One of Us Is Back (ONE OF US IS LYING)

Phoebe

Thursday, July 9

Cooper didn’t come close to buying anything at Mandalay Motorcars, because the prices terrified him. “Nonny’s not giving me a blank check,” he said after finally wrangling Luis back into Kris’s car. “Plus, I need the monthly payments to be low. The FiredUp Fitness contract is only for a year, and who knows what’ll happen after that. I have to save for a rainy day.”

“Cooper, you are such a Taurus,” Kris said affectionately. “You’re right, though. This was fun, but next time we’ll look a few levels down from Mandalay Motorcars.”

“Leave it to me, Coop,” Luis said. “I know exactly what you need.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Cooper sighed.

The boys argued good-naturedly for the rest of the ride, and then Kris dropped me back at Café Contigo. I worked on autopilot until ten o’clock, doing my best to copy Evie and be a model employee. At the end of the night I even started marrying ketchup bottles, which I usually leave to her. “It’s okay, Phoebe; I can finish up,” she said when she saw me.

Do you ever get tired of being so perfect? I almost snapped, but I managed to stop myself and thank her instead. Then I called my mother and told her, “I think I might stop by Knox’s for a little while.”

It’s a mark of how much my mother likes Knox that she didn’t tell me to come straight home. “All right, but don’t stay too late. I want you home by eleven,” she said.

“I will be,” I said. Then I trudged to my car, drove to Knox’s house, and stared into his softly glowing window like a creeper for fifteen minutes while I debated whether or not to drive away. I couldn’t, though. Maeve’s words kept running in an endless loop through my brain while I was at work, so much so that I almost called her a dozen times before my shift was over. But in the end, there was someone else I thought I should talk to first.

So now I’m climbing through his bedroom window, once again.

“Thought your window days were over?” Knox says from his usual spot in bed as I heave myself over the sill. He’s smiling, but he also looks confused. Ever since he asked me to give him space, I ring the doorbell when I visit.

“I need to talk to you,” I say, perching at the edge of his desk chair. “But I don’t want your parents to know I’m here. And you have to swear that you won’t tell anyone.”

Knox doesn’t even hesitate before saying, “Okay.” He yanks his covers to one side and moves to the end of the bed, facing me. “What’s up?”

How do I start? I don’t know where to look, so I pick up a loose paper clip from Knox’s desk and start twisting it out of shape. “It’s about…” My mind is churning, and I grasp for something—anything—that will help anchor a conversation that I’m terrified to have. “Do you remember when you asked me out, after Ashton and Eli’s wedding?”

Oh God. Where did that come from?

“Yup,” Knox says, succinct.

“I said no,” I say, twisting the paper clip harder.

“I remember,” Knox says. His tone is even; the only hint that it bothered him is the way he unconsciously rubs the back of his neck.

“But I wanted to say yes,” I say. Then I look up and—oh no.

Knox’s entire face has softened into a shy, disbelieving, completely adorable smile, and I have somehow screwed this up even worse than I thought possible. Before we’ve even gotten to the bad part. “Phoebe, do you have any idea—” he starts.

Whatever happens, I cannot let him finish that sentence. “But I couldn’t, because there was something you didn’t know,” I break in. “About how the Truth or Dare game ended.”

“What about it?” Knox asks. His expression is more puzzled now, but he’s still fighting off a grin. I am the worst for starting like this, and yet—maybe it was the only way. Because now I can’t chicken out, like I did with Maeve at Mandalay Motorcars. I have to tell him.

So I do. Every awful, sordid detail about what Owen did, and what Emma and I did to cover for him. I keep my eyes on the paper clip while I talk, twisting it into a dozen different shapes, my voice low and strangely calm. You’d never know, to hear me, how desperately my heart is trying to break free from my rib cage.

I keep going until there’s nothing left to say. I thought I’d feel relieved once it was all out, but I don’t; the words hang in the air long after I’ve stopped speaking, taking up all the space left by Knox’s silence.

“Wow,” he finally says. I can’t read his tone at all.

“Yeah,” I say.

And then neither of us speaks for an excruciatingly long time.

When I can’t stand it any longer, I look up just as Knox swings his legs over the edge of the bed so his knees are touching mine. “You know I’d bury a body for any one of my sisters, right?” he asks. “I wouldn’t even ask why.”

“Oh God.” My eyes fill with tears and I clap my hands over my mouth, hardly able to believe the olive branch he offered. “I thought you would hate me. You and Maeve were so brave, you saved everyone, and you wouldn’t have had to if Owen had let Emma walk away—”

“Yeah, that part’s not great,” Knox says with a grimace. “But I understand why you did it. And why Owen’s been so miserable. This must be eating him alive. It’s okay, though, now that you’re telling people. He can get the help he needs.”

The relief flowing to my veins comes to an abrupt stop. “Telling people?” I echo. “I’m not telling people. I’m telling you.”

“Well, yeah. First me, and then other people, right?”

“No!” The word bursts out of me before I fully intended to say it; after all, I’d been thinking along the exact same lines. But now that the possibility is out there, I feel nauseated at the thought. There are complications, Emma had said.

“No?” Knox asks, eyes widening. “But then…then it just keeps going, doesn’t it? It’s an endless cycle. Simon wanted revenge, Jake wanted revenge, Jared wanted revenge, Emma wanted revenge, Owen wanted—”

“Stop it!” I put my hands over my ears like a little kid. “Owen didn’t want this. He never meant for it to happen. He didn’t understand what he was doing.”

“What’s going to happen when someone wants revenge on Owen?” Knox asks quietly. “What if that’s why you got kidnapped on Saturday?”

My vision gets hazy. For a few seconds I’m back in the equipment shed, scared and disoriented, with no clue how I got there. What if…no. It’s impossible. “No one knows,” I say. “Except me and Emma, and now you, and you promised—”

“I’m not going to break my promise,” Knox says, knotting his fingers together. “But I wish you’d consider breaking yours. Last Saturday could have been a lot worse. If there’s one thing we know about Bayview, it’s that things tend to get worse before they get better.”

I can’t let myself think about that. “Owen’s just a kid; everyone will judge him like they judge Emma—”

“Brandon was just a kid, too, when he goofed around with the forklift that killed your dad,” Knox says. “He never took any responsibility for that, and Emma set him up to die because of it—”

“She didn’t mean to! You know she didn’t mean to. She thought he might get…” I swallow hard around the lump in my throat. “Injured.”

“Is that really so much better?”

Yes. No. I don’t know. There’s no good answer, so I don’t give one.

“Phoebe, everything else aside, you’re not doing Owen any favors by keeping quiet. If you think it’s been hard on you, can you imagine what it’s like for him? The guilt he must feel?” I silently stab the tip of my finger with the paper clip until I draw blood, as Knox adds, “Have you forgotten what it was like to watch that video?” He doesn’t have to say which video; Brandon jumping to his death while Sean, Jules, and Monica screamed in the background will be burned into my brain for the rest of my life. “Or the bomb that nearly killed a few dozen people and tore up Nate’s arm, or—”

“I haven’t forgotten any of it!”

I don’t realize that I’m yelling until a light knock sounds on the door, and Knox’s mother pokes her head in. “Everything okay, sweetie?” she asks, before catching sight of me. “Oh, hi, Phoebe. I didn’t hear you ring the…” She trails off as her eyes take in the still-open window and the breeze rustling Knox’s curtains. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. I was…blowing off steam.” God, I wish I had a sledgehammer and a junkyard car right about now.

“Why don’t you kids talk downstairs?” Ms. Myers says. “There’s leftover pizza if you’re hungry.”

“No, that’s okay, I…I was just leaving.” I stand, still clutching the paper clip; I’m not sure I’m capable of releasing it at this point. “I need to go.”

“Are you sure about that?” Knox asks, unable to hide his frustration. This was a mistake, and I wish I’d never come. Telling Knox didn’t fix anything; it only made it worse, because now he’s looking at me like that. Like he never really knew me at all. And maybe he’s right.

“I’m sure,” I say, and brush past Ms. Myers.