30. Vivian

30

VIVIAN

JANUARY 2, 10:40 P.M.

There's a moment where I feel like I'm in the middle of a game: tunnel vision, nothing but my heartbeat and what's in front of me. The phone in my hand. The email on the screen. It's from an address that's just a random series of letters and numbers, but the account name is clear: the Jester. This email was sent to the entire Beaumont list. Students, faculty, parents, everyone.

It's like a ball kicked straight to the stomach: everyone. The Jester made good on his threat to ruin our lives, and now everyone will know.

Dear Beaumont Community,

I write to you as a concerned neighbor. It has come to my attention that three of your students—Vivian Atkins, Piper Johnson, and April Whitman—are not at all the well-mannered Maids they appear to be.

Piper Johnson may be one of Beaumont's top students, but she's even more cutthroat than she lets on: under the guise of helping another Beaumont student with their college essays, Piper submitted a fraudulent application in that student's name, intentionally sabotaging their chances at admission.

Lily. Piper helped her with her essays, didn't she? Judging from the stunned look on her face and the way she's talking quickly into the phone, trying to explain but not denying anything, I'm sure it's true.

April stares quietly at her own phone.

April Whitman is hardly as mousy and quiet as she seems. Last year, she broke into the Krewe of Deus Den and destroyed countless floats and other property, nearly forcing the parade's cancellation with her petty and remorseless vandalism.

The vandalism. I remember everyone freaking out about that last year. But even now that I know her better, know she has good reasons to be angry, it's hard to imagine April doing that kind of damage all by herself.

But I can't think too hard about it, because there, just beneath it, is my own secret, blazing up at me in sans serif.

Vivian Atkins, Beaumont soccer star, is hardly a team player. Her indiscretion is perhaps the most disappointing of all, if only because of how clichéd it is: she slept with her best friend's boyfriend.

Only two sentences, but they almost knock the wind out of me.

I think, It wasn't like that.

I think, Maybe it was.

I think, finally meeting Wyatt's eyes, At least he can't pretend anymore. At least he can't deny it.

And then, another thought.

"Did you do this?" I jab my phone at the air.

"Are you kidding?" he explodes.

And I know from the broken look in his eyes that he's telling the truth. But I should have guessed. He would rather spend the rest of our lives looking right through me, convincing himself it never happened. He's so good at it that sometimes, I could almost believe I made it up, because that would be easier.

I hear the quiet scuff of sneakers on the pavement and turn to see April walking away.

"Wait," I say. "Where are you going?"

"I need to find Renee."

"We'll come with you."

April shakes her head quickly. "I have to go."

"But Marty and the others could still be looking for us. You can't—"

"I just have to go."

She speeds out of the alley, leaving us behind.

I turn to Piper, who's hanging up the call with her mom. "We can't let her go off by herself."

Piper looks like she's pulled a whole all-nighter in the past ten minutes.

"We need to go home," she says to Wyatt.

"Are you serious?" I glare.

"April obviously doesn't want our help."

I shake my head in disbelief, trying to think of some way to talk sense into her. "They only did this because we're close to figuring this out. They want us to stop, but we can't let them win just because they—"

"Because they ruined our lives? I don't know. I'm starting to think maybe we can." Piper's eyes shine with tears. "They got my dad arrested. They just took college away from me. I don't know if you understand that, but they did."

"And that's important enough to give up on finding Lily?"

Piper stares at me, chin pushed forward stubbornly even as the tears start to fall. "They're not going to quit," she says. "You heard them in there. ‘Everything we desire is ours by birthright.' They're going to keep taking and taking whatever they want from us because they can. So maybe we should just stop. "

She's right. I know she's right, and still, I'm so angry it feels like something's eating me up from the inside. I look at Wyatt. I don't really want to turn to him for backup, but it's not like I have another choice.

"Lily's still out there," I plead. "We can't just—"

"Do you want a ride or not?" Piper snaps, swiping a tear away with her fist.

I glare at her, but apparently she's suddenly allergic to meeting my eyes. Wyatt's, too. And I get it. She's weirded out. She probably thinks we're both as awful as that email said, and maybe we are. Maybe I've ruined whatever sort-of friendship Piper and I were starting to have. But right now, there are more important things than feeling guilty.

"I'm going to find April," I say.

Piper's face softens. "You shouldn't—"

"Are you coming with me?"

She clamps her mouth shut, glancing at Wyatt. It's enough of an answer for me.

"Fine," I snap. "Safe travels."

I give Wyatt one more look before I go, waiting for him to say something, anything.

But he doesn't.

I shouldn't have expected anything else.

I've barely made it to Jackson Square when my feet start to hurt, the blisters and scrapes from running barefoot through the Quarter finally catching up with me. Still, there's no way in hell I'm putting the heels back on. I tuck them under my arm and force myself to keep moving, scanning the dark street for April as I go.

The thing about being an athlete is you have to learn discipline. And maybe it is a cliché, like the email said, but I feel like that's what I've been doing the past two weeks: flexing the same mental muscles I use on game days to push away everything I've been hiding. It's why Wyatt was so good at it, too, I think. He learned it in football.

Or maybe it's just what you do when you grow up in a place like this: forget the uncomfortable stuff, like the rising sea level or a Queen who died too soon.

But now I can't ignore it anymore, and it's right here, as real as the night it happened.

It was winter break, the week before Christmas. That Friday night, we were all at Wyatt's: me, Lily, Sav, Jason, and a couple of Wyatt's other goons. The past month had been brutal. Exams were bad enough, and then early-decision results came out just a few days before the break. I knew Lily was upset when she got rejected from Vanderbilt, but she wouldn't talk about it. She barely responded to our group chat. That night was the first time I'd even seen her since school let out. I was worried, for sure, but I told myself everything was okay now. We were all together again.

Plus, it was warm. It's one of the best things about December in New Orleans: sometimes, winter just isn't a thing. We were out by the pool, and Sav was filling me, Lily, and Wyatt in on the latest theater-kid drama while Jason and two of the football guys, Taylor and Mateo, were dueling with pool noodles.

I barely even remember what we were saying, only that as I looked around, I felt drunk on my friends: Sav with her over-the-top hand gestures and contagious laugh, and Lily with that lit-up look in her eyes, like there's always something going on behind them. Something you want to be in on.

And maybe I was a little drunk on Wyatt, too. The way he looked at Lily like no one else was there, drawing small circles on her wrist with his thumb. Like she was all his.

I knew everything could change when we all went to college. I'd spent all year trying not to think about how I might lose them, worrying that there would never be anything as good as this, my friends, all of us together.

When Lily and Wyatt went inside to get drinks, it was like the air got colder. They were gone for too long. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, and Jason made some stupid joke about what they were really doing in there, but something felt wrong. I know Lily, and I knew she wouldn't disappear like that to hook up with Wyatt in the middle of a party. She'd be too worried about people assuming things, about what they'd think.

I was on my way to check on her when Lily came out alone, walking quickly. She went straight to the lounge chair where she'd left her shoes, slipping them on without looking at us.

"Lil?" Sav asked. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, her voice high-pitched, trying too hard to be normal. "I just have to get home. My parents are being annoying about curfew again."

And then I saw her hand drift up to touch her necklace.

Without another glance our way, Lily pulled her keys out of her pocket and started walking toward the back gate. I got up to follow her.

"Wait," I said, when I was close enough for her to hear me without raising my voice. "Did something just happen?"

Lily looked at me, a tear slipping down her cheek. She brushed it away with the back of her hand. "I'm fine."

"Lily…"

"I said I'm fine, Viv." It was the harshest she'd ever spoken to me. "Just leave it."

With that, she walked through the gate.

I didn't think it through. All I knew was that Wyatt had just done something to hurt my best friend, and I wasn't going to let that go. Ignoring Sav's worried look, I marched through the Johnsons' back door and up the stairs to the second floor, where I knocked hard on Wyatt's door.

He opened it quickly, looking hopeful for half a second before realizing it was me and not her.

"What the hell just happened?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Lily just left in tears, so obviously it wasn't nothing."

For a moment, he looked like the five-year-old kid I grew up with. "She did?"

"Yeah. So what did you do?"

"Why are you assuming it's my fault?"

"Because you're an idiot."

He stormed over to his bed and flopped back onto it, pressing his hands to his face.

"A moody idiot," I added. "You should join drama club with Sav. I think you'd crush it."

And then I realized he was crying. "Shit. I—"

"It's over," he said. "She's done with me. I think she has been for a while."

I was too stunned to say anything at first. "Y'all broke up?"

"No." He wiped his tears, staring up at the ceiling. "Not yet. But it's going to happen. I can tell. She's just—" He squeezed his eyes shut. "I've never been good enough for her."

For a second, I thought he meant that Lily's standards were too high, and I felt the instinct to jump to her defense, but then I realized that wasn't what he meant. He meant Lily was too good for him. That he wasn't enough, period. And looking at Wyatt, this golden-boy quarterback breaking down in front of me, I said the only thing I could think of to make it hurt less.

"She loves you."

He laughed hoarsely. "Right."

"She does. The way she talks about you, it's literally disgusting."

Lily did love Wyatt. I knew, because the way she talked about him made my teeth ache like I ate too much sugar. It made me want something I didn't even know how to talk about, because I hadn't felt it yet, still haven't: loving a boy and knowing he loves you back.

Wyatt turned to look at me, a soft haze in those stupid ocean-blue eyes. "What does she say?" he asked. "About me?"

I rolled my eyes as I sat on the edge of the bed a few feet away from him. "Oh my god, was this all your master plan to get me to, like, massage your ego?"

"Vivian."

The way he said my name. It was almost the way he said hers, like it meant something.

I looked away. "She says you're, like, the perfect boyfriend. Like, you're all considerate and nice and basically a goddamn knight in shining armor." My face was getting warm, which made me feel stupid. "She also thinks you're totally humble and secure and not at all fishing for compliments, so—"

He sat up, making me stop cold.

The way he was looking at me then… it was almost the way he looked at her. Almost, but different. Wyatt looked at Lily like she was some perfect thing he couldn't believe he got to hold in his hands. In that moment, he was looking at me like I was real. Like I was something he wanted.

He leaned in, and I sucked in a breath, my heart thudding against my rib cage. Wyatt's mouth was inches away from mine, hovering there like he was waiting for an okay, like all it would take for him to stop was me telling him to. I needed to tell him to stop.

But all I could think of was how Lily had snapped at me outside. Just leave it.

All I could think of was Wyatt saying she was done with him. How they weren't broken up, not yet, but they would be.

All I could think was how badly I wanted to close the gap.

So I did.

I've never been a girl to romanticize my first time. I always figured at best, it would be fine, and at worst, it would hurt a little. So maybe, I told myself, this wasn't the worst way, doing it with someone who didn't love me. At least he knew me. We knew each other. I'd memorized plenty about him, from the brand of protein bar he always eats before practice to the way he taps his pencil against his knuckles when he doesn't know the answer on a test. And maybe I'd been wondering what it would feel like to be looked at the way he looked at her. Kissed the way he kissed her.

It was quick. He finished. I didn't, and he didn't ask me if I did.

After, I didn't feel any different, at least not in the ways you're supposed to. All I felt was a weight start to settle on my chest as I watched him get dressed again, his back turned to me.

I didn't want to ask, because I already knew the answer, but it came out anyway. "Did you and Lily ever…?"

He shook his head.

The weight got heavier. Wyatt walked to the door, stopping before he opened it. "Don't tell anyone."

"Obviously," I said, not looking at him.

He left. I got dressed. And that was it.

A few days later, Wyatt and Lily were back together, like nothing had ever happened. Besides a few small moments of tension, things I couldn't tell if I was imagining, they seemed exactly the same. As perfect as ever.

And maybe I did imagine it. All of it. It was easier to think of it that way. Easier than this . But as terrible as this feels, the worst part is the tiny flash of vindication. Because it was real. For a moment, I felt it. The way Lily must have felt when he looked at her.

I stop walking. I'm past Jackson Square now, past Café Du Monde, too, veering into the part of Decatur Street where the crowd thins out and the shadows stretch long from the streetlamps. It hits me how I must look right now, a girl in a dirty ball gown, all alone.

And somewhere, April is just as much an easy target. I pull out my phone to call her, but when I tap the screen, it doesn't light up.

No. I press the power button, and no, no, no. The little dead-battery image blinks, mocking me.

Okay. This is fine. I can find a drugstore or something that's open and buy a charger, walk to a bar and beg to borrow an outlet. But then, just as I'm turning around, I see him.

Detective Marty Rutherford stands a block away, his cloth mask floating like a ghost in the breeze. His hands are in his suit pockets, and even through the mask, I can feel the slow smile creeping on his lips.

I run. Heart pounding, wondering how I could be so stupid. Here I am, doing the one thing my parents have always told me not to do, walk alone in this city at night, and now this might be how it ends: at the hands of a man who won't get caught, all because I made reckless choices. Is this how Margot felt?

Or Lily?

I just need to get back to the crowd, I think, as I cross the street. Somewhere safe, somewhere—

A car screeches its brakes in front of me, the driver sitting on the horn. I freeze in the blinding headlights, adrenaline pulsing through me as the car skids to a stop, just a few feet from hitting me.

The door opens, and someone climbs out. I still can't see them in the glare of the headlights, but then there's a familiar voice.

"Vivian?"