The Girl I Used to Be (9 page)

“Were your parents at the funeral?” I can't remember who he was sitting with.

“They were at work. My dad works for Glass Doctor. But they thought someone from our family should be there, and I didn't have to work on Saturday.”

“Where do you work?”

“Zumiez. At the mall. Mostly I sell skateboards to kids and helmets to their moms.” Medford is so small it has only one mall.

“And where's
your
helmet?” I'm the kind of person who always wears a seat belt or a bike helmet or work gloves. The world is full of too many risks without adding more.

“In my backpack.” He gives me a half shrug. “I don't bother when I'm just street skating, like now. Only if I'm learning a trick. Or at the skate park. You have to wear a helmet there.” His gaze flicks up to me. “Hey, can I ask you a weird question? Can I see your hand for a second? Your right hand?”

“Why?” Unconsciously, I put both hands behind my back.

“I was curious about that scar you have.”

Slowly I put my hands in front of me, palms up. The scar is about a half inch long, near the base of my middle finger, a loop with two trailing ends. It looks like one of those ribbons people wear for breast cancer. Like a broken-open infinity sign.

All I really remember about it is having to get stitches. The doctor said they wouldn't hurt, but they did. That was before I figured out how often adults told you things they only wished were true.

“Do you remember how it happened?”

“No.” Do I?

Gently, Duncan grasps my hand. My heart stutters in my chest. He touches the line with an index finger. “Do you remember who you were with?”

Something inside me freezes, like a mouse I once saw on the floor of my apartment when I turned on the light. It didn't so much as twitch a whisker, as if I wouldn't notice it if it didn't move.

Feeling like I swallowed a stone, I look up from the scar to Duncan's steel-gray eyes. I pull my hands back and close them into fists.

“You were with me.” His voice fills with urgency. “You're Ariel Benson.”

I feel like I've been punched in the gut. “What? No!” Even though there's no one around, I keep my voice low. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“All afternoon, I've been riding my skateboard up and down this street, hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you.” He pauses and then adds, “Ariel.”

“I'm Olivia.” I pat my chest. “Olivia Reinhart. Not this … this Ariel Benson. Because I'm not her.” One of the times Tamsin took me to church, the pastor told the story of Peter, one of Jesus's disciples. Three times after Jesus's arrest, Peter was asked if he knew him, and three times he denied it.

“You may not remember how you got that scar, but I do. We were in first grade. I dared you to climb this big oak tree in our yard, and you lost your balance. You grabbed a branch on the way down, but it broke and cut your hand.”

As Duncan says the words, I see them. Feel them. Relive the weightless tumble, my desperate reach, the bright pain that lanced across my palm. Remember how, when I landed flat on my back, the air was slammed out of my lungs.

He lets go of my hand and reaches for his back pocket. “After I met you at the funeral, I came home and looked through boxes of old photos. I found this one of us.” He pulls out a Polaroid and holds it up, his eyes going from me to the blond girl standing next to a dark-haired boy in the photo. Her face is no bigger than a thumbprint. I don't know how he can be so certain. It could be any blond little girl, and my hair is dark now. Duncan holds it out, but I don't take it. “You've changed a lot, but I remember that scar.” He shakes his head, nearly smiling. “I got in so much trouble.”

Steeling myself, I lift my chin. “I don't know how many times I have to tell you. My name is Olivia Reinhart. I can show you my driver's license.”

He sets his jaw. “Maybe it is now, but that's not who you used to be.” His voice softens. “What happened to you, Ariel?”

I blink so I won't cry. “I'm sorry, Duncan. But you're wrong. I'm not that poor little girl.”

“How did you get that scar, then?” He lifts one eyebrow.

“From cooking.” I cling to my lies, because what else do I have? “The knife slipped when I was making a stir-fry.”

“Must have been some slip. Do you always hold things in the palm of your hand when you're trying to cut them?”

“Stop twisting everything around.”

His eyes plead with me. “Why didn't you tell your family at the funeral? You're Terry's daughter. Terry and Naomi's. Carly and Tim and Lauren—they deserve to know. You're their niece, their cousin.”

“Look, I don't know how many times I have to say this: I'm Olivia Reinhart. I'm not Ariel Benson. I'm not. And please don't go telling people that I am.” I won't admit the truth. I can't. But I come as close as I dare. “Don't you understand? This is my life you're talking about. You can't go around spreading rumors that are only going to cause people pain.”

“Don't you think Terry's relatives have been in pain? Don't they deserve to be reunited with that little girl?” A muscle flickers in his jaw.

“Whoever she was, wherever she is, she's not here. Please, Duncan, don't go stirring up trouble where there isn't any. Can you promise me that you will keep this crazy idea to yourself? Please?” This might be the last time I ever talk to him. That thought hurts so much.

“All right, I'll keep your secret.” He holds my gaze for one more bitter second. “But I don't have to like it.” He spins on his heel and stalks off. Once he reaches the street, he throws down his board, jumps on, and is gone without a backward glance.

But it has to be this way. There's someone else out there who would be very interested in knowing who I am. The person who thought they got away with it. The person who killed my parents and then chose to drop me off at the Walmart.

Because maybe now they wouldn't be so generous.

 

CHAPTER 18

REACH INTO THE DARK

I go inside, sit on the sagging couch, and put my head in my hands. Tears prick my eyes. It's clear that Duncan and I can never be friends. Not now. I just dumped water on whatever spark was between us.

Is he right? Do I owe everyone the truth? Carly looked so sad at the funeral. And when I talked to Lauren in the bathroom, it felt like we could be friends.

But how can I figure out what really happened that day if people know who I am? They certainly won't tell me anything then. They won't let their guard down. Instead, they'll ask questions about what's happened in the past ten years. I don't feel like reciting my failures: the merry-go-round of foster-care placements, my broken relationship with Tamsin, my decision to leave school so I could escape the system.

Even Duncan looked at me differently when he thought I was from Seattle than he did when he realized I was the only surviving victim, the coda to a terrible story.

This house is the last place I was truly happy. I may not remember my mom, but I do remember Grandma. Curling up together on the couch and watching TV. How I would ask what was for dinner and she would give me one teasing answer after another, no matter how I protested. “Tiger tails with daffodil sauce.” “Fried tarantulas.” “Barbecued unicorn horns.” I would get so frustrated, stamping my foot and demanding to know the truth, even though I always ended up being a little disappointed when the real answer was Spanish rice or beef Stroganoff. She read to me every night before bed and praised every drawing I made. In her eyes, I was brilliant and beautiful.

I want to go back to that time, or at least make it look the same. The couch sits at a ninety-degree angle to the window. It's not the same couch, but I still get up and drag it until it sits with its back to the window—in the “right” place. Now I need to get a coffee table and a small TV to put in the built-in bookshelves, where ours used to sit.

The chairs in the dining room are different from the ones I remember, but close enough. I think the table is even the same table, much the worse for wear.

I go back down the hall and turn right into one of the small bedrooms. The bed is along one wall, but I use my knees to slowly push it across the carpet until it's underneath the window. Where it's supposed to be. My grandma across the hall, and my mom's room here, with my room on the other side. After my mom died, this room became a shrine. When I was growing up, her hairbrush still sat on a little table next to the bed, and her clothes hung in the closet.

But is everything gone? Moving like a sleepwalker, I go over to the closet. It doesn't have a door anymore. Dropping to my knees, I fist my fingers in the nap of the gray carpet. I yank and pull at the far corner until, with a squeal of staples, the carpet peels free. I don't know what I'm doing; at least my mind doesn't, but my body does.

Underneath are pristine fir floorboards, unscarred, since no one ever walked in the corner of the closet. I stick my fingernail under the edge of one. It lifts up, revealing a space about ten inches wide and six inches deep.

Then I reach into the dark.

 

CHAPTER 19

BLACK AND WHITE

My fingertips graze something. I grab it, then twist to pull it free.

It's an old cigar box. It used to be my mom's. Sometimes she would look at the things inside while I played on the floor.

I sit back on my heels, cradling the box to my chest. Now I have two new memories of my mom. In the cemetery I remembered her reading to me, and now this.

My grandma never knew about the box, and after my mom died, I didn't say anything. It was full of treasures and secrets, and she might have taken them away. On days when I was really sad, I would go into my mom's old room, shut the door, take out the box, and slowly sift through the contents.

My grandma respected that closed door. Sometimes she went into my mom's room herself, although I think she just lay on the bed and wept. Afterward, she would come out, her face still red and faintly damp, and give me a long hug.

I flip up the gold-colored clasp. Inside the lid,
Victory
is written in flowery red script. I spread the contents out on the floor. The things I liked as a kid don't hold as much interest for me now. A dollar bill folded into a ring, a pink-and-white spiral shell, thirteen wheat pennies, a ticket stub from a concert. When I pick up a dried corsage, the petals crumble at my touch. At the sight of a lock of fine blond hair tied with a pink ribbon, I feel my eyes get wet. It must be mine.

But none of these things seem like clues. And what I need is for my mom to have left some kind of sign. Evidence. A hidden message. Because the detective didn't think it could have been a stranger who stabbed her. Did my mom save a clue from the person who killed her and my dad?

I straighten out a piece of notebook paper that's been folded and unfolded so many times it's separating at the creases.

Please Naomi please just give me a chance to talk to you. Whenever you want. Just please say yes. Please.

It's not signed. Written by my dad or someone else? Whoever it was, they sounded desperate.

Could my mom have been killed because she didn't say yes?

Or because she did?

Underneath is an old valentine, the cheap kind kids give one another in grade school that come thirty to a pack. Penciled in tiny letters on the envelope is
Made, enveloped, and licked in China
next to a hand-drawn stamp. It's addressed to Naomi “I Moan” Benson. The humor seems a little too adult for grade school, but then I realize
I moan
is
Naomi
spelled backward. On the back flap, someone has written,
If your an infearior person to insults do not open this card.
Misspellings and questionable word usage aside, the card makes me smile. Inside the envelope is a cartoon bird wearing a red hat. Printed on the brim is
Valentine …
and in a heart around the bird's neck are the words
Be mine.

On the back someone has written
Happy Valentine's Day. You cutie you
. It's signed, but not by my dad. I can only make out the first initial, but it's a
J
. Jason, the guy who talked about my dad at the funeral, his best friend?

I look at the handwriting on the pleading note. I'm not sure, but I don't think it's from the same person. Of course, handwriting changes as people get older, and the card's obviously from a kid, so I could be wrong. But all the
T
s in the first note look almost like capital letter
A
s, each with a tiny opening at the top where the pen went up and then went back down a fraction to the right before curling up at the end. The
T
s on the valentine are straight up and down.

Did my mom keep this card because it was sweet and funny? Or because it was a link to a feeling she hadn't left behind when she outgrew cheap paper valentines? Was there once something between my mom and the
J
person? Between her and Jason?

Maybe the next thing in the box holds the answer to that question. It's a wedding invitation that's been crumpled up and smoothed out, like she was going to throw it away and changed her mind. For Jason and Heather. My parents' best friends. I remember seeing Heather glare at him at the funeral, so I don't think they're together anymore. They'd gotten married about six months before my parents died.

Even if my mom had been upset about the wedding, even if she had feelings for Jason, how could that have led to her and my dad being murdered in the forest? If Jason didn't want to be with her, why would he kill her, let alone both of them?

His breathing had hitched when he talked about them. But maybe he wasn't sorry they were dead. Maybe he was worried he would get caught.