She turned to me. “He got that last one right.”
“So?” I was confused. “Maybe you were wrong. Maybe he was the one—”
“He got the color wrong. He got the food wrong. Don’t you see?”
Jared started to walk past us. “Look, I got a ferry to catch.”
I put my hand against his chest. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Jared Lowell looked down at my hand. “You serious?”
“Don’t move, Jared.”
“Who do you think—?”
“Don’t. Move.”
He heard the tone, raised his hands, and stayed where he was. Ema folded at the waist as though someone had punched her in the stomach. I hurried toward her. “Ema?”
“Don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
“His favorite place. It was someplace on this island.”
“So?”
“So if it wasn’t him, who else do we know who would know this island?”
Now I was the one who looked horror stricken. “No,” I said.
She nodded.
“It can’t be,” I said.
“But it has to be,” Ema said. “It was Buck. Buck was the one I met online.”
Chapter 39
Jared sat between Ema and me. His head was lowered in his hands.
“It started out as a prank,” he said. “I didn’t like the idea. I didn’t want to be part of it at all.”
He kept his head in his hands. Ema kept looking off, lost in thought, trying to put all the pieces together. She had been so sure that the feelings were real, and yet now she knew that it was a ruse by her longtime nemesis. It wasn’t computing for her.
“So you know Buck,” I said.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He’s my cousin. Our moms are sisters. They both grew up on this island. When Aunt Ina met Uncle Boris, she moved to Kasselton. My family stayed here. Buck and I spent every summer together on this island. After the divorce, Aunt Ina moved back here.”
I couldn’t tell whether Ema was listening or not.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Buck knew that I almost never used my Facebook. I don’t like social media. So one day he asked me if he could use it to get revenge on someone. I didn’t like it, but he said some girl had made up a nickname for him, started to call him Mr. Pee Pee Pants.”
“Wee Wee Pants,” I corrected.
Ema shot me a look. I just shrugged back at her. The charge wasn’t really true. Buck had been picking on us, and Ema had countered with some line about Buck being called Mr. Wee Wee Pants. It had been nothing, really.
“Whatever. Buck said the nickname was sticking. Other kids were calling him that now. He said my profile would be perfect to use because Ema already had a crush on a tall basketball player.”
We sat there for a moment saying nothing. All three of us knew who Buck meant. No one bothered spelling out the obvious.
“See, Buck found out your mom was someone famous and so he went to that board and started communicating with you. I don’t know what he really hoped would happen. That you’d say embarrassing things or maybe he’d just make you fall in love with him and then cruelly dump you. I really don’t know what he intended.”
“But you just said it,” Ema said.
“Huh?”
A tear formed in her eye. “He made me fall for him and then he cruelly dumped me.”
Jared closed his eyes and let loose a long breath. “No, Ema, that’s not what happened.” He stood and started pacing. He rubbed his chin. “I don’t know how much more to say.”
“She’s owed the truth,” I said.
A sad smile came to Jared’s face. “If only it was that simple.”
“Just tell us.”
He stopped pacing. “It worked the other way around, I guess.”
“What do you mean?” Ema said.
“Buck fell for you.”
Ema looked at me. I had nothing to add to that.
“He fell and he fell hard. You have to understand. You really didn’t know Buck. I know, I know, but . . . It’s confusing. Buck loved it up here. On this island, he could be himself. He was relaxed and happy and really the kindest, sweetest guy.”
I tried to picture it, but the picture wouldn’t hold. “That’s not the guy we know.”
“That’s my point. Your town. Kasselton, right? Your town with all the popular kids and the sports and the pressure to succeed and get into the right colleges . . . it warped Buck. He couldn’t handle it. He always had to be something he wasn’t just to fit in.”
I thought about that. I thought about the pressure in that town, the type-A pushy parents, the yelling on the sidelines, the grade grubbing—and then add in for Buck the pressure of the successful brother and maybe losing his starting job.
Jared moved closer to Ema. “But with you,” he said, “Buck felt like he found himself. You were so real. You didn’t care what the other kids thought of you. He so envied that. When he was online with you, once he got over his own stupidity, he started to open up. He could be himself, pretending to be, well, me.”
There were tears in Ema’s eyes now. There were tears in Jared’s too.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Buck was a mess. He felt trapped, like he was being pulled in all these different directions. He was scared.”
“Of what?” Ema asked.
“Of everything. He wanted to tell you the truth, Ema. But he didn’t know how you’d react. He didn’t know if you’d hate him once you knew that he’d been lying to you this whole time or if you’d forgive him for the past. He thought you’d reject him once you knew.”
I flashed back to my recent conversation with Ema about Troy. I had told her that people change. She was the one who didn’t seem to believe it.
“But like I said,” Jared continued, “he felt trapped. It may sound like nothing now, but what would his friends say? Wouldn’t they all dump on him if he told them he’d fallen in love with you? I know that sounds silly, but these guys had been his whole life. He couldn’t just turn his back on that either.”
“So,” Ema said, “he chickened out.”
Jared said nothing.
“That’s it, right?”
“The ferry is about to leave,” Jared said. “I have to go.”
“Where’s Buck?” I asked.