Nojan frowns. “We should go back to port so you can get proper medical attention. Have you assessed for injuries.”
“No!” Gigi sits tall. “I have to finish this trip, or I’ll lose my sponsorship. Please. I promise I’ll be more careful.”
The captain holds her stare without responding.
“I can’t go back now,” Gigi continues, her eyes brimming with tears. “I need this.”
I turn to her as she shivers beside me, surprised by the desperation in her tone. From the lifestyle she’s living, I doubt she’s muchin needof anything.
“I’m a nurse,” I offer. “I can make sure she gets warmed up and that she’s okay.”
The captain’s chest heaves with a sigh. He looks from me to Gigi.
“All right,” he finally says. He extends the life vest toward Gigi. “Here. You can wear this PFD for now. The one you have on is going to need to be repacked and rearmed with a new CO2 canister before it will work again.”
He wags his finger toward Gigi after she accepts the life vest. “I want everyone clipping a tether to their life vestanytimethey’re on deck. And always make sure you’re out of the way of the boom. And no leaving the cockpit unless you’ve asked my permission to go forward. Understood?”
Gigi nods eagerly. “Understood.”
The captain grunts before going upstairs, and Emma moves toward Gigi.
“I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“I know.” Beth places a hand on her chest. “It reminded me of—” She stops, her gaze falling to the floor. “Well, you know.”
Gigi doesn’t move, doesn’t stop shivering, but her gaze slides up to meet Emma’s, and what I see there makes me draw back. It’s the same look I’ve given Beth countless times since Courtney’s disappearance—she’s hiding something.
Chapter Thirteen
March 2005
“What’s the surprise?” Beside me, Emma looked across the cafeteria table at Courtney as she unwrapped a squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Courtney licked her finger after taking the Tupperware lid off her salad. “Wait until Gigi gets here.”
Bryson stood from the table beside ours, the legs of his chair screeching against the linoleum floor. His eyes met mine for a flicker of a moment before he averted his gaze. I set down my string cheese, swallowing my self-hatred for going along with Courtney’s lie all these months later. Somehow, Courtney had managed to convince the rest of the school that Bryson and Jake were responsible for the dish soap on the locker room floor.
Over the last few months, Courtney had gone to great lengths to convince Emma of it, too, cozying up to her and laying her charms on thick. I didn’t think Emma would’ve believed Courtney if it weren’t for Bryson and Jake being such assholes to us, including Emma, after being wrongly accused. I’d noticed that Emma had started accepting the chai tea Courtney brought her almost every day from Tornado, Emma’s favorite coffee shop. I doubted she was 100 percent convincedthat Courtney was telling the truth, but I could tell that Emma at least wanted to believe her.
While I was still staying at Courtney’s house, I’d snuck into her room another time in hope of deleting the photo she’d taken of me holding the dish soap. But after trying every four-digit number combo I could think of, I’d finally given up. Apparently, when it came to locking her phone, Courtney was smarter than I’d given her credit for.
I watched Courtney take a bite of her salad. If she’d ever discovered someone had ripped that drawing out of her diary, she’d never said anything. At least not to me.
Bryson strode past Emma’s seat at the cafeteria table. “Bitch,” he muttered under his breath.
Beside me, Emma’s head jerked upward. “What’d you say, dickweed?”
She made a move to get up, and I grabbed her forearm.
“Emma, don’t.”
Courtney met my gaze from across the table. She’d been right. Aside from the two football players hating us, they had faced no repercussions for what we’d accused them of. They’d lost a few friends, but surprisingly, like Courtney had said, most of their male friends didn’t seem to care. Even thought their prank was cool. Among most of the guys, they were actuallymorepopular now.
“So, what’s this exciting news you have for us?” Gigi sat beside Courtney, plopping her backpack on the floor next to her after setting her cafeteria tray on the table.
Courtney turned to Gigi. “You know that prom dress you saw inSeventeenthat you said was to die for?”
“The one that cost almost two thousand dollars?” Gigi twisted her long hair around her finger. “Of course I do.”
