Page 36 of No Place Left to Hide

Goodwins don’t make a spectacle of themselves—unless they can control the spectacle.

I shrug. “Honestly, that story would’ve come out eventually. It’ll blow over.”

She glares at me over the top of her nails. “You’re more upset than you’re letting on. No way someone so obsessed with her imagedoesn’t care that the whole school will know you peed your pants by Monday.”

“I have too much going on this year to worry about the past, Claire. Besides, it’s not like anyone is going to remember this in ten years. Well…you might, because you don’t know how to let things go. But I’d much rather stop the games and move on. Wouldn’t you?” I smile wider, letting the light catch the side of my face. “This constant dance is getting old. You said you wanted to let go of old grudges, so let’s do that.”

Claire’s glare intensifies. “You’re such a fake bitch. Do you know that? You’re just like your dad.”

My smile doesn’t falter. Outwardly I might look like I’m having a lovely chat with a friend, but my voice goes ice cold. “I’m the fake bitch? You showed up uninvited, saying you wanted to be friends again, then proceeded to ruin everyone’s night. Just like you always do. Me and my dad have nothing to do with your shitty life, Claire. That’s all you.”

If we were in a cartoon, steam would be shooting from Claire’s ears. “My life was fine until you evil-ass Goodwins meddled in it.”

“Nobody asked your dad to get himself fired. If he was going to break the law, he should have done a better job covering it up. You want to be mad at someone? Why don’t you start with him?”

“My dad didn’t doanythingwrong, and you know it.”

“Right, that trial evidence must have fabricated itself. God, Claire, you’re so good at flinging blame everywhere but where it belongs. It’s not my dad’s fault thatyoursis a criminal. It’s not my fault you had to change schools. And it’s also not my fault that we’re not friends anymore. That was all you.”

Claire laughs right in my face. “We’re not friends anymore because you’re too full of yourself to associate with the poor girl.”

“No, it goes back much further than that,” I say, still holding on to my smile for our audience. “We’re not friends because you keep taking things that aren’t yours. You knew how I felt about Dylan, and you ripped him away, just to prove you could—”

“Really?” Her laugh carries through the night and across the water. “Dylan? Are you fucking kidding me? Everything that’s happened…it’s all because of some boy?”

“Not some boy.Theboy. And it’s not even about him, it’s about you. You took everything that was meant for me. Student council president, dance team captain, homecoming queen, National Honor Society. If you heard I was trying to getanything, you suddenly wanted it too. And if there happened to only be one spot available, you made sure it went to you every damn time.”

“You mean Iearnedwhatyoufelt entitled to. It’s hardly my fault that we wanted the same things and you sucked too much to get any of it.”

My molars grind together. “You only wanted those things because they were important to me. Face it, you’re a manipulative backstabber who’s been jealous of me for years, and you deserve every bad thing that’s happened to you.”

Claire rolls her eyes. “That’s the problem with you Goodwins. You think everyone wants what you have. That everyone’s waiting in the shadows to bring you down, when in reality you’re all a bunch of entitled assholes who have to cheat and claw and threaten people to get what you want. I’m not going to apologize for being better than you. And I’m certainly not going to apologize because some random guy liked me. You never stood a chance with him anyway, so why shouldn’t I take him for myself?”

Some random guy.

I shake my head, struck by how much of a stranger she’s become over these last couple years. Claire used to be the first person I called about everything. I spent more time talking to her than I did sleeping. But the girl standing in front of me is not the same person who stole a sweatshirt from the lost and found to help me cover my pants when I unexpectedly started my period in the middle of PE in seventh grade. She’s not the same person who spent spring break with me and my parents in Paris, snort-laughing over snails dipped in butter. She’s certainly not the same person who slept over at my house for a whole week when I got email-dumped by my first boyfriend on the first day of summer vacation.

Somewhere along the way, she turned into this hateful, angry person who would rather set fire to the whole world than see anyone but her get ahead. I don’t know when it started. She was herself, and then she was…this person.

Suddenly we weren’t really friends anymore. We were rivals—sometimes at the expense of everyone around us.

I grip the railing. “Did you even have real feelings for him? Or was it all a game to get back at me?”

She blinks and folds her arms. “I liked him enough.”

The laugh that bursts out of me is bitter, but I twist it back into a smile. “You liked himenough? To what, tolerate him while you strung him along for months? You played keep-away with an actual human being. Oh, but I’m the bitch. Right.”

“Let’s be honest; it doesn’t hold a candle to what you and your family have done.”

“You’re playing with people’s emotions. With their relationships. With their feelings, Claire. How do you not see that?”

“Better their emotions than their livelihood! You and your dad ruined us!”

“And we’re back to the delusional part of the evening.” I roll my eyes. “Why are you still here? You drove away Jena, Felix, Dylan… You embarrassed me in front of my friends. You made half the senior class cry. You got sweet puppy dog Beau punched in the face. I think you’ve effectively ruined the evening, don’t you? It’s time you go back to the hole you crawled out of so the rest of us can keep moving on without you.”

Claire stills, and then grins much too wide, like a creepy Halloween decoration. “Oh, I’m afraid I haven’t quite finished what I came here to do.” She steps closer and taps the end of my nose with her index finger. “Tonight isn’t about little feuds and secret sharing. I wouldn’t waste the gas money if that’s all I had in mind. Embarrassing you was simply the warm-up.”

“What does that mean?”

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