Maddy wasn’t stupid. She had to believe, on some level, that this was completely her fault. And now she was trapped, living with guilt about what had happened. Not unlike me. But she had had Alex to get her through it, to tell her to let it go. I didn’t have anybody anymore. Not even Josh.

“I don’t understand why I did it in the first place, why I cared. She was our friend, Alex. Why would I want to screw over my friend like that?”

He looked at me as if I were crazy. “It was the beginning of our junior year, Maddy. We were finally upperclassmen. You were elected homecoming queen, and I had been given a starting position on the soccer team. You … we had everything you ever wanted, except—”

“Except what? Being co-captain of the field hockey team?” It seemed like such a selfish reason. My emotions shifted. I didn’t feel bad for Maddy anymore. I was angry, disgusted that my sister had been so catty and concerned with her own popularity that she would treat someone like that.

“Yeah. That is exactly what you wanted, what I assumed you still wanted. Jenna was a shoo-in; it was between you and Molly. You know how it goes, captain spots go to the team members who clock the most playing time, the best players. You and Molly … you were both goalies. If she had missed Sunday practice or played crappy because she was sick, the second captain spot would have gone to you. You weren’t trying to ruin her life, Maddy, just eliminate her chances of becoming co-captain.”

“Of course Jenna was a shoo-in.” The mere mention of Jenna’s name had my blood boiling. The more I learned about Maddy’s life, about her friends, the less I liked Jenna. She had her hands in everything, and none of it was good.

“Don’t blame this on her, Maddy. She may have given you the idea, but you are the one who actually did it.”

“Wait. What?”

“You and I talked about this for days. I told you to let it go. It didn’t matter to me whether you were captain or not. I doubt it mattered to your parents or the colleges you wanted to apply to. You were good, that was enough.”

“Molly was good, too,” I mumbled, remembering the one game of my sister’s I went to. Molly played that day, and she was as good as, if not better than, Maddy.

“She was. But remember, it wasn’t about Molly. It was about Jenna. You were the one who didn’t want to be one-upped by Jenna.”

I already knew the answer to the question I was about to ask. Jenna had made it pretty clear earlier today, but I asked anyway, wanting to see exactly whose side Alex was on. “So she knows. This whole time she’s known that I drugged Molly and she hasn’t said a word? Hasn’t tried to use it against me? Don’t you find that the least bit odd?”

Alex flinched, as if what I said had caught him off guard. “Of course she knows. Her older brother got the pills for you. And no, she would never use it against you. She can be conniving sometimes, I’ll give you that, but she is not that cold.”

I thought about selling her out to Alex, clueing him in to her little ultimatum in the bathroom. It took me less than a second to decide not to. That’d make me no better than Jenna.

But I wasn’t going to let that comment go unanswered either. “I don’t think you know Jenna as well as you think you do, Alex.”

“Maybe it’s you I don’t know as well as I used to.”

He was spot-on there. “Probably.”

Neither of us said anything after that. I’d gotten what I’d come for. I had the answers I had been seeking, but somehow that knowledge didn’t help. Having to carry the weight of my sister’s secret was something I wasn’t prepared to do. I hadn’t signed on for this. I could play Barbie doll, pretend I wasn’t smart, and fake interest in things I hated, but this … I didn’t know what to do with this.

Sitting here in the dark with Alex waiting for the rest of my world to crumble down wasn’t going to help either. “I don’t know what to say.” I didn’t look at him when I spoke, didn’t have the energy to dissect the emotions playing across his face.

“I don’t think there is anything else to say.”

Alex tore the newspaper clipping in two and shoved it in his coat pocket. He could destroy that one and the dozen others sitting in that shoe box if he wanted to. It wouldn’t change anything.

He opened the car door and got out. “Go home, Maddy, and forget about this. It wasn’t your fault, and there is nothing you can do to change what happened.”

I disagreed. An apology to Molly would be a good start.

“Take tomorrow off from school and get a handle on yourself. I’ll cover for you, tell everybody you have a doctor’s appointment or something. I’ll pick you up at three and take you to your field hockey game. And on Monday…”

Alex didn’t finish his thought, but I didn’t need him to. I knew what he meant. On Monday, I had to get up and do it over again. Pretend to be my sister, try to find a way to deal with the emptiness that filled me while making pointless conversation with her friends … with Jenna.

I waited until Alex had pulled out of the lot to start my car. Going home wasn’t an option. Mom was there and Dad was probably trying to coax her out of their room, away from the collection of my stuff she had surrounded herself with. I didn’t need another reminder of how I’d messed everything up.

I pulled out my phone and texted the one lie I was sure Dad would buy: Staying at Jenna’s.

It took a few minutes, but the phone finally chimed with a simple message: Have fun.

I drove around for hours that night, pulled into our driveway twice, then pulled back out. I would’ve gone to talk to Maddy, curled up on the ground beneath my own name, but the cemetery gates were locked at dusk, leaving me with nowhere to go.

It was past midnight when I pulled up across the street from Josh’s house. The house was dark, the streetlight at the end of his driveway broken and flickering to its death. That’s where I spent the night—in my car, parked across the street from Josh’s, watching, remembering, and dreaming about what I would’ve done differently had I known, as soon as I woke up in the hospital, that he loved me, too.

39

The sharp rap on the window jarred me awake. I snapped my head up, making contact with the back of my seat. My neck hurt, not from the sudden motion but from sleeping hunched over my steering wheel for the past few hours.

The knock was softer now but equally urgent. I cleared my eyes and looked toward the window. The thin layer of ice covering the glass made it difficult to see, but eventually I could make out a face. It was Josh. He had his hat and gloves on, his backpack slung over one shoulder. I turned on the car and jacked up the heat before rolling down the window.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

I looked past him to his driveway. Kim was standing there staring straight at me.

“I asked you what you are doing here,” Josh said again.

“Nothing.”

“Go home, Maddy.”

“But—” I started to argue, to tell him to stop calling me that, to give me a second chance, but he waved me off.

“You had your chance yesterday. There’s nothing here for you anymore.”

I didn’t wait for him to walk away this time, couldn’t stomach watching him get in the car with Kim. I put my car in gear and left, driving until I hit the town line. I sat there for hours, parked in the breakdown lane with my flashers on, literally feet away from a new town … a new life.

Nobody stopped to help me. Not one cop or Good Samaritan pulled over to see if I needed help. Funny how I could sit here for two hours and seventeen minutes and not one of the hundreds of people who drove by thought to stop. Yet spend two seconds acting weird in the high school cafeteria and you were suddenly the object of everybody’s attention.

A thousand thoughts flew through my mind about Molly and what my sister had unintentionally set into motion. I knew Maddy was sorry for what she’d done. I could feel it in my heart, saw it in the tears she’d tried to hide the night of Alex’s party. And I’d taken away her chance to apologize to Molly.