Page 26 of The Roommate Lie

I try to focus on the positive. I never thought I could get hired in my own hometown. This place knows all my secrets, and people here could probably recite my teenage mistakes by heart like a fable or an ancient myth.The Ballad of Bad Charlie.

Though maybe they’d hire me anyway. Maybe this is my chance.

My mother reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. “You’re going to be an amazing teacher no matter where you end up.”

I wish we could stop there, but I know we can’t. I got arrested eleven times before I turned sixteen. Trouble wasn’t just my middle name, it was my entire identity, a way of life.

My mom taps the paper Carl left on the table, the newest publication from The Victorian that’s now splattered with maple syrup and whipped cream from all those dropped utensils. She doesn’t have to remind me that her principal lives in the hedgerow too. That she’ll see any fresh gossip about me that makes those pages.

“You might only get one shot at Ponderosa Elementary,” she tells me. “Don’t screw it up.”

Chapter Fourteen

ALICE

This is it, my big chance to write. It’s time for my ultimate retreat. No caretaking, no drama, no distractions.

And as soon as I peel myself off the floor and bounce back from this pancake coma, I’ll get right to work.

Cross my heart.

I’m not even sure where my mind wanders as I lie on the guest room floor. There’s a window built into the angled ceiling above me, nestled in the steep pitched roof of Charlie’s schoolhouse, and I have the most incredible view of the trees outside. The way they rustle in the light summer breeze. Which is way less scary than returning to the Manuscript That Must Not Be Named.

It isn’t that I haven’t written anything; that’s not the kind of writer’s block I’m dealing with. It’s that I’ve written everything, multiple times, and it’s still wrong, wrong, wrong.

Before I can figure out how to fix it, what magic words I could recite or prayer I could say to save me, two things happen at once. My phone buzzes with a FaceTime call from my brother, and there’s a loud knock on the front door.

A visitor?

I’m home alone—Lydia’s dog isn’t even here. I’ve been in this town less than twenty-four hours, and that knock can’t be for me. Creeping downstairs, I answer my phone, but I don’t answer the door.

“Hello?” I whisper to Marcus.

Slowly, I peer around the gauzy white curtains that cover the mudroom window by the front door, trying to catch a glimpse of my unexpected guest. All I can see is the edge of their sleeve.

“What are you doing?” my brother asks. Very loudly.

Making a frantic shushing noise, I scurry away from the window, holding my breath. Two quiet seconds pass. Then there’s another, louder, knock on the door.

My brother looks concerned. “Where are you?”

That’s a loaded question, but I knew this moment was coming. Right before I went to bed last night, I realized I hadn’t told my family about Jason and getting dumped. It was late when I remembered, and it was even later in Texas and Virginia. I didn’t want to wake anybody up, but now it’s time.

I take a deep breath. Before I can explain anything, Marcus glances at a different part of his phone screen. Checking a message before swiping it away.

“Sorry—I got a text, but it wasn’t from Mom. Today’s the big day.”

The moment he says that, I remember. I know exactly whatbig dayit is, and my stomach drops down to my knees. “That’s today?”

I made the appointment for our sister myself, three months ago. I marked it on every calendar I own, in every planner and on every app. How did I forget?

My Jason-confession evaporates into thin air. Who cares about my ex at a time like this? We were only together for a year. That felt like forever two seconds ago, but now it’s nothing. A tiny drop of water in a very full bucket.

I don’t have a chance to recover, to figure out what I should say next about our sister’s “big day.” That knock comes again, startling me, and I jump.

“I’m in a town that’s too cute for its own good—suspiciously cute,” I whisper to my brother, backing up toward the washing machine in the corner. “And now there’s someone at the door.”

He’s the perfect person to receive this confession. Marcus started reading Stephen King novels in middle school. He’s been training for this moment for a long time.

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