Immaculate (32 page)

I felt stuck to the floor, like I couldn't run to her side even if I wanted to. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to. Not yet. Not that easily.

She put up her hand, wiping at her dripping eyes with the other. “I'm not done yet. That's just part one.” She laughed, but the sound turned into more of a twisting, broken sob that knocked away at my already weakening defenses.

“I know you saw me on New Year's Eve with Nate, and I haven't been able to forgive myself since. I have no excuse for what I did—it was disgusting and unacceptable of me, and my only explanation is that he was really all I had at the beginning, after I first lost you and Han. Or after I first walked away from you and Han, I see now. But he was the only person I could talk to at the beginning, before everyone else knew. And once everyone did know, he was still the only one that I wanted to talk to about all of it. Do you think it was easy for me to watch Kyle Baker and all his pathetic followers treat you like that? I couldn't stand to hear what people were saying about you, and for the record, neither could Nate. When he first found out that Arielle had started the website—”

“Arielle?” I interrupted, not knowing if I wanted to laugh or cry at the revelation. “Arielle Fowler? She's the evil mastermind behind the Virgin Mina website?”

Izzy bit down on her lip, her eyes flickering away from me. “I'm sorry. I thought you would have heard about that by now. Or guessed, at least. Nate was furious at her, which is ironic since we all knew she probably did it just to make you look even worse in his eyes, like that would somehow make him more likely to pick her. But that certainly backfired. Maybe being a malicious bitch attracts someone like Kyle Baker, but Nate's too good for that shit.” She sighed. “He did love you, Mina. And he's not a bad guy, despite everything.” She paused, those last words hanging in the air between us. “Anyway, so Arielle started the website, but a lot of their crowd had a hand in it after a while. It wasn't just her. I heard that Sara Fritz helped her with a lot of the tech work, too. I guess she and her mom aren't so different after all. Or maybe Sara just didn't know how to say no to a popular girl who was giving her any kind of attention.”

I nodded, feeling strangely indifferent about finally knowing who was responsible. It wasn't as if I was surprised, and it wasn't as if it mattered. Not really. This was never just about one person turning on me. It was much, much bigger than that. Arielle was one tiny piece of the problem. And Sara—I just felt bad for Sara. I remembered the panicked look in her eyes that day she had bumped into me. Growing up with a mom like Tana, she probably didn't know how to be anything but obedient.

“Nate was really struggling, Mina, and once he started seeing you and Jesse together, and everyone kept beating him down saying that he was a pushover for not stepping up and doing anything about it . . . well, it pushed him over the edge. It pushed
us
over the edge, I guess. I went over to his house that day after the fight with Jesse to talk him through some things, and . . . and it just happened. It never meant anything, not to either of us, I don't think. It just made us feel less sad somehow about not having you anymore. I know this sounds odd, but it filled at least a tiny piece of the hole that you'd left in our lives. It's over now, though, whatever it was. I ended it right after New Year's. Right after I saw you.”

She looked back up at me, her dark eyes pleading.

“So why now, Iz?” I asked. “What's changed?”

Izzy shook her head, tears still running down her cheeks. I could count on one hand the number of times I'd seen Izzy cry—a broken leg in the middle of a soccer field, and a stick to the head in a fierce game of field hockey. This fragile and exhausted-looking Izzy breaking down on my bed was completely new to me.

“I watch the video every night, you know. Every night, Meen. And every time I watch it, I end up sobbing, for you, for your family. For me, because I ran away from all of it and I've been afraid that you'd never let me back in, especially not after New Year's. I knew all along how hard it must be for you, but I was convinced that it was just as hard for me, too, to go through senior year without you and Han. But then I saw Jesse's video, and I felt like such a selfish, stupid child. I hadn't ever really thought about how hard it was for you, how different life was not just for you but for Gracie and your parents . . . I've wanted to apologize every day, Mina. I just didn't know how. I was hurt, too, you know, after everything you accused me of that day on my porch. That was some pretty cold stuff you said, and it took me time to move past it all. To realize you said it because you were angry and not because you really meant it. Or at least I hope you didn't.” She took a shaky breath and exhaled, struggling to compose herself.

I looked down, my stomach tight with shame as I replayed through everything I'd said on that terrible morning. “I should never have said those things, Iz. They were ugly and mean and untrue. It just . . . it made me feel better to take you down with me. And I feel completely awful admitting that to you. I feel awful admitting that to
me
, too.”

“It's behind us,” she said, reaching out to lift my chin up, forcing our eyes to meet. I saw the truth there, saw that it
was
behind us, just like that. “When Hannah e-mailed me about the baby shower this week, I was shocked to see a message from her, and even more shocked when I read it. But I guess she still had hope for me. Hope for all of us. So . . . here I am. Thank God your mom actually let me in the door. Not that I would expect anything less from Mrs. D. She's been pretty amazing through all this, huh? They all have, except maybe your dad at the beginning. But it seems like he came to his senses, long before I did, anyway.”

I couldn't stop myself from smiling at that. “They have been pretty amazing. And so has Hannah. And Jesse. But that's a long story for another time.”

“I was dying to know more about him,” she said, grinning back at me. “He seems like a really great guy, Meen. Not that Nate wasn't great for you, at least in his great Nate way, but Jesse . . . Jesse seems pretty special, at least from what I've seen. And trust me, that's more than a month of watching his eloquent speech every night, so I know what I'm talking about.”

“Yeah, Jesse is definitely
special
,” I said, a happy glow at just the thought of him beaming down on me, warming me from the inside out—until I remembered all the ways I'd hurt him, all the words I could never undo. But Izzy being right here, right now, gave me faith that even the most brutal, bone-deep wounds could be healed, that the scars they left could strengthen us rather than tear us apart. “It's funny, you know, how, before all this happened, I would have bet everything that Nate and I would be together forever.
Forever
.” I laughed, the absurd permanence of the word sounding so silly and useless to me now.

“But when it came down to it, when I
really
needed him to trust me, he couldn't do it. My promises weren't enough for him. But Jesse—Jesse barely knew me at all, and he still had faith in me. Jesse took a chance. He was willing to believe in the impossible. And Nate will never be able to do that. It's not his fault, really, that he couldn't trust me. He's wired to only see the things that he can explain, the proven, the rational, the expected. And maybe that's how I used to be, too. But that's not my world anymore. My world is a whole lot more gray than that. And I'm okay with it. I kind of like the gray better.”

“I want to live in that gray world with you,” Izzy said quietly, her face so solemn and serious, she suddenly looked like a much older, wiser Isabelle.

With that I could feel every last block Izzy and I had built between us falling away. I felt lighter than I had in months, as if there was nothing, no one pressing me down. Before I could analyze that feeling, second-guess whether I was letting go too fast, forgiving too hastily, I floated over to my bed and wrapped my arms around her. She squealed as she pressed up against my belly, cupping her hands around my baby for the first time.

“Really, I just couldn't stand the idea that Hannah would be the godmother over me. I've always expected the co-godmother role, like an avant-garde lesbian godmother couple.”

We both lost it over that, collapsing on my bed in hysterical giggles.

“So can I join in on the party, ladies?”

I jumped to see Hannah leaning against the doorframe, a massive smile nearly splitting her face across the middle.

“Thanks, Hannah, for inviting this wench to my party,” I said, lazily hitting Izzy over the head with my pillow. “You can escort her out now, please.”

“Even I'm impressed by how well I worked my magic,” Hannah said, hopping up onto the bed and wriggling in between us. “This feels right, doesn't it?”

“It doesn't feel too awful, I suppose,” Izzy said, propping herself on her elbow as she smiled over at us.

“As long as you brought a ridiculously nice present, I guess I'm okay with you being here.” I reached across Hannah and grabbed Izzy by the shoulder, pulling the three of us together in a tight huddle. “Promise me that this won't ever happen again. Promise me that whatever absolutely crazy and absurd things happen in our lives, we don't run away from one another. And we don't
let
any of us run away, either. Each of us could have tried harder.”

We all reached our pinkies out and squeezed them in a knot, our sacred, unspoken oath.

“Well, then, now that we have that cleared up, I do believe there's a baby shower happening downstairs for you, Mina,” Hannah said, hopping up from the bed. “Dr. Keller and Mrs. Lewis are here already. They're waiting for the guest of honor to make her appearance.”

“Ugh. My hair looks like shit.” I pushed myself up and tried frantically to smooth down the frizz.

“You're pregnant. Your hair's allowed to look like shit,” Izzy said.

“Man, how I've missed your brilliant humor.”

“Get used to it, Mama. You're going to be hearing it for the rest of your life.”

• • •

I could feel my dad hovering throughout the shower, a static buzz in the background that I couldn't ignore. I was surprised that he was there at all, really, and not tinkering out in the garage or huddled up in his room with the door closed tight and some sort of sports news on the TV. He looked painfully anxious, as if he was just waiting for the shower to end and the ladies to leave. I couldn't shut him out of my peripheral—couldn't stop wondering what it was that had him so worked up. But I was in the middle of a circle of women, oohing and ahing over fuzzy onesies and miniature stuffed animals, and any sort of momentary escape was impossible.

As soon as the last present was opened, I excused myself for the bathroom and ducked into the hallway, hoping that my dad would still be poking around in the kitchen where I'd last seen him. He was there, luckily, standing by the large bay window with his back to me as I walked into the room.

“Dad?” I asked quietly, to avoid startling him. “What's wrong? You seem so tense.”

He turned to me, his face gray against the dark blue of his sweater. My stomach swelled with dread. “What is it? What's happening?”

“I've been following things online, Mina, and there's been a sort of leak today about some plans that people have. Angry people. People who can't accept that you're sticking by your story. I think they're making plans to all come together, to meet in Green Hill maybe, some kind of crazy protest mob. The details are a little hazy online, but I think it's happening soon. More than a few people are referencing the
plan
. I don't like it, Mina. I don't want these people anywhere near you. Anywhere near our family.”

“Can you . . .” I choked, the words constricting in my throat. “Can you call the police?”

“Of course I can call the police,” he grunted. “And I will, but they've been pretty damn useless so far. Driving a few rounds during the night to make sure everything's looking normal, but other than that, what have they done?”

Police weren't the only ones patrolling at night, keeping watch over our house—I'd heard my dad shuffling and creaking around downstairs off and on for the past few weeks, and I'd seen the dark circles under his eyes, the new flecks of silver in his hair. The fear was taking its toll on all of us, but it was hitting him the hardest. He wanted to be our protector. He
needed
to be.

“People still call,” he said. “People still write. They're a crew of small town cops up against an enemy they can't begin to compete with, and an enemy they may even agree with.” He looked apologetic about that last part, but kept going. “We need to find out as much as we can on our own first. We need to find out what we're really up against before we can decide on anything else. But we're not going to sit around and do nothing, goddamn it. We're not just going to let them win.”

“What's going on?”

I turned to see Izzy and Hannah standing in the doorway.

“Who's not going to win what?” Izzy asked, her eyes shifting from me to my dad.

“My dad thinks there's going to be some sort of protest. An organized event in Green Hill, maybe.”

Hannah gasped, her eyes widening with alarm. Izzy reached an arm around her shoulders to steady her.

“So what are we going to do?” she asked. “What's the plan?”

“I . . . I don't know. I have to think about it,” I said, dropping into a kitchen chair. “I guess I shouldn't be completely surprised that this is happening. I mean, really, it's only been building up to this, right? The more pregnant I am, the closer I get to having this baby, the more the tension is rising, and they couldn't possibly just let it all go. Not now, not after they've put this much attention on me for the last few months.”