Truly, Madly, Deadly

TWELVE

Sawyer dressed carefully, pulling on a simple black sheath dress and dark tights. There was a cold bite in the air, and when she stepped outside, goose bumps littered her bare arms. She shivered, sunk her key into her car door, and slid inside.

She was at Maggie’s house twenty-three minutes later.

Sawyer parked across the street and watched the mourners crossing the Gaines’s well-kept lawn. The front door to the house opened and closed rapidly as people slipped inside, their black clothes blending them together into a faceless mourning mob. She sucked in a painful breath—each time she breathed lately, she felt a sharp stab of pain in her abdomen—and kicked open the car door.

“I can do this,” she told herself. “I need to do this.” Sawyer took a shaky step onto the concrete and willed her legs to carry her across the street. She paused on the Gaines’s front porch when a chilled breeze cut across the lawn, carrying with it the super-sweet smell of lilies. It made Sawyer’s head hurt, made her remember the last time she had slipped into the black dress she now wore. The last time was at Kevin’s funeral.

The warmth enveloped her the second she stepped through the door. People were packed into the living room and spilling into the kitchen, clothes in shades of mourning black and muted grays, eyes uniformly red and puffy. There was a spread of barely touched luncheon meats and cold salads that people silently poked at; no one seemed to be talking, but the quiet hum of conversation was everywhere.

Sawyer beelined for a tall, thin woman in a long-sleeved black dress. Though her eyes looked weary and her cheeks were sunken, she shared the same thick, blond hair as Maggie, the pale in her eyes a distant match to the bright cornflower blue of her daughter’s.

“Mrs. Gaines,” Sawyer breathed, “I’m so sorry.”

Elaina Gaines’s eyes raked over Sawyer and softened as a fresh wave of tears spilled over.

“Sawyer! We haven’t seen you in ages.” She threw her arms open and embraced Sawyer in a stiff hug, her thin, spindly arms gripping Sawyer tightly. “Thank you for coming.”

Sawyer nodded, swallowing heavily. “Of course. Maggie and I were…” She struggled to say the word since so much time—and animosity—had passed between the two girls. But the photograph, two bone-thin girls in oversized helmets, grinning toothless smiles, was still in a simple frame on the mantle: Maggie and Sawyer as third-graders, arms entwined, showing off their Best Friends Forever embroidered bracelets. Sawyer felt the burn around her wrist from the bracelet she never wore.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

Mrs. Gaines just wagged her head, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “No, thank you. I’m just so—we’re just so—” The woman looked away uselessly, her shoulders racking under her silent cries. She sniffled finally and breathed deeply, using the heel of her hand to wipe at her tears. She forced a small, polite smile.

“The new choir uniforms are lovely.”

Sawyer cocked her head, confused. “Yeah, they finally got it right this time.”

“Maggie was so excited to wear hers. She loved to sing.” Mrs. Gaines’s eyes shone. “She sang like an angel.”

Sawyer nodded, the words “she did,” coming out soft and breathy. Guilt tugged at her heart as she remembered the exchange she’d had with Maggie about the solo.

“We plan on burying her in the dress.”

Sawyer felt all the air leave the room. She knew Maggie was dead. She knew that she had killed herself in a horrible way, but the idea of her being dead and buried left a burning hole in Sawyer’s gut.

Maggie was really dead.

“I just wish Mr. Rose had decided to add some color to the dresses. The cut is so nice, but the black is so drab.”

Sawyer began to focus on the dresses—the rack of plastic-wrapped garments and Mr. Rose’s sheer joy over them. Anything not to think of Maggie buried.

“The sashes are red,” Sawyer heard herself mumble.

“Sashes?”

Sawyer made a motion around her waist. “The dresses have a big red sash that goes around the waist.”

Mrs. Gaines’s eyebrows pressed together as she chewed on her bottom lip. “There was no sash on Maggie’s dress. It was still in the plastic bag when we—when we—” Her words dissolved into tears, and Sawyer patted her shoulder, unsure how to comfort a woman who had lost her child.

“Maybe it just fell out at school or something,” she said, feeling inadequate and dumb.

Mrs. Gaines swiped at her tears again and steadied her shoulders. “You know who would love to see you? Olivia. She’s around here somewhere.” Mrs. Gaines started to crane her neck, and Sawyer laid a soft hand on her arm.

“I’ll go find her,” she said softly.

Olivia was sitting on the bottom stair, balancing a paper plate heaped with untouched ham and a congealing macaroni salad of some sort on her lap. She was holding a biscuit in her hand, tearing absently at it, the crumbs littering her plate, her pinched-together knees.

“Olivia?” Sawyer was surprised when the girl looked up at her. She had grown into her freckles and big ears and was nearly the spitting image of her older sister. She had Maggie’s eyes, the gentle sweep of her nose. Her hair was a slightly paler version of her sister’s, worn in the same long, layered style.

“Sawyer?” There was a faint shimmer of light in Olivia’s eyes, and she dropped the hunk of bread she was holding and reached out to hug Sawyer. “What are you doing here?”

Sawyer sat down next to the girl. “Maggie was my friend.”

Olivia started working the biscuit again. “She hated you.”

It wasn’t a surprise or a shock, but Sawyer still felt the sting of Olivia’s words.

“After the whole Kevin thing,” she finished.

Sawyer nodded. “It was a big misunderstanding. I wish Maggie knew—could have known—that. I just wanted to pay my respects.”

Olivia nodded without answering, staring at the blank white wall in front of her. “I found her, you know.”

“What?”

“Maggie. I found her in the closet. We were fighting the day before. I was wearing a pair of her jeans. She swore at me, told me never to touch her stuff. I was going in to put the jeans back…and there she was.” Tears pooled on Olivia’s bottom lashes. “There she was. Only, she wasn’t.”

Sawyer began to tremble, tears rimming her eyes. “My God, Olivia, I’m so sorry.”

“I thought she was just being silly. She used to say if I kept taking her stuff without asking, bad things would happen.” Olivia shook her head. “I thought she meant to me.”

“Oh, Olivia, no.” Sawyer slid an arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulled her into her.

“How could she do that?”

“I—I—” Sawyer stammered, then felt the question burning her lips. “Was there a note?”

Olivia turned to look at her, her eyes glossy. “You mean like a suicide note?”

“Yeah.”

Olivia swallowed and shook her head slowly. “No, nothing. And the weird thing is, she seemed fine—totally fine that day, that week.” The girl shrugged, a fresh torrent of tears wobbling over her pink cheeks. “She never seemed like anything was bothering her.”

“What is she doing here?”

Sawyer’s head snapped up as the nasally voice cut through the din in the room.

“You, her!” Sawyer looked up to see Libby, one of Maggie’s henchmen, pointing right at her. Libby’s eyes were as tear-drowned as everyone else’s, but anger bloomed a bright red on her cheeks. Sawyer blinked at her, at the crowd that was craning to see.

“Libby, I—”

“You what?” Libby spat. “You wanted to make sure you’d finished the job?”

Sawyer felt herself gape. “What? What are you talking about?”

“You’re the reason Maggie’s dead. You—you tortured her, like, every day. You stole her boyfriend and then flaunted it in front of her. Maggie was so nice, and all you did was act like a bitch to her. And this is what happened. Maggie was so desperate to be friends with you again, but you kept right on bullying her.” Libby sniffed, tears raking over her cheeks.

“No, no, that’s not true. That’s not how it was at all.” Sawyer’s heart started to pound, the blood behind her eyes a painful throb.

“You hit her the other day. You attacked her and knocked her down.”

Sawyer stood up so quickly that Olivia’s flimsy paper plate flipped off the girl’s lap, spilling barely touched food on her lap and the staircase. Libby glared at the mess and then at Sawyer, crossing her arms as if that said it all.

Sawyer pointed to the plate. “That was an accident. And so was the fight in the hallway. Maggie picked the fight with me.”

Libby’s eyes were spitting fire. “Convenient.”

“What’s going on here?”

Maggie’s mother pushed through the crowd—who were all staring at Sawyer—and looked up at Sawyer, her red eyes questioning.

“Go ahead, Sawyer, tell Mrs. Gaines how you treated poor Maggie. What you did right before she died.”

Sawyer felt a bitter, metallic taste in her mouth as heat engulfed her. The crowd in front of her started to shimmer as tears pooled behind her eyes and raked down her cheeks. “I didn’t,” she squeaked, her eyes locked on the anguish in Mrs. Gaines’s eyes, “I didn’t do anything to Maggie.”

It was a croaked whisper while Sawyer backed through the crowd to the front door. “It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t…” Her words were lost in Libby’s last screams, in the coos and whispers of the crowd that tried to defend and calm. She had her hand on the doorknob, the stares around her accusatory, seeming to suck the breath out of Sawyer’s lungs. “It’s not my fault,” she whispered.

Even she had a hard time believing it.

Her cheeks burned, and her stomach seemed to collapse in on itself as she stepped out of the house.

Could this—Maggie—be the message her admirer was talking about?

No. No.

Maggie did this to herself. She—But even in her own head, Sawyer couldn’t form the words. Maggie killed herself.

Sawyer couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see as tears flooded her eyes, and that was why she slipped on the porch step and fell, chest to chest, against Cooper.

“Oof!” he groaned.

Sawyer stepped back, Cooper’s muscled arms holding her taut and upright.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

His dark eyes took her in from head to toe. “Same thing you are, I suppose.”

Sawyer noticed Cooper’s black suit, crisp white shirt, and simple tie. Had he been dressed this way for any other occasion, she would have complimented the way his broad shoulders looked under the nicely tailored jacket.

“I didn’t even know you knew Maggie.”

Cooper shrugged. “She was in a few of my classes. I just thought it would be nice to…”—his eyes went around Sawyer, to the closed door behind her—“pay my respects, I guess.”

Sawyer nodded. “Me too.”

“It’s nice that you came here. I mean, I remember you told me about what happened between the two—or, three, I guess—of you.”

Sawyer’s eyebrows went up. “Oh, right. At Evan’s party.”

Cooper’s finger was gentle as it brushed against Sawyer’s cheek. She felt a warm shiver go up her spine and then the hot blush of embarrassment.

“Yeah.” She used the heel of her hand to roughly swipe at the tears. “Sorry. Maggie and I had our issues, but I have to remember that we were friends.” Once.

Sawyer immediately set to work stomping out the voices in her head—reminding her that Maggie said Kevin was cheating her, letting her know that if it hadn’t been for her, Maggie might still be alive this minute.

“Sawyer?”

“Oh, sorry, Cooper. What did you say?”

“I said I was just going to go in for a minute. I don’t really know Maggie’s family. Do you want to come in with me? Maybe afterward we can grab a cup of coffee or something.”

There was nothing Sawyer wanted more than to be far away from Maggie’s house and everyone in it. But coffee with Cooper…actually, anything with Cooper sounded good. Sawyer looked at Cooper’s earnest eyes and paused, considering. She took a tentative step, then stopped. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“The other day, when I saw you in the hall?”

“You mean when I was going to the bathroom?”

Sawyer sucked in a breath. “You weren’t going to the bathroom. No one walks completely across campus to go to the bathroom.”

Cooper opened his mouth to say something but Sawyer stopped him. “And you weren’t sneaking out of trig. You were on the other side of the school. Why were you in that hall?”

Cooper laughed, but it sounded forced, rough. “Wow. Nosy much?”

Sawyer didn’t falter, looking at him hard.

A light blush crept across his cheeks. “Okay, I wasn’t sneaking out of trig. You’re right.” He held up a finger. “But I was on my way back from the bathroom.” Cooper blinked, looking suddenly shy. “I was in class. It wasn’t trig. It was home ec.”

Sawyer narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t 1957, Cooper. Hawthorne doesn’t even have a home ec class.”

“I wish that were true. But Hawthorne does, and it’s taught by Ms. Oliver in room 257, in the arts building. Third period. And if you’re a transfer student hoping to take something more manly—anything, actually, that doesn’t involve an apron or a ladle—you’re shit out of luck.” He shrugged. “It was the only open elective.”

Sawyer tried to hold her lips steady, but they kept creeping up. “You’re in home ec? You were lying to me because you didn’t want me to know you’re in home economics?”

“Yeah.” Cooper lowered his voice. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let it get around. It’s hard enough being the new guy without everyone knowing that I can’t bake a soufflé to save my life.”

Sawyer laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth, relief flooding over her. “A soufflé, huh?”

“Hey, if you don’t believe me, come over sometime. I can make you a roasted potato frittata that will rock your world. All the girls in class were jealous.”

“Sounds like you’re going to make a lovely wife someday, Cooper.”

Cooper batted his eyelashes and pursed his lips. “Someday my prince will come along,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “Hey, so, why the questions though? Is someone keeping tabs on me?”

Sawyer bit her bottom lip, the light playfulness slipping from her body. “Um, no. I was just wondering is all.”

Cooper nodded. “I see. So, that coffee?”

Sawyer’s mind tumbled. “I—” She glanced over her shoulder at Maggie’s closed door and could almost feel the hate and blame seeping through it. She looked at Cooper and warmed when she remembered his lips on hers, his kisses deep, sincere, and sweet. She wanted to go with him. She wanted to climb in his car and drive with him wherever he wanted to go—to drive away and never come back.

Sawyer’s cell phone vibrated and she snatched it up, semi-thankful for the break. “That’s Chloe,” she said, looking at the readout and then looking at Cooper. “I can’t go for coffee,” she said suddenly, pressed back into her normal Sawyer-stance. “But not because of the home ec thing. No, that’s—I’m a modern woman. Just—maybe some other time for the coffee.”

Disappointment flittered across Cooper’s face and tugged at Sawyer’s heart. He tried to hide it with that easy smile. “Sure, yeah. Another time. Totally.”

They stood in a beat of awkward silence before Sawyer started to turn.

“Um, I guess I’ll see you around later?”

He nodded. “Not unless I see you first.”

It was an old and cheesy joke, but Sawyer had a hard time laughing.