Projection (19 page)

Ariel read through the rest of the list, which was, she realized, mostly useless information that would never come up.
But he’s smarter than he looks
, Ariel reminded herself. That was probably the most useful piece of information Jessica could have given her. Because honestly, with his slicked back hair and his super-tanned skin (she
knew
it was bronzer), Rob didn’t look all that smart.

“Hey,” he called upstairs from the den. “Wanna play some Halo?”

“I thought you turned into a pumpkin,” Ariel called back.

“Ha ha,” Rob said. “Come on, let’s play.”

Ariel shrugged and headed down stairs. She was actually pretty good at Halo. She used to play it a lot with some gamer guys she hung out with in middle school before she was popular. But she’d always thought of it as kind of a geeky thing to do. She was actually pretty psyched when she’d learned that Jessica played, too. “All right,” she said. She picked up one of the Xbox controllers, and she and Rob chose their weapons.

“So, Ariel’s the new Gretchen, huh?” Rob asked. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

Ariel shot at an alien on the screen. “What’s so ironic about it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rob said sarcastically. “Maybe that you’ve replaced her with the girl she thinks killed her mom?”

Ariel’s heart almost stopped beating.
So Gretchen does still suspect me
. But she wondered how much Rob really knew. After all, if he thought that she’d replaced Gretchen, then he obviously didn’t know that Gretchen and Jessica were still best friends. Or maybe he was just baiting her. “I haven’t replaced Gretchen with anyone,” Ariel said evenly. She shot at another alien and missed. “Ariel is a friend, the way she always should have been. And Gretchen is still a friend, too.”

“Really? That’s not what I hear. I hear nobody even talks to Gretchen at school. I hear she’s a loser with a capital L.”

“And you’re hearing all of this from who, exactly?” Ariel was trying to sound playful, like they were just joking around. But she was starting to feel uncomfortable. Why would Rob talk to anyone at their school about Gretchen?

“I have my sources,” Rob answered. He paused for a moment to throw a grenade. “I also hear the police might reopen the case. Did you know that?”

“No,” Ariel admitted. She hadn’t heard that. “Why? Do they have a new lead?”

Rob shrugged. “No idea. But I’m wondering if your new BFF has anything to do with it.”

“I don’t think so,” Ariel answered, maybe a little too forcefully. She tempered her tone. “I think you’re just hearing rumors.”

“Maybe. But rumors or not, Nick deserves to know that he’s dating a potential murder suspect.”

Ariel tried not to let her annoyance show.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “You know, most guys would kill to be like Nick.” Rob paused, and his voice became serious. “I used to be like Nick. But I got tied down when I was too young. And I can guarantee you that Nick doesn’t want to end up like me.”

“Why? What’s so bad about you?” Ariel asked. Aliens were coming at them now in droves, and Ariel’s thumbs were moving like hummingbirds, wildly shooting at everything in her path.

Rob sighed. “Come on, Jess. Don’t be a faker with me. I’m thirty-six years old, and I have nothing to show for it. My life sucks.”

Ariel looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
Tread carefully
, she reminded herself. “Well, have you ever considered leaving Michelle if you’re that unhappy?”

Rob turned his head away from the screen to look at her. “I’m sorry, were you not actually on the phone all of those times that I called you at boarding school to tell you that I wanted to leave her? Was I talking to someone else all those times when I told you that I was trying to save up enough money to live on my own?”

Ariel’s pulse quickened. She was quickly losing her hold on Rule Number Four. Better just to stay quiet.

On the screen, their characters got caught in an explosion and died simultaneously.

“Shit!” Rob shouted. He tossed the remote angrily onto the couch next to him. He turned to look at her. “Look, I’m not leaving her. I’ll never have enough money to live on my own, and I’m not willing to get a lawyer and call her bluff. She’s crazy, and she’s got me trapped. End of story.”

Call her bluff? Crazy? Trapped?
Ariel found herself enraged at Jessica.
She tells me that he hates chocolate and that he wears bronzer, but she couldn’t have mentioned this?
But she knew she couldn’t risk asking what he meant by these things; if he and Jessica had already had this discussion, then he’d become suspicious. Besides, she knew above all that she had to trust Jessica and Gretchen above anyone. Even if they were still manipulating her, they shared this secret, this
power
. And it was real. It was more real than anything Rob could offer in the way of excuses for getting out of his relationship with Michelle. An awkward silence fell over the room.

Rob chuckled. “Hey, don’t get all depressed, kiddo. I’ve still got a plan.”

Ariel raised her eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“Let’s just say that I’m taking steps to improve the quality of my life from within.”

“What are you, like, reading self-help books now?” she asked, hoping that it sounded like something Jessica would say.

“Something like that.” He wriggled his eyebrows. “I’ve just realized that I can physically be with Michelle, but still have a life away from her.”

“I guess that’s a positive way of looking at it,” Ariel
offered. She wondered if this was his way of saying that he was having an affair.

Rob nodded. “Hey, if you see Nick tomorrow, tell him I’ll hook him up for Saturday.”

“Hook him up with what?” Ariel asked, surprised by how quickly he’d changed the subject.

“Whatever he needs. Some dude on the lacrosse team’s having a party.”

“So why can’t you just give it to him? What do you need Nick for?”

“You were gone a long time, Jess. Maybe if you had come home sometimes you would get how things work around here now.”

He sighed, and Ariel detected just the slightest bit of hurt in his voice.
He missed her
, Ariel thought. It was kind of sweet, even if he was a weirdo.

“Let’s just say that Nick and I have a mutually beneficial arrangement,” Rob continued cryptically. “I scratch his back, he scratches mine.”

“What do you mean?” Ariel asked.

But Rob just laughed and shook his head. “It’s just an expression.” He stood up, ending the conversation, and gave her a light peck on the top of her head. “I’m going to bed, Jess. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The text from Jessica
came almost an hour later.

There in 5. Let us in thru the back door.

Finally
, Ariel thought. She’d spent the last hour snooping around in Jessica’s room, but she hadn’t found anything having to do with projection or with Gretchen’s mom’s murder, or with what their intentions toward her really were. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find, though. Jessica knew she’d be
in here. It wasn’t like she was going to leave her diary open on the desk for Ariel to read at her leisure. She realized that whatever information she was going to get would have to come from other people. People who didn’t know they were really talking to her. Like Rob, for example.

Exhaustion swept over her. It was as if she were in some sick and twisted horror movie: trapped inside another girl’s body, accused of committing murder, with her accuser walking around as herself, doing and saying God knows what. She sat down on the bed and put her head between her legs, taking deep breaths in through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. She just wanted to get back to herself. If Gretchen and Jessica really were trying to pin a murder on her, they’d come up with a flawless plan. How better to get revenge than to
be
her—rifling through her things, getting to know everyone who mattered to her. If she hadn’t been their target, she would admire the fact that they’d spent two whole years plotting and planning this.

Then again, she’d agreed. She’d gone along with them. What did she have to hide? If they suspected her, they would find out she was innocent. The truth mattered more than anything else. She knew that now.

Sunday morning breakfast had
only recently become something of a new ritual for Ariel and her mom. It was practically the only time they were able to spend together anymore. Her mom made a big deal of making her favorite things from when she was little: scrambled eggs, bacon, banana pancakes, chocolate chip waffles drowning in syrup. Ariel knew how much her mom loved cooking for her, so she didn’t have the heart to tell her that all she really wanted for breakfast anymore was black coffee and dry wheat toast.

“So,” her mom began, facing her across the table. “Tell me what happened in your life this week.”

That was always what her mom said on Sunday mornings. Usually Ariel would tell her about tests she’d taken at school; she’d give her the dirt on teachers she liked or couldn’t stand; she’d tell her a few, well-edited stories about parties she’d been to or guys she’d been hanging out with. But today, Ariel was finding it hard to talk to her mom at all. After all, what was she going to say?
I learned how to trade souls
with a girl who I think really hates me and is trying to frame me for murder?
Or,
I watched a movie last night with Nick and Jessica and Connor at Jessica’s house, only I was Jessica and Jessica was me, and I had to pretend that I like Connor?

“Nothing much,” Ariel answered as she pushed some eggs around on her plate.

Her mom frowned. “Seven whole days and nothing happened to you? Is something going on with Nick? Are you two having problems?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. Nick’s great. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“They say junior year is the hardest,” her mom offered sympathetically. “All that homework while you’re also trying to manage your social life and worry about college.” She put her hand on top of Ariel’s. “Have you thought about college at all?”

Ariel shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I have to take the SATs this year, but I don’t know where I want to go or anything yet. It’s only October, mom.”

“I know.” She smiled and removed her hand. “I loved college,” she said, getting a faraway look in her eyes. “All of that newness and possibility in front of you. You can totally reinvent yourself. You can become whoever you want to be.”

Ariel looked up at her. Interesting that her mom would pick now to make a comment like that. “I think I just want to be myself,” she replied.

“Of course you do! I wasn’t suggesting that you pretend to be someone you’re not. I just meant that in college, you can put your past behind you, and nobody has to know anything about what you were like before. It’s not coming out right, but you’ll see what I mean.” She paused. “I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time with Jessica Shaw lately.”

“What is it with adults hearing things about people at my school?” Ariel mumbled, suddenly annoyed.

Her mother smirked. “I used to work at Delphi, honey, and I have friends who still do. I can’t help it if they tell me things. Anyway, that girl’s had a lot of trouble in her life, hasn’t she? Her parents died, and she was part of that video scandal a few years ago, right?”

Ariel didn’t even know that her mother knew about the video scandal, let alone who was involved in it. It bothered her that her mom had spies at Delphi who kept her apprised of the gossip there. Ariel had always thought that she alone controlled the flow of information. “Yeah, so what?”

“So, nothing. I just hope she’s a nice girl, that’s all. I wouldn’t want to see you getting in any trouble because of her.”

“I’m not going to get in trouble, Mom,” Ariel groaned.

“It’s just interesting to me that you two connected so fast, that’s all. You know, you actually have a lot in common, when you think about it. She’s an orphan, and you don’t have a father.” Her mom’s tone soured as it always did. “Well, of course, you have one, we just haven’t heard from him in almost seventeen years.”

Ariel didn’t respond. Her dad had taken off before she was born; she didn’t know him, didn’t know what life was like any other way. The fact that he never contacted them bothered her mom way more than it ever bothered Ariel.

“Anyway,” her mom continued, “it’s just interesting. And wasn’t she friends with that poor Gretchen Harris? She’s another one who lost a parent. The three of you could start your own support group.”

As much as she wanted to strangle her mother right now, Ariel had to admit that she’d never thought about this before. They did all have that in common. Plenty of
kids at school had parents who were divorced, but she couldn’t think of anyone else who had lost a parent—literally, like Gretchen and Jessica, or figuratively, like herself. She didn’t know why this suddenly mattered so much to her, but it did.

Ariel was in her
bedroom studying for a chemistry test when her phone buzzed. It was Nick.
Can I come by?

She texted him back right away.
Yeah. Meet u out front?

She was waiting outside for him when he pulled up in his black Ford truck.

“Hi,” she said. She jumped over to him and gave him a happy hug, but he pulled away uncomfortably. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I thought we were in a fight,” he answered, sullenly. “I didn’t sleep last night at all. It obviously didn’t mean that much to you, though.”

A fight?
Jessica didn’t mention anything about a fight when they projected back last night. Ariel’s insides began to boil over as she realized what had happened. Jessica picked a fight with Nick and didn’t tell her on purpose—deliberately breaking Rule Number Five. Jessica was either trying to break them up or trying to test her. Well, two could play that game. Ariel reached out and pulled him to her. “I’m so sorry, babe. I don’t … I wasn’t myself last night. Jessica gave me something when we went into the bathroom together. She said it would make me feel sexy, but I think it had the opposite effect on me. It made me hostile. I swear I don’t even remember fighting with you.”