This Is Why We Lie Page 3

  Hollie and I exchange a quick smile. Serena’s dated her fair share of “perfect” guys, but I have to hand it to her, something about the way she describes Max seems different. It’s only been a week, but I can tell she’s already in deep.

  Her expression turns dreamy. “He’s so sweet. And so hot.” She fans out her hands. “I’m talking factor fifty hot.”

  Hollie arches an eyebrow. “Wow. Factor fifty. Sounds serious.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Serena tilts her head, taking in the spring sunshine.

  “We want to meet him,” I tell Serena.

  “Definitely,” Hollie agrees. “We’re your best friends. Factor Fifty Guy needs our stamp of approval before this goes any further.”

  Before you get burned. The words rush through my mind, but I keep my mouth clamped shut.

  “There’s a party at Rookwood this Friday.” Serena’s gaze darts between us. “I’m pretty sure I could score us invites.”

  I wrinkle my nose.

  Serena eyeballs me. “What?”

  “What?” I echo.

  “What’s the face for?”

  “There’s no face.”

  “Yes, there is,” she tells me. “You’re doing the face.”

  “What face?”

  “The ‘I don’t like this plan’ face.”

  I pick at a splinter of wood on the table. “I want to meet Max. Just not at Rookwood.”

  “Why not?”

  “Rookwood isn’t exactly my scene.”

  Serena rolls her eyes. “Jenna, come on. It’ll be fun. Max said the Rooks have a cabin in the forest and they hang out there pretty much every weekend.”

  Hollie sucks in a breath. “Oh, I’m down for a party in the forest.” She lifts her soda can and taps it against Serena’s.

  I frown at Hollie. “Since when is hanging out at Rookwood your idea of a good time?”

  She shrugs. “I’m in the mood for something different.”

  Serena’s attention lands back on me. “Jenna, come on. You can’t bail on us. We’re the three amigos.”

  “The three musketeers,” Hollie adds with a grin.

  “The three stooges, more like.” I fiddle with the cap on my water bottle. “I don’t know. My mom’s supposed to call this Friday, and I don’t want to miss it.”

  Serena’s brow creases. “So, change the call to Saturday.”

  “Yeah.” Hollie swivels in her seat to face me. “Can’t you rearrange the call for another time?”

  “No. She’s in the middle of nowhere and hasn’t had WiFi access in weeks. She’ll be passing through a town on Friday, and I’m not sure when she’ll have signal again after that.” I offer them an apologetic look. “Next time, maybe.” It’s true about Mom calling, but I’m kind of glad I have an excuse. Partying with the Rooks doesn’t sound particularly appealing to me, no matter how curious I am about the “perfect” Max.

  “Serena!”

  We turn to see a trio of cheerleaders crossing the quad. Imogen, Brianna, and Colleen. Their green-and-white cheer skirts flutter in the spring breeze.

  They slide onto the benches at our table and greet Serena with air kisses and shrieks.

  I glance at Hollie, and she stifles a laugh.

  Ever since Serena joined the cheer squad this year, her teammates have been popping up constantly, as if we had entered a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Recently, it’s gotten even worse since they’ve gotten wind of her connection to the Rooks. Textbook bad-boy complex.

  Brianna leans in and flips her auburn ponytail. “How are things going with Max?” She flutters her eyelashes.

  “Amazing,” Serena replies, somehow managing to add a couple of extra syllables into the word.

  Imogen shakes her head in awe. “I can’t believe you’re dating a Rook.”

  The trio squeal, and Hollie and I swap another look.

  “You’re such a lucky bitch,” Colleen drawls, twirling a strand of blond hair around her finger.

  Serena smiles back at her with an arrogance that I’ve never seen on her before. I try to catch her gaze, but she doesn’t see me.

  “You are, literally, the luckiest,” Imogen says. She fiddles with the silver pendant on her necklace, and her blue eyes fix on Serena. “Have you met any of the other guys yet? You have to hook us up with Max’s friends.”

  “Actually, I was just telling Jenna and Hollie that I’m going to try to get us invited to a Rook party this weekend.”

  Colleen gasps. “I want to go!”

  All three cheer girls stare hopefully and expectantly at Serena.

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  Imogen clasps her hands together. “Please. I need this.”

  Colleen starts tapping quickly on her phone’s keypad. “I’m putting us all into a group so we can plan.” She reaches across the table and grabs hold of Serena’s hand. “Girl,” she breathes. “Make it happen. I’ll legit die if I can’t go to that party.”

  ADAM

  “Friday night never happened. This stays between us.”

  It’s a statement, not a question, but Max’s voice wavers on the last word, like he’s asking us. Like he’s checking with us.

  This stays between us?

  We’re good at that. We’re good at closing ranks, at disappearing when we need to and sticking to the shadows when we’ve got to hide.

  Across the dorm room, Max’s eyes lock with mine. Tommy is next to him, head down, wild black hair falling over his brow. Tommy’s hands are knotted together, and his thumbs are twitching. But Max is still.

  He’s always still.

  Max has crafted his shell into what it needs to be—armor. He doesn’t even look like he belongs at Rookwood. He’s name-brand, the type of guy advertising agencies use to sell cologne. But Rookwood isn’t a cologne ad, it’s a cautionary tale. A second chance for kids who happened to catch a judge on a good day.

  People around town probably look at Tommy and me and know straight off the bat where we live. Yeah, they’re Rooks, for sure. Maybe our hair has grown out too much or our clothes have a couple of holes around the sleeves. Although, sometimes I wonder if when they look at me, on the surface, they think I look just like them. Maybe they don’t know I’m a Rook right away. Maybe they don’t get close enough to see who I really am. Because I don’t let them get close enough. I don’t want people to see the guy I see in the mirror, the guy I wish I wasn’t.

  That’s why Max acts the way he does, all shiny on the outside. When the upstanding residents of Gardiners Bay pass him in the street, I swear they think he’s one of them. No way they’d guess he got sent to Rookwood for going after his stepdad with a pitchfork.

  Max prefers to tell people he’s here for hot-wiring a car, because that suits his image better. But I know him. I know how fast he can lose his shit. I’ve been there. I’ve been there when he’s been scared too.

  He’s scared now. They both are. Tommy and Max.

  I see it in the way Tommy’s thumbs won’t stop moving. I see it in the way Max’s chest is rising and falling faster than usual.

  They’re both staring at me, waiting for me to speak.

  A memory of my old life snakes out from the darkest corners of my mind. Way back when—before Rookwood, before these four walls, before I even knew Max and Tommy existed. Back then, I never would have put my neck on the line for anyone. I had a good life, better than the one I have at Rookwood. I was going places. I had a plan.

  But plans don’t always work out.

  After three years here, I’ve almost managed to erase my old life completely. My mom’s dead, and my last memory of my dad is watching him shrink in the cab’s side mirror, the reflection of my scraped-up middle finger giving him and the farm a final farewell.

  Now, all the family I need are here at Rookwood. It’s just that their
blood isn’t the same as mine.

  Turns out blood isn’t thicker than water, after all. All of us here, we’re in this together. We’ll go down in flames, together, too. A burning inferno. Screaming in the night about the things that came before.

  “Yeah,” I answer at last. “This stays between us.”

  * * *

  She steps into the cabin, and the door slams shut behind her. Maybe the wind caught it from her grasp. Maybe she pushed it too forcefully.

  Tommy and I look up from our pool game.

  “Hey, Colleen.” Tommy’s frowning, like he’s wondering why she’s here. I’m wondering the same thing.

  “Hey.” She reclines on the couch and stretches out her legs. As far as she’s concerned, this cabin is hers now. It doesn’t matter that it’s on our campus, buried deep in the grounds of Rookwood Boarding School. She’s found her place here.

  The hunting cabin is a throwback to the days when Rookwood used to be privately owned. Its leather upholstery has faded after so many years, but the old bar with its draft taps still just about works. This place is off the grid, and we’ve managed to keep it a secret from the staff and the younger boys. For now, at least. But Colleen’s going to get us busted if she keeps on showing up like this—her and the other Preston girls. They don’t realize how careful we’ve got to be, sneaking out here after night roll call, picking locks and disabling alarms, and treading along the halls as though any movement could set off a grenade. Any creaking floorboard or squeaking door at Rookwood could wake Hank, the night-shift security guard, and a sighting of people in the forest after dark could lead him straight to our cabin. Then he’d find all the empty beer bottles and cigarette butts, and they’d tighten security and have us seniors running laps at dawn every day for a month to teach us discipline.

  But Colleen doesn’t care about that. She thinks it’s her right to be here just as much as it is ours.

  “Where’s Max?” she asks, combing her fingers through her pale-blond hair.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “He’s around, somewhere.”

  “Colleen,” Tommy says, “what are you doing here? We’re not having a party tonight. It’s just us.”

  “I know.” She strolls to the fridge and peruses the contents. It’s bleak today—a couple of bottles and some leftover pizza. She takes out a Bud and pops the cap. “I don’t want a party tonight, anyway. I don’t want to be around all those Preston bitches. I just want to chill.” She saunters back to the couch and takes a long swig of beer.

  Tommy gives me a look across the pool table before bowing down to take his shot.

  She watches us for a while, sometimes talking, sometimes not. When she’s had enough of our silence, she hops up from the couch, leaving her empty bottle on the coffee table, and skips across the room. She grabs another beer from the fridge before heading toward the door.

  “I’m going to find Max,” she says. “No offense, but you guys are boring as hell.”

  She disappears back into the night.

  “Why is she here?” I ask Tommy. “Has she got something going on with Max?”

  He shrugs. “Beats me.”

  I frown back at him. “He’s still with Serena, though, right?”

  “Yeah. As far as I know.”

  “You think he’s seeing Colleen behind Serena’s back?”

  “Probably.”

  My eyebrows knit together. “What’s wrong with him? Those girls are friends, right?”

  “Come on, you know Max isn’t serious about Serena. Not like how she is with him...” Tommy trails off as the door swings open and Colleen paces back into the cabin.

  Max is trailing behind her. His sun-bleached hair is rumpled. “Colleen,” he says. He’s breathless. “Just wait. Listen. Please.”

  JENNA

  I don’t know what drew me back to Rookwood Beach. A week ago I vowed to myself that I’d never come back here. It’s not like Rookwood is on my route home from Chai. Or from anywhere. The cove is tucked away beneath the forested cliff on the other side of the bay, where the silver ocean curls into the rocky shore. And yet, exactly one week after Colleen’s body was found, here I am. Back again.

  I’m not the only one, either.

  There are no police or forensics here now. It’s just me and him, just like it was on that morning. The cool wind is moving over him, rippling his faded gray t-shirt and tousling his brown hair.

  I slip beneath the railings and jump down onto the beach. Feeling the stones and hard sand under my feet brings me right back to that moment.

  The moment that he shouted for help.

  He must hear my footsteps above the hiss of the waves and the groan of the wind because he turns, looking over his shoulder. He tenses, like he didn’t want to be found here.

  I know the feeling.

  “Hi,” I say, slowing as I approach. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You didn’t.” His voice is husky, kind of scratchy. In this hazy sunlight, his eyes stand out. They’re almost an amber tone. Like caramel. He has the whole broad-shouldered jock look nailed down. Six-feet-something, blessed with unfairly nice features, and built like a quarterback. But somehow I can’t imagine him fist-bumping guys in the locker room or flirting with cheerleaders. He’s quieter than that, more reserved.

  Adam dips his head, and his gaze lands on his sneakers. They’re damp, spattered with seawater.

  “I was just...” He lets the sentence drift off and glances out to the water. The frothy waves slap hard against the rocks before getting sucked back in, stirring the pebbles.

  I run my fingers across my brow, pushing back the strands of chestnut hair that have been caught by the gale. “I can’t stop thinking about it, either.”

  He slips his hands into his jeans pockets. We’re silent for a moment, kind of entranced by the tide. Then he says, “I couldn’t save her.”

  I turn to him, studying his profile. “It was too late to save her. You didn’t have a chance.”

  His focus comes back to me. “I should have done something.”

  Somehow his words seem to take on an entity of their own.

  “You tried. There was nothing more you could have done for Colleen.”

  “I could have done something,” he murmurs. “I know I could have done something.”

  I step closer to him and pull him into a hug. I can feel his heart beating. I can feel his breath on my temple. And again, I’m catapulted back to that day. Only now, his clothes are dry, and I’m not shaking. Neither is he.

  He takes a sharp breath and pulls away from me. “But it’s over now.” His eyes are back on the water.

  “You’re not alone,” I tell him. Something about my voice in the howling wind sounds almost haunting. “I was there. I understand how you’re feeling.”

  He bows his head.

  “It feels...” I wrap my arms around myself as the gale picks up. “I don’t know. Lonely.”

  He catches my gaze again. “You can always talk to me. If you want. We can swap numbers or something.”

  The offer dazes me for a second. “Oh. Okay.”

  Suddenly, there’s an unease between us. It’s palpable. I hand him my cell, and he adds his contact information before passing it back.

  He drags his hands over his face. “I’d better go,” he says.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  He starts to walk away, then stops. “Did you know her?”

  “Colleen?”

  “Yeah.” The wind toys with the strands of his warm-brown hair. “Did you know her?”

  “We went to the same school.”

  “Were you friends?”

  “Not really.” I cringe at how callous my answer sounds. But it’s the truth. Colleen and I weren’t friends.

  I search his gaze, trying to read his torn expression. “How about you?
Did you know Colleen?”

  “No,” he says. “I didn’t.”

  My heart beats a little faster as I watch him leave. Because I know he’s lying.

  * * *

  “I think I like a Rook. Don’t judge me.”

  I squint one eye to scrutinize Hollie. “Continue.”

  “I got talking to him at the party last night.” She pauses. “Speaking of, Miss No-Show, you seem to have recovered from your mysterious illness extraordinarily quickly.”

  I make a halfhearted attempt at a cough.

  Hollie rolls her eyes. “Anyway, I talked to him for like an hour. Maybe more. He was so sweet.” She gazes out across the harbor with a dreamy look in her eyes. “I used to think the Rooks were just tough guys with a point to prove, but he was nice. Kind of vulnerable, y’know?”

  I raise an index finger. “That’s how they hook you in, Hol. It’s the whole wounded bird narrative.”

  She swats me. “He was sweet.”

  “So, you and this Rook guy, is this going to be Serena and Max, 2.0?”

  “Maybe. Colleen says she’ll talk to him for me. She’s going to give him my number.”

  “Whoa. Rewind. Are you seriously trusting Colleen O’Dell with your love life?”

  “It’s unavoidable.” Hollie takes a long sip of soda, then shrugs. “She knows the guys. She parties there every weekend. I need an in.”

  My brow creases. “What about Serena? She knows them.”

  Hollie shakes her head. “No. Don’t tell Serena.”

  I frown at her over the top of my iced coffee. “Why not?”

  “She gets so possessive, like she wants to be the only one who’s dating a Rook. I can’t deal.”

  “Okay. Suit yourself. But we both know Colleen’s going to screw this up.”

  She laughs and swats me again.

  ADAM

  I wait a while before I go back to the beach. I want to be sure Jenna’s gone. I can’t think clearly when she’s around, and I end up doing dumb shit like giving her my phone number. It’s not good.