Cross My Heart, Hope to Die (12 page)

Emma gripped the sides of the ladder and climbed up into the darkness. The musty smell of old paper and mothballs pervaded the attic, which was cluttered with evidence of abandoned hobbies and family history. A pair of downhill skis was propped against a yellowed dress form. Translucent boxes of red and green Christmas ornaments were neatly piled on the floor. A porcelain doll with a cracked cheek sat staring blankly from a child-sized rocking chair. At one end of the attic a few beams of sunlight fought through a small, dirty window that looked out over the backyard.

The attic gave me that same frustrating feeling of déjà vu that I got from all the objects and places of my former life. Some of the objects—a child-sized vanity with a padded pink stool, a North Face frame backpack, a pile of old board games laced with cobwebs—drew me toward them like magnets. I knew they’d meant something to me, but I couldn’t remember what.

Emma stood still for a moment, wondering where the Mercers would have stored Becky’s things. It wasn’t as if there would be a big box in the corner labeled
OUR ESTRANGED SECRET DAUGHTER’S STUFF
. But she knew that Mr. Mercer had been up here recently for the pictures, so she looked around the attic for areas that seemed recently disturbed. Her gaze fell on an ornately carved Chinese chest. A bunch of graying shoe boxes were sitting next to it, as if they’d been recently shifted off the top. The patterns on its rosewood lid were clean and dust free. She braced herself and opened it.

The inside of the chest smelled like tobacco and old newspapers. A stuffed rabbit with one ear was nestled in the leg of a purple Dr. Martens combat boot. Under that she found a silver-plated hand mirror wrapped in a scarf, a bunch of shattered CD jewel cases, a dog-eared copy of Sylvia Plath’s
Ariel
, and a crumpled pack of cigarettes. It looked as if someone had swept up all the contents of Becky’s room and shoved them in the chest. Then, tucked near the bottom, under a pile of faded magazines, she found a composition book covered in doodles. Her heart lurched. She knew a journal when she saw it—she’d certainly kept enough herself. She just never knew her mother had.

Girl Finds Mother’s Old Journal, Contents Change Everything
, she hoped, looking at the book’s cover. Then she flipped the journal open.

The handwriting was painfully familiar, the same untidy scrawl Emma remembered from childhood birthday cards and from the note Becky had left for her at the diner just a few weeks earlier.

At first, the journal’s entries were neat and tidy, dated even down to the time of day:

Emma looked up from the book, a strange ache piercing her chest. She felt as if she was spying on her mother, never mind that almost twenty years had passed. But spying or not, this was her only lead. She turned another page.

The entries went on and on, one every few days. Sketches filled some pages, mostly elaborate abstract designs or flowering vines. An Emily Dickinson poem filled a sheet, with colored-pencil illustrations all around the text. Becky complained about school and her parents. She broke up with one boyfriend and hooked up with another one. She cheated on a third. She was always lonely, even when she was surrounded by people. She sounded surprisingly, almost disappointingly normal—creative and sullen and rebellious, but not crazy.

But about halfway through the composition book the entries started to change. The language became disjointed, the thoughts scattered.
Dog next door keeps barking and if he doesn’t stop soon I may snap
, she’d written one day.
This town is poison. Even the clothes on my back hurt my skin
. And then, one day, just the words
Mama, I’m so sorry
. The writing ran sideways in some places or curled around in weird spirals of text.

Emma turned another page. Her breath caught in her throat. Printed across two facing pages, in enormous block letters, was
Emma
.

On the next page it was repeated in long lines across the paper—
Emma, Emma, Emma, Emma
—in different sizes and scripts, ornate calligraphy and cartoon block letters and colorful sketches sprinkled with stars. She flipped through the pages, faster and faster. The rest of the book was filled with nothing but that one word,
EMMA
, scrawled wilder and wilder, in Sharpie, in pencil, sometimes written so hard the letters tore through the paper.

The book fell out of her trembling hands and hit the floor in a cloud of dust. The attic spun around her like a strange, shadowy carousel. She knew Becky was sick, but this … this was obsession.

I was afraid, too. What was going through our mother’s mind? Had she written this before or after we were born?

The garage door rattled open, and Emma jumped. She quickly slid the journal into her pocket and stood up. As quietly as she could, she went down the ladder, closing the hatch door after her.

The house was silent again when she reached the hall. She frowned and padded down the stairs to the entryway. “Hello?” she called. No one answered. She opened the front door and looked out on the lawn.

She had to blink her eyes several times to clear her vision. For a moment it looked as if an enormous agave plant was wobbling around the Mercers’ yard on uncertain human legs. After the quiet, dim attic, her eyes had to be playing tricks on her.

A moment later the walking plant was replaced by a tall, broad-shouldered boy carrying a giant succulent. She peeked around the plant’s prickly leaves. Thayer.

I swooned. What’s hotter than watching a gorgeous boy carry heavy things? At that moment I would have given anything for hands, just so I could run them over his shoulders and up into his damp, tousled hair.

“What’re you doing here?” Emma asked.

Thayer stopped and grinned at her, balancing on his good leg. “Laurel said your dad’s bummed out that he got hurt in the middle of landscaping the yard,” he explained. “I figured that since it’s partly my fault he got hurt, I should come and help him finish. Besides, I know all about knee injuries,” he said, nodding down at his own bad leg.

A flush of pleasure swept over Emma’s cheeks. She understood what Sutton saw in Thayer. He had so much more depth, and warmth, than she’d realized at first. “Here, let me help you,” she said, grabbing one side of the heavy plant. Together they wrestled it out of the plastic and into the hole Mr. Mercer had dug.

“Careful with the spines, they can hurt pretty bad,” Thayer warned.

“I’m used to cactus spines,” Emma answered. She laughed when they stood up in a shower of dirt. Their arms, even their faces, were covered with it. “It’s really nice of you to help my dad out,” she added, walking toward the willow tree to get out of the hot sun.

Thayer shrugged. “I’m just trying to put things right. As much as I can, anyway.” He glanced at Emma, then blinked, as if he was seeing her for the first time. “Is everything okay? You look kind of pale.”

Emma looked down, thinking about what she’d just found in the attic. “I saw my mom again two nights ago,” she admitted.

Thayer’s long-lashed hazel eyes opened wide with concern. “Where?”

Suddenly the whole story was pouring out of her—the hospital visit, the discovery that her mother had a history of mental illness. The fact that she’d pulled a knife on someone. Emma left out the part about Becky calling her by her real name, but as she told him the rest, she felt the compression around her heart relax ever so slightly. She breathed deeply.

Thayer let out a low whistle. “Damn.”

“I know,” she said. Talking to Thayer was so easy—she already felt calmer, more focused. “The worst thing is that I can’t really tell anyone. Mom—I mean, my adopted mom—doesn’t know, and my dad won’t let me tell her. He says it’d destroy her. I can’t tell Laurel either, and I can’t tell any of the other girls because they’d tell Laurel. The whole thing is awkward and stupid.”

“Keeping secrets for your parents sucks,” Thayer agreed, his expression darkening. He leaned back against the tree, and frowned. Emma watched him from the corner of her eye. Thayer knew all about family secrets. He rarely talked about it, but part of the reason he’d run away from home was to escape his father’s violent temper.

When he spoke, his voice was low. “I never told you this, but I caught my dad having an affair last year.”

Emma’s jaw dropped. “Seriously?” She imagined hotheaded, strict Mr. Vega. His brow was always furrowed, his spine stiff and straight, and he seemed to disapprove of everything. Who would even want to have an affair with him?

Thayer nodded. “Yeah. I caught his girlfriend or whatever leaving our house when my mom was away visiting my aunt. I tried to talk to him about it, but he just blasted me for messing with his business. Acted like he could do no wrong.” Thayer gritted his teeth. “My mom didn’t factor into the equation at all.”

“That sucks,” Emma said softly. She reached over and squeezed his hand. When their skin touched, an electric hum started at the point of contact. Realizing what she’d done, she pulled her hand away, blushing. Thayer looked away, too.

They sat together in silence for a moment. Emma’s hand still tingled from touching his. She felt a little guilty confiding so much in Thayer, as if she were sneaking around behind Ethan’s back. But it wasn’t like that at all. She and Thayer were just friends, and friends were allowed to confide in each other when something was on their minds. Besides, the only reason Thayer was even interested in her was that he thought she was Sutton—his ex-girlfriend.

I hoped she was right about Thayer still being in love with me. Of all the things my death had taken away from me, Thayer had been the hardest to lose.

He stood up carefully, testing his weight on his bad knee. “I should go. I’ve got physical therapy in thirty minutes.”

“How’s that going?”

“Better,” he said. “If I keep working on it, I might even get to play soccer next year.”

Emma beamed. “That’s great!”

“Yeah.” When Thayer smiled, a dimple appeared in his left cheek. “Anyway, tell your dad … well, whatever.”

“I’ll tell him you said hi,” Emma said.

Thayer saluted her, then turned and headed unstably to his car. For a moment, Emma wanted to run to him and hug him good-bye … but something told her that wasn’t a great idea.

Maybe that something was me. I hovered next to her, and together we watched as he started his car and drove away.

13

Emma was still standing on the porch when she heard something creak behind her. Her heart skipped a beat. What if it was Becky, escaped from the hospital? The journal pages covered with
Emma
swirled in her mind. But when she spun around, she came face-to-face with Laurel.

“You scared me,” Emma accused, her hand over her heart.

“Geez, you never used to scare so easy.” Laurel laughed, looping her arm in Emma’s elbow. “Dating a nice boy is making you soft. Now come on, we need to go.” She checked her lipstick in a Chanel compact, then pulled Emma toward the door.