our love is, and I don’t care who knows it.
I take a deep breath of the cool, crisp night air. I’m going to break up with Garrett and go public with Thayer. Garrett will be hurt, I know. His face will turn purple with rage, and he’ll say some mean and ugly things. But isn’t it kinder, in the end, to rip off the bandage now? To stay with him any longer would be leading him on.
I open up an e-mail on my phone from our secret account and start to type, overcome by the sudden need to say all this, to get it down while the emotions are fresh and raw. Dear Thayer, I begin.
And then I keep writing. I tell him everything I’ve held back so long. That I’m ready to move on to the next stage of our relationship. That I love him. It all comes pouring out of me.
And then I hear another noise, another soft rustling in the bushes. I pause, my nerves singing. It doesn’t sound like an animal to me.
Someone is in the canyon with me.
“Hello?” I call. Maybe Becky came back to tell me more about my sister. Or maybe my dad came to pick me up.
But no one answers.
My blood picks up speed again, my pulse thudding in my ears. I save my draft and stand up from the bench, but I can’t see beyond the trees and boulders that circle the little clearing.
It could be Madeline—Thayer could have called her from the hospital. Maybe he asked her to come pick me up and she decided to mess with my head a little first, punish me for being out here with her brother. I deserve it.
“Is anyone there? Say something,” I yell. I sound braver than I feel. “Come on, it’s late, I’m not in the mood for this shit.”
I take a few steps toward the source of the sound, willing myself not to look scared. Someone might be videotaping me from the trees. In the Lying Game, you never know when one of your friends is getting footage of you looking like a moron, or setting you up for a fall. You’re always waiting for your comeuppance. It used to be fun. I used to crave that adrenaline rush, that feeling of being just a little out of control. But that was back when we had an emergency brake. Before I destroyed it.
Just a few weeks earlier, I’d pretended to stall my car on the train tracks. It was a good prank. But during that stunt I’d done the unforgivable: I’d said, Cross my heart and hope to die, the phrase we were only supposed to use if we were really in trouble. At the time it seemed like a great idea. Our pranks were starting to get predictable and stale. We’d gotten so used to each other’s tricks we could see one coming from a mile away and derail it before it had a chance to really get good. Breaking the safe-words’ hold on us was the only way to keep the game interesting.
But since then, the game has gotten a little too interesting. My friends fake-kidnapped me a week later and filmed my sister strangling me into unconsciousness with my own locket. It left a big bruise on my throat; I went through three bottles of concealer in a week trying to cover it up. Garrett caught sight of it one night when we were waiting to get a table at Cafe Poca Cosa and freaked out—he asked what had happened, but I just shrugged off his question. What happens in the Lying Game stays in the Lying Game.
Before that night we’d never actually gotten physical with each other. The stakes have gone up, and it’s not as fun as I expected—I’ve been twitchy since then, constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall. And now there’s no going back. Once you’ve broken a rule like that, you can’t fix it.
“Mads? Char?” I take another step toward the trees, squinting into the darkness. My mouth has gone dry. I think of the stranger in my car, bearing down on Thayer. Whoever hit him could still be out here, hiding in the shadows. I try to swallow but it’s like I’ve got a throat full of sand. A few yards away an owl gives a soft, chuckling hoot, making me jump.
“You guys?” My voice sounds too high. I clear my throat and try again. “Whatever, bitches. Your lame stalker