Life After Theft
Page 69

Guilt welled up in my chest. I knew now what she was talking about, and honestly, if it had been me, I wouldn’t have wanted reminders, either. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. You made a lot of people happy. Khail included. You . . . you have no idea what the stuff you gave back meant to him.”
Actually, I kind of did.
“Still, you have to turn me in. That way Hennigan can never hold this against you.” She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, so I continued. “I’m going in either way. It may as well do someone some good.”
More silence. “Okay,” she finally said. “What do I do?”
I hadn’t really thought that part out. Probably best to just keep it simple. “I’ll be at the school at six tonight. I’ll meet them in the parking lot and I’ll bring stickers if they want proof. You call Hennigan and tell him that.”
“And you’ll be there?”
The words caught in my throat, but I choked them out, sealing my fate. “I promise.”
I stared at the phone for a long time after I hung up. Part of me wished I had thrown the phone away as soon as we’d finished our big return on Monday. Wished that by the time I figured out it was my lying about Kimberlee being on watch that got Khail caught, it was too late to help.
But then I would have to live with the guilt.
I’d told my mom to trust me. Assured her I was a good kid, just trying to do the right thing. And she had trusted me. How was I going to tell her I’d repaid that trust by getting myself expelled? And criminal charges—was Hennigan bluffing about that? I flopped back onto my bed and tried to think of a way to get out of this, even though I knew there wasn’t one. It was time to pay my dues. No good deed goes unpunished, and all that.
And the biggest irony of all? Kimberlee—the catalyst of everything that had gone wrong—was nowhere to be found.
The worst part was that Sera was going to be devastated when she found out it was me. I wasn’t sure which emotion would win out—anger or guilt—but either way, I’d screwed everything up for her, too.
For the first time since I was, like, ten years old, I had the urge to curl up on my bed and cry. Right then, I just wanted to get in Halle and drive back to Phoenix, where stuff like this didn’t happen.
But I couldn’t.
I looked over at my alarm clock to see how many minutes of my so-called life I had left when my eyes fell on something on my bedside table that I had forgotten about. A tiny flicker of hope sparked inside me as I reached over and picked it up.
It was my only chance.
I picked up my cell phone and made the call.
I was lying on the bed with an arm slung across my eyes when Kimberlee came bursting through my wall.
“You can’t do it!”
I just stared at her with my mouth agape.
“I know you have all these ideas about being noble and everything, but this is stupid and I won’t let you do it!”
“Hello to you, too,” I muttered sullenly.
She rushed over and sat beside me on the bed. “I’m serious,” she said—and she looked it. “You can’t turn yourself in. You don’t deserve this.”
“How did you know about that?”
She looked a little abashed. “I heard the other end of the conversation,” she admitted.
“You’ve been spying on Sera?”
“Well, you wouldn’t do it. And I knew there was something going on!”
I sighed.
“Won’t you at least admit I was right?”
“I knew you were right!” I said. “I knew something was going on; it was obvious. The point isn’t that there was or wasn’t anything going on, but that I trusted Sera had a good reason, and I was right.”
“She was spying for Hennigan! There’s no good reason for that!”
I rose to my feet. “Yes, there is! You heard what Sera said, but were you listening? She did this to protect Khail. She loves Khail more than anyone else in the world and was willing to do whatever it took to save him. That’s not something to scorn; it’s something to admire.”
“Admire? She’s siding with him instead of you!”
“He’s her brother.”
“And you’re her boyfriend!”
“Until she finds out,” I groaned, flopping back onto my bed.
She was quiet for a long time. “Why are you doing this? No one could blame you if you didn’t.”
I sat up and looked her in the eye. “Because it’s the right thing to do, Kimberlee.”
“Right according to who?” she asked, her tone plaintive rather than argumentative. “God? Fate? It’s not fair. Khail got caught; let him take the fall. He won’t tell anyone—I know he won’t—so Sera will never know it was you. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do!” I shouted, surprised at my own fervor. “Getting caught isn’t what makes something wrong. Even if Sera never found out, I would know.”
Kimberlee glared at me, almost as if she could use some new ghostly power to change my mind. Then her eyes widened. “But you have a plan, don’t you?” she said quietly. “I mean, in the end this is all a setup. It’s all just part of the plan, right?”
It was hard to look at her. She believed I really was some kind of master planner. I’d gotten lucky before, but really, that was all it was. Luck. And my luck had run out.