Alexis shakes her head. “I never wanted that!” There’s a faint sound, almost a rip, and the hair drifts away from her fingers. Alexis pushes herself clumsily to her feet, nearly stumbling into me as I inch along the wall behind her. Before she reaches for another lock of hair, Riley takes her hand.
“Just tell us what happened, Lex.” Still holding Alexis’s hand, she drinks from the wine bottle again. Her words slur a little when she says, “We all have to admit our sins before God.”
Grace hums louder. The song tugs at my memory, just out of reach. She takes a step toward the stairs and lifts the faded black backpack from the floor, hugging it to her chest like a teddy bear. I drive my teeth into my lower lip. Damnit!
“Are you nervous?” Grace asks me. I’m so distracted by the backpack I almost don’t hear her.
“What?”
“About telling your sin.” Grace hums another line from the song, and now I remember where I heard it before. It was at that party I went to, the one at the house by the train tracks, where the jocks rated every girl who walked through the front door. Karen invited me to that party.
“No,” I say, but I am nervous. Not because I don’t want to tell my sin, but because I don’t want to relive it. Grace starts humming again, and now it’s too late. I’m there, at the party. The entire house trembles as a train rolls past. . . .
• • •
I nervously make my way through the crowd of kids inside, stopping in the kitchen to get a soda. When I turn around, Lila’s behind me. Her black hair hangs down over her narrow shoulders in a perfect, glossy sheet. Her red-painted lips curl up in a cruel smile.
“Wait.” Lila frowns, and her eyes shift to my hair. “You have something caught in your hair.”
Lila reaches forward and plucks something from my hair. The curl of her lips hardens as she pulls her hand away.
She’s holding a Q-tip.
Some of the kids behind her start to snicker, but Lila manages to keep a straight face as she asks, “Now, where did this come from, Greasy?”
More laughter. It bubbles up around me until I can’t tell who it’s coming from anymore. Cheeks burning, I push past Lila.
Everybody at the party is staring at me, laughing behind their hands and into their beer cups. I try to move forward, but the kids in front of me crowd together, blocking my path.
“Where are you going, Greasy?” a girl with frizzy red hair asks. She tosses a Q-tip at me, and it gets caught on my sweater.
Another Q-tip soars across the room and hits me in the cheek. A third flies past my arm. Before I know it, everyone’s throwing Q-tips and laughing. Horrified, I cover my face with my hands, but still they catch in my hair and on my clothes. I finally find a break in the crowd and force my way through the people—and run right into Karen.
She’s standing next to Erin, holding a beer.
“Come on, Sofia,” she says, breaking out into a grin. “Take a joke.”
I stare, dumbfounded, as she lifts her hand and tosses a Q-tip right at me. It bounces off my chest and drops to the floor.
• • •
“Sofia, are you okay?” Grace loosens her hold on the backpack. I could take it from her now, but instead I lean against the wall. Sweat forms on the back of my neck.
With my eyes closed I smell the stale beer that coated the floors in that house, I hear the cruel laughter and the distant roar of the train. After that night I promised myself I’d never go to another party, never again be friends with girls who laughed at other people’s pain. Now I’m trapped in an attic, and the only way I’m getting out is by reliving the worst night of my life.
“I’m fine,” I say, easing my eyes back open. Grace nods sympathetically, but I don’t meet her eyes—I’m staring at the backpack. I was wrong; there is another way out of here. I just have to find those pills.
Alexis’s voice rises into a yell. “It’s not like Brooklyn’s saying it was!” Alexis looks from Brooklyn to Riley, and her lower lip begins to tremble. “Riley, you know how Carly is,” she pleads.
Riley swirls the wine in the bottle, watching liquid slosh up against the sides of the glass. “I know you guys are really competitive.”
“Exactly,” Alexis says. “But it’s not even a competition, because Carly always wins. Carly got into Stanford, and Carly’s boyfriend is perfect. Do you have any idea what it’s like hearing about how wonderful she is all the time?”
Alexis sobs and lowers her head to her hands. Her hair sweeps over her face like a curtain.
“Come on, Alexis,” Riley says. She takes another swig from the bottle, then wipes the wine off her top lip with the back of her hand. “Finish the story. Tell us what happened next.”
Sniffling, Alexis pushes the hair from her face. “It was an accident, like I said. Carly has a really bad peanut allergy. She has to carry an EpiPen wherever she goes. Last year she and my mom went on a juice cleanse to get ready for the annual charity gala my mom runs, and the only things they could eat were these gross smoothies made from spinach and lemon juice. One day I just . . . I snuck a peanut into Carly’s smoothie. Just one.”
Alexis’s admission shocks me so much that I forget about the night of the party and Grace’s pills—everything but what she just said.
“You poisoned your sister on purpose?” I ask. I think about what my grandmother always said about confession as Alexis studies our faces, looking for sympathy.
“Words, they have power, mija. When you say your sin out loud, you admit it to yourself as well as to God.”
If I were Alexis, I’d have taken that secret to the grave, no matter what Riley or Brooklyn said.
“She was supposed to have her EpiPen with her!” Alexis continues. “Once she took her shot she’d have been fine. My parents would have made her stay home to rest like they always did when she had a reaction. I could have gone to the gala in her place. But she didn’t take her EpiPen that day, because it didn’t fit into the stupid designer bag she wanted to carry. So instead of getting sick, she . . .”
“She went into a coma,” Grace says.
Alexis grabs for another strand of her hair, but Riley slaps her hand away. “You’re sick,” she says.
“Stop it!” Alexis yells. “You’re drunk!”
“Don’t you dare turn this around on me.” Riley’s eyes are red-rimmed, but I can’t tell if it’s from the wine or the shock of what Alexis just admitted.
“Why not?” Alexis’s voice trembles. “I’m not the only one who’s sinned.”
Riley slaps her. Alexis’s head snaps to the side, and her hands fly to her face. When she turns back to Riley, her mouth hangs open in shock.
“I don’t have anything to hide,” Riley says. “Whatever I am, whatever I’ve done, it’s nothing compared with trying to kill your own flesh and blood.”
“You’re lying.” Alexis sways back and forth, her weight on the balls of her feet, like a ballerina’s. There’s a light in her eyes that I don’t quite understand. It’s manic, unhinged. “You’re lying, but I know the truth. I know everything you’ve done.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I pull my arms close to my chest, staring through the open attic door to the ladder descending to the shadowy hallway below. I imagine prying the nails out of a windowsill with my bare hands. My fingertips sting just thinking about it, but I shift toward the door anyway.