No One Can Know(44)

Whatever Logan’s given her, though, it’s giving her that pleasant, floaty feeling. She burrows against Logan, and his hand finds its way inside her shirt again, stroking her hip. Kaitlyn is telling a story she’s told a half-dozen times before, gesturing broadly and putting on voices. Elaine examines her fingernails, leaning against the wall with an expression that suggests she’s just as over all of this as Juliette.

Then Nina walks in. Is it everyone who turns to stare at her, or is it only that she becomes all Juliette can see? She wears her standard uniform, a simple top under an unbuttoned flannel shirt, rolled up to the elbows. It’s unpretentious, dressed up only with a few silver bangles. A tattoo of a sword decorates her forearm. She spots Juliette and walks toward her, stepping over a couple of people to get there.

“Scoot,” she orders. Juliette wedges herself more firmly against Logan to make room; he grunts in annoyance as Nina drops into the gap she’s created. The older girl taps a cigarette out of a pack and then holds up the pack to Juliette. “Want one?”

“She doesn’t smoke,” Logan says, but Juliette nods. Nina winks. Hands Juliette the cigarette and then, as Juliette lifts it to her lips, takes out her lighter. It’s silver, with a bee and a flower etched in the metal. Juliette’s eyes fix on her fingers as they flick it open, light it.

“Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” Nina asks. Then she laughs, tosses her head. “Never mind. Nothing interesting has ever happened here.”

“Hey, remember when Seth sliced his arm open and had to go to the ER?” Kaitlyn asks.

Nina lets out a plume of smoke. “Oh yeah. That was kinda cool. Come on, we’re sitting around like a bunch of losers. At least play some decent music.”

Decent music is procured. Juliette manages a few puffs of the cigarette. When the ash gets too long Logan confiscates it with a laugh and puts something new into her palm; this time she doesn’t ask what it is. It doesn’t matter. It’s something to make this anything other than depressing. It makes the colors bend, blur. It makes time braid into new shapes, so that she isn’t sure at what point she stands up—Nina pulls her up—and starts to dance with her.

Juliette can never tell if Nina likes her. She’s friendly, physical, quick to loop an arm through Juliette’s or sling a leg over hers on the couch. But she teases Juliette, too, calls her Logan’s pet, calls her prissy, taunts her for being a lightweight and having a curfew.

But here, now, the music is pounding and Nina is holding both of her hands and they’re spinning around, and both of them are laughing, Nina’s hands are around her neck, her hands are on Nina’s waist, Nina is throwing her head back with a wild grin. She doesn’t know if it is the alcohol or the pills or the simple intoxication of Nina’s beauty, but it is like she isn’t touching the ground at all. The whole rest of the world is gone, but that’s fine, because the whole world is contained in the places where her skin touches Nina’s, and this is the only thing that matters, the only thing that has ever mattered.

Nothing here counts. That’s why she keeps coming back. It isn’t real. None of these people are real, none of the things they write on the walls mean anything at all, nothing Juliette does is real or matters at all, and so it doesn’t matter that she wants, more than anything, to kiss Nina. It isn’t real, so she can have it. Just here. Just for a little while.

But then someone says “Kiss her!” and someone else whoops, and Nina, laughing, leans forward, and Juliette doesn’t pull away, and they are kissing, to hoots and cheers, and Nina’s hands are in her hair and her tongue is in Juliette’s mouth. It is a few seconds, no more, and then Nina pulls away and she looks at Juliette with a grin, and Juliette stares back at her, feeling cracked in two, feeling real again, and broken, and Nina’s mouth suddenly rounds in an O.

“Shit, I didn’t—” she says softly, and then Juliette turns and runs.





21

EMMA




Now



Emma jolted awake that night to the sound of gunshots, impacts against the house. Nathan had his phone in his hand and called 911 before the fifth and final shot faded, and they sat huddled in bed until the police knocked on the door. Not Hadley or Ellis this time; a younger, female officer, blond. She was sympathetic as she showed them the bursts of soot against the siding and windows, the discarded scraps of cardboard and plastic. Fireworks, not bullets.

The next morning, Nathan installed the cameras.

Emma knelt in the garden bed midmorning, pulling up weeds and tossing them into the bucket at her side. Sweat trickled down her neck, slipping beneath the collar of her shirt. Above the front door, the blank black eye of the camera stared down at her. She kept glancing at it. Ever since Nathan had pulled his little trick with the phone tracker, she’d felt like she was being watched at all times. It should have been easy to feel swallowed up in that big house, but she imagined him monitoring the sound of her footsteps and felt his attention on her, inescapable.

The sound of a car turning into the drive brought her twisting around. It was a blue hybrid, nearly new. JJ was behind the wheel. She parked ten feet from Emma and got out, shading her eyes. Emma stayed where she was, kneeling in the dirt.

“I come in peace,” she said. She pulled something from her pocket and held it up pinched between her thumb and forefinger. A key. “Nathan asked if I had keys to the carriage house. Asked me to bring them by.”