CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

By some miracle, my own phone doesn’t start to ring until we’ve paid for breakfast and we’re hurrying out to the parking lot. I wince before accepting the call.

“Where the hell are you?” Ashley barks.

I cringe. “With Tyrell. We’re on our way back to school.”

“On your way back to school,” she repeats. “Do you know that your father wanted to call the police when he said the school called and you walked out? If the security camera hadn’t shown you driving off with Tyrell, I would have.”

A tear leaks out, stinging my wind-burned cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“Is there something you need to tell me, Kacey?”

I can’t. She’s going to find out about Andrew’s phone calls to Bailey anyway; I doubt Burke is done with Andrew yet, and there’s no way Ashley will let Andrew talk to him alone anymore.

“Go back to school,” Ashley says. “I swear if you don’t, I’ll call the sheriff myself.”

And then for the first time ever, she hangs up on me.

Next to me, Tyrell sucks in a breath and lets out a low-pitched shiiiiiit. “My gas light went on. We gotta stop and fill up.”

“Seriously?”

“We’re already in deep shit. Five more minutes won’t make a difference.”

He pulls up to the pump at the Fill N’ Go and climbs out of the car. I tilt my head to the window as a guy in a Badgers hoodie comes out of the gas station cashier.

Bailey’s brother, Ben. My mouth goes dry as his eyes connect with mine. He looks so much like Bailey it’s spooky: freckles dotting his nose, big hazel eyes. I hold up a hand as Ben walks over to Tyrell’s car.

I open the door and climb out. Ben’s eyes are red. “Hey, Kace,” he says. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

I shove my hands in the pockets of my fleece. “It…I just didn’t want to be there.”

Ben’s eyes flick to Tyrell. He gives him a grim nod. Turns back to me. “I hear you. I just got my leave of absence approved so I could come home and be with my parents.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say, for a lack of anything better.

“I should have been here. I should have come right home, to help look for her. Now it’s probably too late.”

Tears leak from Ben’s eyes. His shoulders drop. There is something so ugly and painful about seeing a big man crying.

“Sorry.” Ben wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. “The whole drive back here, I kept thinking about how I failed her.”

“There’s nothing you could have done,” I say. “And you’re here now.”

“I should have told my parents how reckless she was acting. She was out of control. Bringing your sister to that frat party—”

The insides of my ears go cottony. My sister. Frat party. I must have heard him wrong.

I stare back at Ben. “What?”

Ben sucks teary snot back into his nostrils. “Oh, shit. I thought you knew—”

“Bailey brought Lauren to a frat party?” I can’t control the rage seeping into my voice. I’m so loud that Tyrell looks over. “Was Jade there too?”

Ben nods. “When I saw them I made them go straight home. I should have called my dad—made him come get her.”

I swallow. “When was this?”

“Second, maybe first weekend of October? It was Milwaukee’s homecoming.”

A click, pieces sliding into place in my brain. They took my sister to a frat party while I was away at Madison, visiting schools with Andrew and Ashley.

Tyrell clears his throat. Rests his arm on top of his car. “Kace, you ready to go?”

“Yeah.” I turn back to Ben. Swallow my rage. “Thanks for telling me. About Lauren.”

He nods. “Take care of yourself, okay? And stay in touch.”

It takes all my restraint not to punch Tyrell’s dashboard when I climb back in the car. Ben thinks it’s too late for Bailey, that she’s dead, and for the first time, I hope she is.

Because if she makes it back to Broken Falls alive, I’m not so sure that I won’t kill her myself.

I never intended to lie to Bailey and Jade about where I was that weekend. But I hadn’t planned on going to Madison with Ashley and Andrew, either.

It was the night of parent-teacher conferences when I came home from Bailey’s house and saw the brochure for Madison Art Institute on the dining room table.

“Mr. White gave that to me,” Ashley said over my shoulder, beaming with pride. “He thinks you could get in. He even said he’d write your recommendation.”

My lips tingled; I put a hand to my mouth. I knew Mr. White liked my work, but art school?

“I thought we could visit this weekend,” Ashley said, rubbing my shoulder. “We’re already going to be in the area so Andrew can look at Madison. It’ll be fun.”

Instead of excitement, I felt a flutter of panic. I’d turned down going to visit Madison with Bailey over the summer. I could practically hear her response if I told her I was going with Andrew and my stepmom instead. It’s whatever, Kacey.

Before I could say anything to Ashley, my dad wandered into the room, a takeout container of lo mein in hand. Ashley flashed him the brochure, grinning.

“Wouldn’t it be great if Andrew and Kacey both went to school in Madison?” Ashley gushed. “They could keep each other company on the weekends.”

My dad peered at the brochure. “Art school? Huh.”

The pride in me guttered out. He may as well have said circus camp for all the contempt in his voice.

Something flashed in Ashley’s eyes. “What’s wrong with that? She’s talented enough.”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.” My dad wouldn’t look at me. “It’s just I thought she was thinking something more practical, like culinary school or community college for a year or two.”

Ashley set the brochure down. “Mr. White says having an art degree would give her a leg up in the culinary design world. Anyway, we’re just looking.”

In other words, Please shut the fuck up now. My dad finally looked at me. Forced out a smile. “Whatever you want.”

I wanted to vomit. I tried to tell Ashley I couldn’t take the weekend off, she needed me at the café, but she insisted that I was coming to Madison and we were looking at the Art Institute on Sunday and that was that.

We spent Saturday looking at Madison for Andrew, and the night in a hotel not far from the Art Institute. After dinner, Andrew insisted we play Scrabble in the hotel lobby while Ashley went back to the room. I was feeling bitchy, muttered something about not being in the mood to get my ass kicked.

“What’s really bothering you?” he asked. We were in two armchairs by the hotel bar, watching a woman stir a martini in the middle of an intense argument on her phone. Andrew was trying to make me laugh by filling in the gaps, pretending to be the person on the other end.

“Nothing,” I told him.

“Okay. Sure.” He put his tiles in a pile. “You just thinking about how much you’ll miss me when I go away to college, then?”

I didn’t feel like lying. I’d spent most of my life lying about how I felt so I wouldn’t make other people uncomfortable. I told him everything that had happened with my dad earlier in the week.

“I thought he’d be excited,” I said. “About what Mr. White said.”

“He doesn’t get excited about stuff. That’s just how he is.”

“Not with the Packers,” I answered.

“Yeah, but that’s the Packers.”

When I looked up, Andrew was looking at me, pity in his eyes.

I pulled my knees to my chest. “I’ve never asked him for anything. I don’t expect him to pay for me to go to college.”

“I know you don’t,” Andrew said. “You should let him, though. He kind of owes you.”

The thought brought pressure to my eyeballs. “I don’t want to owe him anything. I already owe your mom so much, for giving me a job. And she’s not even related to me.”

Andrew picked at the beginnings of a hole in the knee of his jeans. “Why do you talk like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re, I don’t know. Not really our family.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. “It’s just. I don’t know.”

“No,” Andrew said. “I kind of get it. Before you moved in with us, I felt the same way.”

We were both quiet. We didn’t need to talk about the dad he doesn’t remember, or the strange looks people gave us in public—that guy must be adopted. We just sat there, arranging our Scrabble tiles, knowing that even if the feeling went away when we were tucked back in our beds at home, for that moment, we didn’t have to feel alone.

I was midway through making the word swimming when my phone buzzed. I had a text from Bailey: Where are you, girl? Let’s do something.

It was stupid to lie, to tell her I was home working on my common app essay. Andrew, Ashley, and I would be home by early afternoon the next day, and she and Jade would never know the difference.

I really thought it would be that easy—just for one night, to have something to myself. A conversation by the fire with the only person I’d ever really been able to open up to completely. I was tired of feeling like every move I made had to be accounted for and approved by my friends.

But Bailey had caught me after all. And when she couldn’t have me, she’d taken Lauren in my place.

Gonzo and a security guard are waiting for Tyrell and me at the front steps, like we’re fugitives about to turn ourselves in. Ashley must have called and told the school we were coming back.

There’s really no point; the day is practically over.

Gonzo stirs when she sees us. I have to stop myself from holding up my hands and saying, I’ll come quietly, Officer. None of this is funny, but it’s also so pathetic it’s hilarious. If you’re going to cut school, you don’t show up at all. Ditching halfway through the day was a classic rookie mistake. It’s like I can’t even fuck up properly anymore.

Meanwhile, my friends managed to sneak my sister out to a party in Milwaukee and keep it a secret from me for months. I imagine blurting this out to Gonzo, like it’s some sort of defense for my behavior. Did you know that Bailey Hammond brought a thirteen-year-old child to a college party?

Gonzo brings Tyrell in for questioning first. I sit outside her office in the chair of shame, tears streaming down my cheeks. I’m not embarrassed; I’m enraged, and crying seems like the least self-destructive reaction right now.

I feel so goddamn stupid. I think of Jade’s face when she saw Lauren the night of the barn, the way she looked at Bailey and said, She’ll tell. They weren’t afraid that Lauren would rat on us for sneaking out—they were afraid she would tell me about the frat party if they didn’t let her come to the barn.

From across the room, Gonzo’s secretary makes a sympathetic face at me. “You want a tissue, hon?”

“No, thanks.”

“Ya know, your mom was really worried about you.” She gives her desk a reassuring pat, realizing she’s too far from me to be of any comfort. “I’ll bet Mrs. G will go easy on you. Maybe just detention and not a suspension.”

I close my eyes, bite my tongue, because she really is trying to make me feel better.

Some murmuring behind Gonzo’s door. Tyrell walks out. Glances at me and mouths detention, and shrugs. Gonzo raps her red-lacquered nails on the door frame, and I get up.

I keep my eyes on the window behind her as we sit and she starts her spiel about how very concerned she and my parents are about me. Gonzo and I have never even spoken before this moment. Outside, the buses are beginning to pull up to the curb.

“When would you like to fulfill your detention?”

I meet Gonzo’s eyes. They’re apologetic, like she’s the one who did something wrong.

“Um, today, I guess.”

“Okay, then.” Gonzo selects a pen from the cat-shaped mug on her desk. Starts to fill out the details of my crimes on a pink notepad. A flash of black between the buses. An SUV curves around them, finds a spot in the strip marked for visitors.

Detective Burke gets out of the driver’s-side door. Shields his eyes from the sun and takes in the school.

“Kacey?” Gonzo raps her desk with her pen. “I asked if you have a way of getting home after detention.”

“My brother—or I can take the bus—” I can’t tear my eyes from Burke ascending the ramp outside. He disappears around the front of the building as the bell rings.

Gonzo tears the pink slip from her notepad and hands it to me. “Go straight to the basement, okay? No side excursions. They’ll be expecting you.”

I nod and stuff the slip in my pocket. I throw my bag over my shoulder and hurry out of Gonzo’s office, but it’s too late. Burke is already here, signing in with the secretary.

When he sees me, he smiles. I pretend that I didn’t see him and head for detention.

He doesn’t follow, which is how I know he’s not here for me anyway.

Ashley is so mad she barely speaks to me when I get home except to tell me I’m officially grounded. I’m to go to school and come straight home.

But perhaps the worst punishment of all is her telling me my father wants to speak with me. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, the chair across from him pulled out and waiting for me.

“I understand you’re going through a really hard time right now.” My dad draws in a breath. “But you are not the kind of kid who skips school.”

You don’t know what kind of kid I am, I want to say. You’ve only known me for a year.

The only time I really get to see my father is on Sundays, in front of the LED flat-screen he indulged in for the very purpose of watching the Packers. Even then, with all of us piled in the room together, he’s usually only interested in talking to Andrew. My most noteworthy interaction with my father was the day Ashley told him one of my sculptures was being entered into the county art fair; he gave my shoulder a squeeze and said, Well, isn’t that something.

I don’t take it personally; he has nothing in common with Lauren and me—we frighten him, with our foreign interests in books he’ll never read and the ever-present threat of finding a tampon in the garbage. Some men just aren’t cut out to be fathers of teenage girls.

But at least Lauren has memories of a time when their relationship was different. When my father was the type of man to play Pretty Pretty Princess with his little girl and would allow a photo of him adorned in a crown and clip-on jewel earrings. When Lauren used to cry over problems he could fix, like a skinned knee or a favorite stuffed animal left behind in a restaurant booth.

I don’t have any of that to look back on. I wish it only made me sad, not pissed off, but my anger and sadness have always had a codependent relationship. I don’t know not to be angry at the fact that who I am now isn’t good enough; that I’m not a little girl.

Because that’s what no one wants to talk about. That at some point, every little girl grows up and gets ruined.

“Okay,” I tell him. “It won’t happen again.”

My dad’s lips form a relieved smile, and it hits me: the words that just came out of his mouth are Ashley’s. It’s the same thing she said to me the other day: You are not the kind of girl who sneaks out. All of this was staged so we could have a deep father-daughter moment.

He picks up his plate, and I have to swallow back the bulb of anger stuck in my throat. “How can you do that? Pretend I’m—you have no idea what kind of life I had before you took me.”

My father turns. Looks at me as if he’s never seen me before. “What?”

“I was a bad kid. I cut school all the time. And when my mom and I fought, I went crazy.”

“Stop that,” he says. “You’re not crazy.”

“But you think she’s crazy. That’s why you left her.”

“Kacey, you know your mother probably better than anyone does.” His eyes are pleading. “She has a lot of problems. I wasn’t equipped to deal with them, so I left. I didn’t ever mean to leave you, too. But she didn’t want me to be in your life.”

“But did she really say you couldn’t see me? Or was it just an easy way out for you?”

My father cups his chin. Sad puppy-dog eyes.

I want to hit him. “Do you have any idea how messed up I am?” I say.

My father gapes. He’s looking at me like a stranger. I wonder if he’s thinking it: Is my daughter fucked up enough to kill her best friend?

The lock in the front door turns. Andrew steps into the kitchen. Hearing the door, Ashley comes in from the living room. No doubt she was listening in on my father and me this whole time.

She looks Andrew up and down. “You said you’d be home from the track meet an hour ago. I’ve been calling you.”

“I didn’t go to the track meet.”

“Then where the hell were you?” Ashley looks from him to me, like I had something to do with this. I think of Detective Burke’s appearance at the school this afternoon and my chest tightens.

“I was at the sheriff’s station,” Andrew says. “They wanted to talk to me again.”

Ashley turns to me, slowly. “Kacey. Please go to your room.”

The argument lasts half an hour. I can’t hear most of it, but the parts I catch are bad. My dad: It doesn’t matter if you’re eighteen. We should have been there.

Ashley: Do they think you had something to do with this?

Andrew: Of course not—just routine questions—

Ashley: About what? Kacey? That detective—has it in for her—

Andrew: They’re talking to everyone—not just Kacey and me—

Andrew doesn’t tell them about the phone records. He’s lying—so he doesn’t worry them, maybe.

Which means that whatever went down in that interrogation room today made Andrew think there’s finally something to worry about.

Later, I have to brush my teeth upstairs, because Andrew is soaking in the bathtub across from my room while Lauren showers upstairs. When I come back to my room, I see my phone blinking and pick it up.

There’s a text from Andrew.

Meet me in the bathroom. Not really in the tub. There’s something I have to tell you.