The Good Girls

Chapter 15

THAT AFTERNOON, JANE, AUDREY, AND Uma stood shoulder to shoulder on the cracked, weedy sidewalk in front of Evie's house. Clearly they weren't the first ones who had visited since Crystal sent out Evie's address in her email blast: Hoarder was spray-painted across the cracked driveway, and Get Out of Town, Dirty White Trash had been scrawled across the garage door. Skinny, mangy cats wove in and out of the random holiday decorations in the front yard as though they were big scratching posts. Several junked vehicles stood on blocks in the side yard. The grass hadn't been cut in ages; it was full of dandelions, and probably ticks.

This wasn't a place Jane ever wanted to visit. But Evie's Subaru was in the driveway—she was home. And they needed to make sure she was okay.

Jane felt terrible for Evie. Before she'd gotten to know her in film studies, she'd always admired her from afar—Evie was this glowing, friendly, beautiful girl who always wore the perfect clothes and said the perfect thing. It was amazing that the entire time she'd been hanging on by such a thread and concealing such an enormous secret. But Jane understood why she had. This was Auradon, after all, home to kids whose parents were cutthroat CEOs, Nobel laureates, and heirs to Fortune 500 companies. There was no room for imperfection in Auradon, and certainly not for hoarding.

Jane's phone beeped, and she looked at the screen. What are you up to? Oliver had texted.

Her heart sank. She wanted to like Oliver, she really did. And he'd been so nice after the make-out fail outside the Thai place, texting her casually, sending funny emoji texts. But every time she saw his name on her phone, she just felt . . . nothing. Shouldn't she be more excited if she actually liked him? Why, instead, did Blake's face always pop into her mind? She kept thinking of that card he'd written. The ChapStick he kept in his guitar case for a good-luck charm.

"Well, let's go," she said to the others, dropping her phone in her pocket without replying. She started up the walkway, eyeing a shifty-looking cat who had stopped, paw in the air, on the brown grass before slinking into a dirt-caked, deflated kiddie pool. The other girls followed behind her, and she pressed the rusty doorbell, which let out a metallic scraping sound. A shadow passed behind the curtain in the front window, but no one appeared. After a moment, Jane pushed the bell again. Still nothing.

"She has to be in there," Audrey whispered. "Her car's here."

They all started when the curtain flew open, yanked back by an unseen hand. Evie's swollen, puffy-eyed face appeared in the window. She looked like she'd been crying since she left school that morning. It was as if a light had gone off in her, and now she was dulled, broken. Without a word, Evie disappeared from the window. For a second, Jane was afraid she had retreated back into her house, but then the door groaned open.

A damp, foul smell escaped the house and washed over the porch. Evie stood in the doorway wearing her bathrobe, its crisp whiteness practically glowing against the backdrop of junk, trash, and health hazards that loomed behind her. Her shoulders slumped, and her hands hung limply by her sides.

No one spoke for a moment, until Audrey broke the awkward silence. "We came to take you for a mani-pedi!" she chirped, too perkily.

Evie fixed her eyes on the floor, where a small tribe of cats had gathered near her slippered feet. "Uh, no offense, but no one's looking at my nails."

Jane reached out a consoling hand to Evie's arm. "Danishes at that awesome new bakery in town, then. The evening batch comes out of the oven right around now."

Evie shook her head sadly. "Thank you. But I'm not leaving. Ever." Her shoulders heaved up and down. "Sorry, guys. I'm just going to go back to sleep."