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“You know what my father said about you?” Nora said to Ryan later that night.
Nora’s father is head of litigation at Arnold & Porter’s D.C. office, a legit big shot.
“What? That I ordered too much food. I’m six-four and I—”
“He said you’ll make a great lawyer someday.”
“Why do I sense a but coming?”
“He said you’ll be a great lawyer if you can get out of your own way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nora never answered.
Ryan looks at Ali’s profile—Sophia’s profile—in the glow of the streetlamps.
He decides to say it: “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
It hangs in the humid air.
“Tell you what?” she replies. She doesn’t look at him. But she knows what he means. They dated for four years, nearly all of high school, yet she’d never trusted him enough to tell him about her past. Tell him her real name. That they were in hiding.
That’s confirmed when she says, “I liked Alison better.”
It’s unusual to hear her talk about herself in the third person.
“What do you mean?”
“Taylor…” She pauses. “Taylor wasn’t a good person.”
“You were only in ninth grade when I met you. You were a good person.”
“You don’t understand.” And that’s when she tells him. About a boy named Anthony O’Leary. A boy whom her friends ruthlessly bullied. A boy who couldn’t take it anymore. A boy who killed himself after a cruel prank. A boy whose father is a mobster who had her friends killed one by one.
“When I became Alison, I swore I’d be the best me.” A single tear runs down her face. He wants to brush it away, but he doesn’t. “I wanted to be assertive, take-charge, confident.”
“Mission accomplished,” he says with a smile. But his attempt at levity fails.
“I didn’t want you to know the ugly me, so I buried Taylor Harper.”
Ryan thinks about this. “You went through something traumatic. And you’re being too hard on yourself. You were a kid.”
More tears. “I lured Anthony O’Leary to the party. I’m the one who told him my friend liked him. I’m the one who led him to that room where they were waiting for him.”
Ryan reaches across the table for her hand, but she pulls it away.
“You didn’t know they were going to do that to him,” Ryan says, “didn’t know they—”
“But I did. Taylor did.”
For some reason, Ryan’s mind flashes to the viral video of Ali, taking down those bullies who were tormenting the kid at their school. The fierceness, the bravery. It all makes sense.
He reaches for her hand again, grabs it before she pulls away.
“Look at me,” he says. She averts her eyes, but his remain fixed on her until she reluctantly returns his gaze.
“It’s time to forgive yourself.”