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

Phoebe

Saturday, July 4

I told myself before I left for Nate’s Fourth of July party that I would push aside everything that’s been worrying me and just have fun. But now, I can’t stop looking at the button on Knox’s shirt.

He’s wearing a faded blue oxford with the sleeves rolled up, and the second button from the top is only half-buttoned. If I weren’t overanalyzing every single reaction I have to him, I’d reach over and fix it. But is wardrobe adjustment allowed within the new Knox-and-Phoebe order? Especially since my hands would probably linger there, brushing off imaginary lint and straightening the collar that doesn’t need to be straightened. The button is only an excuse, really. Or maybe it’s a metaphor?

“Phoebe?” Knox asks. “Did you hear me?”

“What?” I blink at him and Addy, who’s looking adorable in a pale-pink T-shirt dress. Her hair is freshly colored, a beautiful platinum purple that makes her entire face glow. “Sorry, it’s just…” My eyes drop to the button again, and I extend my hand halfway to Knox’s chest with a gesturing motion. “You missed a button. Well, you half missed it.”

“Really?” Knox looks down, hands me his cup of ginger ale, and fixes the button himself. There goes my excuse to stare. “Thanks. Can’t take me anywhere.”

Nate’s roommate Crystal drifts by then, waving to Addy before her eyes skip over me and settle on Knox. She breaks into a smile then, reversing whatever course she was on to join us. “You did it,” she says delightedly, brushing a lock of wavy brown hair from Knox’s forehead. “You grew your hair out! I told him to do that the last time he was here,” she adds as an aside to me and Addy. “I said he’d be a total hottie if he did, and I was right, wasn’t I?”

I try to hide my jealousy with a cheerful nod, because none of my angst is Crystal’s fault. She’s still touching his hair, though, and I wish she’d stop. “You were right,” I say. Addy smiles affectionately, bumping Knox’s shoulder with hers.

“Technically, you said I’d be cute,” Knox says, with that crooked grin he gives when he’s both embarrassed and proud.

“Did I? Well, I’m upgrading you,” Crystal says. Okay, now she’s pretending to brush something off his shoulder, and it’s completely unfair that she’s stealing all my would-be moves. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Seventeen,” Knox says.

“Ahh,” Crystal sighs, patting his shoulder in a much more sisterly way. Other than Reggie, all Nate’s roommates are in their early twenties. “Way too young.” She turns to leave, adding, “Let’s talk in a couple of years” over her shoulder.

“I’ll be eighteen before you know it!” Knox calls after her.

“Really?” Addy teases as Crystal disappears. “You and Crystal?”

“Probably not. She isn’t my type,” Knox says. His warm brown eyes settle briefly on mine, and a little thrill goes through me until he adds, “And I doubt I’m hers. She was just being nice. Good to get some positive reinforcement on the hair front, though.”

“Knox, if you stopped hanging out in a corner with me and Phoebe, I promise you’d have more positive reinforcement than you can handle,” Addy says.

Knox blushes and ducks his head, and I take a long, bracing sip of punch. This entire party, so far, feels like it has been expressly designed to torture me.

Then Addy’s eyes widen as she gazes over my shoulder. “Oh, good, Maeve and Luis are finally here.” She stands on tiptoes, waving them over. As soon as they’re within earshot, Addy calls out, “So what did you find?”

“Seriously?” Maeve asks. “I’ve barely started.”

Addy makes an exaggerated show of glancing at her wrist, even though she’s not wearing a watch. “You’ve had six hours,” she says.

“I was on a bike for most of them,” Maeve says with a grimace.

I take another sip, trying to get into a party mood. “Were you actually riding?”

“Sometimes,” Maeve replies without looking at me, which is…strange. Maeve has trouble meeting people’s eyes when she’s not being honest, but she’s never tried to hide her lack of enthusiasm for bikes. My nerves start to prickle, wondering if Maeve managed to dig something up about the revenge forum that she doesn’t want to tell Addy about. But then she squeezes Addy’s arm and says, “I’ve set aside the whole day tomorrow. If Vengeance Is Mine has moved, I’ll find it. I promise.”

There’s something unnaturally stiff about her posture, though, and I don’t think it has anything to do with spending hours on a bicycle.

“I’m gonna get drinks for me and Maeve,” Luis says, gazing around our circle. Right now it’s just me, Addy, and Knox; Cooper and Kris aren’t coming, and Nate and Bronwyn are off arguing with some of his roommates. “Anyone need anything?”

“Could you get me more punch?” I ask.

“Sure thing.” Luis turns to leave as Knox stares into my empty cup.

“I got you that, like, five minutes ago,” he says.

“I’m thirsty,” I say. I’m not, though—just on edge, like always lately. Maeve glances between us, for long enough that I find myself saying, “What?”

“Hmm?” she asks, her eyes fastening somewhere over my shoulder.

“You’re looking at me funny. Or rather, you’re…not looking at me,” I say.

She finally meets my eyes, and my pulse skitters at her expression. She’s worried about something, and that something clearly has to do with me. Did she stumble across Owen during her research? Is he online somewhere, bragging about what he did to Brandon? He’s too smart to identify himself, of course, but Maeve is incredibly good at picking up contextual clues about people who think they’re anonymous.

“Well…” She pulls her phone from her pocket and swipes at the screen. “Like I said, I couldn’t find anything related to the revenge forum this afternoon, but…did you guys know there’s an Instagram page dedicated to Jake sightings?”

Oh God. My stomach drops as Addy sucks in a breath. “I didn’t, but it shouldn’t surprise me,” she says. “What’s he doing? Do I even want to know?”

“Nothing to do with you,” Maeve says, still swiping. “But Phoebe…this is your car, isn’t it? And your sneakers.”

She holds out her phone and—there he is. Jake Riordan, changing my tire. My bumper and license plate are clearly visible, and so are my pink Nikes. The ones with silver laces that I happen to be wearing right now. My throat goes dry as Knox and Addy peer at Maeve’s phone, and then stare, open-mouthed, at my feet.

“I…I can explain,” I stammer.

“You let him…” Addy, her eyes wide and horrified, can’t even finish the sentence.

“I didn’t mean to!” I say. “It happened really fast—”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Knox asks.

There’s not enough punch in the world to give me the courage to unpack that question. “It’s just…I was worried about this delivery I had to make for Café Contigo, and I was about to call Triple A, and then all of a sudden Jake was there, and his mom was there, and I went on autopilot or something….”

“When was this?” Addy asks. Her voice is so cold that I’m struck mute, and Maeve has to answer for me.

“Three days ago,” she says.

“So we worked all day together yesterday, and it never occurred to you to mention this?” Addy demands.

Only like a million times, I think miserably. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and I never imagined she’d find out. “I’m sorry,” I say, wishing Luis would hurry back with that punch. “It was stupid of me. I didn’t talk to him or anything. I…I didn’t even want to thank him, once he was done, so all I said was that I should learn to change a tire, and he said it takes practice, and—”

I’m babbling now, and Addy’s had more than enough. “Oh, well, as long as you didn’t thank him,” she says, and her sarcasm is like a knife to my heart. Addy is the queen of giving people the benefit of the doubt and forgiving their mistakes, but right now, she’s too upset for that. “I guess we’re all good, then,” she adds.

Maeve bites her lip. “Phoebe, that really was you, wasn’t it?” she asks. “At Jake’s Eastland High event. Not some random girl with your exact hair and shirt.”

“Oh my God.” Addy’s breath catches as she turns to stare at Maeve. “I saw her too.”

Her. Not you. Like I’m outside the circle all of a sudden.

“That was the day we were at your house, right? With Bronwyn?” Addy asks, and Maeve nods. “I almost said something, but I thought for sure I was wrong.” Addy’s tone gets hard again as her eyes cut toward me. “Why were you there?”

I can’t speak. There’s no way I can tell her the truth: Oh, you know, just wondering if a boy who tries to commit murder can actually change, so I don’t have to keep obsessing about my brother. So that means lying—again—but I can’t think of a single good excuse. Not now, with my friends staring at me like I’ve committed the ultimate betrayal.

“Phoebe, what’s going on?” Knox asks. His voice is full of concern, and for some reason, that’s yet another final straw. Luis comes back then, balancing three cups, and I grab one so roughly that he almost drops the other two.

“What’s going on is that I’m a disaster and I’ll leave,” I say, turning on my heel to stomp away before I burst into tears. I can’t wait to get away, and yet—it still hurts when I reach the other side of the room without anyone tugging at my arm. Not even Knox.

The party is full of people I know—Nate and Bronwyn are still in a heated conversation with his roommates Sana and Reggie, oblivious to what just happened. My former best friend, Jules, is across the room with her boyfriend, Sean, and Monica Hill, another girl from my class. Even the Café Contigo staff is here: Manny, Evie, and a server named Ahmed. But I can’t bring myself to join any of them, so I just stand awkwardly against the wall next to the hallway until somebody taps me on the shoulder.

“Did you get kicked out of Murder Club?” a voice asks.

I turn to see Vanessa Merriman in a cute red halter dress, a Solo cup in each hand. “Here,” she adds, dropping one of them into the cup that I somehow emptied during my walk of shame across the room. “This was for a friend, but you look like you could use it.” She leans one shoulder against the wall and adds, “That friend was me, by the way. I don’t know why I bother coming to these things.”

“Why do you?” I ask, taking a long, grateful sip.

“I just said I don’t know,” Vanessa says irritably. Her eyes follow mine to the corner where Knox, Maeve, Addy, and Luis are still deep in conversation. “They’re all so judgey, aren’t they? Like, you pick the wrong side once, and all of a sudden you’re a pariah.”

Vanessa did a lot more than pick the wrong side; from what I remember, she bullied Addy mercilessly after Simon died. And then, for good measure, she bullied Cooper too. But I’m not in any position to remind her of that right now. “They’re my friends,” I say, even though I’m not sure that’s true anymore.

“Then what are you doing all the way over here?” Vanessa asks.

I don’t have a good answer for that, so I guzzle my drink as I watch Nate and Bronwyn break away from Sana and Reggie and head for the Bayview Crew corner. Sana pulls my eyes back to her and Reggie when she grabs hold of Reggie’s arm, all her hippie-chick floatiness gone, and pulls him closer so she can say something directly into his ear. Reggie shrugs and turns away, leaving Sana wearing a frustrated expression.

“I can’t believe that’s still going on,” Vanessa says.

“What?” I ask. I almost add Sana and Reggie?, which would be brand-new information, but Vanessa flicks a hand in Nate and Bronwyn’s direction.

“Their little good-girl, bad-boy romance,” she says. “I mean, come on. What do they even have in common, besides getting accused of murder together? The sex can’t be that good.”

Aaand, we’re done. “Gotta go,” I blurt, propelling myself off the wall toward…I don’t even know where. Bathroom, probably, because I’ve had a lot of punch. There’s a surprisingly short line, and I pull out my phone to scroll while I wait and see I have a text from Emma. I’ve been trying to persuade her to come home for a weekend. I miss her, but really, I need to force her to talk about Owen.

I tap on the text, and all she’s said is I can’t afford the plane fare. I still don’t have a job.

It’s just an excuse, though, and we both know it. The longer she’s away from Bayview, the less she wants to come back.

You can’t leave me alone to deal with the mess we made, I write, then erase it before hitting Send. We’re not supposed to put any of this in writing.

“Your turn,” a voice says behind me, and I look up to see the bathroom door ajar.

As soon as I get inside, it hits me how drunk I am. The black-and-white tile spins, and I can barely manage to undo the braided belt on my shorts. I have even worse luck trying to refasten it once I’ve used the toilet, fruitlessly searching for the microscopic belt holes until a loud knock on the door reminds me that I’ve overstayed my turn.

“Almost done,” I call, deciding to improvise and tie the belt into a little knot. Which I immediately realize is a bad idea, because I’m never going to be able to get it undone when I go to bed. Oh well, that’s a problem for Future Phoebe. Then I wash my hands, staring at my flushed, glassy-eyed face in the mirror.

“Something has to give,” I tell my reflection.

These walls must be paper-thin, because another knock sounds on the door as somebody yells, “It’s gonna be my bladder if you don’t get out of there!”

“Sorry,” I call, drying my hands on—oh, ew. I thought it was a towel, but it’s actually someone’s boxer shorts draped over the rack, and now I need to wash my hands again. By the time I’m done, the next person in line is pounding steadily at the door, and when I open it, I scurry past them as fast as possible. “Sorry,” I repeat, eyes on the floor. Vanessa’s still standing where I left her, absorbed in her phone, a full cup of punch on the table beside her. Before I even realize what I’m doing, I scoop it up and brush past her.

“Hey, you little lush, that’s mine!” she yells, but I pretend I don’t hear her and make a beeline for the staircase.

I like it better upstairs; it’s darker, quieter, and I don’t know anyone. A bedroom door is open—literally tied open, with some kind of sheet contraption fastened around a radiator, which I’d probably be curious about if I were sober—and a bunch of people are hanging around inside, talking. Nobody seems to mind when I drop into a beanbag chair and pull out my phone, spending a good twenty minutes composing a short, typo-free message to Emma:

Please come home.

Then I close my eyes, and by the time I open them, I’m alone in the room. I stand and immediately get dizzy, and I have to brace myself against the wall before making my way to the door. When I reach it, I nearly bump into a boy on his way in.

“Well, hey, Phoebe,” Reggie Crawley says. “Long time no see. What are you doing all by yourself in my room?”

I got to know Reggie all too well when Bronwyn stopped tutoring him after Simon died. Emma stepped in to help him retake the SATs, even though she was only a junior, because she’d already aced the PSATs and Reggie’s parents were desperate. For two months he was in our apartment three nights a week, leering at me every time Emma’s back was turned. He’s barely changed since then: same scraggly goatee, same propensity for too-thin V-neck T-shirts, same leather-cord necklace with three silver beads. Already in a style rut at age nineteen.

Reggie leans against the door frame, waggling his eyebrows in what he thinks, wrongly, is a seductive manner. “Waiting for me?” he adds.

I might be woozy, but I have enough presence of mind to give the only possible response to that question. “Ugh, no thank you,” I say, pushing past him.

“Your loss,” he calls after me.

I stumble downstairs, clutching the banister the whole way, and wonder if I’ve been gone long enough for Addy to be less angry. But she’s not in the Bayview Crew corner anymore; none of them are. It’s been taken over by my former friend Jules, and when she waves at me, I’m so relieved at the welcoming gesture that I don’t hesitate to approach, even though she’s flanked by two of my least favorite people in the world.

“Drink?” Sean Murdock asks when I reach them, holding out a cup. I don’t really want it but take it anyway.

“Perfect timing, Phoebe Jeebies,” Jules says.

I try to smile at the nickname, but it sounds wrong. That’s the old Phoebe—the one who got to judge Jules for dating a creep like Sean and lying to the police about how Brandon died. Jules and I cleared the air after that, but things still aren’t the same between us. Partly because I try to spend as little time as possible in Sean’s presence, and partly because it’s not lost on me that I’ve turned into a much bigger liar than she ever was.

“Perfect timing?” I echo.

Jules nods and bumps her shoulder into Monica’s. “We need some intel,” she says.

“About what?” I ask, finishing half the drink I didn’t want in a single gulp.

“Slow down, tiger,” Sean says, smirking. God, I hate him.

“About Knox,” Jules says.

I blink at her, trying to bring her face into better focus, but it’s no use. She still looks as though she has two of them. “What about him?”

“Is he single?”

“Whaaa?” That doesn’t seem to be enough of an answer, so I add, “Why?”

“Monica’s into him,” Jules says.

I snort out a laugh, but nobody joins in. “Sorry, were you serious?” I ask.

“Of course,” Monica says, twirling a strand of ponytail around one finger. “Why wouldn’t I be? He’s hot.”

It feels like the entire party has chosen tonight to notice, but Monica doesn’t get to throw her hat into this particular ring. “You made fun of him all last semester!” I protest.

“I did not,” Monica says. “Sean did, but he knows he was wrong. Right, Sean?”

“Me and Knox are bros now,” Sean says with perfect meathead confidence.

“No, you aren’t,” I snap. “He can’t stand you. Or you,” I add, swinging my gaze back toward Monica. There are three of her now, which is three too many. Or four, even. A negative number of Monicas would be preferable. “Leave him alone.”

“Phoebe, you don’t own Knox,” Jules says bossily. “If you like him, you’ve had plenty of time to do something about it.”

“I don’t…I can’t…I have to go,” I say, and stumble past them toward the hallway. I try to get my phone out of my pocket as I push my way outside, but my hands are numb and my breathing has gone shallow. My head aches so horribly that I can barely think. I want to call a Lyft, but I don’t know if I can even manage to unlock my phone.

I turn around to go back inside, but somehow, that’s not where I end up. I’m surrounded by grass and trees, and I collapse into some kind of stone bench. Something’s wrong, I think as the edges of my brain turn fuzzy. A figure looms nearby, so indistinct that it’s barely a shadow, but if I squint hard enough, it looks familiar.

Go away, I try to say, but the words won’t come. I’m so impossibly tired.

“Oh, Phoebe,” someone says, sounding as though they’re talking to me from the end of a long, echoing tunnel. “You’ve made a big mistake.”

Which one? I think.

Then everything goes black.