If I Lie (6 page)

Entering the cafeteria with its predictable smells (french fries on Mondays, pizza on Tuesdays, mystery meat on Wednesdays, and so on), I twist the chain of my necklace around my fingers and search for a seat away from the crowd. I wait a heartbeat too long.

“You have nerve, Quinn.”

Jamie blocks my path with one fist on her hip, like a model posing at the end of the runway. She takes up a lot of space for such an average girl. My body language says,
Anyone have a rock I can hide under?

The room pops with confrontation. It’s obvious I’m going to pay for defending myself in class.

Jamie’s face glows with hatred and triumph. “I can’t believe you still wear that.” She gestures to the necklace tangled around my fingers. Carey’s class ring dangles from it. “I noticed you weren’t wearing it when you were screwing that other boy.”

She holds up her phone, and I recognize the picture on the screen. She’s blown it up, nice and big. Even after all this time, the photo humiliates me. My eyes burn.
Damn you; don’t you dare cry.

Jamie pretends to study it. “You might want to think about working out, Quinnie. Looks like you’ve put on some weight.”

I can see my future before me in that moment. This—
this
shitty moment—will be every day of my senior year as long as Carey is missing. Repeated over and over again in a thousand different ways. Because I promised him. I love Carey. I’m scared he won’t be found. I’m terrified he won’t be found alive. So even
though it sucks, I suck it up. The sick rolls in my stomach, but I not about to let Jamie break me.

She pushes into my space, a whole six inches taller than my five-foot-one-inch frame. “Who’s in the picture with you?”

This has bothered her for months. She has harped on it. She thought I would spill my guts when the pictures hit the Internet. The more she tries to get a confession out of me, the tighter I close my lips to spite her. Besides, Blake is right. It would only hurt the Breens to admit I’d been kissing him.

Jamie pushes again. “Come on, Quinn. Who was it?”

My mouth opens, as if pulled by her demands.

That’s when Blake steps forward. He doesn’t have to do anything more to command attention. Carey and Blake acted like brothers, but while Carey’s lips tip into quick smiles, Blake waits. I can’t think of another way to describe it. I can never tell what he is thinking. Jamie clearly can’t either, and she backs off in a hurry, watching to see what he’ll do.

“Tell them,” Blake says.

His quiet voice rumbles through the cafeteria like slow thunder. This is the first time he has confronted me in public since the pictures came out. Carey’s best friend confronting the whore girlfriend.

They don’t hear what I do in his words. They are a dare and a plea. Something’s happened since we talked Saturday. Some part of him wants me to tell the truth, so he can be punished alongside me. I’m almost selfish enough to do it. Except then I would
be blamed for his downfall—nobody ever faults the boy—and besides, I still have lingering feelings for him despite my best efforts.

So I repeat his words from Saturday. “Fuck you.”
Fuck you for trying to make me confess for you.
I survey the cafeteria. “That goes for all of you. I don’t owe any of you a thing.”

When I try to walk away, Jamie grabs my arm, her nails digging into my flesh. “You don’t deserve Carey. You—”

“Don’t you get it, Jamie?” I shake my head in disbelief. “None of this matters. He’s missing, and you’re worried about some stupid picture that he already knows about.”

Blake’s head snaps toward me. I hadn’t told him that Carey knew about the picture. I’m sure he’s wondering if Carey figured out Blake’s the one with his hand on my breast, but I’m not about to tell him. It’s revengeful and petty, and I can’t believe how good it feels.

“Fuck with my locker all you want. I don’t really give a shit.”

Jamie tenses. I’ve guessed right. She was behind the damage. Her nails sink deeper into my forearm, threatening to cut my skin. I start to shove her away when Mrs. Breen calls my name.

“Quinn. Principal Barkley’s office. Now.”

Carey’s mother. Just fuck.

*   *   *

In September, on that first day at school, when I entered the principal’s office, Principal Barkley’s secretary had given me a sharp look. The heavy woman bore a strong resemblance to a
marshmallow and, on most days, her personality could be just as sweet. But she’d clearly heard the rumors, and her soft body shivered with disapproval like an overweight terrier when she saw me.

“Ted, the Quinn girl is here.” She said into the phone. While she paused to listen, I had wondered if I would be referred to as “the Quinn girl” by every adult who looked down his or her nose at me. Mrs. Rodriguez set the receiver in its cradle and said in a snotty tone, “Go in. Principal Barkley is waiting on you.”

The only other time I’d been to Barkley’s office had been before the photo leaked. He’d stood to open the door and ushered me in with a cheerful smile. He’d asked about cheerleading, my dad, and Carey. Because in Sweethaven, even the high school principal knew I’d been dating Carey for two years and was going on marriage and 2.5 kids in a house on Do-What’s-Expected Street.

Things had changed, though. Principal Barkley had two sons serving in Iraq, and he’d served in Desert Storm before them.

Barkley didn’t bother to rise from his chair when I entered, and he also didn’t offer me a seat. Instead, when I started to close the door, he gestured for me to keep it open. As if I would make a pass at him. As if a middle-aged man with a bald spot the size of Texas and a bushy gray beard made my knees quake. My hands tugged down the hem of my cheer skirt, and I prayed the visit would end quickly.

Barkley adjusted his ugly tie and cleared his throat.

“Sophie—”

“It’s Quinn.”

“Right. Quinn.”

He folded his hands on top of a file that probably contained a copy of the incriminating photo. My shame in a manila folder. I felt my cheeks burn at the idea that Barkley had seen it, had studied it while deciding whether or not to expel me. Had it given him a cheap thrill?

“Quinn, I think you know why you’re here. You—”

“No,” I interrupted. I’m not sure why I did it, except that I hated how smug he looked.

“I’m sorry?”

Principal Barkley’s confusion acted as a balm to the ache in my belly. “I said, no. I have no idea why I’m here.”

For a single moment, he hesitated. His pompous mask slipped as he tried to figure out if I was screwing with him.

“A . . . compromising . . . picture of you and another boy was e-mailed to members of the school board this morning.”

A moan almost escaped, but I crushed my lips together in time.

Barkley continued. “I’ve been trying to reach your father. I think it’s vital we all get on the same page before this gets out of control.” He tugged on his tie again.

“He left yesterday on a fishing trip with Reverend Cooper,” I admitted. “His phone doesn’t always work up at the lake.” Only that morning I’d still hoped there was a chance this would blow past without him ever finding out.

Barkley cleared his throat again. “Yes, well. Considering his unavailability, I think we can reconvene this discussion when we are able to reach him. Until then, I’d like you to go to class.”

My father would kill me.

Knuckles rapped on the door, and Mrs. Breen’s voice sounded behind me. “I have a question, Quinn.”

Carey’s mother was Sweethaven’s cheer coach and a den mother to the team. More to me. The most painful thing about keeping Carey’s secret was losing his parents. Every time I had had a crisis, I’d headed to the Breens. When my mother left, Mrs. Breen ran her fingers through my hair while I cried in her lap. When my father forgot my fifteenth birthday, Mr. Breen ran to the store for a cake and lame party hats.
I’m sorry, Quinnie,
he’d told me with a crooked grin.
It was Power Rangers or Barbie, and you’ve always struck me as a kickass kind of girl.

Mrs. Breen’s brown eyes, so similar to Carey’s, were bloodshot, as if she’d been crying. If anyone could have made me confess the truth, it was her. The words climbed back up my throat, but the white lines around her mouth stopped me. Carey had been the first to point out that those lines were a litmus test, proof-positive of rage.

“How could you, Quinn? Carey’s barely been in Afghanistan a few weeks. When he finds out—”

“He knows,” I said.

“What?” Her voice dropped to a near whisper at my words.

“Carey knows.”

She wanted to slap me. I could see her hand itching with the urge. She gathered herself.

“If he dies, I won’t forgive you.” She paused. “You’re off the team, Quinn. What you did—the picture—you signed a contract when you joined the squad. To be an example for the other kids. I think we can agree that no parent wants their child following your example.”

WhoresluttrampTRAITOR.

Her words were worse than a slap. My head bowed.

“Please go to the locker room and change out of your uniform.”

Barkley said nothing. I rose and turned to leave without making eye contact. Carey’s mother touched my arm when I passed. I looked up, hoping . . .

“Who’s the boy, Quinn?” she pleaded.

Sometimes a moment defines you, defines how people see you the rest of your life.
That’s something my father said, a truism he shared with his troops.
You can accept it or fight it. If you’re lucky, you’ll recognize the moment when it happens.

This was my moment. I could name the boy. I could tell the truth, but it wouldn’t do any good. Everyone had made their minds up. Only Carey could save me, and he wasn’t here. A promise was a promise.

I walked out of Barkley’s office without a backward glance.

“I hope for your sake he was worth it.”

The curse rang in my ears. Part of me couldn’t blame her.
Starring in a photo wearing your lacy best with a half-naked boy draped across your front ranked pretty high on the list of Things Parents Frowned Upon. Having said photo spread like a virus on the Internet and to every mobile phone in a twenty-mile radius? A definite no-no. And what I did was ten times—a thousand times—worse, because the boy in that picture wasn’t her son.

Carey didn’t have a tattoo of a tiny bird on his left lower back, two inches beneath the waist of his pants. Blake did.

Chapter Seven

Principal Barkley’s office looks the same as it did six months ago, and he doesn’t mince words when I am in front of him.

“Some students have organized a candlelight vigil for Carey at Town Hall this evening.”

Understandable. And most likely Jamie’s doing. In our town, Marine families stick together. The vigil is less about Carey than about showing the Breens support. But I don’t see why he would call me in to his office to tell me this. He must see my confusion, because he seems embarrassed.

“The Breens have asked that you not attend.”

I swallow, give a jerky nod, and tilt my head to study his water-stained ceiling so I won’t cry. Not here. Not in front of him.

After Barkley excuses me, I do not return to class. I head for the safety of my Jeep.

*   *   *

Blake is standing in the hall with Angel as I head for the exit, and I avoid their eyes.

“Q?”

Worry punches holes in Blake’s usual bitter tone, but I ignore him. I don’t stop until I am in my Jeep and pulling away from the school. It’s only when I see my reflection in the rearview mirror that I realize I’m crying.

I’m not sure where to go. Home is out, since my father could show up there at any time. People in town would call the school to narc on me for ditching.

I drive to the northern side of Sweethaven. At the edge of Grave Woods, I pull off the road and into a copse of trees. My tires have worn grooves into the mud over the past couple of months. In seconds, I’m parked out of sight of anyone passing on the road. Safe. Lost.

George’s Nikon somehow ends up in my hand, and I strip it of its case, tossing my bag of equipment over my shoulder. It’s cold, but bearable, as I trek the half hour into the woods to the graveyard. With only three graves and said to be haunted, the tiny plot is little more than a few mounds of melting snow bowing to long-forgotten headstones. Nobody knows who Josephine, Thomas, or Susie were, but it’s obvious from the sad state of the stones that they died long ago. Somehow, I feel less alone when I come here.

Snow can be difficult to shoot, but those wasting piles, untouched by tires, are where I focus. If I’m not careful, the pictures
will appear too dark or the snow will come out a shade of blue. The trick is to overexpose—to fool the camera into thinking there is more light than there really is.

Not so different from me. I’ve fooled everyone into thinking I’m more than I really am.