The Good Girls

Chapter 36

UMA SLAMMED HER GYM LOCKER door shut. She was off school for the week, but there was no way she was abandoning her soccer team. Especially not tonight, when they played Bellevue. It was also their first game with the new freshman recruits.

"Let's go, Uma!" Her teammates filed past her, tightening their hair bands and slapping one another with their towels and jerseys. Aria let out a loud whoooooop! and started a call-and-response cheer as the team jogged through the field house door and into the courtyard. She shot Uma a smile over her shoulder, and Uma smiled back. It was funny—not long ago, Uma had suspected Aria of being her ultimate enemy. Killing Ben and framing them. Eavesdropping on their awful conversation in film studies and forming some sort of master plan. It seemed so ridiculous now.

Then again, the truth was pretty unthinkable, too.

Her thoughts turned to Evie. Last she'd heard, Evie had been checked into a high-security mental facility about twenty miles away. It was the type of place where she couldn't have visitors for a while, as she would be in round-the-clock, incredibly intense therapy. Uma tried to picture what her days were like. At least she was in a cleaner, less-cluttered environment. At least there were no cats. Would she be sad to part with Mal? Had that even happened yet? Maybe it was the type of thing that took months, even years. It's like a death, Dr. Smith had said. Uma felt so sorry for Evie, despite everything. She couldn't imagine having to go through losing Urson twice.

A whistle blew outside, snapping her back to the present. Uma adjusted her shin guards, popped in her mouth guard, and followed the rest of her team. As she crossed the parking lot to the field, she caught sight of her moms on the bleachers and smiled. Things were okay with them again, for the first time in a long, long time. Last night, she'd had a serious heart-to-heart with them, and though they were still upset with her for pranking Ben—especially because it had been her Oxy—they were on her side again. Uma had finally admitted to her moms just how much rage she'd felt toward Ben, and how much she directly blamed him for Urson's suicide. She'd told them how she reread Urson's journal a thousand times in the past six months, trying to figure out the exact moment when he had decided to go through with it . . . the exact moment when she had missed the most important clue of all.

Her moms had just gazed at her, their eyes spilling over with tears, their mouths squeezed shut to hold back the sobs. Then they had all cried together, and it was like they had finally acknowledged that . . . thing . . . the shared pain that was there with them every moment of every day but was too great to even speak of. Just knowing that they were in it together made it hurt a tiny, microscopic bit less.

Uma was the last one on the field. She closed her eyes to absorb the cool evening air, the clatter of the crowd, the opposing team's coach calling out warm-up drills, the tooting of air horns. There was only one thing that still wasn't right, that hadn't been put back into place. Harry. They hadn't spoken since Freddie's party. Even Gil had called her the next day, apologizing for drunkenly calling her out about signing his cast. "Was that why my brother left?" he'd asked.

"Not really," Uma said. And it was true: Harry had left because of her feelings, her conflict. She didn't want Gil back. And Gil probably didn't want her back, either. She understood that even better after his phone call—but it was nice that they'd come to some kind of peace.

Uma pulled off her warm-up jacket and threw it onto the grass behind the bench. She had to focus on the game. She bent down to tighten a shoelace on her cleat, and suddenly something caught her eye up in the stands. Harry was sitting all alone, his face painted in Auradon Prep blue and yellow. He held a giant poster board sign with GOOOOO, UMA! handwritten in big, sloping letters.

Uma's mouth fell open. Despite the fact that the game was going to start in only a few minutes, she dashed off the field and up the bleacher steps, straight toward him. "Look at you! Oh my god!"

Harry smiled sheepishly. "I had to come and support my girl."

Uma felt tears appear in her eyes. "Really?"

"Well, yeah." He grinned at her, but then his face grew serious. "I thought about what you said, and you were right, Uma. I should love you for exactly who you are—and that's a soccer player. A girl who goes to parties. A really hot girl who plays soccer and goes to parties, by the way." He touched her arm. "And you know what?" he went on. "I love that girl. Every inch of her."

Uma thought her heart might burst. She broke into a gigantic smile and jumped into Harry's arms. She squeezed him as tightly as she could, breathing him in. It felt so good—so right—to be with him, then and there.

Uma could have stayed there all night, just holding him, but she needed to get back to her team. Just as she pulled away from Harry, she saw her mom running across the soccer field, headed straight for them. For a millisecond, Uma thought her mom was angry about her Harry PDA, but as Ursula got closer, the look on her face was tense and weird—even worried. It was, Uma realized, the same look she'd had when she'd found out Urson was dead.

Ursula reached her side and, winded and panting, grabbed Uma by the arm and pulled her away from Harry. "What is it?" Uma cried. "What's happening?"

Ursula caught her breath and locked eyes with her daughter. "It's Evie. She broke out of the mental hospital. She's . . . gone."