Pretty When She Cries - Black Mountain Academy

“Yes?”

“Alexa is asking to see you now.”“Hey,” I whisper a strangled greeting as I take in Alexa’s pallid face.

She’s wearing a hospital gown, warm blankets weighing down her legs as she clutches a bedpan in her hands. Before the nurse disappeared, she warned me Alexa might have to vomit again. Then she left me with Alexa’s parents, who are now waiting outside in the hall. They both looked horribly distraught, and it was difficult to witness. It’s obvious they care for their daughter very much, which only makes everything more confusing. Why would Alexa try to end her own life?

As I’m standing beside her now, I keep replaying the reel of events in my mind, wondering how I missed the signs. What could I have done differently to help her? And why does she want to talk to me now?

She peeks up at me from beneath dark lashes. “So I guess that really was you at Devil’s Bluff, huh?”

“Yeah, it was. I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner. I heard you crying, and then I wasn’t sure what to do.”

I’m babbling. Why do I always do this in stressful situations?

“It’s not your fault,” she answers softly. “None of this is your fault. If anything, it’s theirs.”

“Whose?” I question.

Her gaze drifts out the window, and a few stray tears leak down her cheeks when she blinks. “I’ve been keeping a secret for a long time, and it was killing me inside. And then what happened to you brought it all back. That’s why I could never look at you. I thought maybe it would go away eventually, and I’d get better. But it never did. I didn’t know what else to do.”

She’s trembling, and I feel like I should do something to help her, but I’m not sure what. I fold my body into the chair beside her bed, hoping it will make her feel more comfortable. A silent offer of sisterhood. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.

“You can tell me if you want,” I answer in a gentle tone. “If it will help.”

When she looks at me again, her eyes are filled with shame. “You shouldn’t be so nice to me.”

“You’ve never done anything to hurt me. Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

“That’s not exactly true.” She fidgets with the hem of her blanket, smoothing it between her fingers.

I’m not sure what to say, but it turns out I don’t need to say anything. Alexa isn’t even here anymore. She’s somewhere else, trapped in a memory.

“My first year at BMA, I went to a party with Audrey,” she says. “We’d been hanging out with those guys from Maple Grove every weekend. You know, Gavin and Wyatt?”

“Yes.” I nod stiffly. How could I ever forget Audrey’s foot soldiers?

“I thought Wyatt was cute.” She laughs humorlessly. “I was so naïve.”

“What happened?” My palms stick to the chair beneath me, so I wipe them on my skirt, hoping this isn’t going where I think it is.

“We were playing Truth or Grope,” she says. “And Wyatt brought out some of those little orange juice boxes and vodka bottles. I poured my own and never thought twice about it. The first one was fine, but after the second one, I started to feel woozy. I woke up later that night covered in vomit. Wyatt was next to me, asleep. We were both naked.”

Her hand begins to tremble, and I reach for it automatically without thinking about it.

“I’m so sorry, Alexa. I had no idea.”

“It was the same way they drugged you,” she tells me between tears. “Wyatt wanted you, but Audrey was calling the shots that night. She wanted to get photos. The whole scheme was supposed to make Landon believe you’d slept with Carson and him because she knew it would humiliate you, and he would hate you for it. That’s why she invited you to the party.”

Audrey invited me to the party? All this time, I’d thought it was Landon. But he was right about her. She’s been screwing with all of us the entire time.

My mouth feels like it’s full of concrete when I hinge my jaw back open. “Did she tell you that?”

“I heard it.” Alexa dips her head in shame. “I was there that night. After what happened with Wyatt, I thought I was going crazy. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t remember anything. That had never happened to me before, and it just didn’t make sense.”

“So you went to the party for proof?”

“I just… I wanted to see if I really was crazy,” she says. “But I never expected things to go the way they did. I was in the room before they came in. I saw Audrey leave her purse in there, so I snuck in. I just wanted to look through it. When I did, I found a bottle of crushed up pills and a few empty syringes. I think that’s what they were injecting the orange juice boxes with. It was so small nobody would even notice.”