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There are still gingham curtains, crudely sewn, hanging

from one of the windows. They fl ap gently in the midafter-

noon breeze, their lace edging ratty and yellowed.

“Do you remember when we met?” I ask him.

He looks up, startled. He rubs his thumbs over his bent

knees, straightening one leg out slowly. The hem of his

jeans brushes my calf.

“I do,” he says. “Mina had been talking about you for

weeks. I remember being glad she’d made a friend, that she

was talking and laughing instead of crying. You were so

quiet at fi rst, you held yourself so still, sort of like Mina’s

opposite.” He laughs. “But you were always watching her.

I knew I could count on you, that you’d help her. Looking

back, I feel so stupid, not realizing the two of you . . .” He

lets out a huff of breath, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh.

“It’s weird to think she and I had the same taste in girls. Is

that why she never told me?” Trev’s hands knot together.

“Because of you?”

We both know the answer, but I can’t bring myself to

say it. “I wanted to tell you about me,” I say instead. “But I

couldn’t without telling you about her. I’m wrapped up in

her, Trev. I never learned how to love anyone else because

she was there and we were
us
. We were always just us, and

I couldn’t break that without breaking me. Without break-

ing her.”

“She wanted to hide,” he says. “And you went along

with it, because you always did.”

T E S S S H A R P E

251

“She was scared,” I say, as if I need to defend her.

But I know I don’t, not to him. He’s telling the truth, too.

Mina led, and I followed. She hid, and I was her shelter.

She kept secrets, and I guarded them. Mina lied, and so

did I. Sometimes we were downright ruthless to each other.

For once, it isn’t some cotton-candy idea of her; it’s who she

was, in all her maddening, heart-squeezing truth.

“What about you?” Trev asks abruptly. “Were
you

scared?”

“Loving her was never scary. It was never wrong. It was

where I fi t. But I wasn’t raised the way you two were and

she thought I had a choice. Because I didn’t like only girls.

Because I had . . .” I can’t fi nish that sentence.

But he does it for me. “Because you had me.”

I nod, the only thing I can manage.

And he’s right—I had. Trev’s been waiting for me all this

time. Between boyfriends, breakups, fi ghts, and more than

two years of an addiction I managed to hide until it ate me

up, he’s been there, waiting. I know exactly what that kind

of love requires.

Because I’d been waiting, too.

Just not for him.

I wrap my arms around his shoulders, press my fore-

head against his temple.

His hands cup the back of my neck; our foreheads slide

together, noses brush. I know he won’t kiss me, know he’ll

never make a move again. This is up to me and me alone.

I know I can’t kiss him, know I have to draw the line

here and now, because I can never love him like I loved

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F A R F R O M Y O U

her, and he deserves that. Deserves better than me and the

empty imitation I can offer.

So I swallow back the tears and the words in my throat,

the ones I can’t say, that I wish I could.

If it hadn’t been her, it would have been you.

52

TEN MONTHS AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

I can’t stop crying as I slip through the back door of the Bishop house.

“Mina? Mina, are you here?”

When she doesn’t answer, I open her bedroom door without

knocking. She’s sitting on her canopied bed, legs crossed.

She doesn’t ask me what’s wrong.

She’s been waiting for me.

We stare at each other, silent, and I suddenly understand why she

looks so guilty. Why she has to force herself to meet my gaze.

She
knows
.

She’s the one who told my parents where to fi nd the drugs. And

the prescription triplicates I’d stolen from Dad’s offi

ce.

The betrayal swamps me. I want to punch her. Grab a handful of

her hair and pull until it rips out in my hand. Punish her the way she’s

been punishing me all along. Is this her new solution—get me sent

away so I won’t be a temptation?

“I had to tell them, Sophie,” she says.

“No.”

“I had to.” She gets up from the bed when I start to back away from

her. “You don’t listen to me. You won’t talk to me. You need help.”

“I can’t believe you did this!” I’m almost out of her bedroom, hor-

ror coursing through me.

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F A R F R O M Y O U

“I had to!” She chases aft er me and yanks me back into her room,

slamming the door behind me, locking us in.

My balance, always precarious, is thrown off and I stumble,

knocking into her.

“You told me you were getting off those pills,” Mina hisses, all

hints of apology or guilt erased now. Her fi ngers bite into my arm, and

I squeeze her wrist tight where I’m holding on to her, because this is

what we’re good at: hurting each other.

“I lied,” I say. I drawl it out right in her face.

She goes white, letting go of me so fast, I’m reeling. “How could

you do this?” she demands. “Stealing from your dad? That’s not you.

You could have killed yourself, taking so many pills!”

“Maybe that’s what I wanted.”

Mina makes a sound, inarticulate and feral. Then she pushes me.

She puts her weight into it, pushes me like she would a steady per-

son. No more careful touches, no arm looped through mine. Now is

the time to make me fall, twist me up, ruin me for good.

I topple, but I bring her down with me, reaching out at the last

second and yanking her to the carpet. My hands are in her hair, and I

pull. Her nails dig into my shoulder.

“Don’t you dare say that,” she gasps. “Take it back.”

“No.” I buck beneath her; she’s half sprawled on top of me. I can’t

breathe around the feeling. Her hands press down on my shoulders,

pinning me to the fl oor. My back aches, my leg twisted at a bad angle,

but her eyes burn into mine. She won’t look away now. I can’t, because

I’ve never seen her this way before, like this is the most dangerous

thing she’s ever done. She leans down, so close I can feel her breath

against my skin. Her hair spills across my shoulder, brushing my neck.

“Take it back,” she says again.

T E S S S H A R P E

255

I lick my lips and shake my head. My fi nal dare.

Mina breaks, and the space between us is fi nally gone.

She kisses me, and even now I’m amazed that it’s her instead of

me who concedes.

“Take it back,” she breathes into my mouth, and my breath hitches,

my body hitches, rises up to meet hers when her palms slip under-

neath my shirt, touching the fragile skin around my belly button.

I trail my hands down the sides of her face, kiss her hard, tongue

and teeth. This has never been soft or sweet; we’ve always been more

than that, sharpened by time and want, our secret war fi nally won.

I start to say
please
, but I really want to say her name, pressed

against her lips, mouthed along her collarbone, so I do, murmuring it

like a mantra, like a thank-you, like a blessing.

Her hand pushes farther up my shirt. She brushes her knuckles

against me, underneath my bra, and I let my body arch into her.

We take forever, kissing for minutes at a time, clothing shed piece

by piece, until fi nally her fi ngers slip into my underwear and I moan

against her neck, jerk beneath her hand as the feeling fl utters through

me, as her fi ngers circle and seek and I can’t breathe through it, I can’t

breathe at all as I tense and shake and pulse around her.

Aft er, when it’s her turn, when she trembles below me, soft , slick

skin and warm hands, her breasts pressed against mine, my mouth,

trailing down, down, down, salt and silk and her whispering my

name, I’m awestruck.

I want to remember everything because it’s the fi rst time.

Later, I’ll remember everything because it’s the only time.

53

NOW (JUNE)

By the time Trev leaves, I feel wrung out. I walk out to my

garden, but end up doing nothing but lying down in the

grass between two of the beds, following the sun’s progress

as it fades behind the Trinities.

I’m almost dozing when someone bangs on the back

gate. My eyes snap open and I struggle to my elbows as

Rachel calls “Sophie, are you here?”

“Hey, coming.” I get to my feet slowly, my back hurting

from lying on the ground for so long.

When I fi nally get the gate unlocked, I pull it back to

fi nd Rachel clutching a plastic baggie to her chest. There are

smears of dust across her forehead and arms and a scratch

on her leg. She charges forward, waving the bag. “I found

them!” she says. “It took forever. Kyle had to ditch me for

work around two, but I kept at it. Mina hid them in a box

of Barbies stashed under a mountain of junk. I nearly got

buried underneath an avalanche of Christmas crap.”

“She hid them in a box of Barbies?”

“Actually, she hid them in Barbie’s car, folded in the little

trunk. Mina was tricky. I almost didn’t check there.”

My hands shake as I take the clear plastic baggie from

T E S S S H A R P E

257

her. Inside, two pieces of white printer paper are folded.

I can’t make the text out; the paper is folded to hide it.

“Did you read them?” I ask. “Touch them? What about

fi ngerprints?”

“Way ahead of you.” Rachel digs in her bag, coming up

with a pair of pink dishwashing gloves with daisies on the

cuffs. “I used these. I doubt there’s anyone’s fi ngerprints

but Mina’s, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”

It takes me a couple of tries to get the gloves on my trem-

bling hands. “Did you show Trev?”

“He hadn’t shown by the time I found them. I brought

them right over.”

“Seriously? He dropped me off, like, an hour ago.”

Rachel shrugs. “He wasn’t there. Maybe he got home

right after I left.”

“Probably,” I say as I open the baggie and pull out the

fi rst note, folded in quarters. I unfold it square by square,

until the black ink, his words of warning, appear:

SNOOP ANY MORE AND YOU’LL GO MISSING, TOO.

I trace my gloved fi nger over each word and press

my thumb hard into the bottom of the paper—so hard it

crumples.

I want to rip it apart.

I want to rip
him
apart.

I take deep breaths, in and out, in and out, before reach-

ing for the second note. I unfold and smooth it fl at next to

the fi rst:

258

F A R F R O M Y O U

FINAL WARNING. IF YOU DON’T WANT ANYONE HURT,

YOU’LL LEAVE IT ALONE.

I frown when I see four addresses typed below the

killer’s threat: Trev’s apartment in Chico, the Bishop house

on Sacramento, Kyle’s house on Girvan Street—and my

address, the only one that’s circled over and over in red.

The paper crumples in my hand; I can’t seem to unclench

my fi st. My fi ngers are sweating in their pink rubber prison,

and my heart beats fast. I turn to look over my shoulder.

Dad’s in the kitchen, doing the dishes; I can see the top of