“Oh, come on, I should talk to her, don’t you think?” An unfamiliar female voice. A laugh.
“Tess, I asked you not to answer it . . .”
There’s more shuffling, another laugh, then a click as someone ends the call.
I blink at the screen, trying to push back the prick of tears. I shove the phone into my back pocket and force myself up the stairs and into my house.
Mom accosts me the minute I close the door. She stands in the entryway hall, glaring at me with her hands on her hips and her curls twisted into a messy bun. She looks tired. Lately, it seems as if everyone looks tired all the time. Suddenly, I feel the same, all my elation from the river and Alex dissolved by that tinny little laugh on the phone.
“Where have you been?” Mom asks.
“Out.” I move around her and into the kitchen. I fling open the freezer and grab the pint of cookies and cream I remember seeing this morning.
“Out?” she says, following me. “That’s all you have to say? I’ve barely seen you in days.”
“I was at Charlie’s, that’s all.” The lie burns cold on my tongue, colder than the ice cream I’m spooning into my mouth. I dig up another scoop and head for the stairs. “I have homework.”
She stops me with a hand on my arm. “Mara. What is going on? Talk to me, honey.”
There’s so much I want to tell her. How much I miss Charlie, how I just kissed Alex under the moon. Things a daughter should be able to talk about with her mom over mugs of hot tea. But there are too many other unsaid things that keep me from saying anything at all. How I feel my brother—?my family, myself—?splitting in two. How scared I am all the time. How, for the past three years, I have a nightmare at least once a week about losing my voice, Mr. Knoll’s fingers ripping the vocal cords right out of my throat.
How, last night, I had the same dream, except this time it was Owen’s fingers, my voice shimmering like a dull diamond in his palm. I was literally speechless, nothing but a broken heart.
“I’m tired, Mom.”
She frowns but releases my arm and nods, her eyes sliding to my ice cream. “That’s not a proper dinner. I could heat you up some leftovers.”
“I’m fine.”
She studies me for a few long seconds, eyes narrowed. Mom’s always believed that a good staring contest will cause anyone to crack. When I was ten and broke a picture frame on the mantel while running through the house trying to snap a blanket at the back of Owen’s legs, I blamed the cat we had at the time, Zipper. Mom crossed her arms and fixed me with oh really eyes until I caved. She’s held to this tactic faithfully, even after it was no longer effective. The summer after Mr. Knoll, she’d watch me during dinner—?the only time I ventured out of my room—?a sort of hunger in her eyes as she waited for me to talk to her. I didn’t break then and I’m not breaking now. This is no smashed picture frame.
“All right,” she finally says. “But say hello to Owen, okay? He mentioned he hasn’t seen you much lately. He misses you.”
I pause midstep, a scream rising up my throat like a flash flood. I hate how calm she sounds, how normal she’s acting, how sure she is that Owen is still the Owen I grew up with, the Owen holding my hand in the stars.
As though sensing my hesitation, she sighs. “Mara, please. He needs you.”
My brother used to need me, I think. Owen McHale does not.
But then a sad lonely voice from last night filters through my head, delicate smoke from a candle. Please. It’s still me. I’m just me.
Without another word, I head upstairs. Icy condensation gathers between my fingers, the cardboard pint growing soft. I stuff another milky bite into my mouth, but I can barely swallow it. On my way down the hall to my room, I drop the whole thing, spoon and all, into the bathroom trash can.
“Mar!”
His voice sends my stomach lurching upward. I didn’t expect that, the way his voice is suddenly such a shock. I walk toward his meticulously neat bedroom, a flash of red snagging my attention.
A flash of red and another unfamiliar female voice.
I stop in his doorway. He’s on his bed, his back pressed against the headboard, an open textbook in his lap.
There’s a girl next to him. Her hair is stick-straight and nearly black, her cherry-red fitted T-shirt bright and peppy. The laugh on her lips dies when she sees me.
“Mar, hey,” Owen says, grinning. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“You know Angie, right?” He nods toward the girl. “She plays flute.”
