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To Laura Sullivan for answering my thousand questions about horses and for being my friend all these years.

chapter one

I
t’s not clear if Saint Thomas More had murder on his mind when he fell from his alcove in the north stairwell and onto my friend Win. It’s far more likely that over the years the vibration of hundreds of high school students thundering up and down the stairs finally shook him free. The statue did a huge swan dive that would have made an Olympian proud and clipped Win right over her eyebrow. She caught him, saving the statue from crashing to the floor. It can be hard to help someone see the bright side of things when they are nearly taken out by a religious icon.

“Sod it all, I’m bleeding.” Win looked at her face in the mirror above the nurse’s sink. When Win was really ticked, she sounded even more like her British-born mom.

I handed Win a wet paper towel. “Look on the bright
side—saving a saint is going to earn you some valuable karma points.”

“Harper, I’m not Catholic.” Win winced as she pressed the towel to her forehead. “And it’s not like I had a choice; the stupid thing basically fell into my arms. If it had been up any higher, it probably would have killed me.”

“I can’t see Tom holding your lack of religion against you.” I leaned over and patted the plaster statue of the saint on the head as he sat innocently on the floor. Our school, Saint Francis, was one of the highest ranked in Washington State. This meant the student body was made up of people who wanted their kids to have a religious education and also those who didn’t mind forcing their kids to wear the most hideous mustard-yellow and navy-blue uniforms ever created as long as they went to a good school. “Having a saint who owes you one is nothing to sneer at. You could club a seal or something and it still wouldn’t be enough to land you eternal damnation.”

“Stop trying to find the silver lining in every situation.” Win squinted at her reflection. “Look at that: It’s going to leave a scar. That’s it. I’m disfigured.”

“You’re fine. The nurse doesn’t even think you need stitches.”

“She’s a school nurse. Do you really think I’m going to leave the destiny of this face in her hands?” Win continued her self-inspection. Only she could get clocked by a statue and still look great. It would be annoying if she weren’t my best friend.

“Fair enough. But we got out of going to chemistry; you
have to admit that counts as good luck,” I pointed out.

“Seems to me you’re the lucky one. You weren’t nearly decapitated
and
you still got out of class.”

The nurse bustled back into the room. She handed Win an ice pack. “You’ll want to keep this on to reduce the swelling.”

Win blinked. “Ice. Don’t you think I should have a CT scan or something? I could have brain damage.”

“You’d want an MRI,” I said. “CT is more for orthopedic injuries.”

Win shot me a look.

“It basically grazed you. The only part of the statue that hit you was the hand.” The nurse pointed, and I saw that Saint Thomas More had lost a finger in the accident. It looked like his blessing days were over. I wondered if the finger would count as a holy relic if someone found it on the stairs. The nurse yanked a folder out of her desk. “You’ll be fine. Just keep the ice on there.” She scribbled something in the file and then glanced up at the clock. “You two are free to go. If you hustle, you won’t be late for Friday assembly.”

We were barely out of the door before Win said, in a voice loud enough to carry to the nurse, “If I die of a brain aneurysm, my dad will sue this place.”

“Getting hit on the head won’t give you an aneurysm,” I pointed out as we moved down the hall. “They’re usually caused by a weakness in the artery since birth. High blood pressure could cause one too.”

“Having you as a friend is like having my own personal WebMD. Handy and terrifying all at the same time,” Win said.

“You’re welcome.” Having a neuroscientist as a dad made me more knowledgeable on brain function than the average high school senior. It also meant that I was more likely to kick the bell curve’s ass in anatomy.

We were among the last people to get to the auditorium, but the assembly hadn’t started yet. My boyfriend, Josh, yelled out my name and waved us over.

I tugged on Win’s arm. “He saved us seats.” We moved down the row and plopped into our chairs. Josh squeezed my hand and I fought the urge to pull mine back. Josh was only happy when we were constantly touching.

“Heard God tried to take you down.” Josh motioned toward the Band-Aid on Win’s forehead.

“Ha-ha. Maybe as official class president you should figure out if any other parts of the building plan to crush a student. I’m no lawyer, but that seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

Josh saluted. “I’ll get on that on at our next council meeting.”

“It could have been worse—what if it had been that statue of Saint Sebastian in the cafeteria, the one with all the arrows? You would have lost an eye,” I said.

“Thank you, Mary Poppins.” Win grabbed gum out of her bag and offered it to the both of us before jamming a piece in her mouth.

“It wouldn’t kill you to see the positive side,” Josh said.

“It might. Besides, that’s why I keep her around.” Win chomped on her gum with a smile.

We were unlikely friends. People called us yin and yang. She was half black; I was pasty white. I got nearly straight As, and she was happy with Cs. Win was the ultimate social butterfly, and I tended to be shy. Win vowed she wasn’t going to be bothered with a relationship until she was at least forty, and I’d dated Josh for two years already. I always looked for the positive, and she had honed being cynical to an art form. There was no reason for us to get along, but we did.

Our principal, Mr. Lee, was on the stage waiting for everyone to pay attention. He did this sort of Zen thing where he would stand in silence with his eyes closed until we all shut up. You wouldn’t think it would work, but it did.

“There’s your dad,” Josh whispered.

I followed his finger. My dad stood at the side of the stage, fussing with his tie. He almost never wore one. At work he got away with jeans, T-shirt, and lab coat. There are some benefits to owning your own company. Other than wealth and not having a boss, that is. I shifted in my seat. My dad liked to be goofy, which was bad enough at home, but I had no idea what he might pull at my school. I sent up a silent prayer that he didn’t do one of his impressions.

“What’s he doing here?” Win asked.

Saint Francis had a mandatory assembly every Friday with
various speakers. The school promoted it as a chance for us to gather as a “community.” “Community” sounded better than what we suspected, which was that the teachers liked having the last hour of the week free.

“He agreed to do a talk on the importance of science,” I said.

Win pretended to snore.

“How can you say that? Science impacts everything,” Josh said.

Win held up a hand. “Spare me. I’m going to have to hear the talk from her dad; I don’t need to hear it from you, too.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Also, for the record, having a bromance with your girlfriend’s dad is creepy.”

Josh was ready to argue with her, but Mr. Lee was already introducing my dad, so we had to be quiet.

I’d heard Dad’s science talk before. It was fairly interesting. He managed to connect all these major scientists like Darwin and Einstein to random things like punk rock and winning World War II. My prayer must have worked, because so far he’d managed to avoid doing any of his lame Dad stand-up comedy routine.

“Now, some of you know that my company, Neurotech, recently received approval from the FDA to offer our revolutionary Memtex treatment to teens and children.” Dad stood with a Neurotech logo projected onto him and the screen behind him.

“Holy shit, we can go for a softening now?” someone hissed a few rows behind me.

I turned around to hear who had said that. My dad hated when people called it a softening. He thought it sounded too woo-woo. He was not a fan of anything that smacked of being new age.

“I thought you guys might like to be the first group to see our new commercial. Sort of like a movie screening, only without the hot movie stars—unless you count me.” A few people laughed. It’s a well-accepted truth that everyone else will find your parent’s feeble attempts at humor funnier than you will. My dad spotted me in the crowd and waved. I scrunched further down in my seat.

The auditorium lights dimmed, and my dad stepped out of the glare of the projector. The commercial was well done. It showed a bunch of perfectly airbrushed teens in what adults must think of as ideal moments: dancing at a prom, laughing with friends over a bonfire on the beach, crossing the finish line at a track meet. No one had acne or bad hair. I recognized the main actress from some cable show.

“Are bad memories holding you back from doing everything you want and enjoying the life you deserve?” she asked. Her eyes stared out of the screen as if she personally felt bad for us. “You don’t have to be bogged down anymore. Ask your doctor about Memtex today—and imagine what you could accomplish tomorrow!” Her face split into a wide smile and just a hint of a wink.

The lights went up, and people applauded as if it had been an Oscar-winning performance. I wondered if Mr. Lee was ticked that my dad had managed to sneak a commercial into his talk. I could have told him he should have known better; my dad never missed a chance to promote his business. Once he slipped our dentist a brochure in the middle of a root canal.

“Well, thanks for having me today and letting me share with you why I find science so important, and how I think it can impact your life. I’m excited to have Neurotech providing services to teens. To mark that evolution in our company, I’m pleased to announce we’ll be offering a part-time internship for a deserving high school student with a passion for the sciences. Applications are available on our website. At the end of the year the lucky recipient will also receive a grant to assist with college costs.”

Josh jolted straight up in the chair next to me, vibrating with excitement. I couldn’t believe my dad hadn’t said a thing about this to me. He winked at me from the stage. That made me wonder what other surprises he had up his sleeve.

chapter two

I
can’t believe you didn’t say anything.” Josh was practically bouncing off the lockers in the hall. He’d left being excited behind, had blown through thrilled, and was now hovering in an enraptured state. People who discovered they had a winning lotto ticket in their pocket were calmer than Josh at this moment.

“I told you, he didn’t tell me anything about it.” I grabbed my history and math books out of my locker. I smiled when I saw the picture of my horse, Harry, taped to the inside. Other girls might have pictures of hot actors hanging in their lockers, but I preferred Harry. He was arguably better looking, and certainly more loyal.

Win took the books out of my hands and put them back on the shelf. “You’re not going to have any time. You have a
riding lesson on Saturday. You know you’ll end up spending the rest of the afternoon at the barn.”

“That’s Saturday. I can study on Sunday.”

She shook her head. “You might think that, but Sunday is actually reserved for coming over to my place and hanging out. Enough with all the studying. Live a little.”

“Do you have any idea how many applications they might get?” Josh acted like he hadn’t heard a word we’d said. “It’s a huge opportunity, but you’d have to be local. The job is here. I can’t imagine anyone is going to let their kid move for an internship. That should cut down on the numbers. Plus, it’s a short turnaround time. There are only a couple weeks to get an application together.” He bounced on the balls of his feet.

“Chill out, Mr. President,” Win said.

“Call me that, and I’ll call you by your real name,” Josh threatened.

Win’s eyes narrowed. For reasons that eluded everyone, her otherwise cool parents had burdened her with her grandmother’s name, Winifred. If you really wanted to piss her off, you would call her that. “Fine. Chill out,
Joshua
. My point is that you’re a shoo-in for this internship. You’re in the house of the guy who founded the entire freaking company almost every day. You’re dating his darling daughter. Of course he’s going to choose you. He probably came up with the program so he could give it to you while still making the whole thing tax deductible.”

I made a point to roll my eyes as if I thought what she’d said was absurd. My stomach was in a tight knot. There
was
a chance he had come up with the program just for Josh. I was an only child, and it was pretty clear that my dad didn’t know what to do with me. It wasn’t that he didn’t love me, but he didn’t get me. My dad was into computer games, every tech gadget you could imagine, and boring science shows. Josh was the son my dad had always wanted. They liked the same movies, read the same science fiction books, and got each other’s obscure jokes. They’d both been raised by single moms, had a passion for science, and were willing to work insanely hard for what they wanted.

It wasn’t that my dad and I didn’t get along, but they got along better. Josh made sense to him. I knew my dad worried about how Josh was going to afford college next year. Most of the time I liked that my dad and Josh got along, but lately it felt too close.

I grabbed my history book back out of my locker and stuffed it in my bag.

“If making out with the boss’s daughter doesn’t give you a better-than-average chance, what’s the point of doing it?” Win teased him.

Josh leaned over and kissed me. “The point is I like making out with the boss’s daughter. Even if she wasn’t the boss’s daughter.”

“Hey, no PDA in the hallways.” Win slapped the two of us apart. “You think I want to see that? I had a big lunch.”

Josh made giant kissing noises near my face while Win pretended to gag. I did my best to ignore both of them.

“That’s going to cause me trauma. ’Course now I can just soften that nightmare right out of my head,” Win said.

“Memtex,” Josh and I said in tandem.

“Thank you for the correction, groupthinkers. I can Memtex that vivid image out of my brain.” She slung her Coach bag over her shoulder as we headed down the hall. “Don’t you think it’s a bit creepy? The whole ‘dial down a memory that bugs you’ thing.”

“Are you kidding? Do you know how much Memtex has done for people with PTSD? The impact of past trauma is huge. The ability to . . .” Josh searched for the right word.

“Soften?” Win offered with a raised eyebrow.

Josh sighed. “Fine, the ability to
soften
those memories is a game changer.”

“Look, I’m all for helping war vets or some crime victim move past what happened to them, but people go for treatment for everything now. Lose a job? Get a divorce? No problem, just soften the heck out of it until you don’t care.”

“For some people getting a divorce can be as traumatic as war,” Josh said.

Win snorted. “Please. People need to ball up. Life isn’t all sunshine and unicorns. Now they’re selling it to people our age? What, because not getting into the college of our choice is crushing? No date for prom causing premature PTSD? It’s not
trauma; it’s real life. Life is hard sometimes. It doesn’t mean you don’t face it.”

“You realize the irony of you saying life is hard, don’t you? You live in a house the size of a hotel and you spent your Christmas vacation in Venice.”

“We didn’t go to Venice,” Win protested. “We went to Florence. Venice is too damp that time of year.” She smirked at Josh. “I still stand by what I said: You have to learn to deal with life. Whatever it throws you, good or bad.”

“But if you can make it easier, why shouldn’t you?” I said. “Isn’t that the point? Life is hard, but if there’s a treatment that can make it less difficult so that you can focus on other stuff, positive stuff, that is dealing with it.”

“And if you happen to run a pharmaceutical company, you can focus on making a few billion off the whole process.” Win waved off what I was about to say. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m for capital gains. Especially if it means we can use some of your dad’s money to pay for a trip to Europe this summer before college. All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t do it. No one is messing with this head.” Win knocked on her skull.

“Don’t mess with perfection?” I said sarcastically, as we walked toward the door.

“Exactly.” Win stopped short after a few steps. She stared straight ahead. “Whoa.”

I looked through the open front door. There was a crowd of people standing on the sidewalk. “What in the world?” I slid
past her and closer to the door so I could see. Josh tried to grab my hand, but I stepped outside.

A group of about thirty protestors were milling around, holding signs. One said
NO VOLUNTARY LOBOTOMIES
; another said
NEUROTECH—STAY OUT OF OUR CHILDREN’S HEADS
! I drew back when I saw one woman in a neon-yellow tracksuit holding a sign that was a picture of my dad with a Hitler mustache drawn above his lip.
NEURO-NAZI
was printed in bright red letters underneath the photo.

“How did they even know your dad was here?” Josh whispered as we stood on the top steps of the school.

I scanned the front parking lot. My dad’s car was gone. Company security must have whisked him out of there before the protestors arrived. The protests were getting worse if they were starting to follow him around. They usually stayed outside his office. No wonder he wanted to put a new security alarm on our house. “There may have been some kind of announcement on the company website that he was coming here for a talk.”

“Or some eejit in this school tipped them off.” Win scowled. “We should go.”

“Who the hell do they think they are?” I asked. Didn’t these people have jobs or someplace to be? Did they have nothing else to do but hang around yelling at people? I hated that they made me feel vaguely ashamed of what my dad did. “The treatment is voluntary. If they don’t want it, no one is forcing them.”

One of the protestors, a young woman in a business suit with bright red lipstick, broke from the group and approached us. “Harper Bryne?”

“Oh, shit,” Win said. “She knows who you are.” Win grabbed my elbow and started to hustle me toward her car.

“I’m Lisa Gambel, a reporter, and I wondered if I could ask you a few questions.” She pulled out her phone to record our conversation.

Win kept pulling me toward her SUV. “Don’t talk to her. Whatever you say, she’s going to twist it all around. Trust me, I’ve seen how they’ve turned around what my dad said in interviews, and they were sports reporters. God only knows what she’ll cook up.”

Josh walked behind me, shielding me from Lisa as we moved quickly. The pack of protestors swarmed around us, yelling to get my attention. I felt closed in. Why couldn’t my dad do something boring like work in a bank?

“What are your thoughts on your dad’s company offering the Memtex treatment to teens?” When I didn’t respond, the reporter kept firing off questions without even pausing to let me answer. “Do you worry about the possible negative side effects? Have you heard rumors about serious complications? If there’s even a chance of those complications, is it worth the risk?”

My heart raced. I knew the only reason they were hassling me was because they couldn’t get a quote from my dad. The
reporter wanted something in time for her deadline. She shoved the phone closer to me, and I pushed it aside. I wondered if this was how animals felt when they were being hunted, as if the world were collapsing around them. I stumbled on a loose piece of concrete, my foot catching in a pothole. I started to fall. Someone reached forward and grabbed me before I hit the ground, then pulled me up. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but loose-jointed and gawky, like one of those puppies that grew large before it knew what happened.

“You okay?” He held on to my elbow to make sure I had my balance. His touch was warm and chased away some of the chill. His eyes locked me into place, creating a focal point in the midst of all the screaming and noise.

I opened my mouth to thank him when I noticed he was wearing a T-shirt that said
PEOPLE NOT CORPORATIONS
! He was one of the protestors. Perfect.

“She’s fine; please back off.” Josh was at my side and guided me toward Win’s giant SUV.

“Your father is a monster!” a woman yelled, inches from me. A fleck of her spit hit my cheek, and I recoiled.

The guy who had kept me from falling put a hand on the woman. “Hey, take it easy. She’s not responsible for what her dad does.”

His words hit me like a slap in the face. My fear sucked out like a wave, and in its absence rage rushed in. I lunged forward so that I was in his face. “I’m proud of my dad. At least he
does something with his life. You think it’s so easy to make the world a better place? Why don’t you do something rather than bitch about what other people do?” I jammed my finger into his chest.

Josh wrapped his arm around my middle and pushed me into the open SUV door. Win was already behind the wheel. She gunned the engine, and it roared to life.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

Josh was right behind me, and he slammed the door. The silence inside the SUV seemed somehow louder than all the shouting outside.