The Lies That Bind Read online

  “I know,” was all I could come up with to say.

  I clicked over to Liam and couldn’t help but smile. “Yes?”

  “You left in a rush this afternoon and you haven’t RSVP’d yet,” he said. I could hear tapping as he scrolled through the RSVP list.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than stalk me? Besides, I already have plans,” I said, smiling, which totally gave me away. I examined a strand of hair for split ends.

  “Hot date?”

  “Yes, actually. The name’s BJ. Sister’s chaperoning. It’s going to be epic.”

  Liam snorted. “Get dressed. I’ll pick you up.”

  I wished I could just say yes, pick out an outfit, and slap on some makeup. Maybe even have a quick argument with my parents about curfew. But I didn’t really care about clothes or makeup, and my parents weren’t exactly big on curfews, not that Liam would ever let me break one anyway.

  I sat up in bed and rolled one of Grace’s pearls between my fingers. Before the email that had changed my life a few months ago, I’d kept the pearls shoved at the bottom of a box at the top of my closet beneath piles of books and old clothes and yearbooks. Just imagining the pearls used to make me feel like someone had punched me in the stomach and simultaneously sucked the remaining air out of my lungs for good measure. Now wearing them felt more like pressing a finger into a bruise on my thigh, a conscious, almost pleasant reminder that I was hurt. Honestly, I was relieved to feel something when I looked at the necklace Grace had worn every day of her life. Because nothing scared me more than the thought of not feeling anything at all.

  I heard shuffling on the other end of the phone. Liam was clearly planning on pulling the classic hang-up-and-I’ll-be-pulling-into-your-driveway-any-minute move. I opened my mouth to stop him when a message box popped up on my computer screen. It was from Beefany. Not only could she take any guy in an arm-wrestling match and win, but she was also a card-carrying member of the Sisterhood.

  Her lame-ass RIP comment was bad enough; I couldn’t believe she had the nerve to message me on Amicus.

  BethanyGiordano: You need to come to Obsideo.

  I imagined myself among the gravestones.

  BethanyGiordano: No one blames you for anything.

  I saw myself listening to someone recite the names on the list.

  BethanyGiordano: It’s tradition.

  I imagined hearing Grace’s name read aloud in the darkness, letting the tears slip down my cheeks, praying it would be too dark for anyone to notice.

  I’d spent months in therapy with Dr. Prozac to prove to myself that none of those things were my fault. I didn’t have to prove it to anyone else.

  BethanyGiordano: She’d want you there.

  “Kate? Who’s messaging you?” Liam asked, startling me. I’d forgotten he was even on the phone.

  “I’ll call you back,” I said, tossing the phone on my bed.

  I had to read the words on the screen three times before I fully processed them. Outrage bubbled up in my chest, knocking the wind out of my lungs. I couldn’t believe that Bethany freaking Giordano was playing the Grace card. Who the hell did she think she was?

  I slammed my laptop shut, harder than I should have, causing one of the picture frames on the shelf above me to wobble and collapse. All of the frames in my room were like little time capsules containing years’ worth of pictures sandwiched on top of each other. I’d just changed this one out last month with a picture of Seth, Liam, and me before Homecoming. It had replaced a picture of Grace and me dressed up for Halloween one year. And I didn’t need to open the back to know the rest featured Grace as well. They all did. Maybe she was trying to tell me something.

  “Go to Obsideo” or “Don’t go to Obsideo” or, most likely, “Don’t slam your laptop shut.”

  I picked up the frame and repositioned it on the shelf next to the place where all of my required reading books for school went to die. They all featured crisp pages devoid of any notes or earmarks and perfectly straight spines without creases. Well, all of them except one.

  Which of these things is not like the others, I thought as I slid the book off the shelf. I held my breath as though a part of me already knew what was coming, an instinctual coping strategy.

  Remember Me by Christopher Pike, a classic, Grace’s favorite. It had probably been read at least a dozen times by all of us and whoever had owned it before. Grace’s mom loved garage sales, and although we turned our noses up at her box of fifty-cent books, we secretly devoured them during sleepovers.

  Sure enough, when I opened the front cover, Grace’s name was scrawled in orange ink. I fell back into the chair as my phone vibrated from my desk and Liam’s ridiculous picture appeared on the screen again. I pressed Ignore as I tried to wrap my head around how Grace’s book had ended up on my shelf. I must have borrowed it, never returned it, shoved it on the shelf after she died, forgotten about it in my haze. My stomach twisted as I fanned through the pages. And that’s when I saw it. On page 56, Grace’s handwriting was clear as day, orange and bubbly like always.

  Someone has to remember.

  I threw the book across the room like it was on fire, my hands shaking, then rushed to open my bedroom door. Something about being alone in my room made the entire situation that much scarier.

  “Mom?” I called. “Dad?”

  “Right here, honey.” My mom materialized at my door with unsettling speed. “How’re you doing?” She smoothed my pink ponytail and I wriggled away from her. Not wanting to be alone but not wanting to be with her either. “We were just going to go pick up some dinner. Why don’t you come?”

  The way I saw it, I had a few options:

  1. I could tell my mom about the weird message in the book. That was easily ruled out on the grounds that it would probably result in more time with Dr. Prozac.

  2. I could stay here and be left with the creepy message in Grace’s book all alone. Riiight. That was off the table, because I’m not one of those stupid girls in horror movies who open the basement door to investigate a creepy moaning noise. I liked to think I was too smart to fall into that trap. Unfortunately that really only left me with one choice.

  “Actually, I’m going to hang out with Seth tonight, if that’s okay.”

  My mom’s whole face brightened the way it did every time she heard Seth Allen’s name. “Of course, honey. Spending time with friends is so important right now. Just make sure you’re home by eleven.” She kissed me on the forehead and walked downstairs.

  I walked back to my desk, lifted the screen of my computer, and clicked the Yes button before I could even think about what that really meant—how one of Beefany’s minions would “accidentally” spill her drink on me, or how Alistair Reynolds would inevitably crack jokes about my hair. Because none of that really mattered when you had just read some secret message in your dead best friend’s book that may or may not have been some sort of weird coincidence. I watched as my name disappeared from No Reply and materialized on the Will Attend list and wondered if that’s what Grace would have wanted.

  I could almost hear my classmates repeating the Obsideo motto: Vivere disce, cogita mori. “Learn to live, remember death.” They’d say the words, but would anyone really mean them? Would anyone there really be remembering Grace?

  Someone has to remember.

  And it would have to be me.

  My phone vibrated again and I swallowed back a scream, feeling ridiculous and scared and nervous and entirely exhausted by the past ten minutes.

  “So you decided to cancel on BJ. Good choice.” I could tell Liam was smiling by the sound of his voice. It calmed my nerves and made me feel like I’d made the right decision.

  “His sister pulled out. It was a non-starter.” The words were light, but the delivery was off. My voice shook, a classic tell.

  But if Liam noticed, he didn’t say. Because that’s just the way he was.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he said before hanging up.

&nb
sp; I folded and refolded the soft, orange fleece on my bed, smoothing the material into a perfect square. My heart thumped to life again as I approached the discarded book in the corner of my room, but I swallowed my fear and picked it up. The book and sweater had to be signs. Not scary, just signs. I placed the book on top of the sweater and considered adding Grace’s pearls for good measure, a tower of Grace, but I kept them around my neck instead. I’d need a little piece of her tonight.

  Learn to live. Remember Grace.

  I pressed my fingers into the imagined bruise on my leg, surrendering to the ache.

  Chapter 4

  The large hands on the clock tower showed 4:47, which meant we were early, just in time for the pre-party that would no doubt be in full swing on the green. Winter had snuck back up on us as the sun hung low in the sky. Our breath hung in the air, while our fingers were numb to the bone. The memorial, the speeches, the crisp sunshine of the day all seemed far away as we snuck back onto campus. The president’s threat, however, trailed us like a shadow.

  A wrought-iron fence lined the perimeter of the century-old cemetery. The ubiquitous Pemberly Brown crest decorated the gates, and I ran my fingers over the prestigious-looking key that was supposed to represent the act of unlocking knowledge, ironic considering that the gates were always supposed to be locked at dark. The block print was clear: “Cemetery closes at dusk; trespassers will be prosecuted.”

  Yet another one of Pemberly Brown’s rules that had been made to be broken. No one was ever really prosecuted for trespassing. Especially during a Sacramentum. The truth was that the administration honored the age-old traditions more than the student body. They turned a blind eye, leaving a door ajar, a gate unlocked. But then again, why wouldn’t they? Pemberly Brown was built on these quirky after-hours affairs. Which made the announcement at Grace’s memorial even more baffling.

  Sure, the Lees probably had their hearts in the right place—they didn’t want another tragic death at Pemberly Brown—but it was kind of shocking that the school had gone along with the Lees’ wishes. They might as well have listed Sacramenta ceremonies in the brochure. “For an annual tuition that costs more than a BMW, your kid can chant Latin and party in graveyards with the nation’s elite.” They’d probably even throw in a picture of the burnt-down chapel to really give the hard sell.

  I swallowed the bitterness in my mouth. Tonight was about remembering my best friend. The whole expulsion thing had to be an empty threat, and judging by the turnout tonight, I wasn’t the only person who felt that way.

  I could barely bring myself to slap the bronze plaque as we walked through the gates. Pax aeterna. “To eternal peace.” I squeezed my eyes shut as my palm met the cold metal and prayed that Grace had found some sort of peace. Wherever she was. I sucked in a lungful of frigid air and braced myself for what lay ahead.

  Liam squeezed my hand as we stepped through the gates, sensing my apprehension. “We can go home if you want. Get out of here and pretend that we go to a public school where students hang out at normal places, like malls.”

  I laughed a little at the thought of hipper-than-thou Liam shopping at American Eagle. “No, I think I need to be here. Someone has to be, you know?” I looked up at him, seeing how his eyelashes made little crescent shadows under his eyes.

  “I’m glad you’re doing this, Kate. I knew you’d do the right thing.”

  I messed with the pearls around my neck, unsure how to answer. “Sounds like everyone is really taking that new school rule to heart, huh?” I laughed, deciding to try to keep things light as much as possible. A mass of students was all headed in the same direction, some holding hands, some hooked together by the arm and laughing.

  We wound our way deeper into the cemetery, headed north to where the memorial garden led to the grave sites. I found it kind of shocking that people wanted to spend eternity buried at the same place where they served detention, but a surprising number of alumni thought PB was the perfect resting place.

  As a result, the cemetery was as picturesque and overly groomed as the rest of campus. During the daylight hours, the grassy hills and carved stone benches made it feel more like a park than a graveyard. But the atmosphere shifted as darkness descended. The granite eyes of angels and gargoyles seemed to follow our every move; shadowy figures darted between graves, and soft voices hissed from the shadows. Even more reason to be thankful I had Liam at my side.

  People were everywhere. Turns out those dark figures were actually second-year girls huddled close together, blowing into their bare hands for warmth. Guys wearing hats and ski jackets circled around them like sharks, shoving each other and laughing. Plastic red cups dotted the third- and fourth-year circles, while first- and second-years inched around the perimeter with hungry eyes.

  I tugged at my scarf and felt the heat of hundreds of eyes staring at me as we walked through the party. Whispers followed me like ninja paparazzi, and I wanted nothing more than to go back to the warmth of Liam’s Jeep and pretend this had never happened. Speaking about my best friend at her memorial during the daylight hours was one thing. Attending an after-hours, forbidden ceremony that might or might not get us expelled was completely different.

  But the moment I felt Liam’s fingers wrap around mine again, gently urging me forward, I threw my shoulders back and lifted my pink head just a little bit higher. If anyone had a right to be here, it was me. I just had to find somewhere I could blend. Kind of a tall order for a girl with a fading pink ponytail.

  I was beyond grateful when all heads turned to the far-right corner of the crowd.

  A circle had formed. Kids on the outside stood on tippy-toes trying to peer in, while the lucky few along the inside raised their fists, screamed excitedly, clapped, and laughed. I had my suspicions about who the crowd had formed around, and it was confirmed when every few seconds I caught a flash of spiky, blond, overly gelled hair. Ben Montrose.

  Ben was from some uppity private school in Southern California, but he was more Jersey Shore than O.C. Unless, of course, surfers gelled individual strands of hair at precarious angles and ripped baby trees out of the ground to demonstrate brute strength. But somehow that image didn’t quite jibe with all the 90210 reruns I’d been watching. I had the dubious honor of being Ben’s lab partner, which had resulted in a perpetual headache the entire span of Chem on account of his unique ability to force me to roll my eyes approximately every three seconds.

  “For the love of God, please tell me he’s not walking over hot coals or something. Remember a couple of months ago when he broke his hand trying to prove he could karate-chop a brick in half?”

  “How could I forget? He walked around with a Prada cast for the next three weeks.” Liam stepped aside just in time for me to catch a rather sarcastic round of applause.

  “I actually feel sort of sorry for him. I’ve tried explaining that people aren’t really laughing with him, but the entire concept seems foreign to him.”

  “How’s that saying go again? ‘He who laughs last laughs longest’?” Liam’s tone was full of mock solemnity.

  “You just made that up, didn’t you?”

  “Absolutely not. I read it on a Bazooka gum wrapper. The word of the gum.” Liam saluted and I laughed.

  “You know I’m laughing at you right now, not with you. Just for the record.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Liam wrapped his arms around me, and I felt his mouth nip at my earlobe. I had to hand it to the guy; he knew how to get a girl to start taking him seriously.

  “You guys are so cute. I just wish I had my camera.” Before I even turned to take in his expensive shirt beneath an open jacket or the rich color of his skin, I knew it was him. Maybe it was the way he lingered on the word “camera,” or maybe it was just because seeing Bradley brought me back to the night of Grace’s death. Either way, interactions with Bradley were more ambush than amiable. “Hey, Kate, toss me your phone and I’ll get some footage of you two lovebirds. Your phone has a video camera, right?”

/>   My brain lit up with all kinds of four-letter words. Bradley was one of those guys who had passed tall, dark, and handsome and slid right into towering, black, and devastatingly hot. His dark features split into a cocky grin as he taunted me. Bradley and his sister, Naomi, the girl who’d deleted my evidence last night, were from one of the richest, most established families at Pemberly Brown. Their great-grandfather had been the first African American to attend school here, and after founding one of the biggest real-estate development companies in Ohio, he had become one of the school’s most valuable benefactors.

  “What’s your deal, man? We’re just hanging out. No offense, but no one invited you.” Liam took a couple of steps toward Bradley.

  “Oh, that’s right. Kate knows a thing or two about invitations. Why don’t you tell him what you and your Sisters were looking for last night? Naomi says you’re their resident videographer.”

  “Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m guessing Kate doesn’t either. Just lay off, Bradley. Can’t you see she’s having a tough day?” Liam took another two steps toward Bradley.

  I yanked on Liam’s jacket and inserted myself between the boys. Bradley’s golden eyes were framed by eyelashes that were short and thick, like fanned-out paintbrushes. He smelled exactly the same as I remembered, like mint and sandalwood.

  “Enough.” It was all I could manage without going into detail about my actions the night before.

  All of the anger leaked out of Bradley’s face and his eyes softened, almost pleaded. “What are you doing with them, Kate? I can’t believe that after everything that happened, you’re getting involved again. We need to sit down and talk…”

  The word “talk” sent me crashing back to reality. The last time Bradley Farrow had wanted to “talk” was the night Grace died. “I have nothing to say to you.” I turned away from him so quickly that I felt the ends of my pink ponytail whip his cheeks. I grabbed Liam by the arm and hauled him around the corner of the mausoleum.

  “What the hell is going on, Kate? Were you seriously with the Sisterhood last night? You promised this would stop. You promised you were done with revenge.”