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30: Destiny

           

                        30: Destiny

            "And you believe her?"

            The glovebox of Charlie's car rubs against my knees as I rummage through it in an effort to find Devin's diary. Charlie's caught between looking sheepish and pissed off—at me, of course, there's a routine to follow and all—both of us trying to figure out what the fuck has happened in what feels like the five seconds we spent standing inside Idris' house. "Why wouldn't I?" He asks. "She seemed pretty genuine."

            I can't hold myself back from snorting, finally getting a hold of the red leather. "Adrienne's never been genuine about anything in her life. She was best friends with a sociopath." In an ideal world, Adrienne bothering to tip us off about where to go if we want to find out the real answers would be accepted in good faith—but this isn't an ideal world. This is the reality we live in—where my best friend has just turned her back on me in a crusade equal parts revenge and eagerness to forge a path out of her own—and I struggle to accept anything from anyone in good faith.

            Not even Charlie's own optimism about us being so close to the end of this mess.

            "God, Kas," he sighs, probably sick of hearing me poke holes in his hastily stitched theory of Adrienne being on our side. It feels like there's gaps in both of our memories, holes that we've got to rely on the diary to fill in us for us. I don't know how Charlie's spent his time getting through the diary—the stories he hasn't been told in Devin's swooping handwriting, the lies that speak aloud in his head—but I started from the beginning and made my way through it. I know exactly why Adrienne's in this, and it's not to see her friend's memory get put to rest on her 18th birthday. "Just read the diary and if it's not there, then it's not there."

            I huff as I start reading, cracking the spine to something that feels eerily familiar enough for it to be my own possession. It feels like lying in a cold bed, too scared to move once I've gotten warm in my huddled ball, but knowing that everything will spread out in the moments I'm the least aware. Devin's handwriting beckons me back to something familiar, a world I'm just starting to venture out in.

            I don't have to read long to find it—of course it's there, Adrienne and co. have already read the diary cover to cover, the only relief being that this isn't a complete wild goose chase and there's something waiting for us at the end. Devin's even written it different, a throwaway amongst the world she fabricated for herself in her own head—the destiny waiting to reach out once she got through the drag of high school.

            "It's here. She wasn't lying." My lips are pursed tight as I shut the diary with a clap! barely able to stop myself from frowning at the idea that now we have to be thankful to Adrienne for something. "Can you not look so smug?"

            Charlie laughs as he starts his car, slowly putting distance between us and the mess we're leaving behind at Idris' attempt at throwing Devin an eighteenth birthday party. "She didn't do it for me, Kas," he says, as we pass Spencer's car parked up. He doesn't notice Archie sitting in the passenger seat, and I don't bother to mention it to Charlie as I lock eyes with his older brother for the few seconds it lasts. "She said Dean wanted to give us a push in the right direction."

            "You don't have to lie for my sake. Everyone knows she likes you."

            Charlie's cheeks flush in the low lighting, face momentarily drowned in the yellow from the streetlights. I'd been expecting a completely different reaction from him, to be honest, because it's Adrienne, and everyone knows she's trouble. She's trouble in ways that's Devin's the Nerf gun and Adrienne's the real thing with the safety off. "Oh." I say, my first moment of realisation. "You like her, too."