LITMIR.BIZ

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people pulled things from the pile as she walked up—one from two years ago and one from just a few weeks before Kimberlee drowned. It was exciting to watch all the happy faces around me, and I tried not to be too obvious as I turned to watch Sera find her bag.

      She sat staring at her skirt and shoes for a long time with no expression on her face at all while everyone else started digging into their food. Finally, when the din at the table settled, Sera said, “This is too creepy.”

      “Why?” I tried to ask casually. “Someone’s conscience got to ’em.”

      Sera shook her head. “No. I know who stole these and she didn’t have a conscience at all.” She addressed the whole table again. “You all remember Kimberlee.” It wasn’t a question.

      Wilson snorted. “Who could forget that beyotch?”

      I stared straight ahead, not daring to look at Kimberlee. She told me she hadn’t gotten caught, so how did Sera know?

      “She stole these,” Sera said. “I saw her do it. But she never would ’fess.”

      I tried to look as clueless as possible. “Kimberlee who?”

      “Schaffer,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Before your time.”

      “So, she reformed and gave you your stuff back?” I hoped it sounded like a natural—and uninformed—theory.

      “Dude, she’s dead,” Wilson said.

      “And good riddance,” Sera muttered into her pasta.

      I stared at Sera in shock. This was not the reaction I’d expected. Sure, she could be annoying as hell, but I figured it was just because I wasn’t one of her friends. Hadn’t Kimberlee told me how wonderful her life was? How popular she was? Open dislike was hardly the way someone as popular as Kimberlee claimed to be should be treated.

      Especially a dead someone.

      I chanced a look around. Kimberlee was nowhere to be seen.

      She didn’t show up again until I got into my car after school. And even then she slid silently into her place.

      “Hey.”

      “Let’s just go to the cave,” she replied shortly.

      We made it to the beach, and I filled my backpack with bags for Monday and started packing two boxes to set me up for the rest of the week before she spoke again. “I probably shouldn’t have taken all this stuff,” she said, her admission echoing in the cave.

      I paused for a moment, then resumed yanking on my backpack zipper. “It’s not really a ‘probably’ thing. You said you had everything. Why wasn’t that enough?”

      She sat on a box and stared at the ground. “I tried not to, but I couldn’t stop. You don’t know what it’s like. What if I asked you to stop breathing, or eating—could you?”

      “But it’s not breathing or eating, Kimberlee. It’s stealing.”

      “Don’t you think I know that?” she snapped. “Don’t you think that every time I came up here with more stuff to file away I hated myself for it?”

      “Could have fooled me,” I said, gesturing to the masses of boxes surrounding us.

      She looked at me for a long time; not glaring, just studying me until I started to feel uncomfortable. “You think being a klepto means I like to steal stuff? I don’t. I hate stealing. I hate stealing more than anything in the entire world.”

      “Then why didn’t you stop?”

      “I couldn’t. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true. I tried so hard. I went, like, four months one time. Then one day, I was walking behind this lady at the mall, and she had this stupid little fluffy keychain on the strap of her purse. And I wanted it so badly I couldn’t think about anything else. I walked away. I went and sat on the water fountain and tried to think of anything except the keychain. And I started to shake. My whole body was, like, having convulsions. I was seriously afraid I was going to die if I didn’t find that woman and take her keychain.” She stared down at the ground, something that looked eerily like shame filling her face.

      “So what happened?” I asked quietly.

      “I found her and took the keychain,” she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And I’ve never felt so good and so bad at the same time. I got this amazing high like I could conquer the world. But that was the moment that I knew I would never, ever conquer stealing.” She shrugged dejectedly. “I kinda gave up after that. There didn’t seem to be any point. I guess dying was the only way to stop.”

      “I’m sorry.” But it felt like a stupid thing to say.

      She shrugged. “My own fault for swimming out into that riptide.”

      “We all make mistakes.”

      “We don’t all die from them.”

      “No, but some of us end up being miserable for the rest of our lives.” I paused for a moment, considering that. “Maybe that’s worse.”

      “As opposed to being miserable for the rest of your afterlife?”

      Something in her voice made me feel sorry for her, and it wasn’t a feeling I wanted to have. I needed to stay rational and in control here. Kimberlee was a veritable emotional steamroller and I was constantly in danger of getting myself flattened. I sat down beside her, but not close enough to touch. The cold, creepy feeling still freaked me out. “But it might not last too much longer. You return everything and apologize and you’ll be out of here . . . to . . . wherever.”

      “It’ll be a good place, won’t it?” Kimberlee said, starting to smile now.

      A little.

      But I was so the wrong person to ask.

      When in doubt, lie. “Absolutely,” I said, without meeting her eyes.

      “WAKE UP, LAZY ASS!” KIMBERLEE shouted at about two-hours-before-rational-time o’clock the next morning. “It’s Harrison Hill day!”

      “Sure,” I said, grabbing a pillow and dropping it on top of my head. “And in case you didn’t hear right, I’m going at ten o’clock p.m.”

      “Duh. We have to go shopping now and get you something decent to wear.”

      That cheered me up like a kick to the head. “Shopping? Uh, no.”

      “Dude, I’ve seen what’s in your closet. Old tees and faded jeans. And Converse? Please!”

      “Vintage,” I corrected her, defending my eclectic collection of shirts I’d very carefully selected from some of Phoenix’s finest thrift stores.

      “Whatever. Not good enough for Harrison Hill. When you go to a school with uniforms, you make the most of any chance to actually show off your taste. This party will be a full-on fashion show and your clothes will totes stick out. And not in the good way.”

      “I never stood out in Phoenix,” I grumbled, smooshing my face back into the pillow.

      “This is not Phoenix.”

      I mumbled something incoherent into my pillow.

      She sat down on the bed, almost touching me, and I cringed. “This is your first chance to make a real impression on the social scene. You want to do it right.”

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