The Cipher by John C. Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

she shouldn’t act when she wasn’t thinking right, but she couldn’t stop herself. She rapped loudly on Smiles’s door, welcoming the pain that broke across her knuckles.
    Smiles pulled the door open and retreated back inside, but Melanie didn’t follow.
    â€œIt’s
over
,” was all she said before slamming the door shut and walking away, bloated and sick.

19
    DID I JUST
do that?
    Yes, I just did that
.
    The Camry’s tires throbbed over the cobblestone drive. Melanie got out and wafted toward the house, feeling like someone had filled her with helium.
    She lived with her parents in an embarrassingly nice Tudor home, which hardly stood out in the candy-land opulence of Weston, the town motto of which should have been “Jealous?”
    This was all wrong. Melanie had always imagined breaking up with a guy as a triumphant, girl-power moment. The way it sounded in pop anthems. Even if it wasn’t like that—even if she didn’t get over it right away—she would have three girlfriends close at her side, and they would heal their troubles together through the power of, like, sweet-potato pies, or the wisdom of Jane Austen, or maybe a magical bra. The fat and/or slutty one would keep them in stitches the whole time, and everything would be right.
    Apparently not.
    Melanie was happy to see the lights off and no sign of her dad’s car. They must have had a thing tonight. Her parents always had a thing—an opera, a benefit, a gallery opening.
    A stone path led to their front door with its black iron hinges and tendrils of ivy. Melanie trudged up the stairs and sunk onto her bed without turning on a single light. She had logged a lot of hours like this in the last couple of years: facedown on her floppy white comforter, lights off, doubting herself. But this was worse than fretting over a volleyball game or chemistry test; this was Smiles. They had known each other forever. Their fathers were best friends. Their lives were wrapped around each other like the roots of an elm.
    Melanie couldn’t fight it off anymore—a nauseating feeling that she had pushed things too far. She didn’t know what it was like to have a mother who left you. She had basically forced Smiles to make that call. And he had done it, which must have been scary as hell, and when it was over he had held her hand softly. Like the kiss he had given her by the fish tank. Melanie couldn’t replay their argument too clearly—it was still a thick brew of feelings—but now she was getting the impression that she had riddled him with questions.
    Why hadn’t she given him a little space? All this stuff about Alice—it must have felt like a threat to Rose, who had been such a good mom to him before dying in that terrible accident.
    Melanie had loved Rose, too, and she loved even more the stories that Smiles would tell about her. How she taught him to make daiquiris (virgin for him, double rum for her) in the summer when he was little. How, when he was even smaller, she would let him work the ATM like a video game. Her password was RSJR (i.e., Robbie Smylie Junior), and Melanie went heartbroken all over at the thought of Smiles’s stubby infant fingers pressing the code, his hands clapping when the money came out. Rose had programmed that same password into their home security system, and—
    Melanie bolted upright.
    No
.
    I couldn’t do that
.
    Would it even work after a person died?
    Rose had sent Alice an email about her mystery letter . . .
    If Melanie could access Rose’s email account, she could see it. And then Melanie would know what all of this was about.
    Without thinking, Melanie turned on her bedroom light and fired up her Mac.
    She was hoping that Rose’s email account would still be active (she’d been dead for almost a year now, but how would an email service know that?), and she couldn’t be positive she’d used the RSJR password for