The Darkest Lie (6 page)

A red lace bra dangles on a bush outside a lakeside cabin. The music throbs so loudly I wouldn't be surprised if it were causing the ripples in the lake. Everywhere I look, there are people. Talking, laughing, gyrating. Mostly gyrating.

Alisara steps over a couple in full make-out mode, right in the middle of the front walk, and tugs me inside the house. “Aren't you glad you came?” she shouts over the din.

“Um, sure,” I mumble. At least, it seemed like a good idea an hour ago, when Alisara invited me to one of Bobby Parker's Friday night bashes. His parents own a cabin on the lake, a few properties down from the crisis hotline. Normally, I would've declined the invitation, but I'd gotten four more missed calls, and I had to get out of the house.

So here I am. Standing on a hardwood floor sticky from spilled drinks. Clutching a blue plastic cup filled with an unidentified liquid. And having my silhouette and bare legs perused by a couple boys from school.

My cheeks burn. What was I thinking? I wore the dress—a short, black one my mom and I used to share—because it was the first appropriate thing I found. I wasn't focused on how the thin material would skim along my curves. How much this outfit would make me look like my mother.

I resemble her more and more every day. I see it in the way Gram startles sometimes coming around the corner, as if she's encountered a ghost. In the way my dad refuses to meet my eyes. If that weren't enough, all I have to do is look in the mirror. Light brown eyes. Well-endowed chest. No wonder Tommy Farrow's friends can't resist harassing me.

No sooner do I have this thought than I hear the donkey bray of a laugh, one that used to greet me every morning and haunt my dreams every night. In the corner, a beefy, red-faced guy does a handstand on a silver barrel. Justin Blake. Former football player, Tommy Farrow's best friend, and my most vicious harasser. Wherever Justin is, Tommy's never far behind.

Sure enough, holding up one of Justin's legs is a guy with blond curls and a bone structure that's charmed half the girls at Lakewood High. Including, apparently, my mother.

“I've got to get out of here,” I blurt to Alisara, shoving my drink at her.

She looks toward the corner and winces. “Sorry, CeCe. I had no idea they were going to be here.” She gestures toward the staircase. “Go. Let's meet back here in an hour.”

I scamper up the steps, dodging the kids crowded along the railing. There are four doors on the second floor. Four doors with who knows what—or more accurately, whom—inside. Great. I really don't want to be surprised by Mystery Door Number One. But I can't linger in the hallway forever. Can I?

As I shift from one black high-top to the other—yes, I wore the dress, but I draw the line at heels—one of the doors opens.

“Liam! What are you doing here?” My mind whirls. As evidenced by Tommy and Justin, college guys do attend these parties. But I'd thought, since Liam works for the school, that he'd be uncomfortable here.

Apparently not.

He's dressed in the same strategically ripped jeans as the rest of the guys at the party. Same form-fitting hoodie over a plaid shirt. Same muscular chest honed from hours at the gym.

Which I have no business noticing.

He brings a finger to his lips. “Shhh.” Glancing furtively around the hallway, he motions for me to come inside the room.

“The geese were driving me crazy, so I was out driving around,” Liam says. “When I saw the house lit up like a Christmas tree, I came over to see what was up. You look very pretty.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, the tips of his ears turn red, and he drops his gaze.

My stomach flutters like a dozen moths are trapped inside. Does he mean it? Or is he just being polite? I mean, I certainly noticed his looks. How could I not? But I'm not used to boys complimenting me, much less boys who are really cute and really nice.

And for some reason, when Liam says it, I don't feel like scrubbing my skin with a Brillo Pad, the way I did when the guys downstairs were checking me out. I feel . . . good.

“If it were any other night, you'd be disappointed,” I say, trying to sound casual. Trying to act as though hot guys tell me I look pretty every day. “I had a rough day and wanted to get out of my head.”

“Same. Some idiot doctored the hotline flyers with the wrong phone number, so I spent all afternoon replacing every last one of those suckers.”

“You did? I could kiss you!” I blurt out and then flush. Oh god. Why did I say that? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But he takes a step forward, as if he doesn't think I'm stupid at all. And he's got this crooked, dimpled smile on his face—oh god, that dimple!—as if he might make my words come true....

My pulse skitters in a million directions. “That was
my
number on the posters,” I babble. “My phone's been ringing nonstop since this morning.”

This stops his forward motion. “Why would someone do this to you?”

I lift my shoulders, trying to smile. Not sure if I should be kicking myself for ruining the moment. “Oh, you know. The usual harassment. Nothing more.” I aim for light and bouncy, like an inflatable ball at the beach. But the stress of the day punctures a hole in my voice, and the ball fizzles to the ground.

He wouldn't understand. He couldn't. He's probably never been teased a day in his life, much less bullied. And yet, his eyes are soft. “People can be so cruel. Sometimes, they don't even realize how cruel they're being.”

“What would you know about it?” I mutter.

“I know more than you think,” he says quietly.

We look at each other, and the air crackles with electricity. My every nerve ending comes alive, and he shifts so that his face is hovering above mine. I have time to think,
maybe I haven't killed the moment, after all . . .

. . . and then I hear a disturbingly familiar voice through the wooden door.

“I know she came up here . . . I saw her . . .” Tommy says.

I freeze and stumble away from Liam. Are they talking about me?

“Look, dude, this is ridiculous,” another voice rasps. Justin Blake. It has to be. “You don't owe her anything.”

“Like hell I don't!” Tommy's voice rises. “She deserves to know . . .”

He trails off, and try as I might, I can't hear anything else.
What?
I want to scream.
What do I deserve to know?

“CeCe, are you okay?” Liam asks.

I snap my eyes back to his face, rubbing the goose bumps that have sprung up along my arm. The voices outside wouldn't have meant anything to him. Maybe he didn't even hear them. “Listen, I'm really sorry, but I've got to go. There's something I have to do.”

“Take my hoodie. You look cold.” He peels his jacket off his arms and hands it to me.

I fumble with the soft cotton, and my hand gets caught in the sleeve. Let's face it. I'm not the kind of girl to whom guys rush around lending their jackets. Stick their tongues through their fingers and simulate gross sexual acts, yes. Do something chivalrous, no.

Without a word, Liam takes the hoodie and helps me slide my arms through. The jacket settles on my shoulders like a flannel blanket, enveloping me with his musky scent, and his hands tighten, just briefly, on my shoulders.

“Thanks, Liam. I appreciate it.”

“I'll see you soon?”

His eyes hold mine an instant longer than necessary. They're pale blue, like the sky on those winter mornings when it tries to reflect the snow. Appealing, by any objective measure. But now that I've spent some time with him, I suspect there's much more to Liam than his looks.

Something I think I like. Something I want to get to know a lot better. But not now. Now, I'm focused on one thing and one thing only. Tracking down the person I've been avoiding for the last six months.

Tommy Farrow.

I trudge through the mud, my sneakers getting wetter and squishier with every step. Thank the stars I have Liam's hoodie, but now I wish I'd thought to wear leggings or tights underneath the dress. The long stems of grass tickle my naked calves, and the wind gusts against my thighs.

Tommy wasn't inside the cabin. Not the kitchen, where opened bags of chips and someone's platform sandal lay strewn across the counter. Or the living room, where a girl was removing her choker, glasses, and retainer in preparation for a handstand. Or even the darkened den, where people stopped being individuals and broke down into body parts—an ass to grab, a pelvis to grind.

That leaves only one option. The bonfire next to the lake.

The moon shines overhead, and clumps of people hover around the flames. Out here, away from the music, the geese chatter nosily to each other, unaware the nighttime belongs to their human neighbors.

I see Tommy immediately, his hair curling at the nape of his neck. As always, the questions slither into my brain and refuse to leave. Did my mother wrap her fingers around those curls as she kissed him? Breathe in the scent of his hair as she pressed her bare breasts against his back?

He faces the fire, his hands shoved into his pockets, deep in conversation with someone hidden behind his broad shoulders.

I straighten my spine and walk toward him. My toes slosh in my sneakers in the same way that my stomach tilts from side to side. Am I really going to do this? Confront the boy who drove my mother to suicide?

The kaleidoscope of emotions hits me at once. The crawl-into-a-hole despair of what my mother did. The white-hot rage that she abandoned me. Even the deep, pervasive knowledge that she will never yank the comforter off my bed, when I've hit the snooze button too many times, ever again.

I let the emotions override the doubt, and before I know it, I'm tapping Tommy Farrow on the very shoulder my mother may have nibbled.

He turns, and the features of his companion come into focus.

Good god, it's Mackenzie freaking Myers. Why is she talking to him? I thought she couldn't stand him.

Her eyebrows shoot into her widow's peak, and her mouth hangs open. Looking at the gap between her front teeth, I realize: She could say the very same thing about me.

Before either of us can speak, Tommy grabs my hand. “I've been looking for you everywhere,” he says, not using my name. Does he even remember it? One thing's for sure. I'm the “she” to whom he was referring. There's something he wants to tell me. Something I deserve to know.

“Can we go someplace quiet to talk?” I ask.

“There's nothing I'd like more,” he slurs. Without another glance at Mackenzie, no good-bye, nothing, he pulls me from the bonfire.

Mackenzie's eyes blaze. But she's not the only one who's pissed. We haven't gone two steps when we're intercepted by Tommy's watchdog.

“You don't have to do this.” Justin spreads his legs, blocking our path. “Your mind is telling you things it doesn't mean. Things you'll regret in the morning. Let go of the girl, and come with me.” His voice is slow and deliberate. The kind you use to talk a suicide jumper off the ledge.

“It's past time,” Tommy mumbles. “Almost six months past.”

Every hair on my neck stands up. I don't care if he's incapacitated. If he wants to talk to me, it has to be about my mother. Right?

Justin rips him from me and shoves him toward one of their brawny friends. “Get him in the car, where he can't hurt anyone. I'll deal with him in a minute.”

“But I need to talk to her,” Tommy whines as the friend leads him away. “I NEED TO.”

“That's not Tabitha, you fool!” Justin shouts after them. “It's her daughter!”

I wrap my arms around my body, squeezing my ribs through the hoodie. Oh. Is that what this was about? Tommy wanted to talk to me . . . because he thought I was my mother?

Too late I remember I'm wearing the dress we used to share. My hair, as dark as hers in the black night, swirls around my shoulders. If she weren't decomposing underground, I could be my mother's much-younger twin.

Justin turns to me. His face is a grotesque puzzle that's been put together all wrong, and I can tell he's going to be mean. Meaner than usual. A meanness that's been saved up, festering on a shelf.

“You girls are only good for one thing,” he rasps. “But I don't need you around to pull my dick when I can do a better job myself.”

I flinch, and Justin laughs. It cuts me like broken glass.

“Oh, didn't you know that's what your mom did? It wasn't just Tommy, you know. He's the only one who came forward, but she used to go down the row of us guys, giving us whatever we wanted.”

“I don't believe you,” I whisper. “That story's ridiculous.”

He smirks. “Is that right?” His voice is baiting, baiting, baiting me. I'm a helpless fish, unable to avoid the lure because I can't tell where it is. “How well did you really know your mother, CeCe? Did she tell you about her sexual fetishes?”

“I knew her well enough.” I lift my chin, but the effect's ruined by my trembling jaw.

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a cell phone. “See for yourself. Apparently, your mother's been a slut her whole life.”

He hands the phone to me, and I take it automatically. With the same sick compulsion that draws onlookers to car accidents, I look at the screen.

The Internet browser is open, with the headline “Hotties We Love” blazoned across the top. Underneath, a stunning teenager with sunset hair looks at the camera, her beauty eclipsed only by the glorious orbs of her naked breasts.

The caption proclaims: “Tabitha, at 17.”

The phone slips through my fingers and falls into the muddy grass.

“Hey! Watch it!” Justin yells.

But his words are muffled through the roar in my ears. It's my mother, all right. There's no mistaking the classic bone structure, those soulfully expressive eyes that used to be the last thing I saw before I went to sleep. She would croon a lullaby as she tucked me in, and I never felt safer than when I looked into those moon-drenched eyes.

I will always love you,
she used to say.
No matter what mistakes you make, no matter how badly you behave, I will always, always love you.

Too bad I can't say the same about her.

“Where did you get this?” My voice breaks and crackles like the late autumn leaves.

Justin smirks. “I stumbled across it during one of my porn sessions. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was none other than our old friend, Miz Brooks.” He turns and shouts at the crowd. “If you haven't already seen it, people, it's
www.hottieswelove.com
! Go on. You know you want to.”

All around us, people pull out their phones. Tap on the keys. And stare at me.

Again. Just like those first weeks after my mom's suicide.

Sweat drenches my body, and I sway on my feet. I can't see anything but a long, narrow tunnel in front of me. Too bad that's where Justin's standing.

He fishes his phone out of the mud and wipes it against his jeans. “You wanna pose for me, CeCe? Follow in mummy's footsteps? Your rack's not quite as big as the old lady's, but I'll make a few allowances. I'm generous like that.”

The whispering increases. I'm trapped in a beehive, and the drones are closing in, surrounding me, sealing off every exit. I'm drowning in their sticky, honey-like gossip, gasping, gasping for a breath. And then, a new voice breaks in.

“Photoshop.” Sam strides between Justin and me, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Haven't you all heard of Photoshop? This picture you're all gawking at could be fake. All you need is a head shot of someone, and you can create any image you want.”

It's bullshit, of course. The lines in the photo are too clean, too seamless. And I've seen a very similar version of those breasts before, reflected back from my own mirror. But at least Sam's trying.

He looks Justin up and down, from the hair that flops over his forehead to his too-cool loafers. “I could go on Facebook this very second, snag a photo of this guy, and presto, you could be looking at his naked photo. Whether you'd enjoy it is a different question.”

The crowd titters. Justin's face turns the shade of a day-old bruise. By outward appearances, the former football player should have the upper hand. Despite his bulk, he could be an Abercrombie model, while Sam's sweatshirt is torn, and his moon-like glasses slide down his nose. But none of that matters right now.

“Come on, CeCe.” Sam holds his hand out to me. “Let's go.”

I take his hand, and he leads me out of there, away from the sea of unblinking eyes.