Breaking Read online

  “Psycho,” I mutter fondly. Steroids don’t affect schoolwork, so I close the drawer and try her closet instead. I’m not sure what I expect to find back here, maybe another Victoria’s Secret bag, this one filled with identical vials of the serum, all neatly labeled. I shuffle through dark coats and brightly colored ballet flats and a couple of brown-and-gold Louis Vuitton suitcases. But the shelves are empty except for an unopened bottle of red nail polish.

  Russian Roulette, it’s called. I start to put it back on the shelf and then change my mind and slide it into the pocket of my skirt.

  “Come on, Devon. Help me out here.” I drop to my hands and knees and peer into the shadows beneath Devon’s bed, but there’s nothing there, not even a dust bunny. My dorm seems to breed dust bunnies. I find them in every corner, under every piece of furniture. I frown, trying to picture Devon on her hands and knees, sweeping beneath her bed. The picture doesn’t hold. Devon doesn’t do housework. Her family’s had the same maid since she was a baby.

  I try her bedside table and find a folded piece of notebook paper with nothing written on it. An empty tin of mints.

  Go home before you end up like your friends, I think. I can’t even figure out what happened to my friends. Why does everyone keep expecting me to end up like them?

  I sink onto Devon’s bed, lowering my head to my hands. My theory about Devon being into some kind of scary performance-altering drug seems stupid now. She wouldn’t have taken something that dangerous and then gotten bored with swimming the second it started working. She wouldn’t have killed herself over it.

  And, besides, I took the serum, too, and I’m exactly as ordinary as I always was.

  I try to inhale, and my chest hitches. It feels like my nose has closed up, like the air I’m trying to choke down is too hot, too … thick. My head aches, and my chest burns, and …

  A sob bubbles from my lips, breaking the perfect stillness of the room. I close my eyes, and then I’m lying on Devon’s bed and her pillow is beneath my head. I don’t want to go to my dorm. I shouldn’t have come back here. I don’t want to deal with this school without Dev and Ariel. How am I supposed to attend a party without Devon to help me perfect winged eyeliner? Without Ariel whispering that the guy in the corner is checking me out? How am I supposed to take a test without my friends to help me make flash cards and quiz me all night? Who’s going to bring me a celebratory box of macarons from that amazing bakery in town?

  The thought of doing this alone makes me ache. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

  Dev’s parents will be here any day to claim her things. They’ll move everything out of this room and pack it into boxes and store it away somewhere. I’ll never see it again. I press my hands flat against Devon’s duvet cover, focusing on the silky-soft feel of the fabric beneath my fingers. After that, Devon really will be gone, and any chance I had of unraveling her and Ariel’s mystery will disappear with her. I’ll be here alone. Forever. I close my eyes, desperate to think about anything else.

  My cheeks are wet when I finally fall asleep.

  Laughing voices echo through my head. I’m in the woods, Ariel and Devon racing ahead of me. I call for them to wait, but they’re too fast. They’re like gazelles dancing through the trees, their legs impossibly long, their feet not quite touching the ground. I’ll never catch them.

  I know I should give up, but I just pump my legs harder. My feet get caught on twigs and brush. I stumble and scrape my knee on a rock, but I push myself up again, running faster. I can’t let them get away. Not this time.

  Just when I know I can’t run any farther, I see it—a shadow waiting beneath the trees. My chest clenches in relief. Ariel. I knew she wouldn’t leave me behind. But when I reach the shadow, I see that it’s not Ariel. It’s Jack.

  “Stop looking for them,” he says in a voice that sounds like my mother’s. “You already know the truth.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. He tilts his head toward me, and I see that his face has been burned. Skin drips from his cheeks. His eyes are bloodshot.

  “You’re the one who broke them,” he says. “You’re the reason they left.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I wake up in Devon’s room the next morning, dried tears crusting my eyes, my mascara staining her pillow. Girls laugh and giggle in the hall outside the dorm. I groan and fumble for my cell so I can check the time. I’m late. If I don’t hurry, I won’t make it to class before first bell and—whoops—no more second chance.

  I consider letting it happen. I could stay here through first period and, within the hour, I’d see Mother’s car parked at the curb, waiting to whisk me off to a different kind of life. I could forget about Devon and Ariel, and whatever they got themselves into. Everything would be so much easier.

  You don’t belong in this school, Zoe said. Leave.

  I stand, straightening my skirt in front of Devon’s mirror. My complexion still looks perfect. Creamy and pale and flawless. I press my index finger into my cheek and pull at the skin below my eye, searching for shadows or discoloration. But there’s nothing. I could be Photoshopped. I bare my teeth. They’re perfectly straight from years of braces, but coffee-stained. Mother keeps trying to get me to use some professional-grade whitener, but I hate the way it makes them tingle. I turn my head to the left. And then to the right. I pinch a lock of blond hair between two fingers.

  “Better,” I say, letting the hair drop back into place. Two days ago, it looked like I’d gotten in a fight with a lawn mower, and my hair wouldn’t lie flat unless I loaded it down with industrial-strength gel. But now it’s transitioned into edgy. The unevenness looks intentional.

  I turn away from the mirror, taking one last look at Devon’s room. Sunlight slants in from the window, painting everything gold. The smell of pepper and flowers still hangs in the air. I fluff Devon’s pillow and turn it so that the side covered in mascara stains is to the wall, and then I pull my bag over my shoulder and step out the door.

  “… before I have to be in physics, so let’s make this quick.”

  The voice echoes down the hall, followed by the dull thud of a door swinging shut. I swear under my breath and duck into the staircase alcove. Footsteps pad against the carpeted floor, moving closer.

  “You think Coach will be okay if we just leave the flowers? Or should we write something?”

  “I know what I want to write.”

  A pause. Then, “You probably shouldn’t.”

  “Why not? It’s not like she can do anything to us now.”

  Two girls stop in front of Devon’s door. I lean past the wall, studying the backs of their hair: one short and black, cropped to just below her ears, the other blond, curly, and twisted in a tight braid. Amber Hadley and Sarah Shield, JV members of Devon’s swim team.

  Sarah—the blonde—kneels. She places a bouquet of white tulips wrapped in tissue paper on the floor in front of Devon’s door. “Should we say something?”

  Amber picks up the marker attached to Devon’s wipe board and scrawls a B across a bit of empty space. “Like what? You want to pray?”

  Sarah lifts her shoulders in a jerky shrug. “No. But maybe we could say that we hope she’s finally found peace. Or something.”

  Amber draws an I. “I don’t hope that.”

  “Jesus. She died, Amber.”

  Amber doesn’t turn around. She pulls the marker across the wipe board in a big, fat T. “Yeah? Who cares? I’m not going to pretend I liked her just because she offed herself.”

  “Amber—”

  “No, seriously. Remember when she flushed Kelly’s bra down the toilet? Or when she said you were an embarrassment to the team and should just quit? And what she did to Hattie …”

  Amber doesn’t finish the end of her sentence. She draws a C, the marker squeaking against the wipe board. Sarah finally figures out what she’s writing and swats her on the leg.

  “Don’t,” she says. I expect Amber to argue, but she just puts the cap on the mar
ker and drops it, letting it swing from the string connected to the board. She wipes her cheek with her hand.

  I ease back around the corner. I don’t need to hear any more. I slip my shoes off and carry them down the stairs, my bare feet silent on the carpet. I wait until I’m in the quad to put them on again. Icy grass crunches beneath my toes.

  I’ve heard stories like this before. Earlier this year, Dev got suspended for a week for hazing this girl named Hattie Goldberg, a freshman on her swim team. Or, she would have been suspended if Daddy hadn’t made a phone call and gotten her sentence lowered to an afternoon in detention. Dev told everyone it was no big deal, but Hattie never came back to Weston. No one talks about her anymore.

  Devon wasn’t a bad person. She had a dark sense of humor. She liked to push boundaries. If she sometimes went too far, it wasn’t because she was trying to hurt anyone. It just never occurred to her that there were people who weren’t as strong as she was.

  A week after Ariel died, Devon snuck into my dorm in the middle of the night. She woke me up by pressing her hand over my mouth. So I wouldn’t scream.

  “I need your help with something,” she whispered. She seemed raw and empty in a way I’d never seen her before. Devon had always been too much. Too loud. Too intense. Too smart. Too beautiful. That night, standing over me, she was none of those things. She was a shell.

  But Ariel had just died. We were both shells.

  I followed her outside, into the dark, through the woods. The trees seemed wilder in the moonlight. Feral. I felt like they were reaching for me, following me, whispering. Devon clearly knew exactly where she was going. She hummed under her breath as we walked, a single, low note. I pretended the wings flapping above me belonged to birds instead of bats.

  Devon stopped in front of a cave I’d never seen before.

  “It’s in there,” she said, staring into the perfect darkness beyond the cave’s entrance. “Want me to go first?”

  I resented the implication that I wasn’t brave enough to go into a dark place without her to protect me, so I walked right past her and into the cave. Something rustled in the trees behind me, and I flinched and whirled around, tripping over my own feet. Devon was next to me but nearly invisible in the shadows. Her eyes reflected twin pinpricks of moonlight.

  I remember thinking her eyes looked strange. Like there was nothing behind them.

  “It’s fine,” she said, touching my arm with the tips of her long fingers. “There was a rabbit.”

  Maybe I should have turned back then. My instincts were screaming for me to leave. But, remember, I was still in shock. I felt everything either too strongly or not at all. I didn’t trust myself. And Devon, my sister, was standing beside me.

  The darkness of the cave seemed to pulse. Seemed to breathe. I took another step forward. Rocks clawed at my toes, and twigs scratched the arches of my feet. Shapes floated out of the darkness like things rising from deep water. I saw the rocky sides of walls, the uneven ground, the yawning black stretching farther and farther into nothing.

  Then the moon slid out from behind a cloud and illuminated a shaggy black pelt. I watched it rise and fall once before I understood what I was seeing. A stray dog.

  The dog leaped out of the cave and clamped down on my hand and wrist. I screamed and fell backward, hitting the ground so hard that pain shot through my tailbone and left my head spinning. The dog didn’t let go.

  “Devon!” I screamed. I expected her to leap in and help. Swat at the dog with a spare stick or throw a rock at it. But she hesitated, eyes narrowing like she couldn’t understand what was happening.

  Hot blood wound down my arm. My bones felt split in half.

  In reality, Devon had only paused for a fraction of a second. But it felt like I waited hours for her to lunge forward and grab the dog by the scruff of his neck. She dug her fingers into his dirty fur and pulled him off me—easily. Sweet relief flooded through my hand as the dog released his teeth. Devon lifted the dog and tossed it aside, like it was a stuffed animal. Like it didn’t weigh over a hundred pounds. I remember thinking of mothers hauling cars over their heads to save trapped children. Something about how adrenaline and fear add up to super strength.

  The dog hit the ground with a whimper and scrambled back to its feet. It had something wrong with its paw—it was limping.

  “It was hurt,” Devon explained, studying me with those strange, empty eyes. “I thought you could help—”

  I pushed myself to my feet and grabbed her arm. “Come on,” I said, dragging her back into the woods before the dog could attack again.

  I washed the blood off my hands in the bathroom, squeezing and opening my fist a few times to make sure nothing was broken. My bones were fine, but the dog had torn through the skin between my index finger and my thumb. There’s still a thick, gnarled scar weaving down my palm.

  I stare at the scar now, noticing the way it looks pink in the light of the sun. Barely healed. You might think I stopped talking to Devon after that. Or that I yelled at her for being so thoughtless. That I told someone she needed help.

  I didn’t do any of those things. At the time, I couldn’t imagine losing Devon so soon after losing Ariel, and it didn’t even occur to me to let someone else into our private world. What happened was weird and scary. But it was between family. I kept the memory of that night inside me. Down deep, in the dark places I didn’t have to look at.

  At the time, I had to believe that Devon had never meant for me to get hurt. She had led me to an injured animal, and maybe she hadn’t thought about what the consequences would be, but she hadn’t done it on purpose. It was part of her grief. A reaction to what happened to Ariel.

  I move my thumb over the raised, ugly skin, cringing at a phantom twinge of pain.

  Of course, I could have been wrong.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three more texts from Jack over the next two days.

  I thought things weren’t going to be weird between us?

  Remember that time Ariel was convinced she saw Beyoncé in town and she made us follow her around for an hour, but it was just some girl?

  Message received. I’ll leave you alone.

  Delete, delete, delete.

  Jack’s car is parked outside the Med Center the next day, and he’s hunched in the front seat, warming his hands by the heater. I freeze inside the sliding glass doors, torn between wanting to run away and wanting to stand here and drink him in. He’s wearing his track jacket again, the same one he draped around Chloe’s shoulders in the cafeteria, and his hair is windswept, his cheeks pink from the cold. He looks like he should model athletic footwear.

  I will not get inside that car. But I don’t know if I’m promising this to Ariel or Chloe or myself. I walk forward, and the Med Center doors whoosh open. I duck my head, walking toward the bus stop and trying my best to pretend I don’t notice him.

  A car door slams shut. “Charlotte, wait!”

  His voice unglues me. I know I shouldn’t wait, but my feet stop moving all on their own.

  “Traitors,” I whisper down at them. Jack jogs up next to me, his long legs crossing the distance between us much too quickly.

  “I thought you were going to leave me alone,” I say.

  “So you have been getting my texts?” He runs a hand back through his hair, leaving it adorably mussed. I stare at it for a beat and then imagine Chloe pulling her fingers through it, telling him he looks hot. I shift my eyes to the ground.

  “Let me give you a ride home?” he asks.

  Don’t get into the car, don’t get into the car, don’t get into the car.

  “Sure,” I agree.

  We climb into his car and buckle our seat belts. It’s awkward, being so close. Being alone. I want to cover my ears with my hands so I don’t have to hear Jack clear his throat, or sniff, or breathe. I drop my arm on the armrest—then flinch when Jack reaches for the gearshift, almost touching me.

  He gives me a look but doesn’t say anything.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “You avoided me first,” I point out. It’s unfair. Jack kept his distance after Ariel’s body was found, but it’s not like he wouldn’t take my calls, if I’d made any. He waited two weeks. (Did he have an instruction manual? What’s the appropriate amount of time to wait before calling up your dead ex-girlfriend’s best friend?) I’m the one who wouldn’t answer the door, who pretended I didn’t hear him calling my name. I ignored his texts and notes and attempts to catch my eye in the cafeteria.

  Jack pulls the car out of the Med Center parking lot and onto the main street.

  “I wanted to call you,” he explains. “Right after it happened, you were the only one I wanted to talk to. It was just too weird, with the funeral and everything. Her family kept inviting me over for dinner. They wanted to talk about how much we all loved her, and all I could think was, ‘I wish Charlotte was here. Charlotte loved her more than anybody.’”

  I can’t picture Jack with Ariel’s family. Her artist father who pretended to love Ariel more than anything else in the world, and then lost interest the second his fingers started itching for a paintbrush. Her crazy religious mother, who spent most of her time praying for Ariel’s salvation.

  “That sounds like a fun evening,” I deadpan.

  “You have no idea.” Jack shudders. “They kept calling each other ‘babe,’ but the way they said it was like an insult. ‘I noticed you didn’t take the trash out, babe.’ ‘I was going to get to it later, babe.’”

  I cringe. “I forgot they did that.”

  “Yeah. I think they wanted to understand what happened. Why she … But I didn’t know what to tell them.”

  “She wouldn’t have wanted them to know anyway. She hated them.”

  Jack levels his eyes at me. “I know that. I knew her, too.”

  I look straight ahead, but I can still see his profile from the corner of my eye. His straight nose. His unnaturally long eyelashes. His hands gripping the steering wheel. I shift in my seat, suddenly aware of how warm it is in this car. I switch off the heater and turn to face the window.