Sara Shepard - Never Have I Ever

“A prank?” Laurel’s eyebrows shot up.

Emma shifted her weight. “I don’t think so. . . .” She thought about the file at the police station—Gabby going to the hospital, all of it being Sutton’s fault. She still hadn’t figured out how Gabby had gotten hurt, but a trip to the ER couldn’t have been good. “It might be going too far. Especially after what happened . . .” She let her voice trail off and gazed out the window, figuring Sutton’s friends knew far more about the train incident than she did.

Sutton’s friends were silent. Laurel stared at her hands and picked at a cuticle. Madeline flipped through her binder. “Oh please,” Charlotte finally said. “Now that you’re all buddy-buddy with them, they’re off-limits?”

Emma raised an eyebrow. Buddy-buddy? Not from what she’d noticed of the Twins.

Charlotte draped her arms over the top of the couch. “They said they shoplifted with you at Clique,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Gabby and Lili bragged about it like it was the coolest thing, like we all hadn’t done it a million times before.”

Madeline’s mouth dropped open. “Were they with you the other day when you got arrested?”

“No, not that time,” Emma said quickly, her mind racing.

“It was before that,” Charlotte butted in.

Emma turned away, needing a moment to process all of this. According to Sutton’s credit card statement, the last time Sutton was at Clique was on the thirty-first. And Samantha at Clique had said Sutton stole something from the store while she’d been with someone else—or, more specifically, a posse of someones. And the very last phone call Sutton picked up on the thirty-first was from Lili.

“Yeah, I went to Clique with them right before school started,” Emma said slowly.

All of a sudden, a memory ignited in my mind: Gabby and Lili, flanking me behind a rack of silky camisoles and lingerie at Clique. “Do it, Sutton,” Gabby had whispered, her warm, mint-scented breath on my neck.

“C’mon, Sutton,” Laurel urged. “Those bitches deserve to be pranked.”

The room still smelled slightly of smoke. On the television, a lion sunned itself in the grass, blood from a fresh kill on its lips. Emma ran her fingers through her hair, her chest feeling hot and tight. Puzzle pieces began to slot into place. The Twitter Twins had been in all the right places at all the right times—with Sutton the night she died, in Madeline’s car the night Emma was kidnapped and mistaken for Sutton, at Charlotte’s sleepover when Emma had been strangled.

“I still don’t know, guys,” Emma said, her vocal cords taut. “After last time . . .” She trailed off.

Charlotte sniffed. “That was ages ago.”

“It’s just . . .” Emma swallowed hard. “I just don’t . . .”

“Stop being such a wuss.” Madeline reached over and shoved Sutton’s iPhone at Emma. “We’re doing this. You’re calling them.”

Emma stared at the phone’s black screen. “A-and telling them what?”

Madeline, Charlotte, and Laurel looked at one another. A plan unfolded in minutes, the events rocketing forward out of Emma’s control. They turned to Emma and nudged their chins toward Sutton’s phone. Emma pulled her dark hair into a ponytail, scrolled to find Gabby’s number, and pressed CALL. When the line began to ring, she put the call on speaker.

Gabby answered. “Sutton! Have you been getting our tweets?”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. Madeline snickered softly. “Of course,” Emma said brightly, tucking her trembling hands under her butt. “They’re awesome!” This made Sutton’s friends shake even harder with silent laughter. “So, listen, Gabs. Can you put Lili on, too?”

Gabby rustled up her sister, and soon both Twitter Twins were on the line “So, I have some information about the Court Ceremony,” Emma said, glancing at Sutton’s friends around her. They nodded encouragingly.

“It’s about time !” Lili trilled. “This had better be good!”

“It’s awesome ! Sort of a ghoulish Titanic meets Baywatch . Everyone will wear bikinis.”

“ Baywatch ,” Laurel mouthed, bending over in silent laughter.

“Bikinis?” Gabby sounded skeptical. “Is the school going to allow that?”

“Of course they’re going to allow it,” Emma cooed. “We’ve already had it approved.”

Charlotte swallowed a loud, snorting giggle.

“This ceremony is going to be fabulous, girls,” Emma went on. “ Super glamorous in an old-school kind of way.” For a split second, she wondered if Sutton would be proud of her. If Sutton were here, would she be laughing, too, squeezing Emma’s hand and egging her on?

I would . . . and I wouldn’t. Not with what I now knew about the Twitter Twins. Emma was skating on thin ice.

“ Nice ,” Gabby and Lili said in unison.

“We’re going to tell the other nominees soon, but I wanted to let you guys know first so you could get a jump on them and be the most fabulous court girls up there,” Emma said. “Go out and buy amazing suits this weekend. The skimpier, the better!”

“We’re on it.” Lili’s voice sang through the receiver. “Wow, Sutton. You’re so good at this. Keep up the good work.”

As soon as they hung up, the girls collapsed into laughter. Laurel rolled off the couch onto the floor. Charlotte giggled into a throw pillow. Madeline kicked her legs in front of the TV screen, which now showed two hyenas perched on a rock. “They are so stupid!” she crowed. “They’re going to look like the biggest idiots!”

Emma tried to laugh along, too, but Lili’s words clanged in her mind. You’re so good at this. Keep up the good work. She was almost positive Lili’s voice had a sinister edge, an unspoken subtext: Keep up the good work . . . of being Sutton .

Emma looked around at the laughing, smiling faces of Sutton’s friends. No matter how safe she finally felt with them, there was an entire world outside—a world where someone watched her every move and waited for her to slip up.

I couldn’t agree more. Trust no one, sister.

CAN YOU SNEAK OUT?

Emma rolled onto her back to read the text Ethan had just sent. Pulling one of Sutton’s soft blue throw blankets over her bare legs, she texted back: MERCERS ARE OUT TO DINNER. I’D HAVE TO BE BACK BEFORE TEN.

I’LL PICK YOU UP IN FIFTEEN, Ethan responded. WEAR A DRESS.

A dress? Emma frowned. UM . . . OKAY, she wrote. CAN I ASK WHAT WE’RE DOING?

NOPE. IT’S A SURPRISE.

Emma sprang from Sutton’s bed and padded to her closet. She pushed aside a row of soft cotton tops and skinny jeans and examined Sutton’s dress selection, which was plentiful and expensive. She touched a long black dress with gold straps. Too fancy, it seemed, for a Tuesday. Her fingers traced the feathered collar of a short silver cocktail dress. Maybe it was too short. She ran her hands along the hem of a fire engine-red minidress. Too sex goddess.

I couldn’t help but groan. Was there even such a thing as being too much of a sex goddess? As far as I was concerned, Emma needed to get down with her sexy self. This had to be the night they were finally going to kiss, right?

Then Emma’s palms rested on a light gray one-shouldered dress. The gauzy silk felt soft beneath her fingertips. She slid it over her head and glanced at herself in the gold-framed full-length mirror on the back of the door. It was perfect.

After mascara, lip gloss, black patent heels, and chandelier earrings that matched Sutton’s silver locket, she was ready. The phone beeped once more, and Emma ran to the bed, thinking it was Ethan. But it was from her friend Alex instead. YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY CHECK THIS PLACE OUT! Attached was a website for a vintage store near the University of Arizona. I KNOW HOW YOU LOVE YOUR THRIFT SHOPS, Alex added, with an emoticon smiley. Emma wrote back a quick thank-you followed by a series of X s and O s. Then she glanced at herself in the mirror, dolled up in Sutton’s designer dress, jewelry, and expensive shoes. Would Alex even know her right now?