Happenstance 2 (Happenstance #2)(11)
Author: Jamie McGuire

Chapter 5

THE PRISTINE, WHITE CEILING FAN WAS ON, ROTATING quietly. It didn’t wobble and nearly blended in with the smooth, white paint on the ceiling, which wasn’t cracked or peeling. There were no moisture spots where the roof leaked.

The closets and bathrooms of the Alderman home still smelled like fresh paint. Nothing like Gina’s rundown, moldy two-bedroom. It felt weird not to have seen her since I learned the news, but I conceded that she wanted it that way. Gina’s car was still parked at the grocery store where she worked, in the same parking lot, during the same hours she used to work, but I hadn’t gone in. Mostly because I wouldn’t know what to say, but also because Julianne kept the pantry full with everything I could possibly need. It was almost as if anticipating and fulfilling my every need was a full-time job for Julianne.

I ran my thumb over the black keyless-entry remote still in my hand. I hadn’t put it on my nightstand or left it on the kitchen counter next to Sam’s keys because I had an irrational fear that if I put that remote down, it would disappear. Everything that had happened to me in the last month was so surreal, so opposite of the way my life had gone so far, it was almost too perfect to believe. So I held on to the remote like I held on to the hope that I would open my eyes in the morning under the same pretty ceiling fan, down the hallway from the door missing the pastel letters.

I looked over at the digital clock on the table and sighed. It was two in the morning. After dinner I’d called Weston, and we’d chatted for an hour about the car. He wanted to drive around with me, but I was tired at the time. Now, lying on a mattress so soft, I sank into it, and sheets so soft, they felt a bit greasy (in the best possibly way). I couldn’t sleep.

I padded across the room in my bare feet and opened the door. It creaked, so I froze and peeked down the hall. It was dark and quiet. Sam and Julianne had been in bed for quite a while.

I stepped out onto the tightly woven carpet and took a few silent steps, until I was standing in front of Alder’s door. My heartbeat reacted as I reached for the handle, wondering if her room would be locked. I was afraid of what was on the other side, as if she would be standing there, screaming at me to get out.

I pushed down on the gold lever, and it gave way. The door opened, creaking a bit like mine, and I pushed it open.

The room was dark, but the moonlight pouring in through the windows offered enough light that I could see the pictures poked into the crisscrossed ribbon on a corkboard on the wall. Photos of the Erins at cheer practice and football games, hanging with Brady and Brendan and Chrissy, and of course, Weston. I swallowed. He looked happy, and that made my stomach turn, even though I remembered seeing him with Alder all the time with the same expression. The bright eyes that were only for her. I thought about how he looked at me.

It’s different, I told myself.

Her room was clean, and everything was in its place. It had been dusted recently, and the bed was made. I sat down on her black-and-white comforter and looked around at the various decorations on the wall. It felt wrong, but also exhilarating, a thousand times more than texting during class. Alder would have died all over again if she knew I was in her room—if she knew I was living there, and Weston was coming to see me. I wondered how Sam and Julianne rationalized all of this to themselves, balancing making me happy with not feeling like they were crapping all over her memory.

I walked over to her closet and opened the door. It was a walk-in like mine. Her clothes were pressed and hanging from dozens of identical plastic hangers like mine. But she had several cheer uniforms in her closet, and a lot of dresses and high heels. A plastic bag poked out from the rest of the clothes, and I switched on the closet light to get a better look. It was a prom dress.

I tried to get a good look without touching it, but I finally resorted to pulling it out of its spot and holding it before me. The remote that I still held made it difficult to maneuver my hand, but I managed to pull it out with clumsy effort. It was breathtaking. The neckline was one-shouldered, and it was practically backless, sheer from the waist up, with a few silver rhinestones crowding certain areas. She would have looked like a Greek goddess, and I imagined her wearing her hair up, slicked back from her face, in a high bun. Then I imagined her with Weston, and I put the dress away.

My curiosity still wasn’t satiated, but the closet was the only place I felt I could look around with the light on. I fingered through her clothes and then her shoes. I found a rectangular toy box behind her hanging clothes. It was white with pink ballet slippers, no lid. There were baby dolls and Barbie dolls, some old McDonald’s toys and notebooks, all empty or mostly empty, with the occasional random, juvenile drawing of a dog or unicorn, and one drawing of three stick figures. Little girls, all with the name ERIN hanging over their differently styled hair. I knew which one was supposed to be me right away. The one with the tangled mess of hair. They were holding hands, smiling. My breath faltered. I remembered when that had happened in real life: the giggles and hand holding. We were best friends back then.

A clear, plastic storage tub full of three-ring binders caught my attention, and I pulled off the lid as quietly as I could, pulling out the first binder. It was green, with JOURNAL written on the cover in black Sharpie marker in Alder’s handwriting.

I put it down and then picked it back up. I did this several times, each time talking myself out of opening it.

“These are her thoughts, Erin. Don’t you dare,” I hissed, snapping the lid back onto the tub. I had to get up early anyway so I could navigate my way over to Weston’s and drive carefully to school for the first time. Reading her thoughts would be wrong. Very wrong, and there were so many moral and ethical principles I valued in myself that would be violated on ten different levels if I opened that binder.

I did it anyway.

I closed the binder, not wanting to know if it was me she was talking about. The journals were dated all the way back to grade school. My eyebrows pushed up. She had filled all of these binders. All of Erin Alderman’s private thoughts were right there for me to know and learn if I wanted. There was a single plastic-covered diary with a silver, broken lock that read MY FIRST DIARY.

I closed the lid and stood up, turning out the light. Alder’s privacy had already been violated, and Sam and Julianne’s trust. Guilt pushed me out of her room, back down the hall, and into my bedroom, all the way under my covers.

After twenty minutes of not being able to settle my thoughts, I looked up at the ceiling fan. Was Alder talking about me? What had I done? Did she mean that Weston was looking at me? Surely not. He’d said once that he’d always liked me, but it didn’t occur to me that he actually did. The questions were there, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted the answers. There were so many within those pages. I might even find out why the Erins had stopped talking to me.