Page 56 of The Debutantes
And then I remember Mr. Pierce up on the stage at the ball, trying his best to calm everyone down. Could he be in thePierrot, too? I try to picture his eyes behind one of those masks, but Sav is already walking through the door. I snap out of it and follow her through.
“Meat-pie day,” Mr. Pierce says cheerfully, as he steps inside behind us, the smell of fried dough and Cajun seasoning already thick in the air. “One of Beaumont’s finest traditions, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I say with a weak smile. I don’t have the heart to lie to him.
The rest of the day is pretty much torture. I slog through lunch and classes until finally, three thirty rolls around, and there’s nothing between me and the only thing I have to look forward to: practice.
I practically sprint to the locker room and change even faster, already making my way back downstairs when the rest of the team is just starting to get ready. I can feel the energy squirming through my whole body, itching to get out. There’s nothing I want more than to turn off my brain and lose myself to the field.
“Atkins.”
I turn toward Coach, who’s walking up with a clipboard tucked under his arm.
“You’re early,” he says.
I shrug, suddenly embarrassed to admit how badly I need to be here.
“Well, glad to have my best defender back.” Coach adjusts his baseball cap, hesitating for a second. “How’s everything been?”
It hits me that the last time I saw Coach was only two days ago, at Piper’s party. It feels more like years. Lily had only been missing for forty-eight hours, and I’d never even heard of the Pierrot, but now… I don’t even want to think about it. Icould lie, tell Coach I’m fine, but he’s one of the only adults at Beaumont who doesn’t bullshit. So I don’t bullshit him, either.
“Not great,” I say. “But it’s good to be here. Turn it off for a bit.”
He nods, frowning a little. “Still, it’s okay if you need to take a step back. I know you always like to give a hundred and ten—it’s part of what makes you such a good player—but none of that’s worth it if you’re running yourself to the ground.” He pauses, eyes crinkling. “I guess I’m just saying it’s okay tonotturn it off. You know, let yourself feel it. Talk to somebody if you need.”
Suddenly, I feel like I could cry. It’s exactly what I needed to hear and also the worst thing he could have told me, because this is what I always do: push things down, keep running, try to forget anything more messy or complicated than the game, than backing my team up. OfcourseCoach has seen it.
And maybe I should take his advice, but I can’t. Not here. Because I’m worried if I start to really feel it, I won’t ever stop.
And then I get an idea.
“Coach?”
“Yeah?”
I think about chickening out, but I can’t. I should have asked him on New Year’s, but I was too focused on the Dukes, on Wyatt and his blowup. And now I’m even more desperate.
“Did you see anything that night?” I ask. “At the ball?”
He runs a hand along his stubbled jaw.
“You know, I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” he says. “Thinking it over, wondering if there was anything I might’ve missed, anything I could’ve done, but… no, I don’t think I did.”
The regret on his face is so real that it makes me feel awful.Coach is probably blaming himself, just like I am. She’s his player, too. He’s supposed to look out for her. But I’m the one who was supposed to know her inside and out, even though apparently I didn’t, not the way I thought. And maybe I never will, if the worst happens. If we don’t find her.
I force that thought down, too. “Thanks anyway.”
But Coach must see the disappointment on my face, because he keeps talking.
“The last time I saw her…” He pauses again, and I get the feeling he’s holding something back. Then he sighs. “I’d gone out to get Elle’s shawl from the car, and LeBlanc was out near the front entrance. I checked in as I passed by, and she seemed fine. Made some joke about the blood on her dress and how that’s what she gets for wearing white.”
The back of my neck prickles. That’s the exact same joke Lily made to Mrs. Johnson, isn’t it? Like she had it prepared. Like she was performing even then.
“Then, as I was coming back in, I saw a car pull up, and she got in,” Coach continues. “Wyatt, I figured.”
He shrugs, like he’s sorry he doesn’t have anything better to tell me, but something nags at me. When I last saw Lily, she was standing with Wyatt on the path to the front entrance. He said he’d already pulled the car around to the front, didn’t he? Why would he have to pull up again? But maybe I’m remembering wrong.
I try to keep my face neutral as I ask, “The silver Honda, right?”
