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  “Jesus.”

  “Yep, Jesus definitely heard you too.”

  I rolled my eyes before bringing them back to hers.

  She stared at me. It was rich in you better just go ahead and tell me because I’m not going anywhere until you do.

  “Ugh, fine,” I conceded, letting my voice growl at the end of my first word.

  “Thank God. I really didn’t want to put in the work to making you confess.”

  “You’re a pain in my—”

  “Careful. Attribute too many pains to your ass and that thing’ll get so big it curls around and smothers you.”

  “What?”

  “Just get on with it.”

  “He doesn’t want me to be his friend anymore. I’m,” I lifted my fingers into air quotes for emphasis, “too good for him.”

  “And what’d you say?”

  “That it was too bad. I was gonna be his friend anyway. Actually, I’m pretty sure I told him I was going to shove myself down his throat.”

  “Ooo,” she said while pretending to fan herself. “Saucy.”

  “Gram!”

  “What? You need to live a little. It’d really do you some good.”

  “Whatever. So I’m boring. Out with the advice. I know you’ve got it.”

  “Damn right I do,” she agreed arranging the dainty purple covers around herself.

  “So tell me!” I snapped.

  Her restless limbs settled, the energy they’d been using focused now on me. “NeeNee, a man who really wants to stop being your friend, just stops being your friend. He doesn’t come talk to you about it, in the dark of night, and then force you to walk away from him.”

  I stared at her.

  “You just keep on shoving yourself down his throat, and then, you know, really shove yourself down his throat.”

  “He’s still with Franny, you loon.”

  “Right, right. Franny,” she mumbled, not actually saying anything other than her name.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she offered. “Just pondering what it must be like to have a moral compass.”

  “How is it that you’re the person I come to with problems? You’re the person from whom I take advice?” I questioned to the room at large, but we both knew I was talking about her.

  “Why not?” Gram supplied easily, taking a candy bar out from behind my lavender pillowcase. “I’m brilliant.”

  NOTHING ABOUT THE LAST MONTH and a half had been easy. School had felt lonely, despite my attempts to stay mired in both Franny and Blane’s lives.

  He acted normal on the outside, greeting me like always, but I knew it was for Franny’s benefit.

  She was acting happier—not happy, by any stretch of the imagination, but happier—and when I greeted Blane, if he just ignored me or maybe even shot me the finger or a look of disdain, I doubted she would like it.

  And Blane knew that. So he didn’t. He said hello when I said it, he forced a smile when I smiled.

  But still, his eyes were dead. When they pointed at me, he made sure they glazed over, and I felt the difference of him looking straight through me.

  I tried to be sarcastic. I tried to pull his banter from within. But none of it worked.

  So I’d carried on. Sitting with them at lunch, saying all the right things, but wishing I could do something, anything to change where we were.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t.

  I was just one person, and no matter how hard I tried, if the two of them weren’t in the right mindset to keep our real connections, I couldn’t force it.

  But I could hang around until they were ready. Which was my new strategy. Just be there, in the vicinity, so that when they got to their breaking point, I’d have a chance of holding at least one of them together.

  I kind of hated it.

  I was much more of a take action kind of girl. But action wasn’t always the best answer.

  So, time ticked on, and with each passing day, I hated it more.

  That’s right, I hated time. If I’d only known, I would have wished for more.

  “HEY LOOK!” I CHEERED SARCASTICALLY. “It’s my bestest, best friend ever!”

  Blane didn’t react, which made me even angrier. The whole point of taunting him like a child had been to get some sort of a reaction.

  “Okay, or not. It could be the guy who can’t stand the sight of me, my mistake,” I added derisively.

  That got a reaction.

  “Whit, you know that’s not true.”

  “Really?” I questioned sarcastically, ready to ask him if he even remembered that it was my birthday this weekend, just a few days before Christmas, but as we climbed the steps I bit down on my tongue.

  This wasn’t the time or the place to lay into him.

  I’d held onto the disbelief and anger for this long, I could keep it sealed up until we got done visiting Franny.

  She’d called in sick to school today, the last day before winter break, so I’d gathered all the books she would need to finish all of her homework.

  Blane just came to see her every day.

  As far as I knew anyway.

  “Franny! God no! Franny! God, baby! Somebody help! Help me!” Blane and I heard as we opened the door to the DePlunzios’ bungalow style house.

  He took off at a run, and I stayed as close on his heels as I could, but he was much faster.

  By the time I made it to Franny’s doorway, Blane had her cradled in his arms.

  But I didn’t miss the noose around her neck and the lack of pallor in her lifeless skin.

  The trauma stuck its boot square in my stomach and shoved, so hard and fast I was powerless to stop it.

  “NO!” I screamed, stumbling backwards and slamming my back into the pictures on their hallway wall. “No, no, no. This can’t be happening!” I cried hoarsely, completely lost to my own world of disbelieving horror.

  My body trembled violently in shock, and it felt like I was the one with the rope around my neck.

  As I struggled for breath, my mind raced to find reason.

  Why was this world so ugly? Why did beautiful people take their own lives? Why couldn’t we convince Franny that she had other options?

  Why was this happening?

  When I looked down, I saw blood on my hands, several pieces of freshly broken glass sparkling amidst it.

  Numbing myself to Gina’s screams, I expected to hear Blane’s cut through. But I heard nothing.

  I didn’t hear him begging for her life, asking her to come back to him, or questioning some unknown entity for a reason why like I expected him to.

  Instead, he cradled her softly with his lips resting on her temple and closed his eyes. I sat there completely powerless, the whoosh of my own heartbeat drowning out the chaos around me.

  When I looked from Blane to Franny, I couldn’t go back.

  My eyes stayed fixed on her face. The soft line of her cheekbone. The subtle curve of her eyelashes. The feminine dimple in her chin.

  And I wondered. I wondered vividly and violently. Desperately, I sought answers to my questions.

  What demons had lived inside of her? How had they done their damage, and why was her face more peaceful in death than it had been in the last several months of her life?

  What could I have done to change it?

  My thoughts ran on an endless loop, over and over, backwards and forwards, up and down, and back and forth.

  As time went on, I lost all sense of reality and space, the smartest part of my brain sending out some sort of desensitizing signal for self-preservation.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t on the ground anymore. Cradled against Blane’s chest, I felt the evidence of my soaked face for the first time.

  As I brought my hand up to wipe away the tears, Blane stopped me. “No, sweetheart. The glass. It’s everywhere. You’ll cut yourself.”

  He carried me straight outside to the front porch, and once there, I pulled in deep, heaving pulls of fresh air.

  Franny was
dead.

  Dead.

  It didn’t seem real. Terrible things rarely did.

  I looked down at my bloody hands to see they were a mess, full of glass and debris and dripping their crimson all over everything. I didn’t realize that I had already seen them.

  Time didn’t move in order, events flashing and spacing themselves with such inconsistency that reality became intangible.

  It danced on the edges of my consciousness but wouldn’t take hold.

  Blane crouched in front of me, the shoulder of his t-shirt wet from my tears. He pulled my hands gently toward himself, and carefully, gingerly, started to remove the glass piece by piece.

  He was calm in such a way that I couldn’t understand. Here I was barely cognizant of my own name, a literally snotty, bloody mess, but he was steadfast. Strong and composed.

  He worked to calm me, shushing the tears I didn’t even know I was still crying.

  Desperately, I fought to cut through the daze—to get to a point where I could take care of myself—so that he could have the space to have his own reaction.

  Because, so far, he hadn’t. He’d cared for Franny first, even if it was just her soulless body. After which I’m sure he’d seen to doing all he could for Gina, not that any amount of comfort could balm the stab of a fallen child. And then of course, he came to me, scooping me up in his self-assured arms and bringing me out to breathe the revitalizing air I desperately needed.

  The concrete of their front steps was cold as it seeped through the much too thin denim of my favorite jeans. Blood stained them randomly, soaking into the fabric and making me even colder, but I embraced it.

  The shiver of my teeth gave me something else to focus on. The bitter sting of the December air settled deep into my lungs as I pulled in huge gulps of air and went perfectly with the pain already in my chest. And the feel of Blane’s hands on my arms felt even warmer, almost like he had a heating pad strapped to his hands. The contrast made him feel more real, his presence more noticeable.

  He tried to get me to meet his eyes, but I couldn’t. All I could see was her face, her beautiful, too fucking young face, still and pale in her lifeless state.

  Tears moved slowly down my cheeks, as though the cold air slowed their path, momentarily freezing them to my rosy blush before letting them fall.

  I wanted to take it all back. All the bitterness and hate and resentment that favored both. I’d take a lifetime of the Franny I’d had over not having her at all.

  I didn’t hate time. I hated the absence of it.

  “Breathe,” Blane demanded before I even realized I was sobbing so erratically that I had interrupted the flow of fresh air. My lungs were no longer filling, the cold air only making it to my trembling lips.

  “I…How…Why…no…Blane…please,” I forced out in a staccato of emotion, the last two coughs of air wheezing and sputtering.

  I felt his hands on my face, framing my jaw, but I couldn’t stop myself from hyperventilating. He tried to pull my focus to him, but I couldn’t even see his eyes. They were right there in front of me, and I couldn’t see them.

  Before I knew it, he was gone, back into the house, the sting of the cold concrete turning to a burn. It had gone past the point of cold, and I embraced it. The only thing tangible in a moment of complete chaos.

  A heavy weight settled on my shoulders and then synched in, tightening my arms to my body completely. Blane was back, and he was rubbing his hands up and down my arms feverishly.

  “Whitney,” he called. I didn’t answer.

  He tried again. “Whitney. Look. At. Me.” His hand came to my chin and forced it around, my eyes finally meeting his.

  The air around me shook, or maybe it was my trembling, but he was right there, an inch from my face so that I had no choice but to see him.

  “I need you to breathe,” he coached, the volume of his voice only slightly louder than the ringing in my ears.

  “Breathe,” he repeated, beginning to coach me one breath at a time. “Come on, take some air in. That’s it. Now out. Slow. Breathe deep.”

  The burn was back, settling like lead in the bottom of my lungs.

  “That’s it,” he murmured. “Great. That’s my girl. Keep it up for me. In and out. Nice and slow.”

  I did as I was told, accepting the air into my lungs and slowly forcing it back out. Gradually, the tunnel of my vision widened, and the rest of the landscape of the DePlunzio’s front yard slipped into focus. Brown grass forced dead by the choking cold of winter for as far as my eyes could see. As I realized again where I was, and what was happening, I had to work to keep my breathing even.

  “Relax. Calm, baby. We’ve gotta get that glass out of your hands, okay?” he prompted.

  I was confused, so lost in the moment that I’d forgotten about the glass, numb to the pain in my hands.

  Only when he lifted me to my feet, turning to to go back into the house did I come out of my fog.

  “I can’t go back in there!” I yelled, my panic overtly evident. I knew if I went back in I would smell it, the death, the sadness, the overwhelming inability to fix things. Even if it was purely imagined.

  I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready.

  “Blane, I can’t!” I shrieked again, oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t pushing me at all.

  “Okay, okay. Whit. That’s fine. We don’t have to go back in. Just breathe. Come on, honey. Keep up that breathing for me, okay?”

  As I complied, he praised me again. “That’s it.”

  “I’ll take you home, okay?” he offered. “We’ll get you cleaned up there.”

  “My coat,” I muttered stupidly. “I need my coat.”

  As I looked to my shoulders, I saw not only the coat that I’d never taken off, but a warm, fluffy blanket surrounded it.

  He didn’t even flinch. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re wearing it. Come on, let’s go to your car.”

  Pulling the blanket from my shoulders, he let it drop to the steps.

  “My car?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I’ll drive you, okay?”

  Slowly, my cognitive skills started to fire. The oxygen was finally making it back to my brain. “But what about the police? Won’t they have questions?”

  “I’ll get you settled in the car, and then I’ll go in and talk to Steve. The police can come to your house if they really need to, and if not, we’ll go into the station together, give our statements.”

  He had an answer for everything, and by then, he had the passenger door open on my Jeep and was gently guiding me in.

  The door clicked closed beside me, but I sat still, staring out the windshield and right at the front of their house.

  So unassuming, it was your average American family homestead, and from the outside, it looked happy. But the inside was different. I knew all too well, and it would carry the burden of its secrets forever.

  Quite possibly, the people inside would never recover.

  I concentrated on watching the moisture of my breath as it moved in and out, the little beads of condensation lingering and hovering long after they’d been expelled.

  Only when Blane emerged from the house, looking haggard but determined, did I look away from the mundane image of my breath.

  He wasted no time, coming straight to the door, climbing in beside me, and turning over the engine.

  Finally, much too late, I found the decency to look out for someone other than myself.

  “Blane. I’m so sorry.”

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel, but he said nothing. And I knew this wasn’t the time to push.

  So, for once, I didn’t.

  I looked down at the glass still in my hands, seeing the various injuries, but I was still unable to feel them. Blane had tried to get it out, but I’d hardly been cooperative.

  Oh, but I hurt.

  God, did I hurt.

  Blane reached over, but understandably, he didn’t grab for my hand. Instead, he rested his heavy palm on the top of
my thigh, the weight and warmth serving as the response he couldn’t manage to vocalize.

  For most people, the reality of death is hard to realize. It takes days, maybe even months, to truly understand that they’re gone.

  But for me, it didn’t take its time. It slapped me. Hard. Right on the apple of my cheek.

  Because without fighting, without trying to get rid of each other or bring the other down, Blane and I hadn’t been alone like this since the day I met Franny.

  Her absence was inescapable.

  WHEN WE GOT TO MY house, Blane came around the front of the car, helped me out, and guided me to the front of my house like I’d never been there before.

  His right hand rested easily on my back, and his left held gingerly onto my forearm.

  He coached me up the steps, telling me to be careful, to watch my step, and he did it with a soft voice I’d only ever heard him use with Fran.

  He didn’t knock on the door, after all, there was no reason to, but it felt weird. Like I’d left that morning as one person and was coming home as another. The blood stained my jeans, but he’d managed to keep me from ruining the rest of my clothing.

  We walked from the front door silently, going straight for the heart of my house. The kitchen.

  There, my father sat at the counter and read the paper as my mother cooked, her generous booty swaying to some silent song.

  My dad’s head came up first, and it didn’t take him long to see the state of me.

  His eyes were panicked, the worry a palpable, physical feeling, but I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat.

  “Mr. Lenox,” Blane greeted, gaining the attention of my mother. As she turned, he added, “Mrs. Lenox.”

  He moved me to a stool at the counter next to my father and made sure I was settled before continuing. “I’m so sorry to bring Whitney home like this.” He stopped to clear the very obvious knot in his throat. “But maybe you could work on cleaning up Whitney’s hands,” he said directly to my mother, before turning to my father. “And I could step outside and have a word with you, sir.”

  I appreciated what he was trying to do, but I panicked at the thought of him leaving the room. “Blane, please,” I called desperately, before he and my father made it out the doorway.