One of Us Is Back (ONE OF US IS LYING)
One of Us Is Back: Part 1 – Chapter 19

Phoebe

Thursday, July 9

“That’s not it,” I say.

“You’re sure?” Maeve asks, holding her phone up higher.

“I told you when you texted me last night. The patterns are nothing alike.”

“Yeah, but I thought you might think differently if you saw the original,” Maeve says, enlarging her screen. “Plus you were drugged, so…”

“I know what I saw, though. Or what I dreamed, and it wasn’t that.”

“Damn it,” Maeve sighs as she closes the picture of the Ramona-house wallpaper. “We’re back to square one, then, and Addy got terrorized for nothing.”

“Sorry,” I mutter, and she squeezes my arm.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. It’s just—ugh, it was a night.”

“You should’ve called me,” Cooper says from the front seat. Kris is driving, and Maeve, Luis, and I are stuffed into the back seat of Kris’s Honda Civic.

“And me,” Luis says, frowning as he smacks his fist into his palm. “We could’ve taken care of Jake right then and there.”

“Next time, tough guy,” Maeve says, kissing his cheek. “You didn’t see Nate. There was no holding him back. He was either going with me and Addy, or by himself.”

“Nobody should have gone,” Kris says, his tone equal parts exasperated and forbidding. Sometimes, that extra year he has on Cooper and the rest of the OG Bayview Four seems more like ten. “That was an absolutely terrible idea.”

“Yeah, we get that now,” Maeve says. “Don’t rub it in when you see Addy, though.”

“Well, of course I would never—” Kris starts.

“There,” Cooper interrupts. “Turn left at the light after this one. The Subaru dealership is one block after that.”

We’re on a new-car reconnaissance mission, because Cooper’s Jeep finally stopped running, and the cost to fix it was ridiculous. Nonny offered to give him a down payment for a new car—apparently, she bought a lot of Apple stock in the nineties—and he’ll pay for the rest with his FiredUp Fitness endorsement.

I didn’t expect to be part of this car-buying field trip, but I was at Café Contigo when everyone stopped by to pick Luis up, and Cooper persuaded Mr. Santos to let me come too. He’s been looking out for me like that ever since our car-smashing trip, and it’s helped me feel less alone. So once I’d gotten permission from my mom—after what happened at Nate’s Fourth of July party, I have to check in with her before making even the slightest variation in my schedule—I was all in.

“Subaru?” Luis asks, sounding pensive. “What kind of Subaru are we talking about? Something sporty, or—”

“An Outback,” Cooper says.

Kris pauses at a red light and puts his hand on Cooper’s arm. “Cooper. Darling. Love of my life. You know I support you in all things, but are you sure that you want your first new car to be a station wagon?”

“It’s Nonny’s favorite,” Cooper says. “She’s always wanted one.”

“How am I supposed to drive when you say things like that?” Kris demands. He shifts the car into Park, grabs Cooper’s face between both of his hands, and plants a lingering kiss on his lips. After a few seconds a horn beeps discreetly behind us, and Kris releases Cooper with a wave in the rearview mirror before driving through the now-green light. “Trust me, what Nonny wants is for you to get something that you’ll enjoy driving.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Cooper protests.

Luis’s eyes gleam. “That’s why I’m here. Turn right, Kris. We’re going to Mandalay Motorcars.” Kris obeys, and a huge glass-and-chrome building looms on one side of the road, surrounded by a multicolored sea of impossibly shiny cars.

“Oooh. Where luxury meets destiny,” I say, quoting the ubiquitous TV ads.

“I don’t really understand that tagline,” Maeve says.

“Bayview companies aren’t known for their cutting-edge slogans,” Luis says. “Do you remember Guppies? That fake Swedish Fish candy they used to manufacture here when we were kids? The sweetest treat you’ll ever meet,” he sings in a rich tenor.

I blink at him. “Damn, Luis. You can sing.”

Maeve squeezes his arm. “He’s full of surprises.”

Luis smiles modestly. “It’s no Nothing gets me fired up like fitness, though.”

“I’m never gonna live that down, am I?” Cooper sighs.

Luis claps him on the shoulder. “At least you’re getting a new car out of it.”

Kris pulls into the overflowing parking lot and carefully navigates into one of the last remaining spots. He is, without question, the only Honda in sight. “All right,” he says, pulling his keys out of the ignition with a flourish. “Here we are. Mandalay Motorcars, where cars cost more than houses.”

“Wait. What?” Cooper pauses with one hand on his seat belt buckle, his handsome face a mask of apprehension. “Maybe we should talk about this.”

Luis, on the other hand, can’t wait to get out of the car. “This is a dream come true!” he crows, then takes off for the entrance before anyone else has even closed their door.

Maeve stares after him. “Well, would you look at that? It took a few months, but I’ve finally discovered what makes Luis Santos nerd out,” she says.

“Come on,” Kris says, slinging an arm around Cooper’s shoulders and propelling him across the parking lot. “We’re just looking. It’ll be fun.”

Maeve and I follow at a slower pace, and I tug on her sleeve as she stops to gaze at a sleek gray Porsche. “Are you still keeping an eye on the revenge forum guys?” I ask, trying to sound casual. I’ve been doing my own surveillance on Owen this week, trying to creep on his browser history—which is useless, because he clears it every time, and I’m not nearly tech-savvy enough to figure out a work-around.

“Yeah,” Maeve says, making a face. “Still messaging with Jellyfish too. It’s getting harder for Tami Lee to put him off, though, so I might need to ghost. I’m ninety-nine percent sure he and his buddies have nothing to do with what’s happening in Bayview.”

“Why not one hundred percent sure?” I ask.

“Human unpredictability,” she says with a shrug. “People are full of surprises, even when you think you know them.” My stomach gives an uncomfortable little twist, but Maeve is still looking at the car as she adds, “I mean, that was the whole point of Simon’s app, wasn’t it? He went about it the wrong way, but it’s like he told Bronwyn once: if people didn’t lie and cheat, I’d be out of business.”

“Yeah,” I say, as my stomach dips again. “He wasn’t wrong.”

“The problem with Simon was, he never had any compassion about why people lie,” Maeve says. “Most people aren’t malicious; they’re afraid. There’s nothing scarier than letting people see the parts of yourself that you wish weren’t there.”

It is really, really hot in this parking lot. I pull at the hem of my T-shirt and ask, “Should we go in, or—”

“I owe you an apology, Phoebe,” Maeve says abruptly.

I blink. “You owe me…for what?”

“For busting out that picture of Jake changing your tire at Nate’s party, instead of talking with you first,” she says, cheeks flushing. “I was so startled that I didn’t stop to think. I blindsided both you and Addy, and if I hadn’t done that, the rest of that night would have gone differently. You wouldn’t have gotten so drunk, and—”

“Maeve.” I stop her. “I’m the jerk who let Jake change my tire. I should’ve been up-front about that, and also about…”

I trail off, and Maeve finishes, “Going to his event at Eastland High?”

“Yes,” I say, eyes on the ground. “That too.”

“Why did you?” she asks softly. “And why didn’t you tell anyone?” When I don’t answer, she adds, “Come on, Phoebe. That’s the point of having friends, isn’t it? So you can have the scary conversations?”

I swallow hard against the lump in my throat. What if having the scary conversations means that you lose your friends? On top of everything else you’ve already lost? “I—I guess I wanted to see for myself if Jake was…any different,” I stammer. “If there was any chance he’d really changed, because…because…”

Oh God. Am I actually going to say it?

Emma asked, Don’t do anything until I get home, okay? But she’s still not here. It’s been five days since I was drugged, dragged away from Nate’s party, and treated like somebody’s living notepad, and my sister is still waiting for a price drop on Expedia. What kind of superhuman ability to constantly shove down trauma does she think I have?

“You guys!” We glance up as Luis leans out of the dealership’s front door, waving wildly. “Come on, you need to get in here. We’re test-driving a Lamborghini!”

“This version of him is so not attractive,” Maeve groans, but her eyes say otherwise as she waves back, a smile tugging at her lips. Then she turns to me, her expression full of understanding, and says, “You were worried about Addy, right?”

“Yes,” I say, because it’s true.

And because it’s so, so much easier than saying anything else.