Tighter (Page 41)

“What?” I reached out and touched her shoulder. “What did he do, Isa?”

She had pulled herself into a ball, her arms belted around her knees, her toes locked at the edge of the seat. She spoke her memory as if still spellbound by it. “He was smiling. That scary smile, more like a mask. He got a long fireplace match from the kitchen drawer. He took the sugar bowl from the dining room. He called me into the dining room. I went in. It was too dark. He lit the match, he wanted … he wanted to melt the bowl. To ruin it. He was doing it right in front of me. The silver turned all blackish. He only burned around the bottom. Where you wouldn’t be able to see it. I was scared.”

I could imagine it perfectly. Pete’s smile and the match like a jacklight, the firelight disfiguring his face, finding its hollows. “And then what?”

“He was laughing to himself. He said, ‘Isa, here’s a lesson you won’t learn at school. When you believe something is perfect, don’t be fooled. It just means you need to search harder for the defect. For what makes it worthless.’ ” Her hands covered her face. “Sometimes I hear him saying that in my dreams. Sometimes I wake up, and it’s just like he’d been whispering it right in my ear.”

“No, no. Those are just bad dreams.” I shoved closer so that the weight of her body could fall against my support.

“It’s all my fault.”

“None of it’s your fault, Isa. None of it.”

“It is, though.”

“Shh.” As I smoothed her hair away from her face, she quieted.

“All Jess wanted him to know was that she wasn’t ready,” she whispered. “She was always saying she wasn’t ready. That Pete was too clingy. She even told me she wouldn’t be mad if I let it slip out that Aidan was hanging around. But then, when I did let it slip out, Pete … he ended up killing them both. He did, Jamie, didn’t he?”

And even when I couldn’t answer, she kept asking this question, as the sun dropped away and cast us in cooling shadows. He did, didn’t he, Jamie? Didn’t he?

TWENTY-FOUR

“You’re taking me tonight, right? Per our deal?”

I whipped around, startled. “Don’t you know how to knock?”

“Sorry.” Milo didn’t seem sorry at all as he ambled past me to sit in the armchair by my bookcase.

“And we don’t have any deal, Milo.” I reached for the Baggie on top of the bookshelf. I was really coming down to the last of my pills, and the one I’d taken an hour ago had been from Mom’s muscle-relaxing stash. I knew from experience that its effects were next to nothing, maybe a pinch stronger than an ibuprofen. Which was comical, which was hardly any help at all.

Two days since Pendleton. I’d wanted to find out things, and now that I’d learned them, all I wanted to do was forget them. Peter had believed that we were fated to our destiny. That we had no choice, only the illusion of choice. Was that the thought he’d held on to when he brought down the plane?

I pushed it out of my mind. Refused to dwell there. Most of the time I’d spent comforting Isa, who had gone into a bit of a shock since her confession. Now I understood why she thought about it all the time, why it still frightened her. She had needed to believe in their true love and romantic elopement to take the tarnish off the secret of Jessie’s disloyalty and Peter’s torment. Which was the truth?

I’d also written Mom, but I hadn’t sent that note yet. My saved draft was a safety blanket. I pulled it out and wrapped myself in it, imagining her and Dad coming out to Bly to collect me. But I couldn’t go home, or make any decisions that stuck, not yet, and Isa was the reason. She needed me now more than ever. I was her everything—big sister, friend, parent. Letting go of her secret had taken a toll, and I had to get her through it.

So if she wanted to play, I played. If she got bored, I found us a new game. When she whispered her nightmares, I shooed them off and comforted her, promised they weren’t real. We dealt cards and built worlds out of the Sims. We dozed through narratives of forests and oceans and penguins on Blu-ray. We picked mint and squeezed lemons for lemonade, we tossed and caught popcorn in our mouths and left Connie to vacuum the stray kernels.

Yesterday we went to Green Hill, where I’d hung out with Sebastian when he’d swung by to see me after work, and then the three of us caught a movie in town. I almost dropped the whole story on him right then. But Isa had been right there, and somewhere between the Mud Hut ice creams and the ride back, I’d lost my nerve.

But tonight I’d tell him. Not just about Jessie and Peter, but about Hank and Uncle Jim, about Pendleton and Katherine and Isa’s confession. Even if Sebastian thought that every single word I spoke was madness, he’d hear me out, and I needed his logic more than ever.

“You look spacey. Are you okay to drive?” Milo’s question was written deeper in his eyes.

“I won’t be driving. Sebastian’s picking me up on his bike, so you can’t come with us. We’ve got some private things to talk about.”

“You should sober up and drive yourself anyway. You’ve known that guy for, like, three weeks? Last thing you need is him in control of transportation. And you promised, you swore, that you’d take me next time.”

“Why is it that I always have to deal with you, Milo, right before I see Sebastian?”

“Maybe because you and I both know you haven’t learned anything from your crushed little schoolgirl heart. And Bass is bored, like I keep telling you. He’s using you till something better happens. Same as the other guy.”

“When and what have I ever told you about another guy?”

At that, he winked. “Maybe you don’t need to. Let me phrase it real simple. Do you always put out on the third date, Jersey Girl?”

“Shut up! I never—” And I sprang forward and cracked a slap across his face. Its bullwhip sound jarred me as much as it did Milo. Who jumped up, holding his cheek.

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” More like horrified. Where was my sense? I was too jumpy, had been since Pendleton, and I needed to relax. I could almost feel the blaze of the slap across my own cheek. “I don’t—I shouldn’t have done that.”

He’d backed off me. I knew he found me ridiculous, maybe even pitiful. “Try to hurt me all you want. My point stays the same—you don’t want to make Sebastian think you’re ready for easy action.” And with that, Milo had done it again. He was the maestro of cutting me down to my tiniest, most insecure self. How could I enjoy the night if I thought Sebastian was working an advantage over me?