sharing with Stephanie, and not Renee. I hate to admit it, but it’s been a while since I’ve felt completely comfortable around Stephanie. As much as my easy comfort with Renee calms me, I hate that things are changing, and there’s nothing I can do about any of it. I feel like I have no choice but to hold on to what makes me feel good, and try to hold on to the things that
used
to make me feel good. Life, all of a sudden, has gotten so confusing, so unpredictable. It’s like I don’t even recognize myself.

Renee breaks the silence. “You aren’t just any other girl,” she says. “You know that, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

There is a long pause. “I can’t explain it. I just know. You have that incredible voice. And you’re a sweet girl. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“Well … thanks, I guess.”

She squeezes my hand. “I mean it. Be careful.” And then she stands up, leaving me to sit alone as she disappears into her room. I stare at the door until the light beneath it goes out and the whole world around me seems to become still.

chapter six

Dr. Miller’s office is about as transparently “I’m down with teens” as a high school shrink’s office can get. There’s the mandatory leather sofa and big wooden desk, plus a wall with so many diplomas that it’s almost funny—I’ve never known anyone who went to Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
and
Brown except for her—but then there are all her knickknacks and books: she has the entire Harry Potter series on prominent display (in hardback, of course), all of the Gossip Girl books, and—I’m not kidding—running subscriptions to both
Seventeen
and
Teen Vogue
magazines.

I’m sure there’s some kind of strategy going on here. I mean, a person doesn’t practically collect degrees from the Ivies without learning
something
. My best guess is that she’s trying to keep her thumb on the pulse of what teenagers are into, while trying to find relevant connections between that and whatever problems we might have. For instance, on the same shelf as Harry Potter, there’s a bunch of books on homesickness and grieving the loss of a loved one. Whatever. Despite all her so-called efforts, it seems like Dr. Miller’s favorite panacea is to hand out prescriptions.

She’s a well-dressed woman in her fifties, but she’s too thin and has wisps of gray hair in her blond bob, which makes her look older than she really is; she’s widely known on campus as the Crypt Keeper. Some kids really do find her helpful—or at least they find her prescriptions helpful. I know Stephanie has been sleeping soundly lately, thanks to the same sleeping pills I’m supposed to be taking.

This afternoon, I’m in her office with my parents, who sit on either side of me. I’m agitated, and this is the last place I want to be. Ever since the incident with the broken window (whose explanation I don’t think my father believed for a
second
), Stephanie has barely been speaking to me.

And there’s Del. The more I get to know him, the more I realize he might be the smartest person I’ve ever met. Right after he took his placement tests, they put him in all AP classes. I’ve never even seen the inside of an AP textbook. My grades so far this year have been mostly Cs and a few Bs. I can always count on an A in chorus … but it’s
chorus.

Del doesn’t seem to care about my academic problems. More than once, he’s offered to do my homework for me.

“You’re part of the problem,” I told him one day after lunch as we were standing at my locker together.

“How?” He gave me an innocent stare.

“Because you’re always distracting me.”

“Is that what I am? A distraction?”

We’ve been together for a few weeks, but people still stare when they see us talking. Aside from being with me, Del keeps mostly to himself. He has a tendency to disappear sometimes for entire afternoons or evenings; even I don’t know where he goes, and he won’t tell me.

I know what people are thinking:
what’s so special about her?
What I’ll never tell them is that I don’t
know
what’s so special about me. Del sees something that I don’t, or can’t.

On most nights, after my roommates have fallen asleep, I climb down the rope ladder and sneak across campus to his dorm. He waits for me outside. He always brings this old blanket that he told me he’s owned ever since he can remember, to keep us warm in the cool night air. “I took it from house to house,” he said, watching as I felt the worn fabric, which is threadbare in a few places, between my thumb and index finger.

“What else did you take?”

“Nothing.”

“How many times have you moved?”

He closed his eyes. “From the time I was a kid until I moved in with the Marshalls, I lived in sixteen different foster homes.”

“And you took this blanket with you every time?”

“Yes.”

We were on the ground, beside the stream. “But you’re getting it covered in dirt,” I told him.

He was leaning over me, his cigarette breath warm against my face. He still smokes all the time, just not around me.

“It’s not covered in dirt,” he said. “It’s covered in
you
.”

I don’t know if my parents have any clue what’s going on. If they do, they haven’t said anything yet. Besides, we don’t talk about things like boys when we meet with Dr. Miller. We talk about nightmares.

Dr. Miller, my parents, and I have been having basically the same session for the past year or so. In short, we’re not making any progress aside from what she always says at the end of every session: “So, Emily. It’s very important that you get the rest you need in order to develop into an intelligent adult. I’m going to increase your dosage, and we’ll see how that works.” Then she winks. “Okeydokey?”

Usually I just pretend to go along with whatever she wants to do. But since I’ve been seeing Del, I’ve felt more … I don’t know, more
liberated
. I don’t
want
her to increase my dosage. I don’t want to have to take the pills. All I want is for the nightmares to stop.

So I tell her this, my parents listening. I can feel both of them stiffen at my sides as I speak, more than a hint of annoyance in my voice. They both know that most of the kids treat Dr. Miller as kind of a joke, but I guess she is highly qualified.

She leans forward in her chair, fingertips pressed together, listening. She actually seems excited that I’m challenging her. “So you haven’t been taking your pills on a regular basis?”

I hesitate for only a moment. “No. I only take them when I’m desperate.”

Her eyes are wide with interest. “Desperate for
what
?”

“For rest.
Real
rest—for sleep without dreams.”

“Okay. But everyone dreams, Emily.”

I sit up straight, shaking my head. “Not like me. You know that.”

“You mean sleep without nightmares.”

I don’t say anything. I put my head on my mom’s shoulder. Her body is still stiff. On my other side, I can tell that my father is frustrated by our lack of progress. He’s barely said three words the whole hour. I get the feeling he’s as tired of this as I am.

“Emily, I know I’ve asked you this before, but do the nightmares ever change?”

“Not really. They’re always about fire or water. Sometimes I’m
in
a fire, kind of trapped, like I can’t breathe. Other times it’s nothing but a lot of smoke everywhere. Sometimes I’m in a big body of water, and I can’t find the surface, or else there’s this deluge, like I’m standing under a waterfall. But they all make me feel the same way.”

“And what way is that?”

I swallow. It’s hard to say out loud. “Like I’m going to die.”

“You aren’t going to die, though. They’re only dreams. Dr. and Mrs. Meckler, I know we’ve been over this before, but is there anything at all from Emily’s childhood that might be prompting these memories?”

Over my head, my parents glance at each other. We’ve been through this a million times; I don’t know why Dr. Miller bothers asking. My parents wouldn’t just
lie
to me.

“No,” my mom says. “Nothing I can think of.”

My dad is still quiet.

Dr. Miller taps her fingertips together again. She takes a good fifteen seconds to consider the situation. Finally, she says, “Okay, Emily. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to increase your medication, and I want you to promise me that you’re actually going to
take it
. I want you to take it every night for two weeks. And during that time, I’d like you to keep a detailed dream journal. Every time you have nightmares, write down exactly what happens. Maybe”—she winks—“if you do what I say, we’ll be able to get to the bottom of this and really start dealing with the root issues.”

The
root issues
? I hadn’t even considered that there might be root issues. I’ve never been in a fire. I’ve never almost drowned. What
root issues
could there possibly be?

For the first time since I’ve been seeing her, I decide to do exactly what Dr. Miller wants. I’ll take the pills every night for two weeks. At this point, I’ll do anything to get the nightmares to stop.

But something tells me they’re not going anywhere. I’ll take the pills, I’ll keep the journal, and then she’ll see that they’re only night terrors. People get them sometimes, and I happen to get them a lot. Maybe they’ll never go away. Maybe I’ll learn to live with them. I might not have a choice.

We’re leaving Dr. Miller’s office when my dad puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “Emily. Talk to me in the hall.”

School is over. We stand in the quiet hallway, our voices echoing. “I want you to come home before dinner,” my dad tells me.

I bite my lip. I’d been planning on stopping by Winchester to see if Del was around.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I kind of have other plans.”

“Plans to do what?”

I start to feel uneasy. I almost never go to my parents’ house during the week. “I have plans, that’s all. Why? What do you want to talk about?”

My father stares past me, down the hallway. “Come home. Now.”

While my mom goes upstairs to change her clothes, my dad sits me down in his home office. I don’t know why we can’t sit in the kitchen or the living room like we usually do. In the past couple of weeks, my dad has been more reserved than usual. Maybe it’s because of the broken window. Maybe it’s something else. I honestly don’t know.

Unlike in Dr. Miller’s office, I feel a lot more comfortable relaxing in my dad’s office. I settle on his leather sofa (identical to the one in his office at school, the one in Dr. Miller’s office,
and
the one in the office of our college admission director, Dr. Sendell) and prop myself up on my side while he takes a seat behind his desk.

He opens a white file folder and quietly looks it over. Then he gazes at me with a combination of affection and concern. I’ve seen the look a million times.

“What is it, Daddy?”

“What is it?” He takes a deep breath. He seems weary, older all of a sudden, and I feel a flutter of anxiety in my stomach.

Then he says exactly what I’ve been hoping not to hear: “I’ll tell you what it is, sweetie. Del Sugar.”

His look is grave, but I can’t suppress a smile. I remember the first conversation we ever had about Del, the night of the Dadmobile incident—which my father hasn’t mentioned yet, although the plate is no longer on his car. I remember his quick, cloudy expression of hesitation when I’d asked if I should befriend Del.

“Okaaay,” I say, pretending to be clueless. “What about him?”

“You’re dating him. Is that right?”

I’m not sure why I don’t tell him the truth. Maybe because I know it won’t make him happy.

I try to keep my tone light, but it’s hard. Like I said, I almost never lie to my parents. “No,” I say. “Stephanie likes him.”

He rubs his temples, taking another deep breath. “Emily, don’t play dumb. I am not in the mood for it. I have seen you two on campus together. The Diggers have told me they’ve seen you taking walks off campus. Holding hands. Kissing.” My father stretches his arms behind his head. “I need to know the truth, Emily. Now.”

I hesitate. “Okay. We’re friends.” I nod, like I’m trying to convince myself that it’s the truth. “We’re good friends.”

I can tell my response doesn’t please my father by the way he leans back in his chair, goes “
aghhhhhhhh
,” and then stares at me with wide, tired eyes, and says, “Emily. This doesn’t make me happy. At all.”

All of a sudden, I realize what he’s looking at in the folder that’s sitting in front of him: it’s Del’s whole history, or at least whatever his parents decided to disclose. Seeing the folder makes me think of something else.

“You have a folder like that for everyone,” I say.

My dad nods.

“Even ex-students?”

He taps his fingers impatiently on the table. “Emily, what are you getting at?”

“Can you tell me what happened to Madeline Moon-Park? She just disappeared off the face of the
planet
, and everyone wants to know—”