Secrets and Lies(28)

She could turn back. But the darer’s threat remained inked in her mind, like the worst kind of tattoo. It’s not just monsters that lurk under the bed! Your fireman friend has something that belongs to you. Get it back ASAP, or your affair becomes front-page news. She’d faked a headache to get out of cheer practice early for this. It was time to go through with it.

She slid the key into the lock. A second later she was inside.

The house was empty, just as she’d known it would be. The owner technically occupied the bottom floor, but, according to Matt, he’d spent the last two years living in France. She jogged up to the second-floor apartment. She knew Matt wouldn’t be home. As much as she hated it, she still knew his weekly work schedule by heart. How could she not? She’d planned her whole summer around it. The thought made her sick to her stomach.

Inside, she turned on the lamp that sat next to Matt’s worn leather couch. The apartment was a true bachelor pad, not a woman’s touch in sight. This summer, she’d loved that about it. She was taken back to the last time she’d been here. She and Matt had been tangled together on the couch, and he’d been telling her about his plans for after her graduation. They would take the whole summer together, travel somewhere far and exotic, somewhere where they’d be seen as equals, where no one would judge them. At the time, she’d looked around his apartment—at the makeshift kitchen and the undecorated walls, all so temporary feeling—and she’d believed him. Once Sydney graduated, there would be nothing tying Matt to Echo Bay. Certainly not this home. Maybe they’d even make it permanent. Never come back. Hawaii, she’d told him. That’s where I want to go.

Now, as her eyes landed on a new framed photo on the TV stand, a shot of Matt and Tracey by Motif No. 1, a famous fishing shack in Rockport, it hit her all over again just how ridiculous she’d been. The whole thing had been nothing but a fantasy; she’d seen what she’d wanted to see.

She went into the bedroom, wincing when she saw the woman’s robe discarded on the edge of his bed. She’d only spent one night in that bed, and it wasn’t one she liked to think about. Matt had spent the night making it very clear that sleeping was not on his agenda. Emerson had managed to resist that night, and for many nights after. She could never explain to him what was holding her back; it wasn’t as if it would be her first time. But for some reason it seemed different with Matt, as if she’d be stepping over some kind of invisible barrier. In the end, they’d only really been together once, during that night at the Seagull Inn.

She’d felt strange afterward—not bad, but not good, either, as if she’d let some essential part of herself go. Sometimes she wished she could just turn back the clock to before. But that was just a fantasy, too. Emerson braced herself as she pulled open Matt’s closet, scanning for something that belonged to her. Nothing. She’d just moved onto the dresser when it hit her: It’s not just monsters that lurk under the bed! She dropped down at the foot of the bed, pushing the half-strewn blanket aside. There it was. Sitting amid dust bunnies and a stray shoe: a small plastic storage box, with one of her pom-poms sticking out of it. She’d left that pom-pom in Matt’s truck the night he ended things with her. She’d chosen to buy a new one rather than face him again.

She pulled the box out. It was filled to the brim with her belongings: one of her T-shirts, a note she’d written Matt that morning in the Seagull Inn, a perfume sample she liked to carry in her purse. She pulled out a pair of panties. They were neon yellow, with a bright pink bow on the butt. Emerson gasped. The underwear slipped from her grip, tumbling back into the box. That was not hers.

She dug deeper. There were other things, too, that weren’t hers. A thin volume of love poems. A Winslow homecoming queen sash. A C-cup bra that would hang on her slender frame. “Oh my god,” Emerson whispered. The burger she’d eaten for dinner rose in her throat. This wasn’t some sweet Emerson Memory Box. This was Matt’s trophy collection. These were mementos from his conquests.

Thud!

The faint sound drifted up from downstairs, making Emerson freeze. Someone was here. Her eyes flew to the clock. Matt should still be at work! Footsteps began making their way steadily up the stairs. Emerson jumped up, still clutching the box.

Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Ba-bum.

The footsteps climbed upward. Her heart beat wildly in time to them. The only way out was past whoever was on the way up. What if it was the darer? What if she’d been set up? Her free hand went automatically to her purse, where the bottle of pepper spray from Tenley was nestled.

The footsteps drew closer, punctuated by the ringing of a cell phone. The person paused. A second later she heard a man’s voice. “Hey, Trace. I’m just stopping by my place.”

Matt. She expected relief, but she just felt queasy. If Matt found her here after seeing her on that horrible boat ride… he would be convinced she was stalking him. She had to hide.

She took a hasty look around the room. If she curled up under the bed, there was a chance Matt wouldn’t notice her. As long as he didn’t look down. She was just about to make a dive for it when her gaze landed on the fire escape in the back of the bedroom. Perfect!

The apartment door creaked as it swung open. Matt’s laughter spilled in. “I said no such thing!” she heard him tease.

Emerson raced over to the fire escape and shoved the window up. She was outside, box still in hand, in under thirty seconds. She glanced back at the window, which now sat widely askew. She could hear Matt in the living room. She had to leave it.

She bolted down the metal stairs, clutching the box to her chest. She’d parked her car half a block down, and she refused to look over her shoulder as she sprinted toward it. Only when she’d driven to the end of the street did she allow herself a glance in the rearview mirror. She could just make out Matt’s outline through the window. His back was to her, but his head was thrown back, as if he was still laughing.

Tears welled in Emerson’s eyes. Matt’s box seemed to scream at her from the passenger seat: Naive! She pressed down harder on the gas, making the car jolt forward. The whole time she’d been with Matt, there had been one thing she’d been confident of: He’d chosen her. He was older, and experienced, and a hero in town, and he wanted her. Even after he ended things, even after the illusion had been shattered, that one tiny bit of knowledge had stayed with her. But it was a lie; it had never been just her.

Was that what the darer wanted? To make sure she knew she’d never been special? The humiliation came flooding back—a whirlpool of it, sucking her right in. It was New York all over again. She wasn’t special. She wasn’t wanted. She was just easy.

Pain knifed through her chest. She squeezed her hands around the wheel, fighting against it. She couldn’t fall apart. She refused to give the darer that satisfaction. She was Em Cunningham. She was beautiful, she was a model, she was the girl every other girl at Winslow strived to be. She was better than this darer—whoever it was.

By the time she got home, Emerson had managed to push Matt’s box-o’-creepy to the back of her mind. She was above it; she had to remember that. She shoved the box under her bed, where she would never have to see it again.

On the floor, Holden let out a long string of peeps. She crouched down in front of his cage. “You’re right, he is scum,” she said, smiling as he chirped even louder. She flipped open the door, and Holden waddled out, pecking eagerly at her hand. She scooped up the duckling and gave him a kiss on his fuzzy head. “What do you say to a little fresh air, buddy?”

She carried Holden to the front porch and sank into one of the overstuffed lounge chairs. The porch had always been her favorite thing about her family’s house in Echo Bay. It wrapped all the way around, like a moat shielding them from the outside world. She and Caitlin had spent half their freshman year on that porch, dissecting every detail of school. They were like hyenas, her mom used to joke, picking apart their days until only bone and carcass were left.

Emerson leaned back in the chair, smiling down at Holden as he scampered across her lap. After all this time, Josh still knew just how to get to her. A duckling. No one else would ever fathom giving Emerson an animal. But Josh had always known her best.

She remembered how excited Caitlin had been when Emerson met Josh. “A real live New York City boy,” she’d joked when Emerson called her at two in the morning after their first date. “I’m so jealous!” She’d missed Caitlin so much that summer, living in the cramped modeling dorms, sharing bathrooms with catty girls who thought iceberg lettuce was a meal. She felt so out of place there, so alone. But then she met Josh.

It was on the subway. He was smirking as he watched her struggle with the ancient map she’d found in her dorm room, until finally she turned to him and snapped, “Didn’t your mom teach you it’s rude to stare?” He went all courtly on her after that, offering to walk her where she needed to go. Two subway stops and eight blocks later, they had a date set up for that night.

Before long they were inseparable. She’d never connected with a guy like that before, never dated someone who actually made the friend in boyfriend make sense. He’d been the best part of her summer in New York. Until she had to go and ruin it. She closed her eyes as the memory rushed back to her.