Mina helps me down the tricky stretch to the little beach. We strip down to our underwear, and there is nothing self-conscious about her when she tosses her shirt onto the rocks. I follow suit, slower, more carefully. Mina walks into the lake, waiting until she’s hip-deep before slipping under. She comes up with a splash, her dark hair flying everywhere as she beams at me in the moonlight.
The water is cold—almost too cold—against my skin, and goose bumps prickle on my arms as I wade in after her. My toes dig into the muddy bottom for better traction, but once I get deep enough, I can lift my feet and let the water buoy me back and forth, weightless, almost painless.
Mina floats on her back, staring up at the sky. “I heard something today,” she says.
“Hmm?” I float next to her, letting the water support my body.
“Amber said she saw Cody buying condoms at the drugstore last week.”
I reach my arms above my head, pushing through the water, away from her.
I’m not fast enough. She jerks forward, off her back, splashing everywhere as she treads water, facing me. “You didn’t!” When I don’t say anything or look at her, she says, “Oh my God, you did.”
“So what if I did?” I ask, and it comes out way more defensive than I intend. Cody and I had been dating for months; it had seemed like the thing to do. I just didn’t want to tell anyone afterward.
She should know how good I am at pretending. It’s all we do. It’s all I do. I pretend that I don’t hurt, that I want Cody, that I don’t want her, that I’m not taking too many pills, that my virginity had been important.
It hadn’t been. It only means something when it’s with the right person. And I couldn’t have her.
“I can’t b-believe…” Mina stutters. “Oh my God.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I mumble.
“Yes it is!” She says it so quickly, and I can hear the catch in her voice.
Like she’s about to cry.
“Mina.” I start to swim over to her, but she turns from me, dives deep. She glides under the water, and when she surfaces I can’t tell if it’s tears or lake water dripping down her face.
We never talk about it again.
A week later, Mina and I are at a party at Amber’s when Amber waylays me, walking across the crowded deck with a self-satisfied smile on her face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demands, twirling her sun-streaked hair around her finger. We’re outside. Amber’s house is next to the river, and I’ve been zoning out, staring at the ducks riding the current downstream.
“What?”
“You mean Mina didn’t tell you?” Amber’s eyes widen. “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything.…”
“Amber, out with it,” I snap. I can be a bitch when I need to be. And no matter how much Amber would like it to be her, I’m Mina’s best friend.
“Mina’s totally sleeping with Jason Kemp.”
“What?” I can feel blood drain from my face. I have to tighten my hold on my cup so I don’t drop it.
I look for Mina immediately, instinctively. When our eyes meet across the deck, I understand: she planned it, she wanted it this way, she’d just been waiting for me to find out—and I hate her for it.
It’s the most vicious thing she’s ever done to me, but really, how can I blame her?
Two weeks after that, two weeks of her hanging off Jason’s neck, of them making out everywhere, of that gleam in her eye, the way she’s pushing at me, punishing me, I finally can’t handle it anymore. I’m sobbing as I crush the pills.
I’ve been on the edge of this for months, gulping down too many, numbing myself to the pain. Numbing myself to her. This is the inevitable next step down, the evolution of my fall.
It’s like a roller coaster, the dip and slide searing through me, going straight to my head. The buzz—fleeting, but oh so good—floods me, and I’m reaching for more before it vanishes completely. Anything to erase her from me.
But some marks, they don’t fade. No matter what.
31
NOW (JUNE)
When I get home, I stare at the evidence board on my mattress because I can’t think about anything else. I take Kyle’s picture down, rip it in half, and toss it on the floor, barely resisting the urge to stomp on it a few times.
“Sophie?” My mom knocks on my door. “Your dad said your knee was hurting. I came home to check on you.”
“Just a second.” I scramble to push my mattress down. My sheets are in a tangle on the floor, and I don’t have time to do anything but pile them on the bed, shoving Kyle’s torn picture under my pillow and throwing myself on top of the mess. “Come in.”
She frowns when she sees me, flushed and guilty-looking. Knowing Mom, she probably has a numbered list of things to watch out for when it comes to her junkie daughter.
“What are you hiding?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Sophie.”
I sigh, reach next to my bed, and grab the shoe box stashed underneath my nightstand. I flip it open, spill the contents onto the comforter. Photos spread everywhere. “I was looking at pictures.”
My mom’s face softens, and she picks up a photo, one of me and Mina, our arms wrapped around each other, neon-green swim caps clashing horribly with our pink tie-dyed racing suits. “This was before your growth spurt,” she says.
I take the photo from her, trying to remember when it was taken; some sunny day during swim practice. Mina’s missing a front tooth, which means we must’ve been about ten. She’d pitched headfirst off her bike that summer, racing me. Trev had run all the way home with her in his arms, and later I found him checking her bike to make sure it was safe.
“That was before a lot of things,” I say. I put the photo back into the box, grabbing up others, shoving them out of sight.
“I want to talk to you.” Mom sits down on the edge of my bed, and I keep on putting the photos away to give myself something to do. I pause at the photo of Trev and me, standing on the deck of his boat, sticking our tongues out. There’s a pink blur on the side of the photo: the edge of Mina’s finger, obscuring the lens.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did about your college essay,” Mom continues. “I’m sorry. You should be able to write about anything you’d like.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
She takes another photo, this one of me, fat and happy in the lap of Aunt Macy. “You know,” she says quietly, “my mother died of an overdose.”
I look up, and I’m so surprised she’s brought it up that I drop the stack of photos. “I know,” I say, bending over quickly to pick them up, grateful I won’t have to look at her right away.
Mom rarely talks about my grandmother. My grandpa lives on fifty acres of wilderness, in a house he built with his own hands. After the crash, he’d clapped his hand (a little too hard) on my shoulder and said, “You’ll get through this.”
It’d been almost an order, but I’d felt comforted by it, like it was a promise at the same time.
“I was the one who found her,” Mom says. “I was fifteen. It was one of the worst moments of my life. When your father searched your room…when I realized that you could’ve followed her down that path…when I realized that someday I might walk into your room and you wouldn’t be breathing…I knew I’d failed you.”
It’s unimaginable, the words coming out of her mouth. She had failed me, but only after I’d recovered. She’d refused to see the changes in me, the things I’d overcome and accepted about myself—the ones she never could. She’d stood there, stone-faced to my begging and tears, my heart still a fresh wound pouring out grief and shock, and she’d seen it all as guilt and lies.