He put his head in his hands and let out a sob that racked his entire body. “I was so fucking close … I just wanted a fucking chance…”
I walked around the bed to stand in front of him. I thought about reaching out to touch him, to console him, but it wasn’t what we did. I was sure he’d see it as an act of war and take a swing at me.
“What did you do, Isaiah?” I demanded. “What did you tell your mom?”
He sniveled and slurped and gulped down a breath before lifting his head to face me again.
“Mutually assured destruction,” he said thickly. “You bitch.”
35
Leigh was nursing a final slice of pizza when she stopped short in the doorway.
“Hey, Ever,” she said in the same tone you would use on a rabid dog. Or on your deranged-looking five-foot-ten Muay Thai–trained roommate. “You wanna talk now?”
I looked up from ripping the sheets off my bed. My suitcase was open on the floor, most of my shoes already paired off inside. The glittery Firefly poster was laid across the top of my newly empty desk until I could track down a rubber band. I’d tried to talk myself into leaving it behind, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out.
“I’m going home,” I said. It was a relief to say it out loud. It had been playing on a loop in my head since I’d run out of Isaiah’s room and checked my phone. Twenty-seven missed calls from all three of my parents. I hadn’t managed to get through all of the voice mails, but the gist was that Beth had booked a flight for first thing in the morning and that repercussions the likes of which I had never imagined were about to fall down on me.
Aunt Bobbie had called Beth during her final dress rehearsal, so I had ruined not only my parents’ night but also the integrity of Woodland Opera House’s umpteenth production of The Importance of Being Earnest. So that was one more mark in the Elliot’s An Asshole column, alongside “Kicked her cousin in the stomach instead of discussing problems like a rational adult,” “Broke a cute boy’s heart,” and “Was never nice enough to Perla and maybe that’s why she’s such a snob.”
Oh. And the whole “Ran away, using Oscar Wilde as an excuse” thing.
“Is this about you and Isaiah not actually being related?” Leigh asked, edging into the room and closing the door.
I snapped around to face her and she shied closer to her wardrobe, eyebrows worn high and imperious on her forehead.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“Come on,” she scoffed, waving her pizza in the air. “There is one thousand percent no way that you two are twins. Not even brother and sister. Are you ready to talk about it, because you look like you might have snapped and I have a lot of questions.”
My fitted sheet finally detached from the farthest corner of the mattress and whizzed into my arms. I sat down, the wad of billowing cotton settling on my lap.
“You knew?” I asked.
“Are you serious?” She laughed, throwing herself down on her mattress. “From the second he showed up. You were shocked to see him on the first day. Like the-boogeyman-showed-up shocked. I mean, I let it go because it was your business, but now…” She gestured to my luggage. “It looks like shit’s gone sideways?”
“The most sideways,” I said.
“Can I help?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I rubbed my lips together. “Do you mind listening to a bunch of truth all at once?”
She grinned. “I’ve been waiting weeks for you to ask me that.”
So I laid it all out for her. From the beginning, all the way until Isaiah pulled the trigger on our mutually assured destruction, with long, hyperventilating detours to explain how I’d told Brandon that we had no future together and that I hadn’t returned a single phone call home since the night we’d watched The Breakfast Club.
“Hm,” she said, when I’d run out of steam and she’d run out of pizza. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I repeated. “Did you hear all of that crap I just spewed at you?”
She smiled in recognition. “Ever—”
“It’s Elliot, actually,” I interrupted. “My real name is Elliot.”
“But my summer camp best friend’s name is Ever. You chose it yourself, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“Then I am keeping it. I like it. It’s a very romantic name,” she said. She hopped up, dusting herself off. “All right. Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
She winked at me as she scurried for the door. “To my big secret.”
I followed her out of the dorm, checking over my shoulder the entire way, prepared to see Meg or Harper jump out of the shadows.
“Calm down. You can’t get sent home if you’re already going home,” Leigh laughed, as we entered the stairwell.
“You could!” I hissed at her back.
“Same difference,” she said with a wave of her wrist.
I stopped protesting once we were out of the lobby and into the quad. The night was bracingly crisp and the stars were out in full effect. The crickets were louder than they had been when we’d been out for dinner, or maybe I was free to notice them now that basically everything had come crashing down around me. I felt like my whole body was made of raw, broken skin. Without the scab of secrets, everything was too free to sink in.
Leigh took a left, pointing us in the direction of the Lauritz and walking in surprisingly long strides on her short legs.
“So,” I said. “You were going to tell me something?”
“No,” she said in cheery singsong. “I was going to show you something.”
“Is it a dead body?”
She goggled up at me, her mouth slack. “Why would I show you a dead body?”
“I don’t know!” I huffed, skipping to keep up. “What else would you show me that you couldn’t tell me about first?”
“Oh my God, so many things before dead body,” she said. “A basket of puppies or a mossy log or a cloud that looks like a pony? All of those before dead body.”
“There aren’t any clouds out. It’s nighttime.”
“Okay, then maybe I wanted to show you the moon,” she said.
I looked up, but it was impossible to find the moon beyond the shadowy rooftops and tree branches.
Leigh grabbed my arm and tugged. “I didn’t want to show you the moon, Ever. You’ve seen the moon. And don’t even guess that I’m a ghost, because I will be seriously pissed if you think I’m imaginary.”
“Imaginary people don’t have tiny sharp nails digging into my wrist,” I said, wincing at the pain as she continued to pull me up the sidewalk. We took another left and entered the trees. “Are you taking me to Mudders Meadow?”
“Mudders Meadow is for freshmen and orgies,” she sneered. “I can’t believe they included that on the list of must-see places on campus. We are going through the meadow.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, ducking as branches started to lodge in my hair. “Did you just say ‘orgies’?”
“Yes, Ever, my secret is that I’m a sex maniac,” she said sarcastically. She gave my arm another tug. “You really make surprising you less fun than it could be.”
“You make revealing surprises more cryptic than it needs to be.”
“Touché.”