by Tess Sharpe
My phone trills, and Mina picks it up, turning the alarm off. “Pill time?”
“Yeah. Hand me my case?”
She grabs it from my purse but doesn’t give it to me. She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, turning the case over and over, the pills clacking together inside.
“What?” I ask.
“Sophie.” That’s all she says. One word, but she can infuse it with such frustration, such worry.
We are experts in each other. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been dodging the inevitable confrontation, because if she asks me outright, she’ll know my answer’s a lie.
“I’m fine,” I say, with as much truth as I can muster. “I just need my pills.” My skin crawls under her scrutiny. I’m sure she can look right through me, see the drugs floating through my system.
I focus on the road.
She tilts the case back and forth in her hand. “I didn’t realize they still had you on so many.”
“Yeah, well, they do.” It’s like I’m on the edge of a cliff that’s crumbling, the ground beneath my feet breaking free, slipping from me. I keep glancing at the case in her hand. She’s not handing it over.
What am I going to do if she doesn’t?
“Maybe you should think about getting off them. Do a tapering thing or something. It’s been forever, and that stuff isn’t good for you.”
“I think my doctors would probably disagree.” I can’t keep the edge out of my voice, the warning. Won’t she just drop it already?
But she won’t. She hears the warning and breezes past it, because that’s the way Mina is.
“Seriously, Soph. You’ve been acting like…” She huffs out a breath. She won’t say it out loud. She’s afraid to. “I’m worried about you. And you won’t talk to me.”
“It’s nothing you’d understand.” She can’t. She came out of the accident with a broken arm and a few bruises. I’d come out with metal for bones and a dependence on pain pills that had morphed into a hunger I couldn’t—didn’t want to—ignore.
“Why don’t you try explaining it to me, then?”
“No,” I say. “Mina, drop it. Okay? Just give me my pills. The rest stop’s coming up.”
She chews on her lip. “Fine.” She tosses the case into my lap and folds her arms, staring out the window at the rows of bare trees that blur by faster as I press hard on the gas.
We drive the rest of the way in silence.
The party Trev takes us to later that night is crowded. The apartment’s too warm with bodies, the smell of beer mealy in the air. I lose Mina in the crowd about twenty minutes in, but we’ve barely spoken since we argued in the car, so it doesn’t really matter.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
The music’s awful, some top-forty hit blasting so loud it makes my head ache. I want nothing more than to get out of here, walk to Trev’s apartment, lie down on his couch, close my eyes, and fade out for a few hours.
I weave my way through the crowd, narrowly avoiding an ass grab by some frat boy wearing his baseball cap turned sideways. I sidestep him and slip out onto the empty balcony. Fishing a few pills out of my pocket, I down them with what’s left of my vodka.
It’s cold outside, but quieter, with the rumble of the crowd and the thump of the music muffled. Buzzed from the vodka, I press my elbows against the railing, waiting for the foggy feeling of the high to smooth all the sharp edges away.
The balcony door opens and closes. “There you are,” Trev says. “Mina’s looking for you.”
“It’s nice out here,” I say.
Trev walks up next to me and leans against the railing. “It’s freezing.” Taking off his coat, he drapes it over my shoulders. The smell of pine and wood glue curls around me.
“Thanks,” I say, but I don’t gather the edges of his coat against me. I can’t lose myself in him like I do with her.
“You two fighting?” Trev asks.
“A little.”
“You know, it’s easiest to forgive her for whatever she did. She’ll just bug you until you do.”
“Why do you think it’s her fault?”
Trev smiles. “Come on, Soph. It’s you. You don’t do anything wrong.”
I shiver, thinking about the extra drugs stashed all over my room. About the lines I snorted this morning before we drove here. About the pills I just took. About all the pills I pop, off schedule, like secret candy. “It’s not her fault. It’s nothing. It’ll be fine.”
I hug myself. The Oxy is starting to kick in, that numb, floaty feeling mixing with the buzz of the alcohol, and I nearly drop the cup.
Trev frowns and takes it from me, setting it on the ground. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, bringing you two. I don’t want to give your mom more reasons to hate me.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” I mutter, even though we both know it’s a token, that I’m lying. “And I can hold my own. Mina’s the bad drunk.”
“Oh, trust me, I know.” Trev’s easy smile unravels the tightness in my chest that’s been there since Mina confronted me in the car. He’s only trying to help; he doesn’t know.
He doesn’t see me the way Mina does.
I face him and lean back against the balcony railing. The movement makes his coat slip off my shoulders, and the light from the apartment illuminates my skin. I’m wearing a shirt cut so low you can see the edge of my scar if you’re at the right angle. I tug at the neckline automatically, but it’s useless. Trev’s eyes flicker down, turning serious and studying, blatantly staring.
His smile disappears and he closes the space between us in a step. His hand cups my shoulder, pulling me forward. I feel, rather than see, his coat puddle to the ground. The fabric hits the back of my legs on the way down, and I wish that I’d wrapped myself in it.
“Trev?” I question, and my voice wavers. I’ve mixed too many pills with vodka; this isn’t a good idea. He’s way too close.
“Soph.” His thumb presses over the line of the scar that cuts my chest in uneven halves, physical in a way he’s never, ever been with me. He has to be drunk—he’d never do this sober; he’s always so careful about touching me.
“God, Sophie.” He sucks his cheeks in, biting at them. “This is where…”
His hand flattens against me, covering the worst of it. His palm curves in the space between my breasts, his callused fingertips resting lightly on the scar, rising and falling with each breath I take.
My heart thuds, pounding beneath my skin, greedy for the contact.
“I don’t know why you forgave me,” he says, words thick with emotion and beer.
“I was the moron who didn’t put on my seat belt,” I say, like I’ve said every time he’s brought this up.
“I was so scared when you didn’t wake up,” Trev says. “I should’ve known better. Mina did. She kept saying you were too stubborn to leave us.”
He looks up, all that pain out in the open, and when I meet his gaze, his fingers twitch, like he wants to curl them, to drag them across my skin, make something beautiful out of the wreckage.
I know suddenly, surely, that if I don’t look away, he’s going to kiss me. It’s in the way he holds himself, the way he shifts from foot to foot and rubs the hem of my top between the fingers of his free hand like he’s trying to memorize the feel of it. It’s something intrinsically Trev: focused, honest, safe. It splits me in two: one part wants to kiss him—the other wants to run.
I almost wish he’d do it. It’s not like I haven’t wondered. Haven’t caught him looking at me.
It’s not like I don’t know how he feels about me.
But that last thought makes me look down. I step away, and for a second I’m afraid he won’t let go, but then he does; of course he does.
“I need some water,” I say, and
I hurry inside as a part of me, the honest part, breathes a sigh of relief.
23
NOW (JUNE)
The second I get home, I tear open the envelope I’d found hidden in Mina’s room. It’s lumpy in one corner, and I shake out a thumb drive just as Mom walks down the hall. One hand snaps over the drive—it’s shaped like a tiny purple Hello Kitty—and the other shoves the envelope into my back pocket.
Mom frowns. “What are you doing standing here in the hall?” she asks.
“Just putting my keys back.” I dig in my purse, dropping the thumb drive in it before coming up with my key chain. I smile at her while I hang it on the wall hook. “Something smells good.”
“I made roast chicken. Come sit down and eat.”
I follow her into the dining room, where Dad’s already waiting. Mom’s used the good china.
The envelope in my pocket crinkles as I walk up to the table. I want to get up to my room, barricade the door, and plug that drive into my laptop.
I have to choke back a sigh as my mother sits down. Why did they have to choose tonight for family togetherness?
I take my place on the left, my mother at one end, my father on the other.
“How did your appointment go?” Mom asks.
“Fine,” I say.
“Do you like Dr. Hughes?” Dad asks. I wonder if they’ve made some prearranged agreement to go back and forth with their questions.
“He’s okay.”
“I realize you’ve never had a male therapist,” Mom says. “If that’s a problem…”
“No,” I reply. “Dr. Hughes is fine. I like him. Really.” I take a bite of roast chicken, chewing it for an unnecessarily long time.
“We should talk about college soon,” Dad says. “Make a list of universities you’re interested in.”
I put my fork down, my appetite lost. I’d hoped to have a few more weeks before we got into this. After all, school doesn’t even start for two more months.
“You’re on track to start senior year in August,” Mom assures me, mistaking the look on my face.
I push my peas across my plate, afraid to swallow anything. There’s a lump in my throat the size of Texas. I don’t have time to think about this. I have to concentrate on finding Mina’s killer.
What’s on that thumb drive?
“And the independent study you completed at Seaside was all very good work; your teachers were impressed,” Mom continues, a rare smile on her face.
“I’m not worried about that,” I begin.
“Is it the applications? We can find some way to explain those months you spent away. And if you center your personal essay around the accident, and overcoming all that you had to just to walk again, I’m sure—”
“You want me to play the gimp card?” I cut in, and she flinches like I’ve slapped her.
“Don’t call yourself that!” she snaps.
I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Mom is the one who took the accident the hardest. Dad had driven me to physical therapy and done all the research on my surgeries. He’d carried me up and down the stairs that first month, and when I was still in the hospital, he’d read me a story every night, like I was still in second grade. He got to take care of me all over again just when I was supposed to be taking care of myself. And Dad is good at taking care of people.
Mom is good at fixing things, but she can’t fix me, and she can’t handle that.
“It’s the truth.” The words are harsh, aimed to shatter her ice-queen armor. Make her finally stop longing for the girl I was to return. “I am a gimp. And a junkie. And you think it’s partly my fault Mina got shot, so I guess we should add accidental killer to that list, too. Hey, maybe I can write my personal essay on that.”
She goes red, then white, and then almost purple. I’m fascinated, arrested by her anger as the expression in her eyes melts from concerned to enraged. Even my father puts down his fork and rests his hand on her arm, like he’s wondering if he’s going to need to stop her from lunging at me across the table.
“Sophie Grace, you will show respect in this house,” she finally spits out. “To me, to your father and, most importantly, to yourself.”
I toss my napkin onto my plate. “I’m done.” I push myself up, but my leg shakes and I have to hold on to the table for longer than I’d like. Limping, I make my way out of the dining room. I can feel her watching me, the way her gaze absorbs each uneven step, each moment of clumsiness.
When I get upstairs, I almost drop my bag, I’m in such a hurry to get at the thumb drive. I grab it, flip open my laptop, and plug the drive into the port, tapping my fingers against my desk.
The folder appears on my desktop, and I double-click it, my heart thumping in my ears.
The alert Enter Password flashes on-screen. I type in her birthday first. Next I try Trev’s, then mine, then her dad’s, but no use. I try names of old pets, even the turtle she got when we were in third grade that died the week she brought it home, but nothing works. For over an hour, I type in every word I can think of, but none of them will open the drive.
Frustrated, I get up, passing by my dresser, where I’ve set Mina’s ring next to mine. I pick it up, tilting it, the word winking at me in the lamplight.
I whirl back around, suddenly hopeful, type forever into the dialog box, and press Enter.
Incorrect Password.
Bottled-up anger, twined with the lingering hurt of my mother’s words, floods through me. “Goddammit, Mina,” I mutter. I throw the ring, hard. It bounces off the wall and onto the carpet near my bed.
Almost as soon as it falls, I’m on my knees, wincing at the pain, but scrambling to scoop it up. My hands shake as I slip it on.
They don’t stop until I go over to my dresser and the second ring—mine—joins hers on my thumb.
24
A YEAR AND A HALF AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)
After the party, I’m drunk and still high, lying on the floor of Trev’s living room next to Mina, each of us tucked into a sleeping bag. I can hear his roommates’ snores all the way down the hall.
The floor is hard, with thin carpet that has mysterious stains I don’t want to think about, in this apartment full of boys. I’m restless, shifting back and forth, staring at the beer caps pressed into the ceiling. My eyes are heavy, but I don’t let them shut.
Mina’s awake, but she’s pretending not to be. She can’t fool me; years of sleepovers have taught me when she’s faking.
“I know you’re awake.”
“Go to sleep” is all she says. She doesn’t open her eyes, doesn’t even change that annoying exaggerated slow-breathing thing she’s doing.
“You still mad?”
“C’mon, Soph, I’m tired.”
I play with the zipper on my sleeping bag, jerking it up and down, waiting for her to answer me, knowing she might not.
“Is your back okay?” Her eyes pop open in concern as she breaks her self-imposed silence.
“I’ll be fine.”
I won’t, though. I’ll wake up stiff tomorrow. My good leg will be numb, but the bad one will ache like a bitch where the scar tissue is tight in my knee.
I should take another pill. I deserve it.
“Here, have my pillow.” She leans over and tucks it underneath my head. “Better?”
“You haven’t answered my question,” I remind her.
Mina sighs. “I’m not mad at you,” she says. “I already told you, I’m worried.”
“You don’t need to be,” I insist.
It’s the wrong thing to say. I can see real fear in her. It bothers me more than I’d like to admit, makes me want to hide, to numb myself further from this, from her.
“Yes I do,” she hisses, sitting up, half out of her sleeping bag. She grabs
my arm, pulling at me until I do the same. Then she’s leaning into my space so fast that I’m startled into letting her.
“You’re taking too many pills. You’re hurting yourself.” She swallows and seems to realize, suddenly, how close we are. Her fingers flex around my arm, tightening and loosening, then tightening again.
“Sophie, please,” she says, and I can’t tell what she’s asking here. She’s too close; I can smell the vanilla lotion she rubbed into her hands before we went to bed. “Please,” she says again, and my breath catches, because there’s no denying what she’s asking for now.
Her eyes flicker down to my mouth, she’s pulling me toward her, and I’m breathless, so caught in the anticipation, in the oh my God, this is actually happening feeling that spikes through me, that I don’t hear the footsteps until it’s almost too late.
But Mina does, and she jerks away before Trev comes down the hall. “You two still awake?” He yawns, walking into the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.
“We were just going to sleep,” Mina says hastily, lying back down.
She won’t look at me, and I can feel my cheeks redden. My entire body’s gone hot and heavy, and I want to squirm deeper into my sleeping bag and press my legs together tightly.
“Night,” Trev says. He leaves the kitchen light on so Mina doesn’t have to be in the dark.
Mina doesn’t say anything. She settles in her sleeping bag next to me and tucks one hand under her head. For one long moment, we stare at each other.
I’m afraid to move. To speak.
Then Mina smiles, just for me, small and real and on the edge of wistful, and her other hand slips into mine as she closes her eyes. Her silver rings, warmed from her skin, are smooth against my fingers. The scent of vanilla swirls around me, making blood rush beneath my skin, and the hot pull inside my stomach twists and revels in the contact.
When I wake the next morning, our fingers are still tangled together.
25
NOW (JUNE)
“Thanks for coming.” I step aside to let Rachel into the house.