Friend Me Read online

  I pick hard at a paint chip with my thumbnail. “Because you felt sorry for me.”

  “No, because I got you. And I thought you’d get me.” Lily turns to face me. “I only survived Tokyo because I realized: I couldn’t not be me, so I’d better rock it. Like my mom does. She doesn’t care if people think she’s different. She is; it’s part of her. So, I figured: I’ll block out the jerks. Make ‘different’ be awesome. You’re different, you’re smart, you’re Irish—who doesn’t like Irish people?”

  I manage a smile. “Well. England wasn’t too keen on us there for a few hundred years. I can bore you with the story sometime.”

  Lily grins, and I realize how much I wanted to see that again. “Yeah, well”—Lily raises her eyebrows—“I’ll trade you some history. You don’t want to know where our wooden birds came from, for starters.”

  I blink at her, then I remember the bowl of birds between our beds. “Oh? Where are they from, then?”

  But Lily’s face has closed down. She looks at her hands.

  “Come on—you can’t just not tell me now.”

  Lily sighs. “Dad’s grandma made the birds when she was in prison.”

  “Serious?” That is different. I picture her great-grandma as a bank robber, maybe a murderer. “What did she do?”

  “Nothing. She ran an art gallery in San Francisco. After Pearl Harbor, the government forced her and every Japanese American around there into prison camps.” Lily shakes her head. “She spent four years carving, painting, waiting to get free.”

  “Prison camps? That’s outrageous!” That wasn’t in the Pearl Harbor stuff Haley gave me. I feel even more idiotic now. “But you don’t get any hassle, right? For being Japanese?”

  Lily’s silent for what feels like forever. She chews her lip, then she seems to make a decision. She unzips her phone from her jacket. “Roisin, listen. I’m not one to talk, I know, with everything Zara did to you. But I need to know: Is this Haley person really a friend of yours?” She passes me her phone, which is open to You-chat. “Because she’s horrible.”

  My jaw drops as I read. Ugly, racist rubbish spreads over two screens of private You-chat messages from Haley to Lily. It’s like Haley copied the worst poison from white supremacist websites and poured it all into Lily’s DMs.

  And she hasn’t just called Lily names. There’s more:

  U don’t even know Roisin. I do: she doesn’t want to be your friend.

  She didn’t want to go to ur pool party. She probably came to OOB because you made her.

  U better be careful.

  “Oh, Lily. I—” I can’t believe this. I knew Haley was jealous of me and Lily. But, ugh. I look at the screen again. This racist stuff: It doesn’t sound anything like the Haley I know.

  “I didn’t notice them earlier. When Taiko woke me up, I grabbed my cell to call you and saw Haley’s messages.” Lily’s jaw muscles tighten. I’ve never seen her angry. “Who is this girl? Do you even really know her?”

  Something in Lily’s tone needles me. “I do know her. We met on You-chat, and we’re meeting at her school tonight. She’s a good friend.” Best friend. I should say the words—it feels disloyal not to—but I suddenly get that feeling again, of fading to nothingness beside the brilliant Lily, who doesn’t need to find friends online, because she can make them in real life.

  “A good friend?” Lily huffs. “You never mentioned her. And now you’re running off like this to meet her?” She gestures around at the nighttime streets. “OOB is pretty safe, but nasty people are everywhere. You have to be careful. Especially if your friend is one of the nasty ones.” She waves her phone at me.

  I want to defend Haley. I have to; it’s what best friends do. But there’s no defense for what Haley said. I bend over on the bench and clutch my hair. The hush of cars passing and the flat buzz of the streetlight are the loneliest sounds in the world. I desperately want to unsee that trash Haley sent. She’s never said anything like that. I just can’t believe it.

  A bulb lights in my brain, and I sit up straight. Maybe this wasn’t Haley at all. Because we all know someone who loves sending fake messages: lies designed to pull me and Lily apart.

  “This could be Zara again! More of her tricks!” It makes utter sense, and relief surges through me. It’s the perfect explanation, but Lily recoils like I’ve slapped her.

  “You’re serious right now? Zara just got out of the hospital. How would she take Haley’s phone?” Lily presses a hand to her chest. “Roisin, listen to my voice. Being bullied can make you crazy. I tried to run away—a nine-year-old, in the middle of Tokyo—because I couldn’t stand one more day of what those girls were doing to me.” She blows out a long breath. “I know Zara was awful to you. I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner. But you have me now. You don’t need friends like this bigot Haley.”

  I can’t speak. She’s not listening. Of course I wouldn’t want to be friends with a bigot, but it’s not possible that Haley wrote this. “You’re wrong.” It’s all I can choke out, then I’m at the curb. A thin rain has started, and empty cabs have begun to patrol the streets.

  I don’t look back as I climb into a minivan taxi. “Loranger Middle School,” I say. I’m going to message Haley right now, tell her I’m sorry and I’m on my way, but I have no service.

  “You okay?” The driver’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror.

  I will be, I think, but all I can do is nod. An air freshener dangles from the mirror: DAD’S TAXI. I would pay a million dollars to have my dad here now. My heart is hammering, but it’s not just the argument with Lily that’s upset me. It’s a thought—one that hit me on the beach, but it got buried in the anxious hours since. Zara and Haley know each other. They must. And Lily’s spent loads of time here: Maybe they all know one another. Lily didn’t say it, but it’s possible. Something odd is going on. It’s like I can see the outline of a bigger picture, but it’s hazy. I need to see Haley, now.

  My hands go sweaty as the cab turns in to the middle school. The brick hulk of the school rises beside us, light pouring from the entrance onto the front steps. A few parents’ SUVs and pickups have arrived, but the dance isn’t over. I pay the Dad-driver, who insists on waiting for me, just in case I need a lift back.

  My legs don’t want to climb the steps. The thump of loud bass booms in my chest, and I hear what I think is the “Cha-Cha Slide.” Oh, Haley. I didn’t want this: sneaking up on her. I tell myself everything will make sense when I can see her face. I’ll ask her straight if she knows Zara. And if she sent those trashy DMs. She didn’t, though; she couldn’t have.

  My heart won’t let me listen to what a quieter voice tells me: that my best friend is a weirdly possessive girl I’ve never met, who might well have sent Lily those messages. After inventing elaborate deaths for Lily’s friend. Who nearly died.

  I feel like I’m floating outside myself as I walk through the main doors. In the entrance hall, I have to lean against an abandoned ticket-selling table with a banner across it: WELCOME TO LORANGER MIDDLE SCHOOL MEMORIAL DAY DANCE! The table is empty except for a few plastic cups of bloodred juice. I sink into a metal chair. The floor feels like it’s moving.

  A few people mill around. Two girls pass by and wander into the bathroom. Noisy boys burst out of the doors of what must be the gym, because music blares louder suddenly, and the “Cha-Cha Slide” lyrics roar. “Crisscross! Crisscross!”

  I need to move, but dread pins me to the chair. The gym doors gape again as the girls who’ve finished in the bathroom trail back into the dance. Breathe. I pretend I’m Michael, a happy person who’s good with people, and try to look friendly as I cross to the noisy boys.

  A tall lad with a tight afro and a red hoodie smiles and looks at his shoes. I’m so startled, I do a double take. I’m almost certain he was looking at me—like, looking. The feeling is so strange, I want to ask if he’s made a mistake. He laughs, and his friend punches his shoulder. His brown eyes dart to me again.

  “Hey,
guys, do you know Haley Alan?” I’m addressing all of them, but my eyes keep going to red hoodie. A blond boy says yeah, Kayleigh Adams is in his science class, but two others laugh and shout that he heard me wrong.

  Red hoodie frowns at them and steps forward. “Who did you say?”

  “Haley Alan.” I feel weirdly weightless when I meet his eyes. He has crazy-long eyelashes, and his skin is a warm brown. I resist an urge to smooth my hair; it’s become a tangle of curls that boing over my eyes. “Chemistry!” I remember suddenly. “I know she takes Chemistry.”

  Red hoodie gives a whole-face smile as he listens to me. “Are you Irish?” He shrugs off a shove from the blond boy, who tries to move in front of him.

  “Jason’s not Irish, I am,” blond boy says in a New England accent that’s never been near Ireland.

  I have no clue what to say next. Why am I so rubbish with people? “Thanks … um … I’m going to see if someone else can help me.” I make a move toward the gym.

  “Wait!” Jason does a sporty jog toward me and pulls out his phone. “What does she look like?” I feel my face go hot. How can I not know what Haley looks like? She never posts any selfies. Which is weird, now I think of it.

  “I don’t know, she’s a friend from You-chat—she’s into manga,” I add lamely. Jason half smiles as he scans his phone. “What?” A blush burns up my neck. He thinks I’m an idiot for not knowing who I’m looking for.

  “Your accent. Very cool.” He nods at the gym. “Doesn’t sound familiar, but we could check inside?” He waves me through the doors into the dance.

  It’s a typical school gym, shiny floor painted with indecipherable lines, bleachers rising against the walls, and wonkily painted cheerleading signs: GO GULLS! A sweaty crowd of seventh and eighth graders hops and slides to the music, and a mirror ball throws gleams of light through the pink darkness.

  “Found her!” Jason yells over the music. My stomach falls away—my words vanish, and I can’t think of one thing to say to Haley—but he shows me his phone. “Haley Alan, right?” It’s her timeline on You-chat. I should’ve thought to check there. My phone’s useless: You-chat hasn’t refreshed since I left the cottage. But Haley’s posted some photos of the dance: one of people queueing to buy tickets at the table out front, and another two of the dance floor.

  “Look at the time!” I tap his screen, and Jason nods. He’s already scanning around. Haley posted the last photo less than a minute ago, taken from a high angle over the gym. I follow him toward the bleachers, and we climb the rows, checking the faces of the few people lounging about. We pass one couple in a tight clinch, their faces stuck together. We both stare rigidly forward, like we haven’t noticed.

  “Right here.” Jason stands beside me on the top bench. He’s right: The photo was definitely taken from this point. But it’s deserted up here. A ceiling vent blows frigid air onto us.

  “You couldn’t sit here long. You’d freeze,” I say.

  “Good point.” We both look at the picture on his phone. I am desperately aware of his face next to mine. He smells of something clean. I lean closer to the photo: It seems familiar.

  “The angle. It reminds me of a …” I look up.

  “… a security camera picture,” Jason says. There is, indeed, a small security cam on the wall, its red light glowing dully in the dark.

  What—?

  Jason’s face lights with an idea. “Is your friend—is she some kind of hacker?”

  My mind is too blown to answer.

  Then I spot the last person I expect, climbing the bleachers toward us.

  “Roisin, you have to come.” Lily, out of breath, stands on the step below us, helmet under one arm. She gestures with her phone. “I tried you, but your phone’s unreachable. Hiro just called. Guess who’s showed up at the cottage?” She’s already picking her way down the bleachers, but she stops to look back up at me. “My mom. And yours.”

  Every head turns when Lily and I stumble through the front door of the cottage. Mum and Michael look up from the sofa, and Hiro and his dad stand at the fireplace. Lily’s mum kneels at the grate, jabbing logs with the poker, prodding the fire back to life. She stands and wheels around, her face a storm, when she hears us. She and Mum are in work clothes; everyone else is in pajamas.

  Lily’s mum clutches the poker so tight, her knuckles are white. Mr. Tanaka murmurs something in Japanese and she heaves out a breath. She surrenders the poker to him but marches toward me and Lily. I wait for the floor to swallow us, but their smart-house tech doesn’t include a humiliation sensor. Lily studies her shoes. “Where were you?” Her mother’s voice is deadly quiet.

  Pink flares into Lily’s cheeks. She opens her mouth to speak.

  “It was my fault, Mrs. Tanaka,” I blurt. A hundred excuses fly through my brain, but I opt for the truth. In the cab ride back—taxi-Dad put Lily’s bike in the minivan, and we went together—I could barely speak. Because the truth crushed me like a boulder: Lily was right to be suspicious of Haley. If she was lying about being at the dance, she could be lying about anything. She could have sent those ugly messages to Lily. “I went to find someone at the middle school dance, sorry. And they weren’t even there.” Lily cuts her eyes to me. I haven’t told her this yet. “Lily didn’t know I’d gone. She followed me, to make sure I was all right.”

  “That’s very good of you, Lil,” Mr. Tanaka interjects. “But you don’t go out, at this time of night, without telling us.”

  “What were you thinking, Roisin?” My mum gets off the sofa, plainly relieved to get her shot at raking me over the coals. “It’s a poor way to thank the Tanakas for their hospitality.”

  I’m about to point out that it was just a middle-school dance, with adult chaperones everywhere. Because, honestly, the atmosphere in this room is like they’ve caught us drowning kittens. Michael looks white, and Hiro’s like a ghost, staring into the flames. Mum’s face, though, tells me arguing is not the best plan. “Sorry,” I say again. “There’s a girl I really needed to find. To talk to her.”

  I am itching to check Haley’s DMs. Why would she pretend to be at the dance? There is, for sure, no Haley Alan in their class, Jason told me. But he only moved to OOB two years ago, so he’ll ask around and message me later—maybe she used to live here.

  I close my eyes, trying to grasp what’s going on. It’s just out of reach: like a song whose notes haunt you but whose words won’t come.

  Michael gives me an alarmed look, like he thinks this might be about another mean girl hassling me and he’s dropped the ball again. But Mum snorts a laugh. “What do you need to talk about at ten at night? Clothes and makeup and who’s dating who?”

  Mum’s words leave me breathless. I see in that instant how she views my life: through a fog, if at all. She’s so busy building her robot world. She has no clue how far I sank when Zara and Mara made my life miserable—or how Haley basically saved me.

  That thought slices through me, and tears jump into my eyes. Oh, Haley, what have you done? It seems more likely than not, now, that she did send those horrible messages to Lily. Things between us can’t be the same, not after lying to me, not after that. My lip trembles; we never made a Best Friend Code, but everyone knows that telling the truth to each other is the biggest part of it.

  “It wasn’t ‘clothes and makeup’! God, Mum.” My voice wobbles, and I see Michael shake his head behind Mum’s back. He gets it.

  “Unless it was about Zara Tucci, it is irrelevant to our problem now.” Lily’s mother speaks courteously, but her eyes are like blue lasers. Lily tenses beside me, and my own heart drums frantically at Zara’s name. There’s no way I can tell them that, yes, absolutely, Zara’s the reason I needed to talk to Haley. I couldn’t even confess to Lily that Haley and I joked about Zara dying, and that was before our mums swooped in with their doom vibe.

  Even as I’m forming the thought—that it must be something serious that’s torn both our mums away from what they love most and sent them chasing
up to Maine on the train—Mrs. Tanaka’s hand flashes out toward Lily. For an awful instant, I’m sure she’s going to hit her, but she seizes Lily’s wrist. The rose-gold band of Lily’s smartwatch glints in the light.

  “Where is the other watch? Your brother’s watch?”

  “Mama,” Hiro interrupts, but she blasts him a look that silences him.

  “I gave it.” Lily swallows in the middle of speaking, an involuntary gulp. She clears her throat. “I gave it to Zara.”

  Mrs. Tanaka drops Lily’s hand with a there-you-go look at Lily’s father and turns away, disgusted.

  “What?” Lily looks scared now. “Dad?”

  Her father doesn’t answer but calls something after Lily’s mum as she slaps through the swing doors to the kitchen, followed by Hiro. “Roisin’s mom will explain,” he says, and winces at the sound of crashing pots in the kitchen. “Excuse me.”

  Lily follows her father. It’s just us three now. When they’ve disappeared through the swing doors, Mum comes closer to me and Michael, gripping her forehead. She speaks quietly. “The police have been investigating Zara’s accident.”

  “What does that have to do with us?” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. I want her to stop talking. I’ve been expecting this for days, but police still hits me like a freight train.

  “It’s nothing to do with you, it’s everything to do with Anna—Lily’s mom,” Mum hisses, eyes darting to the kitchen doors: more crashing, raised voices in abrupt Japanese. “The museum uses our lab’s biometric lock technology—Anna’s work on palm and voice prints—and Zara almost died because it failed. She walked straight through a door that should never have unlocked for her.”

  My brain replays it as Mum speaks: Zara sweeping open the NO ADMITTANCE door, into that shadowy living room.

  “That would be bad enough”—Mum talks super fast now—“but we’ve just discovered that the lock didn’t fail, it was hacked. By a signal received from a Taiko watch.”

  “What?” I cry. “Wait—Zara’s watch tried to kill her?”