“You weren’t at the funeral yesterday,” she said.
Between us, the current seemed to hum louder. I nodded.
“Why? I mean, your dad seems like he’d be all about ‘pulling together as a community,’ and considering he pretty much organized the whole thing . . . And, I mean, Roswell was there.”
“Religion is my dad’s business,” I said, and my voice had a flat, mechanical sound that showed me for what I was—a bad liar reciting someone else’s lie. “Anyway, a funeral isn’t really an ideal social event. I mean, it’s not like I would attend one for fun or anything.”
Tate just watched me. Then she folded her arms tight across her chest, looking small and wet. Her hair was plastered against her forehead. “Whatever. It’s not like it matters.”
“You’re taking it really well.”
Tate took a deep breath and stared up at me. “It wasn’t her.”
For a second, I didn’t say anything. Neither of us did. But we didn’t look away from each other. I could see flecks of green and gold in her eyes and tiny spots so deep and cool they looked purple. I realized that I hadn’t really looked at her in years.
She closed her eyes and moved her lips before she spoke, like she was practicing the words. “It wasn’t my sister in that box, it was something else. I know my sister, and whatever died in that crib, it wasn’t her.”
I nodded. I was cold suddenly, goose bumps coming up on my arms in a way that had nothing to do with the rain. My hands tingled and started to go numb.
“So, are you just going to stand there looking like a piece of furniture?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you to say anything—I want someone to listen to me!”
“Maybe you should talk to a school counselor,” I said, looking at my shoes. “I mean, that’s what they’re there for.”
Tate stared up at me and her eyes were wide and hurt and, for the first time, full of tears. “You know what? Fuck you.”
She crossed the lawn to her car and swung herself into the driver’s seat. She slammed the door, wrenched the transmission into reverse, and backed out onto the road.
After she’d made it all the way down Benthaven and disappeared around the corner, I let myself slump against the oak tree, sinking to a crouch with my back against the trunk.
I barely felt the rain as it ran down my forehead and the back of my neck.
I hadn’t given away my secret because I didn’t even know how to say the secret out loud. No one did. Instead, they hung on to the lie that the kids who died were actually their kids and not just convincing replacements. That way, they never had to ask what had happened to the real ones. I had never asked what happened to the real ones.
