The Thrashers(103)

When Hannah didn’t respond, Jodi moved on wobbly legs toward the door.

“Why were you late?”

Jodi spun back to her. Tears were spilling down Hannah’s cheeks again.

“When?”

“On prom night. In the limo. You were so late. She said you’d be there at seven.”

Jodi felt bile creeping up her throat. “Hannah, I’m sorry, but Emily was never invited in the limo.”

But Hannah’s forehead was scrunched in confusion. She opened her mouth a few times before saying, “But she said to wait. She said, ‘Jodi has to see.’”

Her heart pounded in her ears. “See what?”

“She said I had to wait. I didn’t want to, but she said I couldn’t—”

“Couldn’t what?”

Hannah was sobbing, heaving for air.

“I wasn’t allowed to scream until the limo pulled up,” she wheezed. “But you were so late. And she wasn’t waking up anymore. And by the time you came, she was already gone.” Hannah looked up at her with her sister’s pale, cold eyes. “Why were you so late?”

There was ice in Jodi’s chest, a heavy weight in her stomach. Hannah didn’t “find” her sister’s body.

She was there—in the bathroom.

“Why did the police report say Emily’s dress was wet?”

“Because she told me to turn the cold water on her every time she passed out. She said she had to stay awake until you came.”

Hannah’s voice broke into sobs. Jodi decided that if Emily were still alive, she would no longer have been so kind, as Hannah put it.

What would have happened if they’d pulled up in the limo to pick her up at seven? Jodi would have never left Emily’s side again—she knew that now. She would have always tried to take care of her, the girl who’d almost died. She wouldn’t have forgiven Julian for bullying her. If Emily told her Zack had slept with her, Jodi wouldn’t have forgiven him, either.

Emily would have won. Jodi would have seen exactly what she was supposed to.

Jodi swallowed back the bile in her throat. “Hannah, I’m so sorry. Emily shouldn’t have asked you to do that. We were never going to pick her up in the limo. She misunderstood.”

Hannah’s pink, wet face was pulled tight in pain. She lifted her hands to hide it.

“That was really wrong of her. I hope you know that, Hannah. It wasn’t fair to you. And it wasn’t your fault.”

Jodi stepped forward and pulled Hannah into a hug. She let her cry on for a long time. When she was finally done, Jodi asked hesitantly, “Did Emily really try to kill herself in April? The first time?”

Hannah sniffed and shook her head. “I thought it was good for dramatic effect.”

Jodi took a deep breath, exhaling the hatred she felt for Emily Mills at that moment, and pulled Hannah closer.





Chapter Thirty





Jodi kept the new information she’d learned from Hannah to herself. Her friends were trying to move on, to put this behind them. She didn’t want to imagine the tantrum Lucy would throw if she heard what kind of crazy Emily had been cooking up. She wanted to protect Hannah’s identity as the mysterious texter, as long as the texts stopped.

When she sat down to think about it, Jodi decided that there were a lot of coincidences and freak accidents that happened to them all in the past year. If Hannah was behind the electronic stalking, then maybe that’s all it was. The drive-in was old and rickety. Lucy’s inhaler was overlooked in the panic. Paige’s electrocution could have happened to anyone, and she had been preoccupied for months over Emily; dreaming of her while unconscious was understandable. The car crash was terrible, but Kiera hadn’t been sleeping and even admitted later that someone had been harassing her online; it was probably Hannah. While Jodi did believe Nan was a legitimate medium after spending so much time with her, it didn’t mean Emily was behind any of these events.

As time went on, nothing else happened. Jodi spent the summer with Rosa and her grandmother, visiting with her dad when he was in town. She hung out with Oliver and Nikita, who were both going to the East Coast. (She had an automatic invite and a couch to sleep on if she ever decided to visit.)

One day at the end of June, Jodi texted the group chat to check in. She didn’t bother making a new one without Julian—it was easier to pretend that way. She told them she was going to visit the cemetery and pay her respects at Emily’s grave, if anyone else wanted to come.

Paige was the only one to respond. Paige picked Jodi up at Rosa’s and they rode in friendly silence over to East Lawn, broken only by a few questions about next year.

Paige’s admission to Brown hadn’t been reinstated, but UC Irvine had pushed her through. She was already talking about transferring out of the UC after the first year, but then followed up with praise for the criminal justice program at Irvine—her new passion. Jodi had a feeling Paige would be just fine there.

“What are you gonna do?” Paige asked. “Last we talked, I think it was Southern California?”

“Yeah, I got into CalArts.”

“You did?” Paige almost swerved the car. “Jodi, that’s amazing!”

“Thanks.” It hurt to think of how many times she had bitten her tongue not to mention it, but Paige had been fighting for her life. In many ways. “They have a theater design program that I got into.”