Never Have I Ever (20 page)

Chapter 32
The Moment We’ve Been Waiting For

Bzzz. Bzzz.

Emma opened her eyes and looked around. She was lying on a sleeping bag on the floor of the Mercers’ family den. The blue light of the muted TV flickered across the room, bags and containers of Thai takeout lay abandoned on the coffee table, and several dog-eared copies of
Us Weekly
and
Life & Style
were facedown on the carpet. The time on the cable box said 2:46
A.M.
Charlotte, Madeline, and Laurel slept beside her, and Gabby and Lili were curled up near the fireplace, their brand-new Lying Game membership cards still clutched in their hands.

Bzzz.

Sutton’s phone glowed next to Emma’s pillow. The screen said
ETHAN LANDRY
.
Emma was immediately alert.

Emma slid out of the sleeping bag and padded into the hall. The house was eerily still and dark, the only sound the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer. “Hello?” she whispered into the phone.

“
There
you are!” Ethan cried on the other end. “I’ve been calling all night!”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you get my messages?” Ethan sounded out of breath, as if he’d been running. “I need to talk to you!”

Oh,
now
you want to talk to me
, Emma thought, glancing out the window. A familiar red car sat at the curb. She dropped the curtain and pulled her T-shirt down so that it covered her stomach. “A-are you outside Sutton’s
house
?”

There was a pause. Ethan sighed. “Yeah. I was driving around, and I saw Madeline’s car in your driveway. Can you come out?”

Emma wasn’t sure how to feel about Ethan sitting outside the Mercers’ house in the middle of the night. If it had been anyone else, she would’ve thought it was slightly stalkerish. At least he’d used the phone this time, instead of pebbles. “It’s three
A.M.
,” she said frostily.

“Please?”

Emma ran her finger around the lip of a bowl on the hall table. “I don’t know. . . .”

“Please, Emma?”

The area around Emma’s temples began to ache. Her muscles were stiff from squeezing into the cave. She had no energy to play hard to get right now. “Fine.”

The lights on Ethan’s car died as Emma padded across the yard. “Why didn’t you answer my calls?” he asked when she stepped off the curb.

Emma peered at Sutton’s iPhone. Sure enough, there were six messages and missed calls from Ethan. She hadn’t noticed them before—she’d been having too much fun with Sutton’s friends, giving Gabby and Lili makeovers, drinking Kahlua shots, playing
Dance Dance Revolution
, and, of course, inducting Gabby and Lili into the Lying Game.

“I was busy,” she answered, a hard edge to her voice. “I figured you were busy, too.”

Ethan squared his shoulders and opened his mouth, but Emma held up her hand to stop him. “Before you say anything, it’s not Gabby or Lili. They aren’t who I thought they were.” She was careful to use
I
instead of
we
, like it was her investigation only, not both of theirs.

Ethan frowned. “What happened?”

Emma took a breath and told him about the night. “It was just a prank,” she concluded. “I mean, Gabby and Lili were definitely mad about the seizure thing, but they aren’t Sutton’s killers. All they wanted was to be part of the Lying Game.”

Ethan leaned against the door of the car. A few houses down, a dog let out a lonely howl.

“They didn’t drop that light on my head either,” Emma went on, a shiver trailing along her spine. “I think Sutton’s real killer did.”

“But Gabby and Lili made so much sense. You said yourself Lili went back upstairs to retrieve her phone just before the light fell.”

Emma shrugged. “Maybe the killer noticed that, too, hoping I’d suspect Gabby and Lili because of what Sutton did to them.” She winced, thinking how she’d taken the bait. Even if Gabby had only fake-fallen, even if it was all a ruse, Emma had still lashed out in anger. What if things had gone wrong and the force of Emma’s push had really killed her? She’d never felt so out of control.

Ethan shifted his weight and coughed into his fist. “The reason I’ve been trying to get ahold of you is that Sam told me something really . . . strange. At the end of the night, she got kind of fed up and asked what I was doing hanging out with someone like Sutton. She was like, ‘I heard Sutton Mercer hit someone with her car and almost killed them.’”

“What?” Emma shot up. “Who?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. Or maybe she didn’t know.”

Emma squinted. “Had you heard anything like this before?”

Ethan shrugged. “Maybe it’s not true.”

Emma’s heart pounded. Who could Sutton have almost killed with her car—and
when
? How could she not have known something so huge? “Maybe it
is
true,” she said hesitantly. “I went to the impound to pick up Sutton’s car earlier this week . . . but it wasn’t there. Sutton signed it out . . .
on the thirty-first.
”

“The night she died?” Ethan’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously.

“Yes. Not a single one of Sutton’s friends knew she’d picked up the car.” Emma tied her hair in a tight knot. “What if she had a reason not to tell anyone she picked it up? Maybe this rumor about her almost killing someone with her car is true. Maybe she tried to run someone down on the thirty-first.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Ethan waved his hands across each other. “You’re jumping to conclusions. Sutton wasn’t always nice, but she wasn’t a killer.”

“Yeah,” I wanted to add. Now Emma thought I was a hit-and-run kind of girl?

Emma took a deep breath. Maybe she
was
letting her imagination run away with her. “Still,” she said. “We need to find Sutton’s car. We need to figure this out.”

“So it’s
we
again
,
is it?” Ethan asked, smiling. “I’m allowed to be part of the investigation after all?”

Emma stared into the distance over his shoulder. “I guess.” But embarrassment and rejection still pulsed inside her. This was what scared her about getting too close to someone: all the mixed signals, all the misinterpreted gestures, all the emotions that became overamplified because something big was on the line. It was so much easier to steer clear of all that. It prevented so much potential pain.

“I’m sorry about Sam,” Ethan said, reading her thoughts. “But she really is just a friend.”

“I don’t care,” Emma said quickly, trying to look like she meant it.

“Well, I
want
you to care.” Ethan’s voice cracked. “I mean, I want you to care that we’re not together.”

“You can go out with her if you want. It’s obvious she likes you.”

An amused laugh escaped from Ethan. “I highly doubt she likes me after tonight. I spent the whole time asking questions about you, avoiding you, coming to talk to you in the parking lot, or obsessing over whether or not you were okay.”

Emma winced at the memory. “Yeah, but then when she came looking for you, you jumped up in a heartbeat. You ditched me.”

“She was my date!” Ethan raised his palms to the air. “I had to be polite! And even after I went back to her, I just asked more questions. At the end of the dance, she was like, ‘I’m not the girl you want.’ And it’s true.”

Emma snuck a peek at him. A sincere, earnest look flooded Ethan’s face. “I know you have your doubts,” he continued softly. “But I can’t let you go. I can’t stand by and just be friends.”

He reached over and took Emma’s hands. A tingly sensation snapped through Emma’s insides. As she stared into Ethan’s bright, loyal eyes, the tightly closed fist inside of her slowly began to open. Screw all her baggage. Screw worrying about getting hurt or emotions clogging up the investigation. Ethan was the most amazing guy Emma had ever met. What was the point of living if she didn’t take some risks every once in a while? And maybe, just maybe, this was something Sutton would have wanted for her, too, if she were still alive: to go after Ethan, even if the prospects were scary, even if she was putting herself out on a limb. Sutton would encourage her to go after what she wanted anyway.

Of course I would. Of course I
was
.

Leaning forward, Emma brushed her lips softly against Ethan’s. Ethan slid his hands up to her shoulders and kissed her more deeply. Emma’s whole body sparked and came alive. Their mouths fit perfectly together. Her head started to spin. For the first time in her entire life, Emma just let go.

“
Yes!
” I cheered next to them. It was about time!

Snap.

Emma broke from Ethan, her heart shooting to her throat. She whirled around to see if one of the girls had followed her outside. But the front porch was still and unoccupied. No one lingered by the garage.
Snap.
Emma grabbed Ethan’s hand. “Do you hear that?”

The sounds were coming from the house across the street. It was situated at the top of the hill, but something scuttled in the small ravine at its base. Emma tilted her head to the side, listening. “Did you see anyone when you drove up?”

“No.” Ethan stood slightly in front of Emma, shielding her. He clutched tightly to her hand. “Maybe it’s whoever lives there.”

“At three in the morning?” Emma whispered.

“Maybe it’s just someone on a walk,” Ethan suggested. “Or . . .”

Footsteps crunched closer. Twigs snapped. A leaf crackled. Emma squinted across the street, petrified. She heard a slight cough . . . and smelled a faint whiff of coconut sunscreen.

Her hand flew to her mouth. She thought of the elusive figure that had loomed near Ethan and Emma on the tennis courts and on the bench outside the gallery. The squeak of sneakers as someone darted around the corner outside the nurse’s office. All those times she’d felt like someone was watching her. . . .

“Ethan,” Emma said nervously. “I have to get out of here.” She ran across the Mercers’ lawn with Ethan close on her heels. A figure stepped up the ravine, but Emma still couldn’t see who it was. This suddenly felt like a nightmare; all she wanted was to wake up. Her movements felt slow and languid, like she was trying to slosh through mashed potatoes. She lunged across the final few feet of the driveway. Her hand was on the door, turning the knob. Once she was inside, Ethan spoke through the wood. “Lock the door,” he said, his voice shaking.

Emma punched the lock and chained the bolt. Breath shuddered through her chest as she watched Ethan sprint to his car, gun the engine, and take off down the street.

Emma collapsed onto the Mercers’ staircase, clutching her knees to her chest. Someone had been out there. She paced into the den, only slightly comforted by the sight of her friends sleeping, completely unaware of whoever was lurking outside. Emma’s eyes flickered across the room, taking in the objects that’d become so familiar—the porcelain cactus, the framed photo of Sutton and Laurel at the Grand Canyon, the ikat-print ashtray that sat on the coffee table, even though no one in the family smoked.

A shadow moved across the porch light and cast an outline against the drawn blinds. Emma froze. This couldn’t be happening. She pressed her body flat against Sutton’s navy-and-white striped sleeping bag. She’d locked the front door, but what about the rest of the house?

Emma lay still, listening to the sounds of her friends breathing, counting their inhales and exhales. Moments turned into minutes. She scrunched her toes against an itchy wool throw blanket and counted to one hundred before jumping up, hopping over Laurel and Charlotte, and padding back into the hallway. The marble was cold against her bare feet as she crept up the steps. She needed to lock the window in Sutton’s room—the one that was so easily accessible by the oak tree outside. She might not be able to reach the lowest branch from the ground, but anyone over six feet could.

At the top of the steps, she peered into the shadowy doorway at the end of the hall. Her feet inched across the carpet. She clutched Sutton’s thin pajama pants and tried to slow her breathing as she stepped into the darkness of Sutton’s room. Goose bumps rose on her bare arms as a cool breeze swirled around her body.

The window was wide open.

Moonlight spilled across Sutton’s light blue sheets and the glossy magazine next to her bed. Emma took a small step backward and thudded into something warm and hard. She tried to scream, but the sound was muffled against the hand that suddenly wrapped over her mouth. Another hand was on her waist, pulling her body tight and holding her still no matter how hard she tried to break free.

“Shhhh.” Warm breath tickled her ear. “It’s me,” a low voice growled.

The guy’s voice resonated through me like an electric shock. From it cascaded a series of images, disjointed and brief. Sneaking away from a party and kissing in the desert. Finding a letter in my locker that was so heartfelt it made my knees weak. And then, yet again, that memory in the courtyard: him saying something to me, and me shouting back,
As if I’d ever want to be with you? You’re nothing but a loser!

And then a final memory wriggled to the surface, so short and sharp it was nothing more than a synapse: car headlights shining on his face. His eyes widening with fear, his arms thrashing in front of his body. And then . . .
boom
. Contact.

The hands loosened their grip and spun Emma. Her body went rigid. She took a second to process the hulking boy with dark hair, blinking, deep-set hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and deep Cupid’s bow lips. That face. She knew that face. She saw a secretive boy in the pictures in Madeline’s house. A smirking boy whose face was plastered on bulletin boards across town and haunted all those
Have you seen him?
Facebook posts. And now, here he was, smiling a strange, jagged smile, the kind of smile that hinted that he knew absolutely everything about her—including exactly who she wasn’t.

“Thayer,” Emma whispered.

Epilogue
A Moment in Time

As I stood in my old bedroom, staring at the boy who’d just climbed through my window, time just . . .
stopped
. The wind quit gusting outside. The birds fell silent. Emma and Thayer froze in their places, too, immobile as statues. Only I continued to move and flutter and think, getting my bearings and collecting my thoughts.

I tried to hold on to the flood of Thayer memories like they were a life raft at sea, but just when I thought I had my arms securely around them, they slipped away and sank deep down once more. Was it true that Thayer and I had shared something together—something real, something big? Those emotions I’d felt seemed so true, so
raw
, more momentous than anything I’d felt for Garrett or any other boy. But what if the memory of the headlights in Thayer’s eyes was true, too? Had
I
hit Thayer? Was that rumor true?

Something even more frightening occurred to me. Was I, right this moment, staring into the face of my murderer?

After what I’d remembered, I hated to think that Thayer could be my killer, but I’d learned a thing or two about my tricky, dead-girl brain: I couldn’t trust each individual memory, only the whole picture. What first seemed like a terrifying kidnapping had ended up being merely a dangerous prank, after all. A near-death had resulted in weary laughter, with everyone fine. Who was to say that the next glimpse of Thayer I saw undid those true-love feelings I had for him? Who was to say I hadn’t died his bitter enemy?

It was impossible to know how I’d left things during my last few days on earth—whom I’d loved, and whom I’d hated. And it was impossible to know whom Emma should trust . . . and whom she should run from.

I stared into Emma’s wide, glassy eyes. My sister was more terrified than I’d ever seen her. Then I turned to Thayer, peering into his lazy, self-assured face. Suddenly, something came to me about him that I’d long buried. This guy was a charmer. A hypnotizer. He could wrap you around his finger just as well as I could, convincing you that every word out of his mouth was true.

So who was the better liar? Me . . . or him?

Be careful
, I wanted to tell Emma. Sure, she had a brand-new boyfriend, but something told me that Thayer was the type of guy who could sweep her off her feet before she even knew what hit her. I had a feeling Emma was about to embark on a new kind of Lying Game with Thayer. But in this little club of two, the stakes were a matter of life or death.

A loud
tick-tick-tick
sounded across the room, the second hand on the bean-shaped clock on my wall suddenly moving again. The curtains fluttered in the window. And as I turned back to Emma and Thayer, time had unpaused for them, too, thrusting my sister into her next moment with Thayer.

A boy I might have once loved. A boy I was now almost certain I couldn’t trust. A boy who might have killed me.