“No. I don’t have a plan. Haven’t you ever just wanted to get the fuck away? Like get out?” Lucia pulled her hair down, her skin tingling where it met the root, and she felt the first prick of pain there, like a pin. She wound a small thread around her index finger, just ten hairs maybe, baby stuff, and pulled until it popped and her eyes watered.
Taylor watched her and shook her head, closed her eyes. “Not like this, you freak. Do you know that people think Mr. Winters killed you? You know what else I heard? Mrs. Winters is all over it. She found that video, she asked Mr. Trevor about it. She’s about to be running her mouth around that Andrew killed you. And yet”—she swung her arm wide, her fingertips grazing weeds and sending a swarm of gnats up in a cyclone—“Here you are. This is what you wanted. Right?” She stepped forward again until Lucia stepped back. “Right?”
She felt something inside her pop, like the lid off the seltzer that Lenny used to drink, a fizz and then a rush of bubbling. “I wanted to ruin his life. His happy, perfect little life with his happy, perfect little wife. He’s the only person who has ever understood me. He knew me. But he picked Andrew when he had to. I made him choose and he chose Andrew. He chose someone else.” Lucia looked out over the river; the blackbirds were back, looping and ducking, four of them now. “You wouldn’t get it, not really. You have your mom—”
“My mom fucks anything that moves. So don’t go acting like she’s the greatest thing. You don’t see me out here, framing perfectly innocent people because my mom is a whore—”
“Perfectly innocent? Taylor, what the hell is perfectly innocent about Nate Winters? He’s the reason.” Lucia felt her voice screech, her fingers seeking the corn silk threads at the back of her head, her face tilting up to the sky. “You’d never get it. He’s the reason. They all think he’s God. He’s like the God of Mt. Oanoke. Andrew, Porter, Josh. They’re all this club and no one else matters. And they all take turns building each other up, so high, so tall until they’re in this giant ivory tower in the sky and we’re all nothing. We’re all nothing.”
“Are you high? For real, are you high?” Taylor stepped toward her again, her face white with bloodred lips and her eyes flashing.
Something fell then, inside of her. A muscle or a bone, or maybe it was just whatever made people stand up straight, until suddenly, she couldn’t. She wanted to crawl down into the dirt, with the bugs and the sulfur water spray, her head lolling into her chest, her body feeling so heavy.
“Are you even fucking listening to me? You’ve done what you set out to do. You ruined his life. His wife kicked him out. He lost his job. And you know what else? You ruined Andrew’s, too. He’ll lose that scholarship, wanna bet? Winters was his ticket, his recommendation. So you’ll wreck everyone’s lives and I’ll just stay here, in Mt. Oanoke, forever. I guess taking care of you like I’ve done my whole life. All because why?”
Lucia had never seen Taylor so angry. She was like a different person. “He didn’t believe me. About Andrew. None of you believe me. But he has it on video.”
“He has you saying yes on the video. You hooked up with Andrew and Porter that night. Everyone was there. Listen, I could be pissed. I won’t be that girl. But you, you’re fucking ridiculous.”
Fucking ridiculous, Lenny’s open slap across her cheek, sharp and quick.
“He let me think I mattered to him. He was interested in what I thought, what I had to say. He got inside my head. Then he threw it all away like I was nothing. Because of Andrew.” Lucia pushed past Taylor, but Taylor reached out, her fingers like talons on Lucia’s arm.
“You need to come back. Now. Tell everyone what you did. Have you been here the whole time?”
Lucia shook her head. She’d been in the woods for a while, a hunting shack about a mile off Route Six, then she walked through trees, keeping the river to her left, and found her way down to the mill. She figured eventually someone would come looking, but she’d wagered on Mrs. Peterson, and Lucia knew she could outsmart her. She hadn’t figured on Taylor. She tried to remember Taylor spinning that day in the mall, that mossy water all up on her long, skinny calves, her mouth parted, glistening, and cotton-candy-glazed eyes up toward the ceiling, her hair flying around her like a cape. Just so happy. It’s the last time she remembered them being so happy together.
“Come back with me, Lucia. I’ll stay with you.” Taylor’s voice was high, like a blade through air. Something flashed in her fingertips and she waggled it in front of Lucia’s face. The ring. The plasticky, shining heart ring, from that day in the mall. “Do you still love me? Do you trust me?”
Lucia could envision Taylor, taking care of her, almost preening, rallying her troops, her mom. She could see it all happening. She’d stay at Taylor’s, they’d come up with a story.
Lucia shook her head.
The plan was to always go back. But now, the light was different, the air. The sky shone brighter. Something.
“Are you with him now?” Lucia couldn’t look at her when she asked this and instead watched the dirt.
“Who?” Taylor said, playing dumb.
“Pfft. Who. You know who. The rapist.”
“Stop. Saying. That.” Taylor’s voice changed, a rumble in her throat. “You fucked him and now you’re sorry. It is what it is. Doesn’t mean he’s yours forever.”
“I don’t want him. I didn’t fuck him. I didn’t want it. I wanted to go home. You know that, you were there. Why?” Lucia finally did look up, Taylor’s hair flying, the sun behind her shining red through the black. She looked like an angel. “Why does no one believe me?”
“You said yes.” Taylor shrugged, cracked her gum. Lucia got a whiff of Juicy Fruit.
“I was barely conscious. I didn’t say. . . .” Lucia thought about it. She had watched the video. Just once. On her phone, her feet pulled up on the toilet, crouched in a stall in the janitor’s bathroom by the cafeteria. Out in the hall, Minnie, the lunch lady, had latched on to her shoulder. Why you cryin’ girl? You okay? Lucia hadn’t even known she was. “He broadcast it, T. Why is this okay with you?”
Taylor laughed. “You know, you’ve been on me since we were kids. Even my mom feels sorry for you. How many dinners have you eaten at my house? Like all the dinners you’ve ever eaten in your whole life have been at my house. I tried to bring you with me, to the right crowd, the right friends, the right parties. You still couldn’t be normal. You’ve never just been normal. You never were grateful or thankful or anything. And now you’re just gonna do this? He’s the only one in this town that has anything going for him. And you’re just gonna, what? Ruin it? You know he’s got a baseball scholarship? Full ride. Nobody gets that shit anymore. Down in Texas, biggest baseball school of the country. Like maybe he’ll be a pro one day.”