“Shhhh.” Warm breath tickled her ear. “It’s me,” a low voice growled.
The guy’s voice resonated through me like an electric shock. From it cascaded a series of images, disjointed and brief. Sneaking away from a party and kissing in the desert. Finding a letter in my locker that was so heartfelt it made my knees weak. And then, yet again, that memory in the courtyard: him saying something to me, and me shouting back, As if I’d ever want to be with you? You’re nothing but a loser!
And then a final memory wriggled to the surface, so short and sharp it was nothing more than a synapse: car headlights shining on his face. His eyes widening with fear, his arms thrashing in front of his body. And then . . . boom. Contact.
The hands loosened their grip and spun Emma. Her body went rigid. She took a second to process the hulking boy with dark hair, blinking, deep-set hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and deep Cupid’s bow lips. That face. She knew that face. She saw a secretive boy in the pictures in Madeline’s house. A smirking boy whose face was plastered on bul etin boards across town and haunted al those Have you seen him? Facebook posts. And now, here he was, smiling a strange, jagged smile, the kind of smile that hinted that he knew absolutely everything about her—including exactly who she wasn’t.
“Thayer,” Emma whispered.
Epilogue
A Moment in Time
As I stood in my old bedroom, staring at the boy who’d just climbed through my window, time just . . . stopped. The wind quit gusting outside. The birds fel silent. Emma and Thayer froze in their places, too, immobile as statues. Only I continued to move and flutter and think, getting my bearings and col ecting my thoughts.
I tried to hold on to the flood of Thayer memories like they were a life raft at sea, but just when I thought I had my arms securely around them, they slipped away and sank deep down once more. Was it true that Thayer and I had shared something together—something real, something big?
Those emotions I’d felt seemed so true, so raw, more momentous than anything I’d felt for Garrett or any other boy. But what if the memory of the headlights in Thayer’s eyes was true, too? Had I hit Thayer? Was that rumor true?
Something even more frightening occurred to me. Was I, right this moment, staring into the face of my murderer?
After what I’d remembered, I hated to think that Thayer could be my kil er, but I’d learned a thing or two about my tricky, dead-girl brain: I couldn’t trust each individual memory, only the whole picture. What first seemed like a terrifying kidnapping had ended up being merely a dangerous prank, after al . A near-death had resulted in weary laughter, with everyone fine. Who was to say that the next glimpse of Thayer I saw undid those true-love feelings I had for him? Who was to say I hadn’t died his bitter enemy?
It was impossible to know how I’d left things during my last few days on earth—whom I’d loved, and whom I’d hated. And it was impossible to know whom Emma should trust . . . and whom she should run from.
I stared into Emma’s wide, glassy eyes. My sister was more terrified than I’d ever seen her. Then I turned to Thayer, peering into his lazy, self-assured face. Suddenly, something came to me about him that I’d long buried. This guy was a charmer. A hypnotizer. He could wrap you around his finger just as wel as I could, convincing you that every word out of his mouth was true.
So who was the better liar? Me . . . or him?
Be careful, I wanted to tel Emma. Sure, she had a brand-new boyfriend, but something told me that Thayer was the type of guy who could sweep her off her feet before she even knew what hit her. I had a feeling Emma was about to embark on a new kind of Lying Game with Thayer. But in this little club of two, the stakes were a matter of life or death.
A loud tick-tick-tick sounded across the room, the second hand on the bean-shaped clock on my wal suddenly moving again. The curtains fluttered in the window. And as I turned back to Emma and Thayer, time had unpaused for them, too, thrusting my sister into her next moment with Thayer.
A boy I might have once loved. A boy I was now almost certain I couldn’t trust. A boy who might have kil ed me.