Page 20 of Everyone Here Is Lying
Gully says, “I’m really here to talk to Jenna, if that’s all right?”
Jenna’s mother glances at her daughter protectively. “Would that be all right, Jenna? Are you okay talking about Avery?”
“Yes,” Jenna answers, but she looks nervous.
Gully sits down across from her while her mother watches them, leaning against the kitchen counter, arms folded.
“You’re friends with Avery, right?” Gully asks.
Jenna nods. “We’re in the same grade. In the same class.”
Gully smiles encouragingly. “Did Avery ever tell you anything she was worried about?” Jenna shakes her head. “Did she ever mentionwhether someone was bothering her?” She shakes her head again. Gully lowers her voice. “Did she tell you any secrets?”
Now Jenna hesitates, then says, “Yes. But they’re secrets, so I can’t tell you. I promised not to tell.”
Gully glances up at Jenna’s mother, who looks worried.
“You can tell me, though,” Gully says, “because I’m a police detective. And I’m trying to find Avery and bring her home safe. We’re all very worried about her.”
Jenna bites her lip and glances anxiously at her mother. “But you can’t ever tell Avery that I told you.”
“I won’t, I promise,” Gully says.
“Because if you tell her, she’ll kill me.”
“I understand,” Gully reassures her.
Jenna’s face turns pink. “She said she had a boyfriend.”
“A boyfriend?”
Jenna nods. “He’s older than us.”
“How much older?” Gully asks.
Jenna shrugs. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me who he was.” She adds, “She liked to tease me like that.” Her skin flushes deeper. “But she said he did things to her. Grown-up things.”
Fourteen
When Michael hears his father come home, he creeps out of his room to listen unobserved, at the top of the stairs. He doesn’t know why the detectives came back for his father; he’d had his headphones on in his room and hadn’t even known the detectives were here, but his mother told him where his father was. He wonders if this is his fault, too, for telling the truth about his dad slapping Avery. It’s all his fault. He wants to run away. Be someone else. Anybody but Michael Wooler. But he’s been waiting, his headphones off, anxiously listening for his father’s return.
It isn’t hard to hear what his parents have to say, because they are raising their voices. He’s troubled to hear his father crying. He’s never heard his father cry. He’s even more troubled to hear himadmit, through sobs, that he was home yesterday afternoon and saw Avery. That the police know. That they seem to think he had something to do with her disappearance.
“Did you?” his mother asks, in the coldest voice he’s ever heard. Michael almost passes out.
“What? Are you out of your mind?” his father rails. “Of course not! How can you even ask me that? I saw her, and I left again. We had an argument. I slapped her, that’s all. I felt terrible and I left. She was fine when I left her. I swear to you.”
“You lied to the police! You lied tome!” his mother screams. “How can I believe anything you say?” She turns the full force of her anger on him. “This is all your fault—you left her here, alone, and now she’s gone!” There’s a long, terrible silence, and then his mother cries, “What were you even doing here?”
His father says, his voice anguished, “There’s something else you should know.”
Michael wants to run back to his room and cover his head with his pillow. He doesn’t want to hear any more. But he can’t move; he’s frozen in place.
His father sounds utterly miserable. “I’ve been having an affair. The police know.”
Michael’s entire body is trembling as he sits through another long pause.
“Who is she?” his mother asks, her voice so full of venom it’s almost unrecognizable.
