“She will if you make her.”
Like it waseasy. I climbed to my feet, emitting a heavy sigh. “I should go. Hopefully she hasn’t bolted down the fire escape.”
Arden stood, wiping her hands on her shorts. “Why don’t you guys come over for dinner? We’re ordering pizza. Phoebe can play video games with Noah and we can talk shit in the kitchen.”
A rush of love swept through me. As jealous as I was of Arden, I couldn’t have been more grateful to have her in my life. I would quite literally die without her.
“That sounds great,” I said. She pulled me into a tight hug.
“Three things,” she prompted, her voice soft in my ear. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You. Noah. Pizza.”
“There you go.”
A little lighter on the dread, I returned to my apartment, reveling in the tiny bursts of comfort: the air-conditioning, the “cashmere woods” air freshener plugged in the wall, the message etched into the center of the steel door:At least tomorrow. Those words were the last thing I saw before leaving each morning. The building owner had offered to replace the door when we moved in, but something about it clutched my heart, calling to the optimist in me.
The apartment was sparse. We still lived out of boxes, despite having moved in three months ago. After packing up our childhood home and selling it off to the highest bidder, neither of us was up for the task of settling in somewhere new. A coffee maker and a toaster sat on the counter, mugs filled the sink, a trash can in the corner overflowed with paper plates and plastic cutlery. Our only piece of furniture, a purple velvet couch, was given to us by Arden and Noah when they decided to invest in a sectional. Still, it was a relief to have a place untouched by the past.
I nearly tripped on Phoebe’s backpack on my way in. I expected her to be locked away in her room, but she was lounging on the couch, absorbed in a piece of paper.
“Hey,” I said. Her head snapped up. “Arden invited us over for dinner. They’re ordering pizza.”
“Cool.” Her eyes darted to the paper clutched in her hands. “Yeah, cool. Sounds good.”
“So, we should probably talk about what happened.”
“No, yeah. For sure.”
I narrowed my eyes. Her acquiescence was more than a little suspicious. “I know you don’t want to explain what happened today, but Principal Chambers said it was self-defense,” I said, taking note of the lack of reaction. Normally, she would’ve tensed up or shrugged this off. “You don’t have to tell me what happened, and I’m not mad. I always want you to defend yourself. I’ll punch the little prick myself, if you want.”
“No, yeah,” she repeated, eyes on the paper. “I won’t do it again. Promise.”
“That’s not—” I scowled. “Phoebe.”
She glanced up. “Huh? Sorry. I was maybe not totally listening,” she said, and to her credit, she sounded genuine. “But, uh, I’ll be on my best behavior from now on.”
Okay, now I really was suspicious. “What’s going on, Phoebe?”
She sprang to her feet, sliding across the wood floor in her socks, and thrust the paper into my hands. “This came.”
A neatly written letter, along with a torn envelope addressed to someone named Catalina Arroyo in Hartford.RETURN TO SENDERwas stamped across it in bright red ink. My eyes flicked to the return address.
Our address. As in this apartment.
I double-checked to make sure one of us hadn’t sent the letter. Instead, the nameBenji Dexterwas scrawled in blocky handwriting.
“What is this?” I asked, turning the envelope over to inspect the back, as if it might hold the answer. Phoebe bounced on her heels, showcasing more life than I’d seen since last year.
“It was written by the dude who lived here before us,” she told me. I lifted my eyes to hers, raising my eyebrows.
“You opened it?”
“Yeah. It was sent to us.”
“It was sent tohim.”
“And where is he, Vi? Not here. Fair game.”
