I wasn’t at G’s funeral. I’d just gotten back from the hospital and wasn’t well enough.
This is another lie.
I was bruised, bandaged, traumatized, but I could stand. I could have been there.
I remember Mum and Mike coming home, Mum’s face blotched from tears, her hand gripping Mike’s a little too hard. I had been peeling the same orange for over an hour, chipping away at its tough skin with what I had left of bitten-down fingernails. I remember thinking it should hurt but not being able to feel a single thing.
I remember thinking I was out of my body, because this couldn’t actually be real.
Mum sat down next to me on the sofa and said all the requisite things I imagine people say after a funeral. “It was a beautiful service. An amazing turnout. Georgina was very loved, wasn’t she? Her father gave the eulogy—he was such a credit to the family.”
Yes, she was loved, I wanted to scream. Of course she was loved. She’s still gone. An amazing, well-populated service doesn’t change that.
“Georgina’s boyfriend seemed like a nice guy,” Mike said. “He was sitting at the front with the family. They seem to have really taken him under their wing.”
“James sat with Mr. and Mrs. Canter?” I asked, and they both stared at me. Probably because it was the first time I’d spoken all day.
“Yes, darling,” Mum said. “We met him after. He asked about you.”
“How was he?”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I just said. Did he look okay? Was he upset? How did he behave?”
She gave me a strange look. “He was devastated, Cara. Obviously.”
My teeth gritted themselves together; a surge of anger scorched through me. I was shocked by the feeling—by feeling anything at all.
I remember getting up, telling my parents I was going for a walk, seeing their surprise at me electing to leave the house. I somehow navigated the two blocks to James’s house, lame and bandaged as I was, and banged on the door again and again until he answered.
Behind him, I could see that friends from school were there. Lots of them. And I remember feeling like I wanted to throw up. What was this? A wake after a wake? It made me sick to see them all there together—without me. Without G.
“Cara,” James said, stepping out onto the doorstep and pulling the door behind him. “You look—”
I cut him off. “Are you having a party?”
“It’s not a party,” he said, and I was glad to see he looked horrified by the assumption. He stared at me for a moment, as though he didn’t know what else to say to me. It hit me then more than ever what an idiot I’d been. “What are you doing here?”
I tried to conjure a reason in my head for what we did. I tried, I really did, to find a redeeming feature about him. Even one might have made it easier.
Dear G, I cheated with your boyfriend, but it was worth it because…because…because nothing.
“You need to stay away from the Canters. I swear to God, James, if you even…”
His face transformed into anger. “If I what, Cara?”
“They’ve just…they’ve just lost—” I tried to get the words out, but they tangled themselves around each other, so I just said, “They do not need you spouting your bullshit in their lives. If they knew what you’d done to G before…”
“Shh, Cara—keep your voice down.” He looked anxiously back at the door.
“You haven’t told anyone, then?”
I felt confused. If everyone didn’t know, why hadn’t anyone come to visit me at the hospital?
“Of course not,” he said, and he looked at me like I was mad. “You and I are the only ones who knew.”
“And G,” I said, and her name snagged in my throat. “And here you are acting like the doting boyfriend. It’s disgusting.”
The muscles in his jaw clenched over and over. “I genuinely cared about G, you know,” he said very quietly.
The front door sprang open, and I heard Poppy’s voice say, “James, who are you talking to?”
Her eyebrows rose when she saw me, and she took in my bruises and bandages but didn’t look me in the eye. Lennon appeared behind her moments later. “Cara, what are you doing here?”
All warmth from years of friendship turned to ash.
I recalled my mother’s words from the day before: “When something terrible happens, you discover who your friends are. This, Cara, is a sink-or-swim situation. You need to call the girls—they’ll help you keep afloat. That’s what friends are for.”
Poppy and Lennon didn’t know the full extent of what I’d done and still they stood back and watched me drown.