Page 12 of The Fall of Iris Henley
Mom’s eyes narrow. She takes in Noelle’s outfit and purses her lips a little at the bustline.
“Go use the downstairs bathroom,” she says to Noelle. She shakes her head. “You look ridiculous. It’s not Halloween.”
For a moment, Noelle seems to shrink. Her makeup, which a second ago scared the living crap out of me, looks gaudy and ridiculous. A little girl playing dress-up.
Then she laughs, and it’s almost scary how brittle that laugh sounds, how hard it makes her look again.
“It’s the Austin Comic Convention. Everyone there’s going to be dressed like this. And for your information, this is every bit as valid an activity as shaking a pom-pom and showing your ass during halftime.”
She whips a long blond wig off the towel rack where it’s been resting, grabs her stained makeup bag, and jerks her bedroom door open.
Mom watches, eyes narrow, until she’s slammed the door behind her.
“What is this stuff she’s into?” she asks. “You think it’s a cult?”
I’m too tired to answer. I turn the water back on as hot as it will run. When I look up, she’s looking at me in the mirror. We look a lot alike, me and my mom, though Mom’s caramel blond is from a bottle these days. She frowns a little, and I catch a glimpse of myself for the first time next to her—I’m the one who really looks like a corpse, my eyes baggy, my features drawn.
A fleeting thought: Have the rumors made it to her? Sekrit is encrypted. No one would leak it to an adult. And Noelle hasn’t seen it yet today, or she’d have let me know.
But what if?
“You got to watch what you get up to at those parties, baby,” she says. She gives a conspiratorial little smile. “You’re looking a little puffy. Make sure you drink some water before you head out today.
With that, she leaves, shutting the bathroom door behind her.
CHAPTER 9
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 12:53PM
VARDA HIGH
The head cheer coach’s name is Gloria, and she used to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader before a bad landing tore her left MCL in half. When she leads practice she always wears the same thing: ball cap, pink athletic shorts, and a big black brace on her leg, the visible reminder that every single move we make carries a potential cost.
“I saw some sloppy limbs yesterday,” she says now. “You got to get all of that tight and under control.” The music is cranked loud and she claps on the beat. We jump, we step, we spin, we land. We do it all again.
We’re in the Little Gym, a multipurpose room lined with mirrors and padded with mats. We’re moving too fast for me to see my own face in the mirror, but I catch glimpses of my body twisting and falling every few minutes. There’s a thick smell of stale beer coming off the crowd of bodies—a few girls overdid it last night—and I can feel muscles twitching and shivering under me. No one’s looking directly at me but I can’t tell if that’sbecause they’re all sluggish and hungover, or if it’s because of the Sekrit post.
I remind myself that the team has had my back all this time. Those first shocked and awful weeks after the murder-suicide, they formed up around me and walked me through the halls at school. They shielded me from the worst of the attention. Maybe a few of them were uncomfortable, or had doubts, but if so they kept it to themselves—outwardly they’d made a huge point of a unified front. So why would some rando’s anonymous post make a difference now?
Because now there’s a pile-on in progress.That always changes things. When there’s blood in the water the first to feed are the sharks, but surely in the mess of bone and tissue to follow, there are other creatures that take a bite.
On a water break I look around and try to judge who I can count on. Sophie and Hayden are ride or die, obviously, and Molly is solid. Bella will do whatever Lizzy does, but Lizzy’s not a big gossip, so maybe. Mari and Kennedy and Megan are one tight little unit unless they’re fighting. Chloe is quiet, so she’s anybody’s guess. Vanessa, Audrey, Nina, everyone else? It’s a toss up.
I wonder, not for the first time, if Lynette ever thought to make a calculation like that. If, somewhere in the drugged-out days of that last summer, she looked around at all of us and tried to predict who would have her back.
I wonder what she would’ve have guessed about me, before push came to shove.
I force myself to focus as Gloria resets the music again and again. I let the music fill my body and drown out my thoughts. I whip my body around, making sure every move is sharp and clean. The ache in my calves turns delicious, a burn that keeps me present in every movement. And when it comes time to fallinto my friends’ arms, even though I can see them wobble and stumble… I close my eyes.
And they catch me.
They lower me safely down as Gloria turns to give notes.
“Y’all are looking rough today,” she says, pacing the mats with a smirk of distaste. “Everyone except Henley is still messing up those last few beats.”
My cheeks get warm. Not that I mind the praise, but it’s awkward when it’s just used to criticize everyone else.
“Homecoming is next week. You want to look like a bunch of amateurs for that?” She locks eyes with Bella, who is particularly hungover. “A couple of you are looking to lose your spots if you don’t get it together.”
