CHAPTER ELEVEN
Two years later…
age eighteen
Eventually, the minutes turned into days, the days into weeks, and the weeks into months. Before long, two years had come and gone since Lyric’s death. I was almost finished with my senior year and about to graduate high school—without my best friend there to stand up and shout “Yasss, bitch” when I walked across the stage.
We were supposed to take our senior trip to Belize, where the legal drinking age was eighteen. Now, the scent of alcohol made me want to vomit. It brought back so many memories, so much heartache, so much regret. I would never drink again.
I grew tired. My mind, my body, my heart… all of it grew ineffably tired. Every day that passed was a day I was reminded I was building a life without my best friend in it. In some strange way, I supposed I believed that if I found out the truth about what happened to her, if I had someone, something, to blame, then I could stop blaming myself. I could move on. Mom told me if I kept going the way I was that I would eventually burn out. The ache in my soul told me she was probably right. I was searching for answers that just weren’t there. Everyone had moved on with their lives. There was no blame to be found. There was nothing left but my guilt, guilt I would live with the rest of my life, guilt that sometimes, when I woke up from a dream with tears streaming down my face, threatened to tear me apart. In my heart I knew there was no way a girl who hated drugs ended up letting them kill her. But if I ever hoped for any kind ofnormalin my life, I needed to give up trying to find out what happened. Instead, I made myself focus on the memories, on the good times. It was the only way I’d ever survive.
We didn’t go to the same school, but Lyric was always at my house studying. Even though she was a year older than me, we were in the same grade. Her mom’s death really hit her hard, and she ended up missing a lot of school and repeating that grade. She’d make fun of me and call me a sexy nerd, and I would watch her eat peanut M&Ms and drink Dr. Pepper instead of studying because she was the kind of smart that didn’t need hours of recitation.
She was supposed to be my prom date.
I didn’t even go.
She was going to Sarah Lawrence, and I was going to Juilliard.
I didn’t even apply.
We had a plan.
Now all I had was old photos and text messages.
Today was graduation day. Excitement buzzed through the River Center as we all walked in a single file line to find our designated chairs on the main floor. Our friends and family sat in the stadium seats and watched on the jumbotrons hanging from the domed ceiling. We probably looked like ants from where they were—ants cloaked in royal blue robes and wearing square cardboard caps.
I sat between Dawn Holm and Jason Ingram while we waited for our names to be called. The Senior Choir sang the National Anthem. The people on stage, including my father who was there as guest speaker Senator Huntington rather than my dad, gave their speeches. I graduated in the top ten percent of my class and had a National Honor Society cord draped around my neck. For the first time in two years, my father looked proud when he saw me walk across the stage. When he stood up to give me a hug, I had to blink back tears. I blamed it on the fact that today was a major milestone and not that it was the first time in a long time that he’d welcomed me into his arms.
After the ceremony, we all drove out to the Hampton house where Mom had put together a massive graduation party—that I didn’t ask for.
I loved it here more than anywhere else we ever went. It was only a two-hour drive from the city, but it felt a world away. Our house sat about three hundred feet off the Atlantic Ocean on six acres of perfectly manicured green grass. It was a two-story, gray shingle-style home with a white wraparound porch. A wall of neatly trimmed hedges separated the grassy yard from the white sand beach, but from the balcony off the upstairs master bedroom you could look out over the bright blue ocean. Tall, lush maple trees lined the edge of the property on both sides, making it feel secluded. This was my oasis. It had been since I was a little girl.
Dad even hired someone to build a cottage-style guest house with a small studio just so I would have a place to dance when we spent long summers here.
On the east lawn, by the tennis court, Mom had a large white tent set up. Under the tent, people gathered around tall tables and laughed and smiled while a band played modern songs with classical instruments. The salty scent of the ocean drifted around us with the breeze.
Lyric would have hated this.
I took my robe off before we made the drive here, so I fit right in with the rest of the guests in my slim-fitting blue dress and strand of heirloom pearls around my neck—and the delicate gold bracelet with a ballet slipper charm that I’d found wrapped and placed in my car on my seventeenth birthday. It had been the second gift Caspian sent, left in my car just like the first. I didn’t even want to know how he’d gotten it in there. It had been a shit day, my first birthday without my best friend. My parents wanted to throw me a party, but all I could think of was my last party on the yacht and how Lyric went head-to-head with the perverted senator. Then I got this bracelet, along with a note:Show them what you’re made of.He knew. Caspian knew exactly where I needed to go to find my strength, to findme. He always knew.
As I mindlessly rolled the ballet charm between my fingers, my mind flickered between relief and disappointment knowing he wouldn’t be here. He wasn’tanywhereanymore, not even on holidays. I stopped looking for him a long time ago, but my body still missed the warmth of his stare from across the room.
I let go of the charm and focused on the present. Caspian wasn’t here. He wasn’t coming. Judging by the guest list, my graduation party was more for my parents than it was for me, anyway. Out of the hundred or so people here, I could have counted the number of them that were my age on two hands.
Dad had just finished making a welcome speech when a gorgeous guy with sandy blond hair walked up to me with a drink in each hand. I recognized him as Brady Rogers, one of my brother’s friends who got drafted into the NFL right out of high school.
He held one of the glasses in my direction. “They think they’re doing us a favor by throwing these things, but they really have no idea every time we have to attend one, we die a little inside.”
I accepted the drink with no intention of drinking it, and he smiled. It was one of those blinding, all-American boy-next-door smiles. “Pretty sure you’ve graduated from the whole parents-fawning-over-every-accomplishment stage in life.”
He crinkled his nose. “Nah, they still fawn. My parties are just a little better now,” he said with a wink.
“I’ll have to take your word for it.”
I sounded like a bitch.
I wasn’t one. At least, I tried not to be.