Caitlin laughed, but inside, she felt a rush of appreciation. She’d known Jeremy for almost her entire life—they did joint Martell-Lewis–Friday family dinners and even family trips, and then later, while she was dating Josh she spent so much time at his house. She hadn’t realized that during all that time, Jeremy had been paying attention to her in a way that Josh never did. He remembered how she’d hated her geometry teacher two years before, and how the first thing she’d had to eat after she’d gotten her braces off was Laffy Taffy, and that her favorite way to rile Taylor up had been to pretend to pull a quarter out from behind his ear, mostly because their uncle Sidney did that and they both hated it. Caitlin could guarantee that Josh remembered none of that stuff. But listening to Jeremy reference all those details? It made Caitlin feel so loved. So . . . noticed.
Jeremy pulled her down onto a bench outside the stationery store. She scooted as close to him as she possibly could, enjoying the warmth of his body as the cool evening breeze brushed her cheeks. “So what did you think of the movie?”
Caitlin wrinkled up her nose, and he tapped it lightly with his fingertip. “I loved it. You?”
“Loved it. But I don’t totally get—”
“—how he was able to switch the formulas and then lure the thing with the tentacles out from under the bench?” she interrupted.
“Exactly. It’s like you read my mind.” He smiled.
Caitlin nuzzled into Jeremy’s peacoat, the navy wool scratching against her cheek. Josh would never have gone to see a Japanese anime with her. He would have dismissed it with a laugh as “too freaking nerdy.”
Jeremy wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. “I wish we could go to one of our houses instead of this cold, hard park bench.”
She sighed. “I know. But maybe we’ll get to do that soon. My moms might come around, you never know.”
Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Things are better?”
“Marginally, anyway. Since we got cleared of the charges for Granger’s murder, they’ve stopped trailing me.” She rolled her eyes.
“Hey!” Jeremy grinned. “That’s awesome. And how about the stuff with me?”
“They’ll come around to you, too,” Caitlin said in a soft voice.
At least, she hoped her moms would. But when she’d told them she was going out with Jeremy tonight, their fakey-fake smiles had dimmed a little.
Suddenly, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She slipped a hand in to grab it and answered without looking at the number.
“Congrats, co-captain!” a familiar voice bellowed into her ear. It took Caitlin a moment to realize it was her soccer coach, Leah.
“Wait, what?” she said into the phone. She could feel Jeremy staring at her questioningly, so she smiled at him and mouthed Coach Leah.
“You and Ursula were elected co-captains!” Leah’s voice was permanently set to booming. “I tallied the votes from today’s practice, and you two were the clear winners!”
Caitlin blinked. “Really?” She couldn’t stop a wide, stupid grin from spreading across her face. She thought after everything, her chances would be shot. And despite the fact that Alex had been arrested, she’d still worried that the Granger association would be a mark against her. Not that anyone had made it clear they even knew about the Granger association, but still.
And yet . . . she was captain anyway. Her grin grew wider. Not even the fact that she had Ursula Winters as co-captain could bring her down. Caitlin and Ursula had known each other for years, playing on traveling soccer teams and bunking together at soccer camps, but they’d always been rivals instead of friends. It seemed like Ursula was always trying her hardest to contradict Caitlin. If Caitlin said something funny, Ursula refused to laugh. If Caitlin suggested the team wear matching headbands for spirit day, Ursula said that was a stupid idea and they should do rubber bracelets instead. Caitlin didn’t know what she’d done to make the girl hate her so much.
Her mind briefly flashed to the conversation they’d had in Ava’s bedroom—the one about the list they’d made in film studies, and how Ursula had been in that class, too. But she quickly whisked the thought away.
“That’s right!” Leah trilled. “Congratulations, Captain! I know you’ll do a great job.”
Before hanging up, Leah said a few more details about how she’d need to start leading drills and helping plan spirit activities. Caitlin hit the END button and pressed the phone between her palms. Then she took a deep breath and looked at Jeremy. “I’m captain!” she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around him.
Jeremy was stiff for a moment. “Captain!” he said slowly. “Of . . . what, the soccer team?”
“Duh! Yeah!” Caitlin released him from her grip and hopped off the bench, dancing a jig in front of him.
Jeremy looked at her cockeyed. “So this is a good thing?”
“Of course it is!” Caitlin stopped, realizing something was wrong. “What is it? You seem . . . I don’t know. Pissed.”
Jeremy looked alarmed. “Of course not! I just . . . I thought you were conflicted about soccer. That’s all.”
Caitlin sat back down. “It doesn’t mean I want to stop playing.” She reached for his hand. “There’s a game in a few weeks where the captains walk onto the field with their Homecoming dates. Will you do that with me? Please?”
“Homecoming?” Jeremy tugged at his collar. “Oh, god. Dances are so not my thing.”
“Come on. It’ll be fun!” She gripped her phone, realizing she had a million people to call. Her moms, Vanessa the Viking, Josh . . .
Josh. Of course she couldn’t call Josh—not with Jeremy sitting right there. And probably not ever. It kind of sucked. Josh would appreciate the captain thing in absolutely the right way. He wouldn’t ask her if she still felt conflicted. He wouldn’t bring up how he hated Homecoming.
Jeremy put his hands around her waist and gave her a squeeze. “Okay, well if you’re happy, I’m happy.” Then he stood. “We should get going. Come on, I’ll drop you off.”
He led her toward the parking lot, and Caitlin trailed behind him, her happy feeling the teensiest bit dulled. It wasn’t that she missed Josh or anything. She certainly didn’t want him back. She just wished Jeremy’s reaction had been . . . different. More enthusiastic. More understanding, the way he was about everything else.
“So,” Jeremy said, squeezing her hand and bringing her mind back to the moment. “Let’s do something Saturday night.”
“Really?” Caitlin’s eyes lit up.
Jeremy nodded. “I’ll plan all the details. You just show up. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, getting on the moped behind him and grinning stupidly. He was going to take her out to celebrate, wasn’t he? Maybe to that new BBQ place they wanted to try. Or that Asian fusion place with the spicy food Josh was afraid of.
Suddenly, Caitlin felt a rush of euphoria. Jeremy was reacting in the right way. She was silly to have ever doubted him.
CHAPTER NINE
THURSDAY MORNING, AVA SLIPPED ON a charcoal DVF wrap dress that hit her mid-calf. She pulled on thick dark tights and knee-high boots, topped it all with a black blazer, then grabbed her widest pair of sunglasses and headed downstairs to meet her father. She could have listed a thousand places she’d rather be going than Lucas Granger’s memorial service, but Ava didn’t have a choice.
“Jigar,” her father greeted her, using the Farsi pet name he had always called her. Her mom used to try to call Ava that, too, but her terrible pronunciation always made her father laugh, so she gave up and called her “Muffin” instead.
Ava adjusted the belt around her waist and smiled at him. “You ready?”
“Yes, my dear.” Mr. Jalali reached for the doorknob but hesitated. He looked at Ava as if he wanted to ask her something, but then he shook his head and started out the door. “What is it?” Ava called after him, running to the Mercedes and sliding in the passenger seat.
Mr. Jalali started the car, then gave her a long, h
eartfelt look. “I just hate that we’re going to a funeral.” He tugged at his collar. “They’re still hard, after all this time.”
Ava swallowed. He was talking about her mom. It wasn’t the only funeral she’d been to—there were others, most recently Nolan’s—but her mother’s had been, of course, the most devastating. She thought back to that horrible day when she and her father sat in the church—her mother’s will had dictated it be a multidenominational service, with both Christian and Muslim traditions—listening to the pastor speak, staring at the big photograph of her mom that they’d picked out together to sit atop her casket. Ava had held her father’s hand tightly through the whole service. In her other hand she was clutching the Beanie Baby dog her mother had given her a few days before the car crash. It had been her last gift to Ava, and suddenly it had seemed like the most important thing in the world.
Ava looked over at her father now, wanting to say so much to him. She missed him so badly; it felt like there was a huge distance between them now, a gap she wanted to bridge. It was sweet of him to come with her to this, she realized. He didn’t have to be there with her. She breathed in, about to say all this, when a crash sounded through the open window. Leslie burst onto the porch, cell phone pressed firmly to her ear.
“No, no, no,” Leslie growled into the phone. “I told you I don’t want any tulips. Tulips look cheap. Do you not understand the ambience I’m trying to create here? This is an important party for my mother. Perhaps I need to find a different floral designer. Because it’s not too late, and I’m sure there are—” Leslie was quiet for a millisecond. “Good. That’s what I thought.”
Ava held back a giggle when Leslie stepped backward and almost toppled over the doorjamb, her free hand flailing wildly in the air. She must have felt Ava’s eyes on her, because she spun around and glared. Then her gaze turned to Mr. Jalali. “Firouz? How long is this thing going to take again?”
Ava’s father shrugged. “A few hours, maybe?”
Leslie looked pained. “I really need you to help me out with the floral design,” she whined, then rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She went back into the house, slamming the door.
Mr. Jalali set his jaw and backed out of the space. Ava stared at the minipurse between her hands, the moment between them now broken. After a minute, her father cleared his throat. “Leslie is trying very hard, you know.”
Ava gawked at him crazily. “In what way?”
“She wants to bond with you,” Mr. Jalali tried.
Ava snorted. The last thing Leslie wanted was to bond.
“She respects you very much,” Mr. Jalali added. “She’s very impressed by how well you’re doing in school, how high you scored on the ACTs.”
Ava stared at him. More likely, Leslie thought Ava had slept with one of the ACT proctors so he’d slip her some answers. Why was it so impossible to comprehend that she got good grades all on her own? And even weirder, why did her dad think Leslie was Ava’s champion? Was he really that blind? What else about Leslie did he not see?
All of the horrible things Leslie had said to her danced on the tip of her tongue, ready to spill out. Her father didn’t seem to realize who the woman he’d married truly was.
But strangely, Ava couldn’t tell him. It seemed petty, like tattling. She wanted her dad to see things for himself.
And truthfully, the conversation she’d had with her friends the other day was still getting to her. She’d told perfect strangers she wanted Leslie dead. She didn’t want that, of course—gone would be nice, but dead? It bothered her, too, that the list was missing. Could someone have found it? Could that someone have it out for them, picking off their enemies one by one, in some crazy attempt to frame them? But who? And why?
No, it was crazy—not even worth thinking about.
Sighing, she slumped down in her seat and looked out the window at the gray, drizzly day, which perfectly matched her mood.
Before long, they’d pulled up to the church. They followed the procession into the old stone building, Ava’s father’s hand pressed firmly against her back. When they walked inside, Ava sucked in a breath. Every pew was filled end to end with her teachers, classmates, and friends. She spied Caitlin at the front, then Mac a few rows back. She looked around for Julie—she was surely around somewhere—but didn’t see her in the throng of bodies. Then, a quick movement in the outer aisle a few rows ahead caught her eye. She saw the flash of a man in a dark suit stepping quickly behind a pillar, then reemerging on the other side. It was a detective, speaking into his cell phone, his eyes flitting across Ava’s row before finally resting on her. She flinched. Had he moved to get into a better position to see her? But why? Now that Alex was in jail for Granger’s murder, they weren’t suspects anymore. Right?
Alex. Ava swallowed hard. Don’t think about it, she told herself.
Her attention turned to a girl in a black blouse who sat hunched over, sobbing loudly into a tissue. Behind Ava, another girl in navy wept so hard she gasped for air. Ava looked around the church and saw several more of her classmates who seemed inconsolable. God, get over it, people, a voice rang in her head. He was just a teacher. And a perv at that.
Then she realized who was crying. There was Jenny Thiel—whose Texas belt buckle had been prominently featured under her bare boobs in a series of sexts with Granger—gazing sadly at a photo montage of their dead teacher through the years, tears streaming down her puffy cheeks. And there was Polly Kramer, whose henna-tattooed hands had been on full display in a lurid series of pictures, rocking back and forth, the light from the stained glass window casting her face in a scarlet shadow. Justine Williams, Mimi Colt . . . they were all here. Every single girl who’d figured prominently on Granger’s iPhone. And all of them were sobbing like the world had ended.
They really loved him, Ava realized with a start.
Ava hadn’t thought it could be more disgusting than a high school teacher messing around with several of his students, in his classroom, and getting them to send him naked pictures. But it was worse—way worse. Lucas Granger had convinced these girls that he loved them. He had manipulated them, lied to them, all so he could fulfill his own perverted desires. She could just imagine him whispering I love you to a dozen girls, and she could see the excitement and nervousness on their faces as they bought it. She still couldn’t understand why the cops had seemed totally unconcerned when she’d told them about Granger’s affairs with his students. Had they even investigated what she said? She’d told them that Granger had hit on her, but it was almost as if they didn’t believe her.
Disgusted, she stumbled toward a seat in one of the back pews, her father sliding in next to her. Sean Dillon sat to her left and gave her a quick nod as she settled in. Ava stared at the altar, where an old priest stood from a chair and patted at his robes before approaching the dais. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sean turn to whoever was sitting on his other side—probably his girlfriend, Marisol Sweeney—and whisper something, before they both broke out in hushed giggles. She tried to ignore them. But she had a feeling she knew what it was about.
The priest adjusted the microphone, placed his hands firmly on either side of the pulpit, and contemplated the crowd. In the brief pause before he spoke, Ava heard a stage whisper from the pew behind her. She didn’t recognize the voice, but she heard the words, which were definitely meant for her ears: “Alex Cohen never seemed right to me.”
And then came the response: “Totally. He was always just a little off, right?”
“It doesn’t surprise me that he beat someone up at his old school,” came the booming whisper behind her. “He always looked like he was about to go apeshit.” The other person let out a snicker in response.
Ava’s father shifted his weight and turned his head ever so slightly. Clearly he heard them, too. He reached over and gave Ava’s hand a reassuring pat.
Ava blinked back tears. She felt suddenly self-conscious, hyperaware of what felt like a thousand eyes on her. Of
course everyone was staring. She was Ava Jalali, the ex-girlfriend of Granger’s accused killer.
Ava felt a pull in her stomach, thinking of all the things she’d learned about Alex recently. Since that first kid went on the news, multiple students from Alex’s old school had now come forward, confirming that Alex beat his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend into a bloody pulp. The only person who didn’t talk, actually, was Cleo, the ex-girlfriend, and Brett, the dude he’d messed up.
Alex had never told her about any of it. Ava hadn’t even known he’d had a girlfriend at his old school—let alone that he’d been so jealous of her new boyfriend he took a fist to his face.
But even knowing this, Ava still couldn’t imagine Alex killing Granger. Was that crazy? Was it insane to want to believe that he was innocent? She was still angry he’d called the cops on her that night—but she couldn’t stop loving him. She hadn’t given up on him. Not yet.
The priest cleared his throat, bringing Ava back to the present. “Life’s saddest event has brought us together today,” he began in a soothing voice. A woman in the front row let out another sob. “We have come to mourn the loss of a child of God—a young man who took it upon himself to fulfill a pure and precious calling. Lucas Granger. A teacher. A guide. A leader. A man who touched the lives of everyone around him. Like another great man who died too young.” He paused for effect, letting his words settle over the packed room. “That’s right. Jesus was a teacher, too.”
A chorus of sniffles and stifled cries echoed around the room. Ava felt a metallic tang in her mouth and fought her gag reflex. Lucas Granger may have been many things, but Christlike certainly wasn’t one of them.
CHAPTER TEN
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, PARKER PICKED AT the nubby upholstery of a chair in Elliot Fielder’s waiting room. Her feet bounced and tapped nervously on the floor. She still couldn’t believe she was here—how desperate was she that the only person she could turn to was the therapist who’d pretty much stalked her?