Thirty-Nine

Everything in Drew’s subdivision looked the same. The houses were all built by the same developer in the late eighties. Each one a carbon copy of the other, with only tiny details, like curtain color or a wreath on the door, to tell them apart. I hated my apartment complex, but at least it had personality. To find her place, I always counted the houses from the bus stop. I stopped at the front door and took a deep breath before knocking.

Drew opened the door, then stepped back as if shocked to see me.

“Hey.” The silence stretched out between us. “I tried text-ing you.”

“I know.” Drew looked over her shoulder and joined me on the front step, closing the door mostly behind her.

“Let’s go up to your room—we should talk.”

“My mom’s making dinner,” Drew said.

I didn’t see what that had to do with anything, but we stayed on the stoop. “I know you’ve been worried about me, and there’s been a lot going on—”

“The police came by this morning.”

That shut me up. Her right eye twitched.

“They wanted to know if I knew about your financial situation.” Her voice rose. “They wondered if I was worried since we were supposed to move in a few months and you didn’t have the cash.”

“They’ve looked at my bank accounts?” The temperature of the blood in my veins instantly dropped twenty degrees.

“That’s not what’s important,” Drew spit. “What the hell, Skye?”

I focused on her. “I was going to tell you,” I said softly.

She shook her head. “I gave up my dorm space. Do you get what that means?”

“I—”

She cut me off. “I’ve got nowhere to live. I move in three months. You looked me right in the face and lied.” Her mouth twisted as she said lied, as if the word tasted nasty in her mouth.

My spine stiffened. “You’ve lied too. You never told me that you talked to Paige about Lucy.”

She jolted and shot a quick glance over her shoulder. “Lower your voice. I didn’t tell you, because it wasn’t any of your business.”

“It wasn’t yours either. You just wanted Paige’s attention. We’re graduating in weeks, and you still care about impressing the popular crowd. Paige was never going to like you. She’s not even gay, but you still wanted her to notice you.” I shook my head, trying to clear the storm of thoughts clouding up my brain. “Look, it doesn’t matter—”

“Don’t try and make this about me. Your lie was completely different. Face it, you never really wanted to move.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “What are you talking about? This is all we’ve talked about for years.”

“But you didn’t do anything to make it happen, did you?” Drew shook her head. “You didn’t actually try to save any money.”

A hot ball of anger grew in my belly. “It’s not that easy. You’ve never had to help pay the bills. It’s different for me—I had other responsibilities.”

Drew stared me down. “Bullshit.”

“What?” I spluttered.

“I call bullshit. I never said it was easy to save money, but you had years. Deep down, you were scared to go, and you gave yourself a way out. You can think you are so much more street savvy than me, but you’re scared. You can make up excuses if it makes you feel better, but you never really planned to leave. You lied to me and maybe to yourself, but don’t keep doing it.”

That wasn’t true. I had planned to go. I started to shake. “I need to explain.”

“You can’t come in. My mom doesn’t want me hanging out with you.” Drew’s voice was low.

“What?”

“She’s been watching the news about Paige, and she doesn’t like how you and your mom are exploiting her death. Then with the police showing up, she really lost her shit.”

I stepped back. “I didn’t have anything to do with Paige’s death. You can’t actually think I killed her.”

“No, of course not.” Drew looked away, then shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think.”

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. “What does that mean?”

“The ransom money for Paige would have solved a lot of your problems.” Drew’s voice was tight and tiny.

“I can’t believe you’re saying that. You know me.”

“No. I think I know you and then you do something like this.” She threw her arms in the air, nearly knocking down the wreath of spring flowers her mom had on the door. “You say we’re best friends, but then you keep secrets. You tell me half stories.”

“I don’t tell you everything, because you don’t get it. You get a new winter coat every year. You never wonder if the electricity will still be on when you get home. When you say there’s nothing to eat in your house, what you mean is that you don’t have anything good to eat.”

“It’s not my fault my family has money.” Drew stamped her foot.

“It’s not my fault mine doesn’t,” I fired back.

“Let’s face it. We haven’t been close in a year. You resented me for applying to colleges, for making plans.” Her lower lip shook.

I rubbed my eyes. “I never resented you, but our lives are going in different directions. We’ve been pretending things would be the same. Both of us have been lying to each other.”

“We might have changed, but I still thought we were friends. Or maybe you just didn’t want to be my friend anymore, and instead of being honest, you lied.”

I blinked, trying to figure out how this conversation had gone downhill so quickly. I could feel my throat tightening as tears threatened. “Sometimes I want so badly for things to be different that I don’t want to admit the truth, even to you.” I swallowed over and over.

“Maybe you should just go.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say, so I spun on my heel and marched off. My legs were stiff, and my joints didn’t seem to work right, so my walk was jerky, like a windup toy.

A headache thumped behind my eyes. It was just as well I’d talked to Drew. Now I knew where things stood. I was on my own. I always had been; I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.