The sweetness of it, the concern, it claws at my heart. It reminds me of Mr. Brophy, asking me if I was all right even as he caught me stealing from him.
“Fine,” I say, my voice cracking as tears begin to carve silent streams down my cheeks.
“You’re a bad liar, remember?” she says. I hear her push off her covers and cross the small space between our mattresses. Then she’s lying down next to me, one of her hands coming to rest on my arm beneath the blanket. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
I can’t answer. I’m not supposed to. But even if I could, even if Sol hadn’t forbidden me from talking about our trials, I wouldn’t be able to. Because the tears are coming harder now. So heavy I can barely breathe as sobs that I try so desperately to keep quiet wrack my body.
Rosedoesn’t ask again. She doesn’t press for answers. Instead, her arm slips around my waist, pulling me back against her. Her chin rests on my shoulder, and her hair tickles my cheeks. And she holds me while I cry.
“It’ll be okay,” she says, despite having no idea whether it will or not. “I’ve got you.”
My imagination keeps conjuring up images of Mr. Brophy’s face, sagging with despair as he watches the flames destroy his store, trying to make sense of who could do this to him or why.
But as Rose’s warmth embraces me, I remember why this had to be done. That Sol would never steer me wrong. He had his reasons for this. Good ones. Mr. Brophy was a threat to us—to Rose and Zinnia and Poppy especially. I needed to prove my loyalty, both to him and to myself.
And yet, a little voice in the back of my mind whispers to me that if the girl comforting me right now knew what I’d done, even if I did it for her, she would hate me.
“Try to get some sleep,” Rose murmurs near my ear. “Things won’t feel so bad in the morning.”
If only that were true.
CAELA
Caela’sdownfall into delinquency didn’t end with a stolen pair of cheap earrings.
Her mother hated the little dagger hanging from her ear, of course. She took every opportunity to remind Caela how trashy it made her look. But Caela didn’t care. It bound her to Bonnie, her only friend in this little Kentucky town, and that made it one of the most valuable things she owned, along with her father’s leather jacket.
Home wasn’t the only place she struggled to fit in, however. Things hadn’t improved at school. She’d even tried to join a few sports teams in hopes of making friends and giving herself something to do—something to keep her out of her mother’s house besides work—but these people had known each other since kindergarten. There was no space for Caela on their team. If anything, they often acted like she was stealing a spot bettersuited for one of their friends. And that was to say nothing of the bullying she received for the Pride ribbons she decorated her backpack with.
Twice just that week, a teammate had hurled a slur at her. And then a girl from her geometry class had pulled Caela aside during lunch to try and “save” her. The worst part was, she’d almost played along, desperate to have a single friend in this place where she spent seven hours a day, even if it meant hiding a big part of who she was.
But she was already allowing people to call her Michaela, already trying to fit into the mold she thought her mother and stepfather wanted her to squeeze herself into. She told herself that she had too much integrity to sacrifice any other part of herself to make others more comfortable.
“I like the rainbows,” Sam said as he sat on her bed fiddling with one of the ribbons while she considered removing them.
“You do?” she asked.
He nodded. “Rainbows are pretty. Did you know there’s supposed to be treasure at the end of a rainbow?”
She smiled at him. “Oh yeah? What kind of treasure?”
“Gold,” he said. “And, um … toys, probably.”
“So you think I should keep them?”
“Uh-huh.They’re cool. Your backpack would look boring without them.”
“That’s true.”
It wasn’t long after that when Rob appeared in her bedroom doorway and whisked the five-year-old away, no doubt worried about the bad influence Caela must be on the kid. Still, Sam’s opinion did mean something, and she decided to leave the rainbows on her backpack, no matter what the other kids at school thought about them.
It wasn’t as if her school back in Ohio had been super progressive or anything, but it had been larger, with nearly five times the number of students as this new school, and that meant there were more people to find her place with. She hadn’t been popular; she hadn’t needed to be. She’d had a small, core group of like-minded friends who made every day at least somewhat enjoyable, and two best friends she’d absolutely adored.
Best friends she had managed to quickly drift away from now that they weren’t in the same state.
Eliza had taken a full two days to text back after Caela saw the picture of her and Grady kissing. She’d apologized, said she’d been busy, but hadn’t said a word about what was going on with Grady. Caela didn’t know if Eliza was trying to keep it asecret or if she just didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Both options hurt.
It hurt worse that Grady hadn’t brought it up, either.
