To catch the one who loves you in a lie leaves a wound that never fully goes away. I will never understand how the Ben I knew so well could deceive me so completely. I can only say that his feet were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he went down hard.
That day, in the warm sun, surrounded by the solid proof of an ancient realm, I let go of forming theories. I only know that, given enough time, this wound will scar over. The layers of my life will slowly cover and fill the gulf cleft through my heart. But deep in the bedrock of who I am is a record of these things that I will carry with me, a new map whose boundaries have forever altered the way I view the world.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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forty-four
ABOUT A MONTH after the geology field trip, I am changing out of my plaid skirt and navy vest in the Saint Mary’s locker room when it happens:
I catch sight of my deodorant at the bottom of my gym bag. Stuffing the duffel into my locker, I think about Adele rushing off to stock up on Right Guard.
And I think about the look on Ben’s face.
And I smile.
It doesn’t last long. A split second later, Olivia Jaynes comes bounding in with her crazy Afro in a sweatband. She is a disco dance party looking for a place to happen and, for reasons yet to be revealed, calls me “Sweet Pea.” In the month since Will and I changed schools, Olivia has been my welcome wagon, tour guide, and activity director.
“Move it, Sweet Pea,” she barks.
I pinch her at the waist and she yelps, chasing me onto the field.
At this school, our coach is a guy, and our colors are burgundy and navy, but the line drills are the same. Coach Orson likes to see what he calls “go-getter initiative,” and by that he means people who are on the field and running drills before practice officially begins. For the past few weeks, Olivia has made it her mission to ensure we’re the first ones out of the gate.
Tomorrow we have our final game. It’s been an okay season: six wins, four losses, one to Coral Sands. It was weird playing my old team, but I survived, and Lindsey came out to dinner with us afterward.
That was the night I found Dad in the kitchen. I had come down to get some water before I went to bed, and he was standing at the counter making his sandwiches for lunch the next day. He’s been going in even earlier lately. The developer he works for let him take on a second crew so he could cover the tuition at Saint Mary’s. We’ve cut back a lot, but he and Mom agreed that if we wanted to switch schools we could. Will wasn’t thrilled about the uniforms, but the classes are smaller, and he likes his chances of making varsity as a sophomore next fall.
I slid my arms around Dad’s waist and murmured “thank you” into his back. He turned around and put his hands on my shoulders.
“I love you,” he said. “You’re all right, Katie. You’re all right.”
For my dad, that’s as close to “I’m proud of you” as we get, and even though so much has changed, I realized then that he was correct:
I am all right.
Sometimes, when change happens, you can’t stop it or control it or direct it. You can only hang on for the ride.
Stacey’s ride took her south. Mom ran into LeeAnne in the Walmart parking lot the week after all the pleas were changed to guilty. She was collecting empty boxes from the Dumpsters behind the store so she could pack up. Lawyers from as far away as New York tried to convince her to bring a civil suit for damages on Stacey’s behalf, but she said she couldn’t put her daughter through any more. What she could do was move to her sister’s house in Nashville and put her daughter in a nearby charter school for visual arts. “I can wait tables anywhere,” she told Mom. “There’s nothing left for us here but heartache.”
I never talked to Stacey after I went to the police. But the day she moved, Will got the mail and found a folded piece of paper with my name on it. There were no other words, only a pencil sketch of a beautiful mockingbird, the state bird of Tennessee, its feathers spread and majestic, head held high, flying toward a new horizon.
I watch as little news as possible these days, but sometimes it’s hard to avoid. Sloan Keating is a regular analyst on CNN now, and just the other day, I saw her on a screen while I was in line at the dry cleaner. The judge went easy on Dooney, Deacon, Randy, and Greg. Dooney’s dad helped the prosecutor out of a messy divorce a few years back, and when the guys changed their pleas to guilty, he bargained down the charges. All four were sentenced to just under one year each. With good behavior, they might be out as early as September, and Coach Sanders is already talking about “second chances.”
I haven’t heard from Ben.
I don’t expect to.