

swans of

atlantis

Matt and Kat Book One

C.L. Mannarino

Copyright © 2017 by C.L. Mannarino

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover Designer: Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations., www.okaycreations.com

Mannarino Publishing

www.clmannarino.com

Late May, 1989

Chapter One

I hear Sarah Harris laughing before I even reach the back screen door of Aunt Jo's house, and a ripple of confusion shakes through me.

What's she doing here?

The question is so loud in my head, I clench my teeth to make sure I didn't say it out loud. Shielding my eyes, I press my nose to the sun-warmed mesh, and peek past the linoleum and banana-yellow kitchen to the darkened living room beyond. Nothing. It looks exactly the same as it did when Mom dropped me off here to live with her sister, Jo, and my cousin Ty on the night of my eighth birthday, right before Mom's fatal accident.

It even smells the same as always: acrid with the fairy-polluted lake water from behind the house, with an added dash of Atlantian swans mating. I have to situate myself in the corner of the door to get a good look, but the second I do, I catch the back of Matt's surfer-blond, back-combed hair, and my heart skips a beat. The lurch of it is so rough, I have to step back and breathe.

Calm down, Katrina. What's the matter with you? It's just Matt.

I repeat this to myself several times, clenching my fists in time to my breaths. The second I feel my heart slowing down out of panic mode again, a voice in the back of my head whispers:

"Yeah, but it's Matt. The blond and the beautiful."

My heart jolts again at the sound of my subconscious throwing my friends' words back at me. I think it was even smirking.

He's my friend. Of course I like him a little. And Ty's in there—if Matt and Sarah are, he's gotta be. No weirdness.

Taking one last deep breath, I adjust the floppy pink Madonna bow in my hair, and yank the door open.

Mother of God help me, the thing sticks.

I'm sweating now, thanks to the hot afternoon sun glaring off the lake behind my house, and my own nervousness. A nervousness I can't even understand because it's just Matt. But there it is: my pink and brown palms are sweaty. I give the handle another yank. And another.

The fourth one pulls it open, but I have to grunt, and lean back, and pull, and the weight of me doing all that catapults me backwards. I stumble so hard, the porch shakes, and I have to catch myself from falling. A lot of "what was that"s waft their way down to me. Straightening up fast, I rescue my waist-length hair from my backpack straps, and adjust myself to make it look like I did that on purpose.

I haven't even stepped into the lake-scented house, and Matt appears. For a second, I can't believe he's standing in my kitchen. He could touch the ceiling if he wanted to, and he's smiling wider than I've seen him do since last summer. The sight of it leaves my face burning—why why why? It's Matt, for chrissakes—but then I'm smiling like the "gangly fourteen-year-old" Aunt Jo refers to me as. More than ever, I want to be eighteen, like him and Ty and Sarah.

"Hey!" I say, but he's already hurrying towards me, pulling me inside.

The screen door slams against my butt, but he's faster, wrapping me into a hug so tight, I can hardly breathe. He's all cotton Polo, and fair skin, and the smells of sweat and clean laundry. A thrill I've never felt around him before awakens deep in the pit of my stomach, confusing and wonderful. I cling to him until two more pairs of feet enter the room, and he drops me back to earth.

"Kat Kamiya, long time no see," he says. Even though he's backing up, his voice rolls, river stones, over my eardrums, and another thrill erupts in the pit of me.

"Speak for yourself. It's like you guys graduated already." Thank God my voice, all bubbles and lightness, comes out calmer than I feel.

I want to just stare at him, but he's backing up some more, coming to rest against the wall beside Sarah. The whisper of tiredness that's laced his expression since he became a senior returns, falling over his eyes like shutters on a house. And then I realize he's wearing wristbands again.

"I wish," she says under her breath, her voice far away and pensive.

To my surprise, she's looking almost as sickly as Matt, her skin a grayish brown color. Still, she holds herself like a queen. She crosses her arms over her enormous chest, flips a thick wave of auburn Whitney Houston curls out of her tawny-brown face with a lace-gloved hand, and beams up at Matt, tugging at the rose pendant on her neck. A tight crown of dandelions adorns her hair, shedding golden petals every time she moves her head.

At the sight of her, Matt grins a little, and then wraps his arm around her waist. Ir reminds me of the way Atlantian swans, after finding their mates, twine their necks around each other, cuddling in utter devotion. The magic of the land in this town brings them together, but the connection they make between their souls ensures they never drift apart.

But the swans weren't the only ones affected, I remind myself as I study Matt and Sarah. And voting isn't the only reason to want to turn 18.

Ty grunts, bringing me back to earth. He's all muted brown arms, and legs, and black hair spiked to Heaven, as our white grandpa says of Ty's Sid Vicious hair, and this decade. He yanks the fridge open, roots around for a couple of Tabs, and slams it closed. The whole thing lets out a massive, asthmatic groan as he hands a drink to Matt and Sarah. Matt takes it, and Sarah pulls a flask from her back pocket. The sight gives my heart a stutter.

"If only it was as easy as being done with classes. But why are you so late, Highlighter?" Ty asks, clearing his throat and pointing to my neon pink shirt with the soda. A teasing smile pulls at his face, and the cracks of the cans opening punches the air in the tiny kitchen. "It's almost four. You get detention?"

"Don't encourage him." Sarah says this to me, but she's messing with their drink, giving Ty the same exasperated look Matt often gives my cousin. I catch a flash of silver, and the flask slips away. "He's too proud of his own delinquent tendencies."

Ty's smile widens, but I shake my head, glaring at her. She makes it sound like a joke, but the only other person I've heard use that language is Aunt Jo. Until now, I'd thought Ty's issues with school had been a private matter. The fact that Sarah Harris of the Atlantis Wealthies knows about it rankles me, but she doesn't notice my glare. She's too busy cuddling up to Matt, pressing him to take a drink, and then taking a few sips for herself.

Fingers tugging at the holes in my thrift store jeans, I tighten my voice. "Freshman pep rally. They tried to make it this whole serious thing about our responsibilities as sophomores, and the new protocol they have for Summer Camp, but a bunch of jocks pulled a shaving cream prank, and then the nymph-ants came out of the walls because of the smell, so...yeah. We all had to clean it up."

Ty snorts, but Matt studies me with tender eyes. "I still can't believe you're almost a sophomore. Who let you turn fifteen?"

"Me," I say, and my stomach fills with helium at his laugh.

"You going to Camp this year?"

I nod, and he winks at me.

"Good. You better! The Swan Syndrome is serious stuff, even at your age." He crosses his arms and leans all the way back against the wall. "I mean, I know I wasn't giving much thought to finding my soul mate when I was fourteen, but you don't wanna end up like the Indefinites."

He looks at Ty and Sarah with a painful twist to his face. "Can you imagine being stuck at eighteen years old for a hundred years because you never saw your Swan? Can you imagine having to do Senior Extended Summer Camp every weekend? You'd be traveling over half your life, but you'd still be eighteen, so no one would take you seriously, and you'd be stuck living in those awful complexes on the edge of town. I bet you'd be listening to the electric wall all the time. Maybe you'd even get hounded by the tourists who come back every year because they'd notice that you never age—"

"But that's what the Coats are for," Sarah says, rubbing his arm and cutting him off, to my extreme relief. "Trust me, boo, my mama's one of them, and when she's not studying Atlantis to find the source of the magic, she's doing everything she can to keep us safe. She checks the Wall every night for outages, and oversees the shifts detaining tourists who smuggle things in and out of town."

"Yeah, but can you imagine?" Matt asks, voice still distant with awe.

Sarah laughs. "Yes, I can."

He mulls that over for a minute, and then he claps his hands. All of us jump. "Well, the good news is, you're finally home. So now that we're all here, I can tell you why we are." He beams, tentative, the corners of his mouth trembling a little, and moves his arm from Sarah's waist to her shoulders.

The room goes cold. His voice is too loud, too forced-happy. In that second, I realize I'm not excited about Summer Camp. That, even at 12 years old, I never really was because I want Matt to be my Swan. And right now, that feels like it's become impossible. Across the room, I pass Ty a look, but he shakes his head.

"What are you talking about, man?" he asks, just a touch too hoarse. His free hand itches his back pocket, and then comes back to rest on his soda. Out of cigarettes. His nerves just make me nervous, and I slide my backpack down at my bedroom door so I can play with my hair.

Matt heads to the living room, towing Sarah behind him. "Let's sit."

I shoot Ty a look again, but he gestures "after you," his eyes on the couple, so I tip-toe in. Sarah's already sitting beside Matt on the flattened, flowered couch, but the second I lean down to sit on the beige carpeting, Matt takes my arm. With a half-laughing, half-incredulous look like "what the hell are you doing," he pulls me to his other side.

Avoiding everyone's gazes, I sit. Across from us, Ty settles into his mom's rocker with an exaggerated sigh, and it's his attention I'm aware of as I settle in. The couch squeals, it's so small, and the three of us are so many. It forces us to sit closes that Matt's jean covered thigh touches mine. The warmth of him seeps past the frays and permanent marker patterns on my pants, and my face burns hotter, until I'm pretty sure my neck and ears might fall off.

But his hands are for Sarah, cradling her free one in both of his. I can't see her face, but if I lean back, I get a glimpse of so much hair, she's probably resting her head on his shoulder. The wispy, delicate scent of her perfume hovers around us under the mustiness and stale, lake-air smells of the living room. For a second, I want Ty to open the window behind him so she won't think badly of us, or the house he's lived in his whole life under Jo's guidance, but I'm not sure why I suddenly care.

"So, I guess I'll just say it," Matt says, his voice still too loud in the tiny room. It doesn't match his tentative smile. "Sarah and I are engaged."

...What?

Chapter Two

The word cracks across the room, a ruler smacked against a chalkboard, and I can't breathe. My whole body has gone cold, and somehow, I'm only just now feeling it. I lean forward the slightest bit, searching for their hands. And then, there it is: silver, and small, and cold against Sarah's warm brown knuckles.

How could I have missed it? It stands out like a slap.

He should've gone with gold. The thought hits me the wrong way, and I have to swallow back a hysterical laugh, my palm covering my mouth so it won't sneak out. The rest of my body shivers with panic.

Engaged. Him. Matt. Engagedengagedengaged...

"Like, to be married?" Ty asks. He's gone as ashen as I feel, and there's an ugly squeak to his voice that makes me glad I didn't speak first. His eyes are glittering stones, but I can't tell if that's betrayal I see in them, or just disbelief.

"Of course," Sarah says, sounding shocked.

Matt nods twice, slow, that tentative smile still on his face, and I don't want to be on that couch anymore.

"Really," Ty says, with the kind of false interest of someone who hasn't quite processed the news. His face becomes as stony as his eyes, impossible to read, even for me, but his attention is on Sarah. The longer I study him, the more I catch that supposed impenetrability slipping. If I'm seeing things correctly, I'm pretty sure that's betrayal crossing his face in and out, a flickering, yellow traffic light at one in the morning. I'm also pretty sure my heart is beating to the same tune.

In this moment, I want his gaze to meet mine. I want him to make a face, one of our inside jokes, something to let me know he's still here with me. Anything to make us feel less isolated.

The couch shifts—Sarah looks from Ty to Matt and back. "Is it really that surprising?" Her voice trembles, and one arm wraps around Matt's back, hugging him tight. I shift to avoid getting brushed by her. I don't want her remembering I'm here.

Matt raises his hand a bit, but he can't keep it steady enough to hide the tremor. He puts it back down. "I know it's sudden," he says, and this time, his voice shakes. "But at this stage, I think it's the right decision for us."

"It's been ten months." Ty and I chorus, making me blush. My heart hurts less now, but I cover my mouth again. Ty swallows, a loud click that fills the room, and leans forward.

"We know that, too," Matt whispers. He avoids my gaze whenever I glance at him, so I drop my eyes to study the ground-in footprints muddying the rug at uneven intervals. "But—I think we're ready. And I think Sarah's made it more than clear to me that she's looking for this type of commitment, and I want to give it to her."

His little speech squeezes my heart. So do the words "commitment," and the idea of him "committing" himself to her. I lower my shaking hand. "What about college?"

The question comes out of me on a bone-dry whisper, like a tiny pile of paper falling off a table, but at least he's looking at me now. His eyes shine in a not-so-good kind of way, like he might cry.

Instead, he nods, and then looks behind me. Before I can move, his arm cuts across my chest, grabbing a pack of cards off the side table and giving them a shuffle. The light breeze that comes off their folds and tucks tickles my nose. Shocked as I am, mad even, for reasons I still can't fully name, I see what this is, and I slide down to the floor.

I can't help it. There are too many years between us, and I know him too well. And maybe a tiny part of me still holds hope that the engagement won't change anything.

If it gets him to talk...

He smiles, and deals me a hand.

"Atlantis Community College." The pensiveness in Sarah's voice surprises us all, but I don't know if it's the fact that she's being so calm about this that gets us, or the silver edge to her tone. My guess is the latter. I peek at her between my lashes.

One of her hands still clings to Matt. The other swirls their soda can, but she puts it back on the rug by the couch after a second. Te moment she's settled back in her seat, her attention is on Matt in the same way mine was mere seconds ago: desperate, and hoping to find some connection in all this madness.

Ty, for what it's worth, nearly drops his can of Tab. "Wait, really? I thought you were an A student."

Behind Matt's back, Sarah nods a little too hard. I ignore the slight glee on Ty's face, and bring my attention to Matt's hardening shoulders. "Not since the hospital," I say, quiet but sure.

That gets everyone's attention—I feel their eyes, and I almost see Sarah's, if I just look behind Matt a bit more—but only Matt nods. He drops his first card to the ground. "Best we can do, 'given the circumstances,'" he says, pitching his voice higher to mock his guidance counselor's breathy tones. He shakes his head, throwing another card down. "My parents were not happy to hear that."

"I'm sure Olivia and Donna weren't, either," I say under my breath, his sisters' formidable faces filling my mind. Matt raises his brow, and we both drop cards. He wins, taking the stack, and I nudge his foot.

"What do you think about that, Sarah?" Ty asks. There's a forced nonchalance in his tone that makes the question hurt, the way it hurts to look at the flowered wallpaper around us. "I mean, shit, we've been working the soccer teams after school, and you never mentioned a word of this to me."

Matt shifts to the floor, giving me full view of Sarah's pinched mouth, the tight way she shakes her head, and the roll of her eyes. Again, I want to ask, what is she doing here? Or better yet, why isn't she saying anything?

"Because, Tyler, some things are just between me and him. I'm sure you can appreciate that."

Ty snorts. "Yeah, but community college? I thought that you, especially, wanted more than that."

"It's a bump in the road," Matt says, running a hand over his face. "Honestly, though, I'm not too worried. I'll transfer at some point, start my music career, but I'm really more interested in life after we're done with college, you know?" He peeks over at Sarah with the shyest smile I've ever seen, and pats her knee. Her chin comes to rest in her hand, and she gives him the dreamiest smile I've ever seen.

Do I look at him like that?

"I want to get us a home, settle down."

I throw another card down, wanting to distract Matt from his commentary on the future, and from our lack of positive responses.

The rocking chair creaks. "Is that what you want, Sarah?" Ty asks in his lowest voice yet, right as Matt and I get in a pile-on battle of the cards. We throw them down with quick flicks, until I run out and slap my hand down before he can. His warm palm covers mine, but it's half-hearted. I can feel his attention on Sarah.

Her shrug is a single lifted shoulder, but her face is blank, like she doesn't want to give anything away. "I guess. Maybe. We'll see," she says.

Matt gives her another shy smile over his shoulder. "Once we have everything I planned, you'll love it, I know it." He turns to Ty, gathering up the cards to re-shuffle. "I showed her the book I made last summer, the one with all my goals. And it's like my therapist keeps saying, I have to know what I want. You can bet your ass I do: I want the band to do well, I want us to get out of this hole, and I want us to be together long after college. House, kids, all that. It's what I wanted since we were freshmen."

He leans back into her legs, a self-assured smile on his face. I can't help watching Sarah's fingers threading through his hair.

Ty lurches to his feet so hard, the rocker smacks his legs. Sarah jumps a little, but if he notices, he doesn't say anything—he chugs back the rest of his Tab and crushes the can, stalking back to the kitchen. "Yeah, I remember," he says in a low, hoarse voice.

"Oh, Ty. Tyler!" Sarah shouts. For a second, I think she'll shoot to her feet, but no. She just turns in place, a tiny trail of dandelion petals falling onto her shoulders. When Matt moves next, her hand weighs on his shoulder.

"It's going to be fine," she says.

In the silence Ty leaves behind, Matt gives me a weak smile, and shuffles the cards some more. "You've been quiet. How do you feel about all this?" The question comes out as soft and puffy as the clouds at the edge of a pink sunrise.

I feel like I should be grateful I even get to see you, now that you're out of school, even if you're engaged. But I probably shouldn't say that. Nor should I say, I feel like you just blindsided us all for shits and giggles, but really, you're actually serious about all that. Or, I feel like I've been slapped. Or, you're an idiot.

But I catch Sarah watching me every time I lift my gaze to his, like she has to guard him from anything I have to say. I lick my lips, the sweat stains on my back drying into cold patches across my shirt.

"I don't know," I say. Because I don't. I focus on him, my gaze drifting down his arms and hands, and then back up to his elbows, where I catch his shoulders stiffening from the corner of my eye.

That's when I see it: puckers of newly healing skin that rise up in smoothed mountain ridges. Four of them, in fact. I glance at his wrist, and find another one, almost too small to be visible, hiding among the existing scars on his wrist, a thief in camouflage.

Throwing a glance at Sarah, I scoot closer to him and lower my head a bit. Concern twists his face, and he does the same.

"I need to talk to you," I say in my lowest voice, pushing all the normal bubbles out of it.

I get up, wrapping my fingers around his arm, slipping my fingers under the wristband. His cuts scraping my fingers. He throws a glance at Sarah, like he needs her permission, and she rises, too.

"Kat," he says, as if I'm being a child.

"Whatever you need to say to him, you can say to me, too," Sarah says.

"Not this time," I say, and lead him to the hall by the front door.

From here, we can see Ty clattering around in the kitchen, but I don't want him to catch us. I tuck us into the shadow of the stairs leading to the attic, and resist sneaking into Ty's room beside us for more privacy. My arms are around my chest before I realize what I'm doing. In the living room, Sarah stares right at us, mirroring my stance. It gives me shivers.

"What's wrong?" Matt asks. The glow of the sun glances off the kitchen floor, illuminating half of his face, and making him appear almost ghostly: white face and hair, gray-edged arms and body, all tapering down to nothing the closer they get to the floor.

It puts a lump in my throat. My breathing rattles in my chest, echoing the nervous electricity running through my arms. "I promise I won't get mad, but I need you to be honest," I say with a little too much edge, and have to clear my throat.

I'm not angry, I'm sad. He needs to hear that.

My question comes out on an exhale. "How often have you been cutting?"

His face falls. He turns to the corner, but I go with him, conscious of how he feels, but also so aware of Sarah. My hands itch to touch his arms, to keep him in place, but the last time I did that, he looked like a trapped animal.

"Recently?" I ask. "This week? Have you cut yourself at all since you got engaged?" I lower my voice to a whisper. "Is it because she's making you drink?"

He looks at me like he's never seen me before, but the tears still glitter in his eyes. "What? No. She's not making me drink.'

"I saw the flask she's got you carrying. You never drank before now. Is that it?"

His voice softens to an almost tired quality. "That's not booze, Kat. It's this fruit thing she's been making for us called The Perfect Couple."

I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Over his shoulder, Sarah steps closer. "Coulda fooled me, but fine. But that's also not the point. I need to know how fresh those scars are, Matthew—"

"They're not," he says in a huff. "Okay?" His jaw ticks, hard again, soft again, but his too-blue eyes burn me. I can feel them begging, but for what—to help or hide this—I can't tell.

Not even after seven years of knowing him? A voice in the back of my head sneers, leaving an odd, jumbled feeling in my stomach.

The sour tang of sweat punches the air. His voice shakes. "They're not—anything. And please don't tell anyone about them."

That just means they're actually something.

I swallow the words back, hard, so they won't find some awful way to fall off my tongue. He doesn't need that right now.

"Look, I get it. Okay? You don't wanna talk. But let me remind you," I say, taking his arm until he meets my gaze, "that if you do try it again, and you ever go too far, you could die. And then it won't matter who rushes in to help: you'll be gone. The end. That's it. No more writing music, no more Sarah, no more getting married, or seeing your family. It'll be over—everything you worked so hard for—poof." I mime explosions with my hands. "Over."

Matt's voice is thick, his eyes swimming even more. "I know."

I grip his arms as hard as I dare. "Then stop it!" I say, and catch Sarah stepping even closer. "And look, if she's hurting you—"

He backs off, freeing his arms from my hands. "She's not. It's not like that at all. She's been good to me. We're both—good."

But his voice wavers, stroking my discomfort. I reach for his hands again but he keeps them away, so I steeple my fingers. "Matt, you don't have to hide from me," I breathe, my mouth so dry that my tongue clicks against my teeth. His eyes swim, and he turns away again, brushing his cheek. "I won't hurt you."

A sharp gasp punches the air, and a stillness stretches out between us. The world seems to hover, listening. And then footsteps wake the warped floorboards.

Matt sniffles, shoves his hands in his pockets, and pushes his shoulders back just in time for Sarah to step in between us.

"Stop upsetting him," she hisses, taking his arm.

I want to push her away, to remind her that I'm one of his best friends from long before she was even dating him. And then Ty appears right behind her. I manage to meet his dead-eyed gaze, and then he focuses on Matt, nodding to the back door. "C'mon, man, let's get outta here. I wanna hit the record store, and Mom's gonna be back in an hour for dinner."

Chapter Three

"Can I come?" I ask, moving to step between them, but they're already circulating around themselves, with no space for me among them.

Ty shakes his head. "You need to cover for me if we're not done by five."

I cross my arms, pop a hip. "It's just downtown."

But Matt's already reaching for Sarah. She's taking his hand. Ty pulls up the rear—he still has my attention, or I have his, except not for long. They're slipping away, falling between my fingers before I can hope to catch them. Before I'm old enough to be included.

"Even more reason," Ty says, putting a hand on Matt's shoulder.

At the door, Matt flashes me a sorry smile, and a wave, and then, the tiny cottage by the pond is just that again. I press my face to the window. They walk in the center of the path, leaving just enough space in between them that I could've gone with them, filled in all the cracks.

As soon as they're out of sight, I dive for the phone, the words for what I've seen burning the back of my throat. It takes less than ten seconds for me to dial and wrap the cord around my finger, winding and unwinding to match the pace of my racing heartbeat. My pulse is too fast. I'm too excited about all this. The more I focus on it, the more the tiny kitchen begins to hold me too close.

He told you to let it go.

The line rings once. I stride to the window over the sink, stretching the cord to its very limits, and catch the bottom of the frame with the tips of my fingers. It flicks open wide after a couple of desperate tries, but there's still no flood of air into the room. Just the taste of the lake, the acrid scent carrying undertones of sun-burnt sand.

The line rings again.

I still can't slow my pulse, still can't believe what he's just told me. My mouth goes dry. I paw for a glass of water, but it's only after my palm hits the faucet that I remember: don't drink from the tap.

The line rings again. I race back across the room to the fridge, and the line picks up in the middle of the fourth ring.

"Hello?" A whispery voice tickles my ear, the sound of a princess waking from a nap.

He told you to let it go! My heart hammers again, but I can't be alone with this.

"Erin, I have news. Can you be at my house in five minutes?" I ask, and then swear under my breath. Ty drank all the Tab. Sarah and Matt's sits on the counter, but no way am I drinking from that one.

"S-sure, but—" A crackle, and then another, and her voice drops. "Not for long, okay? Dad's still mad about me missing ballet because of the shaving cream thing, and Mom's not home from her hospital shift yet. He's been parked in front of the aquarium all afternoon."

"That's fine. Can you also—"

"Pick up Rey, yeah." Her breathy laugh brushes the receiver. "Once she's done with that bike, though, you'll have to start calling her to get me. It's a tandem thing—it's got two seats. I've never seen anything so long."

That makes me smile at last, and the walls stop caving in so much. "Promise. See you in ten."

After I hang up, it takes me each of those ten minutes to find something to drink. Most every cabinet is full of mixes, but without cold water, they're mostly useless. I settle on tea and coffee, the only things that don't taste gross when warm, and set the stove as high as it can make go, and put the timer on for twenty minutes.

The copper pot growls at the same time that the sound of girlish shrieks drifts in from outside. Within seconds, I can see them through the door: Rey Silva, brushing jagged strands of her glossy brown mohawk out of her eyes with a muscular brown hand. And Erin, grasping at Rey's free arm with her blue-gray fingers, her round body gliding down the walkway, ribbon barrettes streaming from her red hair.

To my surprise, right before the steps to the back porch, Rey catches Erin's double chin and steals a kiss. I can almost hear Rey's leather jacket creaking. And then, right as I'm processing the fact that they're now dating, and I just became the odd one out, they're jerking open the back door, just like I taught them to.

"What's going on, menina?" Rey's commanding voice fills the room. We lock eyes, and she pulls me into a hug, the smells of motor oil and cinnamon clashing around her where her jacket meets her skin. "You missed us that bad already?"

I mentally stumble to catch up. I can't get their kiss out of my head. "O-of course," I say, and fall back a step. The room stills, both girls studying me and my trip-up. "I—guess congrats are in order?" I wave to the door, and say a little too lamely. "I saw you kissing."

"Oh, babe." Erin takes my arm, her gray eyes staring into mine, and reminding me of the mer that inhabit the Atlantis beaches. Her hand leaves a hot, delightful spot on my cooling skin. "I'm sorry. It just sort of—happened." She shares a shy smile with Rey, and then her expression falls. "Is that weird for you?"

"N-no, of course not." But I should like I'm lying, even to myself. A second later, Rey hugs me, pressing our cheeks together.

"It's okay, menina, I promise. Nothing's changing. We're still your friends, and we'll still hang out all the time."

"I—know." I hug her back, hard, trying to convince both of us that I'm fine. I swallow a few times, and pop her lapel with my fingers, forcing fresh pep into my voice. "Did you take your father's jacket?" I ask, dropping from her arms to hug Erin. My nose fills with the smell of the sea.

"Of course." She holds it open by the pockets. "You can't just leave something as beautiful as this laying around, and he's not wearing it."

I force a grin and take a seat at the table. The instant I do, both girls freeze and share a look.

"Oh man," Rey says, breaking the odd silence first. "It's a sit-down conversation. We're gonna need a drink for this." She turns to the fridge.

"There's no Tab left," I say, and jab my thumb over my shoulder. "All we got's tea, coffee, or hot water."

"You're still boiling that stuff?" Erin takes a seat beside me, raising one finger at Rey, and then folding her hands so her glittery, blue-green fingernails don't show. "Now they're saying it won't kill all the fairy eggs. Why don't you just buy a filter?"

"Too expensive," Rey and I chorus. "And Ty can tell you all about how cheap the Coat's meds are if you ingest fairy eggs."

"I'll take my chances," Rey says over the sound of pouring water. "Babe?"

Erin wrinkles her nose.

"Okay."

I wait until Rey sits down, filling the space over the table with the scent of my Aunt Jo's weak instant coffee. Then I brace my elbows on the table. My hands shake a little.

"Whoa," Rey whispers.

Both she and Erin wrap one hand around each of mine, and for the first time since they got here, we feel like normal again. Still, I have a hard time meeting each of their gazes.

Instead, I focus on the shape of each of the other girls' fingernails: Rey's, almond-shaped and tapered to a gentle point, surrounded by soft brown skin, the pads of her fingers rough with budding callouses. Erin's, rounded like fish scales, covered in gray-green sparkles to match the dull, blue-gray stains on the skin of each of her fingers.

The colors of the Atlantic sea close to the beach. The colors she inherited from her mother. The colors of the mermaids off the Atlantis shore. The thought of it helps me breathe.

"I found out about something," I say, dropping my voice low. "And it's technically an old something, but I want to know if I should tell someone or not."

Both girls watch me, Rey's brown eyes, and Erin's gray ones, intent. I grip their fingers tighter.

"Matt's been cutting again."

Erin slumps, from her face to her back. "Oh, Kat," she says, pulling my hand over to her side of the table, and covering it in both of hers.

"How do you know?" Rey asks, eyes soft as water-soaked wood. She sits up a few inches taller, but beneath the table, her shoe squeaks against the linoleum.

"I saw the evidence." I free my hand from Rey's, running a finger under my elbow and wrist. "And I felt them here, and here."

"Did you ask him about it?" Erin squeezes my hand.

"Well, yeah," I say with a humorless laugh. "I pulled him aside and everything. He denied doing anything, but—" I point to my arm again. "There it was. And Ty was too upset about the engagement to even care—"

"What engagement?" Their voices fill the small room, one loud and baffled, the other breathy and confused.

Oh, yeah.

I drop my gaze to the table. "His and Sarah's, apparently." My stomach flips at the thought.

"And you only just found out about this today?" Rey asks, turning to face me more fully. Her fingers find mine again.

I nod, but the reminder that I didn't know—for however long it took him to make this decision—hits me again, and I can't speak for a bit.

"Damn," Rey says, wiping her mouth with her free hand. The pity in her expression makes me feel a little better, like my heartache is warranted.

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry." Erin scoots closer, wrapping an arm around me. "I know how close you are. It must hurt so much for him not to tell you."

"I'm more scared for him than anything," I say, but I let my head fall on her shoulder. Beside us, Rey stares at me, one finger tracing her lips. "Not only is he engaged, but he's probably cutting. If he doesn't know for sure that he's getting married to his Swan, he might not even age past eighteen."

Rey squeezes my hand, wrinkling her nose. "I wouldn't worry too much about that," she says, and though her commanding voice has softened, her words split the room. I stiffen, but Erin's hand stays light as fairy dust on my shoulder. "Hardly anyone in the history of Atlantis, Massachusetts has any idea who their Swan is. But I also don't think telling anyone what he's doing will help him."

An angry heat rises in my chest. I let go of Rey's fingers before she can feel how tight my grip has gotten, and raise my head off of Erin's shoulder. "O-kay. Why?" I ask, my tone hard.

Rey falters, but she still tries to give me a sympathetic smile. It grates on me. "My papai, he started cutting when he went on disability," she says, startling me. My stomach immediately knots with guilt. "He said it was the end of his life, since he spent so long doing heavy labor, and can't do what his trade is anymore."

She takes my hand. "If he is cutting, I'd be so careful. You don't want to rock the boat too much with their engagement. If he's happy, then that's what matters. Maybe he won't cut himself anymore."

"Or maybe he'll keep cutting because he'll find out he really isn't happy with her," I say, vehement and burning to make her see my point.

Rey shakes her head and grips my hands. "We can't know that, though. Just give them a chance." She gets up.

"He looks sick again. Like he did right before he went to the hospital." I talk fast, before she can leave the table.

She sighs again, and says, so quietly I can barely hear it, "Give them a chance. He's getting help anyway. Even if you said something, it would just be the same thing everyone else is, right?" Her wide-eyed "listen-to-what-I-say" stare keeps my anger bubbling.

"But this is also his life we're talking about," I say, staying as still as I can, in case I accidentally go shooting across the room.

Erin shifts in her chair. "She has a point, Rey."

Rey sits up taller, finishing her forgotten coffee and pushing the mug away with a too-gentle nudge of her fingers that makes me even more antsy. "He's also eighteen. At this point, he has to make that call for himself. I know you don't like to hear it," she tells me directly, "but pushing him may make this harder. Did you ever think maybe he's telling the truth? Obviously he wants to get married. Maybe that's what's holding him up right now."

She pauses for two seconds too long, and then her smile grows even more sympathetic this time, like a mother who just uncovered her child's deepest secret. "Menina, you have crush on him, don't you?"

My stomach drops almost as far as Erin's jaw. I shift in my chair with a sinking feeling that I just answered her question unknowingly.

Rey grips my hand harder. "I am sorry, doubly now that he's getting married, but what's that thing Nancy Reagan's always saying? 'Just say no'?"

"I'm not saying this because of a crush on him, I'm saying it because he's my friend!" I slam the palm of my hand on the table, making them both jump. "Friends look out for each other, don't they?"

Rey winces, making me regret my outburst, until she says, "They do, but he wouldn't even talk to you about it. So no, I wouldn't tell anyone, not your Aunt Jo, not a guidance counsellor, nobody. You just can't know if it'll make something worse, and I don't want you to get hurt if something does." She glances at the walls. "What time is it? I promised my parents I'd get the baby after gymnastics."

"Lily's not a baby anymore," Erin says, but I'm already on my feet, snatching up Rey's mug.

"There's a clock in the living room," I say, putting it in the sink, and staying there. I focus on rinsing it out so Rey won't see the way my face is burning, or the way my hands shake.

I smell Erin behind me before I feel her, the soft scent of salt enveloping me. Her hand finds its way to my back, making long, slow circles, and I lean into it, breathing.

"It's like a church in here, you know that?" Rey asks. I still can't look at her. "When's Jo getting home?"

"Five," I snap, tensing while she makes a fresh mug of coffee. In minutes, the air fills with the scents of roasted beans and cinnamon. After she's done, the slide of the mug on the table hums against my eardrums.

"Since we won't be here to say hi to her," Rey says, and waves goodbye to me. The screen door punches open, creaking wide. I wait to hear her footsteps, but I can feel her hovering on the threshold, and it makes me hold my breath. "I'm sorry, Kat, but I really think this is the way it has to be."

And I think you're wrong.

The words sit in my mouth, but I keep my gaze on the mug. She doesn't want to argue. And she won't change my mind. I take my time filling the mug with water, and then letting it dribble out.

Rey heaves a sigh that I have a feeling I'm supposed to feel bad about. "Coming, babe?"

The term of endearment—of real endearment, of love—still shocks me. But even being the odd one out, I yearn for one of them to be on my side. To agree. I glance over my shoulder to plead with Erin. Instead, I catch her watching me. "In a minute," she says.

Chapter Four

We listen to Rey descend the porch stairs and crunch down the walk. When it sounds like she's gone, Erin takes my hands, her round, stout fingers warm and welcoming where mine feel small and cold.

"Is there something going on with her dad again?" I ask in a low, brittle voice that displays every aching emotion. Tears pinch me behind my eyes, and I have to fight them back so they don't break me. "Is he getting worse? Or is it something with her sister? Are they fighting again? Did someone compare Rey to a middle schooler for the hundredth time?"

Erin smiles in a way that turns her face to laughing crinkles, and shakes her head, freeing one of my hands to push a lock of hair behind my ear. "No, none of that happened."

"Are you sure?" I ask, and then peer out the window. The sting of cigarette smoke bites the end of my nose, but I can't find Rey anywhere. "Because she's being really weird about this. I mean, she's mothered me before, but I've never seen her act this way unless something's going on at home. She's never been that serious about saying no."

"Well, you heard her. This whole thing cuts a little too close to home. And yes, I'm sure. She's just—worried, I guess. Maybe she doesn't want you getting in too deep. I don't know. I'll talk to her. But I want you to know," she says, gripping my hands harder, her breathy voice a whispered prayer, "I think you're right."

I give her a smile I don't really feel. "Thanks."

Erin's grip tightens, insistent. "And I want to remind you that Rey really does care. Otherwise, she wouldn't have said anything."

This time, I pull my hands away, but Erin holds on. The faucet drips from earlier use, the drops making tiny splats against the silver sink, an off-beat, erratic clock counting down its own seconds to when I'll be left alone again. The sound if it fills the room, but Erin throws a look over her shoulder. Part of me also expects Rey to reappear at any moment.

"I promise, she does. She just doesn't want you to get hurt." Her smile turns wry. "We know how you feel when people don't take your advice."

I roll my eyes, and Erin pulls me into a hug.

"Don't take it the wrong way. That was big for her, sharing all that about her papai. She has a hard time saying what she feels if she thinks it'll make her look soft. I think it would kill her if we compared her to Lily, even in an offhand way."

This time, I nod fast. Around me, the air grows thick as lemon curd, and just as bright and burning to breathe. I have to open my mouth to fill my lungs, and grip Erin's fingers to keep my hands from shaking.

This conversation is over. Get her out of here. I have work to do, and she can't know about it yet.

"You better head out. Rey's waiting," I say, hoping she doesn't notice the waver in my voice.

Erin smiles again, warm and soft as her lavender shirt. She gives me a quick hug, and then glides to the door. "Try not to worry about it, okay? See you tomorrow."

I nod again, fast. The second she's out the door, I count three long breaths, feeling the weight of both conversations falling away.

I wait until they're off the property before I beeline to my room, and pull out a pad of paper from the top drawer of my desk. It takes me another minute to find my pen, the smell of baby powder perfuming the air with every drawer I close. All the while, my mind is blank to everything except my plan, one I haven't been sure of until just this moment, but the second I sit down, is clear as day: I have to wake Matt up.

Without hesitation, I write, "what Sarah did wrong" at the top of the page, and underline it twice, almost breaking through the pad in the process. Like clockwork, Rey's words refill my head:

Did you even hear what you just said?

The condescension in it pins me to the chair with iron hands. I want to snap my fingers in her face, shake her by the shoulders, and scream, do you even know how important this is to me?

She's so sure of everything. It doesn't make her right.

I push my butt farther back into my wooden chair, and lean over the page. Somehow, this makes her voice grow louder. The memory of it rolls through my ears, over and under my other thoughts, crashing into the sides of my head, cresting and breaking over and over.

Grinding my teeth, I make the first bullet point, stabbing the pad with the pen.

"They're not—okay?"

Matt's voice breaks through the Rey cacophony. It's so loud and clear that I jump, and sneak a glance around my room. My bed, pink coverlet tucked in tight at the corners, sits empty against the wall beside me. My dresser huddles in the shadow of the corner behind the door, my bottles of polish and powder lay scattered across the top in a roadmap of my last makeup routine.

I bend over my empty list again, and wince at the setting sun now slicing into my eyes through my blinds, lemon juice on a paper cut. Leaning over, I pull my lace curtains closed. Even if I have to wink through the pinprick pattern to see, it's better than a face full of light. Twirling my pen, I settle in one last time, and finally lean over the list with something to say.

"Makes Matt cut," I write under the heading.

"They're not, okay?"

His voice comes back, more insistent this time. I can almost feel him reaching for my pen through my memory.

"She still hurt you. Someone needs to stop it," I whisper.

It hits me that I'm actually responding to a voice in my head, and I roll my eyes for talking to myself, only to freeze, and sit up taller.

"No," I tell myself, with more conviction than I felt all day. "No, I'm right. Someone does need to stop it, even if it means calling it out when it happens. I don't need to feel bad for that. But I'll need to know everything she did. So, buzz off with the guilt, and write."

Fifteen minutes later, I finally sit back, the page filled with my large, swirling handwriting:

WHAT SARAH DID WRONG

  * Makes Matt cut

  * Missing his xmas concert

  * Agreeing to marry him when she might not be his Swan

  * Makes him look sick since they started hanging out

  * Giving him a drink that she keeps in a flask, but isn't booze?!

  * Doesn't go to band practice

  * Makes lots of excuses

  * Only seems interested in him all of a sudden

Proud, I scan my work. I savor each delectable argument, until something taps me in the back of my mind.

"Not finished yet," it whispers. "Not good enough." It gets louder the longer I study some of the points in the middle of the page.

I guess "missing his Christmas concert" isn't the best thing I can think of. Or "agreeing to marry him when she might not be his Swan." Maybe that's—how she is?

Even still, the rest of the list feels empty: tiny injustices that might mean nothing when you actually turn them over. I run a line though two, and then let it go. The knowledge that I probably should redo it tugs at me, but it also makes my shoulders slump. I drop my pen, and press my fingertips to my deathly eyebrows. It doesn't help me think of anything new.

Why didn't I pay more attention the last time we hung out together? It's not like Sarah ever hit the guy.

The thought gives me pause. I sit up fast, already reaching for my pen.

Maybe she did, but in secret.

I put that on the list, and then add "find out quietly" beside it with an arrow. That feels like maybe enough, with a few exceptions. Things like "doesn't go to band practice," and "makes lots of excuses" don't hold as much weight by comparison. It just makes me feel more useless than when I started.

I fall back in my seat, rubbing my eyebrows again. Tears prick the backs of my eyes. "I just wanna save him," I whisper.

But what if they really are Swans?

The thought gives me shivers. It also culls up a litany of things the Wealthies spend so much of their time talking about: how, when people meet their Swans and not just see them, they know it from the first moment they share together. I try to remember meeting Matt, but it was such a generic thing that nothing but fondness fills my chest. The image of two kids biking down the street in autumn comes to mind, a flash of cool wind, and then it's gone.

Did he feel anything when he met Sarah? Or is that First Moment Feeling just talk?

And then, at the way back of my mind, in a place I can't believe I'm even thinking, it rises:

Will they invite me to the wedding? Would I even want to go? Would Matt start getting better once he's there?

And then the back door swings open.

Chapter Five

Leaping up, I have half a second to dive over the page, and then Ty bounds into the room, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. Stale cigarette smoke clogs my nose. I have to lean away to avoid holding my breath.

"Take it," he says, his voice low and hoarse. He coughs, clearing it and sending more cigarette stink wafting off his clothes. It burns my nose, and a small round of pain forms in my eyebrow. "I forgot I even had it. Put it in your desk, or something. Anywhere Mom can't find it."

"Why?" I pinch the corner with two fingers, slightly scared of what might it be on. "What is it?"

"My grades. Just—put it in your desk."

My jaw drops, and I pull open the crease. "How bad are they?"

He dives at me. "Don't open—!"

I turn, pulling apart the accordion he'd made of it, and squint at the rows of boxes. I have to lay it flat to go down the list. "C's and D's. And is that an F?!" I sit back hard enough that my chair sways, and hand it back to him.

Ty shakes his head. He shoves his hands through his hair, and leans towards the door. "Please, hang onto it. Promise me you will."

Dumbfounded, I turn the page over. Something about this doesn't sit right with me. "But I thought—you said you were okay. You always said that. Now this?" I laugh a little, but I can't feel it. Not when the man in front of me looks more nervous than he's been since he asked his mom to let him go to a school dance. "What happened to your scholarships?"

Ty drops his arms and closes in on me, towering despite how close our faces are. His eyes fill my vision, wide and more frightened than intimidating. I bite back a scream at how fast he is. "A few more grades won't stop me from getting the hell out of this town, before I wind up stuck here, taking care of my mom forever. So promise. Me. Just take it and—" He plucks the page from my fingers, and goes to slide it under my list. My throat threatens to close.

"Tyler!" I choke, his name the squeak of a chipmunk being run over. Both of us freeze for a breath.

"What?" he asks, still holding the list.

I can't think. My hands hover between my mouth and my desk, unable to choose their direction. "Don't," I whisper at last.

"Don't what? Touch this?" His brow scrunches, and he puts it down. I almost swallow myself whole. "'What Sarah Did—'"

"Please!" I flop myself over it so fast, the chair slides back a few inches. The move catches his hand with it, but I don't let him go even when he wiggles his fingers. I don't even care if I look suspicious. My heart pounds too fast for that. "Please just go away."

"What is that?" His voice drops too low. I meet his sharpened gaze over my shoulder. Shyness convulses around me, until the idea of talking seems almost unbearable.

"N-nothing."

"I'll go away if you tell me what you're doing." His face softens. He even stops trying to pull his hand away. "I'm not just your cousin, I'm your big brother, remember? I can help you."

Then why do I feel like telling you now would be stupid of me? I shake my head. "Not this time. You wouldn't understand."

The look he gives me, so wounded and disbelieving, cuts me to the core, but I still don't move. He wiggles his fingers again. I lean back, trying to give him leeway. The second I feel the list going with him, I clamp back down. He does this once more, and I refuse to let him go again.

He gives his hand, and the list, two hard, aggravated tugs. I drop my whole weight onto the desk.

"This is ridiculous. Just let me see what you're doing," he says, voice too loud in my tiny, off-white room. "How do you know I won't understand if you won't even tell me what's going on?"

I study him from over my shoulder. Dark eyes accusing, wounded. The corners of his mouth downturned. He stinks less than before, but maybe that's because I'm used to it now. His breath comes heavy, too, fluttering against my shoulder, and that, more than anything, tells me how upset he is. I swallow, and it comes out as a gulp. "Because every time older people try to help, they just end up making fun of me."

He straightens as much as he can. "Fine, but I'm not leaving until you show me that list." He leans over a bit, peering down past my head and shoulders.

I slap my other arm over the top of the page. Heat crawls up my ears. Any second now, he's probably going to start calling me childish.

But if he sees...

"Katrina, I already saw the heading, so you might as well tell me. It says Sarah on it. Is that Matt's Sarah?"

I throw my gaze out the window so I won't have to look at him anymore. "I don't have to answer that," I say, trying to make my voice as sophisticated as possible—keeping it calm, almost careless about the outcome.

"So then yes, it is. Why are you making list about things she did? Are you trying to be her? Be like her?"

I squint into the rim of yellow-white around the setting sun, and glare back at the blinding, blue-white sparkles it makes off the tiny ripples in the surface of the pond. "No," I say. My eyes burn—and so do my nose and cheeks, and ears—but I refuse to turn around. I refuse to let him read my face, and the shame I feel at his scrutiny.

Why can't he just go away?

But no. He kept talking: "You can ask her whatever you want. She's not shy. Actually," he laughs, and straightens up again, his hand tugging. His voice takes on that weird, deep quality it gets while flirting. "She's really awesome—"

"It's not about—her." My voice, too loud, too angry, upset, everything, cuts through the room fast, and hard. Too mad, too insistent. Tears that merely burned by eyes before prickle the backs of them now, and I have to force myself not to sniffle. Even my ears burn too hot, probably bright red by now. I focus on the window, humiliated, and pray something out there—something winged, and magical, and totally inhuman, but totally of Atlantis—could sweep down and take me away.

"Is this about Matt?"

The question throws me harder than it should, and I spin around, the list forgotten. Ty slumps, every line of his face pulling him towards the ground. Everything except his eyes. They bear into me, sharp and searching and, again, wounded.

How dare you? They ask me.

"What makes you think that?" I ask, with too much tremble in my voice. My whole body freezes again the second he lowers himself to my eye level. And there's so much pity there, but also so much disbelief, that I can't look away again.

"Because I see the way you look at him. But what I can't understand is, why the hell would you want his attention, Katrina? What the hell makes him so great? He's just a goody-goody."

The panic and fear in his voice glues my tongue to the top of my mouth. Is that betrayal I sense in him? The "not my cousin, too" kind? I gulp down a breath, and scrape my tongue free. "Don't be mad at him because he got engaged."

Ty's face reddens to a brick-like color. "I'm not!"

"You sound like you are."

He runs his hand through his hair. "Look, just—he's not that great. Trust me."

I sit up a little. "Fine. Why the hell are you hiding your grades?"

His whole expression locks down, and he straightens. "Not the same thing as making that list."

I spin in my chair, releasing his hand, but making sure to lean my elbow on the list. "Oh yeah? Your final report card is serious—so is what's on my list. Have you even talked to Matt lately? He's so tired, and I'm pretty sure he's—"

A long, baleful ringing from the kitchen cuts me off. Ty lets out an annoyed grunt, direct from the back of his throat, and then goes to the door, disappearing down the hall. The phone rings again, alarming and insistent.

"Ty, pick it up. There's no answering machine," I say, speaking loudly to cover the sounds of me opening my desk drawer, and stuffing the list in. At the last second, I follow it up with the report card.

Ty swears loud enough to make the walls ring. I jump, straightening in time to catch him swinging back into the kitchen. "Mom. It's almost five." He grabs the phone in the middle of the fourth ring.

The abrupt cut-off leaves the ring hanging in the air, fading into an eerie silence punctuated by Ty's muttered, easy, "yeses" and "mhmms." By the time he hangs up, even the fridge adds its groans to the mix. In the distance, little electric pops go off, though I can't tell if they're tourist firecrackers, or bugs sparking against the electric wall around our town.

"She's on her way," he says. He swings into my room again, hanging by the door, and pointing a long brown finger at my now-clean desk. "Promise me you won't say anything, Charlotte Katrina Kamiya."

I sit up taller, both at the sound of my name said out in full like that, and at the intensity in his voice. With some reluctance, I raise both hands. Ty slumps against the door, beating his head on the frame.

"Please?" he whispers to the wood. "Please just do this one thing? You never used to make me beg like this."

"You never used to act like this. Your mom would be shocked to see these grades. She'd say you're throwing your life away. She's the one who's been rising through the ranks of cleaning lady every time she can get a promotion, remember? What d'you think she'll say if she finds out you won't be getting a scholarship?"

His eyes shine. "So you'll do it?"

His obstinance is so aggravating, I grind my teeth for a second. "Only if you stay away from my list." I say it so quietly, I'm scared he doesn't hear. He stands there, forehead on the door, for the longest time. It's so quiet, again, that the rippling waves of the pond break the silence around us.

Bit by bit, he lifts his head, giving me an almost imperceptible nod.

Chapter Six

I wait until the next morning to pull out the list while I'm getting ready for school, grabbing it in a mad dash to get out the door in time, and to make sure I don't leave without it. I open my desk and ease the page out, the clock ticking louder in my ears, but I still take the time to fold it up and put it in my pocket. In its place, Ty's grades lie curled like a glowing coal.

I slam the drawer on them.

He can come back for you, but he won't get my stuff.

Right before I head out too too, I spy a note on the kitchen table with Aunt Jo's handwriting. "Lunch is in the fridge," it says. I smile, packing it inside the pocket without the list.

Outside, the sun has risen to an almost blistering height, and a sob rises to the back of my throat. I want to take my time with all the green surrounding me. The early days of summer in Massachusetts gleam around me with all the clarity of new glass: none of the smudges, or fog, from the day have set in yet.

Even the trees glow with dew, the shivering shade beneath them cold, and uninviting. The air, still cool with dreams, swirls with fresh life: bees floating along, already well into their workday; nymph-ants rolling over in the grass on their half-sodden wings. Goblin-rabbits nibbling on grass, hopping along on tiny legs and trying not to get splattered across the road by cars.

My sneakers squelch past it all, covered in the soggy grass clippings of the manicured lawns near the school that are so unlike my own. The whole town smells of sea salt and new presents.

Thank God none of the tourists are around yet. I feel like this is the only time I ever get to myself, without worrying about their stares, or ugly questions, following me.

And the second I begin enjoying it, the second I pause for long enough to yearn for a camera because look, just look at how that light filters, and that's not even Atlantis magic, that's a natural fairy curtain, the bell goes off at school, its ding the one solid spot in the comfortable silence.

"No!" I gasp, darting ahead.

My backpack dances. My arms pump hard. The world turns into a blur until I get into the building, and I still get a chorus of "you're late!" as I dart past the office. It doesn't even matter. What does is the fact that Erin, the one person I wanted to share the list with, is already in class.

The people in the office pull me in, loading me with a late pass, and holding me during the morning announcements. At least they let me stand by the door, away from the messes on their desks. Their small, beady gazes prickle the back of my neck, though, their whip-fast voices startling me every time I edge a bit too close to the hallway.

I walk out the moment the speeches are over, keeping a lazy pace all the way to the end of the hall, and around the corner. Then I book it towards Erin's first class, praying no one investigates my squeaking sneakers.

The door to Erin's class is boarded up tight with signs on colored paper. I glance around the hall, with its flickering lights and slate-colored lockers, but the hall monitor's not around, so I lean close to the narrow window. Every corner glows pink with coverings. There's not an edge out of place.

Colorful prison.

I'm five minutes late to class, earning me the kind of look my teachers only give Ty when he shows up. I just slide into a desk and count the minutes until break.

When it comes, I fight to get to Erin's locker, and then plant myself there. Dozens of familiar sneakers race past, tracking dirt across the already filthy, blue-while tiled floor. They only add to the smells of stale air and sunblock that have taken up permanent residence in the building, the way I'm sure the echoes of "have you been Swanned yet?" probably will one day. I wonder how many of the kids here have been Read for their Swans, regardless of their age.

Overhead, the lights give a massive flicker. Some kids on the opposite end of the hall scream so loud at this that they pop my ears. The sound turns into a laugh once the lights return to normal, and a newer teacher—she has to be new, no one else panics like that when strange things happen—tells them to stop "freaking everyone else out."

Even I have to suppress a smile, one I send away entirely when a Coat passes me. The woman's eyes shine, studying everyone, greedy for something I can't name, like we're frogs she can't wait to dissect for the source of all our Swan secrets. After she's gone, the stink of antiseptic lingers in the air until someone stirs it away.

But Erin still doesn't show. Only Rey does, bringing the first bell with her. She groans, and stuffs a bag of chips into her mouth, her deep blue nails flashing in the light.

"Where were you?" I stand up, tossing my bag onto my shoulder. "And where's Erin?"

"Sorry," she says, wiping grease off her mouth with the back of her hand. She holds the bag out to me. It's only after I eat a few that I notice how hungry I am, and steal a few more. "Finals prep. Erin's here, but she's in extra help, if what she told me this morning is still true."

Once again, the fact that she knows where Erin is and I don't stings me just a little. Once again, I'm completely out of the loop, and even though I know it's mostly because I was late, I can't help feeling like it's also because they're dating.

I bounce on my toes, and scan the halls again. The list burns in my pocket, but I still—can't bring myself to talk about it just now. Yesterday still rings clear in my mind, and Rey had been too upset over just mentioning Matt's hospital visit.

Her hand on my arm makes me jump, and I stop bouncing.

"You okay?" she asks, passing me the last chips.

I nod fast, and pour them into my mouth so I don't have to say anything just yet. "I'll tell you both at lunch, okay?" I say after a few swallows. Though I'm still not sure I want them both to know.

Rey sticks around a little too long, but the crowd in the hallway is thinning. She lets go with a protective, meaningful look of concern, and then we both race the second bell to class.

At one o'clock, and with one more class to go, I march to lunch, determined to be there when Erin arrives. Opening the door to the parking lot, I stumble. The humidity's getting thicker, loaded with the smell of hot asphalt, and bright, hot sunlight sears my eyes, forcing me to stop and regain my vision.

A couple kids shove me out of their way, and I teeter off to the side with a swear. When I can see the vine-strewn cars without wincing every time the glare hits their windshields, I make my way onto the fenced-in, paved lunch area. The school has always made shallow attempts at separating us from the tourists.

They have a "keep out!" sign on the grass, attempting to warn us away from where the nymph-ants leap and spring. I do my best to avoid them, but when they crawl off the lawn, I also do my best to crush them under my heel before they can bite me. A kid got yelled at by a Coat for that, once, but in all the time they've tried to "preserve the colonies for further environmental research," none of them have gotten bit in the field. I've never even seen them go outside, except to leave school for the night.

Maybe I can ask Sarah what their deal is, I tell myself in a snotty tone, mocking Ty's offhand suggestion from last night. I step on another one, and then plop my bag in the space around me, saving it.

It's the perfect spot, right at the juncture between the nerds and the Wealthies Sarah hangs out with. From here, we get all the gossip without drawing attention to ourselves, which is perfect. I couldn't imagine being cut off from hearing about who Swanned and who hooked up with someone else's soul mate. It gives me a little thrill, to think of ever finding my True Love, my perfect match. The idea of it gives me shivers.

Erin shows up a minute after I do. Leaping to my feet again, I put my lunch on top of my bag, and pull the list out of my pocket. "I have to show you something," I say, slipping it into her hand. "I made it yesterday, after our—you know—talk."

She blinks against the sun, and I help her weave her way to our lunch space. Her soft, thick arm wraps around mine, her fair skin cool to the touch, letting me go to sit beside my bag. "What is it?" she asks, peeling a corner open.

"It's how I'm going to talk to him about how he's hurting."

"Who?"

At the sound of Rey's voice, I freeze. Over Erin's shoulder, cigarette smoke curls into the air, the last wisps of it punctuated by the click of a lighter. The sound pings off my eardrums, culling up memories of a stuffy living room ten minutes down the road from mine. Another puff, and Rey hovers over us, burning the already hot air with ash, and reading over Erin's shoulder.

Erin beams at her, hugging her tight around the legs. Rey drops to the ground, hugging her back, and then the two of them begin pulling out their lunch. With an alarming amount of practice, they make fast trades of chip bags and plastic containers, all right in front of me.

"I brought your favorite: peaches and cream," Rey says, accepting a container of electric blue yellow as she hands off her own.

Erin giggles, and presses a kiss to Rey's cheek. "You're the best," she says, the list momentarily forgotten.

Hoping it won't come up again, I sink back, leaning away from this with a pang in my chest, and a stone in my heart. It's not fair, I can't help thinking. Watching them makes my loneliness from before feel even more pronounced. I try not to stare, praying instead that I'll eventually find someone to cuddle with—sooner rather than later—and than maybe, just maybe, Matt will be that person. That we'll be Swans, and that making the list will be justified.

And as I overhear the Wealthies gossiping to each other about getting Read early, I start to wonder...

Maybe I should ask Auntie to make my doctor's appointment a month early?

Or maybe I should just find new people to talk to.

"You okay?"

Rey's question startles me, regardless of how gentle it comes out. I find both her and Erin watching me, food sitting in their laps, their eyes wary.

"This isn't too weird for you, is it?" she asks again, offering me a square of Jello.

"It's fine," I say, forcing lightness into my voice and plopping the treat onto my tongue. "No weirdness."

Rey nods, but I'm not sure she believes me. "So what's going on? Who're we talking about?" she asks, nodding to the list on Erin's knee.

I bite back a scream, and half-dive at the page at the same time Rey reaches for it. Erin catches my eye, face filled with apologies, but Erin still hands it over.

We should've waited until after school.

Rey studies it, and then makes a face. "You know, this really isn't a good idea."

I clench my jaw, and sit up taller. "Of course it is. If I'm gonna confront him, I need a list of ways Sarah hurt him." I reach for the page, but she moves it away from my hand.

Rey takes such a long drag, she burns the cigarette halfway to the filter. "Kat, are you kidding me? Can't you see how petty this is?" she asks, her voice heady with smoke.

"It's not petty, it's the truth." I reach for the list again, but Rey lifts it farther away from my hand.

"So that's your big plan? Find one-hundred-and-one ways to shit on his girlfriend—no, wait. Fiancée." Rey leans so close to my face, I can count the clumps of old mascara on her eyelashes. I do my best to breathe without inhaling too much smoke.

"Someone has to tell him," I say. I have to hold my knees down so I won't feel like hunching my shoulders, and making myself smaller.

Rey wipes a hand over her face, and then pushes a few strands of her mohawk back into place. A lump catches itself in my throat. "Menina, that's what makes me worry about you. You gotta think before you act."

She lets out a deep sigh, and starts in on her sandwich. The list flutters in her other hand. "He's not in the hospital anymore, and his family works for the Coats, so clearly, if he needs to, he has the means to go back if he needs to. But rocking the boat when you really don't need to? That could be bad."

She swallows, and winks at me against the sun. "Did you tell your aunt?"

"Never got the chance," I say through clenched teeth.

Rey nods, and I grind my teeth even more. "I'm glad."

She puts out her cigarette in the grass. A couple of nymph-ants scream, a high-pitched whistling that reminds me of logs on a fire. About a dozen rise up to Rey, nipping at her hand. Erin and I shriek, scooting away. Rey just flicks them off, rubbing the new welts on her finders against the side of her jeans.

"Just try to stop focusing on him so much. Talk to us," she says, pointing to herself and Erin. "Don't you care about what's going on in our lives?"

I scoot back over with the girl in question, the hurt in Rey's towering voice giving my heart a squeeze. Erin won't meet my eyes. At least she's avoiding Rey's too. I let myself slump. "Of course," I say, trying not to let my guilt—or irritation at her for hijacking the conversation—show on my face. "I care about all my friends. Its just—"

I heave a sigh, sending my gaze to the street. My words jumble every time I try to form them into an explanation.

And then, I see Matt. He's stapling something to a phone pole, shoulders still slung down, his movements slow. Everything in me screams "go! Go see him!"

"It's just—what?" Rey asks. The hurt and confusion in her voice snaps me back to the conversation. I turn just in time to catch both her and Erin following my gaze. Rey hunches in her spot, and my heart drops. "Oh."

The corner of Erin's mouth perks up. I don't have to guess whose foot taps mine, I just get up. Approval warms my whole body. "I'll be right back," I say.

Chapter Seven

"Remember what I told you last night," Rey says, but I'm already fast-walking over to him.

Matt's standing by bulletin boards outside the gym by the time I reach him, a bunch of computer paper in hand, searching for a spot. I force myself to slow down, despite the electricity in my veins. I don't want to scare him, or freak him out, and the closer I get, the more I realize I'm still not sure what's going to come out of my mouth once we're standing next to each other.

Just be cool.

Gulping back a deep breath, I try to picture the list. The title blares across my mind, but apart from my concerns about him cutting, every single point evades me. I stumble in panic, the toe of my shoes catching on the uneven sidewalk.

Damnit, Katrina. Fine, whatever. Just be cool. Maybe you can talk to him about cutting, and that'll be enough.

I roll my shoulders back, breathe deep, and then let my feet carry me over to him. On reflex, I brush my shoulder against his arm when I come to a stop. "Hey, stranger, what're you doing here?" I ask, the words stumbling out of me.

And just like that, visiting him feels easy again. It's like ice cream. Even my lungs open up a bit wider.

He smiles before he even meets my gaze, and the thought that I can do that to him with a mere "hi," sends a satisfied thrill down my body. I don't even notice his arm circling my shoulders until he's pressing me against his side. My nose fills with the smells of sun-warmed skin, and cotton. All too soon, the hug ends, but his arm still brushes mine as it swings back to his side.

"Didn't you hear? I couldn't graduate. Too many missed classes. Now you're stuck with me for another year." He winks, but I give his arm a light slap anyway. In the pit of my stomach, the same concern I'd felt when he was in the hospital—missing all those classes—wars with the tiny, star-like specks of pleasure I get at the idea of him sticking around. I study the light scars inside his elbow, shaded from sight unless you know where to look.

"Not funny," I say, keeping my voice light. I nod at the papers. "What are you really doing?"

He hands them over. "Concert posters. I want my band to perform next week. Nothing big," he adds at the sight of my jaw dropping. "It's a test run. I figure only half the people who say they'll show up actually will. Given how many times that's happened to all the other local bands around here, I'm not holding my breath. Mom's letting me use the backyard."

"You think you're ready? Not that I doubt your obvious mad talent, but you just got that guitar—what? A year ago?" I flip through the diminished pile of neon-colored pages. The farther down I go, the grainer the black-and-white photo of the band gets, though each of the members stand out like white splotches.

"Yeah." He takes the stack from me, sliding off the top page for me to keep, and then runs a hand through his hair. I can't be sure, but I think it shakes a little. "And the band's only a month old, and Ty's never really taken bass lessons—"

"Did Olivia already talk to you about this?" I ask with a wince.

He lets out a dry laugh. "Mom did. But Liv would say the same thing. Dad calls her 'her mother's daughter.' But I think this could be good. It's not 'til next week, and we've been practicing every night, and the others both seem ready to at least try." He shrugs, the motion more jagged and defensive than I like. "I'm not expecting us to be good, but I want to get back to my music."

He flicks through the posters the way I had, staring at the one now fluttering on the bulletin board. "I really, really missed it. All those times I was away, and all those times I could hardly get out of bed..."

I put a hand on his arm, my thumb rubbing small circles into the swath of golden-brown hair there. Without looking, he frees his arm, and pulls me close again, holding me the way he had in my kitchen yesterday.

I hug his waist, and whisper, "I'm sorry about Ty. I remember how hard he was on you when you went away," I add at the confused frown drooping his face. It melts a little, and he gives me a squeeze. "He has a hard time opening up to guys the way he opens up to me, even if that guy's been his best friend since elementary school. Don't take it personally."

"You're sweet," Matt says with a laugh. "Thank you." He turns back to the posters again.

That's when it hits me: someone's missing from all this. "Where's Sarah? Why isn't she helping you?"

Matt gives me an awkward laugh, and runs his hand through his hair again. "I, uh—I didn't ask her to."

I study his face, but he keeps his gaze on the posters. "Why not?" This time, I don't have to put any measure of sadness in my voice. It slips in on its own. The thought of not being able to count on my loved ones sends a hard pang through my chest. Another thing to add to the list. "Doesn't she support you?"

Matt barely meets my eyes as he flicks a sad "what are you gonna do" smile my way. Then he nods over my shoulder. "You should probably finish your lunch. Your friends are waiting," he says, and turns away.

I leap in front of him, taking his wrists. "No," I say, and then remember his scars. I try to slide my fingers closer to his palms, but he doesn't flinch to see where my hands are. "Answer my question."

His expression tightens. "She does," he says. By the time he looks up, he's schooled his expression into something more neutral. "She supports me in certain ways. She helped make the posters. But that doesn't make her a bad person," he adds, leaning close, like this is of the utmost importance.

I tighten my grip and lean in, too, rubbing the hills of his scars with my thumbs. "I would never say that. But I want you to tell me one thing. How do you feel about that part of your relationship?"

His jaw snaps closed, and he drops his wide-eyed, dew-drop gaze to the posters again. I keep rubbing circles into his puckered skin, desperate to keep him with me. Over his shoulder, the noise from lunch gets louder. People shuffle around. He flinches, and I startle, loosening my grip, resorting to soothing circles again.

Please don't let the period be over yet.

"Sorry," I whisper.

The corner of his lip quirks. "It's okay," he says, but he can't mask the injury—to my questions? To Sarah's part of his life?—that break his words apart. "I don't know what else to tell you. She's just—not that interested."

"Have you told her how much this all means to you?" I tap the posters. "Don't you think it's weird that she agreed to marry you, but she won't even help you do what you love?" I lean in close. "Have you gone to your doctor to get Read yet?"

His smile tightens. His hands drop, and I let them go. I can feel him pulling away in that tiny gesture, and a thrill of fear shoots through me, but I can't push him. Not now. Not if he's still willing to talk.

"I think it's more complicated than that. But I appreciate your concern." His smile comes out forced, not even pretending to reach his eyes. "And to your other question—no," he sighs, and runs a hand over the back of his neck. "I haven't had time. Between therapy, giving guitar lessons, and volunteering at church—it's been a mess."

The air slips from my lungs. "Okay," I say, trying to let the whole thing go—to sound at ease, instead of offended. He's my friend. He's my friend...don't be like Sarah. "In that case, can I help?" I point to the remaining posters.

"Uh..." He lifts them up again, and then laughs. Just like that, the tension melts away. "I'm actually almost done, but you can walk with me while I do the rest of them. Did you finish lunch?"

I wave a hand, pulse racing. "I can eat at home," I say, avoiding looking at Rey and Erin. If I catch either of their gazes, something tells me they won't be glad to watch me walking away.

Still, he gives me a look, and then nods to where my friends are sitting. "Go on, go get your food. I'll wait here until you get back."

Chapter Eight

I finally dare to take a peek at both my friends. Rey hunches over her lunch in the space I'd taken. Her shoulders shake with laughter, and every once in a while, she smacks the pavement with her palm, like Erin's been saying something endlessly amusing, and Rey just can't handle it anymore. Erin's hand sits on her knee, but the other one pulls back, holding something.

Even though I can't hear what she's saying, the second Rey lifts her head and opens her mouth, I notice the object in Erin's hand fly into the air. Rey catches it between her teeth, arms flung out in victory, and they share another kiss. I whip away, like I can pretend I haven't been looking.

It feels like another gulf has grown between the three of us. Or, between them and me.

"I'm really not that hungry," I say. I catch Rey's voice lifting on the wind, but I don't catch what she's saying. My stomach chooses that moment to growl. My whole face heats up, hot and humiliating, to the roots of my hair. He grins a bit.

If nothing else, it got him smiling.

Matt puts a heavy, soft hand on my back. "Are you running from them?" he asks. A bit of his teasing tone takes the edge off his voice, but he still doesn't manage to hide the concerned undercurrent that sneaks its way up. "Is everything alright?"

I flounder for a moment, jaw half-hanging to the ground. Around us, the world still sparkles the way it did this morning, but with more clarity, more life, and fewer opportunities to beat anything to the punch, or share real secrets. This sparkle has too much reality to it, even for Atlantis. The creatures and people demand to be seen, to be acknowledged. Exposed. True blues, and greens, car honks. A distant tourist, who somehow has wandered out onto Real Atlantis, hustles to escape a bug that's chasing them away from our fence, back to their vacation.

This isn't the time to bring up Rey.

I take his arm, steering him up the walk to the road. My stomach growls again. "Let's talk about you. How's college prep going? How's the wedding planning?"

He laughs a little, that same nervous chuckle from before, making me wonder how much he'll answer my questions. "Packing is slow, but I saw the campus. It seems good. I'm looking forward to it." He frees a poster and pins it to a telephone pole just off the school driveway. Then he starts counting the rest of them.

"And the wedding?" I step a bit closer.

He shakes his head, but avoids my eyes. The afternoon sun bakes the back of my head while I wait, until my hair feels hot enough to curl, if I wanted to try. Only a few tiny beads of sweat glitter on the back of his neck.

"Harder than I thought." He nods to the road. "Mind if we go up the street a bit?" He waves three more posters. "I'll have you back fast. I just need to get these up."

"Sure!" I perk up, hopping right into line with him.

His grin softens into something I recognize. We turn down the sidewalk, only to find Ty and Sarah both headed our way, their bikes literally covered in the same flowers that overrun Aunt Jo's house—and every house like it around the lake we live on. They both wear school colors, blue and white, but where Ty's soccer jersey flutters in the wind, Sarah's cheerleader uniform hugs her chest and hips. It gives me a sudden urge to cover my own flat body.

At the sight of us, Ty's grin flattens. He falls back a step as Sarah beams, and then hands over what looks like a journal. Ty hides it under his shirt until you can't tell he has it. Even after he slows and disembarks, Ty only meets Matt's gaze.

What on earth?

I step in front of their path, but the second that book is out of her hands, Sarah races over to us, and leaps into Matt's arms. Up close, I spy the light sheen of sweat on her skin, the unnatural thinness to her face, almost like she's gotten sick since yesterday. Then her bike falls to the ground with a clatter, and the flask from before tumbles out. At the sound, she jumps, and then rushes to stand it up, pressing the flask into Matt's hands with more energy than her appearance suggests she should have.

"Drink! I made more for us," she says, pushing auburn hair over her dark ears, and then pouting at the sight of the posters. I can't tell for sure, but I'm almost positive I didn't see her engagement ring on her finger. "You didn't want me to help with those?" she asks, her voice high and wounded.

Matt's jaw drops, and we trade a look, but before she can analyze it, he says, "I didn't know I could ask! You got so upset about the last concert."

"Oh, boo, no," she pouts, hugging him harder. "That was just—a rough patch for me. All the stress of Christmas and family and colleges, and midterms—ugh. I was all over the place." She nuzzles his nose with hers. "We both were. Senior year's been hard on us. Of course I want to help. Did you go to the field yet? We can put some there. Ty and I are both headed to practice now, anyway." She takes three from his hand.

"Great!" Matt says, snapping me back to attention.

I whirl on him, but he's too caught up in taking her hand to pay attention to me. "I thought we were almost done," I say, flicking the posters he's still holding.

He gives me two, almost half-heartedly. "Just stick them up around school. I'm sure no one will mind." But he still follows Ty and Sarah with his eyes, as if she'll roll away without him.

Every single thing about that look sends red alarms off in the back of my head. Something's wrong, something's off. Why do you want to follow this chick?

I touch his arm, his skin warm and soft under my fingers. He finally meets my eye, but his attention lingers behind us, where Ty and Sarah are. "Matt, she just shoved that flask at you," I whisper. His gaze finally sharpens on mine, and my lungs flood with air. "Don't you think that's weird? And isn't it weird that they're hanging out together?"

He smirks, patting my hand where it still clings to his elbow. With a silent snap, the world around us roars over me: the air tastes too much like the salt staining the beach houses a mile away. The sun blisters my eyes where it gleams off his hair, his shirt, the school windows. It takes me a second to realize the warmth against my palm comes from the scorching air, and not the back of his arm.

The lunch bell clangs, rattling my spine. Over his shoulder, I catch my stick-figure classmates still milling around the tables in a game of "who's most delinquent?"

"They're friends, Kat. And they work together." Matt's laughing voice pulls me back to him. He tweaks my chin between his thumb and index finger. After a second, he pauses, the smile in his eyes softening, deepening to something more thoughtful.

I blink, and then he's turning around, tossing a grin over his shoulder. "You should come over after school. We have band rehearsal. I think you'd like it."

"'Kay," I whisper. I take a second, waiting and watching for them to leave, while my heart beats out of my chest to follow him, shake him—why couldn't you just see what I showed you? Why deny what's right in front of your face.

And as I watch, I find Ty lagging behind. The sight of him, stuck trailing after two dating friends, guts me.

I know how you feel.

And then I notice just how few kids still remain on the lunch grounds. I lift my knees and fly down to my bag—alone, without any of my friends to guard it.

My heart lurches. Part of me is glad that neither Rey, nor Erin, is around to interrogate me for taking off. The other part...

Don't they want to know what happened? I thought at least Erin would.

My elation at having seen Matt, even for a second, dies. I gather up my things fast, scanning the receding group. There, right at the back, where the last kids cram the door, I find Erin. The girl flips her mass of curly hair out of her eyes a few times, but even from a distance, I can read the laughter on her face.

The crowd shifts again, leaving only her and Rey outside. Rey's voice lifts enough that its happy echo reverberates over the lunch yard, her arms waving like turbines, the way they do whenever she mocks one of her teachers. The fact that she doesn't even look back to see if I'm following hurts my heart.

Is this what it's going to be like now—the two of them always hanging out, always together, and me, apart from it all? A constant third wheel? Is this what it's like to be with your Swan? You just feel happy and confident all the time, even if you're not one of the Coats' kids? Even if you're not super rich?

Right before she goes in, Erin turns and catches my eye. Her face falls at seeing me waiting. "I'm sorry," Erin mouths, but I pretend not to see, busying myself with my stuff. The bell rings, and she steps inside, following Rey without me.

Chapter Nine

I'm late to my last class of the day, and at this point, it feels like I'm late to everything. When it comes time to turn it in, I realize I forgot my homework. The teacher accepts my half-baked excuse about leaving it on a table at home, but after the whole debacle with the List, I'm pretty sure I never actually did it last night.

He doesn't think so, either. His lips purse, and he gives me a beady-eyed look that mars anything attractive about him, which I can't help thinking is too bad. He's either fresh out of college, or he's going to be, and it's been treating him well.

He also gives me that pointed "mhmm" that some of the other teachers give me whenever I offer them one of Ty's excuses for why I'm late.

It's only after I'm headed off to collect my stuff that I wonder if Ty's reputation's rubbing off on me. Neither of us have ever been good at school, even compared to Atlantis standards, and some of our town tests come out to be the lowest in the state. Or so they've been telling me.

I'm not even out the door when a hand grabs my arm. I start, turning to find the teacher staring out the hall door. One of the Coats passes by, nodding at the two of us. Even though she smiles, her eyes are searching, just like those of all the other Coats I've ever passed. I wave back—what else am I supposed to do?—but the teacher doesn't let go until the woman turns down the hallway.

"It's just a Coat," I say, adjusting my backpack. "They're pretty harmless, if you don't mind yearly checkups."

But the teacher just glares in her general direction. I shrug and walk away, letting myself feel a little bit bad for the people who never grew up here. They're the ones who never seem to understand: the Coats are just a part of Atlantis, like all the other strange and frightening stuff around here. Even I know that, and I was eight when I moved back here for good.

That's why, upon opening my locker to find it chewed through, and my stuff decimated by nymph-ants, disgust rises up in my throat first. I try to work fast, brushing them back through the hole they chewed through the wall, and squashing the ones that fall underfoot.

After a good fifteen minutes of working to rescue my stuff, my bag is full to bursting with every book and loose piece of paper I own. The ants continue swarming. I slam my locker closed, hurrying off to the front office and praying the incident report doesn't take long.

The clock on the wall inside the office door reads two-forty-five. It's only then that I realize I probably missed half the band rehearsal already.

The receptionist gives me a snarky "you again" look, and hands me the form when I ask for one. As I work, with one eye on the clock, and the other on my semi-intelligent scribble, a small headache forms behind my eyebrow.

That's just because it smells like stale air, and too much sunblock in this place. I repeat the excuse to myself two more times, even though, in the back of my mind, my sense of time screams at me that I'm going to be late. It doesn't care that I already am.

The receptionist directs my form to a large pile at the end of the desk. Balking, I read a few lines on the top one. "Ants" is the first word that pops out at me. It's dated a month ago. I point at them. "Are these all pest related?"

She nods, picking up the stack and walking it to the back of the room. There, she drops it with a plop into a large cardboard box. A nearby Coat glances over, and then waves a hand at it, slipping back into the nurse's office.

I guess I won't be using my locker anymore.

The second I leave the office, I book it out the door. All the student bikes are gone from the racks, and only a couple cars fill the lot, flowers strewn everywhere. It's three o'clock and, without thinking, I dart across the grass to get away from the school faster.

I feel their pinching bites before I see them. As if I hadn't had enough of nymph-ants for one day, they rise in a swarm, like bees with even less coordination. And then, there they are: great clouds of black ants with green wings. An uneven series of welts rises along my arms like a severe case of the chicken pox.

I scream, and squeal, and flail, and race off the lawn to the nearest patch of dirt I can find. It makes my headache pulse, but I can't help it. I wind up in the tree line separating the school from private property. The pinches come so hard and fast, they're starting to build on each other, and burn. Welts grow welts until it feels like getting smacked on a sunburn.

I'm about to cry, diving for the relief of the trees, and then, they corner me: tree eaters. Fat, deep brown, and long as wasps, they fly at me, their multifaceted fairy eyes shimmering as they force me back, back, into the thicket of ants trying to drive me away. Ty's warnings about their poison stingers come slithering back to me: stay away from the oak trees; you'll never get the' stingers out; the poison'll turn you blue, paralyze you.

Like he almost was after climbing the oak tree in front of his window.

I am so done with this.

I sob for real this time, and turn tail. It doesn't matter if they chase me, doesn't matter if I get more welts—I just need to get away from here. I need my head to stop hurting. I book it as hard and as fast as I can around the back of the school, searching for help. I want to call out, but it takes all my energy to breathe, and leap over the tangled underbrush blocking my way.

I'm fast enough that the ants stop biting me. The drone of the eaters hums in my ears, though. Squeezing close to the building, I do my best to duck around windows flung open to the summer warmth, and try to just keep moving. I have to ignore the fact that our school is surrounded by oak trees and eaters, but I doubt anyone's raised trouble like I just did.

At least, not on this property. And not willingly.

I round the corner of the building at a breakneck pace, and almost slam into the back of the bleachers lining the parched soccer field. Heaving for breath, but too scared to stop, I slip between the rungs, making my way along the bottom. By the time I reach the other side, the humming slows, but I can still feel the eaters following me by the brush of their wings. I round the bleachers to get farther away from the woods, and then stop short of the field.

Not five feet from where I'm standing, in the growing shadows of the half-demolished oaks, Ty and Sarah sit close together, heads bent over something like a book in between them. She has a flower crown in her hair, a ring of dandelions woven tightly into a long chain. Apart from two kids kicking a ball on the other side of the field, the intense murmur of their low voices, and the humming growing louder behind me, there's nothing: no sound, no presences, no one.

Just Sarah's oddly pensive voice asking, "Are you sure?" and Ty's answering, almost too eagerly, "Yes. I get it, I really do. No one likes being stifled."

Chapter Ten

My first irrational thought is that at least I'm not missing band. I can't help but wonder if he planned it that way, or if they did. Together.

But I thought they were—just friends?

The picture of them from lunch surfaces to the front of my mind again. The'd seemed so casual, so relaxed. But now, seeing them huddle together like this, makes the image of them from before feel like more than that.

And then it hits me: maybe this is why Ty's been so blasé towards Matt. He's been hanging out with Sarah, without Matt around.

But she's engaged?!

So—is she leading Ty on, or is she not actually all that serious about Matt? I can't decide which feels worse right now. I'm too stunned. The only other coherent thought my brain is able to form is: has Sarah been the reason Ty's grades have slipped?

But who am I, his mother?

In that moment, I've seen enough, more than I can even coherently talk about right now. A warning in the back of my mind says the two of them could turn at any moment. While I love Ty, I have no idea what he'll do if he finds me watching them in their private moment. I back up a couple of steps, and then freeze.

The humming gets louder than it's ever been. It's becoming a full-on buzz. I can feel their tiny wings flapping behind me, fanning the hot, muggy air, their stingers poised and waiting. I take shallow breaths, trying not to move my ribs much. Not until one of them flutters against my hair.

I scream, and almost jump out of my skin. Darting forward, I make my way right for the soccer field. I'll go anywhere, anywhere, to make them stop following me.

Two steps in, I'm yanked to the side. Ty's arms surround me, leading me away from the mess I've created outside. For once, the humming doesn't follow. Glancing back, I catch the eaters retreating, their trees officially protected from the likes of me.

"Kat, what are you doing here," Ty says, a statement instead of a question. By the tone of his voice, I'm guessing it's the second time he's asked this question, though I don't know how I missed the first. He takes me by the shoulders, lowering to my level until I can no longer see Sarah behind him, racing to put away their book. He stinks of cigarettes and perfume. "I thought you went home. Are you alright? What happened?"

It takes me a moment to find my words. The more I look at the two of them, the harder it gets to concentrate. It doesn't help that my eye just about twitches with this headache. I have to shut them to explain myself.

"Some—tree-tears were chasing me. I had to run somewhere. But what about you?" I ask, opening my eyes and waving a hand in Sarah's direction. "I thought you were supposed to be at band practice."

Ty straightens up. That heavy, dark look from before, when he wouldn't explain his grades, shadows his face. "It's not 'til later, but we're not discussing that. This is about you. You should've been home by now." He takes my arm right under the shoulder, hustling me past Sarah with a muttered, "Sorry about this,"

"No problem," she says, giving me a tight smile. I only get a glimpse of her—her body too thin, her movements too slow, her attempt to hide their book behind her back too obvious—before Ty pulls me to the end of the bleachers, and onto the sidewalk. But what I saw was enough—enough to tell me she's looking way worse than she did yesterday, or even at lunch. "You should get her out of here," she says.

"And that's exactly what I'm doing," he says.

Alarm spikes through me. "What?! Why?" I wriggle, and squirm, and finally manage to twist out of his grip. His nails claw at me, skinning my upper arm, but I barely even notice the sting of it when he yanks on my backpack straps, and keeps towing me away. "What's so private that you can't tell me? Tyler, c'mon. Why were you whispering?"

I dig my heels into the dirt path. He gives me another tug. I almost trip on the edge of the pavement, my shoes kicking up the dead grass of the sun-parched soccer field. Another twirl, and a clench of my elbows, and I'm free of my backpack entirely.

Ty grunts with the weight of it, and then heaves a sigh, his whole body slumped with more impatience than I've ever seen in him. "Kat, come on. You need to go home. Look at you, you're fucking covered in welts. Did you go rolling in a pile of nymph-ants, or are you just stupid?"

He hefts my bag, walking it towards me. "Mom's gonna be pissed. She expects you to be home by now—"

I jump back another couple steps. "Your mom won't even be home until after five, how would she know if I'm really there or not? And that's not the point. You didn't answer my question. What were you guys whispering about?"

He throws my backpack at my feet. "None of your damn business. Now pick that up, and let's go."

"Hi, guys."

We all stop and turn. Behind me, wearing a weak, sheepish smile, and stuffing his hands in his pockets, walks Matt. He, too, has a thinness about him that wasn't there at lunch. His shoulders hunch, and his eyes have a cloud of uncertainty in them. I'd even venture to say he looks almost as bad as he did before he went to the hospital.

He stops about a foot away from me, his gaze traveling over Ty and Sarah in turn, before meeting my eye. You could hear the ghost of a shadow-fairy dog walking in the silence that settles over us at the sight of him.

He gives us an uncertain smile. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything. Just thought I'd walk my fiancée home from practice."

"Aw! That's so sweet!" Sarah coos, launching herself at him while somehow still clinging to the book. He catches her, but only just, and their hug is a little too enthusiastic for me.

The wind seems to go out of Ty. He slumps a bit more, his laugh sharp and brittle. It doesn't release any of the tension, though. I could cut the air with a knife, and it would probably spring back if I did. It's such a shock to see Matt, that even I feel like looking away. I have to shut my gaping mouth, and pull my attention away from the "happy" couple.

"Good. Because she's ready for you." Ty takes my arm again, tugging me away fast. I barely have time to reach for my backpack, and then, we pass him. "See you at rehearsal."

"Don't be so rough," I say, at the same time Matt says, "Wait."

The command pauses Ty long enough that I slip out of his grasp again, and shrug on my backpack. Beside me, his whole body hums like an aluminum bowl does when you tap the side of it.

"Is everything okay?" Matt asks, between the smacks of Sarah's kisses.

Ty finds my arm again, and he marches us away at a pace too fast for me to keep up. My feet stumble over themselves, and it doesn't help that my backpack has gotten so heavy. Or that his grip pinches the welts on my skin.

"It's fine, man, she's just late getting home," he says. We're almost at the corner of the school, the place where the sidewalk meets the parking lot. A few kids in soccer uniforms glance over. My face burns from my forehead to my neck, and I hope none of them know me.

One of them waves at the same time Matt calls, "Rosen-Parikh!" Ty just waves back, never breaking stride. Even I can't focus on them for long, or I'll trip, which is hard enough when I can barely see through my twitching eye.

"Are you sure?" Matt asks, and this time, it is calling. We've gotten far enough away that he almost has to shout. "Sarah, hang on a sec, okay? Ty, what was that on Kat's arms?"

I gasp, but Ty lifts my arm higher. "Keep going, it's fine," he says. My shoulder cracks.

"C'mon, boo, let it go. You can walk me to my bike. I'm meeting Olivia for ice cream, and we hardly ever hang out anymore."

This time, I glance back. In the distance, Sarah leads Matt towards the bike racks parked long the wall. Hers is there, pink peony flowers dripping from all corners and handles. Matt brushes them off, reminding me of something.

"Where's your bike, Ty?"

His nose scrunches. We're almost off the property now. "Not important."

Chapter Eleven

The second we're off of school grounds, he lets me go, but continues herding me in the direction of the house. Each time I move to step away, he blocks me: from the street, from turning a wrong corner, even from just turning around. A ball of frustration wells up in my stomach.

"I can walk home on my own without you herding me," I snap. When he doesn't respond, I nudge him.

He keeps his eyes on the road, but he doesn't try to herd me anymore. This feels like a good sign, like maybe he's letting his guard down. Buoyed by his acquiescence, I fall into line beside him, and breathe deep the rich summer air. A few goblin-rabbits hop around on someone's lawn, munching on ants and fairies in the grass, just like this morning. My shoulders relax a bit under my heavy bag, and I bop my elbow against Ty's.

He cuts me a hard look from the corner of his eyes. "Cut it out," he says. Just like before, I get a bad feeling in my stomach. This isn't the guy who acts like my brother most of the time. There's nothing friendly for me in his face. Just exhaustion. Irritation.

I try to pretend this is fine, and that I'm not worrying, so I walk ahead a bit. "What's going on, Ty? Why are you so upset with me? Is it because I saw you and Sarah together? I thought you two were supposed to be friends. If you didn't want to be seen together, why would you sit in such a public place? Is it because of that book you two were carrying? What was in it?"

Silence.

"Ty? C'mon, Ty. I heard you talking. What was she trying to recruit you for?"

"Nothing! Okay?" he snaps, and then runs a hand over the spikes in his hair. "Just—cheerleading stuff."

I miss a step. "She's trying to make you a cheerleader?"

"No."

"Then why doesn't she talk to her squad about that stuff?"

More silence. I decide to try a different route. "Do you like her? Is that why you're helping?"

"No shit, I like her. She's my friend," he says with a growl.

Encouraged, I skip closer. "So who's making her feel stifled? Is it Matt? Are the two of them okay?"

"They're fine," he says between clenched teeth. "They're just stressed.

"So why's she asking you for help when she has him?"

He lets out a hard breath. "Because he can't help with this. She feels more comfortable asking a friend."

What does that mean? Baffled, I rub my twitching eyes and adjust my too-heavy backpack. "Is it a surprise? Is it wedding stuff?"

He huffs out a breath. "Yeah, you could say that."

I glance at him. "To which?"

But for some reason, once again, he decides to keep quiet.

"Ty, what were you talking about? Where's your bike?"

He sighs, and comes to a stop, but I don't notice until I'm two steps beyond him. "Kat, come on. Stop. It's none of your business."

So I harden, too. This time, I'm not kidding, either. "Why can't it be?" I ask.

"Because it can't!" He shoves his hands in his pockets and stalks by me, just like he did yesterday in the kitchen.

The vehemence in his tone, his words, his manner, all stun me. I'm glued to the pavement, my heart struck through with a poisoned arrow. I can't help the first thought that comes to my mind: Sarah did this.

I can't say why I'm so sure this is the case. They've been friends for as long as I've lived with him. But it all just rises up: the anger yesterday, the quiet moment I interrupted today. The way she and Matt are supposed to be engaged.

Engaged.

The whole thing feels like a joke gone way too badly. But there it is. And now, the sun is too bright, the sky needs about fifty more clouds, Matt won't talk to me because of Sarah, and my cousin's walking away from me. I feel like I've been punched.

"Come on. Keep up." His drill sergeant's call comes to me from ten cement squares ahead, almost to the turn around the lake to our home. It's a softer tone, by a bit, but nothing I can cling to.

I want to throw it back, a fist under the thinnest veneer of cotton, but I don't have the energy to fight, so I march a few steps behind him. I won't walk next to him. I won't give my trust to him when he's this quiet.

He stays quiet all the way back home. I hit the bathroom the second I'm in. After I take something for my headache, I arrange my scant collection of makeup containers across the sink, trying to decide what to wear to rehearsal.

I don't have everything out when the front door closes. I pause, hands hovering over the powders, ears straining. There's not another movement outside the bathroom.

"Ty?" I call, and yank the door open.

More silence. I only have to peek at his wide-open door to know he went to rehearsal without me.

"What a dick," I shout, my hands shaking, but the sound of it just gets absorbed in the space around me. Again. My heart stings, only this time, it's painful enough to feel dangerous. Real, like he really has just reached inside and pinched me.

The urge to scream, and cry, and pout about the way he's been treating me rises up like bile in the back of my throat. Wiping my knuckles across my cheeks with furious strokes, I go back to the bathroom, and glare at my splotchy face in the scratched mirror. I'm a mess, and Aunt Jo would say I look it.

Sweeping all of my makeup into the box again, I slap some ointment on my welts, head back out to my room, and close the door. It doesn't matter that there's no one else around. I have to fix this in private.

If they won't look at me when I ask them to, I'll make them look at me.

I pull all my cutest clothes from my dresser, taking skirts from the pants drawer, and dresses from the shirts one. As with everything, I have to combine a few pieces on my bed to get anything right, but by the time I do, I'm down to two outfits: a set of shorts and a top, or a navy blue crop top with triangular sleeves, and a wide bell skirt to match. Holding the second one up to see, it comes down to my knees, and a thrill goes through me at the thought of putting it on.

"That's really pretty," I whisper to myself, and then fumble to take down the zipper. They slide over my shoulders and hips, but just barely. I have to tilt the mirror on my dresser to get a better look, and I can't help slumping a little. It looks as tight as it feels. If I'm not careful, I'll bust out of them: butt one way, boobs another.

Still, it fits, and I can't help feeling a little into myself while wearing it. With all the tightness and exposed angles, I feel older, mature—sexy. I wonder if this is how Sarah feels all the time. I feel like, if I wanted to, I could command a room, or just Matt's attention, and that's what I really need.

I smirk at myself in the mirror, and put everything else away, only to spy a pair of my highest heels sticking out from under the bed. They're not huge, but they'll do. I slip them on, proud, and then wobble back to the makeup collection.

I line up all my supplies on my dresser, and then pause. Doubt gnaws at me. The longer I stare at my reflection in my little round mirror, the more I can't help wondering, is it even worth trying to go?

Ty never said I couldn't, but I'm not exactly sure he heard Matt invite me.

And my face begs for help. My complexion hasn't gotten as zit-filled, or as oily, as some of the others in my grade, but looking at the dust-sticky pile of makeup and brushes, fear grips me. I'm really not sure where to start with all of it.

Do it anyway. The sinister, sneering voice from before turns conspiratorial.

I move fast, before I can think myself out of it, and grab anything that might make me look like I belong. Leaning close, I take my time as I smear a line of bright pink lipstick across my mouth, As I finish covering my bottom lip, though, the color pulses against my skin in the gray-gold light of the fading afternoon. I freeze.

Fear pokes its head out from my chest, a tiny, green stem emerging from the dirt, slightly damp with fresh life, and curling towards the outside world. It paralyzes me for a moment. I stare at the bright pink color on my lips, and Auntie's words slip from the spaces behind my ears. They slither southward, curling around my heart to join the roots of fear growing in my chest.

Wrong idea...wrong idea...wrong idea...

Heart aflutter, I snatch a tissue, and then two more, from the small square box on my desk, and then rush to the bathroom. I run too much water, dip the paper for too long, lather it with soap, and then press the squelching, soggy mess to my mouth. My eyes lock with themselves in the mirror, on my reflection where it's poisoned by florescent lighting, and scrape the color from the cracks in my lips, and the corners of my mouth. I can hardly register the fearful shine in my eyes, the gray-sand look of my skin, and the hollow dullness of my cheeks.

I just need to get the color off.

I scrub until it hurts, but it only makes my lips pinker. My fear raises its head again, and I scrub harder.

After a few seconds of furious rubbing, I stop to examine the job. My mouth's gone red, but it fades, and as it does, my fears uncurls itself until my shoulders start to relax. Glancing down, I find watery smears of electric pink dissolving into the tissue mess. My handiwork, meticulously applied over the course of sixty seconds, evaporates within a handful of breaths. My heart contracts as soon as I notice the slight tremble in my fingers.

Throwing my mess in the trash, I stop the water and take another quick look at myself. My skin has returned to normal, and I almost long to put the lipstick back on again. This is no way to fit in, the way I look. There's nothing cool, or sexy, about me.

Didn't I want it that way, after what Auntie always says? My snide little mind-voice asks.

And this time, it pisses me off. "Fine, no makeup. But I'm definitely not getting redressed."

Slipping back into my room, I grab the chapstick from my desk and roll it over my lips.

I don't have to glance at the clock to know I'm late. With my luck, they'll probably be done with rehearsal by now. But before I can psych myself out with the time, I take the key to the door from my bag, and march away from the cottage. Whatever time I have to talk to Matt will just have to be enough.

At least, that's what I tell myself, heading down the darkening street, and turning the corner towards his. My skin puckers, cool and clammy, with the wisp of a sea breeze that always surrounds us.

Chapter Twelve

I hustle as fast as I can along the five minute path it takes to get from my house to Matt's.

The trip takes me around the lake, revealing a number of finer, but abandoned, homes half-hidden by pines and deciduous trees. Here, the once-manicured front lawns still manage to beckon to me the way the scrubby grasses of Auntie's house doesn't. After eight years of living here, and despite being late, it's still hard for me not to stare up the paved, rounded driveways that tempt my curiosity the way my own drive can't.

But I can only stare from the corners of my eyes. As abandoned as these houses look, squatters still sit in the windows. People who've drunk too many fairy eggs in their water lurk in the grasses, and in the dead flower beds.

The last time I looked over, their glowing eyes had spotted me. They'd called to me with crooked, too-old fingers, their skin silver-gray like the shadow fairies they'd become a part of. If I'd thought the nymph-ants were bad, they had nothing on these guys. Rumor had it, if these guys caught you, you wouldn't come back.

I stick to the edge of the sidewalk, and keep going. At Matt's corner, I cross the street fast, but I swear I can hear silvery laughter following me.

I breathe a little easier once I'm on the other side, away from the uncertainty of the abandoned homes, and surrounded by manicured lawns where butterflies still lay claim to the flower beds. Each house paints a pastel picture, with soft lights in the windows and the smell of fresh earth blanketing the air. With the humidity, it's like stepping onto a giant, scented cushion.

Then I remember why I'm here. The nerves in my arms and legs tingle, and my head goes woozy with every step. I pump my arms at my sides, trying to shake the feeling.

It's Matt, it's Matt, it's just Matt. I pass two more houses before I can breathe again. I've walked this route so many times, my feet just guide me. It's surreal, to be nervous around a neighborhood I grew up in, but with my mission in mind, coming here feels like returning home after a five year trip. Everything is the same, and yet new again. It feels like I've changed so much that the world around me feels too small.

I turn the corner one more time, and walk up the short drive to his powder blue house. At the top, the garage stands open, and a lot of complex musical equipment fills the space. The second I spy Matt, an acoustic guitar strapped to his shoulder as he talks to a guy behind the drums, my nerves slip away. I puff out my chest, and march past the Hondas parked in the space in front of them.

Before I can get over there, though, Ty steps out of the garage. I skid to a stop, but he spies me, and our eyes lock in mutual horror. He's across the driveway like a shot. I only have time to blink once, and then his fingers wrap around my arm, towing me behind the cars.

I try to pull away, but he hangs on. "Easy! That hurts!"

"What are you doing here? And what are you wearing? Mom's got rules about dressing like this. Are you trying to get raped?" He whispers through his fury, but his eyes bulge out of their sockets, and the sharp sting of sweat clings to his clothes.

It hurts to be talked to this way, but I still bristle, and break his grip. "No. For your information, these happen to be my nicest clothes."

He scoffs. "Yeah, and you're falling out of them all over the place." Wiping a hand over his brow, he takes my arm again. This time, I manage to slip out of it at once. He sighs. "Come on, you need to go home. People will get the wrong idea with you walking around like that."

I cross my arms over my chest. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Katrina—"

"Hey! You made it!"

We both startle. I spin to find Matt waving to me, and then waving us over, crossing the driveway in five easy steps. "It's okay, Ty, I invited—" He stops a foot from the car, jaw hanging loose at the sight of me—and at what I'm wearing.

I hold my breath. Now that he's drawn attention to us, I can feel the rest of the world watching me, leaning in the way it hadn't when I'd been alone. Even the drummer leans over to get a look. I wish I knew him well enough to guess which group he runs in, or who he'd talk to about this. I wish I knew if he'd bring it up that I'd dressed the way I am, or if he even knows who I am at all.

"Well, you look—nice," Matt says, his eyes going wide. The tops of his cheeks turn pink, and then his expression saddens.

"Thanks," I whisper, my heart falling. My whole face heats up five extra degrees, and then he's waving me towards the house. At least my plan worked. It got his attention. Now, I just have to keep it, and I nurture a kernel of pride that's budding in my chest where my fear had been.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" we ask each other at the same time.

"She's heading home," Ty says, at the same time that I take a step closer to Matt.

I throw him a dirty look. "You're not the boss of me," I say, and march over to where Matt's standing. I hope I've stung Ty as much as he's hurt me.

"It'll just be a minute." Matt walks us back up the driveway.

"I already talked to her about her clothes. She's going home to change," Ty says, fighting for power, or relevance. I can't be sure which.

Matt nods, but we're still walking. He leads me behind the door we use whenever the garage isn't open, and my nose fills with the smells of motor oil, kitty litter, and wood shavings. Back on the driveway, Ty's scoff carries over.

But he's not the focus right now. I am. And for the moment, I intend to keep it that way, no matter what I'm about to be lectured on.

Matt's shoulders tense, and that heavy, worried look crosses his face, making it hard for me to swallow. "Yes?" I ask, trying to keep the nerves out of my voice.

He tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. "I know it's none of my business," he says, massaging the back of his hand with his thumb. "I just—wanted to let you know—you don't have to dress like this to get anyone's attention. I don't want you to give anyone the wrong idea."

My cheeks go cold. I have to look away, out the window in the door, to keep from spitting, "Sarah dresses this way, do you say that to her?" in his face. A light breeze wafts by, but it's enough that I can feel my knees turning purplish in the fading light.

"Don't get me wrong, you look—nice," he says, moving to catch my gaze. I can't help feeling a little proud for making him worry about me—and our standing. "It's just—" He stammers. "Well, you're already a good-looking girl. I hope no one's telling you that you have to dress this way to be seen. And if they are," he says, straightening, "I hope you know you can tell me because I'll beat the shit out of them for asking you to believe something like that."

His declaration makes my legs wobble. For a second, I forget why I'm here. It's only after I realize he's waiting for an answer that I remember why I dressed this way at all. "It was my choice," I say. My words come out both stronger and calmer than I feel, and the best part is, they're completely true.

The bad part is, so are his fears.

But he doesn't need to know that. And even with my honesty, he still looks both sickened, and constipated. It stings, to the point where I wish I could wipe that expression away.

"I wanted to look good, so I wore something that I'd look good in. You don't have to worry about me," I say, lowering my voice and touching his arm. His hand immediately covers mine. "I know what I'm doing."

Mostly.

His expression brightens, but his lips still squeeze together, like he has more to say and he's uncertain about saying it. But the conversation is over, and now that I have his attention, I plan on using it. I tighten my grip, more insistent.

"I need to talk to you about something, though," I say, lowering my voice and stepping closer.

His eyes darken, and he leans in, only for a pair of headlights to blind us. A car pulls into the driveway, and we flinch, covering our eyes with our hands. Outside, Ty curses.

Chapter Thirteen

"Haven't you boys finished yet?" Sarah's voice calls over to us. I whirl towards Matt, but his eyes light up like sunshine as he steps around me. I swear my heart stops beating. I just lost him...again.

"We're getting there, Matt says, wiping his hands over his face. "Half an hour more, and we'll be good."

He steps around the door and vanishes. I can't decide how much I want to be seen, so I scramble to the window in time to find him wrapping her up in a hug. Her hands and arms squeeze him tight around the waist, and as soon as he lets go, she leans into him, nuzzling her nose against his neck.

"You didn't tell me you were practicing today," she says, a note of that pouting tone from before in her voice.

"Because you never used to like listening," he says.

Another car door slams, and I catch a glimpse of Olivia pulling Sarah's bike out of the back seat. The second it's free, she hustles by, waving to everyone before slipping into the house. I try to catch her eye, to stand out and seem special, but she just pats my shoulder and continues on her way. That bare bones acknowledgment sends a rattle through me, a pang in my heart at the sight of her harried, twenty-year-old face.

I want to go after her and play catch up, post-babysitting years, but it's like I don't get time from anyone, anymore. It takes all my courage not to hustle after her.

Except something tells me, if I walk away now, I probably won't have the courage to come back. Heaving a bracing sigh, I return to the window.

Sarah stares right at me. Her eyes and cheeks are a little too sunken, a little too hollow. There's nothing malicious in her expression, or in her posture, but I can still feel her studying me, wondering. Considering. "Is she going to stay?" she asks, nodding in my direction.

All the boys turn to look at me. Before I can make a move, Matt says, "Yes. I invited her. She just got here."

Sarah nods, and unbothered bob of her head. I move towards the back of the garage, pulling a folding chair out from the corner. It's heavy, and creaks when I open it, dropping me low enough that I might as well be sitting on the floor.

In the time it takes me to get situated, Matt unfolds and sets up another chair for Sarah. She seats herself with a yawning "thanks," and a tired grin, and folds up into herself again, knees towards her chest. She's already weaving a clump of dandelions together, but the laziness in her movements makes the act look like a chore. I wonder if she actually wants to be here, or if she's just gonna fall asleep.

"You look tired. Do you have a headache?" I ask.

Startled, Sarah stares at me like she forgot I was in the room. "No, it's just been a long day, and I still have stuff to do."

At this, Matt crouches beside her, a million apologies on his face. "I didn't mean to keep you. If you need to leave—"

But Sarah stops him with a pat on the arm. "No, it's fine. I missed all your other practices. I want to be here."

Matt just keeps hovering around her, fluttering and nervous. "Are you sure? Can I get you anything?" he whispers, like a secret lover to queen.

"I'm fine," she says. She presses a powder-soft kiss to his cheek, and sinks deeper into her chair with little, metallic squeaks. Matt keeps hovering until even I want to smack him.

"Leave her alone, man. She's good," Ty says, pulling the garage door closed. It rattles all the way to the ground, filling the awkward silence between us as Matt continues studying Sarah's face.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay," he says, almost to himself. With a sharp turn, he goes back to the music stand, picking up a pencil from the top, and spinning it around his fingers. Behind him, Sarah's face falls. She melts into her chair, the way Auntie used to whenever the soccer games she could make for Ty ran long.

"Okay, I just want to make a few changes to the music." His pencil flies across the page.

As he works, his back rounds over the stand. It protests loudly every time he adjusts the angle, but he just whispers to himself as he writes, dropping his pencil, only to snatch it back up as a new thought sets his eyes ablaze. Every so often, he fingers his guitar, nods, and straightens back up, his gaze still glued to the music.

After five minutes, he straightens again, bringing the paper with him. "Okay, Ty. I want you to try this chord progression. Can you match that with what you have?" He shows my cousin.

Ty nods, swinging his bass and studying the page, and then marks up his own sheet. It's the most studious I've ever seen him. Matt heads back to his own station with a grin, and my stomach flutters with butterflies.

"Okay, let's try this out!" Matt swings his guitar around, and with a strum, they're off.

Ty blunders it almost immediately. If asked, I'd be the first to tell you I know next to nothing about music, but this...

His chords jumble. He can't stay on beat. He spends more time swearing, and blushing, and trying to catch up than he does actually making music. More than once, I catch him eyeing Sarah, only for his face to grow redder. I just can't tell if it's because she's not looking at him, or if it's because she's filing her nails into perfect ovals. Her face is stony with boredom. Once her nails are down, she turns to deflowering her dandelion crown.

All I know is, the longer he watches her, the worse he gets. Matt stops everyone mid-chord. Ty pushes a hand through his hair again.

"Okay, that was—something." He makes a face. "Let's start from the beginning. Maybe now that we've seen the changes, we'll all keep up." He plays a few chords, and with a giant nod, they're off.

Ty still can't hit a single note. His fumbling leaves Matt and the drummer to do their own thing while he flounders behind. His jaw clenches so hard, I'm sure he'll break his teeth. After a page of this, Matt just stops, leaving Ty's mess and confusion to fill the garage before he realizes what's happening.

"Are you sure you're up for this, Rosen-Parikh?" Matt asks with a tight laugh. "We have a concert in a week, and you seem to be struggling with music as much as you do with school."

I feel like I've been slapped. Ty glares at him, gape-jawed and bright-eyed, ready to throttle him. The wind has been sucked out of the room: no one says a word. The silence, hard and terse, suggests no one appreciates any of this one bit.

For the first time tonight, I'm genuinely disgusted with Matt. I don't know if it's a territory thing over Sarah, or a need to be better, or what, but I can't begin to guess where such a biting comment comes from. Especially since they've been friends their whole lives. For Matt to know how hard Ty tries, and make a comment like that in front of everyone, I'm about ready to throttle him, too.

"Mattie, be nice," Sarah says, tapping Matt's butt with her bare toes. The uneasiness in her pensive voice takes me aback.

Matt glances at her, and then his gaze catches on my face. The anger melts off his expression, and his hand goes to the back of his neck, his shoulders slumping.

"You're right. I'm—I'm sorry, Ty." He makes quick work of shuffling the music, but the sound feels as awkward as his joke in the furious silence. "We can—try something different."

Ty straightens up in his chair, training his expression back to neutral. "I'm fine."

"Or we can slow down—"

"I said I'm fine!" Ty snaps. The room goes colder, the light almost piss-yellow against the walls and containers of car fluid. None of us dares to move.

Chapter Fourteen

After a couple of seconds of none of us, including me, either moving or knowing what to do, Ty pushes his hands through his hair and re-settles himself. "Let's go again," he says in a too-calm, too even voice, and flips a page in his music. It's such a delicate, brittle gesture, so controlled and tightly woven, that it almost reminds me of how Matt acts when he's concentrating. It makes me want to get down on my knees and beg, "stop comparing yourself to him!"

But then, here I am, wearing an outfit that's far too small, with not nearly the same number of clean lines as Sarah's got, trying to get Matt to pay attention to me over her. So I push that train of thought right down.

"A-are you sure?" Matt asks, and the dubious tone in his voice makes me cringe. He looks at me and Sarah in turn, in an "are you hearing this?" kind of way. She doesn't meet his eyes, but I try to plead with mine, asking him to shut up and try to encourage his best friend, instead. Because doesn't he know how much Ty needs it?

I must not be doing it right because he says, "It's really okay, Ty. If you need to quit—"

"I'm fine." That hard, even tone again. He settles his bass on his lap, braces his legs again, and starts plucking. The air sizzles with tension. We could power the lights with it. Sarah edges farther away with her seat.

Should I do that too? I study the rest of the band, but they're up and off. Too late. I bundle my hands into fists in my lap, and hold my breath for Ty.

I cringe, listening to him. He stumbles almost constantly, and each time he does, the failure bites his ego a little bit more. His brow drops low, and his mouth pinches. He fumbles to pick himself back up, and it gets harder for him to read the notes each time. More fumbling. More frustration. I feel for him.

"Breathe," I say to him. I use the kindest, gentlest voice I can over the thump of drums, and Matt's crooning guitar.

Ty's face goes ruddy red, a clay-like color straight off the Aquinnah cliffs on Martha's Vineyard. It's made worse by the low reading lights set up around us in each corner of the garage. It's a wonder anyone can read what they're playing, but I wouldn't want to hear that, if I were him.

"I am," he says between clenched teeth.

"Then slow down." I shift forward in my seat, reaching without reaching. He's too far away, in more ways than one.

He stops entirely and glares. "I'm going as fast as the music says to go. It's not my fault if we're playing at warp speed."

I catch Matt and the drummer trading looks before Matt says, "If you want to take your time, we can."

Ty pushes a hand through his hair again. I can't help think, if he does that all day, he'll never need to gel it up again. "We can't do that. We have a concert, remember?"

"I could give you more lessons." Matt shifts his chair forward, but Ty's already shaking his head. "Come on, Ty. I won't be so hard on you this time, I promise."

"No." Ty puts his instrument down on the floor, gets up, and immediately pats his pockets. "I just can't think right now. It's too stuffy in here, and it's late. I just need to think."

Something ticks in Matt's jaw, and then he puts his guitar down, too. "Let's take a break."

The drummer scoffs, and I have to stop myself from slapping him.

"Five minutes, I promise."

"Matt, it's late," Sarah says, getting up. Ty freezes, already halfway out the door. The bags under his eyes have drooped nearly as far down as Matt's. Even Matt stops, all of us pausing in place.

"Give it a rest today." Sarah takes out a pack, hands Ty one of her cigarette, and pats him out the door by his shoulder.

Matt's jaw hangs open like he's been slapped. Sitting there, in the middle of all this, my heart tears. One part pulls me towards the door, the other towards my engaged friend.

It makes me wish Erin and Rey were here with me through this—Erin to pat my arm, and Rey to give me a logical path to take. Because now's my chance. Matt's right there, and we're all dispersing. I can finally talk to him.

And I want to. I really, really want to. But Sarah's here. In the time it takes me to stand up, Matt's in her arm, whispering what I'm willing to bet are his frustrations. And she runs a hand down his arm, looking up into his face with such intent, I feel like I'm intruding.

Yet I still find it hard to peel my gaze away, to where the drummer packs up his stuff and heads out. He says goodnight at the door, and I get sucked in again, mesmerized by this intimate moment between Matt and Sarah. He softens into her, curling in her arms, and she softens right back, her hands on his face, his shoulders. Cradling. Now I can see why they got engaged.

"Remind me again why we can't just leave Atlantis?" I overhear her asking. The question is so out of the blue that I pause, and slow down, folding my chair and putting it away too gently.

"Because it's our home," Matt says, with so much exasperated patience that I wonder how many times he's said this.

"Don't you ever want to just—escape your life? Hop on the wind, and runaway to some better place, and never look back?" Her voice is so wistful, she sounds half her age.

I put the chair down with so much care, I have to check to make sure it's on the floor. She sounds so much like Ty, I could lift this conversation right out of the many ones he's had with Auntie.

"No," Matt says, warming my heart. "Do you? Do you really want to escape?" There's so much incredulity in his voice, it's almost shaming.

Her long sigh actually hurts my heart. "Only sometimes." She pauses. I dare to pretend I'm still putting the chair away while I peek at them from the corner of my eye. She watches him from under her eyelashes. "You're not cutting anymore, right?"

My heart jolts.

Matt looks away. I can already taste his lie. "It's been awhile."

"Because if we're Swans, then we don't know that it won't mess with our magic. It hurts us when you cut—"

He cuts her off with a hug that I can't miss, and I force myself to make my way out again. "I'm not cutting. I promise. And besides, if injuries did hurt the magic, we'd both be in trouble. How many times did we fall out of that treehouse growing up?" He asks with a laugh, and she giggles, too.

A pang goes through me that I don't quite understand. Maybe it's the intimacy of the conversation—a history between them that I clearly don't share. Maybe it's the fact that he'll talk to her about cutting, but not me. Still, her being here means I can't talk to him about his fiancée. Taking a long breath, I squeeze outside around them, and find my cousin in the driveway. The drummer already disappeared.

"Sorry you had to see all that," Ty says, tapping ash onto the pavement. A curl of smoke twirls away from his lips. The dying sun paints the sky pink and purple, but only enough to make the shadows long. The salt-and-flower-filled air drops a few degrees. I rub my arms, wishing there could be some sun falling on us, instead of turning the trees around us gold.

Keeping upwind of the cigarette, I stand beside him and bump his arm a little. It feels like we're back to the way things were before Matt got engaged, and I find myself leaning into it. "It's alright. I didn't know you were having so much trouble."

He gives me a look out of the corner of his eye.

"I didn't! I swear!"

He snorts. "Yeah, okay." Takes a drag. The smell burns my nose, even though his clothes reek of it. "I think you could guess, after all the crap you saw in there."

"Matt's been playing for years, okay? You just need more practice."

He nods in a distant sort of way, but his attention attaches itself to the window on the garage door. His eyes are soft, but his expression is hard. I follow it, and my breath escapes me for a minute.

Matt and Sarah hug, hard, and kiss each other with soft, tender slides of their lips. In between, they pass the flask back and forth. The sight is crisp and clear as a movie, only better. It plays out behind the polished glass of the regular door to the garage.

I get that pang again, this time harder, and a large amount of wetness drips between my legs. It feels bigger—more—than I'm sure it is, but I still cross them, just in case. I don't want to be turned on by this. I don't like her.

All the same...

I slump a little against one of Matt's family's cars, hot and frustrated and angry. Ty joins me a second later. Despite the humidity from the day, the hood feels cool to the touch. It shocks me through my skirt, like icy fingers down the back of my neck, until the wetness in my underwear just feels sticky. I turn my attention to the couple inside, and their rollercoaster of a relationship.

"I can't understand why someone who wants to get out of Atlantis so badly is attracted to a homebody guitarist," Ty says, startling me.

My instinct is to leap on the gossip, but my fear of losing this moment before it's even begun holds me back. "Opposites attract, I guess," I say, working hard to play it cool. But I can't help smiling and nudging his arm. "You jealous?"

He scoffs. "No!" But the heaviness in his eyes reads differently.

"C'mon, Ty. It'd make sense if you were. She wants to run away, and you've talked about nothing else for years."

Ty shakes his head. "I just do it to piss off Mom."

"Still. You and Sarah seem close," I say, nudging Ty with my foot.

He shifts around, and then leans further back against the car. "Yeah. Well. You wouldn't know that, would you?" He nods to them.

"That doesn't have to make a difference in how close you guys are," I want to say. Instead, I make a face, and grind my toe into a dip in the driveway. Given his recent defensiveness, I'm fighting hard to come off as nonchalant as possible. Pieces of ash from his cigarette float past my face, landing on my clothes a couple times. The smell of then still stings my nose, but now I don't feel like I got pitched into a sooty cloud that I can't get out of.

"Yeah, but that's only half the time," I say. "The other half, she can't seem to stand him."

He grunts, and grinds the butt out on the bottom of his shoe. "Understatement of the year."

I try to sound surprised. "What do you mean? Has she said anything to you? Has she talked to you about them?" I nod to the window where our friends have become ghosts in the light: there one minute, gone the next, and back again. A cold, blue shadow.

Ty just puts his butt back in the pack with care.

"Come on, Tyler. Does she tell you anything? Is she even happy with him? Because I'll tell you right now—" I drop my voice. "She might look as into him as he is about her, but—"

"She's not," is the only thing he says, tucking the crumpled pack away.

I sigh, and then scuff my shoe on the ground. "What really happened to your bike?"

"Got stolen."

"Tyler," I say, but he nods to the garage. I don't have to turn around to hear their footsteps emerging. I barely have time to look their way when a puff of sweet perfume glides past my nose, and the tail end of long, curly hair tickles my cheek. Ty barely catches her, and her arms circle his neck with the quick pat-pat of an old friend being polite.

And Matt just grins at the two of them. His obliviousness makes me want to scream.

"I'm heading out," Sarah says, and backs off a little too quickly. Even still, Ty's eyes are starlight.

Yes! My heart flips around in my rib cage, until Matt takes her waist again.

"I'll walk you home," he says.

Chapter Fifteen

I feel like I should've seen this coming. It makes me want to scream, but I'm too stunned to say anything.

What about wanting to talk? I wonder, while everyone pulls themselves together. I said I wanted to when I got here. What about that?

Sarah adjusts her pants and shirt. Matt keeps ahold of her waist. They walk away, her bike at his side, and Ty's hand closes around my bicep. The firmness of his grip tells me everything I need to know about the expression on my face.

"Let's go," he says, keeping his voice low.

I plant my feet at the slightest pressure of his pull. "I want to wait for him inside," I say, and I have to stop myself from cringing at my own petulance.

Ty pauses, his grip loose, and I take my chance, spinning away before he can get to me. A few fast strides, and I'm back in the garage. But without everyone else, the place has a lonely, foreign air, like a back alleyway.

"Seriously? You're going to pull this now?" Ty asks, and his hand descends on me again, my shoulders about to be clasped in his grip.

I shrug him off, rounding on him. "I need to talk to Matt. It's important."

"Then call him later. We have to go home." There's a weariness around Ty's eyes that makes my heart go out to him.

But at the same time, we're already here. Even though I don't know how long it'll be 'til he gets back, I dig my heels in again.

"It's too important for that," I whisper. It makes the air shift between us, like a screw fitting two pieces of wood together. For a moment, when he's not grabbing at me, or telling me what to do, I feel like he's listening again. I feel like I finally have us in our own private space, where we can share our secrets, and take each other seriously.

And then my neck prickles the way it does when eyes turn towards me. And I remember where we are, and that I can't say anything here. Not until I know everything, anyway.

"You guys alright?" Matt calls. His tone suggests a joke, with a hint of something else to it, something concerned. Maybe a plea for things to be okay. It's a forceful easiness, just like the one in our kitchen the day before.

Time snaps back into place. Goosebumps rise on my arms, unsure of this cool little wind tickling them. Ty leans back, no longer listening to me.

"Yeah, just checking to make sure we didn't miss anything."

I shake my head at him, mouthing "I want to stay." He heaves a sigh, puts a hand back on my shoulder, and directs me to the road, catching me every time I pull away. I spit at him, and swear, but he doesn't say a word. I'm not even allowed to see where Matt and Sarah ran off to. By the time I fight to look for them, we're already back at home.

I rip open the back door, furious at everything. The fact that it sticks makes me glad I get to yank it free. It gives me a place to channel my anger at Ty for dragging me, at Matt for not listening, and at Rey for being oppositional. I savor the crash-bang, and then stomp through.

The sight of Auntie, tucked by the counter near the window, pulls me to a screeching halt. With her tea, her long brown hair that's a few shades darker than her skin, and her cleaning lady outfit, she looks too calm for the storm that's brewing in her dark eyes.

I wonder how I missed it: her car in the driveway. The smell of her coconut lotion. Her presence like a thriving circuit, pumping energy through the entire property. She studies me with the eyes of a woman who's seen too much. The disappointment there, something never reserved for me, brands my soul with a sting.

"You're late," she says, tapping her pink nails on the counter. "And you're going to ruin my house, slamming all the doors like that. So now, you're going to tell me where you got those bites, what you're wearing, and why."

My breath escapes me. The blood drains from my face. I glance at Ty, but even he's shuffling his feet, eyes bright with the fear of getting caught. He's looking everywhere, but at me.

Her eyes don't soften, but she takes an easy seat at the table. The chair doesn't scrape the floor. It creaks under her weight, and the only other sound is the sight tap of her cup on the wooden table top. It all puts a little breath back in my lungs. Enough that I finally smell the buttery rice and beans on the counter, anyway. My stomach growls.

"Ty, put the food on the table and go to your room. I need to have a talk with Katrina."

"Can I—take some with me?" He edges over as he asks.

"You may," she says, but her eyes stay on me.

He fills a plate with half of everything, and then hesitates, eyeing me. When she doesn't say a word, he edges into the hall with his dinner. In the gray light, I watch him disappear. His door closes, and then he reappears like a ghost, hovering in the hallway, bright eyes watching the kitchen. It's a sign of solidarity, and I take it, seating myself and filling a bowl with dinner.

Both of us begin to eat before she says, "What are you wearing?"

I glance at her. Her bright eyes are pinned to my face. Even though she wears her robe, Auntie seems to grow bigger, her expression commanding the room, as if her after-hours vulnerability empowered her.

"I-it's a skirt," I say, taking a bite.

"I know that. Where did you get it?"

I shuffle my feet. "My closet."

Auntie's brow falls even heavier over her eyes. "You're telling me you wore that to guitar lessons at Matt Michaels's house? Was his mother there?"

"M-maybe? I don't know."

She scoffs and sits back in her chair. A second later, she gets up and drops her tea mug in the sink. Her robe falls to knee-length, and her painted toes stick out from the ends of her flat, pink slippers. She has a few bruises around her legs, but she doesn't seem to notice. I drop my gaze to the floor.

"Do you think that's appropriate, wearing that outfit around that boy?" she asks, the question as hard as the others had been.

"N-no—"

"Do you think you should've thought harder about it? For instance, "wearing this around an older boy is not appropriate"?"

Tears sting the backs of my eyes and nose. "It's just an outfit—"

"But it's not, Katrina, that's my point," she says, exasperated. She sits back down and rests both hands on the table. "It's not, and it never will be. You need to know this. No matter how uncomfortable they make you, never let a man tell you what to wear, or force you out of your routine for the day. Never let them make you feel like you owe them something just for existing, be it the way you look, or what they want from you. Because, no matter how much of an impact their discourtesy has on your own life, interrupting you would never stop their day. Why should they get the privilege of interrupting your way of life—just so you can spend the rest of your time avoid them?"

I swirl my food on my plate, shamed. "I shouldn't."

"Exactly." Auntie's voice has become so kind, I startle. Tears glitter in her eyes. She reaches over, her soft hand covering mine, and this time, I feel some of the pain I've caused her tonight. It makes me want to cry, too.

"Tell me what's going on with you, Kat. What's happening? Why are you acting this way? What happened to your arms?"

With that, the entire weight of everything I've been fighting to do comes crashing back to me. I open my mouth, but my thoughts jumble to figure out where I should begin.

There's a slide of cutlery on plate, and then Ty races in, eyes wide and fearful and watching, the way they'd been when we got home. This time, though, he's looking at me. "It's nothing, Mom. She's fine. Right, Kat?"

The question barbs me, and I wince. I let my jaw hang, but he rushes to fill the space in.

"She's just tired. We all are. Long day. We should go to bed." He clears our bowls and food away, his eyes pleading with me.

Auntie sighs. "Tyler, I'm not done. And we're having a conversation. Give that back, what's wrong with you?" She plucks her cup from his hand, and he backs away. Something about it, though, makes me feel ready.

"Actually, there is something," I say, twisting my shirt between my fingers. Ty's whole body slumps. My aunt returns her attention to me, and I keep my gaze on her.

Here it goes.

"I—really like Matt, but I feel like something's hurting him. He's not the same guy he was before this year, and I feel like I need to do something about it. Or say something. He's never been depressed before, and now he is, and I think we need to help him. Also, I ran into some nymph-ants," I say, with a gesture to the welts on my arms.

Chapter Sixteen

To my utter shock, this declaration meets confused silence from Ty and a knowing smile from my aunt.

"You have a crush on him," she whispers.

I force out a startled laugh. "What?" I ask, shaking my head hard. Ty looks like that's a hard comment to swallow, turning away from the table. Nerves flutter in my stomach. "Okay, maybe. But so what? That doesn't change what he's doing."

She settles back in her seat, hands folding over her knees. Her chest puffs out, proud, like she's just uncovered something about her kids that we'd been desperate to hide. "Yes, I think it does. That's why you're so focused on him. I think you're seeing what you want to see. Scars don't fade that fast, and he's been seeing a therapist since he got admitted to the hospital. Right?" she asks Ty.

My cousin nods.

"No, Auntie," I say, somber as a Coat delivering bad news. "This has nothing to do with me. It's about Matt and Sarah, and the fact that just because they're engaged, doesn't mean they're Swans. And it really doesn't mean he won't cut again. He only started after they got together. Who says he won't get back to that point?"

Auntie smiles a little, just like Rey was when she told me to let it go. "We can't, you're right. But if she loves him—and she does—and if they're engaged without knowing if they're both Swanned, then she'll be willing to change for him. Has he seemed unhappy since?" she asks Ty again.

Again, he shakes his head. "They seem good. A bit stressed, maybe."

She turns back to me. "And that's natural. So don't go making trouble just because the guy you like is seeing someone else."

"Well," I say, stony-faced, "has anyone else noticed that he looks almost as sick as the day he went to the hospital? And so does she? He didn't look like that when he got home, and now, all of a sudden, he's turning again? Does that seem strange to anyone else?"

My aunt just shrugs. "Stress does weird things to the body. Maybe that's just what he looks like when he's overtaxed."

My whole body goes cold and rigid. "Auntie, I'm telling you, Sarah isn't good for him. He has fresh cuts on his arm. If those are just jitters, I'd hate to see what cold feet looks like."

This time, even Ty pauses over the sink, his dish halfway under the faucet. My aunt taps her nails on the table, eyes wide and soft. It's the same look she's given Ty hundreds of times, after learning about his grades in school. The one thing we could always rely on after seeing that look would be one new course of action: after school programs, convincing Matt to tutor him, or getting a teacher to keep Ty after school for a session of extra work. He'd always dreaded it, both the academic rigor forced on him, and the looks of subsequent disappointment when none of it helped.

Now, I lean in, waiting to hear what happens next.

Her tapping finally slows, and, sucking on her lip, she shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Kat. I really am. But I can't really do anything. I can tell his parents, they can get him more therapy, but at the end of the day, he's eighteen, and this is between the two of them. Him and Sarah. He has a therapist, and his family is doing everything they can."

I shove away from the table, disgusted. But she leans forward, and takes my hand. I don't have the heart to pull away, not when her heart beats in her eyes.

"What you can do is keep being his friend. I'm sure he needs those right now. And as his friend, you have to remember that these things take time. He has to want to help himself, too."

She gives my hand a squeeze, and as much as I hate to admit it, it feels good. For that moment, I feel like I'm holding my mom's hand again. But it doesn't make up for the fact that her lack of encouragement, her refusal to agree that we should do anything proactive right now, twists my gut. It makes me wonder what my mom would say about all this, were she alive.

And then the moment moves on, and I remember how angry I am. I whip my hand away, and storm off to my room. To her credit, she doesn't follow me. All she says is, "I'm sorry. But if you're going to ignore me, then at least do your homework."

I'm halfway to slamming my door behind me when footsteps close in, moving fast. I shove the door back. Ty catches it right before it closes, and then slips into the room with me. I round on him, fists clenched.

"What are you—"

"Tyler!" my aunt calls.

"I just need to ask her something, hang on!" He closes the door almost all the way, and then gets so close, I can smell dinner on his breath. "It sounds like you're trying to separate Matt and Sarah. Is that what this is about?"

The question is so blunt, it blindsides me. My cheeks go hot, my jaw falls, and I stumble for words. My silence just makes his wide-eyed eagerness sour into an irritating smugness. "N-no. Why would you—"

"You're lying. I saw the list," he says. He snaps his fingers at me, quick little pops off to our sides in the half-dark. With my shades closed, an ominous gray haze covers everything. It makes the shine in his eyes almost sinister. "C'mon, just tell me. I know you wanted to before. Are you planning to break them up? Is that what the big secret is?"

I shrug, flapping my arms against my sides with a scoff. "Well, I'd have told you about it before, if you'd wanted to help me."

"So—that's a yes, then. You're trying to break them up."

"Yes," I growl, checking the door. In the sliver of light from the kitchen, I catch Auntie going back and forth from the table to the counter. She glances over every so often, but even if she can't see me watching, I feel like her ears point in our direction. "I am. Because he's also my friend, and since you're his friend, too, I'm surprised you don't care more. So keep your voice down."

"He's a big boy. He knows he can call me if he needs to, but he doesn't. So how are you planning to do it?" Ty asks, pulling my attention back to him. "Where's the list? What are you planning to do? Tell him all the things wrong with her? That'll just make you look petty."

"She has homework, Ty." Auntie's voice is too close. In seconds, she passes by my room, until the carpeted floor creaks in the living room. I don't breathe until I hear her settle into her chair with a thump.

"Just a minute," he says, and then holds out a hand. "Show me."

I stare at it, shocked. "Why do you suddenly care? You interested in Sarah?"

He straightens. "She's my friend, and I think she deserves better than a goody-two-shoes wannabe rockstar."

I choke back a laugh. "So—yes. You like her."

His expression tightens. "Whatever. Just gimme the list."

I gape at him, trying to remember the last place I put the thing. As I retrace grabbing it off the desk, the memory of lunch sweeps over me. In it, an unseen hand closes over the page, and Erin's face swims in my mind. My heart gives a thud. "I don't think I have it."

It takes me a second to realize just how true this is. Panic strings up my body, and I'm wired all over again. Shoving past Ty, I yank open the door, and leap through the kitchen. I have the phone in my hand in seconds, fingers dialing fast in the orange light of the setting sun.

This time, it takes longer for Erin to pick up, and her voice weighs with exhaustion. It makes me wonder how long she'd been studying with Rey this afternoon. "Sorry, I know it's late for you to be on the phone, but I just realized I don't have that list I showed you today at lunch." A lifetime ago, I tell myself. "Do you still have it?"

"No," she breathes into a yawn, the same one I'm now feeling climb up my throat. Despair grips me, and then she says, "But Rey does. She was the last person holding it, remember?"

My despair turns into irritation, and I groan at myself in disappointment. The pieces of my memory click into place: list to Erin; Erin to Rey; and then Rey's face, round and misunderstanding and demanding answers, sitting only inches away from mine. And then Matt's image appears, off to the side of it all, and I understand where I lost track of everything. "Goddammit," I say, turning my back to the sun.

"Language, Katrina!" Auntie calls from over the moan of the TV in the living room. I nearly jump out of my skin. It seems like I'm forgetting everything today. "Aren't you supposed to be doing homework?"

I cover the phone with my hand. "Going," I say. Then, to Erin, "Sorry again. And about lunch."

"Talk to Rey," Erin says, with the same resolute and insistent voice her mom uses, and then she hangs up.

The dial tone rings in my ear for a full five seconds after I put the phone down, and walk back to my room. Ty still stands in the doorway, with that intense look on his face. The sun has fallen, now well behind the trees on the horizon, cutting strange angles on our faces. It makes the pond air seeping into the window smell like cool, oncoming night.

Talk to Rey. The words leave me feeling as abandoned as the crooked houses across the water from us. I'm even out of the loop when it comes to their relationships with me. So much for "nothing will change, we're still your best friends." I wonder if Rey even knows she has it.

"I still can't believe you have a list," Ty says. He shakes his head at me the entire time I sidle past him into my room. "You still made one, even after I told you not to. And then you went around showing it off, and then you lost it?" He laughs without humor. "That's even worse."

"You know, you're not helping." I collapse into my chair. Every creak and groan reverberates in my body, and I can't help thinking, Yep. That's about right. I feel as old as this chair is right now.

How am I going to ask Rey for this back? The question plagues me. I hide my face in my hands, trying to distract myself from the despair bearing down on me. All I can think about is her disapproval of that list from the very beginning.

Oh god, what was I thinking?

And then Ty hovers over me. "You know having a list like that at all is dangerous, right?" he asks, so self-assured and unwelcome right now, I could scream. But the question does make my heart squeeze a little harder.

"Why?" I snap, desperately hoping my irritation at his smugness covers my fear. "What's so bad about having a list?"

His expression twists, disgusted, and he backs away, finally headed for the door. "If you don't know, then I'm not telling you."

"Seriously?" I leap out of my seat, chasing him into the kitchen. But he's already halfway down the hall. "After all that that? Tyler!"

"If you don't go do your homework now, Katrina, I'm shutting the electricity off," Auntie calls from the living room. The TV gets louder. "You leave her alone, Ty."

"Will do," he says, and then his door falls closed.

Chapter Seventeen

I consider going after him—he's only just down the hall—but the idea of Auntie catching me makes the whole prospect less tempting. Closing my door, I pull out a couple folders, and make some bold attempts at concentrating. After ten minutes of making notes I don't understand, and reading the same fifty sentences three hundred times, I slam my books shut, and kick my bag under my desk with all the irritation I've been feeling all day.

I venture out once more to brush my teeth, and kiss Auntie goodnight—"no, I'm not up for TV right now"—and then burrow under the covers. I'm almost asleep when the ringing phone tickles me back to consciousness. I blink awake, glaring into the grey light making stripes on my comforter. The phone rings again, and I cuddle my pillow. I wish I could brush the sound away.

But it rings again, and it doesn't stop, no matter how still I stay, or how deeply I cradle myself in my sheets. I think of my aunt, upstairs in her attic bedroom, and I roll out of bed.

The sound shrieks in my ears, and echoes in the silence after I pick up the receiver. I have to clear my throat to talk.

"Kat? Is that you?"

The sound of Matt's voice bursts against my ear, a breath of cold wind against my hot, bare skin. Sleep shakes off me until I'm wide awake. "Hey, what's wrong? Or—" I groan, rubbing my eyes and peering at the clock in the living room. "What time is it?"

"It's—only eight. Did I wake you up?"

"Oh! No, no, I was just—lying down." Embarrassment sweeps over me, and I hug myself tight with one arm. No, I don't no any teens who fall asleep before nine, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. I hope he doesn't say anything about it. "What's up?"

His laugh rumbles with the deep, soft thump of a drum, even over the phone. "I'm okay. I wanted to talk to you, actually. You know, since we didn't really get to earlier."

That he even remembers this sends a shockwave through me: hot happiness and cooler shame that I'd think he'd forget at all. I try to keep my voice light, though. This might be my chance. "Oh! Right! Yeah. That's okay. I know you were busy."

"But it's not." I can already picture him shaking his head. "I'm sorry we didn't get a chance before. Sarah was—walking out, and I couldn't just let her go because she promised to listen to some songs I wrote. But she couldn't hear them right then, and I've been trying to spend more time with her, but—"

He lets out his breath in a rush so long, and hopeless, that I want to reach through the phone and take this hand. "Yeah. Anyway, that's the—other thing I'm calling about. Would you—listen to a couple of recordings for me? They're not finished," he adds, like he's expecting me to walk away too. "I'd just—like someone to listen."

I pull up a chair, and lean my elbow on the table. A thrill goes through me at being asked to do anything for him. The floor, once cold against my feet, now soothes me. I'm warm from head to toe, and he sounds so sad and lonely. "Go right ahead."

There's some shifting, a click, and then the twangy sound of a guitar tumbles through the phone, followed by the soothing hum of Matt's voice. The tracks feel long, though. Each one, a country song, tells me about loving a girl, living on a farm, and making his family proud. The second topic is the only one that rings false to me, but it doesn't help that the tunes themselves make me want to lean away. It's a relief when they're over, and his speaking voice fills the phone again.

"So? What'd you think?" His eagerness hurts, but I promised to listen.

"They didn't sound like anything you've done before. What about your other stuff? I thought you were playing rock music? Isn't that what you got the band together for?"

He lets out a long sigh that makes me wonder how many times he's had this conversation before. "Yeah, but Sarah doesn't like it. She's not a rock fan. She likes country. She says it's more Catholic than rock is because more of the songs talk about God."

I have to bite my tongue, but it's not a conversation I want to have with him, anyway. "What do your sisters think?"

He lets out a laugh. "Liv agrees. Donna has no opinion, but she never liked church at all, so I don't expect her to have much to say."

"I do think your voice is better for rock songs, but that's just me. You could probably do anything if you wanted," I add, on purpose.

"Thanks," he says, warm and rich, like he means it.

That gratefulness stops me. Sure, it's been a while since we last hung out, but there's something else, too. I never felt like he needed me to validate him before, in any way. But that compliment was too easy to give, and he took it like he'd never had years of everyone around him saying the same thing. Or like he was remembering how it felt to hear that from someone close to him. Someone who might love him.

The sound also brings a question to mind, and I have to push myself to speak. "Can I ask you something? Are you and Sarah okay? You haven't looked this sick since the hospital visit, and I'm worried about you."

"Yeah," he says, too fast, and then, "I just want to make her happy." I can almost see him waving a hand at it, pushing the concern away. Too fast to chase this feeling he'd given me the day of the announcement.

And I can't stand for that. "It just—doesn't sound like you. None of that music does. I can feel you trying, and it's not right. It's not you. Shouldn't she love you for who you are?"

He sighs into the phone. "Sometimes, we have to make sacrifices," he says. Again, too fast, but this time, in a tighter voice. It makes me wonder who told him that, and if he really believes it for himself. It warns me to back off.

But I can't. I'm already here, and I already have him, at least for now. "Why are you with her, if she's changing everything about you that you love? Have you visited the doctor yet to see if you've even Swanned? Because if you haven't, and Sarah isn't your Swan, you'll both be sad."

He sighs again. It's the one thing that I don't expect, the one thing that sounds the most like Ty, and it makes me feel like screaming. It feels like he's treating me like a little kid again. Why can't I be eighteen, already?

Why can't I know if he's my Swan, if only so I can get us out of this mess? It makes me long to get Read even more.

"No, I haven't, but—I don't know, maybe that doesn't matter so much," he says. "Maybe it's enough that I'm with her because I love her. I've loved her ever since I was a freshman, and she sat with me at a party when I was alone. And I know you haven't always seen it, but she's actually a really good person. We're just—" He makes a thoughtful noise. "—in a rough patch right now. I'll make it better. It'll get better after we're married, when it's just us, and the wedding isn't standing in our way."

My teeth grind together, working themselves down into little points. You can't mean that. It's not right! I want to scream. She's hurting you!

But something tells me I threw away my chance to have that conversation. Before the room can turn red, I ask, "Is that what Donna and Olivia say?" in the most measured I-am-a-lot-more-grown-up-than-you-give-me-credit-for way I can.

I swear, something taps on the other line. "They don't agree, but they don't know us."

All I can manage is a thoughtful noise. I'm too busy grinding my teeth to speak.

He sighs. "Thank you again, Kat. For listening. I really do appreciate that."

"No problem," I say, doing my best to keep my voice even. It breaks my heart to get off the phone with this end to our conversation. But then, I don't have to. For the second time, the dial tone hits my ear first. Then I don't feel so bad resting it back on the cradle.

Catching Ty lurking in the hallway, on the other hand, startles me half to death. He scrambles back to his room before I can say anything, but the sight of him eavesdropping on our conversation, and the memory of that conversation with Matt, keeps me up half the night.

Chapter Eighteen

I don't say a thing to anyone until I get to school again. Erin sits, mercifully, alone on the front steps, and I race to sit beside her so that maybe, just maybe, we can chat like we used to when we talked about our crushes. She jumps a little at the sight of me, and then moves over.

"Can you do me a favor?" I ask, plopping down on the stone railing beside her. "Can you help me watch for Matt? Just in case he shows up again like he did yesterday," I add at the confusion on her face.

Her jaw hangs open, and then her attention shifts to a place beyond my shoulder. I turn in time to find Rey at the bottom of the stairs, eyeing us and holding a container of something. My breath gusts out of my lungs.

"Hey, hun," Erin says, shifting over to make space. "You wanna come sit?"

Her words are so bright, so easy. Rey grins at her, and climbs over to join us. But when her eyes land on me, a bit of the oppressive heat of the oncoming day weighs on my shoulders. I get the feeling that every emotion roiling through me shows on my face. No matter how I try to hide them, and school my features, she can probably see them for what they are. Guilty. Ashamed.

"You guys been talking about me?" she asks, winking.

The question, so absurdly not what I thought it would be—though who else would be thinking this much about Matt?—that I laugh. It's a small burst, but it rings out like a gunshot, and all three of us jump. "No," I say. But my tone makes the question sound stupid, and for the third time in three days, Rey looks wounded. Even Erin startles beside me, alarmed or angry about my laugh. I clear my throat fast, desperate to remedy the situation. "That came out wrong. No, we weren't."

Rey shifts her bag on her back, and then plops beside Erin without looking at me. "O-kay. If you say so," she says, her shoes crunching the pebbles littering the pavement as she settles herself down.

"Babe," Erin says, like the world's saddest apology.

But Rey holds out the container, and passes Erin a beautiful grin. "I made these for you yesterday," she says as Erin pops open the cover. "You still like—"

"Pasteis de nata!" Erin chimes a laugh, and throws her arms around Rey. I can hear the Portuguese custard tarts shuffling in their container with the force of the hug.

"I did promise," Rey says, but she still presses her face into Erin's hair. I can't help wondering if part of that is so she won't have to look at me. "Just like I promised we'll go swimming once finals are over."

Erin squeaks, and leans back so far, I have to scoot away to avoid getting her hair in my mouth. "Maybe we can even take a vacation together! Hit the Berkshires or something, if my parents can get the time off."

And there it is, again. That feeling like I just don't exist. This time, it's so blatant, it stings. "Can you guys at least act like I'm here?" I say. My voice whips out just like it wanted it to—no bubbly sounds to be heard.

Both Rey and Erin duck their heads. When their eyes meet again, they grin at each other, like they just can't help themselves. "Sorry," Rey says, but I'm not sure she is. And then her expression sobers. "Hey, you know, we're having a study session later. You wanna come?"

I know I should be jumping at this. I know this is the opportunity I've been waiting for, the one where we're all friends again. But it couldn't have come at a worse time. "Uh—thanks, but I was wondering something," I say, getting up.

Beside me, Erin slumps, like she knows what I'm going to say. It just tenses up Rey's whole body, her gaze flying between us. I look her in the eye.

"Can I have that list back? I want to throw it away," I add, fast.

Confusion falls over Rey's face, and she shakes her head. "What list?"

I try not to hold my breath any more, try to hold my back upright. I want to seem reasonable. Calm. But her confusion catches me off-guard, and only serves to make me feel even more like, now that she and Erin are dating, I'm out of the loop. "The one I—showed you yesterday?"

Rey shakes her head, and glances at Erin.

"It's the Sarah list," Erin whispers.

Rey's jaw drops. "I don't have that," she says, quiet and apologetic.

And lying—her eyes shift every time she looks at me. Part of me softens with this. Part of me bubbles with frustration. "Yes, you do. You were the last person who had it."

Rey sighs through her nose, studying me like she wonders if she'll ever get through. Then she pulls a page from her bag, all crumpled up like it's been sitting there for a while, and I almost faint. It's warm and smooth against my hand. I can almost feel it tucked in my jeans again, molding with my hip bone, then my thigh, as I carried it around yesterday. She may as well have passed me a piece of gold. If she hadn't already been dating Erin, I might've kissed her.

"That's the only list I have," she says.

Her tone is so resigned, I have to unfold the page to see what it is. "Not groceries!" I snap, folding back up and handing it over. "It was a bulleted list. On notebook paper. You had it yesterday, where'd you put it?"

Rey lets out the kind of bone-deep sigh that Auntie usually reserves for Ty's more childish antics. "Menina," she says, with a little too much patience, "I really don't know."

All the heat falls from my face. "You lost it?! How could you?" I grip my hair, my chest cold, and the whole world seems just a little too bright. Is this what shock feels like?

I round on Erin, trying to gauge her reaction and make sure I'm hearing this right. She peeks up at me through a fan brush of eyelashes. "Can we stop playing lookout for Matt now?" she asks, as if I've badgered her about this a thousand times.

Rey groans so loud, the sound of it calls the attention of at least three other people. "Really, Kat? That's what this is all about? Kat, menina, I love you, but you really do need to back off. You're getting a little obsessed."

This declaration startles me so much, and bites so deeply, that for a second, all I can do is stare at her, gape-jawed. "Excuse me?" I say, dropping my hands to my knees.

Erin bites her lip, eyes as big as the custard container. But Rey leans over, and actually tries to take my hand. I whip my fingers out of her grip. She just keeps leaning forward, begging me to listen with her eyes.

"I just think you're getting too wound up about this. He's with Sarah, not you, and he seems to be pretty happy with it. If you were really his friend, I'd think you'd try to be happy for him. Instead, you're on this witch hunt against his fiancée."

She sits back. "I'm starting to think you're only concerned about him because you wanna date him, and not because you're actually concerned about his wellbeing. You like him, and it's blinding you to the fact that you need to stop interfering with his and Sarah's relationship."

I'm so mad, I could spit, even though I can hardly see straight. I want to scream how the hell would you know? Have you been his friend all this time? You don't even give a shit. I'm just trying to look out for him.

But all I can manage through my sputtering rage is, "You're the one who lost the list, even when you knew how important it was to me."

Rey deflates a little, like her grand plan for calming me has been defeated. She turns to Erin. The girl sits up taller, and her shoulders tense up. "Does your aunt know about the list? Did you even tell her, like you planned to?"

The edge to her tone just makes me feel like I need to defend myself. "No," I say, trying to suppress the waver in my voice. "But she knows about his scars."

Erin shakes her head. "And—?" she asks, drawing out the word.

It's such a mean girl way of talking—a Sarah way, if I'm being honest—that I want to cry for being on the receiving end of it. This whole thing has only served to fill me with anger and shame. "And I don't wanna talk about it," I whisper through my teeth.

"She agrees with us, then. Great," Rey says, shouldering her backpack and getting to her feet. "And you know what, Kat? You're acting like the most childish freshman I've ever met in my life. And now, I need a break," she says, turning to Erin. "You coming, babe?"

Erin gathers her stuff, refusing to look at me. She dances away before I can even think about what's happening. For the second time in almost as many days, I feel the people I love slipping away, the finest grains of sand falling through a mesh sieve. Regret flashes through me, hot and fast, and I'm on my feet like lightning, leaping into her way.

"Erin, please. Wait! I'm sorry. Rey, please stay. I'll make it up to you, but I just—I need—"

"I'm too upset to talk about this," Erin says, in the firmest tone I've ever heard her use. "Maybe we'll see you later."

She has her stuff tucked under both arms, one a light blue jacket, the other her bag. Her crestfallen expression makes me feel worse than anything Rey could've said. It leaves me feeling like I betrayed her, betrayed everything she's been to me, by not listening to Rey. Behind me, I can feel Rey watching.

I step aside at the same time the bell rings. Her whispered "thanks" is all I get in acknowledgment of me making space for her. And then, she's gone, leaving me standing in the crowding front doorway as the Coats observe my classmates shuffling into school.

At break, I venture over to sit with them again, huddling beside Erin's locker while she and Rey laugh, and cuddle over a couple of notes perched on their knees. They quiz each other for finals and gossip about who's Swanned. In between, Erin looks at me, and offers a sort-of smile that tries to be warm, but sends long-suffering vibes down my spine. Rey glances over once, and then turns away when I don't offer any secondary apologies.

I try again at lunch. They both sit outside, in the same spot as yesterday, and I take this as a good sign. I was the one who chose it, after all.

Rey sees me first, and the laugh she's in the middle of falls away until she seems pained. She even looks in the opposite direction, studying the glimmering parking lot like the flowers, and vines, creeping over the cars are the most fascinating things. As if the whole lot isn't littered with dead leaves and curling, shriveled petals that burst into a million pieces when you touch them. As if they don't leave a smell of honeyed rot behind every time we walk over there.

Rot, it seems, is more welcome than I am.

Erin catches my eye a second later, and then her face falls, too. The discomfort in it makes me stop. I pretend to look for another spot, but then I hear Rey's name being called. I spin and find one of her teachers waving her over, shouting about grades. By the time I could've walked over, Rey's already put her things into her bag.

I only catch Erin's "See you later, babe..." before Rey stands up, and marches past me in a ludicrously huge circle. She avoids my gaze, and mutters something under her breath, but the only rumble I get is "math exam." And then, she's inside. The fact that Erin knew Rey was seeking her advisor more often, but no one thought to tell me, pisses me off so much that, even though Erin's settling in to eat, I go another way and sit at a metal picnic table.

Erin calls my name once or twice, saying we can still eat together, but I don't care right now. Neither she, nor Rey, took my concerns seriously, and now, they won't even let me know what's going on with them.

And that silence, that blatant rejection of me and my concerns, no matter what I bring, hurts like a slap. Like stepping on Legos. It fills me, rocking all the way down to my marrow, making my bones ache.

Eating becomes a chore. My jaw cracks every few bites, and my food turns to paste in my mouth. I get halfway through my chips, ready to stand up and go somewhere cooler, and then something in my pocket pokes my hip in an ugly way. I pull it out, a pinch of hope filling me at the sight of a notebook page. Maybe, just maybe, I somehow got the list back without remembering.

Wiping my hands on my pants, I unfold it, ready to fill my gaze with my own handwriting. Except Auntie's handwriting stares back at me. Her note from the other day lies in a bed of wrinkles, the ink smudging in a couple places.

For a couple of shallow breaths, I can't get over my disappointment. But then, something about it just touches me the wrong way, and I can't believe the girls who'd called themselves my friends have excluded me in this way. They lost the list. They don't listen. And then they expect me to get over it. Especially when they know how I'm feeling. Especially when Auntie's treated me the same way.

It just makes me want to find my list that much more.

Chapter Nineteen

Hands shaking, I push the note back into my pocket, throw all my trash in my bag, and fling myself to my feet. I'm across the seating area in seconds, whacking the doors open with my palms. They smart, stinging hot as the metal they've just slammed against, but I'm too determined to stop. Bunching them in fists, I storm into the cafeteria off to the left, glaring around in a wild search.

If the list is even remotely still on school grounds, I'm going to find it.

I push deeper, scanning every table. Each one has been filled so completely, I can't even identify all the faces. By the time I get to the other, echoing end of the room, it's clear that, wherever the list has gone, it's not here, and maybe never was.

On my way out, I check every trash can, just in case Rey tossed it out at one point. Then I search every can I can find on the way to my locker. It never shows up, but part of me has to admit: I kinda figured it wouldn't.

Once I reach my locker, my energy dissipates into irritation. Whether it's self-directed, for believing I'd even find it to begin with, or at Rey, for losing track of it in the first place, I'm not sure. Either way, my stomach starts growling its demands all over again. I push some of that into my palm, smacking my locker open.

Inside, a folded piece of notebook paper sits atop the pile of junk I call books. It's perched at an angle that makes me thing someone just dropped it in through the slats at the top of the door. The sight of it stops my heart. Brushing the nymph-ants away, I pick it up. Even without opening it, I know what it is. The lines of the page don't match the ones in my notebooks.

I unfold it enough to read the top of the page, and snort with disgust. "How to be less stressed," Rey wrote in big, block letters. There's even a bullet list that follows.

"Like you care," I tell it. I crumple it up, and throw it in my bag at the same time that the bell rings. It pisses me off all over again.

Three hours later, my anger at Rey hasn't abated much at all. I keep checking the trash cans on my way out, taking my time by going to each of Erin's and Rey's classes and casually dropping in. It only occurs to me after I'm done that either one of them could've stayed after school to get help, what with finals being next week. We were all lucky not to have run into each other. It's a testament to how deeply my search has blinded me, too, that I didn't anticipate running into them on their way out.

But we still haven't, I'm still empty-handed, and I'm late getting Ty from band practice. Not like I ever thought he needed me to come get him, but maybe Auntie might scream less about what's happening to us if we're both home on time. It's only fair to warn him it's getting late.

And I wanna, maybe, try to see Matt... But I push that little thought to the back of my mind.

I fast-walk down the path, doing my best to look like I'm busy instead of just running from the creepy houses, in case anyone's watching. I even race across the street before I actually slow down, and make my easy way around the corner. I get halfway to Matt's house, and then their voices drift over to me.

Ty and Sarah, a good couple of yards ahead, hovering at the end of Matt's driveway, deep in conversation. They have the book between them, and as Ty flips through the pages, Sarah bounces on her toes, arms crossed and shoulders tensed, shaking her head. Like she's arguing.

Right as I'm walking up to his neighbor's stretch of walk, though, Sarah spies me. Her glare scalds my face, and she uncrosses her arms. But before she can do anything, Ty touches her shoulder and leads her the other way. A dandelion crown dangles, half crushed, from Sarah's hand. Ty never even acknowledges my waving.

"O-kay," I whisper, a deep, uneasy feeling sitting in my stomach.

My feet keep carrying me to the spot where they'd been standing. Despite the fact that they stroll down the street like they have all the time in the world, neither of them turns around. I follow them, wondering if I should call out, or start chasing them down, until the back of my neck prickles. Spinning, I glance up the driveway to find Matt staring at me.

He waves me over, his face drawn and his posture heavy. All around us, an eerie quiet settles. A tiny drift of cold wind sends a soft chill down my arms, and then I realize I'm alone at the end of his driveway, with only a smattering of lights on in the other houses to indicate anyone else might be around. Otherwise, the place is deserted—almost isolated. It reminds me too much of the abandoned houses, and suddenly, I'm not sure I want to follow him up to the garage.

"I'm here for Ty," I call.

"It'll only take a second," he says, so unconcerned that I worry even more.

He needs me. He wants to talk to me.

I ought to be crowing with pleasure. Instead, I race right after him, nervous about being alone out here. My shoes fall too heavy on the pavement. In the grass beside me, the light buzz of fairy wings sounds like a beard trimmer. My skin tingles with the oddity of it.

The second I follow, he walks into the garage. It takes me a good five seconds to go in after him, my fingers worrying themselves into tight, twisted knots. It's embarrassing, but a quick reel of horror films flit through my mind.

It's just Matt, I keep telling myself, the way I did a few days ago.

Knots still find a way to bind themselves to my stomach. His lack of poker face doesn't help matters much, either. His expression squishes, like he's about to face his parents after they caught him reading porn. I find myself reaching for him once we're hidden behind the door.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

He steps out of reach. The motion sucks the breath from my chest. I try to catch his eyes, but he won't look at me. His hands move from his waist to hang free, and then they slide into his pockets. His brow furrows the way it does when he's writing music. The metallic scent of the air around us sits so thick and heavy on my skin, I could probably light a match with it.

"Matt—"

His hands leave his pockets. This time, a square of paper dangles between his fingers. It takes me a second, but the moment I recognize the tear along the perforation, the sight of it almost makes me faint. I have to force myself not to scream, or break out into sobs.

"Did you do this?" he whispers. The sound of it, of that tone, brings back the entire reel of horror movies I've been playing in my head.

I'm so frightened, I can't speak. The air crackles between us. I feel like, at any moment, this whole garage will ignite, and every can of compressed fluid will explode. The whole house will go up in towering flames. Thing is, the only one I can see surviving that is him. I feel like he would ride the fire all the way to the sky.

"Did you?" he asks again louder, harder. Tougher to escape. The list shakes, so close to my face. I wonder if that's the light wind brushing my nose.

I lick my lips, but the silence I'm giving him answers for me. I know it does. It leaves me scrambling to think of something to say.

He must read my fear on my face: he stands back, sighing, every inch of him heartbroken. I don't need much light in here to see that. "Please be honest with me, Katrina. Please?" he asks. No, begs, like the end of his rope has been slipping out of his hands, and he just can't take it.

"You've been cutting," I say. To my surprise, it's not hard to find my voice, that wispy, little girl thing that reminds us both how young I am. The sound of my own excuse, and the tininess of my words, send a wave of defeat through me.

He looks at the ceiling like "why," and the feeling just gets greater. That doesn't stop me from taking a step towards him, though. Or from trying to touch his arm.

But even then, he moves away. And just like that, I'm back in my foyer again, and where this first started, and he's still slipping out of my grasp. Desperate words tumble out of me.

"You never did that before, not until this year. And you didn't even seem very happy all those other times you were together, apart from this week." I'm out of breath, but I have to keep going. I have to make him look at me, not the ceiling, not the walls. To stop him from growling at the floor, and running his hands through his hair.

"Matt, you've been cutting! Do you want to end up in the hospital again?"

"I told you, it's not anything! Okay?" he roars, frightening me back. When his eyes finally meet mine, they're so heartbroken, I don't know what to do. "They're nothing! They're scars. But you—"

He purses his lips, runs a hand over his face, and points at me with the list. "I find the love of my life, possibly my Swan, and the second we get engaged, you do this? Why would you do this to me, Katrina? I'm finally happy. Isn't that what everyone wanted out of this year? To be happy?"

I bite my lip, burned to the core, and then decide to say it anyway. "You don't seem very happy to me."

My whispered words stun him, but the second the expression falls onto his face, it's gone again. In its place, heavy heartbreak settles. The garage goes cold, the silence a roaring boom of a cave collapsing in on itself, leaving little to no air around me. It reminds me of just how much I'm not wanted here.

"Please don't ever speak to me again," he whispers, and heads inside the house.

Chapter Twenty

I don't know where it's coming from—a last-ditch effort, maybe—but it's coming out faster than I can stop it. I race after him, and reach the threshold to his house before I stop myself from going inside. "You still love her, despite the fact that Sarah's walking off with Ty? Despite the fact that you should be the one walking her home?"

My heart beats out of my chest, and the look of absolute disgust on his face does nothing to abate that. "They're friends, Katrina."

"Is that also what your sisters think about them?" I can feel myself saying anything, gripping tighter, trying to hold on. I've never fallen off a cliff, but part of me imagines it would feel something like this. Breathless pace, reaching fingers. Clinging to the rock wall.

At best, he pauses, and I inch forward enough to not set off any alarms. It finally makes sense why Ty didn't want me to have a list around, but maybe I can rectify it, still. "Did Sarah even say goodbye to you before they left?" I whisper.

He slams the door in my face. I wonder if this is what it feels like to lose everything you worked so hard for.

If I thought I was upset before, that was nothing compared to this. My heart feels too big for my chest. It hurts to breathe. I'm shaking all over, and it's too dark outside, and I can't see. Every cell in my body screams to go after him. To make something up, tell him I'm sorry, beg and plead for his forgiveness.

And I can't move. I just want to hide. But not here. Somewhere else—somewhere far away. In a cabin, in a hole, wherever he won't ever see me again. Somewhere I'll never bother him, and he'll wonder where I've been. He'll miss me. He'll ache like I do. He'll find out he was wrong, and miss me, and I won't be there, and he'll regret pushing me away.

A sob rises to my lips. But if I cry here, now, I know for a fact that I'll never stop before he hears me. Finds me.

So I run. I run like he can see me, like he might try to come after me, but won't be able to. I slide from the driveway onto the sidewalk, and race after Ty because the idea of going home and facing Auntie kills me.

That is, if my tears, and the blinding, oncoming darkness don't first.

I speed all the way to the end of the street, arms pumping, legs flying fast, in case Matt looks outside. By the time I reach the corner, I have to slow down. The air stings my nose, and my tongue sticks like glue in my mouth. The world is hot, and humid, and I don't know where Ty and Sarah are. Where do they go when they walk off?

Shaking and small, and terribly alone, I take a left, and hug myself tight around my waist.

At the next corner, their voices drift over to me again. The sounds bounce off the clean sidings on the houses, shivering off the manicured lawn, and drifting up into the clear night sky. Near the ground, fireflies hover by the walkways, and around the trunks of landscaped trees. They flicker in and out to the light crunch of the tree eaters that dart around for a nighttime snack. I feel like I've stepped into a wonderland, and hurry to catch up with the voices before I get more bites on my arms.

I'm a neighbor's yard away, almost caught up, but then they turn down a walkway with an enormous lamp at the end. I dive into the neighbor's hedges, not wanting to risk being seen. Through the tower of leaves and needles, I spy them stopping at Sarah's front door.

They stand there, talking, for a long time before I realize that they're in no hurry to wrap things up. And I don't know how long they'll be, but she's holding out the flask, and he's flipping through that book from before. After a couple seconds, he passes her a handful of baggies from his pockets, and she lets out a cry of surprise.

It startles me, too, seeing him hand out all those bags to her. Are they working together now?

I lean in, trying to get a better look, and the shrub shakes. We all freeze, their voices fading. I clench my teeth, gripping the branch I have a hold of until my hands hurt. A second later, their talking continues.

But I'm done. One thing I know for sure: I don't want Ty to know that I've been crying. Or following him. In fact, the idea of it makes me want to hide even more. And if he catches me watching, he's going to want to know what I think I'm doing out here. Then he'll find out the truth, one way or another.

He can't find out, and I can't be the one to tell him. Not right now. Not this way.

I cross the street fast, racing back the way I came. I don't care if it's longer, or takes me back to Matt's place. I can't have them seeing, and I know Matt's not looking for me. The fact that I make it past the abandoned buildings without cowering, or filling with dread, tells me everything I need to know about where I am mentally right now.

I race into the house through the back door, and curl up in my bed to wait until the tears stop crawling down my face, and Ty gets home. I already have a feeling the tears will stop before he gets here, though. My mind wanders back to Sarah's street, and why she and Ty were hovering over the book, and the bags, and the flask. It's a welcome distraction from all the things going on with Matt and me.

The longer I think about Ty and Sarah like that, the more I wonder what it'll mean if that's what they are—a team. What if it's true, and that's the only evidence I have proving that they're working together? That Ty's got something to do with Matt's special flask. I didn't even get a picture of it.

My stomach growls loud enough to hear by the time the back door swings open again. I jump out of bed, full of questions. Every inch of me is ready to be distracted from what happened in Matt's garage, and who better to do that with than Ty, and his secret life?

I swing my door open, but it's only Auntie on the other side. She smiles at me at the same time that I deflate, and she pauses in the middle of pulling off her spring coat. The light in her eyes turns to pity the longer we stand there, studying each other, and then she pats the back of the nearest chair, motioning me over.

"What's wrong, sweetie? Why the long face?" she asks.

I don't even realize it's happening until a light breeze sliding in through the back door brushes my cheeks. It freezes my whole face. Then my vision really blurs. A second later, I'm bawling all over again. Her arms surround me, and then the whole world dissolves into tears, and gentle pats on the head. The scents of coconut, and dirt, from a long work day fill my nose and mouth where I press them to her shoulder.

Somehow, between the shaking in my shoulders and my open-mouth sobs, I tell her an abridged version about the garage. She cradles me, rocking us back and forth. She doesn't say a thing until I'm finished, and even after that, she waits, but I'm so beside myself that I hardly care. It's so nice to just be hugged, to be held by someone who loves me. I don't know why I don't ask for hugs from her more often.

"Oh, Katrina, of course it hurts when you fight with your crush. But there will be other guys, believe me," she whispers, still rocking me. I'm too tired to correct her and insist he's more than that, so I keep my mouth closed and listen.

"He's not the only one you'll like. And I'm sure he'll still be your friend, but right now, he's under a lot of pressure. I'm sure his mom and Sarah are always on him, making sure he's okay. You have to realize," she says, pulling away and taking my face in her hands, "unless he asks for help right now, from anyone, you should just be supportive." She makes a face. "It sounds to me like you pushed him a little too hard, and he ran away. Am I right?"

Well, since we're confessing... I nod a bit.

She pats my cheeks, soft and loving. Her thumbs reach up, wiping the corners of my eyes. "Give him some space," she says.

I wipe my eyes, composing myself with a sniffle. She hands me a napkin, and heads to the fridge while I blow my nose with a loud honk.

"Do you want to help me with dinner? Maybe it'll take your mind off it?" she asks, holding out a tiny head of broccoli.

I nod, taking it from her. She lets me work at the table, murmuring about her day over moong dal tadka, and steamed rice, and broccoli. The cadence of her voice, of hearing about problems outside my own, calms me to the point where I can finally listen without my own worries replaying in my head. For a little while at least, I can just bask in the familiar smells of my grandparents' cooking.

Halfway through making dinner, something taps the floor at the other end of the hall. I spin to look, but I only manage to turn in time to hear Ty's door closing. I grind my teeth, miffed that he slipped away before I could grab him.

Chapter Twenty-One

He comes out for dinner, swallows his food, and then he's gone, not even sticking around to do the dishes. He doesn't even answer Aunt Jo's questions when she asks about his day. It's like he's pretending we're not in the room.

"What is up with this kid?" she asks, wandering down the hall after him.

She pounds in his door, and I clear the plates, glad for something more to do. By the time she gives up, I'm filling up the containers with food. She shakes her head, and comes over to do the dishes. The second she turns the faucet on, she's leaning closer to me.

"Why is he being like this? Did he say anything to you?" she whispers.

I shake my head, feigning ignorance and squishing covers onto our leftovers. "Maybe it's got something to do with being someone's Swan?" I ask, for my own selfish love of the topic. I figure it's not even worth trying to tell her about the whole Matt and Sarah thing. If she doesn't believe in Matt's cuts, she won't believe in his flask, either.

"What, like, soul mates?" she asks, balking, and then regards the hallway with an expression of newfound understanding. "Do you really think so?"

I shrug, though my heart pounds against my ribs. "I mean, it could be. He's already eighteen, and so are most of the seniors."

She makes a face, and then rushes through the chore at hand. "Yeah, but really, that doesn't mean much of anything. Unless you see your Swan, you don't actually age past eighteen. Not if you're born in this town, anyway," she adds with a sigh, and turns the water off with a snap. The sink sparkles with scented bubbles, all popping to the thump of my pulse.

"What else is there to know about it? Everyone at school just says you'll meet your Swan mate by eighteen, and then you're golden. You'll be married in a month, but best of all, you're able to grow up like everyone else."

Auntie gives me the most apologetic smile, drying her hands one finger at a time. "I don't know much, I'm sad to say. The Coats never actually gave us a handbook when we came of age at school." She gives the counter a little tap with her nails, sucks on her lips, and then she leans in. "I will tell you one thing, though. I only started aging when Ty was a freshman. I still don't even know who my Swan is, and I've been stuck here my whole life."

My jaw drops, but she just sighs, crossing her arms. Her expression turns raw, and mean. "We're like those families in those dead-end towns you hear about out West, the ones who can never get out of their situation."

I have to pick my jaw up off the floor before I can speak, but I can't keep the incredulousness out of my voice. "You mean, Ty's father wasn't—"

She shakes her head, a long, solemn "no." "That little white boy was just a vacationer, like your dad. He swooped in, swept me off my feet, knocked me up, and took off the moment he found out I was pregnant. Though I don't imagine he ever intended to stay long after that little tryst, anyway. Not in a dangerous town like ours. People like magic, until it burns them."

I stack the containers, making sure no corner is out of place so that I have something to do while my mind spins. "So...how d'you know if someone's your Swan?" I ask, trying to keep the image of Matt's face out of my head.

"Well, I started aging in my face, though you wouldn't have known that after all the stress Ty gave me, trying to raise him. Otherwise, you really have to go visit the doctors in town. The Coats have special things they can use to Read you with to help you know." She laughs a bit. "One of my friends even went to find out if she was aging, and they said they'd never seen someone age so quickly after only just seeing their Swan. Happiest day of her life."

I try to smile for her, but the image of Matt gets clearer in my head, and my next question bubbles on my lips. "What if you marry someone who's not your Swan?"

She goes quiet enough that the clock ticking drifts over to us, with her eyeing me.

"I think Matt might not be the Swan for his fiancée. Maybe that's why things are tense between them—because one of them hasn't grown." I raise my hands, and then walk the food to the fridge. "It's just a theory."

But she nods, gaze moving to the counter. "That can be a hard thing. And in fact," she pushes herself to her feet, wandering into the hall, "let me show you something."

I follow fast. Halfway to the front door, she comes to a stop in front of a picture hanging on the wall. I've seen it a hundred times before, but this time, I really look, and not just to glean some more memories I don't have. In it, my mom and dad stand in a small group of people in beach bottoms and bikinis. Her glossy, waist-length hair flows down her terra-cotta shoulders. He bends over, his slim, straw-white hand clutching his belly mid-laugh. Whoever stands behind the camera has everyone smiling, open-mouthed and jovial.

They're all so young, so close to my age, that it makes my teeth hurt.

Auntie points to my parents. "It's what happened to them, too. And so many other couples in our generation. Matt's in good company, if he marries someone who isn't his Swan."

I shuffle my feet, uncomfortable by this information. "So Dad wasn't Mom's Swan?" The question sticks to my throat.

She shakes her head, and crosses her arms. "The fact that she never aged as a result didn't help their relationship, either. He didn't want to be tied down to a baby while he was still young, and Charlotte didn't want someone who didn't love her."

My chest hurts to hear this. I have to fight to breath. "Why did he let her go?" I whisper. My memories of that time—a tiny, bright apartment, filled with concerned older people, all correcting me, and ignoring my mom, and talking to my dad in hushed Japanese; a park with so much sun, you could drown in it; and my mom's quiet funeral, attended only by the Rosen-Parikh side of my family—flit through my mind. They surround me for a handful of seconds, and then I have to push them away before I get lost in them.

"He didn't," she says, heavy and solemn. "She ran away with you when you were eight."

I round on her. "Did he ever come looking?"

She shakes her head again.

"Why not? They had a kid together for eight years."

Auntie puts a hand on my shoulder, and the weight of it brings me back down until I feel like I've been rising into space in a hot air balloon. It hits me then that I don't know if I'm fully prepared for the answer. "You'll have to ask him that. But it also serves as a good warning." She tightens her grip on my shoulder. "Don't go after anyone out of fear of not aging for a long time. Wait for someone who loves you, regardless."

She lets me go, and then makes her way up the attic stairs. The second she's gone, I tiptoe over to Ty's room. The door is still closed, and not even a hint of light peeks out from underneath. I take my time pressing my palms, and then my ear, to the door. In the distance, the sounds of muffled, angry rock music drift my way.

"Ty?" I ask.

No one answers. I suck on my lip. Knocking once, as hard as I can, I turn the knob and peek in.

He's lying on his bed, which takes up almost the entire room, a place only half-lit by the light filtering in from behind closed curtains. Opening the door wider, and just missing the end of the bed, I sit down on the corner. He winks an eye open, but doesn't take off his headphones, or move the Walkman off his chest. The stink of stale air makes my eyes water.

"Is Sarah Matt's Swan?" I ask.

In an instant, he's up, pointing to the door. "Get out." There's no challenge on his face, just a stern, steely determination not to talk. He moves to push me over, and I get to my feet.

"But do you know who it is?" I ask. He crawls closer, ready to push me gain, and I jump out of the way.

"No one really does, now go."

I grab the door, and stand in front of it. "C'mon, Ty. You know how she feels. I'm pretty sure I do, too. The fact that she and Matt are different ages isn't going to help them out, anyway. We both know that. We can do something about it. We can help each other."

"No," he says, getting up and grabbing hold of the door from somewhere above my head. "If you screwed things up, you're the one what has to fix it. This is why you shouldn't have a list."

His declaration stuns me so much, he manages to push me out without a fight. Does he know how Matt got the list? Did Matt tell him? They're still friends enough to do that, right? To talk? I force myself to put it aside once he's pushed me into the hallway again. Spinning, I catch the door jut before it closes.

"Has Sarah aged?" I ask.

He groans, and mutters, "For fuck's sake." And then, for the second time today, a door slam in my face, and the lock turns with a tinny click.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I don't know why. Maybe it's because the fight with Matt left me feeling helpless. Maybe it's because my arguments with Rey keep me feeling like I'm on my own. Maybe it's because I'm feeling like the one guy who's always had my back has deserted me. Maybe for all the above. But for some reason, getting shut out again by people I love is just too hard.

And just when I thought all was fine, a hot, humiliated, heartbroken tear creeps down my cheek. Inside, I curse herself: my shortness, my small breasts, my young age, my inexperience. It all feels like I've fallen into a giant ball of universal unfairness. The world that once felt so big at the start of the night has become so bitter by the end.

Auntie's door opens and closes with a hard snap, and a "what on earth is going on down there?" And then she's coming towards us—towards me—and I have to brush my tears away fast, and run out of there, ignoring her every time she calls my name.

I slam the door to my room and sit against it, the golden sunset outside too beautiful for my misery. I hide my eyes in my palms so I don't have to look at it, and for once, I'm glad its warm glow can't reach my face. She knocks a few times, demanding to know what all the noise is about, but I keep my eyes hidden in my palms and don't answer. After a second of silence, the floorboards outside my room creak.

"Okay," she whispers into the space between the door and the frame. The sound of her voice makes me jump. I didn't know she was so close. "You don't have to tell me anything. I just—want you to know that if you need to talk, or cry, or hide somewhere, you can always come to me."

I glance over my shoulder, imagining my aunt pressed to the door like a little girl sharing a secret with her friend. The floorboards creak again, and then Auntie's even footsteps wander into the next room. Sniffling, I stand up and wrap my fingers around the door handle, ready to go after her, and take her up on her offer.

At the last minute, though, I back up and go to bed.

Maybe another time. Not today.

The longer I lie there considering the pain in my chest, sitting with it and letting it roll over me, the worse it grows. It makes me want Matt to call again, to hug me like he did before, and look at me like I'm the best thing he's seen all month. I want his reassurance back, and the fact that I don't know if everything will be okay between us, ever again, doesn't just hurt: it burns. It burns like ice on a bad sunburn, until my chest hollows out with the pressure of it.

It reminds me of what Erin said the day she and Rey had their first fight as friends—and the same night we both realized Erin had feelings for her.

And then I go still all over, the pain and the hollowness forgotten.

Oh my god, was Rey right? What if I'm not concerned about Matt for the right reasons? Is my crush on him stopping me from giving him what he really needs? Am I even concerned about this because I want to date him, or because I genuinely care?

Lightning seems to hit my body. I want to scream, but I also want to cry, wail, moan—something hard and cold, something hot and blue as the sky right before a storm. Instead, I press my hands over my mouth, and shake. My thoughts tumble over themselves like a kid just learning how to cartwheel, and I feel like a whole section of the world has just opened up to me, and exposed its ugly underbelly.

I can see everything I've done with piercing clarity.

How could I? How could I do this to him? How could I let my crush get in the way of his happiness?

Can you like-like a guy, and still be his friend? Could I ever do that with Matt? Or is it so obvious to him that it's just getting in the way of him hearing me? Would he hate me even more if he knew I liked him that way?

Then it hits me, hard: no. He'd say I was jealous, that I did what I did out of envy. He might even look at me like he did that time I showed up to practice in my best skirt. Even if he only suspected it right now, if he actually knew, he'd probably never listen to me at all, not again. Not if he thinks I'm more biased than I showed myself to be before.

The more I think about it, the more I can't see it happening: being his friend, and having a crush on him at the same time. It hurts to think he might blame my concern on jealousy. It also hurts to know he'd probably be right, at least partly.

But the part of me that acknowledges this lives at the back of my mind, and I try not to listen too hard when it's betraying me like this. It's too real, too painful to pull out and examine any closer, not after all this time. I was telling everyone I'm just trying to be a friend. It feels petty to say I did it for any other reason.

And after his reaction today... No.

I can't be more than he needs. He wouldn't want me to. I can learn to be his friend—just that. Just like we were before I saw him at the start of this week. Of course I like him—I always will—but I'd rather have him healthy than lose him because I was jealous. He might even really listen to me, if he knew I'm just a friend, not a silly girl with a crush.

My heart gives a painful thud at the thought of loving someone else, instead of him. But even if I try and fail, at least I'd know I'm trying, right?

If he's going to be my friend again, even just for a day, I think I owe him that much.

And besides, I tell myself, punching down my pillow with a surly fist, and closing my eyes, he already has a fiancée.

The next time I open my eyes and lift my head, the sun pours into my room, and keys rattle in the kitchen. Shaking off sleep, I get up on soft feet, rolling off my bed so none of the springs will twang. I get to my door in time for the back door to whine open, and then slam shut. Holding my breath, I rush to the window.

Auntie's dark head speeds past, purse flying from one shoulder. In seconds, she's gone. Then the car starts, and it's squealing off down the road, leaving a flurry of torn vines, leaves, and purple flower petals to flutter and fall on the wind. I pad into the living room on bare feet. The clock face reads seven AM.

Perfect time to make an apology.

I check to make sure Ty's door's still shut, and then slip back to the kitchen. My pulse pounds in my ears, Rey's warning about interfering not far behind. I have to force myself to concentrate around it, my fingers gripping the phone and jamming down the numbers for Matt's house. If I can get to him before I have to leave, that would be amazing.

The dial tone gives way to loud ringing. Too loud. I peek down the hall to see if Ty stirs at the sound of it, counting the rings without wanting to, and praying all the while that Matt's there. That someone will pick up. I don't even consider what I'm going to say; I just need him to know I'm sorry.

The phone rings five times, doubles at the end, and then sends me to voicemail. I let out a long sigh while his mom and dad tell me they're sorry they couldn't come to the phone in their Boston accents. I ready myself for the beep, already aligning my thoughts as I stare at the aging yellow fridge. It might not be an in-person apology, but it'll be something.

Down the hall, a door creaks open. Footsteps weigh heavy on the floor at the same time Matt's answering machine gives me the beep. Without thinking, I hang up, and dash for the toaster, grabbing a loaf of deep fried puri bread as fast as I can from the box.

I can't have Ty catch me. If he knows that I'm trying to talk to Matt this early in the morning, I'll never hear the end of it.

He grunts a hello, and then makes for the cereal, ignoring my glares. I wonder how much he remembers about last night. I wonder if he heard me put the phone down at all.

He can make all the assumptions he wants, I tell myself over the crash of plates and cutlery we collect on the table together. I'm still not giving him anything until he starts giving back to me.

Chapter Twenty-Three

We eat in relative silence—apart from the light rip of my bread, the slurp of his cereal, the birds outside making a general racket as they fight off fairies for territory—and then he's gone, sprinting away to his room again. From my seat, I can read 7:15 on the clock. I stuff the last bit of breakfast away, clean up the sink, and then throw on the first clothes I can find, before making my way up the stairs to Aunt Jo's attic room.

Despite all my frustration about Matt, I refuse to forget about last night, and what Ty said to me. And if he still won't give me answers about Swanning, or being able to age, or whatever else is going on between him and Sarah, I'll figure it out for myself. And maybe, after I apologize, I can also use it to help Matt.

The door swings open on silent hinges, and after the trip up the bright staircase, the early morning gloom drapes across my eyes like a veil. I have to hover in the doorway for my vision to adjust. In the corner of the room, a small filing cabinet gathers dust beside a rocking chair, a low vanity, and a squat dresser. Like Ty's room, her bed takes up most of the space, with half the attic divided into storage behind the door where the closet ought to be.

Unlike his room, though, I can wind my way through with relative ease, and pull the cabinet drawers all the way open. It takes me longer than I'd like to find the folder with Ty's medical records. As soon as I have it, I lay it open on top of the other files, determined to find out if he's Swanned.

Maybe, just maybe, if I can prove to Matt that he's getting married to the wrong person, he'll call off the engagement and stop cutting. The fact that no one has mentioned Swans needing to marry for either person to age tickles the back of my brain, but I force it aside once I start studying the paperwork in earnest.

The files go back by year, with his first visit to the Coats at the top. The papers call them "Doctors and Laboratory Officials," but if there's a difference, they never explained it to me. I count through at least one for every year of his life, each one marked with the blue seal of the town to show compliance with Atlantis law. A handful of others towards the start of his life indicate follow-up appointments for illnesses, but don't bear a seal, so they mustn't have been part of the mandatory yearly visits. Flipping the whole thing over, I pick up the last page.

There it is. His eighteenth checkup, part two: the sixth month determination of his official Swanning. The seal at the top sparkles gold, but nothing on it tells me why. Did he Swan? Did he find his soul mate? Is that just the color of the seal you get when you get your official, eighteen-point-five appointment? At the sight of "page one of three" on the top corner, my heart sinks.

There are definitely not two extra pages attached to this.

I scan what I've found, checking for anything that might say "confirmed," or "soul mated," or "Swanned," or even "not at this time." Anything that would indicate what I'm looking for is here.

All I get is his basic information, a list of prior yearly appointments since he was born, and the name of the person who saw to him. Oddly enough, it was Erin's mom.

But she's not a Coat. She's a spiritual guide. She works in the chapel. Why the hell would she be attending to him?

"You have to leave soon, don't you?"

The sound of Ty's voice makes me jump so hard, I hit my knee on the drawer and drop the page.

The second I recover, I put everything back in a mad, fumbling dash. The folder slips between my hands, so that I have to grip it hard, with shaking fingers, in order to stuff it back in place, any place, so that he doesn't see me holding it. "Y-yeah, I was j-just making my way down," I call. The sound of my voice fills the entire space, and gets absorbed by the wooden beams, and the paneling.

Over my shoulder, I find him already turning away.

I slam the drawer closed, and a cloud of dust rises around me, scented like lumber and powder, and forgotten places. The stairs creak in a way I hadn't heard before. It makes me breathe a little easier.

"It's not there," Ty says, making me jump again. My heart gives a painful flutter.

"W-what?" I ask, even though I know. I scramble after him, but he's already almost all the way down the stairs. I thunder after him, and he pulls out a neat white square from his pocket.

My heart hammers again. The sight of it gets me salivating.

He walks straight out the door, and I almost follow him, until I remember that I'm not wearing my backpack. Grumbling and swearing up and down the hall, I race back in, and then out the door at last. My house key dances in my hand. It barely fits in the lock. By the time I'm able to get to him again, he's already halfway down our street, hands deep in his pockets. He walks with purpose. His legs got long over time—he's at least a head taller than me now—and I have to jog to keep up.

"Does—it—say?" I ask, huffing and puffing behind him. "Did—you—age? Does Matt—know—about it? C'mon, tell me!"

He keeps walking, shoulders back, gaze ahead, and slightly up.

It's two more turns around two more corners, and almost a full minute of peppering him with questions, before I realize we're going in the wrong direction. The houses here practically sparkle with their newness, and the money that went into them. These homes are Sarah-nice, a far cry from the ones around the school, and this time, I can feel the clock ticking. There's no way I'm going to be on time, given where we are.

"You're going to make me late!" I grab his arm, and he pushes me off. Stung, I stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

He just keeps walking, like nothing even happened, though he has to shove his hands back in his pockets again.

"Asshole," I mutter under my breath. That's all the retribution I get before I have to turn around and race the other way. It kills me, leaving things like this. Walking away. Having more secrets between us.

But I'm either totally paranoid, or the bell is going off at school, and I'm not there to sneak in past it.

I'm late, as predicted. The problem is, my tardiness follows me for the rest of the day, until I miss most of my break, and don't end up seeing Rey and Erin until lunch at one. They don't turn away at the sight of me, which I take as a good sign. Erin moves over to let me sit, at least.

Rey won't even look directly at me.

"We're all friends again, right?" I ask, feeling like I'm asking for the moon.

Erin gives me a brittle smile, and nods. Rey sits up taller, and examines her nails, the polish half gone. "That depends. Are you finally gonna listen when we tell you something, instead of just fighting us over it?"

The warmth rushes from my face. I study my shoes. "I always listen."

Rey barks a laugh, and my cheeks get hot again.

"It's true! I do listen. That doesn't mean..." I cut myself off, thinking better of it.

"What?" Rey asks, and leans closer, her jacket creaking.

"It doesn't mean I have to like what you say." The words taste bitter on my tongue, their weight burning them into the air.

Erin pats my arm. "You're right. We're just worried about you, aren't we, Rey?" she asks, raising her voice so that it even sounds pointed. Rey keeps quiet, so Erin shifts, closing the circle of our knees so she can touch Rey's arm, too. "We have to look out for each other, and not talking about what's going on doesn't help us. So if any of us has something to say—"

"I found out something about Ty," I say, playing with my shoe laces.

From the corner of my eye, I catch Erin leaning back. Even Rey glances over, but something tells me her irritation at my behavior keeps her quiet.

"I caught him and Sarah hanging out together, alone, the other day. And they looked like they were doing something, but I'm not exactly sure what it was."

Erin's jaw drops, her head tilting the way I've seen women do at the sight of a new baby. "Oh. Well, that's—"

"It means nothing." Rey's voice lashes out at us. Her words snap and crackle like gunpowder on the Fourth of July, and her eyes blaze when they meet mine. For a second, I feel like I'm facing down Aunt Jo all over again. "Kat, seriously. I'm tired of talking about this. They're probably just hanging out. They are friends, after all. That's what friends do. Sarah doesn't need Matt's permission to do anything. And besides, she and Matt are clearly in love, otherwise they wouldn't be engaged."

"But if Matt's not aging," I say, "then that means she's not his Swan because she would have to age, too. And then Ty would have no reason to hide the fact that he and Sarah are hanging out all that if his friends are all getting older, the way he is."

"Who said he's hiding it?" Rey snaps, smacking both palms on her knees. "Seems to me like it's pretty obvious that they're hanging out together."

I stiffen. "You only know that because I just told you."

"Yeah, well. If Matt hasn't Swanned, then that means you're not Matt's Swan, either! So can you finally get over this sick obsession you have with him, and stop trying to interfere?"

"I just don't want him marrying someone he should never be with!" I scream, surprising myself. It echoes across the lawn, revealing the silence of surrounding conversations. Everyone within hearing distance turns, and then looks away.

But it's Rey, staring at me like I grew two heads, who makes my rumbling stomach feel like it's full of acid.

"It's not just a crush on him, I swear. It's friendly concern," I say, keeping my voice calm, desperate to salvage the situation. "After everything that's already happened between them, you gotta admit, finding out Ty and Sarah are secretly hanging out—"

"It might be a deal breaker," Erin says. She squeezes my arm, and a wave of relief hits me at her agreement.

But Rey's shaking her head. She's on her feet in seconds, shoving her stuff in her bag. "Childish," she mutters to herself, over and over.

I reach for her hand, too, whispering her name, and she slaps my fingers back.

"No!" she says, and then she stomps away.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I'm on my feet and racing after her before I'm even really sure of what I'm doing. I don't even hear Erin calling after me until I'm halfway to the doors, where Rey is about to make her escape. All I know is, I'm mad, and she's part of the reason for it. She was the last person to have the list, after all.

"You're the one who's being childish," I say, moving as fast as I can. "You went to him behind my back. At least I told you what I was planning."

But she's still walking away, arms pumping at her sides. I can feel her alarm, feel her running just fast enough that she might get away if she wants to. A thrill fills me at the thought of scaring her. It's enough of a boost that I catch up, and slide into her way.

"Apologize," I say, trying not to gasp for breath, and ruin the effect of any power I now have.

Rey's nostrils flare, and her quick breaths flutter against my shirt. I'm just about to demand an apology again, when she says, "I didn't go to him behind your back, and I didn't lie about not having the list. I threw it away after Erin gave it to me."

My whole body goes rigid. "Then how the hell did it wind up in his hands?"

She sighs, her whole body deflating. "I have no idea. All I know is, even if you do get Matt, it'll only be based on lies," in the softest, most apologetic voice I've ever heard.

It takes the air out of me, and I falter. To my horror, her words sing in my heart, touching something real and true that makes me really, super uncomfortable. Frightened, I push them down, forcing myself not to think about them.

"That's—that's not—" I wave my hand at the spot where Erin is no longer sitting. In fact, she's edging towards us, like she doesn't know if she should intervene or not. "Didn't you hear me? I said I'm doing this as his friend—"

"But you're not, are you?" Rey asks, watching me like I'm a child, and I can't comprehend my own actions. "And we both know it because it's been that way from the very beginning. I saw it on your face when you were talking about him cutting, but I'm pretty sure it's been there since you moved to Atlantis. And now, like I said, it's blinding you to the fact that you really shouldn't interfere, if you care about him."

Her whole expression has a softness that her words absolutely don't. Their weight crushes me.

She's right. I know she is. And my energy for fighting this has already started waning. It makes me want to hide.

"But your plan still won't work," she says. She shifts her backpack a little higher. "You're just trying to not be Sarah. Maybe that wasn't how you thought of it at first. Maybe you thought it'd be fine because the two of you have a history, and you're clearly obsessed."

Her voice hardens, but her expression only becomes more pitying. "But even if it does work out, somehow, you'll just be like all those other girls who make the guy their world. You'll cut everybody else out, so you won't have any friends to come to when he eventually dumps you. Because you're just taking out your jealousy over what Matt and Sarah have on us."

It takes me a second to find my tongue. "It won't be like that," I say, but my voice is thick, and my vision's blurring. "I'm not like your sister Lily."

Rey takes a step back, but that's all it takes for me to know I crossed some sort of line. Her expression flattens. She feels more unreachable than ever. "It will because that's what you're already doing, and you're not even dating him yet," she says, and then marches through the school doors.

Her absence surrounds me like an island, her words cresting and throwing themselves at me with all the force of a hurricane. A tingling numbness fills my whole body, but at the same time, I'm aware of a shaking in my chest, and hands. Everything feels raw, rubbed too hard with sand to clean away all the dead skin I didn't even know was there. I thought I was clean.

In some ways, I still do. I want to believe so, despite the thump of she was right pounding in my pulse. If possible, it pains me as much as Rey's words do. My own body believes her more than it believes me. It's infuriating, and makes me dig in my heels even more.

Erin comes towards me, and then I'm aware of the whole world. Half the eyes of people sitting near us are watching. It's not every day you get a shouting match that doesn't end up in a fist fight. I wipe my eyes fast, just in case, but I can't hide the tremble in my hands.

"You need to apologize to Rey," Erin says, her face half a foot from mine. For the first time since I've known her, her voice is hard and shrill, but it still barely carries.

"Me?!" I do my best not to scoff in her face. "I didn't do anything wrong!"

Liar, my mind whispers.

Erin shakes her head. "Rey and I have been trying to help you move on this whole time, and you just keep ignoring us, and pushing us away. She's right. You don't care about what's going on in our lives, and it's put a strain on everything. But you just keep acting like you're not responsible for any of it when really, you're more responsible than almost anyone.

"So," she says, huffing out a breath, and pushing her hair off her pink cheeks, "if you can't own up to what you did, we can't be friends anymore."

I can't move my tongue to speak. I feel like I've been filleted.

I should take it all back. I should say something. But now I'm too afraid. Afraid of them being right, of losing my argument, of losing my friends—my friend. But the longer I stand here, the more I'm not even sure I have that anymore.

Rey's right: I haven't worked for it. And now, I can see myself losing Erin in the way her face twists while she looks at me. My stomach feels like it's being removed through my throat.

It only gets worse, watching Erin follow Rey into the building without me.

The second she's gone, I run to the bathroom. Tears course down my cheeks, and I don't have the energy to stop them. I just fling myself into a stall, hug my backpack, and cry.

It feels like I've sobbed enough for a lifetime by now, but no matter how much this hurts, I feel even worse after I stop. I sit there, a quaking mess, one that can't stop telling herself: I lost all my friends. I lost everything.

The bell surprises me. I get up in a disoriented stupor, certain I haven't actually been sitting here that long. I'm still hungry, and my pounding head just adds to that misery. Whipping open my bag, I cram as much of my lunch as I can fit into my mouth, and race to class. At every corner, I give the halls a quick once-over, in case Rey or Erin is there. I don't know what would be worse: seeing them, and having them turn away, or having them see me like his.

It turns out, not seeing them at all hurts pretty damn bad, enough that I have trouble concentrating. During the entirety of class, a crippling sense of loneliness crushes me. It's the same kind I still get whenever I accidentally get lost in a new place.

This time, though, it feels like twice as much to deal with. I know the kids around me. I'm one of them. And none of them will look at me. None of them even whispers in my direction. If my locker wasn't stuffed with ants, I'd go and lock myself in it.

But that won't make me right, and it really won't make anyone like me again.

"You have to apologize to Rey."

The words resound in my mind through the end of class. They ring louder whenever I replay every injustice I willingly caused against my friends, and every problem my selfish desire to fix everything created. They follow me in my search of the halls, the classrooms—anywhere Rey might be hiding.

And then, I search some more: the office, the bathrooms. I write my apology a dozen times in my mind, each version more beautiful and heartfelt than the last. I keep coming up with new things to say. There doesn't ever seem to be enough.

But there's also not a single sign of Rey. Or Erin, for that matter. If they're getting help for finals, they're not looking for it here.

Check outside, just to be sure, says the same voice that demanded an apology out of me during class.

So I circle the front yard, but not even the late bus kids are here anymore. Hands in my pockets, I move to the parking lot, and then to the deserted lunch area. Cars drive away fast. A few kids still race around the soccer field, wearing both jerseys and cheerleading uniforms. I quicken my pace until I reach the fence, and notice just how far in the distance they're moving.

Only a couple people stay near the tree line, half-hidden by shadows as they sway. Rounding the corner to the bleachers, I get a little closer. The sight of them up close stops me.

Sarah and Ty stand in the shade of the trees and the stands, arms wrapped tight around one another. Their heads just barely move. If they didn't occasionally pull one another closer, I could've missed them completely.

Oh my god, are they Swans?

Chapter Twenty-Five

It surprises me less to see them together than it probably should. Still, something in me—the part loyal to Matt, I suppose, and the one trying to get him to hear the truth—pushes me to say something: remind them of where they are, and who can see, and what people will say.

And who it'll get back to when they do.

Matt comes to mind first, but Aunt Jo is a close second. And I have no doubt that, in a town as small as Atlantis is, enough people could talk that they could both easily find out.

I tip-toe around the back of the bleachers, hugging them so close that their shadow covers me. I don't want to get too near the trees. The light breeze ruffles the leaves, and muffles my footsteps. By the time I'm close enough to say something without having to call out to them, not even the breeze can mask the light sounds of their kissing.

The beauty of this moment strikes me. They're both leaning into it. They sigh, and bury their hands in each others' hair, shifting around the enormous dandelion crown she has on her head. Sarah's back bends when she leans into him. Ty's face softens the way it does when he's dreaming. I've never seen two people kissing like this, not outside of the movies we smuggle to Erin's basement to watch. And the more I see, the more certain I am that this will hurt Matt.

But they're both taken with each other. It's captivating to watch.

Until Ty opens his eyes, and catches me. His jaw, so pink and puffy, like he's been playing with a suction cup, takes so long to drop that it's comical. I wish I could laugh, instead of staring like an idiot, but I'm too shocked at myself for getting lost watching them.

And then Sarah's hands are on his face. She asks, "What's wrong, baby?"

She turns.

He cries out "no!" and it's too loud, too alarming—even I know that in the split second it takes to leave his mouth.

And then her eyes lock with mine. We stare at each other long enough for me to take in the puffy brown-pink color of her lips, the heavy glaze leaving her eyes. And then someone's screaming, but I can't tell if it's her, or me.

At least, not until I hear myself saying, "I knew it! You don't love Matt! Why are you doing this when you know how much it'll hurt him?"

Bravado ripples through me, until she yanks her hands away from Ty like she just touched hot coals. Then her back rounds, and she's racing towards me, fast and furious and fuming, and looking like death.

My whole body goes cold. I want to back off. I want to run away screaming. My feet won't move, though. And because they're not taking me anywhere, I straighten my back so I maybe at least look like I know what I'm doing.

But she's on me in seconds, forcing me back against the side of the bleachers. She's so close, her chest brushes mine, the tip of her nose a hair's breadth from my face. Her peony perfume surrounds us, wafting off her cheerleading uniform the way stale smoke wafts off Ty.

Being so close to her, seeing how similar we are in height, I find myself marveling for a second. She's always been taller, in my mind. Knowing she's not scares me a little more, and I have to push myself to look her in the eyes.

To my utter shock, they're not terrifying. They're terrified. Tears rise along her waterline. It gives me a glimpse into what this moment could mean for her, the ways everything could bend and break.

"You—saw—nothing," Sarah says through clenched teeth. Her breath tastes like mints, and her cheeks look hollow. She steps a little closer, until her chest almost flattens against mine. If I wasn't already intimidated, I'd be giving more consideration to how much it turns me on.

"You. Saw. Nothing. Do you understand?" A tremor wracks our bodies, starting in her shoulders.

"Sarah, hey. C'mon. Back off." Ty takes her shoulder.

She whacks him away without even looking. From the corner of my eye, I catch him raising his hands. He stays, but he's behind her again, his wide-eyed gaze finding mine for a split second before Sarah blocks my view of him.

"Take it easy," he says, soft and cooing this time. It's the same tone he's used with me now and then.

"I need to hear you say it, Kat." She coughs my name, like a crumb of food that's caught in her throat.

"I-I won't," I say—anything to make her back off a step. The second she does, I take a shuddering breath, and reach for her shaking hand. My fingers brush a knuckle. "But it doesn't have to be like this—"

Sarah whips away from me so fast, my head spins at the sight of all the space now standing between us. There one minute, gone the next, she stomps off towards the tree line, and makes my eyes cross with the adjustment. As soon as my brain catches up, I find her pacing beside the trees, hands in her hair, then over her face, and then back again. A keening sound drifts over to me from her direction.

Something about her looks familiar.

No sooner does that thought tickle the back of my mind than it comes to me:

She's me from a few hours ago.

The thought takes my breath away, and suddenly, I feel a much stronger need to help. "Please," I whisper, reaching for her again. "Just let me—"

Ty steps between us. His arms encircle her, and he whispers things into her hair, his hands smoothing over her back. He trails a cloud of cheap cologne and cigarette smoke behind him. The sight of him being so gentle towards her makes me want to hold them both, a cradle in a cradle.

And then, he's leading her away. "It's alright, it'll be fine. I'm here, sweetie, I'm by your side. I'll take care of things," he says. Before they can leave the field, he turns to me. "I'm gonna bring her home."

I just nod. I'm too stunned to follow. By the time I head back to our house, the two of them have already left school property, and I'm left wondering if all that really did just happen. All the way home, I replay it in my head, until I'm pretty certain that every image of them has been seared into my brain.

Above all, I don't want to forget.

He takes his time getting back. I sit at the table, waiting, one eye on the clock the entire time. Around us, bugs make tiny zapping noises as they hit the invisible Wall around our town, adding an odd layer of tension to the silence. My mind picks through the images of the day at least twenty times a minute. After all this time, I want answers, and I plan on getting them any way I have to.

He shows up on the porch a little after five, looking like he's aged ten years. It takes me aback for long enough to study him. The second he walks in the door, though, I'm on him. I'm so close to his side, I can smell the sweat staining his old soccer jersey, and trace the beaded line of perspiration at the nape of his neck.

"What's going on?" I ask, spitting out my questions as soon as I get them. "Are you two dating? How long have you been keeping it a secret? Why are you hiding it from me?"

He walks faster, and I hustle to keep up. The hallway's already nearing its end.

"Does Matt know? Does he suspect anything? I thought you and Matt were best friends—why are you doing this to him? After all the things you know about my life, why won't you share this with me? I thought we were friends," I say, grabbing for his arm. He pulls it out of reach each time. "I thought we could tell each other everything, especially the stuff we don't tell your mom."

He skids around the corner, and leaps into his room in two bounds. I chase after him, but his door slams in my face. Huffing out a breath, I knock.

"Come on, Ty. You never locked me out before. What's different this time?" I ask.

In response, rock music blasts out at me around the edges of the door.

A well of frustration bubbles up in my chest. I clench my hands into fists, nails pressing into the fleshy part of my palm. At the other end of the hall, the back door opens and closes. I almost sing with satisfaction at the sound.

"Hi," Aunt Jo calls over the thump of her bags on the table. "Is anybody home?"

"Oh yeah, we are," I call, directing my voice towards Ty's door. The music dies, but it's too late. In five steps, I'm halfway back to the kitchen. "And you'll never guess what Ty's been doing. I caught him making out with Sarah at school."

Chapter Twenty-Six

Blistering shock screams across Auntie's russet-colored cheeks. In that moment, it hits me, hard, that I screwed up. Her furious gaze flies over my shoulder, and the breath she takes lifts her shoulders almost to her ears.

"Tyler!" she screams, making me jump. "Get. Over. Here. Now!"

The thump of Ty's door is loud enough to shake the house, but it's not nearly as loud as Aunt Jo's silence. His footsteps reverberate behind me, their long, careful march to the kitchen like a death toll. Auntie's gaze creeps past me, never softening. And then Ty's breathing behind me, but I can't tell if it's heavy out of fear, or anger.

I'm no longer proud of what I've just done. The world has become too bright, unfiltered, in this kitchen. It reeks of alarm bells, of danger, and I quake, standing in the middle of it.

Get out of the way, my whole body screams at me, vibrating with fear.

I slink back towards the fridge, leaving no one between her and Ty. Auntie's so mad, her hands shake at her sides

"What—are—you—thinking—boy?" she roars, hands flinging around with the emphasis of her words. "Why are you so determined to shit all over everything you've been given? First your grades, then your friends, now this? Are you trying to burn bridges, or are you just really that dumb?"

That last word sings through the air, a knife thrown sideways with expert precision. It makes me curl into myself, arms tight to my sides, breath shallow and weak. I can't look directly at either of them, but I can see Ty, anyway. He flinches, and the ropes of his arms become muscle.

Auntie still stands like a hawk in front of him, poised and ready. When he says nothing, she stands up, self-assured. "I'm sure Matt wouldn't—"

"You don't know a damn thing about Matt, Mom." Ty's voice booms, filling up the room from bottom to top, an underwater cave flooding with dense, dark ocean water. It makes me want to defend Matt, but I hold my tongue. "He's a hopeless dreamer. He has all these ideas about what they'll be like in the next five, or ten years..." His voice twists with disgust.

She puts a hand on her hip. "And what, might I ask, is wrong with having a plan?"

"No one wants that at eighteen," he says, and then flings a hand at me. "Besides, Kat's been doing the same thing—"

Auntie rounds on me. "What?"

Caged, I put up my hands, not daring to look directly at her.

"—trying to separate him and Sarah with this list thing she's been doing."

Her mouth goes as wide as the top of her tea mug. She bends towards me like Sarah did earlier. Betrayer, that hook-like stance says to me. "Excuse me?" she hisses.

"It's not like that!" I peep. My voice comes out too high for me to sound believable.

"But I don't see you screaming at her, ever," Ty says, closing in on his mom, and forcing our attention back to him. "You just yell at her about clothes, and making bad impressions. Like that matters in this damn town—"

"Alright! Enough!" Auntie throws her arms into the air, and the house falls into an eerie silence. For a full ten seconds, I feel like we're awaiting our prison sentences. When she does lower her arms, she points one hand at each of us. "Grounded from band until you get a goddamn scholarship," she says to him, in the lowest tone she's used all night.

The blood leaks from his face. He steps closer. "But—"

"Grounded!" She wags her finger at me. "From the phone for an entire week." Then she gives us both her palms, and turns to the sink. "Now get out if you want to eat dinner tonight."

Ty stomps to his room. I drift to mine as soon as he does, and make myself quiet until Auntie calls for us to eat. She doesn't tell me to help, but the bologna smell of hot dogs, and the fatty smell of baked beans, tells me she was never going to ask for it, anyway. She just wants to be done with tonight, and the house has never felt so tense.

Or maybe I just can't seem to unwind out of myself.

None of us talk to each other. The kitchen lights stay off, and in the pine-scented sunset gloom, only the scrape of cutlery on plates, and the hysteric chatter of the bird-fey war, fill the air. Once Auntie finishes, she goes straight to her room. Ty clears our plates without a word. Suddenly, now that it's just him and me, I feel a little bit brave. Enough to speak, at least.

"Will things ever be the same between us?" I ask his back. "Or will you keep keeping secrets from me?"

He continues killing grease and fairy eggs with soapy water in silence.

"Will you show me that paper?"

Nothing.

I sit up that night for a long time. The fight, and everything in it, swirls around in my head, images clashing and matching themselves up with the things I'd seen at school. I can still picture that folded square of paper Ty held up to taunt me. And now, more than ever, I'm filled with the urge to find it.

I bet he still has it on him, somewhere.

I crawl out of bed before I can think about what I'm doing. My steps have become fairy dust on the floor: not a slap from them, not a creak in the wood, not even when I pause to check the clock: 9 PM. Somehow, Ty's already snoring, the sound ebbing and flowing from the foyer.

I open his door with care, moving slow so it doesn't creak. Darkness shrouds the room. I can just make him out: a lump of space in the folds and rumples on the bed. To my extreme luck, his pants hang off the end of the mattress.

I lean over.

The floor creaks. He shifts his weight, snoring over to my side so I can hear his breathing. If he opens his eyes, he'll be staring right into mine.

I hold my breath, and grab his pants by the belt loop. They're heavy, and I have to catch them with both hands before my finger starts to strain. The floor creak again. I freeze.

His snores don't start up, but his breathing stays even.

I let out a small sigh, and then check his pockets fast. There, in the left one, I pull out the pages. My pulse drums in my ears as I put the pants aside, and unfold the square. The first page reads "SWAN: MATED" at the center, and I have to keep myself from cheering. I scan the rest, but nowhere else have they listed another name.

Well, that's disappointing. But it does make me wonder what the doctor would say about my biology. Can they tell if I'm going to age before I turn eighteen?

"What are you doing?"

Ty's voice startles me so much, I drop the pages. I don't even have time to plead. The bed springs screech, his hand finds my arm, and then I get a good shove towards the door. "Get out!"

I trip backwards, and almost fall. Before I can right myself, his door slams shut. There's one last scraping sound, and then nothing, but I'm pretty sure he just put a chair in front of it.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I race back to my room as quick as I can, before Aunt Jo can come and investigate. I don't realize how hard my heart is beating until I close my door at last. My hands shake so badly, I stuff them under my sheets to try to calm them.

No. The answer to everything, every question I could every have, is no. I'm getting that now, but it's clearly costing me something to learn.

I spend breakfast by myself, and then head to school as early as I can. I make it with fifteen minutes to spare, and no sign of Rey or Erin around. It breaks my heart, but I don't have time just now to worry about it. I get in line for the phone in the main office, and after another ten minutes, place the call I can't make at home.

"Hi, Matt, it's me," I say, turning my back to the office, and hugging the receiver as best I can.

The people behind me sigh, shifting their weight. More people I have to not think about right now. I press my mouth to the mic.

"Look, I know you're mad, and you have every right to be, but I have something important to tell you, and I don't want to say it over the phone. Meet me at the bleachers after school, okay?"

I hang up fast, even though every bone in my body wants me to linger. With a handful of minutes left on the clock, I head to class, and hope he'll meet me.

I spend the whole day alternately praying, and wondering where my friends went. Erin never shows at her locker at break, but after doing a quick search, I find her with Rey in the opposite wing, their heads bent over their notebooks. The yearning to sit with them, to announce what I learned, makes their distance hurt that much more.

I consider going over there and apologizing, but in my indecision, I wait too long. The bell rings, and they're getting up, laughing and trading kisses, lost in their own private world without me.

Even if I apologized right now, it hits me that I still couldn't be a part of that. I'd still be outside.

And then, in seconds, they're walking away.

Lunch gets here fast enough, and then it's more of the same. I hide myself in the cafeteria, watching them and debating when to apologize once again. My debate takes me to the end of the period, where I tell myself I have too much going on, that I need to focus on Matt right now, and once I get that out of the way, I can say something to my friends.

Truth is, though, I'm terrified. Not that I'd ever admit it to anyone but myself.

After school, I slip away to the bleachers, like I promised. For a long time, I watch the cars glide in and out, and watch the sports teams come out to play. I trace the sun in the sky, moving wherever the light falls, until there's nothing left but shade. The time crawls. The sports teams walk away, and the air gets just cold enough that I consider going home.

It's getting late, my butt hurts, and no one is here. But I said I'd be. So I don't move, not even when the streetlights come on. It sends a chill through me, watching the fire-pixies circle the globes of light. My knees knock a couple times, and I'm so hungry, and tired, that my head gets harder to hold up.

"Hey."

I jump at the sound of a voice I already know, and turn, hoping I'm wrong. But no. There's Ty, hurrying towards me fast, a jacket over him, his hands deep in the pockets. I sag in relief at the sight of him, and then grow wary at the tumultuous expression on his face.

"I've been looking everywhere for you. Mom's been freaking out. Do you have any idea what time it is?" He grabs my bag, and hauls it over his shoulder.

In that second, I don't care if he yells. I'm just happy to see him. I'm happy I don't have to walk home by myself.

"I was waiting for Matt," I say, letting him help me to my feet. I even lean into him a little when we start to walk.

He snorts. "Yeah. Well, he's not coming. And Mom's pissed you weren't home."

This heavy, dark feeling of absolute dread comes over me. I stumble, but he catches me. I'm not even sure he realizes why I tripped. I wish my brain would at least keep up, but even it's having trouble following the news completely. "What?" I ask, but it's a breathy, girly whisper. It's heartbroken.

"Yeah, I know," he says, and tightens his grip on me. "I'm sorry."

I'm running before I even know what I'm doing. My head swims, my vision strains, but my whole body feels like an alarm bell that won't stop ringing. I feel like I can't move fast enough, and the thought is so bad, I feel ready to cry. Breathing hard, I pump my arms, and ignore the screams of "Kat! Kat!" coming from Ty, somewhere behind me.

Get to Matt's house, everything inside me is screaming. You have to warn him about what she did.

And I do. I get there. I can't even remember how, but I outrun my soccer star cousin. And then there it is: his house, all blue, and cold, and being swallowed up by shadows. I push myself just a little bit more, so close to his home now that I can almost taste the heady scent of his mom's rose garden. I can even see Matt, outside on the sawn, like he's waiting for something.

Then a shiny new car pulls up from the opposite end of the street, blocking the end of his driveway.

With hardly a breath in my body, I watch Sarah, with her long, bouncing black hair, and her pink, curve-hugging t-shirt and jeans, stride towards Matt. She wears a pout, and the most enormous puppy dog eyes in all of Atlantis. She stops a foot away from him, and he backs up a step.

Oh no. I slip into the neighbor's hedge like a church mouse, until I'm sure they can't see me, even if they're looking my way. Behind me, Ty's steps falter, and then stop.

"Hey," Sarah whispers.

Matt swallows, and then runs a hand over the back of his head. "W-what are you doing here?" he asks.

She gives him a rocky smile, taking another step. He doesn't move. "I wanted to tell you what's been happening, and—apologize for how things've been," she says.

He drops his hand, shoving his fingers back into his pocket. "I'm listening," he says, in the quiet, private way that lovers do when they're fighting alone in a half-lit room.

Sarah ducks her head, closing the gap between her and Matt even more. "I kissed Ty last night," she says to her toes—painted toes, in vibrant yellow flip-flops.

Matt doesn't move, and I hold my breath.

"It—was a mistake," Sarah says. A breeze passes by, tickling her nose with a couple of her extra long curls. She shoves the lock of hair behind her ear. "We've been fighting, and I wanted something different, and he was right there, listening to everything I had to say, and it just—happened. I regretted it immediately."

Matt drops his gaze to the ground, shuffling his feet and watching her from under his eyelashes. "Do you love him?" he asks, so low that I almost miss it. My heart seizes.

Sarah laughs, a short sound with no humor, and my stomach curdles. I imagine sending the girl rolling down the street on her wide hips. "No. Ty's good for a lotta things, but I don't love him for any of them." She reaches a hand out, and fingers the hem of his shirt. "Not like you."

"That's flattering," he says. The flat tone to his voice sends my heart soaring before I can stop it.

Maybe she's not as convincing as she thinks she is.

Making a face, Sarah drops her hand. "Matt, I'm not about to lose you. I can't," she says, her voice breaking. "We've been together through so much, and I took that for granted. I threw it away long enough to do something stupid. And I—just—" She sighs, turning away to wipe at her face.

I want to scream "crocodile tears!" But Matt steps closer to her, already reaching, only to drop his hand seconds later. Sarah's fingers flash out, catching him and making me jump. My heart rams against my ribcage, and I can just about hear my pulse in my ears.

No. No no no no no. Don't do it. Don't do what I think you're gonna do.

"Sarah," he says, trying to pull away.

She steps closer. "I made you a mixtape," she says, nodding over her shoulder. "It's in the car. All our favorite songs on one track, including the ones you wrote me." She hurries over, turning the car on through the window. Moments later, the radio blasts to life with a crashing, crooning song that reverberates into the air and then whispers to a soft, sweet melody.

He shakes his head, letting her take both his hands. "Why—are you doing this—?"

"Because that's how much you mean to me," Sarah says. She lifts up onto her tiptoes, leaning in, and lets her mouth fall against his. My stomach drops at the sight of this total reconciliation, but I just can't look away.

After another second, Sarah pulls back, and Matt leans with her until the kiss breaks. The girl licks her lips, grinning. "Will you go out with me for at least a little while longer?"

Much to my dismay, a breathy laugh bursts from Matt's throat. Even from so far away, I can see his eyes glittering. "What's a little?"

"One or two dates, maybe more," she says, her voice calm and even. She leans towards him again, rising onto her toes. "Maybe a couple kisses in between."

A long silence punctuates her declaration, and I wait with bated breath, my heart hurting like a thousand knives are ripping it apart.

"Okay," he says. "But only a few dates."

He bends his head toward Sarah's, and the full weight of what's happening crashes over my head in a wave. It hits me that I don't need to hear another word, or see another movement, to know what will happen next. Closing my eyes, I hide myself behind the hedge, and press my forehead to the branches.

I jump at Ty's hand on my shoulder. Without a word, he nods towards home, eyes shining.

Did he know? The question floats up from the back of my mind. Because he looks just as heartbroken as I feel.

But I can't bring myself to ask—or say anything. I'm just dumbfounded, and empty, and I stay that way all the way back to the house.

"Where—on earth—have you been?" Aunt Jo asks once we bang through the back door. To her credit, she doesn't jump at the sight of us both. I'm sure our faces have gone ashen, or at the very least, totally despondent. She just steps aside as we take our seats at the table.

"Do you have any idea what time it is? You're a very young lady, Kat. How many times have I told you how unkind the world is to women?"

"A lot," I say, staring at my lap. I wonder if she'd feel better if she knew I was afraid of just that while sitting on those bleachers in the growing dark.

Probably not.

"But you somehow thought it would be a good idea to just be out there, alone, at night? In this town? Look what we have surrounding us!"

She throws her arm at the door, and I force myself to follow the direction of her hand. Across the pond, eerie lights float on and off in the windows of the abandoned homes, rocky and uneven and flashing in their movements. Even now, in the warm circle of light in my house, the sight of them sends a chill through me.

"Just because we're surrounded by magic, do you really think that suddenly makes us safe?" Her voice wavers a bit at the edges. When I study her, she struggles to keep her lips from quivering. "And if I don't know where you are, how on earth am I going to protect you?"

"She was after school." Ty's voice pops up so fast, it startles me. I almost forgot he was here. He stares at his lap, and then the table. "I found her after the teachers drove away. It was scholarship stuff."

Aunt Jo turns back to me, her eyes shining with hope. It makes me feel worse, knowing my priorities are less academic, and more dramatic in a way that's almost theatrical. "Really?" she asks, in the most heartbreakingly loving whisper.

Lying would be so easy right now. I can taste one forming on the tip of my tongue. I could nod, and this would all be saved, and she'd be none the wiser.

But Ty's lies helped me get into this mess. My own would probably just add insult to injury. "No," I whisper, and her face falls until I'm scared she might cry. Ty even shakes his head, staring at me like I just gave Matt the knowledge of his every fantasy about Sarah over the last year. "I was at Matt's. I tried to tell him I'm worried, but he was with Sarah. They're staying together."

Something heavy and burning makes its way into my esophagus. Memories of the afternoon tease me from the back of my mind.

Aunt Jo stands up straighter, a little smile creasing her cheeks. "Oh. Good. They're good together, I think."

Ty snorts, and it calls up memories for me of that day I caught him with her. He'd been so involved during that kiss, and he'd looked so broken up at the thought of anyone finding out he'd been with Sarah. And I do feel bad for him, for both of us, but right now, I'm too relieved that Aunt Jo's not yelling at me to think about it just this second.

Aunt Jo points a finger at him. He doesn't look up, so she pokes him in the arm until he does. "You better leave the two of them alone. Don't think I forgot just how bent out of shape you were a little while ago. He's your best friend. If this is what he wants, then you'd better be happy for him." She turns to me. "Right?"

I nearly fall out of my seat, but I know enough to nod.

Aunt Jo crosses her arms, sighing with some degree of satisfaction. "You're both still grounded. You shouldn't be out so late without telling anyone where you'll be, and you really shouldn't be with an older boy without permission, especially after we talked. So, for all that—"

She hops across the kitchen, and plucks a wooden spoon from the counter. I sink down in my chair, and then hold out my hand when she gives it to me. "You're cooking. Chicken, rice, and beans."

I take it without arguing, even though it takes me the better part of an hour. The chicken comes out burned. The rice morphs into soup. The beans disintegrate when we pick them up, but at least we're eating before any of us has to go to bed.

At least today is over. Even though all our hearts are breaking, and I can't get Matt and Sarah's kiss out of my head.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

In all, it's a shitty start to the weekend. I power through, wanting to be done with Saturday, out of Sunday, and on with the rest of the show. As nervous as I am about running into people at school, and as much homework as I've missed, or turned in late, I don't know what to do with myself outside of that building. Having two days without it just makes me antsy to get back.

Aunt Jo makes me study for finals and help with housework. She makes Ty come to work with her to help clean. But in all the in-between moments, I'm lost. The only thing I can keep straight in my head is a prayer that this time apart will help soften Rey, Erin, and Matt towards me. My hope is so bold that, on Sunday night, I'm bouncing with impatience to get the week going.

Sunday night into Monday, I toss and turn until I finally fall in and out of dreamless sleep. When I do, my brain occasionally kicks me back into the world, terrified that I missed my wake-up call.

On Monday, I get up alone and have breakfast by myself. I'm not hungry, but at this point, I have to do something. Now that the prospect of running into Matt is really real, I tell myself over generic corn flakes that I shouldn't feel as bad as I do. Matt didn't break up with me. He can't. We were never together in the first place.

Too bad my heart just won't hear it. I shift to study the clock, but it's still too early to go to school.

And I still haven't actually apologized.

The realization makes my heart hurt even more. Yes, I tried to talk to him, but he still doesn't know I'm sorry. I just can't believe I didn't think of this over the weekend. As soon as I consider it, I wonder if it'll cure my heartache to tell him. To get a face-to-face reaction.

Something cold and mean in the back of my mind doubts it. But I have to try, right? I'm supposed to be his friend. I gave up my crush on him for that.

At five past seven, I leave the house, and make my way over to his.

The driveway lies empty in front of me, and I let out a breath of relief. At least I won't have to run into his parents while I'm here. Being careful to stay on their brick-laid path, I dodge a few bees and butterflies in the flower gardens around the front steps, and knock on the door. Sweat breaks out under my arms, but no one answers. After another few minutes, I knock again, harder.

Still nothing.

My heart pinches. Swallowing back the hot embarrassment of standing there and getting no response, I put down my bag and open my notebook. Like all the homes in the better parts of down, they have a mail slot in the door. Biting my lip, I scribble out the apology I've been wanting to make, using every single poetic phrase I've been thinking up in the back of my head.

The hair on my neck prickles. Leaning back, I study all the windows, but the shades are either drawn, or the shadows behind them are so deep that even the slightest glare conceals everything within. For a moment, I imagine Matt standing behind one of them, glaring down at me for everything I said to him that day in his garage.

The thought makes my throat hurt when I swallow. Now, I feel like I've been crouching here too long. Folding the note as fast as I can with shaking fingers, I push it through the mail slot, and scurry out of there. Once I hit the sidewalk, I realize I'd rather not see him at all right now, regardless of whether or not he reads my letter.

I make it to school with five minutes to spare. To my utter delight, Erin's returned to her spot on the steps. Rey, on the other hand, isn't anywhere to be seen. I scan the whole yard, and earn myself a couple of nymph-bites in the process, but she's just—gone. It only hits me then just how much I actually rely on her presence.

Erin glances up while I'm making my way over, and then I wonder if I even should sit next to her. I never did apologize to Rey, and of course Erin would know that, because of course they tell each other everything. So I change direction, aiming to sit somewhere by myself.

The second I find a space, though, I wonder if I'm being stupid, and make my way back to her side. She scoots over without a word.

"Have you seen Rey at all?" I ask, putting my backpack down in the spot she left me.

Erin just shakes her head, studying a textbook page.

I give her a nod that she doesn't see. "Matt's staying with Sarah," I say, defaulting back to the only thread of conversation I seem to have left to share with her. "She cheated on him with Ty, but she came clean about it, so now they're solid again. But I know there's still more going on because I saw it, and I needed to tell someone, so...yeah..."

"Mm," Erin says, examining a note in her book.

Something about that makes me shake. My hands go cold, and my knees knock a little. I lean against the stone railing for balance, and the cold helps me breathe, fighting off the clammy heaviness that signals what the day's oncoming humidity will feel like. But no matter what I do, I can't shake my disappointment at not finding Rey here, or the fear growing in my chest at the thought of never seeing her again.

"How is she? How come she's not here? Is her dad sick again?" I ask, trying not to let her hear the depths of my emotions.

Erin shrugs. "She's coming, she'll just be late. Dropping Lily off at school. Mom's working odd jobs again, taking her dad for hospital visits." She flips a page.

All things I could've easily asked Rey myself.

The thought shames me. I scuff my toe against the loose stones on the steps. "How mad are you guys, really?" I whisper, but this time, I don't fight the waver in my voice.

Erin finally lifts her head. Her dark eyes weigh on me with what feels like an unbearable sadness, one that matches the roiling inside my heart. "That's really what you came here to ask, isn't it?"

No point in lying. I nod.

"Very," she whispers.

A lump chokes my throat. My whole body gets colder by the second, and I have to hug myself to feel warm again. The crowded yard blurs, and the smells of dirt and dew get chased away by the stinging in my nose.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, looking at my feet. "I know I shouldn't just say it to you, but I can't find her, and I miss her. I miss you both," I add, sniffling and wiping my nose.

It just makes everything wobble until I realize I won't be able to control myself. "I miss everyone. I miss talking about stuff, and—and having friends who are problem solvers, and having the group, and not feeling left out, and I—"

I take a long, rattling breath, but my lungs won't fill. Erin sits up, smelling like an ocean breeze, eyes like sea water, and hugs me. All at once, the tears spill over, and I'm blubbering into her ear. My words trip over themselves to get out.

"I miss you and Rey so much, and she was right, and she was just trying to protect me, and I still got hurt, and now I don't even really have her, or you, and I feel like you guys don't care because you don't take me seriously, but I still miss Rey, and now I need her advice, and I can't get it!"

She presses my face to her shoulder. I sob, open-mouthed and loud, in front of everyone. And for the first time in all this, just once, I feel good for finally crying. It's nice to finally tell someone what I'm feeling.

I calm down at the same time the bell rings, but I cling on before she can move. "What should I do?" I ask, speaking fast. Kids are already clamoring around us for the doors. If we don't move quick, we could get caught up in the rush.

Erin shakes her head, disentangling herself and looping her backpack over one shoulder. Then she helps me with mine. "Honestly? I'm not sure. My mind's so tired from studying, there's not much energy left in it for anything else. Have you at least apologized to her?"

Warmth rushes from my cheeks. I shake my head.

To her credit, she doesn't sigh. Instead, she takes my arm and helps me up, maneuvering us out of the way of the crowd. We stop inside, but my knees won't stop knocking. The anticipation's already getting to me. "I'd go do that, like I told you to. Once you tell her you're sorry, and you mean it, things can get going on the right foot."

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I cling to Erin's advice all day. Even when I want to go find Rey at break, I skip it to write down all the things I'm going to say. There's a lot, almost too much. Enough that I'm still not done groveling on the page by the time we're called back to class.

At lunch, I wait for her inside the hall leading to the outside eating area. Erin shows up first, but I wave her on. She gives my arm a squeeze.

When Rey appears, her face droops at the sight of me. The bags under her eyes make me wonder if she's sleeping at all. She tries to slip past, but I step in front of her, my nose filling with the light scent of cinnamon, and my hands crinkling my long page of apologies. She eyes it, wary, and I can't say I blame her. I wait until everyone else has come and gone from the hallway before I move.

"I'm sorry," I say, opening my letter.

She covers my hand with hers, stopping me with a tender touch. There's a searching earnestness in her eyes. "Are you still talking about Matt all the time, and trying to interfere with him and Sarah?" she asks in an even tone.

My hands go cold, even though hers are warm. "I'm j-just his friend," I say, but she's already stepping away from me.

"Then I can't accept it," she says with a shrug and a sigh.

My breath catches. With the hallway empty, the whole building feels as lonely as it looks. I almost wish I hadn't waited to say anything. "Why not?" I ask. "I'm allowed to have more than one set of friends."

"That's not the point." She shoves her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "The point is that I know you, Kat. You say you're friends, but you still want him, and you're still trying to be what he wants, with or without the Sarah list. You're using his depression as a way to break them up so you can have him, even though those things might not even be related. So, no, I'm sorry, but I—"

"You're out of line!" Matt screams, his voice ringing down the hallway with the same power and force that the school bell does in the morning.

We both jump. Halfway down the hall from us, by a long line of tables with caps and gowns laid out near the front doors, two people grab at each other. Rey gives me a "you know them?" look, but I'm already marching over. It takes me ten long strides to recognize Matt and Ty recovering from a shoving match in front of the school doors.

Ty hunches, making himself smaller while Matt's ears and neck go from pink to red. The whole hallway quiets enough that people in the office turn around. Matt's hands ball into fists at his sides, but he doesn't raise them an inch.

"I never touched your cousin," he says, fuming. "And this isn't even about Kat. This is about the fact that I never lied about who I was with, or what I was doing, or how long it was going on for. And the fact that you think I could do that, after knowing me for all these years, is insulting."

Ty takes another step back, but he doesn't take his gaze away from Matt's face. "You couldn't make her happy," he whispers, and Matt gives him another, more violent shove.

"Hey! Hey! Break it up!" I scream. At the same time, the teacher in charge of the gowns gets to her feet. I somehow get there first, either because I'm flying, or because they're too dumbfounded by a fight.

I fling myself between the two boys, arms outstretched. At the last minute, Ty gets in front of me, and in a flash, I'm behind him. He shields me with his arms, making a fast cage for me behind his back. His hands shake, and his whole body bends as he gasps for breath, but neither he, nor Matt, backs away. The whole area smells like sweat and sunshine.

"Tyler," I growl, pushing at his arms.

He takes a step back, hemming me in further. "No."

"Tyler!" I smack his arm.

"Let her go, Ty." Over Ty's shoulder, I catch Matt tensing up again, his tone dangerous. It's also the first time I notice the wristbands on his arms. Now that I can see them, I realize he's looking just as unhealthily ashen as yesterday.

"Are you cutting again?" I ask in a breathy voice, before I can stop myself. My mind fills with Rey's story about her father's wounds, and all of a sudden, I'm petrified. What if I caused this? What if he's cutting again because I tried to interfere?

Ty glares back at me. "Don't. You shouldn't be butting into this. I need to know you're safe."

I bristle with offense. Over his arm, though, Matt's face falls, fury melting into a totally wounded expression. "I would never hurt Kat," he whispers.

My heart twinges, pained, and suddenly, I can't look at him.

"Too late," Ty says, taking the words right out of my head.

Matt's jaw clenches. He tries to meet my gaze around Ty, but Ty steps in front of me.

"Fuck you, man," Matt says, sending a chill down my spine. "I don't ever wanna see you at band practice again.'

"We've got a concert," Ty says, and I can't tell if that's concern, or arrogance, in his voice.

But footsteps retreat. Over Ty's other shoulder, I catch sight of the doors flying open. Matt waves a hand over his shoulder, and then he's gone, cap and gown clenched in his other hand.

The second he's gone, I jump out in front of Ty and take him by the shoulders. He barely meets my gaze. "What on earth is going on?" I ask.

He dances out of my grip for a second, snatching his cap and gown off the floor, and then walks out. Fuming, I follow him until I'm standing in his way again.

"No," I say, stopping him with a hand on his chest. He still won't meet my eyes. "You don't get to run. I want you to talk to me, like we used to do back when we were actually friends because right now, you don't tell me anything. You told him, didn't you. About you and Sarah?"

The look of regret on his face when he finally meets my eyes takes me so far aback that I forget who's interrogating who for a second. In that space, he puts his hands on my shoulders, and steers me out of the way. "I promise we'll talk at home," he says, his cadence heavy and serious.

The school doors open again, and we both turn to find Sarah staring at us, her eyes swimming. Before either of us can say a word, Ty takes off. He fast-walks across the property, brushing off nymph-ants with his gown.

I'm too stunned, too mad—furious, even—to wait for him to be fully out of sight before I round on her. She can't even take a step, and I'm on her like white on rice, her eyes round and wary, a trapped goblin-rabbit without the proper teeth.

"You have some nerve, Sarah," I hiss at her. "Tons of it. You think this is all so funny, leading my cousin on, and toying with Matt's feelings? Ty actually likes you. Do you know how bad that is for him? You're engaged to his best friend. What the hell are you thinking?"

I'm practically spitting, but she doesn't turn away. Her sweetly nervous expression tightens, and she straightens up, but I can't stop talking. I already forgot what it felt like to ever be intimidated by the likes of her.

"Why would you lie to them? Why would you say something you didn't mean? You can't treat people like seasons, jumping from one to the next whenever you feel like changing. Don't you get that? Don't you—"

"I don't think you know what you're talking about." She raises her voice so far above mine that she might as well be shouting. It startles me, so much so that I don't even get miffed about the fact that she's putting a hand up to stop me. She's never been loud before, just—distant.

Come to think of it, I barely get any emotions from her at all, apart from fake lovesick.

And then she starts to cry, but she wipes her eyes faster than her tears can fall. I don't know what I've done, but she doesn't reach out. Her nose just twitches, and her eyes redden at the corners.

"You don't know what's going on. No one does, but if you knew, you wouldn't blame me for what I'm doing. Ty certainly doesn't. He's helping me. You don't know—what it's like—to have people expecting things from you. You don't know what it's like to have this pull between what you have to do, as the child of a Coat, and what you want to do, as a human being."

She says this in the calmest voice, that same pensive tone I'm used to. It stuns me almost as much as her shouting and crying, as much as the terror in her eyes did that day on the bleachers. But it also makes me wary.

What does she even know about anything?

"If you think that, then you clearly don't know my life at all," I say in the most detached tone I can. "You should be reaching out to Matt if you need help. Matt loves you, and he's the one you're engaged to. And by the way, have you seen his scars lately? He's wearing wristbands again."

An alarmed look comes over her face. I can practically see the gears in her head turning as she works something out. "Fuck," she whispers, and scans the road that we can see from behind the school fence.

Satisfied, I make my way back to the building, my stomach audibly eating itself where we stand. She catches my arm before I can grab the doors, her hand cool and soft. For an irrational moment, I want to press our palms together.

"Will you be free after school today?" she asks, eyes enormous and a little too hopeful.

I nod without thinking. Maybe it's the openness in her face. Maybe it's because of her crying. All I know is, I'm not upset with myself for unconsciously agreeing to meet with her. In fact, the more I think about it, the more interested I am in hearing what she has to say. I even feel for her a bit.

But I feel for anyone who's crying, I have to chide myself.

Her face opens up a little more, and I can't help wondering if this is the first time she has someone who's willing to really listen without asking for more. It hits me then that no one with money in Atlantis ever seems to share what they're really feeling, including Matt, sometimes. At least, not that I've noticed. Maybe that's why she's getting to me.

"Will you meet me by the bleachers?"

"Okay," I say, again without thinking.

She squeezes my arm—I almost forgot she was touching me—and then she walks away. I give her a second to get down the path without turning around to take it back, and then I race back to the lunch area. My head still swims with everything, until I don't know how I'm going to get to the end of the day without wondering endlessly what she'll have to say.

I'm going to actually talk to Sarah. Like a lady. It's so hard to wrap my mind around.

Chapter Thirty

Erin and Rey scoot over the second I make it back to them. This time, I don't hesitate, or try to gauge their reactions to seeing me. I sit beside them, rip open my lunch, and stuff my cheeks.

"What happened?" Rey asks, like we haven't been fighting for days. My heart warms with the care in her voice.

I have to swallow a few times before I can talk. "I think Matt and Ty got into a fight over Sarah, and when I told her to stop leading them on, she asked if I'd meet her after school. But the thing is," I say, then swallow hard, "last time I ran into Sarah, she threatened me because I caught her and Ty together.'

Their silence is all the permission I need to give them an "I know, right?" nod, and keep eating.

"You're not gonna go, are you?" Erin asks.

"Already said yes," I tell her around a cheek full of sandwich.

"Don't." Her hand falls onto my knee, her body tense with worry. "Please. I think you should call it off. Call her at her house, say you can't go, and go home instead. If she wants to meet you, it can't be for anything good. If she got that upset at you, she might not be in the right place to just talk."

I stuff more sandwich in my mouth, and almost choke swallowing it. "I said I'd go, so I should. She didn't seem dangerous, or angry, or anything. She seemed kind of—glad I said yes. Besides, she doesn't really have anything to gain from taking me out."

Erin just presses her hand harder to my knee, and turns to Rey.

"I'll go with you, if you're nervous," Rey says.

My jaw drops and Erin's hand slips off me. I can hardly believe what I'm hearing. After all the shit she's given me for wanting to help Matt, Rey's actually offering to help? "You're not mad anymore?"

She raises her brow, and grinds the toe of her shoe into a patch of dirt. "I am, and I still think you're interfering, but I don't want you to get hurt, or anything."

I give her a weak smile. "Thanks. I—think I'll be okay. But seriously, thank you."

Rey nods at the ground. She doesn't look up again until lunch is over, and I can't help wondering how disappointed she is in me.

It's a quarter to three by the time I make my way to the bleachers. Sarah's already there, curled up on the bottom bench. It's strange, seeing her down here when she's not wearing her cheerleading uniform.

Without it, her waist-high shorts show off her wide hips and her bronze-brown legs, and her crop top accentuates her chest. She looks slick, all power, and class, and yet, distant. And again, I understand what drew Matt and Ty to her. If I wasn't so angry at her for jerking them around, I'd be more envious of how together she seems.

I wave, and she nods, so I just sit. And then we're just—there. Staring in silence at the soccer field. The whole school's gone quiet in an "it really is almost summer" kind of way, where no one lingers because no one wants to.

And with the entirety of the building blocking us from sight of the street, we've become separated from what feels like the whole world. The trees and the bleachers hide us from the tourists. No one else comes poking around. Overhead, the electric sparks and shocks from the Wall make me wonder if I'm about to be burned, too.

But the sounds of the Wall are distant to the sounds of cameras snapping, parties raging, and the cicadas screaming to match the roiling shriek building inside me.

Now, it's just her and me, sitting. Breathing, while my heart tries to escape my chest. I try not to stare too often at her smooth skin, while my own zits are pushing themselves to the surface.

What the hell am I doing? Do I talk first?

I have no idea, but the bench has grown cold somehow, and my butt isn't responding well to that. I shift, clear my throat. "So, uh...what'd you want me down here for?"

She takes a deep breath, and then reaches down, plucking a dandelion from a patch of crab grass under her feet. One by one, she plucks the petals out, her fingers slow, and sure, until each one emerges almost perfectly intact from the center of the plant. Then she lets them drop. They fall to her feet in a smattering of startling yellow, decorating her dark skin until I can picture her wearing a gown of them, all brilliant gold to match the summer sun. They make the world around us smell like earth and green things.

It's also the first time I've seen her wear her engagement ring since the day of the announcement.

"I met Matt because of Olivia," she says, her tone the same pensive, easy one that I know her for. "We'd been friends in school, so that was why she and I started hanging out. Freshman year, she had a birthday, and she invited me to come. Matt was there, lurking and super timid. I knew him from school, but he definitely isn't the kind to make a huge first impression, so I never thought anything of him. He stuck around, and he was polite, but he wouldn't stop looking at me. Most boys do, but he was the only one who didn't like getting caught at it.

"Then," she says on a sigh, "the next year, Liv tells me that he likes me. And I was like, okay. Whatever. But he didn't say anything, or do anything, so I blew it off. Then the next year, she tells me again, and when I ask her what she wants me to do about it, she just said, nothing. He's shy."

I snort. "Sounds about right."

Sarah nods. "So I let it go again. Last summer, he finally gets the guts to approach me. He was such a mess when he did it, too. He was so nice, and sweet, and he kept stuttering. Some of the guys made fun of him for it. But something about that was nice to me. I liked it—he seemed genuine. And he wasn't like the other guys. He never did anything, or tried to, so when he asked me out, I said sure."

She heaves another deep breath. "So a week goes by, and everything's fine. We're hanging out, chatting, going on dates. Then by the time we were together for a somewhere around two weeks, I started feeling—weird. Too good, too full. And my eighteenth birthday had been six months before.

"So I ran some...tests," she says, clearing her throat, "and got some results, but I'm no scientists. So I asked my parents if they could get my Reading done. They're Coats, so they could shuffle me in the day after my half-birthday."

She takes a deep breath, and wipes her palms on her pants. "It turned out, I'd Swanned. I knew, I just knew, Matt was it. He was my Swan. All the signs were there: elation, completion, and fulfillment I hadn't ever felt once while living here. It felt like my soul had opened up, like I could grow wings and fly."

She shook her head. "And honestly, that's when it got weird with us. And not weird in a bad way, or anything. He never hit me, or yelled, or talked back, or made me feel like I wasn't safe. He's always been totally cool. And I do like him. I still do. He's a nice person, and he wants the best."

"But?" I whisper, hardly daring to breathe.

She gives me a shaky, knowing smile. "But he started spending all his time with me, writing me all these songs—dozens of them—making a big deal out of celebrating anniversaries, with cakes and everything. He was clingy—he still is. Then he starts telling me he loves me, that he'll do anything.

"And it hits me that he means it," she says, shuddering and giving me a humorless laugh. Her fingers slide her engagement ring on and off, and I wonder if it's making her uncomfortable. "It's weird. I've never met a guy like that. But my parents love him. He's nice, he's religious, he's got a great family. He's got a goal: go to college, get married, become a musician. He's serious."

"Doesn't sound so bad," I whisper.

She holds up a finger. "And I realized, when he says he loves me—and he says it all the time—that he means he wants to be with me. He wants to settle down. And I don't even know what to think of that. I just—" She pffts, and tosses the flower she's been holding. "I realized he's way too old for me emotionally. I mean, I want to get married, yes, but get a house? Have kids? Now?" She shakes her head.

I shrug, not seeing what she is. "What's wrong with that?"

"I didn't want it to be him," she says, licking her full lips, a fire in her eyes at the thought. "It's fucked up, you know? That we don't get to choose our own Swans. But this place is made of magic. It made us what we are. So I figured, if it would create Swans, then there had to be a way to use that same magic to stop what this place had started."

She glances at me. "Do you realize how many witches there are in town?"

I shake my head, dumbfounded.

Her eyes shine brighter. "A bunch. Most generic people you'll ever meet, and most of them don't do anything but crafts: soaps, jewelry, that kind of thing. And do you know how many tried to stop me from doing what I did?"

I shake my head again.

"All but one, who said anyone can do witchcraft, even a Catholic. Lord, help me." She crosses herself.

My body goes cold. "What—the hell—did you give him?" I ask in the deadest, hoarsest voice.

She swallows hard, like she's thinking about keeping quiet, and then sighs through her nose. "I call it Severing Souls. It's just a little drink I made," she says, waving a hand like we're talking about buying party favors. "It's supposed to separate us spiritually, and hopefully make us our own people again, instead of zombies bound to each other for life. We've both been taking it for months now, but Matt wound up detoxing when he was in the hospital. It was all that cutting. I think it drains some of the magic out of the blood. I doubled the dose when he got out again, and we've been keeping up appearances ever since."

Fury rises up in me, ballooning in my chest. I open my mouth, but I can barely form words, I'm so mad.

"And then," she says, before I have a chance to tell her exactly what I think, "Ty showed up. He started talking Matt down, and things got better. I could get away more. I felt—free again."

She lifts her head a bit, like she's reaching for fresher air. "I just never thought Ty would be interested. He was the only thing I never saw coming: my fiancée's best friend seeing me get sick from the magic, and offering to help. And Ty promised that, anytime I need to, I could tell him what was going on, and he'd talk to Matt."

I want to comment that she should probably be the one who tells Matt to calm down, but she's smiling to herself. "Ty's been the best part of this whole thing. We're both just so ready to get out of this fucking town. Maybe that's why I fell in love with him in a matter of days. Maybe this is what they mean by making your own fate," she says, and then her smile falters. "It broke my heart the day we told you guys Matt and I were engaged."

She falls quiet, mulling over her thoughts, and I can't help myself: I have to mourn so many things. The fact that Matt will never be my Swan hits me first, and I hate that I have to wonder who my Swan is, or if I even met them yet. And then there's the knowledge that they won't mean to me what Matt does. Will I ever be happy without him?

But then there's Ty, my poor dope of a cousin, who got caught up in all this. Who clearly loves her, too, though maybe he doesn't know that she feels the same way. Then the anger on all their behalves hits me like a water balloon to the chest: anger at her for duping them, at me for not being able to stop it, at both boys for falling into her trap.

And I don't know what to do first, with any of it. How can I laugh, and cry, and scream at this absurdity all at once?

Then she's touching my arm, staring into my eyes with an urgency that radiates off of her in waves. "But I don't hate Matt," she says, too quickly. "I'm still attracted to him. He's obviously good looking, but he's also kind, and sensitive. He just can't be my Swan. I don't want that. Or this," she says, touching the diamond on her finger again.

"Then why do you have it?" I whisper, barely concealing my anger. "Why did you say yes?"

She scoffs, and shrugs. "I have to keep him close. And I didn't know what else to say. It seemed like the right move. He's so earnest. And even my parents think I'll be ready sooner than I know, but they met young. They got married out of school. This is their story playing out on another field, to them."

She heaves a sigh, and presses her palms to her knees. "So...yeah. Here we are: I like him, but he overwhelms me. And I'd maybe like to be engaged, but not to someone as intense as he is. I just—can't be."

Chapter Thirty-One

For a long time, I don't say anything. I can't. I feel like I'd just been given the key to a room loaded with jeweled torture devices. I have no idea what to do with them, or the knowledge that they're there. And on top of that, my heart is busy breaking.

"I know it's a lot," Sarah says, breaking through my fog of bewilderment. She's smiling a little bit, and picking more dandelions, chasing the last of the bees away. "Probably more than you wanted, right?"

I sit up straighter, and my back cracks. "No, actually. I—I think I'm—glad you told me all this." It surprises me how true my words are.

Her face pinches, and she's not as delicate when she rips off the dandelion petals this time. "I'm guessing he didn't tell you anything?"

I shift my weight, trying to focus on the soccer field so she won't read my gaze. "He's a very—private person."

She snorts. It sounds so much like Ty that I startle. "I should've figured as much."

"But that's not usually—like him," I say, touching her arm with my fingertips. She meets my eyes, but there's nothing mean, or surly, in her expression. "My guess is he just didn't want to jinx himself. You know, after he got the girl, and all."

Her nostrils flare. "But he doesn't really have me, does he? Not the way Ty does," she asks, almost whispering the words to herself again. It's prayer-like, like the fact of it could drift away, become undone if she speaks about it too loudly. Her attention drifts back over the field, the dandelions forgotten on her lap. They lay scattered over the bench, half-plucked and shriveling.

The fact that she even brought my cousin into this burns me, and I taste acid to match my growling stomach. "Ty could never love someone who'd hurt the people he loves this badly."

Sarah laughs a little, glancing at me out of the corner of her eyes. "He offered to help me, Katrina. Why would he do that otherwise?" She sits up a little. "Besides, he's so jealous of Matt, and all the luck surrounding him, that he'd probably been looking for an opening all along." She shrugs. "I just happened to give it to him."

Her justification just pisses me off, but I can't punch her. I won't. I won't be the low blow. "So you're telling me that your need for Matt to not be your Swan is worth more to you than him being alive? Is that what you're saying?"

She doesn't answer.

"Break up with him. Now," I say, spitting the words. "You owe him that much. So what if it hurts him? That's never stopped you before. So what if he's your—S-Swan?" I hiss the word, trying not to feel the burn of it, trying not to be disheartened by its truth. "You don't have to marry him. As far as I know, that's one of the only options this Swan stuff gives us."

She shakes her head, pressing her feet flat to the ground, and crushing the dead flowers in her hand. "I almost didn't get back with Matt, after everything that happened between Ty and me. After you found us out."

She gulps, and glares at the field, with all its shifting shadows. Her hand drifts to her rose necklace, pulling the pendant back and forth over the thin gold chain. It makes the tiniest clicking sound. "I'm not saying it wasn't close. But that would be wrong of me at this point."

I have to hold back a laugh. "At this point? Not the whole time you've been poisoning him?"

She gives me an odd look. "You can't tell me you're not loving this. I've seen the way you look at him."

I sit up straighter, swiveling my knees so I can face her fully. She watches me from the corners of her eyes. "I'm not loving this. I've been trying to protect him while you're over here killing him off."

She sighs so deeply that, for a moment, I'm thrown off-guard. "You may not believe this, and I don't blame you if you don't, but I'm not happy about hurting him. Like I said, he's not a bad person, and I don't like hurting good people. But if I stay with him, we'll both be dead: me of suffocation, him of a broken heart."

I can hardly believe what I'm hearing. "So break up with him. Why did you even agree to get married, if you feel this way?"

"I have to stop him from cutting, and I have to keep him close so he'll take the drink. And we have to keep up appearances. If we look happy, if we stay together, then no one will think twice about us. In Atlantis, you marry your Swan, if at all possible. I'm just giving the people what they want." She drops her gaze to her lap. "I'm still not sure it's the right choice, being with Matt. But it is a safe one."

My pulse leaps, and I have to lick my lips to keep myself from speaking too quickly.

Here it is. The gold. My one chance. I can say a thing—anything—and she might be receptive to it. She might actually take it into consideration. I lean closer.

"Yeah, but—safe isn't always right. I mean, you said it yourself: you might like him sometimes, but you want something different than he does. You want freedom. You're not ready to be tied down. Why not break it off? I mean," a tiny laugh escapes me, "is it really worth it to spend the rest of your life with someone you don't agree with? Someone you're not really interested in? You said he's nice, but is that enough?"

My words are fine, if somewhat forced. I wonder if she can hear the salesmanship I them. I clench my hands into fists to keep them from shaking, even though she's not looking at me.

She doesn't move for a long time, and neither do I. I can barely pull my gaze off her face, wishing beyond hope that something would flit across her expression, something tangible. But for some reason, she can keep it impassive.

The longer the seconds drag on, the more aware I am that she's pulling away from me. I thought I felt it before, when she'd stopped speaking to stare out at the field, but this time, I know it like you know you're getting a cold. She's gone. I'm not even sure if she'd been listening.

At last, she sighs, and I suck in a breath. "I know this is hard to listen to—believe me, it's not easy to talk about," she says. I hold my breath, but she gets to her feet and walks off the bleachers. I can barely see her ring anymore. "But thank you anyway. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. It's been nice to be able to share this with somebody. Goodbye, Katrina."

For a long, dumbstruck minute, I stare after her. By the time I get to my feet, she's crossing the parking lot. "Wait! What does that mean? Are you gonna think about it?" I call.

She doesn't stop, or turn around. In a minute, she's through the parking lot. By the next, she's on the sidewalk, making her way down the road, and then she's gone from sight. I'm so confused by what happened, I can't even go after her.

Is that how she usually ends conversations? Is that what rich people in Atlantis get to do: just walk away?

Scoffing, I flop back onto the bench, trying to decide if her "thank you" had more of a "no" tone to it than a "yes." More and more today, I'm finding myself wishing that I actually knew this woman. That I might know anything about what's going on in her and Matt's heads.

The crunch of footsteps startles me. I grab my bag, bracing to run, and then Ty emerges from around the school building. He gives my bench a kick.

"Hey!"

"Do you really spend all your time down here?" he asks, closing in on me. "Don't you have anywhere else to go?"

"It's Atlantis, where else is there?" I shrug, and pat the seat next the me.

He shakes his head. "I can't. Come on, we gotta get home before Mom does so I can make the concert tonight."

I start to ask if Matt's really letting him stay play with band, but he's already making his way back off the field. I shoulder my bag, drop onto the dirt track, and race after him. If he still gets to go, even if Matt's angry, then maybe I can, too. And maybe this time, I can actually apologize to him face-to-face.

I pull a flyer for the concert off a phone poll as we pass by. As I'm folding it, Ty says, "Was that Sarah I saw walking away from you on those bleachers?"

His tone is casual, but I still stiffen, every bone in my body on alert. "Yes," I say, drawing out the word. "Why?"

He shrugs, but his shoulders have gotten too tense, and it comes off as mechanical. "No reason. I just wondered why she was talking to you."

I choose my words carefully. "She wanted to get something off her chest. I agreed to listen."

He nods. Then, "Did she say anything about me? Or Matt?"

"She only said she's been up to something. And she only said that because I called her out on it."

He whirls on me, but we're already at the house, and the phone is ringing. Both of us dive for the door, making it just in time for Aunt Jo to let us know she's on her way. Once that's over, I commandeer the phone, keeping my shoulder to my cousin. Ty runs his hands through his hair and sighs, and then glances at the clock. With a muttered curse, he throws me a peace sign, and then heads out.

I only half acknowledge him, but I'm glad he's finally gone: the other line is ringing.

"Matt's having a concert tonight, and Sarah told me everything. I want to go apologize, and tell him everything she's been doing to show him that I'm still his friend. Will you come with me?" I ask Erin the moment she says hello.

She hisses a breath through her teeth. "I have to study tonight."

I make an ugly noise in the back of my throat that I have to swallow back. "You've been studying all week, though! Come on, one night out. Please?" I twist the phone cord tight, and my finger turns an ugly shade of pink. "I don't really want to—go alone."

She lets out a sigh that kindles a guilt in my gut for even asking in the first place. "Why don't you ask Rey? You were so upset the other day about missing her. This could be your time to reconnect."

I release the cord, and then rewind it around my finger once the numbness goes away. "She still doesn't forgive me."

"Call her. I'll see you at school," Erin says. The dial tone buzzes in my ear before I know it.

For a meek kid, she sure knows how to say what she means.

Rey's phone rings forever. By the fifth unanswered ring, I hope she doesn't pick up. By the tenth, I kind of wish she'd hooked up an answering machine to this thing. I'm about to give up when it stops, a cut-off so abrupt that I almost think the line died, and then her groggy "hello?" wafts down the line, like she was sleeping.

"Will you come to Matt's concert with me? It's at his house, and it's tonight, and Sarah told me everything, and I want to apologize to him, and find a way to end all this, and Erin won't come with me." The words tumble out in a rush I can't control. I don't realize I'm shaking until I notice the phone trembling against my ear. Why do I have to be so nervous all the time? Around everyone?

She lets out a sigh that fills the phone. "Alright. If you really can't go alone—"

"I can't." And I don't want to. The idea of facing him, surrounded by all his friends and family, and Ty and Sarah, and not having a single ounce of backup, just makes me want to move towns.

"—then I'll be over in a few minutes."

My breath escapes me in the same rush as my words, relief riding my voice. "Thank you. You have no idea, Rey—"

"You owe me after this, Katrina," she says, and hangs up.

I don't even bother considering that. I can't. I'm bouncing on my last courageous nerve, and I run to my room flying high on it, yanking on fresh shorts, and a slinkier t-shirt. I pull my hair up, smoothing it out as flat as I can get the frizz to go, and then fling it into a Madonna bow at the top of my head, so that the ends tickle my tawny brown shoulders. My lipgloss opens with a strawberry-scented pop, making a nice little sheen over my thin lips. I give the budding zits on my cheeks a quick study, wondering if I should try covering them with powder, and then the back door opens.

Rey steps in, all mohawk, jeans, and jacket, and just as intense as always. If her eyes ever glowed with malice, instead of the same concern Ty gives me whenever I do something stupid, I'd have pictured her being part of a biker gang. Instead, she could be part of some hardcore, hair-metal charity, the way she runs her hand through her hair at the sight of me.

Or, more to the point, my outfit.

"It's a bit—much—don't you think? For a high school concert?" she asks, sounding as tired as she looked the other day.

I pull a sweatshirt over my top, just to please her. I'm having trouble thinking straight. My mind is too busy filling itself with the way Matt's face will look when we show up. I bounce on my heels. "Okay?" I ask, nodding to the door.

Rey studies me with so much pity that I shrink a little bit, and then she sighs. "Okay," she says, resigned, and leads me to the door.

We open it at the same time Aunt Jo walks in.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Well, fuck.

I wait for her to say something about it being nighttime, but instead, Aunt Jo beams at Rey, who gives her such a warm smile back that I want to be my aunt for that minute. "How are you, Reina? It's been such a long time," she says, pulling my friend into a hug so tight, Rey's jacket creaks.

"I'll be better once finals are over," Rey says.

My aunt laughs, holding her at arm's length. "Studying?" she asks with a wink. "Good. I'm glad. Kat could use a hand with things. Her last report card wasn't quite up to her standards." She tosses me a warning look over Rey's shoulder.

I wince, and step forward, needing this to go faster than it is. "Yeah, she's great. We're just taking a break and thought we'd go for a walk," I say, steering Rey to the door.

"In all that?" she asks, stopping me with a hand on my shoulder. "It's eighty degrees out, aren't you hot in that jacket? And Kat, you should leave that sweatshirt here."

Gape-jawed, I turn to Rey. She shrugs. "I'm good. My dad always says I'm ten degrees cooler than everyone else in the room."

Aunt Jo puts her bag on a hook by the door, still studying us. "O-kay. But Kat, you don't need that sweatshirt."

I motion to the door, thinking fast. "Yeah, but we're going outside. There's loads of mosquitos. I'll take it off when we start to walk." I shove open the door, and it jiggles in the frame.

"You know what, the more I think about it, the better a walk sounds. Why don't I come with you?" she calls from behind us. I turn in time to find her taking off her cleaner's jacket, and some small part of me dies.

"It's just for an hour, Auntie. And we probably won't even walk very far, not enough to do anything, really—"

She freezes halfway through pulling on her spring coat, staring at me. "Oh. Okay. Then I'm going to time you," she says, and disappears into the far side of the kitchen.

My blood goes cold at the sound of the oven timer beeping. Even Rey gives me an "is she serious?" look. I offer her the tiniest nod.

"The people around here are no good. Plus, this whole place is crawling with fairies, and the tourists are all out partying and roaming around. You can't trust any of them. If they catch you, then I'll know to call the Coats." More beeps, and then, "Goddamn this thing. I can never remember how to set it."

"Thank God," I whisper at the same time Rey says, "Let me help." I whirl on her, but she pats my shoulder, and pops back in before I can say anything. My aunt's head floats into view, and then a long array of beeps fill the kitchen. "My mom bakes a lot. We have an oven just like this."

"Thank you, Reina," my aunt says, her voice following Rey back to my side. I scurry her away before she can get any more ideas.

"See you girls in a few!" she calls out to us from the window.

I almost call out into the night, it feels so good to be free. The sun still hasn't gone down, but once we get onto the street, the music from the concert warbles over to us. It's not far off, and I imagine the trees shivering to the beat of it, the salt on the air bouncing. By the time we cross the road and make our way down his street, I'm dancing, my excitement and nerves getting the best of me. I need to move, and my whole body pulses with it.

"Not much of a party can happen at five-thirty at night," Rey says under her breath.

Her comment snaps me out of my trance, and I glance around to see what she means. His neighbors have come out of hiding, nodding their middle-aged heads along to the music. Their drinks sparkle in their hands, and some of them tap slippered toes.

"His family's Catholic," I say, for lack of better reasoning. "I'm sure rowdy is the last thing his parents want them to be. Matt's too much of a good guy."

Rey snorts, and then comes to a stop at the sight of the party. People mill all over the place: front yard, garage, and backyard, from what's still visible of it. Now that we're here, the music slams in my chest.

For that moment, my nerves leave me. It's a concert. And we made it just in time.

I squeak, and race over, slicing around people to get into the backyard. Rey calls me to wait, but I can barely hear her. I want to launch myself into this mess, to be surrounded by people. I want to find the stage.

As I dance around, drinking in the towering flare of the oak tree at the far end of the yard, and the cram of people spilling out of the screened-in back porch, I find him. Matt stands above the crowd, Ty and the drummer jamming away behind him. At least thirty people crowd their stage, hands in the air, even though Matt looks like he's ready to fall over, and none of them are playing very well. The three of them glisten with sweat, but the smile on Matt's face makes me wonder if he even notices.

I throw off my sweatshirt and dance harder. They finish one song, burst into the next, and then Rey grabs me, the smell of cinnamon filling my nose. I almost call out, but she just swings herself in close, and loops her arm around my waist, holding me the way she holds Erin.

"What's going on?" I ask about her sudden, intimate protectiveness.

"Some of the guys tried touching me when we came in," she says. My blood runs cold. I try to crane my head around, to find who she's talking about, but her arm tightens, so I stop. "Some of the others were giving you looks."

I shiver, leaning into her. She presses a kiss to my forehead. "Do I want to know who?" I ask.

She presses our cheeks together, and whispers, "No."

Something in my stomach doesn't sit right. My skin prickles at the back of my neck, the way it does when I'm being watched. I have to fight the urge to turn, and find my predator. It feels now like the whole yard could be watching.

Rey gives me a squeeze. "It's alright, we're together."

I nod, but the motion is mechanical. "No one ever talks about when guys grab them. Does this happen a lot?"

"Sometimes."

The casual way she says it makes my chest hurt. It makes me even more paranoid that this is gonna happen to me, and I hug her closer. When the song ends, the cheering startles me, filtering in from what feels like far away as my ears ring. I have to shake off my paranoia to remind myself why I'm here. I still find myself avoiding the guys' gazes around me.

Matt calls for a break. The band drops their instruments, and files off-stage one at a time. Taking Rey's hand off my waist, I thread our fingers together.

"I want to find Matt," I say.

She just nods, and follows me.

Despite how well I know his backyard from all the times Olivia babysat me, the press of people crammed into the fenced-off space gets to me. I have to force myself through them to get to the tree, where we can all see the band leaving the stage. Every time I squeeze us between two people, I get laughed at. Most of it trickles from the mouths of older boys. All of it feels like a taunt, a jab, a way to make this place less safe.

With a click, all of Aunt Jo's rules about dressing up fall into place. Sense dawns on me, and immediately, I regret dragging Rey out here when she told me she was uncomfortable. I'm starting to share in that discomfort, holding my sweatshirt tighter, clinging to Rey's hand, and wondering if I should put all my clothes back on.

Find Matt first, I tell myself, my plan dancing in the back of my brain. Once he sees me, I can do whatever I need.

I steer us further into the yard.

We find him by the tree, right where I watched the band drift off to. Except it's not right, any of it. He's all over Sarah, and she's all over him, and they look like they're hanging on with everything they have. Their faces crush together, lips meeting and parting within a hairsbreadth of space.

And when they're not kissing, they're passing the flask back and forth, even though both of them have that sweaty, unsteady, run-down look of drunk people with horrible fevers. Distantly, I wonder if anyone else has noticed this. Less distantly, I feel like I've been slapped.

I want to shout, "hey!" I want to scream. After everything this afternoon, this is how she's handling him? This is what she wants? I feel like I'm watching something I shouldn't, and suddenly, I don't know how to speak, much less make any sort of apology. I just feel betrayed.

Rey squeezes my fingers. Now's the time, she seems to say, and it's like she can't even see what's right in front of our faces.

"What are you doing here?" Ty asks, coming out from behind the tree with a freshly lit cigarette.

Both Matt and Sarah startle. They break apart long enough to look over at me, eyes glazed and drunk. Matt smiles, a lopsided look, and I want to spit on his shoes, almost as much as I want to get him to a hospital. But I can't even speak. He's still wearing the black wristbands, and I don't know which scares me more: him kissing Sarah, or him still cutting because of Sarah.

Then his eyes seem to focus on Rey's and my clasped hands. "Are you gay?" he asks me, incredulous.

Chapter Thirty-Three

I'm so overwhelmed by all of it, I can't even process the question. I yank my hand out of Rey's and march away, desperate to get out of there. My skin crawls with the need to say something to him, but my words won't come out. And anything I come up with might not get any mileage with him. Not if he doesn't see me like he sees Sarah, instead of this wandering idiot without a spine.

I'm not even sure where I'm going, I just can't talk to him anymore. Not like this. Not after everything she confessed on the bleachers. I can't even look at them together. Under the noise of the crowd, I'm pretty sure Rey is calling for me, and as much as I want a hug from her right now, I also feel like she can't fix anything.

I run harder. I just need something, anything, to make me feel steady.

I'm halfway to the porch when I spot the coolers: ice with soda, and ice with beer, one blue and one red. My hand reaches for the blue one, but my feet lead me to the red, where the beer bottles sparkle and snap with cool, gold liquid.

Part of me feels like this is some kind of trap, a test set up by treasure gods to make me think beer would be living in one of the chests under the X on the map. But for once in my goddamned life, I want to feel grown up. I want to be over eighteen, like Ty is. And I want everyone to see me as an adult.

The guys around it let out a chuckle, watching me debate if I should take one. Somewhere behind me, Rey's still calling.

I wanted to feel steady, didn't I? I wanted to be able to talk to him...They call it liquid courage for a reason...

I take one, ruining my fingernails to get it open. The bottle freezes my fingers, sweating in the heavy humidity, and the press of warm bodies. Peering over in Matt's direction, I catch sight of him between peoples' heads. I have to strain my ears to hear his laughter as he shares a cigarette with Sarah, and laughs at something Ty tells the group, even though I'm pretty sure they're still fighting.

I want him to look at me so bad, my skin aches.

Just do it, I tell myself, and take a long drink.

My tastebuds recoil, and the alcohol lingers on the back of my tongue. Squeezing my eyes shut, I clench my teeth against the taste until only a bitter flavor remains, coating my mouth, heavier than I anticipated. I swallow over and over to wash it away. Some of the people around me laugh, but when I take another long drink, they all quiet down.

I drink again, trying to force myself to adjust. In between sips, I pretend to listen in on where Rey is, and what the group of guys laughs with each other about, but I can't keep my mind off of how Matt had watched me. Studied me.

Judged me.

I take another drink, and then another, until I finish most of the bottle and reach for a second, the taste changing from bitter and heavy, to just heavy. A burp works its way through my throat. The taste of it sends my eyes watering.

I reach for a second beer, still cradling the first, and then Rey breaks through the crowd. I'm so startled, I just stare at her for a moment, the both of us shocked to find the other where they are. Then I blink, and she's grabbing the beer I've been drinking, and screaming my name, telling me I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to do this to myself, that she won't let me. I yank the bottle up, out of her hands and away, and manage to dump the entirety of its remaining contents all over myself.

All the guys laugh, but Rey sure as hell doesn't. She's staring at me like a stranger's been inhabiting my body. Maybe one has. In this moment, I wish it, just so I could have someone else to blame. Instead, hot shame and embarrassment burns my cheeks. The whole world seems to get hotter by at least ten degrees.

And then Matt breaks through the crowd, saying, "What's going on over here? Why's everyone laughing?" And in this moment, I'm sure I'm dead. The look on his face tells me everything. If I haven't died, I might've just killed myself to him.

"I w-wanted to a-pologize," I say, as if that can explain away the looks of total befuddlement on their faces. Neither of them move towards Matt.

He steps away. The beer swims in my stomach, and I swallow back a burp. "Y-you were—making out with Sarah, and I—I couldn't—"

"You shouldn't be over here. You're not even eighteen yet, and you're already embarrassing yourself by being drunk. I'm getting your cousin," he says, walking away.

A cold, sick, angry shock clenches my chest. Once he's gone, I have to face Rey, and it feels like the ground's falling out from under me. The weight of what I've done lines her eyes and mouth, and I feel like I've just confirmed everything she was afraid of.

I can feel her sliding from me, every second taking her further and further away. I swallow hard. "Rey, I'm so sorry—"

"You're so not the person I thought you were, Katrina," she says, and storms off.

I try to chase her. I weave after her through all the faces, and laughter, and confusion. I feel just as overwhelmed as before. But she loses me somewhere near the garage, and then I'm left floundering in the yard, soaked and stinking of beer. Somehow, I feel more exposed than ever, but whether that's because people are looking, or because of my own insecurity about being alone, I'm not sure.

I head off down the road, certain I can find her if I just keep following. A hand grabs my arm, and I shriek, whacking it. Behind me, Ty lets out a cry.

"It's me! Relax," he says. I spin to find him wearing the heaviest look on his face. Fear grips me. I yank my arm away from him, and take off down the road, ready to run from yet another fight.

"Kat." His voice is a warning. In seconds, he touches my shoulder, stopping me, and then slides his arm around my neck, matching my pace. We walk home like that in silence, with me tucked under his arm.

The entire time, I wait for him to start it—to start something—and he never does. It's only once we round the corner to our street that my heart learns to slow down, and trust him again. But even still, my entire soul feels sore.

Chapter Thirty-Four

"Put this back on," he says when we get to our driveway, taking my sweatshirt out from where it's tucked under my arm. "Don't say anything about the concert."

I follow his instructions, and he waits for the sweatshirt to fall over my shoulders before we make our way inside. There's a gloom around us that sticks to everything. It refuses to be chased away by the oven light, or the glow of the reading lamp in the living room. Without the smell of dinner wafting through the air, we get hints of low tide seeping over to us from the beach a mile away.

I make my way through the door and into the darkened hallway. Lemon-scented cleaner tickles my nose, but I can't hear anything. With a glance over my shoulder, Ty nods, and waves me further in. Sniffing, I tiptoe to the bathroom.

At the door, the hallway light turns on, and I flinch, shielding my eyes.

"Where have you been?" Aunt Jo asks. "You're late. And where's Rey?"

Blinking, I turn around. She sits in an easy chair just inside the living room, a long spring jacket wrapped around her from head to foot. One knee crosses over the other, with her sneakers half-tied, and her purse beside her feet. Her eyebrows stitch together. Despite the petal pink color of my aunt's clothes, the sight of her makes me want to crawl into the corner, and render myself invisible.

She was coming to look for us.

"O-out," I say, hugging my stomach tighter.

Her eyes narrow. "Out where? Because that sure as hell wasn't a walk."

I try to stop myself from shivering. "Matt's house," I say, swallowing hard. I squeeze myself as tight as I can, tucking my chin into my chest. Her gaze burns the top of my head. More than anything, I'm glad Ty's here to take some of the heat alongside me.

Aunt Jo gets up, crossing the distance between us in a few steps. Two feet from me, she takes a delicate sniff. My eyes swim with tears. My stomach, the traitor, growls for the dinner we haven't had. "You've been drinking," my aunt whispers.

I peek up. A hot hand slaps me across the cheek. The room spins, and I grab the doorframe for balance.

"What the hell are you thinking, Katrina?" she asks, her voice filling the room. "Did you think I wouldn't see the color in your cheeks? Smell the shit on your breath? Did you think I wouldn't recognize the Asian flush if I saw it?"

She leans over me, and I cower, pressing my burning cheek to the cool wall, trying to make myself smaller. I can't even muster the courage to tell her I don't know what that is, though I have a guess.

"Who the hell gave you liquor, hm? Was it one of your friends?" She straightens, and turns immediately to Ty. "Was it your cousin?"

He scoffs, but my breath catches. On instinct, I look at him over my shoulder, wanting to cover the space between us. "Mom, why would I—"

"Did you, or didn't you? Answer my goddamned question!" she says, towering over him.

"No!" He raises his hands, backing up until a foot of space stands between us. "I swear to God—"

Aunt Jo steps closer, pointing a shaking finger at me. "Then where would she get beer at a goddamned Catholic high schooler's house?"

Ty's gaze meet mine. For a moment, we share a helpless look. "Matt's sister's friends? They were there," he says.

But she's already shaking her head. Not good enough. Time is ticking, and one of us has to make a decent move before she starts calling people to find out what happened. Swallowing hard, praying even harder, I get up.

"It was me," I say. My tiny, squeaky voice trembles through the quiet. "I—found it."

Aunt Jo turns with painful slowness. Her back arches like a fishing hook, ready to snatch one of us and swing us into the ocean. I cow back again, but she marches over faster than I can retreat. In seconds, the woman has me in a vice-like grip.

She hoists me up by my arm, marching me down the hallway and into my room. With a shove, she sends me sprawling inside. Tears wash over my cheeks at last, and I crawl into bed. Everything, from my head to my toes, shakes. I can't even look my aunt in the face.

"Both of you are grounded. Twice," she says. She raises her voice until the hallway reverberates with it. "No more parties, no more late nights, and no more goddamned drinking!"

She slams my door closed, leaving me in total darkness. Not even the moon has come out. Making my way to the top of my bed, I pull my pillow against my chest and press my face into the sheets. All the angry faces from the evening swirl around in my mind. The thought of seeing them again sends white-hot panic through my arms and legs.

What—the fuck—have I done? I ask myself. How do I get out of this?

I don't try to come out again until Aunt Jo's been upstairs for at least five minutes. When I do open my door, the clock reads 9 PM. I slip to the bathroom on soft feet, only to find Ty there, already loading toothpaste onto his brush.

"I'd eat something first," he whispers. "You don't wanna go to bed starving."

I consider that, and then nod, taking out four slices of bread, and the jar of peanut butter. After a minute, he joins me in the darkened kitchen, where I'm already buttering my third piece of bread.

We hover there in silence—me eating, him gripping the back of the nearest chair—while the last of the sun makes dusty-rose streaks across the horizon. The trees turn black as spilled ink, and the sky is big, the blue of it deepening above everything. The air buzzes with night bugs, and the pond ripples with spiky-tailed creatures that rise up to eat the fireflies swooping in the cool air.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, his gruff voice tumbling over us in the quiet.

I finish my slice, and turn to him. I've never seen his eyes so wide, or his mouth so set.

"For being distant," he whispers. "And for not being a big brother, like I said I'd be. Every time you tried talking to me, I pushed you away. I shouldn't have done that, and I really hope your drinking tonight wasn't part of that." He leans over, studying me and gripping the chair too tightly, terrified.

"It wasn't," I say, and start on the last piece of bread. I want him to spill his secrets first. If he's really sorry, he'll do the hard work with me,

He nods, mutters, "Good," and then looks out the window again, his grip loosening on the chair.

I chew slower, waiting. He takes a long breath.

"I also don't think I can tell you everything that's going on." He clenches the chair again. "I don't think you'd really understand. It's better we don't talk about it, actually."

"That's not what Sarah thought," I say, as offhandedly as I can—more to hurt him than anything. "I'm sure she'd agree that, given her age, even your mom would know exactly what you mean. Aging means wisdom, after all." I tilt my head, pretending to consider it. "Or maybe not, if it means you wind up hurting the people you claim to love, just to get away from them."

Suddenly, he's looking at me. Really looking: eyes sharp as goblin-rabbit teeth, lasers boring into my cheeks. "Is that why she was hanging out with you today on the bleachers? Did she tell you what she's doing to Matt?"

"All I know is, I saw you two exchanging tools, and I asked her why she was using you," I say, and bite off more bread. I'm glad for the stickiness of the peanut butter, and the darkness. I don't want him knowing how surprised I am that he was close enough to hear us. He already said he wasn't going to tell me anything. I feel self-righteous by not telling him everything I know.

"Why were you drinking, Kat? Really."

It rankles me that he thinks I owe him something when I get nothing out of him. I stuff the last of my dinner into my cheek, and use the time it takes me to chew it down to wash the butter knife. My thoughts spin, deciding what can be said right now. "We better get to bed before your mom hears us," I say at last, wiping my hands on a dish towel.

Behind me, he scoffs. "Yeah, right." There's a shuffle of feet, and then his footsteps retreat down the hall.

As the creak of his door opening and shutting reaches me, I get a twinge over having pushed him away again. Hadn't I been lamenting only hours ago that we've been acting less close than usual? Hasn't that been bothering me for days?

In that moment, I consider going to him, and groveling. Apologizing. Spilling everything. I even get halfway down the hall. But then I remind myself with some force that he wouldn't budge for me, not even in that couple of seconds where we both thought things could be repaired over a little late-night camaraderie. The thought stiffens my upper lip, and I find myself reaffirming my dedication to keeping quiet until he opens up, too.

I brush my teeth, and get into bed before I hear him moving again. He taps on my door. I sit up to see him waving through the crack.

"I'll be outside for a few minutes," he says, showing me a cigarette. "If you hear anything, that's why."

I nod and he steps out again. I try not to let it bother me that he didn't come back to apologize, and spill the beans. Footsteps float down the porch, and onto the back walkway. In seconds, they're gone again. I don't think anything of it until I'm drifting off to sleep. A distant part of my brain wonders where he is, before filling my mind with dreams.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Even despite my dinner and my teeth cleaning, I still wake up with what tastes like overheated sewage in my mouth. The sun just peeks through the clouds, slicing its way between my blinds. Rubbing grit from my eyes, I sit up, and then freeze. My cheek still smarts a little when I touch it.

Tiptoeing to the door, I peek out. Aunt Jo sits at the kitchen table, her dishes pushed to the middle so a steaming cup of tea can have the spot in front of her. She dips the bag so many times, I wonder if she's even paying attention.

It's now or never.

Heaving a breath, I step into the kitchen. The cool air coming in through the back door sends goosebumps down my legs. Creeping to the table, I grip the back of the nearest chair, and lick my lips. In the living room, the clock ticks into the silence.

"Is there any cereal left?" I ask.

She points to the cabinet. "Look for yourself."

I nod, sucking in a breath. As I fix myself some food, eating it at the counter, her chair scrapes.

"What's going on, Katrina?" she asks, her voice sad and tired.

I pause, my pulse racing. "Nothing."

"No."

The certainty in her voice makes me almost drop my cereal. I turn to find her getting up, and then she takes the bowl from my hands, putting it back on the counter. She studies me the way I'm sure she wishes we'd study our books: long, and with great interest. Her hands come to rest on my shoulders. We aren't even speaking, and I already feels like she knows what I'm about to say.

"I need you to tell me. There are too many secrets in this house as it is."

"I'm sorry, Auntie," I say, dropping my gaze to the floor. The words come out hoarse, and I cough a little. "I never should've been drinking."

"You never should've gone out, period."

Sucking my lip, I nod. "You're right. I never should've been there. I—" I take a deep breath "—I wanted to seem older—"

"But you didn't." She lifts my head, and the sight of her makes my jaw clamp shut. Her eyes have swollen to pillow-like proportions, though whether that's from crying or sleeplessness, I can't tell. Maybe a bit of both. "You aren't older because you drink, Katrina. And getting drunk doesn't make you smarter, or wiser, or better looking."

She drops her hands from my shoulders, and picks up her dishes, carrying them to the sink with practiced efficiency that leaves no crumbs on her uniform, and not a single bowl rattling.

I nod again, scratching at a hangnail on my thumb. "I—know that. Now."

Aunt Jo doesn't move. She stands with her back to the window, so that the light from outside darkens the gray shadows crossing her face. A wet, earthy breeze floats in, ruffling her hair. "Do you know why your mom got in so much trouble?"

I shake my head.

"She drank. Not heavily, she wasn't an alcoholic, but she drank, all the same." Aunt Jo crosses the room for her tea, and then floats back to her place, cradling the cup in her palms. The bags under her eyes grow heavier. "It's how she got involved with your father, and unfortunately, it's how she wound up with you. It wasn't planned. Nothing ever was, not when Char and your father partied."

This news stings, and I have to fight to keep the surprise off my face. It's one thing to be told you're a happy accident, but to find out you were a drunken escapade...

Did they even want me?

The fact that I'm living here, with my aunt and cousin, suggests no. But I was dropped off under the impression that that couldn't have been helped, or changed. I couldn't have ever imagined before now that they were people who might not want me. It makes me feel like I never really knew my mom, that I can't even connect with either her, or my dad, because they'd been people I never imagined would make a mistake like that.

Aunt Jo makes a face, and rocks back on her heels. I wonder if my silence is telling. "The fact that they were together when it happened wasn't a mistake. We'd have all been madder if they weren't. But they didn't plan what ended up happening to them." Her look hardens. "Promise me you won't drink anymore, Charlotte Katrina Kamiya."

This whole conversation makes it hard for me to breath. I'm not even sure I want to talk about it, but I manage to whisper, "I promise." She turns aside, pulling her purse off of her chair and onto her shoulder. A sorry smile creases her cheeks.

"If it's any consolation, both Char and I have always been considered the disappointments of the Parikh side of our family. The problem is, it's the only thing she and I have in common anymore." She lets out a heavy sigh, pats my cheek, and leaves.

I stay rooted there long after she walk out, and listen to her car pulling away. I feel like my whole life is changing right before my eyes, and if I could just see it properly, and catch the changes before we make them, then I could slow it all down and give it real consideration.

But no. It seems like time just keeps moving too fast, even for me. I don't feel prepared for it.

I also really don't feel prepared for my finals. The second I walk into school, the hushed voices around every corner tell me I'm not going to pass. I haven't been studious enough. With bated breath, I open up my books and cram until exams begin. Neither Erin, nor Rey, show up at all. At least, not where I am.

The school spits us out at noon, and my head swims all the way out the door. Aunt Jo won't be happy with my grades. But maybe I can get away with not showing her.

I take the long way home to think of how I'll hide my report card when it shows up. The longer I do, the more I'm walking with my eyes half-closed, so that by the time I notice that I'm headed for a rose bush at the edge of someone's lawn, I'm already walking into it.

Instantly, three pink nymphs rise out, teeth flashing. I scream, and leap away as fast as I can, but they chase me hard. Their wings just about brush my back for a whole block.

We round two corners, and manage to dodge a couple too-curious tourists, and then I duck down a side street near the abandoned houses on my lake. At the sight of them, the nymphs take off, chittering at me. I flip them the bird, and then drop my hands to my knees to catch my breath. My legs and feet sting with exertion.

Thank god there are no gym finals, I tell myself, getting up and making my way down the street.

I pass two houses, and then pause. My skin prickles with familiarity, and I realize, if I turn around, and walk in the opposite direction, I know this neighborhood. In fact, I know it almost better than my own.

I inch forward a couple steps, until I see Matt's garage. It looks like his dad is sitting outside. Without other people around, it's quiet and pleasant again, until I realize the man is Matt. He's holding something in one hand, and hunches in his seat like he can barely support himself.

Chapter Thirty-Six

I stand there for a long time, maybe too long, before I get the courage to make my way over. We might be in a fight, but my heart still goes out at the sight of him. He doesn't even look up at the sound of my footsteps. He just keeps running a hand across his face, over and over and over again. He's gone chalky, except for spots of bright pink high on his cheeks. The wristbands still hug his arms. For a second, I have a flashback to how he was the day he entered the hospital.

"Hey," I whisper.

He jumps, and then glances up at me. His eyes are glassy and wavering, like it's a struggle to see anything. "Um—hi," he whispers, and turns back to the paper again, pressing his palm to his mouth, like he might throw up.

Every inch of my body wants me to maintain my distance. He still hasn't forgiven me, after all. But I let my bag slip off my shoulder, my skin prickling at the sound it makes when it slumps onto the pavement. My feet have a hard time stepping close to him. And then a tear crawls onto his cheek, and he's hiding his face from me again.

"I w-was on my way home, and I saw—" But he's not paying attention to me. I wipe my hands on my pants, smudging the permanent marker designs. "Is that a letter?"

Is that my letter?

I have to stop myself from asking. His shoulders shake, and he wipes his eyes too much. Leaning over, I ease his fingers away from it. His hand drops, going limp between his widespread knees, and that lack of fight sends a chill through me.

I turn over the page. It's a letter from Sarah, written on notebook paper. The whole of it is only a paragraph—barely—but it doesn't need to be longer. In fast, swirling handwriting, she tells him, "Mattie, Ty and I are eloping. Please don't follow us. We made this decision a long time ago, and there's nothing you can do to change it." She signs it, "I'm sorry."

I wonder if she means that, though.

At least Ty's behavior finally makes sense. The thought hits me with a panicked thrill that I have to tamp back down—my cousin's missing my cousin's missing...

I can't panic if Matt's going to. Someone here needs to be brave.

"I don't believe it." Matt leans back, curling into the chair, his pink cheeks shining. He hugs both knees to his chest, staring at me like maybe I'm a lifeline. Like if I say he's right, the letter isn't true, then it'll reveal the lie. The look fills me with waves of such desperation that I want to pull him to his feet, and promise the world.

More tears fall over his cheeks. "I don't want to believe it, but my soul hurts, Kat. I've never felt so empty in my life. I just feel so—lost. Shredded up. I c-could barely get up this morning. Everything—every tiny thing's been a chore."

"Like it was before the hospital?" I ask. He nods, slow and shaking.

"Did she give back the ring?" I ask.

His lip quivers. Fingering his pocket, he reaches in, and lifts it out: small, and sparkling, and tiny as a star. Too tiny to fit on all but one digit of his pinky finger.

Looking at him sitting there, curled up like a little boy, it takes all my courage to say, "She planned this all. It was in that flask you two kept drinking. She called it Severing Souls, and said she wanted to be free to make her own choices about her Swan." I swallow hard, and when he doesn't say anything, I add, "She's been doing this since you guys started dating."

He takes a gasping breath, and I can only imagine how hard he's taking this news. After a couple moments, he whispers, "W-what does that mean for me? I guess I'll be—an Indefinite now?" He stares up at me, eyes shining, and heaves a gasp. "Kat, it feels like my soul will never recognize anyone again. I feel broken, and I haven't even had my six month Reading yet."

I put a hand on his shoulder. It's still shaking, and that keeps me quiet. He doesn't need to hear what he already knows. "How fresh are those scars, really?" I whisper.

He folds over again, and cries, both hands covering his face this time. His head presses against my stomach.

I round over him, bending until I can wrap my arms around his shoulders. He crawls his way up, lifting his face to press his nose to my neck. His arms circle my waist, pulling me close, until I feel how warm his chest has become. Cold tears drop onto my neck, hot hands press against my back. I trail my fingers down his spine, into his hairline, and shake with him through his sobs.

"I'm so sorry," I say over and over into his hair. I keep running my hand down his back, but my gaze drifts to the house, and its many windows. Every time someone, or something, floats by, I wonder if anyone who catches us would think this inappropriate.

He heaves another sob, and hugs me closer.

I don't think I care about what's appropriate anymore. I squeeze him back.

"C'mon, Matt, you can talk to me. I promise," I whisper into his hair once his sobs have diminished to a gentle sniffle. My throat lumps a bit. "I know I've been an ass, and I'm sorry for trying to break you two up, and I'm sorry for drinking at your concert, but even with all of that, I'm still your friend. I still care about you." I cling harder to make my point.

He stays there for a long time, just breathing and hugging me back. The longer we stay like this, the more I know, in the back of my head, that I need tell Aunt Jo what's going on. It sends a jolt of panic through me, and I quell that by hugging Matt harder, by focusing on him.

I'm already doing something about this, I tell myself. I'm already helping someone. I hope.

At last, he sits back. I let him go, but he takes my hands, and turns them as he shows me his elbows. "They're from Christmas," he says on a sigh. He lets more tears escape, and they drop off his chin, making tiny, navy splotches on his sky-blue shirt. "Some are newer, like you said all those times I ignored you."

He peeks at me like a guilty child. I squeeze his hands. "All of them are from fights Sarah and I had. The aftermath of them, anyway."

I make a face.

"But, those were just the bad times." He sits forward. More tears, more sniffling. It's almost forceful, the shine in his eyes. "Those were just bad times. We had lots of good ones, too. She's actually a really kind person, and beautiful. It's why I had a crush on her for so long before we got together. She made me feel good when I was around her. She gave me mix tapes when she asked for my forgiveness. She inspired so many of my songs. She made us a—a drink—"

He winces, and turns away for a second. When he can face me again, his eyes still glow. "She took care of me before and after the hospital, bringing me wristbands and cleaning my scars—"

"Because she didn't want her potion leaking out of your blood," I say, trying to explain as gently as I can.

He swallows a couple of times, and then leans closer. "She was so kind to me at the start, and even now, she let me know she cared. She nicknamed me 'Mattie,' too." He licks his lips, and holds my hands harder. "It wasn't all bad. She made me so happy. I thought I'd never need to go to Summer Camp again."

I'm struggling to keep my lack of belief off my face. His own expression keeps crumpling at the sight of mine, though. It's not enough, I want to say. But would he listen?

His hands tremble. "Kat," he says, and the fear in his voice puts me on high alert. The fear twisting his face, tightening his grip, shocks me. "I don't want to be stuck at eighteen forever. I don't want to go to Extended Camp, or be an Indefinite. I don't want to watch fifty years of my life go by, and never change, and wind up in the Residencies."

His eyes spark, fear mixed with fury. "And why do they even call them that?! Just—be honest and say, 'Welcome to Purgatory: you're still eighteen and no one'll take you seriously anyway, so you might as well settle in.'" He chokes back a sob, and drops his gaze to our joined hands.

I hold my breath, waiting.

"We were gonna have a house, and good jobs, and kids," he whispers, his voice breaking everywhere. "I thought she wanted everything I wanted. How could I have been so wrong?"

My jaw flaps, lost for words and heartbroken with the heartbreak in front of me. All the bandaids in the world won't be able to fix this, much less his Severed Soul, but I offer the only thing I can. "You saw what you wanted to see in her, no matter how bad it got," I whisper.

He peeks at me through sopping wet lashes, and I try to smile as I go on. "We all do it. And you weren't wrong to see that, either. It's also what she showed you." I give the back of his knuckles a light rub with my thumbs. "It's not all your fault."

He sniffles hard, and glares at the driveway. "No, but a lot of it is."

Inside, the phone rings. He gets up, pulling me with him, and then hustles into the garage. I hug myself, and stare at the street. I try to imagine situations like this tucked inside each of those cookie-cutter houses.

What a mess.

He comes back, ashen-faced, and jabs his thumb at the door. "That—was your aunt. She knows Ty didn't come home, and she wants me to tell her where he is."

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I can't breathe for a second. Then, after working my lungs back into shape, I gather enough breath for a long sigh, and wipe my own face with both hands. I look up again, and he's there, already putting his hand in mine. His long, square fingers engulf me, filling me with a flood of relief.

"Come on," he says, leading me down the road. With his other hand, he pockets the ring and the letter. "I told your aunt we'd meet her at the house."

We take our time walking home, though whether that's my doing or his, I can't tell. I'm already anticipating what my aunt will say, though, and it makes me go slower. My hand grows warm in his, his fingers hot and sure around mine. After a while, they're a bit too warm, and I wonder when I could pull away without seeming rude. At the back of my mind, the inklings of a thought about how I could tell him I'm interested in him take form, and I have to work hard to push them all away.

Not the time. Another day. Maybe.

We get halfway to my house, and I study him from the corner of my eye. He's gaunt, but thoughtful, with a walk that's both careful and full of purpose. When he catches me looking, my face gets hot, and the softest smile curls his lips, making the beginning of apples in his cheeks. I feel like it's been a long time since he's been this relaxed around me.

Aunt Jo's car already sits in the driveway by the time we round the corner. At the sight of it, with its chipped blue paint, rust stains, and flowering vines curling around the wheels, my stomach drops. Matt's hand feels heavier in mine, and hotter. We're too close for comfort, and too obvious to anyone looking outside.

I want to hide our clasped fingers behind my back. But after all this time of wanting him to hold my hand, I can't bring myself to let him go, no matter how warm he is, or how sweaty I get. Instead, I lead the way, pulling him behind me down the back walk.

He lets me go once we get to the back door.

Aunt Jo sits at the table, running her hands through her hair. Even from the door, they look older, wrinkles sprouting where I never noticed them before. Smudges of gray streak her hair, too, like a painter sprinkled them in as an afterthought.

At one time, these signs of age would've delighted me. They're coveted in Atlantis. Right now, though, the urge to cover them up makes my hands itch—she's not that old yet, don't take her away from me so quickly—and I grab the door handle to put my energy to use.

She stands up instantly, her red-rimmed eyes searing my face in search of something she can't find.

"Did you find him? I can't," she says, coming over and cupping my face.

I shake my head, lips pursed. The tears rising in her eyes make mine water, and I wish I had something better to say.

Paper rustles behind me. "He and Sarah ran away together," Matt says, his voice thick.

Aunt Jo grabs the note over my shoulder, scanning it fast and biting the nail of her pointer finger. I can't tell how many times she's read it, but she never looks up from the page. She just wanders back into the room, and collapses at the table, burying her face in her hands. The letter falls with a tap between her elbows.

"Oh, god, oh god, why?" she whispers, a sound that becomes a wail, and then a sob.

Don't break down, I tell myself, putting my hands on her shoulders and kissing the back of her head. You can't right now.

"It'll be okay, Auntie," I whisper, hoping if I say something, I'll have the right words eventually.

Over her head, I watch Matt move to the other side of the table. He takes a seat, and then one of her hands.

"Was I a bad mother?" she asks, lifting her tearstained face to me.

The shock of her question burns me. "No! Of course not. Don't even say that."

She sniffles hard, folding the corner of the letter the way she plays with napkins. "I know I was—hard on him. I know I'm strict. I just wanted him to do well." She sniffles again. "This is what got me and his father into trouble. When you don't value your friends, or your education, or your family, you never go anywhere in life." She lifts her face again. "Is this because I'm not around?"

"No, Auntie," I say, gripping her shoulders harder. At last, I sit down. "He's just—upset. But they won't get anywhere, okay? They won't. They don't have a car between them, and in order to leave town, they'd have to get through all those tourist checkpoints. The Coats check everyone coming in and out."

But she's already shaking her head. "They could take the bus. It leaves town. And Sarah's parents are Coats, she has money, she could do it—she could buy the tickets for both of them." With another moan, Aunt Jo hides her face in her hand. "Oh, god. What are people gonna say?"

Matt and I share a knowing look over her head, and then he leans close. "I promise you, Ms. Rosen-Parikh, they won't. We'll stop it before it starts, beginning right now."

He gets up faster than either she or I can say anything. Pressing a kiss to my aunt's head, I follow him out the door. He leads me all the way down to the walkway, hands reaching for mine. A small thrill crawls up my spine, and I fill my palms with his fingers.

"W-what are you gonna do? Find them yourself?" I ask.

"No," he says on an exhale. "I need to head home for a while, figure some stuff out. But I'll be back tonight. Take care of Jo, okay?" He gives my hands a squeeze, and then turns away, giving my chin a light chuck with his knuckles.

I grab his arm. "Can you just—tell me? Please? Ty's secrets are what got us here in the first place, and I'm really tired of people not trusting me."

He eyes the window, and then steps close enough that his breath flutters against my hair. "I'm going to speak with Sarah's parents. Maybe they can give me an idea of where she'd go, and I know they'd be a real help with keeping any gossip quiet. Then I have to tell my family everything."

Just the thought makes my skin go cold. "Your sisters are gonna freak."

He scoffs, and then runs a hand through his hair. "Yeah, no kidding." Rolling his shoulders, he studies me. "Hey, your arms are all healed. No more ant bites."

I startle, and then laugh, examining my tawny skin. "Yeah, three days after I got bit, they faded."

He nods, like he should've known that, and then backs away. "I'll see you soon. Promise."

Chapter Thirty-Eight

He said I'll see you soon.

The promise makes my heart flutter, but the moment I step inside, I remind myself not to hold him to it. If Sarah's family's anything like his, he's in for a long afternoon. Maybe a long night, too.

I make Aunt Jo a sandwich that she doesn't eat, and pour myself a bowl of cereal. After picking the crust off the edges of the bread, she gets up, paces the hallway, and then disappears into Ty's bedroom. I swear I can hear things overturning, like she's on some massive treasure hunt that only his hidden clues can provide the location of. By mid-afternoon, she closes the door, and heads upstairs, mumbling about needing to make the house feel cleaner. I'm guessing she didn't find anything substantial.

Once I hear her door close, I inch to the phone and dial Erin. My explanation of what's going on comes tumbling out, words rolling over each other like pieces of cliffside knocked off by waves. I end up begging her to come over.

She gasps, and says, "I'll be right there," as if everything between us that's been holding us back has been wiped away. It reminds me so much of the way Rey was a week ago that my breath catches. I wonder if she can sense just how much I don't want to be alone right now.

With an ear to the attic, in case my aunt's even remotely listening, I buck up the courage to give Rey a call. Despite everything, Erin's concern reminds me of hers, and I still miss that. I miss being cared for, and thought about, and worried over by people who aren't my family. My apology dances on the tip of my tongue, ready to spring off into the ether. The phone picks up, and the moment her voice drifts into my ear, I say, "Rey, I'm sorry."

"No."

Her tone slices through me. I almost check to see if it's managed to cut off the tip of my tongue. Her next breath comes out too fast, and I have to brace myself for what's coming.

"I don't care. I don't care why you're calling because if there's one thing I've learned about you this past week, it's that you only call when you need something. Forget whatever I have going on, or how Erin's life is: you're only worried about you, and all the ways you can guilt people into helping you.

"And you know what?" she asks, pausing for effect. "I'm sick of it. You're actually worse than Lily, and I never thought that was possible. So no, Kat. I'm in no way interested."

My cheeks burn, like they've been slapped raw. With what little voice I can muster, I say, "Matt's fiancée ran away with Ty," and the moment those words are out, I know they won't mean anything. Not now. And I want so badly to take them back, to take my licks and be done with it. But, of course, it seems like I never can.

Rey's laugh still prickles my skin. "And I bet you're right there with him, aren't you? All ready to pounce and take advantage of the situation. Well, I'll tell you what. He doesn't need your fake friendship, and neither do I."

The slam of her phone makes me jump. With the dial tone blaring in my ear, I put my end down with all the care of a newborn baby. The thing feels prime to explode any second.

Half an hour later than she should be, Erin shows up, and hugs us all tight, the way you do when someone dies. Without Rey at her side, it's oddly weird to see her alone outside of school. But I push those thoughts from my mind, and try to focus on what I do have, instead of what Rey might've told her.

Aunt Jo embraces her, and then disappears long enough to collect armfuls of poster paper. She starts marking pictures of Ty to photocopy, filling the whole kitchen table. I take her hand.

"I thought we didn't want people talking? Matt's outside making sure of it."

Aunt Jo marks another picture with an oil pencil. Her eyes go from pink to red. "Just in case. I need to do something."

Erin and I share a worried look, and then join Jo at the table. By five, we have forty posters between us, all waiting for pictures to fill them. Together, Erin and I clean up, and then Aunt Jo shoos us out so she can make dinner. Between the two of us, we haul the posters up to her room.

"Rey's pretty mad that you called her, by the way," Erin says, laying the posters at the end of my aunt's bed. I can barely meet her eyes. "You shouldn't have called her, not after what happened at the concert. And yes, she told me," she adds at the look I give her.

I huff out a breath. "Yeah, I kinda figured that when she screamed my ear off." Pausing, I study her from under my lashes. "You must've had quite the chat, though. It took you twenty extra minutes to get over here. Are you two alright?"

She takes too much care with lining the posters up. Then, she shrugs, and gives me a wan smile. "We'd better head down."

Chapter Thirty-Nine

We reach the kitchen at the same time that Matt's face appears outside the back door. I race over, flinging it open for him, and he sweeps me into a hug.

"Can I come over for a while? It's overbearing at my house," he says, following me in.

"Of course you can," I say, and lead him to the living room. He gives Erin a quick hug, too.

"How are you feeling?" she asks the moment we sit down.

He slumps in the couch, and then stares at the ground. "Not that great. Pretty awful, actually."

Well, yeah. You just got dumped in the worst possible way. I tuck myself next to him, and he leans his head on my shoulder. "We don't have to talk about it right now. It's kinda raw."

"But you will talk, right?" Erin asks, turning on the TV to some awful sitcom where the house is unreasonably clean. "I mean, that's what got you into this mess in the first place, isn't it?"

That comment makes my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. I pray she's not taking her frustrations about my relationship with Rey out on me, but her back is turned, so I can't tell. This is the first time she's ever been snappy, even if she's technically right.

"Um..." He wipes his face, and curls closer to me. I put my arm around his neck, hoping he can't hear my racing heartbeat at how intimate we're being. "Maybe. Hey, d'you know what's on tonight?"

Erin throws us a glance, and then purses her lips at me. I make my eyes go as wide as they can, pleading with her not to say anything. She flips the channel.

We do this for ten minutes, silent and actually uncaring about the show, and then Aunt Jo creaks back up the stairs, saying, "I need to lie down." Only the smell of buttery rice floats out of the kitchen.

Matt shoots to his feet. "I can get us some food, if we want. Anyone else hungry?" he asks, already moving.

"I'll help." I jump up, and scurry after him before Erin can say anything.

He stands at the table, spooning rice into a bowl. I give his arm a light brush, and breeze past him, rooting around in the cabinets behind him for something more substantial. I pull a can of beans from the shelf, and then the light around me dims. It brightens again the second he's at my side, taking both of my hands.

My stomach erupts into butterflies at the seriousness in his face. He stares down at me like he did back when we were putting up concert posters, and the intensity of his gaze makes it hard for me to look him in the eyes. It doesn't help that his thumbs stroke the backs of my knuckles.

"I never thanked you for helping me," he whispers, so that the TV blares by comparison. "You spent a long time this past week—hell, these last few months—trying to look out for me, even when I wouldn't hear it. No one else had the courage to even try, but you did."

The rims of his eyes turn pink, and his voice thickens to the point where I feel ready to cry with him. "I can't tell you—what it means, having someone like that in my life. I'm so sorry I didn't listen." His lip quivers, and I tighten my increasingly shaken grip on his hands to steady us both. I force myself to take a huge breath.

And then, with more calm than I knew I had, I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck, hugging him close. "Don't mention it. What are friends for?"

I don't even mean to say those words. They just pop out. The second they're out there, I know they're wrong. New lies on top of old ones. I can feel that in the way he hugs me, can hear it in his voice, whispering, "Friends. Right."

There's disappointment there, caused by me, and I want to wipe all those seconds away. It kills me to know I can't, and I squeeze him tighter. I could say more, but I already ruined the moment. One bumble is enough for tonight.

He pulls back, and his eyes shine again, the moment gone away. "I do have one question, though. What's going to happen when I go to college?"

"What do you mean?" I ask, and take a spoonful of the rice he got himself.

"You and Rey are fighting. I mean, clearly, since she's not here. And if word gets out, you could get hazed. Our school isn't the most forgiving about gossip. Are you gonna be okay?"

I force a laugh, and take some rice. Each bite tastes like broth, and sticks like butter. "I don't think I have much choice."

"Kat, I'm serious. And—" he glances into the other room, lowering his voice. "I want to be here for you."

Those butterflies bat their wings harder against my stomach walls. "Matt—"

"I know it sounds crazy, after all those times I ignored you, and all the weirdness, and everything that just happened. But—" He runs a hand through his hair, and steps even closer. Our toes touch. "You've been good to me. I'd like to return the favor, beyond looking for Ty. Is that okay?"

I suck on my lips, turning that over in my head. The setting sun warms me until I feel pliable. Liable to say anything. The offer, so sweet and rich, tickles my heart, and the space at the back of my mind—the way back, where my dreams lurk, and keep their doors closed to the rest of the world. Everything between my collarbone and legs grows heavy, and pushing me forward. It makes hearing my thoughts difficult.

Still, I look into his eyes, and my heart flutters, warming at the way his hair curls over his eyebrows, parted just off-center, and the way I know his skin is as soft as it looks, not harsh the way the angles of his face suggest. He feels magnetized to me, the way he's standing at attention, searching me up and down. Reading what little he can on my face, storing it, dismissing it, and then bringing it back again, judging by the emotions flitting across his eyes. I just want to throw myself at him, but my ears twitch at every sound in the next room.

Any minute now, Erin could come in, wondering what we're doing.

"Kat?" His voice, soft and uncertain, reminds me of his unanswered question.

I take a deep breath, and my voice nearly catches itself in my throat. "Would you like to go out for ice cream sometime? Just you and me?"

His brow furrows, and then, just as quickly, relaxes, and a smile spreads over his face. "Yes," he says, sounding as relieved as I feel.

Right then, with both of us standing there, staring at each other, it hits me: maybe Rey's right. Maybe I am taking advantage. But I've also known him for a long time. I feel good around him. And it seems like, maybe, he also feels good around me.

Maybe that's enough.

I want to thank so much for buying this book! Please leave a review for future readers, and recommend it to your friends, family, and any other readers you know:

 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31449865-what-we-ll-do-for-blood

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To learn about Sweets of Atlantis, go to: <http://clmannarino.com/mknews>
Dedication

For my 11-year-old self.

Acknowledgments

First, buckets and oodles of thanks to Maha Krishnasami for answering my questions about different Indian cultures. There is still so much I don't, and can't, know, but with Maha's help, I got much closer to understanding than I could on my own. Any and all errors that occur within this book are mine, and mine alone.

Some books take a long time to write. Others take about sixteen years. This one was one of those, growing from a childhood dream about finding True Love, into a story that's still about True Love, but is ultimately its own thing, and not just a collection of fantasies sprung straight from my head. For that, I would like to thank Sara Kocek, Yellow Bird Editors, who not only gave me a fantastic critique, but who also helped me see the forest through the trees when it came to my formerly-unwieldy world building, on top of helping me figure out who these people were, and why they were doing what they did. I couldn't have done it without her!

To Sarah: thank you for asking about this book. Thank you for believing in it, and for yearning after it, and for reading all my awful, cheesy teaser snippets, none of which ever made it into the final cut. I hope this was still as good as I promised it would be.

To Nick, who continues to allow me more writing time than I probably deserve, and who reminds me every day of why real life is actually a thousand times better than any fantasy I could ever come up with: thank you for your practical nature, for your kindness, for your patience. I love you so much.

And finally, to Mom, Luke, Heather, and Heidi: I'm glad to know we're all both family and friends. Friendship definitely gets harder to hold onto as you grow up, and I'm so thankful I can count on you all to be there for me because I'll absolutely, always be there for you.

OTHER BOOKS BY C.L. MANNARINO

Click the links below to see what else I've done:

 The Almost Human Series

Matt and Kat

 Tiny Fairy Stories, Series 1

Stand Alones

About the Author

C.L. Mannarino graduated with a Bachelor's degree in English, but began writing books when she was in high school, where she became fascinated by all things paranormal, supernatural, and romantic. She lives with her family in a place settled comfortably between the woods and the beach, and likes to visit each of them frequently. She can be found at clmannarino.com.

For bonus content and updates on future releases, join her newsletter: clmannarino.com/news

To see a list of other stories she's written, visit clmannarino.com/boooks

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