Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend (43 page)

fi nally doing it, we weren’t wasting a moment.

When we fi nally stopped to breathe, his arms were around

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me, holding me tight like he never planned on letting go. My

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hands were on either side of his face, and I could see his freckles

clearly, and I wanted to count each one and memorize them. Josh

leaned his forehead against mine and took a shaky breath.

“Wow,” he murmured.

“I know,” I said. I ran my hand over the back of his neck, still

a little amazed that I got to do this.

He leaned back a tiny bit and looked at me. “Sophie Curtis,”

he said softly, tracing his fi nger down my cheek, saying the name

like it was precious, like it was beautiful.

It was enough to shake me from my daze. I wanted him to

know, right then. The next time he spoke my name in that won-

derful, sweet way, I wanted it to actually
be
my name.

“Listen,” I said. I reached up and brushed his soft hair back

from his forehead. “I need to tell you something.”

“Now?” he asked, kissing me just below my ear and weaken-

ing my resolve.

“Yes,” I said faintly, trying to ignore the fact that I could feel

his heart beating against mine, and the fact that his arms

around me felt so
right,
in a way I’d never felt before. “Josh, I—”

BEEP- BEEP- BEEP.

We both jumped at that, and Josh cursed under his breath as

he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“It’s the stupid phone, I can’t get it to stop telling me when . . .” His

voice trailed off as he looked at the screen. He glanced at me, his

brow furrowed, then back at the screen again.

“What?” I asked, my tone light and teasing. “Some earth-

shattering e-mail?”

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“I . . .” He looked back at me, and I saw that all the happiness

had drained from his face. “What is this?” he asked. “Sophie,

what is this?”

I took the phone from him and suddenly it was like all the

oxygen had left the room. There, on Josh’s phone, was my Friend-

verse profi le— the one you could only access if you were one of my

friends. The one with
Gemma Tucker
printed along the top in

large type, next to a picture of me.

“This is what I was going to tell you,” I said quickly. “See . . .

okay, here’s the thing. I—”

“What do you mean?” Josh gave a small laugh, like he was

hoping this was all a joke. “This isn’t real, right?”

“Listen,” I said. “I meant to tell you earlier, but . . .”

“You mean it’s true?” Josh took his phone back and just stared

at me. “Your name isn’t Sophie?”

“Well,” I said, my heart pounding hard, “technically, no. But

it’s like I was going to tell you, I—”

Josh shook his head. “So you’ve— you’ve been lying to me this

whole time? This whole summer, you’ve been letting me believe

that you’re someone else?”

I swallowed hard. This was not at all going how I had hoped it

would. “I’ve been me,” I said, in a voice that came out shaky. “Just

not with my same name.”

“Oh, is that all?” Josh asked, his tone trying for sarcastic, but

mostly just sounding hurt.

“Please just listen,” I said, taking a step toward him. Josh

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took a step back, and I felt tears prick the corners of my eyes. A

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minute ago— a handful of seconds— his arms had been around

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me like he was never going to let me go. And now he was backing

away. “It was just a misunderstanding at fi rst; you saw my coffee

cup, and—”

I didn’t think it was possible for Josh to look more shattered,

but somehow he managed it as understanding dawned on his

face. “Gemma Tucker,” he said hollowly. “It was you. Not that

other girl. You were the one who was so terrible to Hallie all those

years ago. It was
you
?” His voice broke and he looked away from

me for a moment.

“Josh,” I whispered. I wanted nothing more than to touch his

arm, but I didn’t want to see him fl inch, didn’t want to feel him

shake me off. I swallowed hard and spoke fast, trying to get in

front of the tears that were starting to gather. “It’s like we talked

about during the movie, remember? It doesn’t really matter about

my name, right? Not when two people care about each other?”

“
Care
about each other?” Josh turned to me, and I could see

now that he was angry as well as hurt, a dull red fl ush on his

cheeks. “I don’t even know who you are! You’ve been
lying
to me

all summer, and making me think that you—”

“I haven’t,” I said, and I couldn’t stop it now, as two tears

rolled down my cheek. “I do—”

“Was this all part of some game?” he asked, his voice raw.

“Was I just some pawn you were trying to hurt?”

“
No,
” I cried, wiping my tears away and closing my eyes for a

second. Everything felt like it was moving too fast, spinning out

of my control, and I wanted to go back to just a few minutes

before, when I was, quite possibly, as happy as I had ever been.

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“No,” I repeated, opening my eyes again. “I’ve been trying to

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make things right with Hallie. But you were just . . .” I looked at

him and took a breath around the lump in my throat and made

myself say it. “So wonderful. And I didn’t want to hurt you, I

swear.”

“Well,” Josh said, with a hard, brittle laugh, the kind I had

never heard from him before, “you did.”

I was full- out crying now; I couldn’t stop it, or seem to get it

under control. There was no way I could make things better or

present the facts in a way that would make him stop looking at

me like he was now— like he’d never seen me before. “I’m sorry,”

I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“I think you should go,” Josh said, his voice quiet and broken.

“Please.”

I nodded, but didn’t actually think I was going to be able to

move. If I left, what then? What about us? Where did we go from

here?

The answer came as quickly and clearly as if someone had

texted it to me. Nowhere. There was no
us.
It was all over.

I took a step away on legs that felt shaky, but before I’d left

the alcove, Josh turned to me. “You know, after everything I went

through last year at school, I thought with you that I’d found

someone I could trust? Someone who wasn’t going to hurt me

just because they could? Someone . . .” He trailed off, and I just

stood there and wiped my tears away as I felt the full realization

of what I’d done to him. “I liked you so
much,
” he whispered, his

voice breaking on the last word.

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“Me too,” I said, feeling my chin tremble. Josh turned his

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head away and I backed out of the alcove, then walked across the

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house as fast as I could, breaking into a run as I reached the door

and went outside.

I looked straight ahead so I wouldn’t see what had been our

movie as I took the steps down to the sand, around to the side of

the house, and retreated into the shadows. The party that had

seemed like a dream now felt like a nightmare. I buried my face

in my hands and tried to get my breathing under control.

I was still trying to comprehend how everything could have

fallen apart, and so quickly. There was no more Josh. I had ru-

ined everything, just at the moment I’d realized how much I’d

really liked him. Tears were falling again, and I rubbed at my

eyes, willing them to stop, trying to force myself to breathe

normally.

Because I had one more person to tell. Josh would tell her

soon enough, but I wanted her to hear it from me. I was going to

fi nd Hallie and tell her the truth.

It was time to end this.

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I found Hallie standing alone at the edge of the water, sepa-

rate from the rest of the guests. She was in a white strapless

dress, and tucked underneath her arm was the pink clutch I’d

seen in her closet. She was barefoot, and her hair was up in a

knot. I realized as I got closer to her that it was the fi rst time I’d

seen her hair up all summer.

“Hey,” I called as I walked up to her.

Hallie turned her head and smiled at me. “Hi,” she said. “You

made it.” She looked closer at me in the moonlight and frowned.

“Sophie, are you okay?”

“I’m fi ne,” I said, running my hand quickly over my face. I

looked around at the deserted stretch of beach we were standing

on. “What are you doing out here?”

“Getting the best view,” she said, glancing out to the water.

“The fi reworks are about to start.”

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I took a deep breath. There was nothing else to wait for. I’d

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already lost Josh to night. If I was going to lose Hallie too, I might

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as well get it over with. “I have to tell you something,” I said, and

Hallie turned her head to look at me, her expression calm and

composed. “I’m not Sophie Curtis,” I said in a rush. “We’ve actu-

ally met before this summer. I’m Gemma Tucker. I let you think I

was Sophie because I wanted to try and make up for my behavior.

I wanted to try and make things right. And I am so, so sorry for

what I did. I hope that we can still . . . be friends.”

Hallie stared at me for a moment, then smiled. “I know who

you are,” she said. “I’ve known from the beginning.”

I stared back at her, trying to get this to make sense. “What?”

I whispered. Hallie just raised an eyebrow at me. “Did you . . . are

you the one who told Josh?”

“Well, someone had to,” she said. “Nice to see that you’ve got-

ten over Teddy so quickly. I thought it would have taken you lon-

ger than that.”

I blinked at Hallie. Nothing in this conversation was going

how I’d expected it to, and I was struggling to catch up. “What . . .

what do you mean?” I asked. I hadn’t told her his name, I was sure

of that. I’d just called him my ex. How would she have known

this?

“Oh,” she said, seeing someone behind me and waving at

them, “I should introduce you to my boyfriend.”

I turned around and my jaw dropped.

Teddy Callaway was standing in front of me.

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I stared at him. I suddenly felt unsteady on my feet, like the

ground had just been pulled out from under me. I closed my

eyes for a second, but when I opened them again, Teddy was still

there— looking more tan than usual, his hair blonder, wearing a

button- down and khakis. I wasn’t hallucinating this; it was real.

Teddy blinked at me. “Gemma?” He asked it with a half- laugh,

like he was hoping the answer would be no.

“Hi, darling,” Hallie said, walking toward him. As I watched

in horror, she slid her arm around his back and kissed him. It felt

like someone had squeezed my heart, and I found myself gasping

for air. Teddy didn’t pull away from Hallie, but it didn’t look like

he kissed her back, and his eyes kept darting to me.

“How, um,” Teddy said when Hallie had stepped away again.

“How do you two know each other?”

“Oh, we go way back,” Hallie said lightly, looking over at me, a

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small smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Don’t we,

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Gemma
?”

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“How do
you two
know each other?” I asked, my mind still

trying to catch up with what was happening before me. “You said

your boyfriend’s name was Ward,” I said to Hallie, who smiled.

“Yes,” she said. “Which is a nickname for Edward, last time I

checked. Just like Teddy.” She turned her head to kiss him again,

and for the fi rst time I noticed that there was something on the

back of her neck. Something that looked like a tattoo.

My head spun as I tried to understand what this meant.