“You want to talk about what’s true?” Harper said, hopping off the sink and charging toward Miranda. She couldn’t let the conversation go any further—she didn’t know what would happen if she let Miranda finish her thought. “You’re going to tell me about making my own reality? Avoiding the harsh glare of truth?” She forced a bitter laugh. “That’s hilarious. That is fucking hilarious.”
“Harper, I’m just trying to—”
“And here, of all places.” Harper spun around, flinging her arms out toward the filthy stalls. The anger coursing through her felt good. It swept away the misery, and gave her strength. Power. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing, rushing off to the bathroom after every meal? You think I haven’t figured out your pathetic little problem, even if you want to pretend it doesn’t exist?”
“That’s ridiculous, Harper, I do not—”
“What was that about facing the truth? Oh, ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’” Harper said, pouring a bucket of fake sympathy into her voice, “‘but it’ll be good for you to face reality.’ Life isn’t always what you want it to be, after all. You want to be sexy, desirable, and stick thin—but instead all you are is a pathetic closet-case bulimic who’s so incompetent at keeping your oh-so-special secret that the whole world knows what a head-case you are.”
“Harper, stop it,” Miranda whispered, backing away. “Please.”
“And if you want to talk hard truths, here’s another one,” Harper yelled. “Kane will never love you. He knows how you feel, and he’s playing with you. Like a toy. Get it? You’re a joke to him. You’re nothing.”
Harper wanted to stop herself now. She’d gone too far. She pressed her hand against her lips, to stop the flood of words. But the dam wouldn’t hold for more than a second. Screaming at Miranda, forcing the tears out of her, was the only way to drown out everything that Miranda had said. And everything she hadn’t said.
Because Harper could fill in the blanks.
You wouldn’t have to face the fact that maybe you caused this.
Beth would never have done it, if it hadn’t been for you.
Kaia might still be alive if it hadn’t been for you.
You destroyed everything good in Beth’s life—what did you expect her to do?
You still got in the car. You’re still the one who was behind the wheel.
“Shut up!” she screamed, even though Miranda hadn’t said anything. “You’ve been following after Kane like a sick little groupie for all these years, and where has it gotten you? You’re alone, you’re bitter, and you puke your guts out every day like the before version of some Oprah charity project. And you want to lecture me about avoiding the truth? You make me sick.”
Miranda fled, flinging open the door—and slamming into Kane, who was waiting just outside. It was obvious he’d heard everything. She took one look at him, let out a thin cry of despair, and ran away. “Miranda!” he called. “Wait—” But she kept running.
Kane stared after her for a moment, then turned slowly toward Harper. “How could you?” he asked, his voice icy.
She just wanted to crawl into a corner and die. “Kane, I—”
“Don’t.” He’d never looked at her that way before: stern and serious. Disappointed. “Just don’t.” And he spun around and left her behind.
Harper gulped in one deep breath after another, trying to summon up the strength to figure out what to do.
She needed to do something. She needed to fix this, fix everything. But it was all so screwed up. How could all of her friends turn on her like that—why couldn’t they see that Beth was the enemy? Why were they so ready to give her their sympathy and to leave Harper to fend for herself?
You drove them away, a voice in her head pointed out.
But that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She wanted to hear someone rage against Beth for what she’d done. She wanted to hear that she wasn’t the only one who cried herself to sleep most nights, imagining that she could still hear Kaia’s icy laugh.
Or Kaia’s screams.
She wanted someone to blame for everything that had happened. She wanted someone to punish.
And though her friends may have abandoned her, she suddenly realized that she wasn’t alone.
It took a few phone calls and a little detective work, but in Grace, CA, there were far fewer than six degrees of separation between Harper and, well, anyone. She had the phone number in under five minutes. It only rang once.
“Beth?” a voice asked hopefully. “Where did you—”
“It’s not Beth,” she snapped. “Is this Reed?”
“Yeah, but who—”
“This is Harper Grace. We need to talk.”
Sleep was impossible. But Beth had gotten good at pretending. She lay on her side, Adam’s arm curled protectively around her, his face pressed against her shoulder, and kept her eyes closed, listening to his steady breathing. Her arm was twisted at an odd angle and had long ago fallen asleep; her neck ached, and she longed for a tissue with which to blow her stuffed-up nose or to clean the dried tears off her face. But she didn’t want to move, lest she wake him.
She didn’t want him to leave.
Because she was so intently focused on Adam—the comforting pressure of his body, the soft, snuffling sounds he made as he slept, the tickle of his hot breath on her neck—she didn’t hear the door inch open, or the footsteps creep toward the bed. And because she had her eyes closed, she didn’t see the figure standing over her, fists clenched.
But she smelled him. Stale coffee, cigarettes, motor oil, and the faint sweetness of fresh-grown marijuana. She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, hoping he would believe the pose and go away, so she wouldn’t have to face him—not like this.
“Is this a fucking joke?” he growled loudly.
Adam jerked awake and stared groggily at the intruder. Beth opened her eyes and sat up, wondering how much he knew, and how much she would have the courage to tell him.
“We fell asleep,” she lied. “But nothing happened. Adam was just—”
“You think I give a shit what you do with him?” Reed’s voice, usually so warm and slow, pelted her like hail, rapid and unforgiving. “You can screw every guy in town, for all I care. You can fucking die, for all I care.”
And she knew that he knew.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Adam said, about to stand up. Beth put a hand on his back.
“Let me,” she told him. This was her battle to lose. “Reed …” Her voice sounded strangled. Which is how she felt. “I wanted to tell you myself—”
“I comforted you,” he spit out, looking disgusted. “I touched you, I held you, I let myself—” He sagged against the wall and wiped the back of his hand against his mouth, as if to wipe the memory of her off his lips.
“How did you find out?” she asked in a whisper.
Harper stepped through the open door. “I told him.” She glared smugly at Adam. Beth didn’t turn to see his reaction. She didn’t care about anything right now but making Reed understand.
“It was an accident,” she told him, the tears returning even though she thought she’d wept herself dry. “It was a mistake. I should have told you. I know. But …”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because I thought you’d hate me!” she cried.
“You were right.”
“Reed …” Beth lunged toward him, then, pulling him toward her, wrapped her arms around him and clutched his worn cotton T-shirt in tight fists so he couldn’t escape. She expected him to push her away, but he didn’t move, just stood there in her embrace, his arms at his sides, his head staring straight ahead over her shoulder, motionless, like a mannequin. She glanced over at Harper, hating to do this in front of her. But she had no choice. “Up on the roof, I only ran away because—because I was afraid of this. I told you! I told you I didn’t deserve you, that you didn’t really know me….”
“So this is my fault for not believing you?”
“No! No, that’s not what I mean.” She clutched him tighter and closed her eyes again, trying to memorize everything about his body, knowing this might be her last chance. “I just don’t want you to think that I was … I wanted to stay with you. I didn’t want any of this to happen. I wanted to tell you …” She lowered her voice so that only he would hear. “I’m in love with you, too.”
There was no answer.
“Reed? Did you hear me? I love you. And maybe we can find a way—”
He didn’t push her away, or touch her at all, but somehow he stepped out of the embrace, so quickly that Beth found herself holding empty air.
“You make me sick.” His voice was hoarse and expressionless. “There’s no way. There’s nothing.”
“But after everything we—”
“Don’t you get it? There is no we. None of it happened—none of it was real. It was all a lie.”
“It wasn’t! You have to believe me,” she begged, “it was all real. And everything I said was true, except—”
“You’re a liar,” he said flatly. “You’re a killer. You … you took her away from me, and then thought you could just replace her? You’re psychotic.”
“I love you,” she told him again, this time loud and clear. She knew now that it didn’t matter, that he was already gone, but she needed to say the words. She needed them to hang in the air so that there was at least some record of the last good thing in her life, before it faded away.
“I don’t even know you,” he shot back. “I don’t want to.” He pressed his hand over his eyes and hunched forward, as if he were struck by a sudden sharp pain. Beth moved toward him again, but Harper was quicker. She materialized by his side; he took her hand.
Beth felt like her own hand had been dipped in acid.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, the words now sounding meaningless even to her.
“Save it,” Harper sneered, leading Reed to the door. She was no longer holding his hand; now her arm was loosely wrapped around his waist. Beth didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help herself. “No one wants to hear your lame apologies.” Harper paused in the doorway and glared once again at Adam. “Some things are unforgivable.”
chapter
11
Sex on the Beach.
Tequila Sunrise.
Alabama Slammer.
Cosmopolitan.
Appletini.
Mojito.
Kamikaze.
The city was drowning in cocktails, and Harper planned to try them all. The world tipped and turned, spun and sloshed, and she poured another drink down her throat, and another. She drenched her doubts in tequila, showered her guilt with vodka, poured Captain Morgan rum all over the flames that still burst out of a crumpled car, washed Kaia’s wounds in a bath of gin.
Harper wobbled down the Strip, a yard-long margarita in one hand, emptiness in the other. She sucked on the straw. One gulp for Adam, who would never choose her. One for Miranda, who now understood the pain of truth. And the rest for Kaia, who’d left her behind to face it all, alone.
She wobbled. She stumbled. She fell, into the arms of a stranger. His hands were strong, his face gentle, familiar.
“Watch out,” he told her, and she’d heard his voice on the radio, she’d seen his eyes on a billboard. She’d longed for this opportunity—in what seemed like another life. “Too much to drink?” the famous addict asked her.
Too much would never be enough.
“No such thing,” she mumbled.
“Can I help?”
Front-row tickets, Harper wanted to say. Backstage passes. For me and my best friends.
Twenty-four hours ago, it was all she’d wanted. Now she just wanted him to leave her alone. She wanted to forget. She wanted to black out the world.
She wanted another drink.
“I said, can I help?”
She shook her head. The world shook too. The dizziness spun her around, dragged her stomach to her feet. The buzzing in her ears finally blocked out all the words she refused to hear, and a dark fog crowded her vision. She opened her mouth—
And threw up all over the famous man’s leather boots.
She felt better. Empty. And that meant she could start all over again. She held out her glass, slurred out the words.
“Fill ’er up.”
“Fill ’er up,” Miranda told the man with the ladle. The hot fudge sauce came pouring down over four scoops of coffee mocha ice cream with chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles, Heath Bar crumbles, sliced banana, almond crumbles, Oreo wedges, and three Reese’s peanut butter cups. Miranda stuck a cherry on top.
Then she dug in.
She sat at an empty table, hunched over her tray, and shoveled the food down her throat. She should, more than anything, put the spoon down, stand up from the table, and walk out of the buffet; she should prove Harper wrong, once and for all. But her fingers still gripped the spoon and the ice cream still filled her mouth, sliding down her throat though she barely tasted its sweetness or noticed the cold.
And when it was done, she would have more. She would pile her tray high with black-bottom brownies, cream-centered doughnuts, oversize peanut butter cookies, chocolate truffles, vanilla wafers, raspberry sherbet, apple pie, strawberry shortcake, rice pudding, Oreo cheesecake, cherry tarts, and a chocolate soufflé.
She would stuff it in, wash it down, smear her face and hands with chocolate, drop crumbs all over her lap, keep her head down to avoid the stares. She would curse Harper for driving her to a piggish extreme, and then she would curse herself for her weakness, her disgusting desires, and the bottomless hunger that showed no mercy and had no end.
And when she stopped, sick and bloated but still starving, still empty, and still alone, she would hate herself even more. She would feel the fat surging under her skin like an insect infestation. Her stomach would twist and spasm and her body would scream in protest, until she submitted to the inevitable.
She would lock herself in a dirty stall. Pull her hair back into a sloppy ponytail. Lean over the toilet bowl. Promise herself this was the last time. And then stick her finger down her throat.
She could see it all playing out, just as it had too many times before. But even that wasn’t enough to make her put the spoon down. Not as long as she could still picture Kane’s face or hear Harper’s voice.
She knew she would eventually have to figure out what to do next, and face up to her life—and her problems. But in the meantime, she would chew and swallow, chew and swallow, until mouthful by mouthful, she filled herself up.
Blondes and brunettes, C-cups and D-cups, strippers and hookers, showgirls and show-offs, the menu was complete, and available á la carte or as an all-you-can-eat buffet. Vegas wasn’t picky, and neither were its women.
But Adam’s appetite was gone. He felt gutted, wrecked—like this place had chewed him up and spit him out.
Harper had walked away from him; a moment later, Beth had run. And he’d let them both leave. Because he was an idiot—and now he needed to fix his mistake. He needed to find them.
One blonde, five foot four, bright blue eyes, and snow-white skin.
One brunette, wild curly hair with reddish streaks, a wicked smile, just the right curves.
Two women who wanted nothing to do with him. Lost amidst a sea of others who couldn’t get enough.
“Don’t look so sad, sweetie.”
“Want me to cheer you up?”
“Sure I’m not what you’re looking for?”
“I’m all yours, baby.”
But he didn’t want her. He didn’t want any of them. He waded through the redheads, threaded his way through a cloud of blondes, strained to see over the Amazonian warriors of a women’s basketball team, all outfitted in lime green tank tops and short-shorts that hugged their tightly muscled thighs.
They were barely people to him anymore, just a moving mass of soft parts and honeyed voices. And yet he watched them all, because somewhere in the crowd of hair and lips and che
sts and hips, he would find something he recognized—maybe a strand of silky blond. Maybe the curving corner of a smug grin, or a pinkie with a razor-thin scar from a sixth-grade art project gone awry.
They were out there, somewhere, one running away from him, the other running away from everything.
There were hundreds of places they could hide; millions of faces to sift through. And he didn’t even know where to start.
He knew he’d been dealt a bad hand—but everything was riding on this one, and he wasn’t about to fold.
“Fold.” Kane threw his cards down in disgust and moved along to the next table. The games blurred together, and still, he played—he bet, he checked, he passed, he raised, he called, and he lost.
His head wasn’t in the game.
He tossed a few chips on the blackjack table. “Hit me.” A five of clubs slapped down on the table. “Hit me again.” A nine of hearts. “Again.” Jack of spades.
Bust.
She meant nothing to him, he told himself. Or at least, nothing much. She was just a girl, an automatic no-value discard in the poker hand of life. He wouldn’t let himself get fooled into caring, not again. It was a sucker’s bet—the house always won, and losing hurt.
It was why he loved to watch the high rollers throwing their thousand-dollar chips down and walking away with a wink and a shrug. Nothing broke them, nothing even dented. Because they never let the game matter. The good ones chose their table carefully, played the odds, risked only what they could afford to lose, and ditched a cold deck without looking back. It was the only way to play.
“Hit me,” Kane said again as the dealer shuffled through a fresh deck. Queen of hearts. “Hit me again.” King of spades.
Bust.
The best players—the counters—could play several games at once, shifting their focus from one to the other, never letting the money ride too long or leaving while the deck was still hot. Kane did the same thing—just not with cards.
He kept his options open, and his women wanting more. He could spot a winning bet from a mile away, recognized every tell, knew when to smile, when to kiss, when to get the hell out. He could lay down his money and spin the wheel, because with nothing invested, he had nothing to lose.