Page 101 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

Harley:So what happened after that?

Lizzie:A couple months later, she overdosed, went to rehab for a while. She came back to school junior year. There were all kinds of rumors about her then. I’m not sure what was true.

Harley:Such as?

Lizzie:That she stabbed someone in rehab. That she was sleeping with this young, hot algebra teacher that everyone was crushing on, Mr. Pine. He got fired. I tried to reach out to her a couple more times, but she just ignored me.

Harley:Was any of that true? I tried to find her record in rehab, but it was confidential, locked because she was a minor. No one at the school would talk to me about her alleged relationship with Pine or why he got fired. And he wouldn’t comment, either.

Lizzie:I don’t know, honestly. But then it seemed like she got her act together. She went off to college. From her socials, it seemed like she was doing better. Then there was her whole influencer thing—mental health and body positivity, the Tough Be-atch wins. Then the whole Maverick Dillan thing. She was obsessed with him, always posting about him and commenting on his page. You could just tell by the way he didn’t post about her, didn’t answer her comments that it was one-sided. Then she disappeared.

Harley:What did you think about that?

Lizzie:Right away, I thought something was up. I saw all those pictures—from the ATM footage, the gas station. It was her. I know it was.

Harley:How do you know that?

Lizzie:She always did this thing, since we were little kids. She would put her left pinkie finger in her mouth and chew on the cuticle. Once she chewed it so bad that it got an infection. In both of the pictures, I could see that’s what she was doing.

Harley:Lots of people chew on their cuticles. It’s a pretty common anxiety tic.

Lizzie:When you know someone most of their life, you know things about them—like I knew the shape of her head, even the color of her hoodie, that sky-blue. That was always her favorite color.

Harley:But her own family doesn’t think it was her.

Lizzie:Let me ask you something. Who knows you better? Your family—or your friends?

Harley:I take your point. So what are you saying?

Lizzie:I’m saying that the girl Chloe was before her mom died would never hurt anyone. She was good, sweet, goofy, open-hearted. But the girl she was after? I could see her doing something like this. The teacher, the one she was sleeping with, who got fired, he claimed that she was blackmailing him. That she turned him in only because he refused to keep paying her.

Harley:But…do we believe a pedophile? I mean, he was having a relationship with a sixteen-year-old girl. He’s lucky he didn’t go to jail.

Lizzie:He was twenty-three, and she was very mature. And honestly, any one of us would have slept with Mr. Pine.

Harley:Still.

Lizzie:You know that saying? Hurt people hurt people? I think she became someone who liked to cause pain. Because she was in so much pain. I don’t think she cares who she hurts as long as she gets what she wants.

Harley:Okay. Say that’s true. What does she gain by staging her own disappearance?

Lizzie:What does anyone gain by hurting people? Who knows what she wants or what the agenda is? All eyes on Chloe, right, for like a year? Her whole family rallied around finding her. Endless speculation about what happened to her. Major damage to Maverick Dillan and Extreme. A podcast. Her Photogram and WeWatch channels, even though she hasn’t posted a thing, have doubled in followers.

Harley:I’m still not following. So, you think Chloe used the Extreme Challenge to stage her disappearance—to get attention? To gain more followers?

Lizzie:Or something. She used it for something. And we won’t know what it is until she’s ready to show us.

39

ANGELINE

Angeline. Angeline.

Wake up.

Pain. Her head, her back. Her arms.

“Angeline.”