he says he wants to hang out with you more. Also, he thinks you’re cute.”
I blanch. “I said no flirting.”
“Sorry. I say this shit and I immediately get deeply embarrassed. Self-Loathing Levi is like, ’sup.”
“Bad Jokes Joy thinks you’re cute, too,” I say accidentally. “She’s the only one, though.”
He grins so big. “I don’t believe you. I’ll have to ask the other ones myself.”
I know who the other Joys are, and they’re not good. But he doesn’t see them.
“So, in the spirit of that,” he says, “do you want to go to the movies with me sometime this week?”
I freeze.
Grace wouldn’t be pissed if she knew how un-Adam he is. She probably doesn’t even know Adam had a half brother who goes to our school now. And I need to keep out of the house, so the blackmailer doesn’t—
I jolt. It’s the first time I’ve thought about the blackmailer since I’ve been with him.
He’s still waiting for my answer.
It’s selfish and wrong and fucked-up, but those are the other Joys. So I say yes.
Later that night, after Mom picks me up, I sit at the dining room table with her and Dad, the three of us eating carrots and chicken and mashed potatoes like nice normal people. I mash my carrots around in one of the heavy clay bowls that Grace and I made at arts and crafts camp one summer, years ago.
“Pass the carrots, Joy,” says Dad.
I pass the carrots.
“Pass the salt, Joy.”
I pass the salt. “Where’s Grace?”
“She’s hard at work on her independent project and couldn’t come down to dinner,” Mom says like it’s something to be proud of, that she’s not eating.
“What’s she working on tonight?” I ask.
They look at each other and shrug. “Research on the computer,” Mom says.
“I’m sure you know more than we do,” Dad says. “You girls talk about everything.”
One Christmas, when we were fourteen, Aunt Theresa told Mom: “Makes your job easier, having twins. My best friend has ’em. They practically raise each other.”
“Joy?” Mom says.
I jump. “What do you want? The pepper?”
“I just want to say how proud I am that you got yourself an American History tutor. I’m glad you’re getting back on track.”
“We always thought it’d be wonderful if you and Grace attended the same college,” Dad says. “You could room together.”
And get jobs at the same company, and have a joint wedding, and give birth in the same month, and live next door, and never find out who we are without each other. Except I’m already finding out who Joy Without Grace is. And she’s not good.
“I’m finished.”
If I eat too much, I regain the ability to think. I get up and go upstairs.
Every time I open my bedroom door, I half expect to have to fight a nightmare figure. But when I go in, the blackmailer isn’t standing there. Grace is.
“Hi,” she says nervously. “Sorry.”
She buffers sentences with apologies. Like Levi.
“Don’t be sorry.” I close the door slowly behind me. I don’t want her in here, when the blackmailer knows my address and there’s a knife under my pillow and notes under my mattress, but at the same time I do want her in here.
“What’s up? You okay? It’s been, like, a thousand years since I’ve seen you,” I say.
I’ve been avoiding her, unsure if I could hide the blackmail from her. But I think I can. I think I can hide more things from her than I ever knew I could.
“Of course I’m okay.” She tucks a pale blond strand of hair back. “I have to talk to you.”
I’m not going to screw this up. What was it Levi said about advice?
“I found this in your backpack.” She takes out one of my empty minibottles.
“Why were you in my backpack?”
“I needed a pen.” She sets the bottle on my desk, looks at me all solemn. “You’re drinking these at school.”
“It’s just to—” Stop thinking. “I needed—” Shit. “It was before he died.”
“So why’s it still in your backpack?”
“I never clean it out.” I pause. “And don’t you have pens in your room?”
“Joy.”
“I can’t believe you’re mothering me,” I burst out. “How are you the one mothering me?”
“You can’t drink these at school. Or anywhere. You shouldn’t.”
Why can’t she be the mess for once?
“Bad things happen when you drink, Joy,” she says.
I go numb. She starts to hunt through my drawers, finds another bottle, pockets it. “Any more?”
“No,” I lie.
“All right. We cleared that up.” The awkwardness returns. “So, um. Where’d you go today?”
“Boy from class is