Free The Secrets of Lily Graves by Sarah Strohmeyer Page B

her jaw. “Lil, you can’t let her get away with that.”
    No kidding. “Um, for the record,” I said, “Erin attacked
me
.”
    â€œAnother lie!” Kate smiled triumphantly at Cheyenne and Allie. “
For the record
, Lily, I went to Erin’s house, since she didn’t meet me at the game like she was supposed to and she wasn’t answering her phone. Matt had just broken up with her—”
    â€œBecause of you,” Allie chimed in—a mistake, because this was Kate’s show. Kate glared at her reprovingly. Allie retreated.
    â€œAnyway, when I got there,” Kate continued, “Ifound Erin on the couch, a total mess. I asked what happened and she told me that you’d finally managed to turn Matt against her just so you could get him for yourself. You broke her heart, Lily. She killed herself because of you.”
    Sara said, “You don’t know anything.”
    I sucked in a breath because, although I appreciated Sara’s defense, I didn’t want her to blow it so soon. The murder theory was still supposed to be a secret. If it got out via us instead of the cops, Mom would kill me.
    â€œSara . . . ,” I said, smiling. “Remember?”
    â€œScrew it, Lil. Kate’s talking out of her ass.
    Kate sneered. “Shut up, Shrinky Dink.”
    Instinctively, I lifted my hand, this close to slapping her hard enough to send that stupid adorable widow’s peak of hers to the back of her head. She hadn’t dared call Sara “Shrinky Dink” since I overheard her whisper it to Erin when Sara missed an assist in volleyball back in middle school gym class. It had been worth detention just to see the fear in Kate’s eyes as I pushed her against the gym wall and threatened to mess up her widow’s peak forever if she ever mocked my best friend again. Ms. Seidel had to forcibly drag me away, I was so enraged.
    â€œYeah, go ahead and hurt me,” Kate said defiantly. “Just like you hurt Erin.”
    Sara lowered her eyes, a signal that I should lower my hand. Reluctantly, I did.
    â€œYou’re an awful person, Kate,” I said. “Selfish, vain, and cruel.”
    â€œLike I care,” Kate replied with a defiant lift of her chin. “Insulting
your
friend hardly compares to what you did to
my
friend, Lily.” Kate lightly raked her own cheeks. “I saw the blood.”
    Bull. I hadn’t even broken skin. Rolling up my own sleeves, I thrust out my arm to reveal the scabbed streaks. “
This
is what Erin did to me Saturday afternoon. Look.”
    All four girls plus Sara leaned in for closer inspection. Then Kate turned to Allie and Cheyenne. “Didn’t I tell you guys Erin tried to defend herself?”
    â€œUnreal,” Sara said.
    Cheyenne snapped a few shots of my arm. In a matter of seconds, the pictures were circulated throughout the school as proof of my complicity in Erin’s supposed suicide.
    â€œIt’s so like you to trash Erin after she’s dead,” Kate sing-songed as the second bell rang. “By the way, in case you were wondering, you’re on Matt’s shit list too.”
    I swallowed and hugged my books tighter.
    â€œYou know what he calls you, Lily?”
    Sara gripped my elbow, while I tried desperately to keep my face impassive.
    â€œ
Pathetic
.”
    I walked off before my tears gave me away.
    My class lineup that day was calculus, English lit, physics (in which we had a pop quiz), and World Cultures. So I decided to exercise my prerogative and skip the afternoon to hang out in the school library reading up on handy uses for chicken blood in Haitian death rituals. Besides, the last thing my psyche needed was to be surrounded by my haters. Also, let’s be honest—what was the point of sitting through a droning lecture about the European Union when my future was already set in stone? Literally.
    After high school, I would major in