The Perfectionists

Chapter 24

AT 7 AM ON WEDNESDAY, Evie woke up to birdsongs outside her window. She blinked sleepily in the sunlight filtering in through her curtains, rolling over to see if Mal was awake yet.

Only Mal was gone. Her bed had been neatly made, the pillow fluffed, and her things were nowhere to be seen. She reached across to the nightstand for her iPhone and pulled up Mal's name. Where are you? she texted. Call me.

Evie felt a pull in her chest. Where did she go? Lately, Mal was spending more and more time by herself, letting Evie in less and less. Evie wanted to think that Mal's therapy with Elliot was working, but after picking Mal up from the cemetery on Saturday, she wasn't so sure. Mal had seemed...unhinged.

Half an hour later, Evie finished wading through the wreck in the hall, trying to clean out the litter box, when the doorbell rang. Evie breathed a sigh of relief. Mal must have forgotten her key again.

She pulled her bathrobe around her shoulders and pushed her way through the hallway, trying to quell the anxiety she always felt at the sight of the towering boxes stacked against either wall. Mewling cats wove around her feet and watched from the heights of garbage everywhere. One fat, crusty-eyed tabby snored wheezily from where it'd nestled in an upturned sun hat.

"Evie! Who's at the door?" Her mother's voice was shrill and frightened from her bedroom.

"I've got it," Evie called back, pulling the door open quickly. Then her jaw dropped.

It was Crystal.

"Evie!" Crystal crowed loudly. She had that same strange, pointed smile on her face from when she'd tried to crash Evie's date. "How are you?"
Evie's heart thudded. Crystal had seen the overabundance of lawn decor in the yard. The stacks of car tires and extra porch furniture. The Christmas decorations that were still up from two years ago. A cat wandered across the grass, pausing to pee. And two stacks of boxes sat by the garage, only because the garage was too chock-full for them to fit inside. They were all mushy and almost moldy from sitting out in the rain.

"H-how did you know where I lived?" Evie blurted. Crystal cocked her head. "Why? Is it a secret?"

Of course it's a secret! a voice in Evie's head shouted. She never put her real address for the school manual. She even received her magazine subscriptions and college brochures at a PO box. Could Crystal have followed her circuitous route home? She'd always taken extra turns just in case someone from school was behind her.

Crystal waved her hand around the house, and then pointed inside, that saccharine smile still on her face. "I had a really long chat with your mom the other day," she said sweetly. "She told me about all her cats. And she told me about your old home."

Evie's mouth dropped open. "Y-you spoke to my mom?" she said weakly. Her head was spinning. She'd been here before? Jesus, her mom had let Crystal inside? She'd told her about how they'd been evicted?

Evie could still remember the day the health board inspectors had come to their little house, accompanied by two disgusted-looking cops with a warrant. The inspectors had worn hazmat suits. Evie's mom had gone into hysterics, sobbing and pulling her own hair out, begging them not to take her "babies." They finally handcuffed her. Evie sat next to her mother on the curb, watching as the inspectors carried cage after cage of sick, angry cats to their van. It hurt her to see her mother in so much pain. But a part of her wanted to yell, Take me, too!

"It was such a shock to learn. You seem so . . . together on the outside," Crystal said. "Just goes to show: Never judge a bitch by her cover."
Evie stared at Crystal, trembling. "You can't tell anyone," she whispered.

"And why not?" Crystal crossed her arms. "Secrets are meant to be shared. Especially dirty ones." Her smile turned hard. "Enjoy your popularity while you still have it, Evie. Soon, I won't be the only one to know the real you."

And then she waved and stepped off the porch, carefully maneuvering around the rusty umbrella table and chairs that sat on the front lawn. Evie watched her car disappear down the street, then covered her face with her hands.

Evie had worked so hard to erase her past, to hide her secret in the present, but her house of cards was crumbling down around her. Mal was freaking out. The police were trying to frame her and her friends for something they didn't do, and now it was only a matter of time before her secret came out. Evie wasn't who she said she was, and before long, everyone would know the truth.