Page 79 of The Fall of Iris Henley
“Laura and I are on the Pioneer Days board together, Mark. And she’s in my book club.”
“Youwereon the Pioneer Days board together.” Dad smirks.“I doubt anyone’s going to want her serving on any committees or boards or anything after this. That boy washackingunder her own nose, in her own home, and she didn’t do anything to stop it!”
I can tell by the way he says the word “hacking” he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I think about Max’s mom. I guess she hasn’t paid much attention in the last few years. She didn’t seem to understand just what kind of person he’d become, anyway. But how is that so different from my parents, or Rocky’s, or Lynette’s? It’s not like any of them have been there to help. It’s not like any of them want to know what’s really going on.
Mom sets down her fork and sighs. “Look, this whole mess has already gutted Iris’s senior year. She missed out on homecoming court, her cheer season is upside down, and I don’t even know what her grades look like. Things are finally getting back to normal. I just don’t want to rock the boat too much.”
I stand up from the table. “Stop it,” I say.
Everyone looks up at me in surprise, even Noelle. For a second I don’t know what to say. No, that’s not right—I just don’t know how to say it. Then I just start talking.
“Just, stop it. Stop pretending you care that something awful happened to me. You want to sue, go ahead, but I’m not going to help you. I don’t want to testify and I don’t want to be involved.” I take a deep breath and meet my mom’s eyes. “And I’ve got news for you, Mom. I don’t want to get back to normal. Normal sucked.”
I turn away from the table to leave the room. At the door to the dining room, though, I turn back to look at them. “Oh, and I quit cheerleading today,” I say. “So don’t worry about that part.”
I can hear Mom and Dad both sputtering behind me, but I don’t stay to listen. I grab my backpack and head out the front door. I’m going to hear about it later, but right now I don’tcare. Normal. Normal was what led to everyone in the school talking shit about Lynette while she lost herself to addiction. Normal was letting Rocky turn into a monster.
Normal was smiling and pretending we could stay unscathed after the worst had happened. Normal was bullshit.
Outside, I can see the black square that is Max’s bedroom window. It’d always been a friendly beacon beyond my house. Now it feels like a dead, sightless eye. I turn my back on both my house and Max’s and walk away.
CHAPTER 44
MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 7:23PM
THE SUNNYSIDE UP
I drive around aimlessly for a while, not sure what to do with myself—sure only I want to be out of my house, away from my family. After a while, though, my stomach growls. I never had dinner. So I head back into town and go to the Sunnyside. The evening crowd is different from the midday crowd; the old folks are gone from the counter, replaced by teenagers studying, gossiping. Sharing pie post–sports practice. Mondays, though, are relatively quiet. When I arrive the only full table is a group of juniors I vaguely recognize studying for the PSAT. When I come in they go quiet for a moment, and I can see their eyes darting looks at each other. A skinny boy with braces clears his throat meaningfully before flipping the pages in his book. “So let’s switch gears and talk geometry proofs.”
I sit down by the big plate glass window facing Main Street and order coffee and a piece of pie. It’ll mess up my sleep tonight, but I don’t care. I want the sweet and the bitter. For once I leave my phone in my purse. I don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to feel trapped in that little screen. Instead I look out thewindow, taking slow, careful bites of my pie. It’s cherry—not overly fresh, because it’s the end of the day, but it’s sugary and delicious nonetheless.
How long will it be before I can go anywhere without people staring? Will it only be when I leave Varda?
Or was Kendra right? Will this follow me the rest of my life?
I have a bleak vision of showing up for college and looking around at all the bright-eyed freshmen setting up their dorm rooms, ready to try new things, only to see someone glance at their phone, and then look up at me, and then look back at their phone and start to type something in…
It won’t matter that I’ve been exonerated, that it was baseless rumors to start with. People will see superficial headlines, old tweets and reddit posts and Insta updates and TikToks, and they’ll think there’s something to it.
And even if they don’t, they’ll know about the worst fucking thing that ever happened to me before they know anything else.
I stare out the window. They’ve put up a bunch of cardboard cutouts of bats and witches and ghosts on the glass, and I realize how close we are to Halloween. This time last year Rocky and I were planning out our couples costume. I wanted to go as Flynn and Rapunzel fromTangled, but he talked me into Batman and Catwoman. I guess you could count that as another red flag—well, he wasn’t violent, but he definitely liked to get his way; he manipulated me into a pleather catsuit.
But that’s not really true either. Or at least, that’s not how I remember it. I don’t remember him pressuring me; I remember him begging to be allowed to dress up as Batman. I remember laughing at how earnest he was about it. I remember feeling pleased and generous that I could give him that—that I could fulfill something so simple and innocent and easy.
So which was the truth?
Even with everything else that’s happened, that is the hardest thing for me: searching my memories, trying to figure out what things I misread or misunderstood, trying to put together a picture that makes sense to me.
But then I see something outside that makes me drop my fork onto my plate.
It’s Hayden. Hoodie pulled up over her head, walking down the street, alone. I do a double take and jerk my head back. Then, before she has a chance to get past the window, I tap on the glass to get her attention.
Our eyes meet through the glass. I see her mouth drop open. Is she going to bolt? Straighten her shoulders and keep walking? I jump up from the seat and hurry to the door. I can feel the PSAT kids watching me, but I don’t care anymore.
She stands just outside, hands in her pockets. Her face is shadowed by her hoodie, but I can make out how tired she looks. Maybe she’s been fighting with Carter again. Then again, I don’t even know if they’re still together after homecoming.
“Hey,” she says.
