Page 74 of Dead Girls Can't Tell Secrets

“If she’s still waiting.”

“Well, let me come.”

I let out a dry laugh. “You want to come with me to talk to Jacey? How’s that going to work?”

“I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “Let me walk you up there. Let me say what I’ve been trying to say since Saturday. Please. I’ll leave as soon as we get there.”

“What makes you think I want to hear what you have to say?”

“You don’t. I know you don’t. But you’re my friend, Piper, and I don’t want things to be like this. Everything had just gotten back to normal with Jacey, and then I went and screwed it all up. I just want things to be the way they were between the three of us.”

Oh.The three of us.My chest twinges. This isn’t theI’m sorry I kissed Jacey and now I know I want to be with you, Piperspeech. This is thelet’s forget any of this ever happenedspeech. Let’s forget my hand on your waist, Piper. Let’s forget the way my lips brushed your ear when I whispered to you, sending chills through your body. Let’s forget the way I said you looked pretty in your homecoming dress and you believed me.

This isthatspeech. The twinge is distinct. It pushes through the aching pain brought on by the rest of the day.

Best friend: gone.

Sister: gone.

What I thought this was with Noah, what I’d hoped for the past seven years: gone.

“At the very least,” he says, lips quirking into a half smile, “let me protect you from whatever lurks in the woods on the way up.”

And there it is. That little bubble of hope is back.

“You’re hardly a match for whatever lurks in the woods,” I say, remembering the tales we spun as he, Jacey, and I hiked up to the Point over the years. “But get in. I can always sacrifice you to buy myself time to escape.”

His smile widens. “Thank you.” He swoops around the front of the car and gets in, the scent of library books and citrus shampoo wafting in with the breeze.

Noah is quiet as we make the short drive to the tiny lot at the base of Mount Liberty, his hands twitchy in his lap. So much for this apology he’s been planning.

I park, and my phone rings again as I turn off the car.

“Who’s calling you?” he asks, coming around to meet me.

“No one,” I say, pushing back the guilt rising in my throat and slamming the door. I click decline and slide the phone into my back pocket. Noah presses a hand to my back as we start up the rock-strewn slope, and I flinch.

He grabs his hair in a panic. “I’m so sorry. I don’t—”

“It’s fine,” I say quickly, even though it’snotfine. But I say it because I wish I hadn’t flinched. I wish he’d left his hand on my back.

“Do you really think she’s still up there?” Noah asks, trying to change the subject.

“Not sure. Have you two…spoken?”

“No, it—look, it was a mistake,” he says, eyes on the dirt path in front of us. “What you saw at the dance was a mistake. We’d been joking around, and then Jacey—I don’t even know what happened.”

So, it was Jacey? She kissed Noah? But why? Jacey has never mentioned liking Noah. She knows how I feel about him.

That little bubble, delicate as it is, grows slightly.

I don’t know what will happen with Savannah or the tests, but this moment blurs everything. Noah peers down at me, features ragged with worry. And I keep hoping, even though it will make things more difficult with Jacey.

Jacey, who I’m about to meet face-to-face in the place we’ve shared all of our fears and secrets and desires. She knew my biggest desire.

Did she really use it to hurt me?

Noah turns to face me, rubbing his hands together nervously. “Look, Piper, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time. Since before the dance. This isn’t easy for me.”

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