Page 46 of We Were Liars

DAYS THAT FOLLOW are darker. Rarely do the Liars want to go anywhere.

Mirren has a sore throat and body aches.

She stays mainly in Cuddledown. She paints pictures to hang in the hallways and makes rows of shells along the edges of the countertops.

Dishes pile in the sink and on the coffee table.

DVDs and books are in messy stacks all over the great room.

The beds lie unmade and the bathrooms have a damp, mildewy smell.

Johnny eats cheese with his fingers and watches British TV comedies. One day he collects a row of old tea bags, soggy ones, and tosses them into a mug filled with orange juice.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Biggest splash gets the most points.”

“But why?”

“My mind works in mysterious ways,” says Johnny. “I find underhand is generally the best technique.”

I help him figure out a point system. Five points for a sprinkle, ten for a puddle, twenty for a decorative pattern on the wall behind the mug.

We go through a whole bottle of fresh-squeezed juice. When he’s done, Johnny leaves the mug and the mangled, leaking tea bags where they lie.

I don’t clean up, either.

Gat has a list of the hundred greatest novels ever written, and he’s pushing his way through whatever he’s been able to find on the island.

He marks them with sticky notes and reads passages aloud.

Invisible Man. A Passage to India. The Magnificent Ambersons .

I only half pay attention when he reads, because Gat has not kissed me or reached out to me since we agreed to act normal.

I think he avoids being alone with me.

I avoid being alone with him, too, because my whole body sings to be near him, because every movement he makes is charged with electricity.

I often think of putting my arms around him or running my fingers along his lips.

When I let my thoughts go there—if for a moment Johnny and Mirren are out of sight, if for even a second we are alone—the sharp pain of unrequited love invites the migraine in.

These days she is a gnarled crone, touching the raw flesh of my brain with her cruel fingernails. She pokes my exposed nerves, exploring whether she’ll take up residence in my skull. If she gets in, I’m confined to my bedroom for a day or maybe two.

We eat lunch on the roof most days.

I suppose they do it when I’m ill, too.

Every now and then a bottle rolls off the roof and the glass smashes. In fact, there are shards and shards of splintered glass, sticky with lemonade, all over the porch.

Flies buzz around, attracted by the sugar.