When the Truth Unravels Read online

  Praise for

  When the Truth Unravels

  “The four girls at the center of When The Truth Unravels are prickly, complicated, and headstrong—and I adored all of them. RuthAnne Snow’s debut takes a quintessential high school experience—prom—and fills it with detours and secrets that make it impossible to put down. Across two timelines and multiple POVs, Snow paints an authentic, sensitive picture of depression and shows us how friendship is a delicate but resilient thing. I wish I could hand this to every teen girl trying her best and fearing she isn’t enough. (She is.)”

  —Rachel Lynn Solomon, author of You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone

  “When the Truth Unravels is a captivating, fast-moving exploration of the complexities of female friendship, and a brutally realistic yet sensitive depiction of depression and its intertwining consequences. On a night that’s supposed to be about partying and having a good time, tension builds and buzzes just below the surface as each character wrestles with unspoken revelations. Snow handles the story’s heavy themes with impressive skill and gentle insight and nails the pressures, uncertainties, and politics of high school.”

  —Jill Baguchinsky, author of Mammoth

  “This is the YA friendship book you’ve been waiting for. Part mystery, part romance, and all authentic, Snow delivers a page-turner that masterfully handles some of the most sensitive topics teens deal with today.”

  —Natasha Sinel, author of The Fix and Soulstruck

  “Snow masterfully navigates the complexities of female friendships in this powerful and engrossing debut. Intricate storytelling, nuanced protagonists, and a profound examination of adolescence and healing, this novel will claw at your heart and leave you breathless. Flawless, stunning, and unputdownable.”

  —Whitney Taylor, author of Definitions of Indefinable Things

  Copyright © 2019 by RuthAnne Snow

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at skyponypress.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available on file

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-3357-2

  eBook ISBN 978-1-5107-3358-9

  Cover design by Kate Gartner

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Kristen.

  I wish every girl in the world could have a friend as funny and ferocious as you. I am so glad that I did.

  1

  Jenna Sinclair

  April 18, 10:00 AM

  I love Elin Angstrom to death, but it pisses me off that she tried to kill herself.

  I stared at the diary on my desk.

  I should have been recording my run time and hitting the shower, but the words were a magnet, holding my gaze and refusing to let go. An indictment of my friendship.

  No one would ever read my journal—my parents would have trusted me with the nuclear launch codes—but I knew the words were there, and I couldn’t stand the sight of them. I snatched a pen out of my desk drawer and drew straight lines through them until they were illegible.

  My cell phone buzzed on my desk and I jumped. ELIN CALLING. I put a smile on my face before saying hello—I read once that people on the other end of the line can tell, subconsciously, whether you smiled when they called. “Heeey, what’s up?”

  “Don’t get mad,” Elin said.

  Not a great way to start a conversation, E. “When do I get mad?”

  “You’re always mad,” she said, a note of amusement in her tone.

  “I am not.” I scribbled over the next lines, Most girls go their separate ways in middle school, join new groups, all the stuff Judy Blume is made of. But not me and Elin. We’ve never even had a real fight. I winced as my pen tore the thick, creamy paper.

  “Whatever. Promise?”

  “I promise,” I said as I smoothed the ripped paper back into place.

  “I kind of … need your help covering with my parents.”

  I paused as her words sank into my brain, the tip of my pen still resting on the page. “What do you mean? They know you’re going to prom, right?”

  “Well …”

  “Elin! You said that your doctor recommended it.”

  “He did! They’re just being … resistant. So I sort of told them that we were having a girls’ night, skipping the dance and having a sleepover. You, me, Ket, Rosie.”

  I rubbed my left temple. Lying to parents, even other people’s parents, practically caused me to break out in hives. But if her doctor said Elin should go to prom, he was probably right. He’d gone to school for that sort of thing.

  Expurgate, I wrote carefully next to the blacked out text in my journal. To edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate. The SATs had been last fall, but practicing the words had become a habit—it made me feel like all that memorization wouldn’t go to waste, and that someday I’d use words like plenitude in conversation.

  “Where is this girls’ night supposed to be?” I said, not bothering with the smile now.

  “At Ket’s.” It was left unsaid that, these days, my house was out of the question.

  I frowned. “Rosie’s would be better.” That wouldn’t even require lying to actual parents, since Rosie’s parents only considered themselves such in the most technical sense of the word.

  “My parents won’t let me spend the night at Rosie’s anymore. Besides, we’d have to tell Rosie that was the plan if we wanted to use her as an alibi, and she’s this close to bailing already.”

  “Sounds like you’ve already got this figured out. Why tell me at all?” If resentment bled into my tone, she ignored it. The Elin-Jenna friendship survived on polite smiles and half-truths these days, and I had no idea when the détente was going to end.

  Out in the hallway, Lily whimpered and nosed my door open. I beckoned her inside. She padded up next to me, tags on her collar jingling softly, and rested her head on my knee. I felt a pang of guilt as I looked into her soft, brown eyes. I should have taken her with me on my run, but at nearly ten years old, I wasn’t sure she could do five miles at my pace.

  “I need you to pick me up. And then sell the story to my parents.”

  I shut my eyes, willing myself to calm down. Was Elin out of line? I couldn’t even tell. Elin had been right when she accused me of always being mad, though how she noticed when she kept missing everything else, I had no idea. For weeks, I’ve felt like I was at the edge of exploding—a formerly dormant rage volcano about to erupt.

  Last night, I’d been in the gym with half of prom committee and my boyfriend Miles until 2 a.m., hanging draperies and stringing lights and filling balloons with helium. It was exactly the sort of project I normally loved—and it was my very last high school dance.

  I thought I’d feel nostalgic as I curled balloon ribbons with scissors, giggling at silly jokes that were only funny because we were exhausted. If everything had followed the pattern,
I would have arrived home and practically floated up the stairs to my room, high on the excitement of planning the dance and the rush of kissing Miles goodnight.

  Instead, I’d come home shaking with fury because the deejay hadn’t arrived to do the sound check even though we’d paid him for it and our so-called faculty advisor hadn’t answered any of my texts. I’d stomped up to my room, whipped out my journal, and written something truly shitty before falling into a fitful sleep.

  Adults were always talking about teenagers being angsty and angry. Before, I’d rolled my eyes at how clichéd that was, but now I was that teenager and I had no idea how it had happened.

  “What am I supposed to say?” I asked, bitterness tingeing my tone. “That my boyfriend is totally cool with me spending prom night at a sleepover?”

  “Exactly! If that’s your story, then they’ll totally believe me. You’re Jenna.”

  Lily leaped up on my bed, walking in a circle until she found a sufficiently snuggly spot. I made it every morning, crisp corners and decorative pillows beneath the map of China I’d hung over the headboard. A tiny silver star marked the Hubei Province. My dad went there every summer to work in a humanitarian hospital. This year, he was taking me so I could help and practice my Mandarin.

  My older siblings, Blake and Holly, asked to go to Cabo for their graduation presents.

  I saw Elin’s point.

  I wedged the phone between my shoulder and ear and pulled my hair out of its sweaty ponytail. I wished Elin hadn’t pulled this, but she had to be at prom. The surprise I’d been planning would be a total waste otherwise—which is why, at her request, I had already convinced my boyfriend and our friends that a no-date senior prom was totally the way to go. “Okay. Sure.”

  “Awesome. So, come over here to get me around 4:30, right? Chat with the parents, and then we’ll go over to Rosie’s to get ready.”

  I almost bit the words back out of spite, but if I was going to be an accomplice to Elin’s plan, I wanted to make sure it was a good plan. “How are you getting your dress out of the house?”

  “I’m wrapping it into my sleeping bag.”

  I climbed up beside Lily and lay my head on my pillow. The shower could wait. “You thought of everything. Reminds me of me.”

  Elin laughed and a weight lifted off my shoulders. Not too long ago, I had thought I’d never hear Elin laugh again. I stroked Lily’s silky ears, smiling to myself. This was going to be fine. Elin’s doctor was right—Elin’s parents were being overprotective. They’d gone completely batshit on my parents for telling the school officials what had happened and hadn’t spoken to them since. But what did they expect to happen? Did they think we could all just pretend Elin had gone on vacation in the middle of the semester?

  “Can I ask for one more favor?” Elin asked.

  My headache throbbed and Lily nudged my hand with her nose, redirecting my hand to the patch of white fur between her eyes. Her eyes closed sleepily as I rubbed her favorite spot, and I fought the urge to yawn. “You might as well.”

  “And you promise not to … judge, or repeat, or anything along those lines?”

  “Sure.”

  Elin paused. “I need you to make sure that Hannah is busy with prom-planning stuff. Especially right before the dance.”

  I smiled, relieved that she wasn’t asking for something bigger. “Is that all? Of course.”

  Elin laughed again. “See you in a few hours,” she said.

  “See you,” I replied, snuggling my face into Lily’s side and shoving my phone under my pillow.

  2

  Ket West-Beauchamp

  April 18, 4:00 PM

  Not for the first time, I wished we could just tell Teddy about Elin’s Incident.

  Partly because, as one of her oldest friends, he deserved to know. Partly—and selfishly—because it would make it a lot easier for me to force him to reconcile with Rosie.

  Seriously, wasn’t a friend’s suicide attempt a much bigger deal than a friend’s rejection of your Declaration of True Love?

  “How long are you planning to be pissed off at Rosie?” I asked as I followed Teddy into his kitchen. “For reals, I need a ballpark figure.”

  Teddy laughed, opening the fridge. “Do you want anything? I’m making nachos.”

  “I’m good.” I sat down at the dining room table. “So are you going to answer me? You can’t be mad forever, and by forever, I mean until graduation. ”

  Teddy shut the door with his foot, holding packages of shredded cheese, salsa, and sour cream in his arms. “I’m not going to be mad forever.”

  I drummed my fingertips on the polished walnut table. “Where are your grandparents?”

  “They went to Napa for the weekend.” He dumped tortilla chips onto a cookie sheet.

  Teddy Lawrence had lived with his grandparents for practically ever, but you would never guess by snooping through their house. If he hadn’t been standing in front of me, there would be no evidence of his existence. My house might have been filled with mismatched furniture and too much cat fur, but there wasn’t a single spot where I didn’t fit.

  When my parents called me into our living room to tell me what had happened, I assumed they had seen the tattoo on my hip, the one I had been hoping to keep a secret until college, if not forever. Mama Leanne had her Hard But Necessary Truth face on. Mom Kim was teary eyed. It was their typical reaction to any conflict.

  “Sit down, Ket,” Mama Leanne said, and I took my place on the Ottoman of Shame.

  Something was coming—they never brought me in for a Talk unless I’d done something wrong, so I assumed the lecture was inevitable. Even still, I kept my face impassive, a blank canvas of Whatever and Plausible Deniability. Never give an inch, that’s my motto.

  And then Mama Leanne did something that she, as the Enforcer of my mothers, never did.

  She sat on the edge of the ottoman, next to me, and put her arm around me. Mom Kim remained on the Couch of Judgment, but she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

  And Mama Leanne told me what Elin had done.

  “Ket? Earth to Ket?”

  I glanced over to the kitchen where Teddy was putting his nachos into the broiler. My stomach growled, and I knew I’d probably steal a few despite my determination to fit into my skin-tight dress without a hint of pudge. “Timeline on the Rosie forgiveness?” I asked, flashing my most dazzling smile.

  Teddy scowled, plunking down in the chair across from mine. “It’s not that easy.”

  I gazed at him through my lashes. “Oh Teddy, I know it’s rough. I mean, she accepted your friendship for all these years. Didn’t she know that girls are just Sex Dispensing Machines? Put in the Quarters of Kindness, and out pops handies and over-the-jeans action.”

  Teddy laughed. He nudged my foot with his. “Enough, Ket, okay?”

  I smiled and nudged him back. “Okay. But don’t be surprised when I start in next week.”

  He slumped down in his chair, resting his chin in one hand. He was still smiling, but it was a little sad. “I know you’re just giving me a hard time, but you know it wasn’t like that, right?”

  My smile faded. “Of course. I was just trying to get you to laugh.”

  The truth was, Teddy Lawrence was about as far from those self-proclaimed Nice Guys —you know, the ones who call you a bitch when you won’t hook up with a Nice Guy like them?—as you could get. Teddy was pretty much the pinnacle of high school boy. Maybe a bit on the short side, but Rosie was short too, so what did that matter? Elin and I had been as surprised as he had when Rosie turned him down.

  The buzzer dinged and we both hopped up. I beat Teddy into the kitchen. “The thing is … look, you know I think Rosie is nuts,” I said, handing him an oven mitt. “But miscommunication is not a reason to throw away one of your oldest friends.”

  Teddy pulled the nachos out of the oven, using his bare fingers to pick at bubbling cheese and chips. I winced when he flinched. “It’s not just a miscomm
unication.” He set the tray on the stovetop and opened a container of pico, dumping the entire contents over the chips. I fidgeted, wondering if he was going to continue.

  “I really thought that she felt the same way,” he said finally, pulling a chip from the mass and watching the melty cheese stretch, thin, and snap. “It’s embarrassing. That I was so wrong.”

  Something prickled at my eyes, behind my nose. I reached around Teddy to grab a chip before I did something dumb, like getting weepy. “I know, Teddy. But no one is going to make you feel embarrassed, and definitely not Ro.”

  Teddy leaned against the sink, holding one hand under his chin to catch dripping grease. “I know she won’t try to make me feel embarrassed. I just will,” he said finally. He grabbed a paper towel to wipe his hands, stalling. I bit the insides of my cheeks, willing myself to not fill the silence.

  Finally he turned around to face me, but his eyes were on the floor. “It’s just that … Rosie was kind of my perfect match, you know? And I’m over it, really, but if Rosie didn’t want me, there’s no way any other girl would.”

  “That’s stupid,” I said. “Besides, we miss you! Rosie especially, but all of us miss you.”

  “What do you mean, you miss me? I’m still here.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t eat lunch with us anymore,” I said. It sounded petty even to me. I stole a few more nachos.

  My explanation was pathetic, but Teddy pretending he was still around was worse. He hadn’t hung out with our group in almost two months. He still spoke to me, Jenna, and Elin, still played video games with Jenna’s boyfriend Miles, but all individually. It was like we’d been drifting apart all spring.

  With college around the corner, the thought of graduating with our group already splintered made a band of panic tighten around my heart until I could barely breathe.

  My phone buzzed, a reminder text from Jenna to make sure I was on my way.

  Ket West-Beauchamp: Perpetually Late.

  Jenna Sinclair: Obscenely Annoying.

  I sighed as I stood, gathering my dress from where I’d tossed it.