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“Hey, Mom,” I say when I walk inside.
“Hi, honey. How was school?”
“Fine,” I tell her.
“Fine?” she asks. “That’s it?”
“I’m interesting now, apparently,” I tell her, shrugging.
“I wish you wouldn’t have gone back there,” she says. “I wish you’d just finish the year out at home or enroll here again. You still could, you know.”
“I need to get out. I need to leave the house,” I tell her. I can’t just lock myself in another prison. “And everyone here knows, too.”
“Yeah, but people here are different, Devon. It’s not like at Black Rock. It’s not where Darci died, and…it’s not where Ally is. Did you see her?”
“No,” I lie. “I didn’t see her. I don’t care if I do. And I don’t want to hear that name again.”
“You know, when you love someone, you can tell when they’re lying,” she says.
Not always.
“Where’s Ivy?” I ask. “Shouldn’t she be off the bus by now? Is she still afraid of me?”
“I don’t think so, but it may take her some time to adjust. Also, something happened while you were gone, Devon. I didn’t want to upset you, but…he got out.”
“What? How the fuck did he—”
“Good behavior. Overcrowding. It doesn’t matter, but he did. They’ve been letting him have supervised visitation with Ivy once a week. It’s just for a couple of hours during the day.”
“Well, can’t you do something?! How the fuck is he allowed around kids?”
“I tried,” she says. “This is just how they do things. Please don’t be like this. It’s hard enough for me without…”
I shake my head. “Without me here making it worse? God, the world is so fucked.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Does that mean he’s coming over here?”
“No,” she says. “I’m going to go pick her up in about an hour. The social worker will be there and—”
But I’m already done listening. For the second time in the last twenty-four hours, I think I could become amurderer.
I leave her in the kitchen, storm down the hallway, and slam my bedroom door. I pull open my desk drawer, then reach into my pocket, take out the handful of long, dark brown hair, and throw it in the drawer. I don’t know why I brought it home. I guess it’s just because I hate her. I fucking hate her, and I can’t stand to look at her stupid fake-innocent face. I sat behind her in art and stared at that curtain of dark hair running down her back, and then she brushed it over her shoulder, and I could smell it—lavender, just like before. I remembered what it looked like against her bare back or draped across my pillow while she slept. And I just wanted it to go away.
And now, I have it in my desk drawer like some fucked up serial killer trophy. I shake my head, run my hands over my face, and my fingers through the fuzz that is what’s left of my own hair. I’m still not used to that feeling.
I can’t believe I fell for it. I still can’t quite figure out how she did it—how she manipulated me so completely and faked it so well the whole time.
I didn’t just fall in love with Ally Hargrove. I got lost in her.
I wonder how much of it was a lie. I did a lot of that while I was locked up—once I realized Ally really was gone. I’ve wondered if she made all that stuff up about Mark and Grace abusing her. I’ve never seen any concrete evidence of anyone hurting Ally except for Ally, and I’ve known them since my dad and Lydia got married years ago. From what I can tell, they’re ordinary people, aside from the strict religious values they try to use as an excuse tocontrol Ally. And everyone else in Washington state—in Mark’s case, anyway.
I’ve also wondered if Darci was involved the whole time—if they both played me and the picture was part of it, if they were involved in some shit that ended up getting Darci killed. Darci knew about my mom’s ex, and she’d know that something like that would be an easy way to get to me. It’s the only thing that really makes sense.
No one ever found any evidence of this college boyfriend Ally claimed Darci had, even though Audrey and Morgan attested they’d heard the same story. There were no pictures, no text messages. No digital evidence at all, which is next to impossible.
No, Ally and Darci needed money for something. And Darci decided to take it a step further and blackmail me. Ally knows more about whatever happened. And she lied and left me there to rot.
