The bathroom cleared, and the noise in the hall quieted down. The next class had started, the entire school going on with their day without me. Slowly I dropped my feet to the floor and opened the stall door. I half-expected somebody to be waiting for me. Maybe Molly. Maybe Jenna. But the bathroom was empty, not even the radiator was making noise anymore.

A long, scratched-up mirror covered the entire wall, making it impossible not to catch a glimpse of myself. I looked hollow and pathetic. Maddy wouldn’t look like this. Maddy wouldn’t hide in a bathroom stall afraid of what people were thinking or saying about her. She’d listen, then twist their words so that she came out on top. I’d seen her do it enough times. I’d even ended up on the twisted side myself more than once.

I fixed my hair, did what I’d seen Maddy do a thousand times—flipped my head upside down and shook it. I didn’t stop until my world spun, which, incidentally, was three shakes in. One last look in the mirror and I opened the door.

18

Alex pushed off from the wall across from the bathroom when he saw me come out. He must have been standing there waiting for me for at least ten minutes. He had my backpack in one hand, his cell phone in the other. He looked up at me briefly, then back to his phone to finish whatever he was texting.

“Hey,” I said as I took my backpack from his outstretched hand.

I don’t know what I expected. Perhaps that he’d hold me or offer to skip his next class and sit with me. Maybe make an attempt to talk me down off the crazy ledge I was teetering on, but what I got was a confusing glare and a nod.

“I saw Molly come out of the bathroom before you,” Alex said as he shoved his phone into his pocket. “She looked … I don’t know, better.”

I wasn’t aware she looked like crap to begin with. “Better than what?”

“Better than she has since she came back. You say something to her?”

I winced, unable to hide the surprise in my face. I’d said hi to her in class and silently begged her not to tell the other girls in the bathroom that I was crouched up on a toilet hiding out, but that was it. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing remotely helpful or sympathetic.

“No, I didn’t say anything to her, but why would it matter if I did?”

“We talked about this at the party, Maddy. It’s safer if we keep her on the outside.”

Alex took a step forward, his body suddenly within inches of mine. I could smell his cologne, see the smooth lines of his jaw and the tiny spot he’d missed when shaving this morning. “You have to trust me on this. You need to keep your distance from her, at least until things settle down and you’re feeling more like yourself.”

The pain in his voice stabbed at my heart and I shook my head. There was a fear behind his words, a fear that I would change my mind and reveal a secret I didn’t even know. My reply was easy, I wouldn’t tell Molly anything—not because I was trying to protect him or my sister, but because I had no clue what he was talking about.

“I wasn’t planning on telling Molly anything,” I said.

I felt his relief and offered him my hand. He took it and laced his fingers through mine. “What happened with Molly is in the past, Maddy, and it needs to stay there.”

Every part of me was begging to ask him what he was talking about. I searched his expression for a clue as to what was going on between Alex and Maddy, and what Molly had to do with it. I got nothing.

I tried to think of a time when something seemed off between them. I remembered the muffled conversation in the bathroom the week before Maddy died—the one about some plan of Maddy’s going wrong—and I remembered the tears streaming down Maddy’s face at the party. But other than that, everything between Maddy and Alex had seemed fine. Perfect, actually.

Alex took my silence for indecision and reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I made sure everything went away. Made certain you got to be co-captain of the field hockey team, prom queen in junior year, the girl everybody wants to be, didn’t I?”

I nodded because agreeing with him seemed like the logical thing to do.

“Seven more months and we’re out of here. We can start over and forget everything that happened. I can keep things together for you until then, but you’ve gotta stop trying to make amends with Molly and remember who you are, how you got here, and what you’ve been willing to do to make sure nobody, including Molly, stands in your way.”

Whatever this was, whatever lie my sister and Alex were covering up, I hadn’t agreed to it. I thought I could put on her clothes, sit in her classes, talk to her friends, and make everybody so happy she was alive that they’d overlook tiny mistakes I made here and there. But this was different. Complicated. Too complicated.

I stared at Alex, unable to speak, unable to wipe the look of sheer confusion from my face. I would have been more than happy to hand the crown of popularity over to Jenna and sink into the background. But what I wanted didn’t matter. The most important thing was keeping Maddy’s life intact, every piece of it, including this.

Alex caught the frustration on my face, his tone purposefully gentling as he pulled out his phone and started to dial my dad’s number. “Maybe your parents were right. Maybe it was too soon for you to come back to school. Maybe you should go and talk to the therapist with your parents, give yourself some more time before—”

“I don’t need to talk to anybody.” I reached for the phone and hit the Off button before the call connected to my father’s office. “I’m fine, Alex, honest. People are acting weird around me, and it makes me … I don’t know, edgy.” The words tumbled out as I desperately tried to bluff my way through the rest of the conversation. Until I figured out what I’d walked into, I needed to keep my cards close. Watch more and say less.

“Probably because you’re acting weird around them,” he said. The concern and confusion that had dampened his features for the past month were suddenly gone, the confident Alex I was used to seeing with Maddy back in place. “Plus, edgy is good. That’s what they’re used to. It’s freaking out in class and hiding in the bathroom that is going to get you in trouble.”

“I know,” I said, trying to sound convincing.

“Molly is where she is today because she didn’t have the strength that you do. And, she didn’t have me. There are plenty of people here willing to take your place. One wrong move and you’ll be exactly where she is now—at the bottom, staring up at where you used to be. I can help you, cover for you and keep you safe, make sure that doesn’t happen, but you gotta let me. You gotta stop shutting me out and talk to me before you lose it.”

I nodded. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

“Listen, Maddy. You can fall apart at home with me if you have to, but I need you to hold it together while we’re here. If you can’t do that, then let me take you home, because trust me, it’s not worth undoing everything we’ve worked so hard to get.”

“I’m fine,” I said again as I hitched my backpack farther up on my shoulder. A chill raced along my spine as I considered my limited options—play the popular sister or go home. The choice was easy. For the foreseeable future, I’d keep my mouth shut, not talk to anybody but Alex, and, if I was smart, start paying better attention to the conversations going on around me. Clearly I’d missed something … a lot of things. And if I was going to survive this mess, I needed to learn about Maddy’s past, fast.

Until that epiphany hit, I’d focus on the small stuff. I’d avoid passing any American Lit tests by more than the bare minimum. I’d feign interest in choosing the color scheme for the Snow Ball, fake interest when Jenna went on about her dress, and come up with something catty to say about the ten pounds her sister had gained. I’d start treating everybody else the way I was used to Maddy treating me—with indifference.