Chapter 11

11

DAYS SINCE SHARA LEFT: 16

DAYS UNTIL GRADUATION: 27

Monday afternoon, Chloe is sitting on the floor of the choir room, tapping the eraser of a No. 2 pencil against a sheet music study guide. It feels ridiculous to be transcribing quarter notes into block letters when everyone in the room has been sight-reading since sophomore year. Everyone in Mr. Truman’s sixth hour, Girls Select Chorus, knows that the final exam is a technicality.

“Y’all know if they would let me count the spring festivals for the grade, I would,” Mr. Truman tells them.

She’s not thinking about sheet music though. She’s thinking about the note in Rory’s file, the postscript at the end. Take your heart back.

The reference is easy. Her brain filled in the rest of the lyric as soon as she got home: When you find that once again you long to take your heart back and be free …

“Think of Me” was her big solo in Phantom; she’ll probably have every line seared into her brain until she’s dead.

But she can’t figure out why Shara would specifically use that song as a reference unless there’s something more to it. Like maybe Andrew Lloyd Webber’s birthday corresponds to her coordinates. Or she’s starting a new life with a man named Raoul. Or she left to get a nose job and is recuperating in a subterranean labyrinth beneath an opera house in France.

She thinks about junior year, when she was Sonia in Godspell. At least there weren’t any football players in that cast, so she didn’t have to see Shara’s face while she was doing a G-rated burlesque act about the teachings of Jesus. When she’s on stage, she’s always thankful the spotlight’s too bright to see the audience beyond the first row.

Up close, with the light in your eyes, all you can see is what’s right in front of you.

She drops her pencil.

The front row of the auditorium. Where Shara sat to watch Chloe in Phantom.

Mr. Truman shrugs when she asks to go to the bathroom, and she books it toward C Building instead. Rory is easy to find—she’s learned that he usually skulks around the back staircase for his study hall hour—and she fires off her theory.

Rory nods. “We should probably get Smith for this.”

“I don’t know where he is for sixth hour,” Chloe says. “God, the fact that they don’t let us have phones—”

“Spanish,” Rory says.

“What?”

“Smith’s in Spanish right now.”

Chloe squints at him. Rory squints back. The speed with which he recited Smith’s schedule goes unaddressed but not unnoticed.

“Can you get him?” Chloe asks.

Rory heads off with a fake story about Smith being needed in the principal’s office and returns with him in tow, as well as—

“Why is Ace with you?” Chloe asks, eyes narrowed. Ace smiles.

“We ran into him in the hall on the way here,” Smith says, sounding only slightly annoyed.

“If y’all are skipping, I want in,” Ace says.

Chloe sighs. If Rory’s friends are involved, she guesses Smith’s might as well be too. She wonders, momentarily, if she should have just told Georgia, instead of lying about an overdue book to get the library key, or if Benjy could understand this elaborate Shara production better than Chloe if he got the chance—

No, Rory’s and Smith’s friends don’t count. It doesn’t matter if they know, because they think she’s weird anyway. Her friends will clock how far off the rails she’s going, and that’ll make everything even more complicated.

“I don’t even care anymore,” she says, and takes off for the auditorium.

Inside, Smith leads them to the front, where he and Shara sat for the matinee, and the three of them split up. Rory climbs onto the stage and inspects the bottom of the curtain while Chloe folds down the first row of seats one by one, but it’s Smith who finds the envelope stuck with a magnet to the metal leg of seat A21.

They all gather around—except for Ace, who stopped at the entrance for a Powerade from the vending machine—as Smith opens the envelope. This note is a long one. They’ve been getting longer and longer, Shara’s handwriting on the cards shrinking smaller and smaller. Smith reads out loud.

Hi,

Me again. Not sure which of you is reading this, but I’m sure all of you will at some point. Good job with the song lyric, Chloe, since I know that was you.

Smith, you sat right there, one seat over, rolling your program up in your hands because you were so nervous for Ace. You told me you didn’ t think he could do it, that you’d never heard him sing before. You were afraid he was going to humiliate himself in front of the entire school, and then your jaw dropped when he sang his first line. I really do admire that about you—the way you root for other people. You didn’ t know that I already knew he could sing, that he told me his mom raised him on Stephen Sondheim soundtracks. You didn’ t know that’s the reason Summer doesn’ t talk to me anymore—because she caught us.

Chloe, I remember your dress. God, they put you in that nightmare of a frilly white costume gown, more a robe than anything, absolutely hideous, tied at the waist. You should sue. You looked straight into the spotlight. You were avoiding my eyes, weren’ t you? Do you remember dropping the beginning of a line? (Don’ t worry, I don’ t think anyone else noticed.) You must have spent so many hours perfecting the delivery, internalizing the rhythm, and I felt it skip right on past you and your open mouth. You missed a cue by about a second and a half. I squeezed the armrest so I wouldn’ t smile.

This is what I’ ve been trying to tell you.

XOXO

S

P. S.

Rory, I haven’t forgotten about you. Sometimes I think about last fall, when you had detention and the gamegot called for rain . Did you think I didn’ t know you were watching?

Before Chloe has a chance to react to what Shara wrote about her, Ace saunters up the aisle, chugging Mountain Blast.

Smith folds the card shut and says to him, “Summer caught you with Shara?”

Ace chokes.

“Oop,” Rory says. He hops up on the edge of the stage to watch the show.

Ace wipes a dribble of fluorescent blue from his chin. “She—she told you that?”

“She wrote it,” Smith says. He holds up the card. “In here.”

“I—it wasn’t like that—”

“Then what was it like?”

If this were two weeks ago, Chloe would be worried she might have a jock-versus-jock Thunderdome deathmatch on her hands. But she’s gotten to know both of them a bit since then, and they’re two of the least confrontational people she’s ever met—especially Smith. Once, when she was looking for him after school, she found him in the bio lab, poking around at the bean sprouts. Another time, he saw her with a book of poems and told her his mom was a spoken-word poet back in the ’90s, and that she gave him a Danez Smith collection for his birthday.

So yeah, this is more likely to end in tears, which might be worse.

“I mean, Summer did, technically, break up with me because of Shara, but—”

“Man, if you’ve been pretending to help me all this time when you—”

Ace holds up both hands in front of his chest. “She was helping me practice for spring musical auditions, okay?”

What.

“What?” Chloe interjects.

“What?” Smith asks, eyebrows near his hairline.

“It’s—it’s stupid.” Ace sinks down into one of the folding seats, running a hand through his floppy hair. “But I’ve always wanted to try out for spring musical. Always. But it scared the shit out of me, because like, what if I wasn’t any good? Or what if I was good, and Dixon and them roasted me for being into showtunes until graduation? And then it was senior year, and it was my last chance, and Truman was doing rehearsals before auditions, and I almost went to one, but I kept thinking, what if I don’t get the part? What if I don’t even get cast, or they make me like, a tree, and then everyone knows I really wanted it but I wasn’t good enough? But I remembered that Shara used to play piano in the talent show when we were kids, so I asked if she could help me with the sheet music. And we started meeting up at my house after school to work on my audition song.”

He looks up at Smith and raises his hands helplessly, letting them drop back into his lap. “That was it, I swear.”

Never, not in all the evenings after school blocking scenes with Ace in the choir room, not even when she had to practice kissing his big mouth, did it occur to Chloe that Ace didn’t audition as a joke.

Smith looks skeptical.

“You’re telling me Summer dumped you over that?”

“No, Summer dumped me because I blew off a date to practice, and when she came by my house that night, she saw Shara coming out of the front door and freaked out.”

Smith shakes his head, incredulous. “Why didn’t you just tell her what y’all were doing?”

“Because Shara said if I ever told anyone she helped me with the music, she’d report me to her dad for smoking weed.”

“Okay, now that I don’t understand,” Chloe butts in. “Shara loves it when people know she’s done a good deed.”

“I don’t know,” Ace says. “But she was dead serious. I believed her. And like, Summer is so dope, but I can’t get expelled right before I graduate. I’ll lose my scholarship.”

“So,” Smith says. He crosses back toward Ace, his hip brushing Rory’s knees as he passes. Rory absently reaches down to touch his own knee as he watches. “You … you tried to pull a High School Musical, basically.”

“Yeah.”

“And Shara blackmailed you for it.”

“Wouldn’t be the first person she’s blackmailed,” Rory points out.

Smith rubs both palms over the back of his head.

“You could have told me before you asked Shara for help,” he says finally, softly. “My sister could have helped you. You know she’s good at that stuff. And I know everyone else we know has to be all no-homo about everything, but I kinda thought I’d made it clear we’re not like that. I mean, I showed you my Sailor Moon collection.”

“I know.”

“I told you I shared clothes with my sister until I was thirteen.”

Chloe leans in. “Quick question: necessity or preference?”

“It’s not like that,” Ace says, ignoring her. “You’re the only one I didn’t think would judge me. I was afraid of being bad.”

“Well, you’re not. You were pretty fucking great, actually.”

Ace grins at that, wide as ever, and he’s on a beach in Tahiti again, all palm trees and coconuts with tiny umbrellas. Chloe doesn’t know how he does it.

“Thanks.”

“Okay, well,” Rory says, apparently bored. He hops down from the stage. “Congratulations on being best friends forever. Can we go get the next note before seventh hour?”

“I don’t know where it is,” Smith says.

Rory sighs. “I do.”

---

The next card is in the football stadium. Shara’s tucked it inside a plastic sandwich bag to protect it from rain and taped it to the underside of a row of bleachers so high up that Chloe has to climb onto Rory’s shoulders to retrieve it. Rory looks and sounds like he’s about to snap in half from the effort.

“You know, you could have counted the rows, climbed up to that seat on the topside, and reached through the gap in the bleachers,” Smith points out as Chloe clambers down Rory’s back. “That’s probably how Shara put it there.”

“A suggestion we could have used two minutes ago,” Rory grunts.

Smith shrugs, clearly fighting a grin. “Yeah, but it was fun to watch.”

Hi, Rory & company,

There was a football game last fall that got postponed due to lightning. They tried to play, but by the end of the first quarter, everyone was soaked, and nobody wanted to be out there anymore. Smith, I met you right here, under the bleachers, and I kissed you . On the drive home, you looked out through the rain at a red light and told me it was the first time in a long time that it felt right.

It’s so stupid how my dad makes students work for free at the concession stand as a form of detention, isn’ t it, Rory? You looked miserable, and that was before you even saw me kiss Smith right in front of you. I know you saw, because I knew you were there, watching the same way you watch from your bedroom window, turning away every time somebody looks.

Jealousy is a funny thing. We spend so much of high school consumed by it, hating that another person has something we don’ t, wishing we could taste what it’ s like to be them. To take that feeling out of your hands for a second and pass it to someone else is a relief.

So, I guess that’ s why it felt like I meant it.

XOXO

S

P. S. Chloe, I would offer you a basic question with a simple solution, but I know that wouldn’ t satisfy you. Still, it might be fun to see your reaction.

Smith, who finally seems to be nearing his limit, turns to Rory when he’s done reading.

“Where did you find the first note?” Smith asks him.

Rory frowns. “What?”

“The first note y’all showed me from Shara. It was for you, wasn’t it? Where was it?”

The question must catch Rory off guard, because he doesn’t hesitate before admitting, “In Shara’s bedroom.”

“Oop,” Chloe says, in Rory fashion. If it were up to her, Smith would never have known either of them set foot inside the Wheeler house.

“You told me you never hooked up with her.” It’s not an accusation; he sounds different than earlier, when he thought Ace might have been hooking up with Shara. He’s reviewing the facts, realizing he’s missing something.

“I didn’t,” Rory confirms.

“So how did you get in her room?”

There it is.

“It was—I was—” Rory starts, and then he visibly realizes that he needs an alibi he doesn’t have. He panics and points at Chloe. “She was there too!”

“Really, dude?” Chloe groans. She thought they had a no-snitching policy between them. “At least I used a key. You climbed through her window with a ladder.”

Smith’s eyes widen. “You did what?”

“Shara told me she was leaving her window unlocked!” Rory insists. “She obviously wanted me to use it, hence the note with my fucking name on it!”

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Smith says, waving the card in Rory’s face. “You’re always in my shit! Every time I go to Shara’s house, there’s Rory in his window like a fucking Elf on a Shelf. You’re always just—just there.”

“I live there! I’m allowed to be at my house!”

“You screwed this whole thing up for me! It’s supposed to be me and Shara, and instead, it’s always me and Shara and you, and I know you hate me for dating her even though I knew you liked her, but—”

“That is not what my beef with you is.”

“What, am I supposed to act like I wasn’t there when we were thirteen and you told me Shara was the only pretty girl in school?” Smith says. “Like, do you think I’m dumb?”

“I think you act like a lot of shit from when we were thirteen never happened.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Rory opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and closes it. “Forget it. You know, if your relationship is ruined, that’s your problem, not mine. I’m only in Shara’s life as much as she wants me to be.”

“You don’t know shit about what Shara wants!”

“Neither do you, obviously!”

“Hey!” Chloe finally interrupts. “Chill!”

Smith and Rory stop, their faces inches apart. She was going to let them go at it—seems overdue, anyway—but she can’t take this anymore. Neither of them deserves the blame for Shara’s nuclear fallout.

“This is ridiculous,” she says. “What’s the common denominator here? Smith, Rory didn’tmake Shara kiss you in front of him. Neither of us made her kiss us and skip town. Rory, that note literally says she wanted to make you jealous, because she knew you liked her and she liked the attention. I mean, come on! None of this is because of any of us. It’s Shara. Stop pretending she’s a saint! Read the notes! She’s playing both of you, and you’re letting her.”

She stands there under the bleachers, looking from Smith to Rory, waiting for the thing she’s been wanting this whole time: for someone to see Shara the way she’s always seen her. The bell to end sixth hour rings. None of them make a move to go to seventh.

“I don’t understand,” Smith says finally, sounding defeated. “Everything she’s done the past few weeks, everything she’s saying she did in these notes … it doesn’t sound like her. And I don’t understand why she did any of it, or why she’s telling me, or why she’s telling me like this. And I guess I’m starting to worry that I … I don’t know. Maybe Rory’s right. Maybe I don’t know her like I thought I did.”

It should feel like the round of applause on closing night, like after a fifth-grade birthday party when her moms proclaimed in the car that all the other parents wished their kids were doing as well in school as Chloe.

But Smith looks sad, and Rory looks annoyed and embarrassed, and it’s not as satisfying as it was supposed to be.

“My beef with you,” Rory says finally, to Smith, “is that you ditched me for the football guys, who you knew were total assholes to me.”

“I didn’t ditch you for the football guys,” Smith says, voice raw and earnest, “you ditched me because you didn’t like that I joined the team, even though I told you the whole reason my parents sent me to Willowgrove was to play football.”

“That is not what happened,” Rory grumbles.

“It’s how I remember it.”

“Well,” Rory says, “I remember it different.”

“Okay, well.” Smith shrugs. “Whatever.”

“Whatever.”

“Are we good?” Chloe asks.

“We’re good,” Smith says.

Rory looks at Smith for a long moment, then crams his hands into his pockets.

“Whatever.”

---

Later, she spends the remainder of seventh hour rewriting lines of Shara’s last note from memory in the margins of her AP Calc notebook and wondering why exactly this doesn’t feel the way she thought it would.

Somewhere, in a different classroom, Smith is confronting the fact that this girl he’s spent two years projecting a high school sweetheart onto is distant, not because she’s too complex, but because she didn’t want him to see who she really was. Rory’s probably already slouched in the driver’s seat of his car, wondering if the girl next door ever existed at all.

Chloe already knew these things. But of all the possibilities she considered for the real Shara, she never seriously thought “evil genius” would be the one that fit.

Shara wrote in Smith’s note that she wanted to show him the truth, and that’s exactly what she’s doing. She’s not an angel. She’s the type of girl who hurts her friends on purpose and breaks her promises and leaves the people who care about her the most without even saying goodbye.

She gets why Shara would want Smith and Rory to know—what’s the point of wanting and being wanted in return if the person they want isn’t truly you? She still doesn’t get why Shara decided to tell her though.

But now that she knows … well, she hates to admit it. She really does. But this Shara, the one spelled out on pink stationery, is a million times more interesting than the fake one. Like, no contest.

It’s kind of a bummer she’s the only one who sees it that way.