I had seen something she hadn’t—but Eliza, she hated it. She resented me for picking up on what she didn’t.
“How can you just forget about him breaking into your house?” I asked one night, hands on my hips, the anger surging out of me as she tapped away at her phone. Even though graduation was approaching, only a handful of days left before we were set to walk across the stage, I had to ask her about it. I had to know. I knew it would only be temporary—only one more summer spent with Levi lingering and then we would both, finally, be free—but I couldn’t handle the thought of her keeping something from me, something secret. Something as big as this. “Eliza, that is such a violation. We should have called the cops.”
I realized, too late, that I was mirroring the way my mother sometimes stood when she was berating me about a mediocre test score, her judgment like a physical thing between us, sucking the very air out of the room. Even my tone was the same, harsh and grating, so I dropped my hands to my sides, suddenly unsure where to put them.
She looked up at me, a beat of silence before she dropped her phone onto my bed.
“He said he didn’t do it.”
“What do you mean—” I started, then stopped, my eyes growing wide as understanding dawned. “You asked him about it?”
“Yes,” she said. “I asked if he came into the house while we were gone.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said he would never do that. That there had to be some other explanation.”
“Well, yeah, of course he’s gonna deny it—”
“I could have misplaced the picture, Margot. Maybe my mom took it to use in the yearbook or something. We never even told my parents it was missing.”
“That’s stupid,” I said. “You didn’t misplace it.”
“Levi also suggested that maybe you took it.”
I stared at her, a wave of disbelief washing over me, trying to process what she just said.
“What?” I asked, although I heard her fine. I just wanted her to repeat it. I wanted to give her a second to reconsider what she just said; the opportunity to apologize, take it back. “He said that?”
“He suggested it.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said it made sense.”
I blinked—two, three times—a substantial silence settling over us. It had been almost an entire year of Levi trying to weasel his way between us, break us apart like a splinter in dried wood, but that was the very first time he had been so deliberate about it. Like instead of just sitting back and waiting for the crack to travel, growing slowly, naturally, until the fissure was complete, he decided to take a sledgehammer to it. Smashing us to smithereens.
“You’ve done it before,” she said, averting her eyes, like she was suddenly embarrassed for me.
“What do you mean?”
“You collect things. I’ve seen you take stuff out of my room before … ticket stubs, receipts—”
“That’s different,” I said, my cheeks burning at the knowledge that she had seen. At all the little mementos that were stashed away in that very room, at that very moment. “I would never steal something of yours.”
“You wouldn’t?” she asked, infuriatingly calm.
“No, I wouldn’t. Besides, why would I steal a picture and blame it on Levi?”
“Because you hate him, Margot. You’ve always hated him.”
“I don’t hate him—”
“Yes, you do!” she yelled, finally getting angry. “Just admit it. Why wouldn’t you try to turn me against him?”
“I just have a bad feeling about him, okay?” I yelled back, throwing my arms in the air. “I’m trying to protect you!”
“I don’t need you to protect me. You’re not my mother.”
“Yeah, but I’m your friend,” I said, trying to calm down. I walked toward the bed and took a seat on the edge, resting my hand between us. “There’s just something about him that bothers me, Eliza. Something that doesn’t feel right.”
“You’re being dramatic,” she said.
“I’m not being dramatic.”
“Okay, then you’re being jealous,” she snapped, standing up and stalking across the room. “Christ, Margot, what is it with you? Am I not allowed to have other friends now? A boyfriend?”
“Yes, of course you can have other friends,” I said. “It’s just … he’s too…”