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Which sets us off again but makes me feel a little bad. Tress’s mom is cool.

“I don’t want to make your mom mad,” I whisper, my giggles making the whisper as loud as regular talking, which only makes Tress laugh more.

“Oh, wait . . . ,” she says, something occurring to her. “Mom gave this to me.” She gets up from the floor, going over to her dresser. She comes back with two necklaces, each of them with half a heart pendant hanging from them. One side reads Best. The other reads Friends. Tress holds them in front of me, swaying in the light from her bedside table.

“This used to be Mom’s,” she says. “I guess they were a thing once. Kinda cool, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, reaching out. They’re cheap, mostly brass, the chains corroded with age. My mom would die if she saw me wearing this. I’m okay with that. I close my hand around one, then pull back, questioning.

“Are you just showing me these, or . . . ?”

“Yeah, I’m totally just letting you know I have it. Obviously one is for Gretchen,” she says.

“Oh my God,” I say, giving her a shove. She falls backward, laughing.

“Girls!” Annabelle’s voice again, sharper this time.

I take one of the necklaces and put mine on. “So . . . if this was your mom’s, why does she have both pieces?” I ask.

“Huh?” Tress’s hands are behind her neck, struggling with the cheap clasp. I motion for her to turn around, and she does. I move her hair, latch the necklace for her.

“Who had the other part of your mom’s necklace? And”—it feels super rude, but I’m curious—“why did they give it back?”

“I don’t know,” Tress says, shrugging, holding the charm and reading it upside down. “I didn’t ask.”

Chapter 75

Tress

Fifth Grade / The Night Of

“We’re going to wear these forever, right?”

Chapter 76

Felicity

Senior Year

“Felicity? Hon? Do you have your box ready for the PTA rummage sale?”

Shit. No, I don’t. But I need to clean out my closet like nobody’s business. I grab the box Mom left in my room a week ago, open it, and jerk random things off hangers, grabbing shoes from the back of the closet, anything out of season. This rummage sale is going to be a gold mine for somebody.

Gold . . . I probably have some jewelry that can go, too. I crack open the box, laughing when I spot the pair of earrings that Brynn got me last year for Christmas—volleyballs, one that reads Book, the other one Keeper.

“A keeper, all right,” I say, tucking them into a drawer to hold on to.

The smile fades when I spot a ring Patrick got me, an apology for something he did . . . again. It goes into the PTA box, falling among the piles of clothes without a sound. Something’s jammed in the back, the charm pinched in the hinges, a cheap chain curled, greenish, lying on the bottom of my jewelry box like a snake.

I yank it free, my stomach dropping.

Rummage sale, here I come.

“Can she even afford to shop here?” Gretchen asks, glancing up from her phone.

“What?” I ask, shading my eyes. The sun is beating down on the school parking lot, the tables of clothes, toys, shoes, dishes—all the unwanted objects of Amontillado up for sale, the made-up moms of the PTA playing salesgirls.

“Tress Montor,” Gretchen says, pointing. “She’s like . . . here.”