Briana Leigh stared at some far-off spot across the room. Ariana wasn't sure if she was losing the girl or if Briana Leigh was just taking it all in.
"After that my mother just became all withdrawn," Ariana continued. "She went on all these antidepressants and wouldn't even come out of her room."
Ariana thought of her own mother now. She was edging too close to the truth for comfort.
"And then last year she killed herself," she lied flatly.
189
"Oh my God." Briana Leigh snapped back to the moment. She looked at Ariana, clearly horrified.
"I have no one," Ariana said. A real tear dropped as the truth of those words hit home. It landed on the bedspread, turning the silky peach an ugly, wet brown. "Nothing. And I've been lying to you, even after you've been so nice to me...."
Briana Leigh gave a slight nod, as if she was agreeing with this assessment of her own behavior.
"Anyway, I was just in town, and someone in a store thought I was you, and I
just lost it," Ariana continued, wiping her eyes with the tissue. "I mean, all I could think about was how great it must be to be you. You have this house and all this security and a grandmother who loves you. Plus, you get to go to Atherton-Pryce in the fall while I go back to that shitty public school in Chicago.... Anyway, thinking about that made me realize how great you've been. I mean, who else in your position would take a random stranger in? And then I felt even more guilty and I just knew I had to tell you the truth. I'm so sorry."
Briana Leigh looked at Ariana, and her eyes were filled with tears. Ariana's heart skipped an intrigued beat.
"It's not so great being me," Briana Leigh admitted.
"What do you mean?" Ariana asked, finally drying her eyes.
"Remember how I told you my dad died in an accident?" Briana Leigh said, tugging at the hem of her tank top. "That wasn't exactly true either."
Ariana had to chomp down on the inside of her cheek. She was finally going to get the truth.
190
It wasn't!
"No. He was actually murdered," Briana Leigh said, looking down at her hands as she twisted the fabric. "By my best friend." A tear slipped down her cheek and Ariana chomped down harder.
So, not the truth, but the cover story. Still, it was better than that "accident" stuff. It was something.
"What?" Ariana breathed, trying to sound shocked.
Briana Leigh stood up and paced over to the dressing table, where, for the first time since Ariana had known her, the girl managed to stand in front of a mirror and not look into it. Instead she toyed with a light blue scarf Ariana had found in the back of the closet. She picked it up and wrapped it around her hand.
"Her name is Kaitlynn Nottingham and our families were friends. When I was eleven and she was thirteen, her parents died in a plane crash," Briana Leigh said, her voice full as she pulled the scarf tighter around her palm. "She came to live with us and it was like suddenly having an older sister. I was usually away at my boarding school, but when I was home, we had the best time."
Ariana watched Briana Leigh carefully. She knew all of this already, but she was curious as to how good a liar Briana Leigh was. Once she got to the fairy tale, would she have any tells?
"Kaitlynn lived here with my mom and dad and kept going to the day school she'd been in before her parents were killed. Then, after my mom died, Kaitlynn and my dad... they kind of had an affair," Briana Leigh said, her face turning pink with what appeared to be embarrassment. She glanced at Ariana in the mirror and Ariana feigned surprise.
191
"No way. Wasn't she kind of young?" Ariana said, forcing a horrified grimace onto her face.
Briana Leigh swallowed hard, disgusted. She tugged harder at the scarf. Her fingers were starting to turn red. "Sixteen. The only thing I can think is that my dad was so broken up over losing my mom, he just kind of lost his mind, you know?"
Ariana stared at Briana Leigh. There were no tells. No blinking or touching her face or looking away. And the whole scarf thing, it just seemed... genuine. Like she was trying to keep from crying out in anger. Trying to hold a hundred different awful emotions inside. A creeping sensation tugged at Ariana's heart.
"I'm sure that's what it was," Ariana said, realizing Briana Leigh was waiting for a response.
"When I was home for Christmas that year, I walked in on them...." Briana Leigh paused and closed her eyes, unable to look at Ariana for this part. She yanked at the end of the scarf and gritted her teeth.