“Sophie?”
Sophie lets out a terrified shriek when she hears her name. Elena inches toward her. “What are you doing?”
“Oh my god,” Sophie says, closing her eyes to recover.
“Get down from there.” Elena reaches out a hand. A smattering of raindrops has darkened the rock, making it slick.
“You just scared the shit out of me.” Sophie sounds defensive. “What are you doing out here?”
“I was trying to find a quiet place to rehearse. What about you?”
Sophie tilts her head back to look at the sky, which is slowly bleeding into darkness. “Where do I start?”
“Why don’t you just come off the rock and we’ll—”
“You know how there are people who get shot, but the bullet never comes out the other side and they have to live with the bullet inside them for their entire lives?” Sophie is staring over the jagged side of the crag. Elena stiffens, suddenly aware that if Sophie slips, she will be required to access something instinctual she’s not sure she possesses.
“Sure,” she says carefully.
“It’s like ever since we found Quinn, I’ve wondered what she went through that day, how she must have felt. But we’ll never know. We’ll never get the answer.”
“Soph, please come down from there.”
Elena watches Sophie try to turn fully. But she’s unstable. Her toes step on something wobbly, a loose pebble or something, and her momentum shifts. Panic screams inside Elena’s head. Sophie is falling.Shit, shit, shit.She’s falling. Her arms circle helplessly, and Elena moves toward her, but there’s nothing to grab. Elena is too far away. One foot dangles over the edge, and she can’t seem to get purchase with the other.
Elena feels herself leap with everything she has, and in one desperate motion, she somehow gets her hands around the backpack. Careful not to slip, Elena hauls her back and into her arms. Sophie’s legs drag on the ground, and together they fall onto the dirt.
They stare at each other. Elena can see the fear and relief in Sophie’s eyes. Her heart feels like it’s going to lift off; it’s pounding so fast. She stands and reaches down a hand.
Sophie sits. She rests her elbows on her knees and bows her head to catch her breath.
Elena shifts her weight. “Why the hell were you so close to the edge?”
“We really let Quinn down. We really let each other down.” Sophie grasps Elena’s hand and pulls herself up. The aspens shudder around them as droplets of rain bounce off their leaves. “I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean it. You’re not a bad mother at all. Gael is really great.”
Elena sighs and scrubs at her face. “Let’s get out of here,” she says.
They only take a few steps before Sophie says, “It did bother me that you didn’t think to ask me what the pictures meant. You just assumed.”
“I didn’t assume,” Elena says, but she’s not defensive, more cowed. “Quinn told me.”
“What Quinn told you wasn’t the truth.” Sophie sounds indignant.
“What’s the truth then?”
“Tanner McGrath took those pictures.” The smattering of rain has matted Sophie’s hair to her head.
Tanner McGrath. A human stain. Elena remembers letting him finger her once, in the woods behind the school, near where she used to go with Mark. She only did it because she couldn’t stand the way his girlfriend Marissa shoved dippable tortilla chips into salsa at her house at their Wednesday Bible study, cozying up to Elena’s mother like she was the next prophet. She lets out a long breath. “I’m assuming you didn’t want him to take them?”
Sophie breathes out through her nose. It could be a laugh, but it is hollow.
“When was this?”
“Two weeks before Quinn died.”
“Why were they on her phone?” she asks.
“She told me she was going to make him take them off his phone. Said she was going to convince him.”
