Sara Shepard - Ruthless

EMILY’S SUCH A PUSHOVER

The following afternoon, Emily pulled into the parking lot of the Stockbridge trail and immediately spotted Kelsey’s black Toyota hatchback in one of the front spaces. Last night’s rain had stopped, and the sun had come out again, making all of the trees look extra green and lush.

Before she got out of the car, she turned and squinted at the vehicles swishing back and forth on the winding road. When a Mercedes coupe whizzed past, she watched it carefully. Was that Spencer’s car, or was hers more silvery? Emily bit a fingernail. What would Spencer say if she saw Emily and Kelsey together? When Kelsey had emailed Emily that morning asking if she wanted to go on a hike after school, Emily had hesitated, thinking about her meeting with Spencer and the others last night. But after a moment, she’d said yes. Spencer couldn’t tell her who she could or couldn’t be friends with. The photo of Tabitha on Kelsey’s phone worried Emily, but just because Kelsey had been to Jamaica at the same time as Emily and her friends didn’t mean she was A. Either way, hanging out with Kelsey today was Emily’s chance to suss out some information and prove Spencer wrong once and for all.

She locked her car and strode across the lot toward Kelsey. Kelsey was taking a big swig of water, dressed in khaki cargo pants, hiking shoes, and a black North Face hoodie that looked almost exactly the same as the one Emily was wearing. There was something jittery about her walk, her legs moving choppily, her body having lots of bounce. It was as though she’d just drunk a bunch of cups of espresso.

“This is one of my favorite places,” Kelsey said, her voice a little on the peppy side, too. “I used to camp up here all the time.”

“The trail is gorgeous.” Emily followed Kelsey past the large sign that listed the path’s hours of use and a bunch of warnings about Lyme disease and ticks. “I was never allowed to come here when I was younger. My mom was sure it was full of kidnappers.”

“And did you believe it, too?” Kelsey teased.

“Maybe,” Emily admitted.

“And here I thought you were a badass.” Kelsey pinched Emily’s arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe from the big bad kidnappers.”

They started to climb the narrow slope. An older couple with a golden retriever passed them in the other direction, and three runners disappeared around the bend. Emily paid close attention to her footsteps, careful not to trip over any of the scraggly branches that had fallen across the path. The coconut scent of sunscreen wafted down from a higher point on the trail, and the photos from Jamaica Spencer had stolen from Kelsey’s phone flashed in Emily’s mind again. She cleared her throat. “I like camping, but it’s not my ideal vacation. I’d rather go to the ocean.”

“I love the beach,” Kelsey gushed.

“Have you ever been to the Caribbean?” Emily asked. Her heart pounded hard, anticipating Kelsey’s answer.

Kelsey skirted around a large rock. “A couple times. I was in Jamaica just last year.”

“I was in Jamaica last year, too.” Emily prayed she sounded sufficiently surprised. “Did you go during spring break?”

“Uh huh.” Kelsey turned around, an intrigued smile spreading across her face. “You too?”

Emily nodded. “Next we’ll discover we stayed at the same hotel,” she joked. Or at least she hoped it sounded like a joke. “I stayed at a place called The Cliffs. It had these amazing rocks you could dive off into the ocean. And a really great restaurant.”

Kelsey stopped on the trail and blinked. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Emily shook her head, her mouth bone-dry. She searched her friend’s face for any signs of awkwardness or deceit, but Kelsey looked so guileless, truly caught off guard. If I see a squirrel in that tree, Kelsey is innocent , she told herself, gazing at a big oak in front of her. Sure enough, a squirrel scampered along one of the high branches.

“What week did your school go on spring break?” Kelsey asked.

Emily told her, and Kelsey exclaimed that was when St. Agnes had been off, too. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice you,” Kelsey said after a moment. “Just think. We could have become friends so much sooner.” She touched Emily’s arm. “Or maybe more than friends.”

All the nerve endings in Emily’s arm tingled. When she breathed in, the air smelled dewy and fertile, like everything on the trail was sprouting. She gazed into Kelsey’s bright green eyes. Either she was an incredibly skilled liar, or she really knew nothing. She might have met Tabitha at The Cliffs, but there was no way she knew what had happened to her. She certainly didn’t know what Emily and the others had done.

Suddenly, Emily noticed a familiar fork in the path. “Can we make a detour for a sec? I want to see if something is still here.”

Kelsey nodded, and Emily trekked a few steps down the fork and came upon a small stone water fountain that stood on the side of a sharp, muddy slope. There were two handprints in the cement. One print was labeled Emily. The other said Ali.

Kelsey bent down and touched the cement palm. “Is this yours?”

“Uh huh.” Emily felt choked up looking at Ali’s slender hands, preserved in perpetuity. “Ali and I sneaked out here once. They’d just poured the cement for this fountain, and she suggested we leave our mark.”

She remembered that day like it was yesterday. It had been spring, a few months before Emily’s fateful kiss with Ali in Ali’s tree house. On their walk up the trail, Ali had listed off boys in their grade, asking Emily if she thought any of them were cute. “You need a boyfriend, Em,” Ali had chided. “Or are you saving yourself for someone special?”

Now, Kelsey shook her head solemnly. “I don’t know what that must be like to lose such a close friend.”

A bunch of kids passed on the main trail, laughing loudly. “I miss her, but now I’m not sure what I can miss,” Emily said in a small voice.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take the bowling alley we went to the other day. Ali brought me and my three other friends there when we first started hanging out. She was all, ‘I want us to spend some alone time to bond.’ I used to think that was so cool, like she really wanted to get to know us, but now I wonder if it was just because she was Courtney , stepping into Ali’s life and pretending to be her. Maybe hanging out there had nothing to do with new friendships but just needing some time to get her bearings and not hang around the popular Rosewood Day kids her sister had once known so well.”

“That’s a lot to take in,” Kelsey said, eyes wide.

“I know.” Emily stared up at the canopy of trees. “I miss my old memories of Ali. The ones where I just thought she was an amazing new friend. Now I have to revise my entire history with her. Everything I thought was true was a lie.”

“It must mess with your mind.”

“It does. Especially because . . .” Emily trailed off, thinking about all the dreams she’d had about Real Ali this year. All the flashes of blond hair she swore she’d seen, all the haunting whiffs of vanilla soap she’d smelled. Her firm belief that she was still out there, watching her every move. “I try to think only about the good stuff with Ali and block out what really happened. It’s easier that way. So, like, in my head, My Ali is still this bubbly, intoxicating girl who had everyone wrapped around her finger.”

“I guess that’s one way to cope.”

Emily tilted her head and smiled at Kelsey. “You remind me of her a little.”

“I do?” Kelsey pressed a hand to her chest, looking a little sickened.