Where the Truth Lies (20 page)

“If you do two small favors for me.”

“What?”

“Find out what happened to Madeline Moon-Park.” This one’s for Renee, mostly. “You remember her, don’t you?”

He shrugs. “Not really. She was in your class?”

“She was a year behind me. And she didn’t come back last year. She was here since seventh grade, and nobody has heard
anything
from her. So do some digging, ask my dad, whatever. Find out everything you can.”

Paul nods. “Okay. I can do that. What’s the second favor?”

I hesitate. “There was a boy here last year,” I say. “He wasn’t here long. You might remember him.”

Of
course
he remembers him. How could he not? People like Del come along once in a lifetime.

Paul’s lips curl into a slow grin. “Let me guess. His name was Del Sugar?”

“Yes,” I say.

“I remember him, all right. I remember him well. You want to know where he went?”

“Do you know?”

“I do,” he says. “Your father still talks to his parents, you know. And for someone who thinks she’s so clever, you shouldn’t have to blackmail me to find out what happened to him. He was a coke fiend. He went to rehab.”

Of course! Rehab! That’s why I haven’t …

“But rehab only lasts for, what, a few months?” I ask.

Paul shrugs. “It depends.”

“So is he still there?”

He takes a moment to stare at me. “I shouldn’t tell you,” he murmurs.

“Tell me what?” I can feel my pulse quicken. “What happened to him? Where is he?”

“It’s time for you to go,” Paul says.

“I’m not leaving this room until you tell me what happened to Del.”

“Nobody knows,” he says, heading toward the door. I get up and follow him.

“What do you mean, nobody knows?”

Paul opens the door. He leans against the frame, clearly enjoying how agitated I’ve become. “He went to rehab for three months,” he tells me, “and then he went home. After that, he ran away. Nobody’s heard from him in months. Not even his parents.”

chapter nineteen

I’m in Dr. Miller’s office with my mom and “dad.” The first five minutes is nothing but weary silence. Last night, my mother showed up at my dorm room to tell me that, together, she and my father had gone to Dr. Miller and explained the entire situation, and that we were meeting in her office first thing in the morning, during my study hall.

So here we are.

Dr. Miller’s hands are folded on her desk. “Well,” she begins, “Emily, we’re here for you, after all. Would you like to start?”

Where am I supposed to begin? What does she expect me to say? What do any of them expect me to say?

“I don’t know what you want to hear,” I tell them. “I live the same life for almost eighteen years, never knowing anything different, and then I find out that I’m not even your real child, Daddy. How do you think I feel? I’m pissed.” I pause. “I’m just like Franny and Grace and Steph, calling you ‘Dad.’ I’m not any different now.”

“You’re pissed,” Dr. Miller repeats. “Okay. That’s good. That’s healthy.”

I want to smack her across her accredited face. How can she possibly know how I feel? How can she sit here with my parents, pretending to be an impartial mediator, knowing that we’ve wasted session after session trying to work to the bottom of something that my parents could have explained in one conversation?

We sit in her office for what feels like hours; when I glance at the clock, I see that it’s only been about twenty minutes. Forty to go. My mom has just finished retelling the story of how she and my father have been deceiving me my entire life—which Dr. Miller interrupts to make sure I understand was all “in my best interest”—when my dad sits up a little straighter beside me. Until now, he’s been silent and stiff, although there are tears in his eyes. He’s gripping the arm of Dr. Miller’s sofa so tightly that his knuckles are white.

“We haven’t talked about Del,” he says to my mother.

Her face goes whitish. I can smell smoke on her. Of everything I’ve learned recently, the fact that she’s still smoking—or rather, smoking again—hurts in an especially sad way. Her smoking led to my father’s death, and it almost killed me. And she can’t stop? It’s sickening. I never,
ever
want to let an addiction rule me like that.

“What about Del?” I ask. “I already know that he knew everything about me.”

“Del’s missing,” my father tells me.

So much for blackmailing Mr. Henry.

“Yeah? So what?” I want to hurt my parents more than anything right now, and I have the ammunition to do it. I could tell them about all the times I snuck out to be with Del after my father had forbidden me to see him, how I fell in love with him. I could tell them we slept together. I could tell them about the baby.

But I won’t. It already hurts too badly; hurting my parents will only make things worse. In my nightmares, sometimes, I hear my baby’s cry as she’s taken away from me, wanting—what? Of course I know what she wanted. She wanted me.

“His parents think that Del went to find his sister,” my father continues, “and that’s a definite possibility.” He stares at the Oriental rug on the floor in front of him. He either can’t or won’t look at me. “But I think he may come looking for you.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because he knows about your past.” My dad starts to tap his fingers nervously against the leather arm of the sofa. “Del is a very intelligent boy, and he knows how to get information. His father called me a few nights ago. His parents are worried sick. They haven’t heard from him in months, and he didn’t have any money when he left. But his father told me that Del had heard them talk about you before, long before they sent him here. They never used your name, but he must have put two and two together. Emily, honey—that’s why I wanted you to stay away from him. He wanted you
because
of what happened to you. You see, Del is fascinated by people who are like him—people with incomplete histories, from broken families. He must have believed that you two belonged together somehow.”

For just a second, I lose my breath. The room seems to shrink a little. The bell rings.

“You think he’ll come to get me?” I ask. But, knowing what I know now, I’m
certain
he’ll come to get me, even though I’m not sure I want to see him. I don’t know what I want anymore. I want a normal life, but what’s normal? I left “normal” behind a long time ago, the first night I met Del in Winchester.

And I don’t know what I expect to happen when he shows up. We can’t go anywhere together. I have things to do like apply to colleges and take the SATs. The idea of normalcy seems bizarre when I compare it to the reality of my life right now.

“You can miss class,” my father says. “I want us to talk about this.”

The late bell rings.

“No.” I shake my head. I get up, and my parents try to physically push me back onto the sofa.

“Emily, baby,” my mom says, “we did all of this because we love you. Don’t you understand that?”

All I imagine is trying to tell my own child the same thing someday.

I shove them away. I rush out of the room and hurry to the nearest bathroom to compose myself. I stand in front of the mirror, touch up my makeup, and wait until my eyes don’t look so puffy. I smooth out my uniform and take a deep breath. Then I go to chemistry class.

It’s like I’m living two different lives. Stephanie, Ethan, and Franny are all in my chem class. Stephanie and Ethan are lab partners; it was another one of her rules. She’s been making addenda to the original three rules on a pretty much daily basis. I’m not allowed to be his lab partner, or his partner for any reason in any classes that the three of us are in together. I’ve been letting everything slide, mostly because I’m so preoccupied with the mess that my life has become, and I can barely devote any thought to having a normal senior year, but I’m starting to get tired of it. I smile at Ethan from across the room, where the contents of his test tube have turned the correct shade of blue. Franny and I are partners; our tube is purple, and it’s giving off a foul smell.

“I know what you did,” Franny murmurs, dumping some white powder into the tube, which turns the contents almost black. The smell gets worse.

“What did I do?” I ask innocently.

“I know you talked to Paul. He told me everything.”

“Oh, did he? Franny, what he’s doing is wrong. He’s taking advantage of you.”

“We love each other!” she insists. “And besides, I don’t think you have any right to talk.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it means. I’m talking about you and Del, last year. Everyone knew you were sneaking out to sleep with him at night. You’re not exactly pure as the fallen snow, and he was no angel, so maybe you should mind your own business.” Then she rifles through her book bag—our test tube contents beginning to bubble and smoke, which is
definitely
not supposed to happen—and pulls out a plain white envelope. “Here,” she whispers. “I’m supposed to give this to you.”

I blink at the envelope. “What is it?”

“It’s from Paul.”

Since I know nobody knows where Del is—there’s no way
Paul
could have figured it out—the envelope must have the information about Madeline.

“Did you open this?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “He told me not to. He told me to tell you to handle the contents delicately. He said you’d understand.” She’s curious, though. “What is it?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing. Just some stuff about Del that I wanted him to get for me.”

“Oh? I thought you were over Del Sugar. After all,” she smirks, “you’re the Princess now.”

“I
am
over Del,” I say. “It’s just, you know, information is always a good thing.”

“Whatever.” She glares at me. “Now you have what you wanted. Happy?”

I nod, tucking the envelope into my chem notebook. I don’t know why Franny’s so upset with me; I’m only trying to protect her. She’s been much more assertive lately, though. I suppose it’s good for her to stand up for herself.

“Good. Then leave us alone, Emily. You don’t know what it’s like to love somebody who you’re not supposed to have.”

I almost laugh out loud.

I rush back to the dorms after school before anybody else has a chance to get there, dig into my backpack, and find the envelope. Inside, there are two pieces of paper: a note from Paul, and a photocopy of a newspaper clipping.

Emily,

I hope you’ll understand how important it is to keep this quiet. It was hard to get, and from what I understand, Madeline was a nice girl. Even though she’s not here anymore, that doesn’t mean this getting out wouldn’t hurt her. There’s a thing called karma.

P.

P.S. She’s at a boarding school in West Virginia now called Woodsdale Academy. If she hasn’t contacted you, it’s probably because she wants it that way. Can you blame her? But since you were so insistent, here’s her phone number: (304) 555-8547.

The clipping is obviously from Madeline’s hometown paper. The article takes up two full columns of print. The details are grisly.

Madeline’s mother died. But it’s so much more than that. It’s more than I ever could have imagined. I shudder as I read the entire article, and when I’m finished, I immediately read it again. I can hardly believe what I’m learning. My heart breaks for Madeline.

There’s only one other person who deserves to know what happened. I find a new envelope and stuff Paul’s note and the photocopied article inside. Then I write a short note of my own.

Renee,

Here’s what I learned about Madeline. You can do what you want. It might help for her to hear from someone who loves her regardless. But knowing what we know now, don’t you think it’s obvious she wanted to disappear?

Destroy this letter after reading.

I miss you. I love you.

E.

I seal the envelope, put a stamp on it, and take it straight down to the campus mailbox. I make a silent promise to myself that, aside from Renee, I’ll never tell another soul what I’ve just learned.

Less than three days later, I get a reply from her. The note is short and to the point.

Thursday

cold and sunny

heartbroken

Emily,

Oh my God.

Shhhh.

I
’m going to call her. Even if she wo
n
’t talk
—
I need to hear her voice .

More to come . I love you, too.

R .G.