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Inside were paperbacks, notebooks, and an old cell phone with a cracked screen. Iris grabbed the notebooks and leafed through them. Emily ran her fingers along the pages of an old copy of 1984. Was this all Tripp’s mom kept to remind herself of him?
“Not a single frickin’ thing,” Iris said to the notebook, slamming it closed.
“What were you looking for?” Emily asked.
“My name in a heart. Something.” Iris rummaged through the crate some more, tossing aside stuffed animals, an empty water bottle, a container of hand sanitizer, a hospital bracelet that said THE PRESERVE AT ADDISON-STEVENS. When she got to the bottom of the crate, her jaw wobbled. “Well, I guess that proves it. I meant nothing to Tripp.”
“Maybe he brought something of yours with him when he left.”
Iris snorted. “I’ve been kidding myself for way too long. Tripp and I never really had anything real. It was stupid to come here.”
Suddenly, she tucked her head between her knees and let out a muffled sob. Emily paused for a moment, not sure what to do. Her hand hovered over the small of Iris’s back, but she wasn’t sure what to say to make her feel better.
Instead, she picked up the cell phone and pressed the power button. Surprisingly, a Motorola logo appeared on the screen. She clicked on the CONTACTS button. Everything had been deleted. She opened up the texts, but that folder was empty, too. A few photos had been saved, however—a penis-shaped cloud, a golden retriever, and then, the third photo, a girl Emily knew well.
“Oh my God,” Emily whispered.
Ali’s blond hair cascaded down her shoulders. Her blue eyes sparkled. She wore the same white pajamas that Iris had been wearing at The Preserve. Emily guessed the photo had been taken a few years ago, when Ali was maybe fifteen.
Iris wiped a tear and looked at the screen, too. She let out an annoyed sniff. “Well, I guess you found something.”
“Why would this guy have a picture of Ali?” Emily asked shakily.
Iris leaned back on her hands. “Because we all were at The Preserve together. We were friends.”
Emily stared at the picture again. Just seeing Ali’s face in somewhere so unexpected made her itchy. Someone just out of the photo had an arm slung around her shoulder—the only identifying thing was a gold watch on the person’s hairy wrist. She squinted at it. Had she seen it before?
She pointed to the disembodied hand. “Who’s that?”
Iris brought the photo close to her face. Her mouth made an O. “You know, that might be him. The boyfriend.”
Emily blinked hard. “You mean the one who came to the hospital all the time to see her? The one who she met at Keppler Creek when she got out?” Emily grabbed Iris’s wrist. “You have to tell me his name. Right now.”
Iris shook her head. “No can do.” She stood up and headed out of the room.
Emily pocketed the cell phone with Ali’s picture and followed her downstairs, out the back door, and onto the lawn. Iris was walking quickly, but Emily finally caught up with her on the sidewalk.
“Damn it, Iris!” Emily squealed. She gestured to the house. “I broke into a house with you! What’s next, murder? You’ve been stringing me along all week—just give me something real, okay? Is it too much to ask for this guy’s name?”
Iris stopped next to a tree stump. She lowered her eyes. “I can’t tell you his name . . . because I don’t know it.”
Emily felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. “What?”
Iris’s skin looked even paler in the sunlight. “I never knew it. I’m sorry. I wasn’t lying—Ali did have a guy who visited all the time. But she just called him Mr. Big . . . like Carrie in Sex and the City. I never knew his name. It was this big secret she kept from me. I was never allowed to hang out with him, either.” Her mouth tightened. “That’s why I’m not loyal to that bitch, you know. She kept things from me. It’s like I wasn’t worth knowing the truth.”
Emily wilted against a tree. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Iris kicked at a divot in the grass. “I thought it was the only way you’d keep driving me around, taking me wherever I want, letting me stay at your family’s house—the only way things could be normal for a little while. As soon as you found out I didn’t know anything, you would ship me right back to The Preserve.”
Emily blinked. She had no idea Iris was afraid of that. “So . . . wait. You like hanging out at my family’s house?”
“Uh, yeah,” Iris said, as if it was an obvious answer. “But whatever—it’s over now. You can leave me just like my mom did. Just like Tripp did. It’s cool—I’ll just go back to The Preserve now and rot there for another four years. You can go to prom. Get on with your life.”
She turned away. After a moment, her shoulders shook silently. Emily was so stunned that she couldn’t move. She knew she should be angry, but seeing Iris there, her spindly arms wrapped around herself as she sobbed, Emily couldn’t help but feel for her. She knew what it was like to be abandoned by her family, too. And to be ditched by someone she thought loved her. When Ali laughed at Emily in the tree house at the end of seventh grade, something inside Emily had died. Another piece of her had withered away when Real Ali tried to kill her in the Poconos.
She looked at Iris’s quivering form. Really, she and Emily weren’t that different. If Emily’s circumstances had been just a bit harsher, who was to say she wouldn’t have lied about information just to get someone to pay attention to her? In a strange way, it was almost flattering that Iris found Emily worthy of lying to, Emily’s life worth living. Another surprising thought struck her: If Iris had just asked Emily to hang out for a few days longer, even though she didn’t know Ali’s boyfriend’s name, Emily might have said yes.
