But now I don’t want to leave the bathroom. I hate how twisted and uneven I am, how I have to lean hard on my cane with every step.
“Soph, if you don’t open this door in the next five seconds, I’ll break it down. I swear I will.” Mina knocks harder.
“You couldn’t,” I say, but I smile at the thought of her, five-foot-two, a hundred pounds soaking wet, trying.
“I can! Or I’ll go get Trev—I bet he could break it down.”
“Don’t you dare get Trev.” Every time I’m alone with him, he wants to apologize—to fix me.
I can almost see her triumphant expression through the door. “I will! I’ll go get him right now.” I hear exaggerated footsteps—Mina stomping in place outside the door. I can see the shadow of her feet.
I toss the tube of foundation into my makeup bag and wash my hands off. The elaborate curls that Mina coaxed into my hair skim my bare shoulders. “I’ll be out in a second.” I tug the neck of my dress higher. The red silk is pretty—it makes my skin look milky instead of sickly pale—but Mom had to take it to a tailor to get lace added to the deep V neckline so it would cover the worst of the scarring.
It’d taken forever to find something with sleeves. We must have tried on at least fifty dresses, sharing the same fitting room as my mom waited outside. Mina had fussed with me, helping me step in and out of the heaps of tulle and satin. She’d grabbed my hand and steadied me, and when she’d let go (holding on a second too long, my skin against hers, half-dressed in the tiny room), she’d blushed and stammered when I asked her if she was all right.
My leg is killing me. I’d left my cane in the bedroom, and I need it now, even though I don’t want to look at it.
I take the orange bottle out of the beaded clutch that Mina had insisted I buy along with the dress. I shake out two pills.
She knocks again. “Come on, Sophie!”
Make that three. I down them with water from the tap, tucking the bottle away.
I open the door, and red silk swishes against my legs, a foreign, almost pleasant feeling floating above the mess of scars.
Mina beams. “Look at you.” She’s already dressed, wrapped and draped in silver fabric, all shimmer and tanned skin. Mrs. Bishop is going to freak when she sees how low her Grecian-style dress is cut. “I was right—the red is perfect.”
She spins around. Her curly hair is looped up in a headband of silver leaves, little tendrils falling over her bare shoulders as she rummages around in the blankets on her bed. She grabs something, hiding it behind her. “I have a surprise!” She’s practically vibrating in her eagerness.
“What is it?” I ask, playing along because she’s so happy. I always want her to be happy.
She holds it out triumphantly.
The cane she’s clutching is painted scarlet to match my dress. Mina has glued red and white crystals all along it. They twinkle and catch the light. Velvet ribbons stream from the handle, spirals of silver and red, twisting and swinging in the air.
“You tricked out my cane.” I reach for it, and my smile is so wide, I feel like it’s going to split my face in two. I press my hand against my mouth, like I need to hide it, hold it in, and I do, because the tears are there, down my face, probably messing up all my makeup. I don’t care, because she does something that no one else can: she makes my life pretty and good and full of sparkles and velvet, and I love her so much in that moment that I can’t contain it.
So I say it because I mean it. Because I have to, there is no choice, standing there with her: “I love you.”
It’s there, just for a second. I see the flicker in her eyes, and she does so well to cover it, but I see it, before she hugs me and whispers against my ear, “I love you more.”
27
NOW (JUNE)
Rachel leaves for her dad’s, promising to call me as soon as she gets the thumb drive open. I start my morning yoga practice, but I pushed myself too much yesterday. After my knee buckles for the fourth time in warrior pose, I roll up my mat and put it away.
It’s important to know when you’re beat.
My jeans are still on the floor where I tossed them last night, and when I pick them up, the envelope the thumb drive had been in falls out of the pocket.
There’s a piece of notebook paper folded inside that I hadn’t noticed last night. I unfold it and see unfamiliar handwriting:
Please, babe, just answer the phone. We have to talk about this. All I want to do is talk. I promise. Just answer the phone. If you keep ignoring me you’re not going to like what happens.
I turn the note over, but it’s not signed.
It doesn’t matter. It has to be from Kyle.
If you keep ignoring me you’re not going to like what happens. I read the sentence over and over again, stuck on it, like it’s on an endless loop in my head.
“Sophie?”
I look up from the paper in my hand. Dad’s standing in my doorway, frowning.
“Sorry. Yeah?”
“I was just saying I’m heading out,” he says. “I’ve got an early lunch with Rob. Your mom already left. Sweetie, are you okay? You look pale. I could cancel—”
“I’m fine,” I say, but my ears are ringing. Already, I’m cycling through the possible places Kyle would be right now. “I just pushed myself too much. My knee hurts.”
“Do you want some ice?”
“I’ll get it,” I say. “You don’t have to cancel, Dad. Go to lunch. Say hi to Coach for me.” I need Dad out of the house. I have to find Kyle. Where would he be right now? At home?
“Okay,” Dad says. “You’ll call me if it gets bad?”
I smile, which he seems to take as a yes.
I wait, Kyle’s note crumpled in my fist, until Dad drives off in his sedan. Then I pick up my phone and punch in Adam’s number. I pace across the room as it rings.
When he finally picks up, I can hear laughter and barking dogs in the background. “Hello?”
“Adam, hi. It’s Sophie.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“I was wondering if you knew where Kyle’d be right now,” I say. “I found a necklace of Mina’s that I think he gave her. I wanted to give it to him to make up for being such a bitch last week. I wasn’t sure where or when he was working this summer.”
“Yeah, he’s probably at work,” Adam says, and someone says his name, followed by more male laughter. “Wait a second, guys,” he calls. “Sorry, Soph. He’s at his dad’s restaurant, not the diner, the seafood place out on Main…the Lighthouse.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Adam says. “Hey, give me a call next week. The team’s having our bonfire out at the lake. We’ll hang out.”
“Sure,” I say, not taking it seriously. “I’ve got to go. Thanks again.”
I drive too fast, gunning it as the yellow lights switch to red, barely pausing at stop signs, careening around corners. Our downtown isn’t much because our town isn’t much. The good and bad parts are kind of squished together, the courthouse and the jail a block apart, the liquor store kitty-corner to the Methodist church. A handful of restaurants, a diner tucked across the railroad tracks, and a few pay-by-the-week motels that are a breeding ground for trouble. I slow down only when I see the Capri M-tel, the blue-and-pink neon sign with the missing O.
The Lighthouse is right next to it, so I park quickly and bang through the doors, not caring if I’m drawing attention. Kyle is leaning on the counter, watching the basketball game on the flat-screen on the far wall.
The restaurant is almost empty, just a few tables full. I march past them and up to Kyle as his mouth tightens.