Where the Truth Lies (9 page)

“Come here, Em,” Del says, still staring at the ceiling. How does he even know it’s me?

Talk to him … someplace where there are plenty of people around.

I sit beside him on the bed. “What are you doing up here?”

He reaches out to hold my hand. “Looking at the sky. Thinking.”

“About what?” From down the hall, I hear the lilting of voices carrying toward us. I don’t feel the least bit unsafe with him. Even if we were alone in the house, I realize, I would feel completely at ease.

“About how I got here,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’m in this beautiful house with all of these beautiful people … I have everything I could want. I have you. I have parents who love me.”

But they sent him away. He said so himself.

His gaze is penetrating and intense. His blue eyes are big and watery. I start to feel a little uneasy. Where was he this morning? As far as I know, he didn’t come back until late in the afternoon.

“Del,” I say, frowning, “everyone’s parents love them.”

“No, they don’t.” He shakes his head. “You’re so naive, Emily.”

I am getting
so tired
of people calling me naive. “You think there are people who have kids just because?”

“Kids aren’t always intentional. And even if they are, people change their minds. Or else they find out they aren’t up to it, after it’s too late. People do awful things all the time. You don’t have any idea.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“Your parents are practically perfect, aren’t they? Is that what you think, Emily?”

I nod, remembering the way my mom looked as she made soup this morning. She was so happy. “They’re pretty great.”

“Right,” he says. There’s a hint of sarcasm in his tone. “You are one lucky girl.”

“ …”

“ …”

“Del … can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Where did you go this morning?”

He stares up at the ceiling. He sniffles. “Nowhere. Sometimes I go for long walks.”

The answer doesn’t ring true. “You go for walks,” I repeat.

“Yes.”

“Can I ask you something else?”

He nods.

“What happened at your old school? Why did you leave? And I don’t mean that your parents pulled you out. I mean specifically—
why
did they pull you out?”

He’s still holding my hand. I can feel his grip tighten a twinge. “Who told you about that?”

“My dad. He thinks you might be dangerous.”

Del grins. “Oh, he does? Dangerous how?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t trust you. He told me that you were involved in an … an
incident
. With a baseball bat.”

“That’s such bullshit. That isn’t what happened.”

“Then tell me what happened.”

Del reaches toward the floor, where there’s a half-empty beer bottle that I hadn’t noticed before. He picks it up and takes a long swig. “Okay, Emily,” he says, “you want to know what happened at my old school?”

His face and neck are sweaty. His breathing is heavy. If I didn’t know him better, I might be afraid of him.

“Yes,” I say. “I want to know what happened.”

He takes another swig from his drink. “This girl—my roommate’s sister—she got raped.”

I cringe at the word “raped.” “Okay.”

“My roommate decided to do something about it.” Del pauses. “And I didn’t stop him. I guess it makes me
involved
in a way.”

“But you didn’t get expelled.”

He spreads his arms wide. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“What happened to the boy? The one who …”

“The rapist?” He smirks. “He spent some time in the hospital. Then his daddy took care of things, and instead of getting arrested like he should have, it turned into a he-said-she-said, and my roommate was the one who got in all the trouble. So now this little girl—this
fourteen
-year-old—is at school with her rapist, and she doesn’t even have her big brother anymore. Real fair, right?”

I’m quiet for a while. Finally I say, “There are other ways to deal with things.”

“Not always. No, Emily.” He’s getting more and more excited. “Some people have things coming to them, you know? Some people are rotten inside. This guy was one of those people.”

It should bother me—shouldn’t it? It should make me afraid. But instead I feel the opposite way. Del didn’t actually
do
anything … he just stood by and let it happen.

There is so much about him that I don’t know. But I know he was abused. I know his sister was abused. Coming from a background like that, how else would he know to react?

He slides a hand behind my neck and pulls me toward him until our foreheads are touching. “Hey,” he whispers. “Don’t be scared, Emily. I would never hurt you.”

“I know,” I say. And I do know; I believe him like I believe my own name.

He kisses me on the lips. The smell on him almost makes me want to gag: it’s kerosene, sweat, beer, and cigarettes. “What do you want to do?” he asks.

“I want to go find my friends,” I tell him. “And I want you to come with me.” I pull back a little bit. “People want to get to know you. You need to give them a chance to see that you’re …”

He grins. “Normal? I’m not.”

I close my eyes. For a moment the room is totally silent except for the sound of our breathing. “I know that, Del.”

“You want me to pretend?” he asks. “For you?”

I nod. “For me.”

He kisses me again. “Okay. Anything for you.”

Downstairs, almost everyone is gathered in the great room, where there’s a huge fire burning in the fireplace and beer bottles scattered on all the tabletops and empty surfaces. Even the lid to the baby grand is covered with them.

People pretend not to notice, but everyone looks at us when they think we’re not paying attention. Del leads me by the hand to the sofa, where Steph, Grace, and Franny are sitting with Renee and Ethan. All of them are drunk and talking about Madeline Moon-Park.

Madeline is probably the only subject that could engage my roommates and Ethan in such an animated conversation with Renee. Madeline has become something like an urban legend since her failure to return this year. There are no seventh graders at this party, but they all know her as the coolest, most aloof person in Stonybrook’s history, which is a little bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

She was one of those kids that show up in a shuttle from the airport on the first day of seventh grade. Like I’ve said before, her parents didn’t visit. Nobody has ever even
seen
them. Madeline almost never went home for the holidays. She was an only child. She was fiercely smart, fluent in Korean, and never talked about where she came from. And then she was gone. We can’t find anything on Google. My father won’t tell me what happened to her. It’s like she’s vanished.

Del and I sit down with everyone else. He’s still holding my hand. More looks are exchanged among my friends. Their gazes move past me to stare at him, his T-shirt revealing the infamous tattoo. He and I pretend not to notice.

“Anyway,” Renee continues—she’s the only one who’s not staring at us, and she seems oblivious to the fact that everyone else is—“I’ve exhausted all of my resources. The Internet, Emily’s dad, the Diggers—nobody will tell me where she is or what happened to her. All my e-mails come back as undeliverable. Her cell phone is disconnected.” Renee presses a finger to her lips in thought. “We were best friends,” she says. “I don’t know why she would leave without telling me anything.”

“Maybe she’s dead,” Grace says.

Renee is startled by the suggestion. We all are. “She’s not dead. Don’t even say that.” And she wraps her arms around her body, like she’s trying to give herself a hug.

“Well, then, what happened to her? How does somebody just slip off the face of the earth?” Grace asks.

“If she died,” Ethan says, “there would be no good reason for the faculty to hide it from us.” He takes a moment to look around the room at everyone. I notice that he intentionally avoids meeting my gaze. “Something terrible must have happened to her,” he continues.

“What makes you think that?” Stephanie asks.

“Because,” he says, “if it weren’t terrible, she’d have no reason to hide.”

And out of nowhere, it seems, Del speaks up. “I bet I could find out what happened to her.”

My roommates gape at him. Ethan raises his eyebrows. For the first time since we’ve sat down, Renee gives her full attention to Del.

“Oh, really?” she asks. Her tone is sarcastic and doubtful. “And how would you do that? You’ve never even met her.”

I’ve never heard Renee talk down to
anyone
before. But she was protective of Madeline; she seems agitated by the idea of Del meddling in the situation.

“I’m resourceful,” Del says, grinning at her so that all of his teeth are exposed. “Come on. Don’t you at least want to know where she is?”

Renee nods slowly. “Sure. But I don’t want to violate her privacy.”

“How is that violating anything?”

“Well, how would you find out?” She hugs herself more tightly. “Some kind of … espionage or something, right? You’d have to stick your nose somewhere where it didn’t belong, wouldn’t you?”

“Espionage?” Steph says, frowning. “Renee. He’s not James Bond.” Then she turns to Del. “Can you really find out?”

He looks the crowd over. He gives them a smug smile. “Give me two weeks.”

chapter eight

It’s a couple of weeks after the party, and I’m back at my dorm after class. I gaze out the window at my parents’ house, trying to figure out how I’m going to continue keeping Del a secret from them when pretty much everybody else knows we’re a couple. Somebody’s standing on the periphery of my parents’ property, smoking a cigarette. I can’t make out who it is—my contacts are out, and I’m wearing an old pair of glasses with a slightly weak prescription—but it’s undoubtedly someone who doesn’t understand the consequences if the headmaster
himself
catches you smoking. It’s one thing to stink and blame it on the cleaning ladies; it’s entirely another to be caught red-handed by someone other than Digger.

As I’m staring out the window, somebody comes up behind me and wraps their arms around me. I don’t need to turn around to know that it’s Stephanie.

Her touch gives me a weary sense of comfort. I like having her here because I know her
so
well; at the same time, there’s a small part of me wishing that she was somebody else—maybe Renee, or even Del. I hate feeling this way about Stephanie. She and I have been best friends for four years. We’ve shared more hugs than I can count. Trying not to think about all the distance that seems to have grown between us almost overnight, I cover her hands with mine. She rests her head on my shoulder to peer out the window.

“How are you, sweetie?” I ask.

“I’m okay.” She sighs. “That’s not true. I’m a mess.”

She’s talking about her parents’ divorce. Even though I saw it coming, I kind of can’t believe they’re actually going through with it, after so many years together.

“I know,” I tell her, squeezing her skinny arm. “It’ll be okay, though.”

She tightens her grip on me. “I don’t know what I’d do without you and Ethan.”

“Steph, I want to apologize. I feel like I’ve been so wrapped up with Del that I haven’t even been around lately. You know you can talk to me about anything, right? It’s really happening? The divorce?”

“Yes. And yes, you’ve been too wrapped up in Del.”

I know I shouldn’t keep talking about him. It’s insensitive. But Stephanie is my best friend, and I want her to know what’s going on. “My dad will flip if he finds out we’re still together.”

She hesitates.

“What?”

“He might not be so wrong, Emily.”

“I know what you think. I know what everyone thinks, Steph. But I can’t tell you what it’s like when we’re alone together. You don’t know him the way I do.”

“How well do you really know him? Did you talk to him about what happened at his last school?”

“Yes,” I say.

“And? What did he tell you?”

“It isn’t what you think. Believe me, there’s no reason for me to be afraid of him. I trust him.”

“Emily.” Her tone shifts to shock. “Oh my God. Do you see that person smoking?”

It’s gotten darker quickly; by now, I can barely make out the silhouette in the evening. There is only the glowing red tip of the cigarette moving in the night, almost like it’s trying to send a message.

“I do see someone. Right by my parents’ house.”

“Emily … my God, is that your
mother
?”

Stephanie and I both lean closer, our bodies still together, to squint out the window.

“I can’t tell who it is,” I say. “My vision isn’t good enough. These glasses are old.”

She takes off her own glasses. “Here. Switch with me.”

I put her glasses on and squint harder at the figure in the dark. It looks like a woman. “But my mom doesn’t smoke, Steph.”

“I know. But there’s something about the way she’s moving.” She presses her nose to the glass. Her mouth creates a circle of fog. “It looks like your mother.”

“But my mom doesn’t smoke,” I repeat.

And before we can debate the issue any further, the light from the cigarette goes out, and we can barely make out the body walking away. All we can tell is that it’s walking toward my parents’ house. Most of the lights are out in the downstairs, so I can’t tell if the person goes inside. I can’t see anything at all.

I turn around to look at Stephanie. Her glasses make everything up close a little blurry. “Well, that was weird.”

She nods. “It sure was.”

We switch glasses again. We are both quiet. The situation seems impossible. We’re talking about my
mother
. I would know if she were a smoker.

Fire. Smoke everywhere. My mother’s body stiffening beside me when I mentioned my dreams in Dr. Miller’s office earlier.

I shake my head. “There’s no way it was her. Come on, we’re going to be late for dinner if we don’t hurry.”

As we’re getting dressed, Grace returns from cross-country practice, and Franny comes back from wherever she’s been. Lately she’s been disappearing a lot. I’ve been meaning to ask her what’s going on.

They’re in the middle of a heated discussion; at least it seems that way at first. But once Steph and I start listening, we realize what they’re arguing about: ice-cream flavors. They’ve been talking about what ice-cream flavor people’s personalities would be.

“I told her she’d be shaved ice. No flavor,” Grace says. “And now she’s
all
pissed off—”

“Shaved ice is not a flavor!” Franny insists.

“Exactly!” Grace says. “You would be flavorless!”

Franny has tears in her eyes. “That’s so mean, Grace. Honestly, you’re such a bitch sometimes.”

“I’m just telling the truth!” Grace rolls her eyes. She’s covered in sweat from practice, her hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She looks alive and beautiful and vivacious. “Okay. If you had to be a flavor, you’d be air. Is that better?”

“No!” Franny picks up a history book and hurls it across the room at Grace. “And I don’t think any of your choices were accurate, by the way.” She sniffles in my direction. “Emily, she said you’d be Neapolitan.”

“Neapolitan?” I frown. “But that’s so boring.”

“No, it isn’t,” Grace says, excited. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this. Two hours of thinking.” Because she’s a distance runner, Grace tends to find herself in these meditative states of bliss. It’s not unusual for her to come back from practice wanting to discuss two hours’ worth of meandering thoughts with us. “Emily, on the surface you might seem kind of dull, right?”

“Thank you,” I say drily, holding my middle finger in the air beneath her nose.

“Let me
finish
,” Grace says. “Jeez. Okay, so you might
seem
innocuous and innocent and dull and naive—”

“I already said thank you—”

“—but you’re not. You actually have multiple layers to you, and if people would just look past the surface, they’d see that you’re rather complex.” She begins to tug the ponytail from her hair. Beads of sweat are still gathered on her tan forehead. “For instance, there’s your relationship with Del.” She frowns. “He must see something fascinating in you, right?”

Before I can say anything, she continues. “And there’s your voice. And your red hair. And your nightmares.” She narrows her eyes, nodding in satisfaction, wiping the sweat from her forehead. “There’s more to you than meets the eye. Definitely Neapolitan.”

“But I don’t like Neapolitan,” I tell her.

She shrugs. She stretches her arms over her head. “Not my problem.”

“At least you’re not
shaved ice
,” Franny says.
Tug. Tugtugtugtugtug.
She starts to change into her uniform for dinner.

“Hey, what day is it?” Steph asks. “Franny? Could you help me?”

We all stare at Franny’s underwear. My mouth falls open. “Franny,” I say, “what’s the matter with you?” Her bra says
TUESDAY!
—which it is. But her underpants say
WEDNESDAY!
Something’s definitely going on with her.

“Shut up,” Franny says. “All of you.” She starts to pull on her clothes. “And I wouldn’t be so chipper if I were you, Steph. Ask Grace what flavor
you’d
be.”

“It was a toss-up,” Grace tells her, “between Rocky Road and praline.”

I snort. “Why was it a toss-up?”

“Well, at first I was thinking Rocky Road because of all the drama with her family. But then that got me thinking about how she’s a twin, and I almost went with chocolate and vanilla swirl. But that didn’t feel right, either.” Grace’s tone starts to become more fevered. “At this point, guys, I was on, like, mile three of a six-mile run, lots of hills, and I was really in the zone. You know? So I finally decided praline, definitely praline for Steph.”

“And why am I praline?” Steph wrinkles her nose. “I hate pralines.”

“Because,” Grace says, almost shrieking now, “your relationship with your brother is so
icky,
and pralines are the ultimate ick factor when it comes to ice cream!”

Franny just shakes her head, rubbing her eyes. “I like praline, Steph.”

The three of us—Franny, Steph, and I—decide telepathically to give Grace the silent treatment all the way up to dinner. It doesn’t stop her from yapping away the whole time about other people’s flavors. Renee? Peanut butter and chocolate, because she’s so
rich
—both literally and figuratively, Grace explains. Renee is walking up with us, and doesn’t seem a bit fazed by the description. She shrugs and says nothing.

Del’s flavor? Grace isn’t sure, but she’s positive he’d be something with chunks. And Madeline Moon-Park? According to Grace, Madeline is the only person who she couldn’t think of a flavor for.

“Shows how much you know,” Renee says.

“What?” I ask, suddenly interested in the conversation again—although I’ve got to admit, I’m hurt and confused by the whole “Neapolitan” label. “What do you mean, ‘shows how much you know’?”

Renee gives me a smooth smile. “Madeline,” she pronounces, “would be pumpkin pie.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because,” she says, shivering a little bit inside her blazer, “autumn was her favorite season. She used to say it made her feel so alive to have everything around her dying.
And
she loved pumpkin pie.” She pauses. “Any word yet from Del about getting her contact info?”

I shake my head. “He says he’s working on it. We’ll see.”

At dinner, Del sits across the room from me at Dr. Sella’s table. She’s the Italian teacher, and her house is right next to my parents’. When I’m pretty sure they aren’t looking, Del and I exchange small grins. At one point he mouths,
tonight,
and I feel a tingle of electricity run down my spine.
Tonight tonight tonight
.

As I’m hugging my parents good-bye after dinner, I remember the scene from earlier outside their house. I hold on to my mother, trying to sniff her hair, her clothing.

It was her. She’s changed her clothes and put on perfume, but there’s that unmistakable gross smell still clinging to her hair. My mother
smoking
? She barely even drinks. Does my father know? He can’t possibly.

What else don’t I know? Smoke, fire, water … her body stiffening. She’s lied to me—at least, it’s a lie of omission, a secret big enough that she’s kept it from me for God knows how long.

My mom pulls away from the hug. “I love you, Emily.” She smiles, reaching out to touch my hair. She’s chewing on a mint.

“I love you, too, Mom. Hey—you know what?”

“What?”

“I’m going to take those pills and keep that journal, like Dr. Miller wants me to. I think it will help.”

Her smile wavers a little bit. “Good. I think that’s a good plan, sweetie.”

“See you later, then.”

“Of course.”

It’s another warm night. When I get to Winchester, Del is inside his room with the window open. As usual, he tosses his cigarette into the woods when he sees me coming.

“You’re late,” he says. It’s past eleven.

“I know. I’m sorry.” I wait for him as he climbs out the window. He’s holding the red blanket beneath his right arm. We walk into the woods together, until we’re at the very edge of campus, to what has become Our Place beside the stream.