“So … the G-20 is wrapping up tonight, and Lila is throwing a shindig on the cliffs to watch the fireworks, so I thought that we could —”
“What are you doing here, Noah?”
“I came to see my best friend. I came to tell her that I’m sorry for being a … whatever I was being. I’m here because we miss you.”
“We?”
“Hi,” Megan says from the doorway. She doesn’t have Noah’s natural bravado, his swagger, or his charm. She also isn’t as good at pretending that I’m okay. Maybe that’s because she isn’t even trying. “How are you?”
“Crazy. Haven’t you heard?”
“Grace …” Megan’s voice is low. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” I tell her.
“Grace,” Noah says, desperate. “Talk to us.”
“I think you’d better leave.”
“You look different,” Megan says.
“The medicine.” I shake my head too quickly, blink my eyes too hard. When I rock back and forth, I no longer feel it. I can only see it in the reflection in my mother’s mirror, my body like a pendulum that can never quite stop moving. “I don’t eat much when I take it. It makes me …”
My hands shake. The light is too bright. Their voices are too loud. I want to turn everything down, dim the world until it is barely there at all. But I can’t because they won’t get out of my room.
“Maybe you should stop taking it.” Megan’s voice is harder. She’s challenging authority, and I instantly regret letting her become my friend. It’s maybe the worst thing I could have done to her.
“I can’t,” I say. “I have to get better.”
“This is what better looks like?” Noah doesn’t even try to hide the shock in his voice, and I can’t blame him. I’ve gotten good at hiding the truth. Even from myself. It’s not his fault he got to know the lie first.
“I didn’t mean to lie to you,” I say too quickly. “I just didn’t like the idea of one more person knowing the truth.” Noah doesn’t say anything, so I lower my gaze. I’m pretty sure I rock harder. “I’m sorry I’m crazy.”
“Grace —”
“I’m sorry,” I tell them. “I’m sorry you got sucked into this. I’m sorry. I won’t bother you anymore.”
“You weren’t bothering us!” Noah sounds offended.
“You should go,” I tell them again.
“Yes, I am going to go. I’m going to get my best friend to leave her tower for the night. We’re going to watch the fireworks and get something to eat — not necessarily in that order. I was thinking crepes.” Noah gives a dramatic nod. “I mean we can do whatever you want, but there’s this place I know that makes Nutella crepes and, let’s just say, world peace has frequently depended upon them.”
It’s a beautiful day and he glances outside. “Come on, let’s go sit on the wall and make fun of Lila. Let’s go to the carousel. You’ve got to get out of here.”
I have to get better.
I have to move on.
I have to make amends for my mistakes.
I have to keep Megan, Noah, Rosie, and Alexei from doing anything else that’s stupid.
I have to keep my friends away from me.
“Come on,” he tells me. “You have to eat.”
“No!” I think I might be shouting. I think I might be crying. But the tears don’t actually fall. I don’t know what’s real and what is fake anymore. I can’t even trust my own eyes. “I don’t have to do anything!”
“Yes.” Noah grips my arms, holding me still. “You do. You’ve got to get out of this room. You’ve got to live.”
“Don’t you get it, Noah? You were right. There’s a reason why I’m the only one who ever hears the Scarred Man make a threat in the forest. Or am I the Girl Who Cried Scarred Man?” I let out a nervous laugh. “I can’t decide which cliché suits me better. Which one do you like? I can’t decide which one I like.”
I watch Megan look at Noah. There is something between them that wasn’t there a moment before, an unspoken question. But I can’t think about that.
“I was wrong,” I say. My voice breaks. “My mother’s death was an accident.”
I turn to the window and look out at the big tree, but for once I don’t have the urge to climb it — to run away. If anything, I wish the Secret Service would come and cut it down.
“Grace,” Megan starts slowly, “you know how we still have cameras and stuff in the Scarred Man’s house?”
I repeat Ms. Chancellor’s words. “His name is Dominic. He’s just a man with a scar.”
“Yeah, Dominic’s house,” Megan talks on, waving my words away. “Well, I called up the feeds last night just because.”
For the first time, I notice that she’s carrying her laptop. She opens it and pulls up an image from Dominic’s town house. We look down at the same sparse furniture. The same dismal, empty shell of a life. For the first time, I feel sorry for the Scarred Man.
“He’s looking at a bunch of pictures,” Megan says. “I thought it was kind of strange. He doesn’t seem like the sentimental type. And when you zoom in, you can make them out. See.”
Megan works as she talks, and soon we are looking at the same images as Dominic.
“That’s my mother,” I tell them, but my gaze is frozen on the screen. I see the old storefront and quaint windows. “That’s her shop. She was an antiques dealer, but we moved too much for her to ever open her own store. Then when we got to Fort Sill … it was supposed to be my dad’s last post. We were going to make a life there. She really loved that store.”
“Isn’t that where —” Megan stops, then regains her courage. “Isn’t that where she died?”
I’m already shaking my head. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
No one speaks. The silence is worse than anything either of them can say.
“What?” I ask, my eyes darting around the room. “What?” I almost shout.
“He looked at those pictures for four hours last night,” Megan says. “He was obsessed with her. And now …”