“Caroline!” Hands land on my shoulders to steady me.
I know that voice, those hands. I freeze, my thumb stuck on the space bar. Liam.
My heart can’t decide whether it wants to flutter with anticipation or sink like a rock. So instead it’s a nauseating rise and fall, like someone has set up a roller-coaster track in my chest.
I glance up to see him frowning at me. His eyes are so blue, though they’re bloodshot at the moment. Once again, just seeing him sends that years-old wave of longing through me.
But this close to him, I can also smell the yeasty scent of beer coming off him, and he’s swaying slightly. He’s clearly been here for a while.
He releases my shoulders. “You’re here for . . .” He pauses.
For me? That’s what he was going to say. The humiliation makes me want to curl up in the first non-nasty corner I can find.
“The beer pong tournament?” he finishes finally.
“No!” I say at the same time.
He looks startled at my volume.
“No,” I say again, my voice high and squeaky. “I’m upstairs. With friends. We’re playing Last Night on Earth. Zombies against humans.” The words escape in a rush, making it all sound like a lie. “It’s a board game. We lost.” Stop talking, Caroline.
“Oh. Del?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Told you he thought you were cute.” Liam’s smile looks sad, and it makes me want to reassure him, to tell him that I still care about him.
But I keep my mouth shut.
A loud cheer rises from somewhere below, and then music kicks on, the floor vibrating with the bass.
“Listen, I wanted to say . . . I’m sorry for how everything played out last week. I just . . . it was a lot of new stuff happening all at once,” he says with a grimace. “And I thought we were on the same page, but we weren’t, and then you kind of . . .”
“Freaked you out,” I say, softening toward him in spite of myself. He was talking about you behind your back to other people. Do you remember the bitchy girl in political science? Do you remember how hard it was to leave your room? But my anger with him can’t get a solid foothold in the face of him apologizing. He’s my Ben; he’s the one who first made me believe I could have more.
“I didn’t know what to do with that,” he admits.
Not making me feel like shit would have been a good start, the voice in my head insists.
I shift my weight uncomfortably. “It’s okay,” I say, putting my phone away and readjusting my grip on the toilet-paper roll.
“Everything is changing so fast,” he says, rubbing the heel of his hand against his eye. “Stella texted me yesterday—she’s with some guy now. From her zoology class.” He gives a bark of disbelieving laughter, but I can’t tell whether it’s because of the guy or the timing or the fact that it was zoology.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. The urge to reach out and soothe him, to touch his arm reassuringly, is overwhelming. But the sharp and bitter memory of him pulling away from me in bed that morning keeps me in check.
“Yeah. It sucks,” he says.
Another cheer comes from the basement along with a muted cry of dismay.
“I . . . I should go. We’re setting up a rematch.” I step around him.
“Wait, Caroline,” he calls after me.
My feet drag to a stop on the industrial-grade carpet, and then I face him.
He rakes a hand through his hair, mussing the blond waves. “I was hoping we could still be friends,” he says. “Maybe start over?”
I don’t know what to say.
“Come with me,” he urges. “Be my beer pong partner.”
Despite everything, the offer makes my insides light up with joy. Stupid, stupid joy.
“What about the redhead?” I ask instead of answering.
“Who?” he asks, confused.
“Scavenger Flag. Your teammate?”
“Oh.” His expression clears. “Kaity. No . . . it’s not like that. Not like us.” He gives me a hopeful look.
My heart jumps. “We would lose,” I remind him, trying to catch my breath.
His gaze searching mine, he steps closer, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s okay. I could use more beer.” Then Liam jerks his thumb back toward the bathroom. “Give me a sec.”
Before I can respond, he disappears inside the guest bathroom and shuts the door.
No one gave him supplies. I clutch mine tighter. Del and Maisy, they’re waiting for me upstairs. Team Zombie is waiting. I like them all, even the people I just met tonight. Gina, Lachlan, and Mayer. I could see myself being a regular part of their game night, if they’d have me.
But Liam is asking for me, asking to start over. How am I supposed to say no to that?
The toilet flushes behind the closed door.
Except . . . I can see how it will go tonight. If I abandon Del and the others and go with Liam, we’ll play—and lose—at beer pong. And at some point, there might be kissing. Again. He’s drinking and lonely, like last time.
And that means there’s a better than decent chance the events of last week will replay in the same fashion. I can’t do that again. I don’t want to do that again. And how much worse will the humiliation be the second time around? I can live without finding out.
Besides, I’m doing okay. I have Lexi and Yarn Club and Film Board and Team Zombie. And that’s after one week of trying.
I’m all right. I don’t need him. The revelation rocks me back on my heels. What Lexi said was right—he’s not a magic bullet.
The door opens and Liam emerges with a frown. “They don’t have any soap.”
Obligingly, I step forward and give him a pump from the bottle Del gave me.
“Thanks, Caro,” he says with a wink, returning to the sink to wash his hands. “Knew you’d have my back.”
Caro?
“I . . . I’m going to go,” I blurt loudly over the sound of the water. I feel like I’m jumping off the edge of a cliff.
“What?” Liam turns the faucet off.
“I have to go,” I say, backing up. “But . . . I’ll see you around.”
“Caroline,” he says. I can hear the hurt in his voice, and I squeeze my eyes shut against it.
It’s enough to make me stop, but I open my eyes and keep going anyway. I don’t want to go through that pain again, not after the effort it took me to get to this point. Maybe it’s weak or cowardly, but I don’t think it is. Sometimes strength is knowing your limits and defending them.
“Did you fall in?” Maisy asks as I rush into Del’s room.
“Almost,” I say.
She snorts with laughter.
Gina pegs Lachlan in the chest with one of our zombie figures. “You guys need to put the seat down, I told you.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m fine,” I say with wonder. Now that I’m away from Liam, away from the temptation of changing my mind, it’s true. Maybe this isn’t how I pictured college and finding friends, but it’s working, and that’s what matters.
I smile at Del as I hand him back the soap and toilet paper. He seems taken aback at first, then he grins at me.
“Ready to try again?” he asks as we settle on the couch.
I look at him and the rest of them gathered around the table. Gina and Lachlan are playing footsie, literally, while Maisy sets up a new playlist on her phone. “We need victory music,” she claims, while Mayer rolls his eyes.
“Yeah,” I say. “I am.”
Chapter Nineteen
My phone buzzes angrily on the desk behind me.
It can’t be morning yet. But opening my eyes a bare slit reveals light filtering in through our closed curtains. With a nine o’clock class this morning, I shouldn’t have stayed out so late last night. The zombies finally won in round four, which meant by the time I helped Del clean up and tracked down Tory, who was not ready to leave and sent me on without her, I didn’t get home until nearly three.
Lexi groans. “Shut it off, Caroline!” A pillow hits my shoulder before falling to the floor.
I reach my hand up and back to fumble for my phone and pull it down, expecting to see my alarm flashing at me. But it’s a call. My mom.
I forgot to finish texting her last night. I didn’t even listen to her message.
Answering the call with one hand, I rub the sleep out of my eyes with the other. “Mom, hey.”
“Caroline, I’m surprised you answered.” She sounds pissed.
I wince. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you back last night. I was out with friends, and I lost track of time—”
She’s quiet for a long moment; then she says, “Friends like Liam Fanshaw?”
Fear shoots through me like I’ve put a penny in a live outlet. “What?”
“Caroline, I know.”
I jerk upright, shoving the covers back. Lexi mouths Is everything okay? but I can’t answer right now, the whole of my focus on my mother.
“What are you talking about, Mom?” My voice sounds weak and shaky, because I’m afraid I know exactly what she’s talking about.
“Caroline . . .” She sighs. “Fine, if you insist on doing it this way.” I scramble out of bed and head for the door. This is not a conversation I can have in front of Lexi.
“I ran into Dr. Fanshaw in the hospital cafeteria yesterday evening,” my mom says as I step out into the hall. “I was working late. We got to talking while we were waiting in line to pay. And she mentioned that she thought Liam might be having some trouble adjusting to his new environment at college.”
Shit. I can already see where this is going.
“And when I mentioned I thought you might be having similar issues—”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“—she asked where you were attending school. Imagine my surprise when, in an amazing coincidence, my daughter and her son go to the same small college in the middle of Iowa.” Fury vibrates in her voice.
“Mom,” I say quickly, opening my eyes. “It’s not like how it sounds. I—”
“Really, Caroline? Because it sounds like, after making up stories for years about this young man whom you don’t even know, you decided to follow him across the country.”
I’ve never heard her this angry.
“Okay, parts of that are true, but you’re making it into something worse than it is. I’m not, like, a stalker.” I hug myself, shivering in the cooler air of the hall, and double-check to make sure my door is closed behind me.
Silence is her only response.
“I’m not!” I insist. “You have to understand the context and—”
“No, Caroline, I don’t. That’s my prerogative as your parent. My job is to protect you, even if it’s from yourself.”
“Mom—”
“I admit, I made some mistakes. Disrupting your life at such a critical time with a move, and then not being . . . as present as you obviously needed me to be, afterward.” She swallows audibly, and guilt rises up to throat-punch me.
“It’s not your fault, Mom,” I say. “I—”
“But you lied to me, Caroline. Not just once, but hundreds of times over the years, and then you continued lying to me even after you swore to me that we were done with this. That you were better.”
“I am better! This is not the same, not at all!”
The door across the hall opens, and Cara sticks her head out into the hall. She holds her finger up against her lips.
I mouth, Sorry, and she retreats to her room.
“Tell me, then, that he’s not why you chose Ashmore. That you’re not continuing to live in some bizarre fantasy world where—”
“Mom, it wasn’t . . .” I take a deep breath. “Look, you’re right, in the beginning I came here for him. I thought if I started over in a new place, if I made myself into a different version of me, one he would like better, then—”
She makes a soft sound of dismay.
“—I would have everything I ever wanted. Friends, a place to belong. All the things that Liam seemed to have. But I was wrong. It’s not about him. It’s about me. And I’m finally figuring it out, okay? I actually was out with friends last night. Real friends. Not Liam.”
“But how am I supposed to believe that?” she asks, sounding defeated and tired. “How am I supposed to believe anything you say, Caroline?”
Panic rises up in me, and I do my best to stomp it down. “Well, when you come here next week, you can see—”
“That’s why I called this morning. I’ve changed my flight.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m coming in Sunday afternoon, and Caroline, when I get there, I want you packed and ready to go,” she says.
My mouth falls open. “Mom! You can’t . . . Everything is . . . I have friends . . . Yarn Club . . . zombies . . . ,” I stammer, unable to find my words.
“I can’t let you do this,” she says. “I won’t let you ruin your life.”
“But Wegman—”
“Wegman agrees with me,” she says.
Oh. Fuck.
“He was very disappointed to hear that you’ve been lying to him from the beginning.”
Shame washes over me.
“I’ll see you the day after tomorrow,” she says. Then she adds, in a softer voice, “I know this must feel like I’m punishing you, but your judgment isn’t . . . clear right now. You’ll understand when you’re older, I promise. I love you.”
The phone goes silent.
I press my back against the cold cinder-block wall and slide to the floor.
She’s coming to get me. She wants me to pack. She wants me to leave!
Lexi opens our door and steps outside, yawning. She’s thrown on a sweatshirt and pulled her hair up into a sloppy bun. “That didn’t sound good,” she comments. “Are you okay?”
I can’t answer. I feel numb everywhere.
“Come on,” she says, extending her hand.
I take it, and she pulls me up from the floor and leads me back into our room.
“So,” she says, settling cross-legged on her bed. “Your mom is pissed about something.”
I pull my knees up to my chest. “It’s . . . yeah. She wants me to leave Ashmore.” My voice breaks on the last word, and tears blur my vision.
Her eyes go wide. “Why? Did something happen at home?”
I shake my head.
“Okay, then what?”
I shake my head again. I can’t tell her. She’ll think I’m a huge freak. Not that it matters, because I’m not going to be here anymore after Sunday anyway.
“Caroline,” she says over a huge yawn. “It’s too early and I’m too tired for this shit. Just tell me so we can figure out what to do.”
We. She means it. The tiniest bit of hope flutters in my chest.
“It’s . . . complicated,” I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. “My dad took off a few years ago with a woman from his work. They’re both doctors, so they’re . . . saving the world or whatever.”
Lexi wrinkles her nose.
“Right? He left me and my mom in New York, and I haven’t heard much from him since.”
“I’m sorry, Caroline. That sucks.” Her mouth tightens in anger, on my behalf.
“It doesn’t . . . it’s fine. Well, it’s not fine, but that’s not the real . . .” I clear my throat. “I never felt like I fit in, even in New York, but it was so much worse when we moved to Arizona. I was a sophomore, and I didn’t know anyone, and my mom was freaking out, blaming herself because I wasn’t ‘adjusting well’ or whatever.” I took a deep breath. “So I started making up stories, things I’d done during the day, places I’d gone, people I’d talked to.”
Lexi’s forehead creases.
“Friends, essentially. I wanted to make her feel better at first, but then I figured out I liked my fake life better than my real one. It got out of hand, and she ended up throwing me a surprise graduation party that no one showed up for. Because most of the friends I’d told her abo
ut weren’t real. I borrowed the characters from my favorite show.”
Lexi’s gaze darts to the Felicity poster above my head. She’s putting the pieces together, and I can’t bear to see her reaction.
I focus my attention on a loose thread in the hem of my pajama pants, wrapping it around my finger until the tip goes purple. “I went to therapy and everything and got her to trust me enough to let me go away to school. Here at Ashmore. I wanted a fresh start—a new me, you know? And I thought I needed Liam for that.” I hesitate. “But I didn’t really know him. Not even as little as I told you.”
I dare to look up and Lexi is watching me, expressionless.
“He was basically a stranger to me—that part of the rumor was true. I just had this idea of him in my head . . .” I rest my forehead on my bent knees. “But I was wrong, of course.” My voice is muffled. “My mom found out about it. That I came here for him, even though that doesn’t matter anymore. He doesn’t matter anymore. She’s freaking out because—”
“You lied.” Lexi’s tone is preternaturally calm.
“Yeah.” I wait for her to say more, but when she doesn’t, I look up, expecting disgust and/or irritation, same as I saw on Joanna’s face on the night of my ill-fated graduation party.
But it’s neither; it’s fury, instead. “You lied,” she says again through clenched teeth. “From the beginning.”
Confused, I’m not sure what to say. “Yeah, I did, but I was only trying to—”
“I shared stuff with you I’ve never talked about with anyone, and you were lying this whole time?” She’s practically yelling. Cara is going to be knocking on our door soon.
“Only at the beginning,” I say desperately, not sure why she’s reacting this way. “And then when we were talking about Liam, I didn’t want you to think I was . . . it wasn’t about you. It was about me.”
“Isn’t it always? So you were pretending to be someone you’re not,” she says. “A little bit here and there, no big deal.”
Now, too late, I get it. It’s not just that I pretended to have friends at home in a few chat messages months ago, or even that I lied about how well I knew Liam; it’s that I did the same thing Jordan had done, in a way. I kept my real self hidden and lied, while she told the truth and was vulnerable. Even after she told me she didn’t want to be friends.