Free The Darkest Lie by Pintip Dunn

and clumps of people hover around the flames. Out here, away from the music, the geese chatter nosily to each other, unaware the nighttime belongs to their human neighbors.
    I see Tommy immediately, his hair curling at the nape of his neck. As always, the questions slither into my brain and refuse to leave. Did my mother wrap her fingers around those curls as she kissed him? Breathe in the scent of his hair as she pressed her bare breasts against his back?
    He faces the fire, his hands shoved into his pockets, deep in conversation with someone hidden behind his broad shoulders.
    I straighten my spine and walk toward him. My toes slosh in my sneakers in the same way that my stomach tilts from side to side. Am I really going to do this? Confront the boy who drove my mother to suicide?
    The kaleidoscope of emotions hits me at once. The crawl-into-a-hole despair of what my mother did. The white-hot rage that she abandoned me. Even the deep, pervasive knowledge that she will never yank the comforter off my bed, when I’ve hit the snooze button too many times, ever again.
    I let the emotions override the doubt, and before I know it, I’m tapping Tommy Farrow on the very shoulder my mother may have nibbled.
    He turns, and the features of his companion come into focus.
    Good god, it’s Mackenzie freaking Myers. Why is she talking to him? I thought she couldn’t stand him.
    Her eyebrows shoot into her widow’s peak, and her mouth hangs open. Looking at the gap between her front teeth, I realize: She could say the very same thing about me.
    Before either of us can speak, Tommy grabs my hand. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he says, not using my name. Does he even remember it? One thing’s for sure. I’m the “she” to whom he was referring. There’s something he wants to tell me. Something I deserve to know.
    â€œCan we go someplace quiet to talk?” I ask.
    â€œThere’s nothing I’d like more,” he slurs. Without another glance at Mackenzie, no good-bye, nothing, he pulls me from the bonfire.
    Mackenzie’s eyes blaze. But she’s not the only one who’s pissed. We haven’t gone two steps when we’re intercepted by Tommy’s watchdog.
    â€œYou don’t have to do this.” Justin spreads his legs, blocking our path. “Your mind is telling you things it doesn’t mean. Things you’ll regret in the morning. Let go of the girl, and come with me.” His voice is slow and deliberate. The kind you use to talk a suicide jumper off the ledge.
    â€œIt’s past time,” Tommy mumbles. “Almost six months past.”
    Every hair on my neck stands up. I don’t care if he’s incapacitated. If he wants to talk to me, it has to be about my mother. Right?
    Justin rips him from me and shoves him toward one of their brawny friends. “Get him in the car, where he can’t hurt anyone. I’ll deal with him in a minute.”
    â€œBut I need to talk to her,” Tommy whines as the friend leads him away. “I NEED TO.”
    â€œThat’s not Tabitha, you fool!” Justin shouts after them. “It’s her daughter!”
    I wrap my arms around my body, squeezing my ribs through the hoodie. Oh. Is that what this was about? Tommy wanted to talk to me . . . because he thought I was my mother?
    Too late I remember I’m wearing the dress we used to share. My hair, as dark as hers in the black night, swirls around my shoulders. If she weren’t decomposing underground, I could be my mother’s much-younger twin.
    Justin turns to me. His face is a grotesque puzzle that’s been put together all wrong, and I can tell he’s going to be mean. Meaner than usual. A meanness that’s been saved up, festering on a shelf.
    â€œYou girls are only good for one thing,” he rasps. “But I don’t need you around to pull my dick when I can do a better job myself.”
    I