Page 16 of Chasing Chase London: Part 8-Valentines Day
“She won’t even know,” Lindsey sniffles. “I need a friend right now, Sky. Just for a minute.”
I open my mouth to tell her to go to Daria, or Elaine, but it seems so cold. And selfish as it makes me, a little part of me likes that I’m the one she came to. Not Elaine, her best friend. Not Daria, whom she’s known longer. Anyone in school would kill tobe in my shoes, to be best friends with Lindsey Darling. If I turn her away now, she won’t come to me again. This is a test.
I reluctantly lock the door and follow her to her car. I’m totally paranoid the entire drive to her house. I know my mom will absolutely kill me if she comes home while I’m gone.
“What’s going on?” I ask, following Lindsey up to her room. She flings open the door dramatically and doubles over with a fresh burst of tears. I help her to the bed where she sinks down and curls into a ball, hiding her face and quaking with sobs.
“Lindsey, please tell me,” I beg. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, sucking in a loud breath. She sits and takes a tissue, dabbing her eyes daintily before she answers.
“I think Chase is cheating on me.”
“What?” I gasp, my blood going icy cold. “There’s no way!”
“I found this in his locker the day before Valentine’s, and I thought it was for me,” she says, reaching under her bed. She pulls out a pink box with a wide blue ribbon around it. “But he gave me something else. I waited a couple days, in case he forgot. But he never gave it to me, so I went to his locker, and it wasn’t there! I found it in his car.” She breaks into a fresh burst of sobs.
My heart is hammering erratically. What do I do? And why did she tell me and not Elaine? Not Chase himself? Why does she think I have insight into Chase’s indiscretions?
“You just, like, took it?” I ask, stalling for time.
“I’m his girlfriend.” She gestures to the box. “Open it.”
“I don’t think—”
“Please,” she cries, mopping at her torrential bout of tears. “I can’t do it. You have to.”
My fingers are numb and shaking as I slowly reach for the ribbon, tugging on the end until it falls in a pool around the box, like blood, the sky-blue blood on my hands. Lindsey has toknow. This is punishment. There’s no other reason she’s choose me to endure the torture.
Inside the box I find a bottle of expensive perfume, a pendant with a blue stone on it, and most damning of all, a CD. No one listens to CDs anymore.
No one except me.
My heart drops down to my feet, and I think I’ll faint. I hope Lindsey doesn’t notice how still I’ve gone, or that the blood has all drained from my face.
“I knew it,” she shrieks, hurling herself face-down on the bed. “Men don’t get jewelry for girls they’re not sleeping with. I bet that’s a real sapphire. That means he loves her! Who would dare? Who woulddare!”
“Maybe it’s for his mom,” I whisper, my brain having shut down entirely. My whole body is cold and heavy as lead.
“His mom is dead!”
My body starts shaking uncontrollably, and I can’t breathe or think of a single thing to say. I’m pretty sure I’m having a panic attack or dying, but Lindsey’s too distraught to notice. I sit on the edge of her bed, patting her back, while she howls in rage about all the things she’s going to do to the girl when she finds her.
At home an hour later, I lie on my couch-bed and stare at the ceiling. Downstairs, my mom is raging on to my aunt about how irresponsible I am, since apparently yelling at me didn’t get it out of her system.
I feel a little guilty about leaving Lily, but it’s eclipsed by the sickening dread pooling in my limbs and the pit of my stomach.
The worst part is that on Valentines, I wanted Chase to give me something. I knew he wouldn’t, but I felt that ache all day. I wished for it. I was thinking about him—was he thinking of me? When my mom brought Todd’s gift to me, my heartskipped a beat when I thought they were from Chase. I let myself, for one second, imagine what it would be like. I crushed those thoughts down, but not before they reared their ugly heads.
How could I have done that, thought that, wanted that, knowing how it would crush Lindsey after all she’s been through?
“What can I do with her?” my mother is asking my aunt. “What if something had happened to Lily?”
I hear her crying, and my guilt twists into a tighter knot. I’ve seen more tears today than I ever wanted to see, and I’m the cause of all of them.
I tried to comfort Lindsey. I told her maybe they were for her, but Chase decided to get her something nicer. She sniffled and admitted he did get her something nicer, and that she doesn’t like that perfume anyway. I told her that maybe he’d give it to her for something else that wasn’t as special as Valentine’s Day. I told her to put the gift back and watch to see if anyone showed up in that necklace. I told her everything but the truth.
“I’ve tried everything,” my mom is saying now. “Maybe there’s some place I can send her, a different school. Willow Heights is so expensive, but maybe I can swing it. I just don’t know what else to do.”
