Two Truths and a Lie

13 LOVE, S.

An hour later, Emma sat stiffly next to Laurel in the VW. Laurel might have abandoned her at school, but there was no way for her to get out of driving her home from Madeline’s. She hadn’t said a word to Emma the whole time, and was wrinkling her nose at Emma as though she smelled like raw sewage.

Spying a strip mall that contained a grocery store, a Big Lots, and a bunch of other random shops on the corner, Emma grabbed the wheel and veered the car into the right lane. Laurel slammed on the brakes. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting you to pull over,” Emma said, gesturing to the parking lot. “We need to talk.”

To Emma’s surprise, Laurel signaled, turned into the lot, and shut off the engine. But then she got out of the car and stomped toward the strip mall without waiting for Emma to follow. By the time Emma caught up with her, Laurel had pushed into a shop called the Boot Barn. The place smelled like leather and air freshener. Cowboy hats lined the walls, and there were shelves and shelves of cowboy boots as far as the eye could see. A country singer crooned something about his Ford pickup truck in a twangy voice over the loudspeaker, and the only other customer in the store was a grizzly-looking guy with a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. The shopkeeper, an overweight woman wearing a vest with galloping palominos embroidered on the front, gazed at them menacingly from behind the counter. She looked like the type who knew her way around a shotgun.

Laurel walked over to a black western button-down that had silver stud accents around the shoulders. Emma snickered. “I don’t think that’s quite your style.”

Laurel placed the shirt back on the rack and feigned interest in a display of ornate belt buckles. Most of them were in the shape of cattle horns.

“Seriously, this ignoring me thing is getting a little old,” Emma said, following behind her.

“Not for me, it isn’t,” Laurel said.

Emma was grateful she’d at least said something. “Look, I don’t know why Thayer came into my room, and—”

Laurel whipped around and stared at her. “Oh, really? You really don’t know?” Her gaze fell to Emma’s waist. Emma sucked in her stomach, feeling the folded letters she’d found in Thayer’s bedroom press against her. It almost felt like Laurel knew they were there.

“I really don’t know,” Emma said. “And I don’t know why you’re so pissed about it, but I wish you would tell me what I can do to make it up to you so you aren’t mad anymore.”

Laurel narrowed her eyes and backed away. “Okay, now you’re freaking me out. Sutton Mercer doesn’t repent. Sutton Mercer doesn’t make it up to anyone.”

“People change.”

Or sometimes they die and their nicer twin takes their place, I thought grimly.

A new country song blared over the loudspeakers, this one about loving the good old USA. Laurel absent-mindedly picked up a pair of pink cowboy boots and put them back down again. Her expression seemed to soften. “Fine. There is one thing you could do to make it up to me.”

“What?”

Laurel leaned forward. “You could get Dad to drop the charges against Thayer. Or you could tell Quinlan that you invited Thayer over. That way the cops will be forced to let him go.”

“But I didn’t invite him over!” Emma protested. “And I’m not going to go behind Dad’s back and lie to the police.”

Laurel blew air out of her mouth angrily. “Like that’s ever stopped you before.”

“Well, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. Trying not to have Mom and Dad pissed at me every other day for once.”

“Yeah, right.” Laurel snorted.

Emma balled her fists in frustration, staring at the tobacco-colored carpet. The bells to the store jingled, and an incongruous-looking tall girl in a peasant skirt walked through. She was wearing a T-shirt that said CLUB CONGRESS POETRY SLAM. Laurel’s expression shifted; she’d obviously noticed the shirt, too.

“Look,” Emma said, eyeing the girl, “if you’re mad at me, be mad at me. Don’t drag Ethan into it. We shouldn’t ruin his poetry reading.”

For a second Laurel looked guilty. But then her features hardened again. “Sorry, Sis. No can do. The plan’s already in motion.”

“We could call it off,” Emma tried.

Laurel smirked. “Sutton Mercer, calling off a prank? That’s not your style.” She leaned against a rack of what looked like burlap wizard cloaks. “I’ll make a deal with you. You get Thayer out of jail, I stop the prank.”

“That’s not fair,” Emma hissed.

“Well, then, no can do.” Laurel turned on her heel perfunctorily. “I guess you don’t care that much about your secret boyfriend, huh? Then again, that’s not really a surprise. You treat all your secret boyfriends like shit.” With that, she shot Emma a knowing look, pushed against the door, and walked out into the sun. The jingle bells on the handle mocked Emma as the door slammed shut.

A few hours later, Emma pedaled up to the curb of a familiar-looking ranch house across from Sabino Canyon. Her legs ached from the ten-mile uphill bike ride from Sutton’s house, and her skin was slick with sweat, even though dusk had fallen and the air had cooled. She had no choice but to ride to Ethan’s house tonight—it wasn’t like Laurel would drop her off. She had to see him.

Ethan’s house was next door to Nisha Banerjee’s, where Emma had attended a party her first night as Sutton. The Landry property was situated on a small plot of land bordered by a white picket fence that needed painting. Sparrows sat on the thin branches of an oak tree at the edge of the yard and the setting sun cast long shadows onto the slightly overgrown lawn. Tiny purple flowers in clay pots lined the front porch, and a rocking chair with chipped yellow paint sat next to three days’ worth of newspapers rolled in blue plastic bags. Even though the house was nicer than anything Emma had ever lived in, it seemed small compared to the Mercers’ five-bedroom bungalow. It was weird how quickly one got used to luxury.

She knocked loudly. A few seconds later, Ethan’s face appeared in the window. He gave Emma a surprised smile as he unlocked the door to his house.

“Sorry I didn’t call first,” Emma said.

Ethan lifted a shoulder. “It’s cool. My parents aren’t home.” He stepped aside, making room for Emma. “Come on in.”

She turned the letters over in her hand as she followed him down a long hallway wallpapered in a light pink– colored floral print. On the walls were the kinds of paintings Emma had only seen in funeral homes, various watercolors of roses and sunsets. There were no photos of Ethan. The house had a strange smell to it, too—kind of closed-up and musty. It definitely wasn’t welcoming.

Ethan led Emma into a small, dark room. “This is my bedroom,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Obviously,” he added, as though suddenly embarrassed.

Emma looked around. She’d imagined what Ethan’s room looked like plenty of times since they’d become friends, figuring it was a little bit cluttered, full of stargazing maps, telescope parts, old chemistry sets, dog-eared notebooks, and tons and tons of books of poetry. But this room was spotless. The tracks from a vacuum cleaner were visible on the carpet. A pair of black climbing gloves rested on the nightstand along with the leather journal Emma had noticed the first day she met Ethan. The only item on the desk was a beat-up-looking laptop—nothing else, not even a ball-point pen. The bed was made so neatly it could’ve passed a hotel’s service inspection, the duvet pulled tight, the pillows stacked one in front of the other. Emma had once worked as a maid in a Holiday Inn, and her managers always yelled at her for not fluffing the pillows correctly.

She glanced at Ethan, wanting to ask him if this was really his room. It was almost completely devoid of character. But Ethan looked so awkward that she didn’t want to make him feel worse. Instead, she sat down on the bed and reached for the packet of papers in her pocket.

“I found these in Thayer’s room today,” she said. She unfolded the letters onto the bedspread. “Sutton wrote them to him. It proves that they had a romantic relationship.”

Ethan picked up each letter and scanned the contents. Emma felt a flicker of guilt, as though she was betraying her sister by unveiling her secret feelings.

Even though I understood why Emma was showing Ethan the letters, I felt a pang of protectiveness, too. These were my private thoughts.

“I never thought I could be so into someone,” Ethan read aloud. He flipped to the next page. “I want to kiss you in the U of A football stadium, in the brush behind my parents’ house, on the top of Mount Lemmon …” He stopped, clearing his throat.

Emma felt heat rise to her cheeks. “They obviously really liked each other.”

“But she was still with Garrett,” Ethan said, pointing to a line in one of the letters that said, I want to break up with Garrett and be with you, I swear. But it’s not the right time, and we both know it. “Maybe Thayer was pissed that Sutton was still with her boyfriend during all this … and killed her.”

A chill went through me. I thought about how quickly Thayer had changed when Garrett came up that night on our hike. His anger was intense—even he admitted it was his worst quality, the thing that reminded him most of his father. Could that have been enough to set him off?

Emma leaned back on the bed and stared at the popcorn ceiling. “That seems pretty extreme. Killing someone because they wouldn’t break off a relationship?”

“People have killed for much less.” Ethan stared at his hands. He looked distant, as though something was upsetting him. When he finally spoke, his words were slow and deliberate. “Maybe Sutton drove him mad. She was a master at manipulation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emma asked sharply. She didn’t like the tone of Ethan’s voice. Or what he’d said about her sister.

“One minute, she liked you,” Ethan said. “And the next, she treated you like dirt. I saw her do it to a million guys.” He frowned. “Maybe she was doing that to Thayer. Maybe it was driving him insane and he just … snapped.”

Emma’s palms felt clammy. Could her sister’s fickle behavior be the thing that pushed Thayer to the brink? If she’d been hot and cold with him—all while dating Garrett—it could have sparked a rage inside of him. “Maybe,” she whispered.

“So what do you think we should do about it?” Ethan asked.

“We could call the police,” Emma suggested.

“Or we couldn’t.” Ethan shook his head. “If we do that, you’ll have to out yourself as Sutton’s twin. It’s too risky.” He crossed his leg over his knee and jiggled his navy Converse sneaker. “We’re getting close, though. You need more solid proof. What about the blood on the car? That’s definitely Sutton’s, right?”

Emma rose from the bed and began pacing around the room. “Probably. Although the police aren’t done testing it yet. I’m guessing they’ll also be looking at the fingerprints on the steering wheel—maybe Thayer’s will come back a match.” Then she made a face. “But wouldn’t the person have to be in the criminal system for them to find a DNA match?”

“Thayer’s been in trouble before,” Ethan offered. “And they would have fingerprinted him when they arrested him.”

“And we already know he was in the car,” Emma went on. “Even if his prints are on the steering wheel, what does that prove?”

“True,” Ethan said, sounding deflated. “It just means we’ll have to dig deeper. Find out what his motive was. Find out something to really nail him to the wall.”

“Yeah,” Emma murmured, but she felt exhausted. She was so close … but so far away.

She closed her eyes, suddenly overwhelmed at the task ahead of her. A teenage soccer star didn’t become a murderer out of nowhere. Something made Thayer Vega break.

When she opened her eyes again, she noticed Ethan’s glowing laptop screen. A Safari window was open to Sutton’s Facebook page.

“You’re on Facebook?” Emma smirked. “You don’t seem like the type.”

Ethan shot off the bed and closed the laptop. “I’m not, really. I mean, I have a page, but I don’t really post on it or anything. I was just thinking about leaving you a message on your—well, Sutton’s wall. But I don’t know.” He peeked at her cagily. “Would that be weird? Your friends don’t really know about … how we talk.”

Emma felt a rush of pleasure that they were even discussing their potential relationship. But then a pit formed in her stomach. She recalled how the girls had giggled about the prank today. She considered telling Ethan about the plan to ruin his poetry reading, but the thought nauseated her. She would just have to thwart the plan, plain and simple.

“Actually, Laurel knows about us,” Emma said instead. She flushed instantly. Was what she said okay? Calling them us? It wasn’t like they were a couple yet.

“Does that bother you?” Ethan asked, a slight smile tugging the edge of his lips.

“Does it bother you?” Emma countered.

Ethan took small steps toward Emma and sat down on the bed beside her. “I don’t care who knows. I think you’re amazing. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

Emma’s heart squeezed. No one had ever said anything like that to her before.

Ethan leaned forward, running his fingers across the nape of her neck. He kissed her gently, his lips warm and soft, and Emma instantly forgot about everything that’d happened since she arrived in Tucson. She forgot about just how excited she’d been when she stepped off the bus to meet her sister. She forgot how quickly the hopes of her and Sutton’s reunion were dashed. She forgot about the note threatening her to be Sutton—or else. She forgot about the investigation into Thayer, or whoever had killed Sutton. In that moment, she was just Emma Paxton, a girl with a brand-new boyfriend.

And I was just her sister, happy that she had found someone she truly cared about.