My sister.
And Pfeff.
46.
I FREEZE.
“Do you not hear us come in the gate, you assholes?” shouts Yardley. “We’re literally right here. Me and Carrie.”
“Damn,” says Penny, whose back is against the table.
Pfeff turns around, pulling away from her. His eyes grow wide. His lips look swollen, the way they get from kissing.
I cannot face the two of them.
I cannot speak.
My throat closes, and a ball of hot fury and pain barrels into my head and pushes out through my skin.
It melts my face.
My features ooze like wax,
sliding down my bones,
dripping onto the boards beneath my feet.
I cover my face with my hands, feeling like that’s the only way to keep my flesh from pouring onto the walkway as it melts, everything agony.
Yardley puts her hand out to me, but I turn and run, bursting through the gate and down the walkway into the dark, dark spaces of the island.
* * *
—
THE IMAGE OF Penny’s hand in Pfeff’s dark hair—it makes me sick.
To think that he’s kissed me all those times and had me up in his room, and told me his secret about getting into Amherst, and touched me so softly and urgently; to think that he made me feel clever, insightful, beautiful, impressive—and all the while, he’d have rather had Penny.
She is prettier than I am, no doubt. Even if beauty is subjective, even if beauty standards change over time, she is prettier than I—to everyone. Always. Even though I had my damned jaw broken and reconstructed.
Even though.
It doesn’t matter that I understand how Pfeff feels about college, or that I can see he’s a faker and call him on it, or that I’m good at speaking in front of people, or that I make him laugh.
It doesn’t matter that I feel things deeply and think about the world beyond Beechwood. Everyone loves Penny best. They love her best because how her eyes fit into the sockets of her skull, because of her extra quarter inch of cheekbone, because of her creamy, silky hair, and the line of her jaw and
the slight menace of her white canine teeth.
People will love Penny best even though she doesn’t care about them, or
because she doesn’t care, even though she’s not much good in school and is careless of everyone’s feelings. Even though she cannot cook like Bess does, and does everything sloppily, and
never puts herself out for anyone, people will still love her best.
I could hack off my own heel with a butcher knife （I have hacked up my mouth already）; but it would not be enough to win me love, because still the blood would seep into the glass slipper,
telling the world I am worthless, while Penny slides easily into that shoe, puts her hand in his, and
takes him
from me.
47.
I WAIT FOR Penny in her room with the light out, sitting on her bed with my knees pulled up to my chest.
She comes in with Erin behind her.
Of course, Erin.
They flip on the light and Penny startles to see me there. “Erin,” she says. “Could you give us a minute?”
“I’ve got nowhere to go,” says Erin. “Your parents are downstairs. I’m not hanging out with them by myself.”
“Go back to Goose,” says Penny.
“No, thank you,” says Erin. “You two talk in Carrie’s room, or take a walk or something.”
I don’t know why Erin is so huffy with Penny, but I say, “A walk is fine.”
I do not want to have this conversation in my room, because of Rosemary. I don’t know what she might overhear.
Penny grabs a jacket and stomps downstairs as if she is the one angry with me.
I follow her.
We avoid Tipper and Harris by going out the mudroom door and head for the perimeter path.
Now that we are alone, I do not know where to start. We walk in silence for a few minutes.
“I want to know how you could do that to me,” I blurt finally. “I would never do anything like that to you. Never.”
“I wasn’t doing it to you,” says Penny.
“You were,” I say. “You knew I was with Pfeff. You knew it, and you chose to ruin the one good thing I had, I don’t know, just because you could? Because we never had a heart-to-heart about it? Because I haven’t been hanging out with you so much? Why?”
“I—”
“Or does it make you feel powerful to kiss a guy when you know he’s with someone else? Or do you hate me for some reason?”
“That wasn’t it,” she says. “Neither of those.”