Where the Truth Lies (5 page)

We stop at his dorm. We’re standing in front of one of the windows to the common room. Looking inside, I can see that Ethan has his drums set up. Max Franklin, who plays guitar, is with him. When Ethan notices me looking at them, he raises his hand in a “come here” gesture.

“What does he want?” Del asks.

I’m suddenly embarrassed. Just the thought of singing for them, of being the center of attention, is enough to make me feel mortified. “Nothing,” I say. “He’s goofing around.”

Ethan tosses a drumstick at the window. I flinch as it hits the glass.

I stare at the sidewalk. Last year, they replaced a few squares of concrete in front of Winchester. While the cement was still wet, almost everybody who walked by took the opportunity to write their initials in it. There’s an “E.P.” for Ethan Prince, “S.M.” for Sam Marshall, “W.H.” for Winston Howard, and—in a corner by itself—“M.F. LOVES H.S.” for “Max Franklin loves Hillary Swisher.” There’s an “A.S.” (Amanda Stream), “S.P.” (Stephanie Prince), and “M.M.P.” (Madeline Moon-Park). There are a bunch of other initials, too, from kids in different grades.

Del follows my gaze. “Where are yours?” he asks.

“They’re not there.”

“Oh yeah? Why not?”

Ethan throws his other drumstick in our direction. “Emily!” he calls. “Get in here and sing!”

“I didn’t want to get in trouble,” I say to Del.

“You thought you’d get into trouble for writing your initials?”

“Emily!” Ethan shouts again. “Get in here and sing!”

“Yes.” I can feel blood rushing to my face.

“It doesn’t look like anyone else was afraid.”

“Well, I was.”

“ …”

“ …”

Then he says, “It seems like they really want you to go in there and sing.”

“I’m not going.” I look up at Ethan, who is staring expectantly at me through the window. I shake my head
.

“Why not?” he shouts. He sticks out his bottom lip in a pout.

“Someone ought to shut them up,” Del says. “They woke me up at nine thirty with that noise.”

I look at him. “It’s not ‘noise.’ They’re good.”

“Then why don’t you want to sing for them?”

“Because … I’m shy.”

When Del smiles at me, the corners of his eyes crinkle like tissue paper. His skin is so smooth that it almost seems translucent. “You’re pretty, too,” he says.

The air feels hotter all of a sudden. Del reaches out with his tattooed arm and tucks a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “What are you doing right now? Why can’t we go somewhere and talk?”

“I told you, I can’t. I’m supposed to study with my roommate.” And it’s true; Franny is going to help me with precalc.

“All right. What time, then?”

Inside, Ethan and Max begin to play “In My Life” by The Beatles. Ethan is singing. He’s got a fantastic voice; I don’t know why they even want me.

I stare at the sidewalk again, focusing on the “M.M.P.” for Madeline Moon-Park. Beside her initials, she’d drawn a crescent moon and three tiny stars. She might be gone, but a part of her is here forever, in stone. “Four o’clock,” I tell him.

I can
hear
him smiling. “Okay. I’ll come over and get you.”

“No,” I say quickly. I don’t want Steph to see me with him. “I’ll come here.”

He nods. He begins to back away, toward the double doors to Winchester. “All right, Emily. I’ll be waiting.”

I need to tell someone what’s happening, and I obviously can’t tell any of my roommates, so I stop in Renee’s room on my way back from breakfast to tell
her
what’s going on.

She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her mirror, working her wet hair into two long braids. “He likes you,” she tells me. “Ooh la la.”

“Stephanie thinks he likes her,” I say. I’m sitting at Renee’s desk. Her notes for English lit are scattered all over the surface. She has sloppy handwriting. Big surprise.

“He obviously does
not
like Stephanie,” Renee says.

I frown. “But she’s beautiful.”

“So? She has the body of a game show hostess and the personality of a Komodo dragon.” Renee finishes her braids and takes a long moment to stare at her reflection. Then she turns around to look at me. “This is very exciting, Emily. You should be happy. Don’t worry about Stephanie.”

When I don’t respond, she adds, “I’m a little bit jealous, you know. Del is the only boy around here who’s actually interesting.”

From her place on the bed, Hillary rolls her eyes and speaks up. “Renee. Didn’t you go out with Mark Foster last summer?”

“That’s right, you did!” I say. Mark Foster is a child star. Over the summer, I saw dozens of photos of him and Renee, hand in hand as they exited clubs together late at night.

Renee shrugs. “Mark Foster is a boring snob. This is a
real
person with a history and a personality. Do you know how dull people in show business are? They’re all completely self-absorbed.”

Hillary yawns. “Self-absorbed, I can see. Dull, I’m not so sure about.”

“Don’t you have someplace to
be
?” They take what feels like a full minute just to glare at each other. But beneath the surface of their expressions, I can sense the slightest hint of a smile in both of them.

“Can I just start calling you Madeline?” Renee asks. Her smile grows a bit wider. She breathes a wistful sigh. “Could you just, like, act exactly the same and maybe dye your hair black?”

Even Hillary loved Madeline. “We should find out where she went, Renee,” she says. “I’m sure we could track her down on Google.”

“You think I haven’t tried that?” Renee, standing beside me, tugs me out of my chair and toward her bed. “I’ve looked. There’s nothing.” To me, she says, “Sit down, Emily. Let me braid your hair.”

“Well, there has to be some way to find a phone number for her, at least,” Hillary says. “She’s probably at another school, right?”

“
Obviously
she’s at another school,” I say. “Where else would she be? Come on, let’s think about it. I want to help.”

“Keep looking,” Hillary tells Renee. “You’ll find something. And, Emily, you weren’t even great friends with her. Aside from getting some private information from your dad, what help can you possibly be?”

I frown at Hillary. But when I think about it, I realize that she’s right. I didn’t know Madeline all that well. Since I’ve been going to school here, I’ve hung out almost exclusively with Steph, Franny, and Grace. I wish I’d taken the time to get to know Madeline better. Now that she’s gone, I’ll never have the chance.

There’s one thing I remember, though. “You know what’s weird?” I ask. I try to keep my head steady as Renee tugs at my hair with a brush.

Hillary sits up. She goes to her own mirror on her closet door and begins to dab foundation over a faint hickey on her neck. “What?”

“I never met her parents. In all the time she was going here, never
once
did I see Madeline’s parents. Did either of you? Renee, you were her roommate—did you ever meet her mom or dad?”

Renee is quiet, thinking. “Umm … no,” she says, “I don’t think I ever did.”

“Well, that’s kind of strange.” Hillary peers into the mirror, squinting as she blends the foundation. “I mean, lots of parents aren’t around much—but to
never
have seen them? Weird.”

I feel goose bumps on the back of my neck as Renee winds my hair into two long braids. “That’s enough about Madeline,” she says. “We shouldn’t talk about her like this.”

“Fine. But you spoil everything fun, you know?” Hillary is at the door. “I’m going to see Max. I’ll be back later.”

“Take your time,” Renee says.

“Put my hairbrush back where it belongs,” Hillary tells her.

I glance down at the bed, where the brush is sitting beside me. “Hillary” is written in permanent marker on the handle.

“Why are you using her brush?” I ask, once Renee and I are alone.

“No reason. I just don’t have one of my own.” Renee stands up to look at me. “You look great.” She smiles. “You look ready for your date.”

I feel my face growing warm. “It’s not a date. We’re just going for a walk.”

“Okay. Right.” She winks. “Come see me when you get back. Then you can tell me if it wasn’t a date.”

When I get to Winchester, Del isn’t in the common room; nobody is. Ethan’s drums are still set up, and for a moment I stand there looking at them, part of me wishing I had the nerve to sing with him.

“Emily.”

It’s Max. Hillary is standing beside him, her arm around his waist. “Are you looking for Del?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“He’s behind the building. He told me to send you back.”

“Oh. Okay. Thank you.”

Max gives me a suspicious grin. “Whatcha doing, Em?”

Hillary stands on her tiptoes and whispers something into his ear. He nods, listening. Then he says, with a knowing smirk, “Ohhh … I see how it is.”

“I’m not doing anything!” I almost shriek the words. “Hillary, what did you tell him?”

“What?” She looks at me innocently. “I didn’t tell him anything.”

“You’d better be a good girl, Emily,” Max says, tugging Hillary toward the door. “We wouldn’t want you doing anything to disappoint Daddy.”

When I find Del, he’s leaning up against the brick wall of his dorm, smoking a cigarette. I fan the air as I approach him, wrinkling my nose at the smell.

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke,” I say. “It’s disgusting.”

To my surprise, he says, “Oh. Okay.” And he flicks the lit cigarette butt into the woods. He smiles. “Better?”

I’m impressed. Even my roommates won’t listen when I ask them not to smoke.

“I like your hair,” Del says, stepping closer to me. He leans forward and touches one of the braids lightly. “Neither of your parents has red hair, do they?”

“No.”

He looks at my face, into my eyes. “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know.” It’s warm enough that Del is wearing a short-sleeved white T-shirt. I stare at his tattoo.

“It’s a mystery, then?”

I’ve never thought of it that way. “I guess.”

“I see.” He nods toward the path at the edge of the woods. “Well? Are you ready?”

After a few moments of walking along the path, we meet up with a stone wall that surrounds campus. On the other side of the wall, there’s a stream. Without saying anything, Del takes me by the hand and helps me as we both climb over the rocks.

Being so close to the water gives me chills. It isn’t only the water in my dreams that scares me; it’s running water, still water, all water. Even if there’s no breeze, even if I’m standing in a hot shower in my own house, it chills part of me right down to my bones. I hate it. It terrifies me like nothing else—nothing except fire.

“Do you want to sit down?” Del asks.

I give the stream a hesitant look. It’s not just being near the water that makes me uncomfortable; it’s being alone with Del, who I barely know, and who I shouldn’t even be out here with. “I thought we were going for a walk.”

“We did.” He follows my gaze. “What’s the matter? You don’t like water?”

“Not really.”

“It’s just a stream, Emily.” He tugs me gently to the ground. “Relax. I won’t bite.”

We sit quietly for a few minutes, both of us staring at the water. Del leans back on his elbows and gazes at the clear sky. “I like it here, in Connecticut,” he says. “It’s nice being near the ocean.”

“Where does your family live?”

“Outside Boston.” He bites his lip. “If I tell you something, do you promise you won’t laugh?”

I nod. “Yes. I promise.”

“I had never been to a beach until a few years ago.”

“Really?” Even though I don’t like water, I’ve still been to the beach a million times with my family and my friends. Who hasn’t?

“Really,” he says. “Nobody ever took me when I was in foster homes.”

“Wow. That’s … too bad.”

He swallows. “That’s not all. I didn’t even learn to swim until I was fifteen. Nobody ever thought to teach me, not until my parents—I mean, the people who adopted me—found out I’d never had lessons.” He squints at the stream. “My adoptive dad took me to a swimming pool one Saturday and taught me how. You should have seen me in the water with all those kids. There were six-year-olds swimming circles around me.” He continues to stare at the sky. “I looked ridiculous. It was pretty awful.”

The breeze is chilly. I pull my knees against my chest, trying not to shiver. My braids are so long that I can feel them resting halfway down my back. For a second, I remember the rumor that’s going around about him taking a baseball bat to someone at his last school. I can’t imagine Del hurting anyone.

“So … you’re adopted,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“What are your parents like? I mean, your adoptive parents?”