As Charlie pulls her truck to a stop in front of the Priors’ sprawling front porch, I think about the first time I met Hannah. It was right here, two weeks after school started in ninth grade. Her dad wanted to throw a Labor Day barbecue for the entire freshman class. Charlie and I came together and pretty much kept to ourselves.
But Hannah found us anyway.
We’d ventured into the backyard, the sparkling lake filling our vision. Kids we’d just met flung themselves off the dock and into the water, screaming with a kind of glee that made something in me ache. The memory is so sharp. Standing there, the manicured grass soft under my feet, wondering if I’d ever feel as wild and happy as those swanning into the lake.
“It’s even better close up,” a voice had said. Right into my ear. I turned, meeting a pair of flashing green eyes and hair so light red it almost looked pink. Hannah grinned and took my hand. I barely had time to grab Charlie’s arm before Hannah started running toward the dock, her fingers still gripping mine.
She didn’t stop running until all three of us were in the lake, the clothes still covering our swimsuits be damned.
I smile at the memory but it fades as soon as I step out of the car. The house is as inviting as ever—?the porch swept clean of autumn leaves, a wreath woven with purple and orange flowers hanging from the door, a few windows already lit. So normal.
Still, nerves coil in my gut. Because this is anything but normal.
“This is a bad idea,” I say.
Charlie doesn’t respond, just rounds the car and links her arm with mine, gently leading me up the steps. She presses a finger to the doorbell.
“She knows we’re coming,” she says.
“She does?”
“I texted her. She’s not a big fan of surprises lately.”
I suck in a breath, focus my attention on the twirl of ivy lacing through the fake flowers in the wreath.
“Sorry,” Charlie says, looking at me. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
She nods as footsteps sound inside. I tighten my grip on Charlie’s arm, but then loosen it and release her. The dead bolt slides free on the door and suddenly I’m all arms and legs, with no clue what to do with my hands or my feet or my face.
The heavy wooden door swings open and Hannah steps into the soft glow of the porch light. She flicks the lock on the glass storm door and opens that, too.
“Hey,” Charlie says.
“Hi,” she says back, and her voice is so . . . Hannah, but thin, like it’s splintering at the edges.
I try to say hello, my mouth opening and closing, but I can’t get the sounds out. I can’t even look at her. I stare at her silver-painted toenails and then the slim ankles emerging from her black yoga pants as we follow her into the house.
“My parents went to run some errands and pick up dinner,” she says as she weaves through rooms that have always looked like something right out of a Pottery Barn catalog.
“I’m surprised they left you alone,” Charlie says.
We start climbing the glossy hardwood stairs to the second floor and Hannah huffs a dry-sounding laugh. “I had to promise I’d take a nap.”
“How’s that going?”
“Excellent,” Hannah deadpans. “Can’t you tell?”
Charlie offers a small laugh. My face splits into a smile, but god, it feels so strange on my face right now, it almost hurts.
We reach Hannah’s room—?the last door at the end of a long hallway. Inside, a fire blazes over fake gas-infused logs, and signs of Hannah’s hibernation are everywhere. Her bed is a four-poster canopy with sheer, coral-hued curtains tied back with gold ribbon. The duvet is more coral and gold and crimson swirled together in a mandala pattern, matching pillows and sheets covering the mattress in a messy wrinkle. Books litter the end of the bed, some of them open and face-down. Her laptop sits propped on a pillow, the screen paused on some superhero’s grimace in midbattle. The entire room smells like a mixture of jasmine tea and Vicks Vapo-Rub, a tub of which sits on her nightstand. Hannah’s mom uses that stuff for everything from headaches to paper cuts to stomach viruses.
Hannah walks over to her bed and pushes everything to the side. A few books slide off the edge and onto the floor, but she doesn’t pick them up. Instead, she climbs onto the mattress. I hear a soft wap-wap sound and I know she’s patting the space next to her in invitation, but the motion is a blur in my peripheral vision. Charlie presses her fingers to the small of my back—?my feet move closer and closer.
Charlie settles in next to Hannah and I sit in front of them, tucking one leg under me while the other dangles off the side. Silence blankets over us, the occasional pop-crack of the fire the only sound. I stare at my jeans, at the individual threads forming the whole.
“Mara.”
