Authors: Tess Sharpe
so hard that I won’t be able to pull myself out again.
Ten months. Five days.
I toss my phone into my purse and walk down the beach
with Rachel and Kyle.
There are some pockets of strained silence as we make
our way through the group of familiar faces. Kyle’s hug-
ging people and smiling at girls, introducing Rachel as I
follow behind, my eyes cast down. A shyness I haven’t felt
in forever suffocates me.
“I’m gonna get some water,” I tell Rachel, zeroing in on
one of the coolers tucked farther down the beach. It’s less
mobbed over there.
She nods and waves me off with a look of understand-
ing, though I can feel her tracking me, making sure I’m
okay as I break from the crowd. I look over my shoulder
and watch her for a second, see the way she smiles at Kyle
in the fi relight. He’s already ditched his shirt, now tucked
into his back pocket.
“Watch it,” says a sharp voice.
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I run smack into someone and stumble backward, my
footing unsteady in the sand.
Amber doesn’t even reach out to try to help me. She
stands still, her arms folded, as I teeter, trying to keep my
balance. When I’m fi nally steady, she stands there, disap-
proval radiating off of her.
“Hi, Amber.”
“Sophie,” she says, and I’m impressed—she could freeze
ice with that voice. “I can’t believe you thought it was okay
to show up here.”
I feel tired all of a sudden. I don’t want to do this. Not
here. Not ever. “Let’s just avoid each other.” I start to move
past her.
“You know, I never got what she saw in you. You wrecked
yourself. And then you brought her down with you.”
I stop. We’re drawing attention now, and my skin crawls
at all the eyes on me. “Let’s not talk about it. I don’t want
to fi ght.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Amber snaps. “I don’t have to
listen to you. You shouldn’t be here. You should be in jail.”
“Hey!” Rachel comes up, scattering sand everywhere,
her shoulders tense. “Leave her alone.”
Amber’s mouth twists in disapproval at Rachel’s funky
bubble skirt and the necklace she’s made out of Scrabble
tiles. “Freak,” she mutters.
Rachel’s face lights up; her eyes fl ick up and down
Amber’s body, taking in her perfectly tousled beach hair
and sparkly eye makeup. “I’m taking that as a compli-
ment,” she says.
Kyle comes up behind Rachel, looming over her like he’s
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our personal bodyguard. He crosses his arms, brown eyes
narrowing. “Sophie and Rachel are here with me. Don’t
talk about stuff you don’t know shit about, Amber. Leave
us alone.”
Amber’s eyes widen when Kyle defends me, then she
defl ates. “Whatever. You wanna stomp on Mina’s grave
with the person responsible, Kyle, you go ahead.” With
another disgusted look at me, she tosses her hair over her
shoulder and stalks off.
I let out a long breath. “Thanks.”
Kyle runs a hand through his hair, eyes on the sand.
“She was being a jerk.”
“Come on, just ignore her,” Rachel says. “Let’s get some-
thing to drink.”
“I should check my phone. I left it in the car.” It’s a lie,
but I want to be alone.
“I’ll come with,” Rachel offers, but I wave her off.
“It’s fi ne. Trev probably texted me. I just want to check.
Be right back.” I need a few minutes by myself. There are
too many familiar faces here.
Before either of them can protest, I’m walking away as
fast as my bad leg allows. I’m halfway up the beach, con-
centrating on navigating through the sand and getting my
phone out of my purse when I hear someone calling my
name.
“Sophie! Hey!” Adam comes jogging up. There are wet
spots on his faded T-shirt, and his hair’s dropping into his
eyes. “Kyle sent me after you. He didn’t want you to go
anywhere solo.” He looks down at the phone in my hand.
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“Thought you were getting your phone.” I fl ush, but Adam
smiles. “Hey, it’s okay. Amber was being mean. I’d want
to get away, too. Can I come with you, at least, so Kyle’s
doesn’t get mad at me?”
“I’m just going to my car; not that exciting.”
“I’ll tag along. Hey, you want?” He offers me a bottle
of coke, which I take gratefully. I twist it open and take a
drink as Adam gestures for me to keep going. He follows,
hands in the pockets of his board shorts. I don’t look down
at my phone, even though I want to check to make sure I
didn’t miss any texts. “How’s your garden?” he asks as the
beach fades into pavement.
“Good. Thanks again for helping me with that soil. What
about you? How’s your summer?” The one light in the park-
ing lot is about to die. It’s quieter up here, the noise from the
beach fading as we walk farther away. I unlock my car and
dump my purse onto the front seat. I fl ip my phone over so
I can see the screen. There’s a missed call from a number I
don’t recognize. My heart skips a few beats before starting
to pound in my ears.
Is this it?
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Adam. I walk a few steps down
the path before entering my voice mail code. I take another
drink, expecting Trev’s voice on the message, but it isn’t his.
“Hi, Sophie, this is Tom Wells from the
Harper Beacon
.
I’ve been thinking about our conversation last week. I’ll
hope you’ll get back to me; I’d really like to talk about your
side of this story. On the record. Give me a call back.”
I frown and delete the message.
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You still talking to the detective?
I text Trev before putting
my phone on vibrate and pocketing it so I’ll feel it. I can’t
stop the thread of worry working through my brain. I tell
myself instead that it’s a good sign he doesn’t have time to
text me.
“You mind if we hang out here for a sec?” I ask as I walk
back to Adam. He’s sprawled against my car trunk, his soda
in his hand. “Things out there are kind of . . .”
“I get it,” Adam says.
I hoist myself carefully onto the car trunk, my legs
swinging. Adam boosts himself up beside me.
“Who was on the phone?” Adam asks.
“Oh, I’m just waiting for Trev to text me. He’s supposed
to come by later.”
Adam raises an eyebrow. “You guys fi nally getting
together?” He laughs when he sees the look on my face.
“What? Everyone always talked about you two like it was
this predestined thing. Why do you think I never asked you
out?” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, making me laugh.
“
You
wanted to ask me out?” I grin and take a sip of
soda. “When was this? Before or after Amber?”
“Before,” Adam shrugs, grinning. “I had a big crush on
you in second grade. Trev’s lucky.”
I don’t bother to hide my smile. “Well, I’m not dating
Trev,” I say. “Trev is . . .” I try to fi gure out a way to put it.
That feeling that went beyond friends, beyond family, but
wasn’t the right kind of love. “Trev is Trev,” I say fi nally.
“And dating . . . dating is not for me. Not right now, at
least.”
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“I get that. You’ve got a lot going on,” Adam says. “Con-
centrating on being healthy is important. You’re going to
meetings, right? Uncle Rob said you were at the Church the
other day.”
“Been talking about it with my therapist,” I say. “He
thinks it might be good for me.”
“It’s interesting,” Adam says. “I go sometimes with Matt
so he won’t ditch. I dunno, listening to all those stories . . .
It’s like people fuck up all the time, but I think it helps to
admit it, you know? To ask for forgiveness? Most of the
time, you get it. People are really good at forgiving, if you
just ask for it.”
“Some things, though, you can’t forgive,” I say. “Some-
times you do or see things that are so bad. . . .” I take a
long sip of soda, thinking about Matt, about how he’d prob-
ably killed Mina, Jackie, and his baby. I think about Trev,
and how everything he wanted had been stalled by our
secrets. I think about Rachel, fi nding me on that road, bro-
ken and bloody, and never showing any fear. I shake off
the thoughts, pasting a smile on my face. “Anyway, Matt’s
doing good with the meetings now, right? He looked really
healthy when I saw him.”
“Defi nitely,” he says. “And, I mean, he did a lot of things
that were bad. Made a lot of mistakes. My mom wouldn’t
talk to him for six months. But Uncle Rob got him clean,
got him to work the program, prove to her he was serious.”
“It’s nice that you have him looking out for you,” I say.
I pat the phone in my back pocket absently. Trev should’ve
texted me by now. Where was he?
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“Yeah,” Adam agrees. “He stepped up when Dad left.
Helped Mom out with money and stuff. He did so much for
me—there wouldn’t be half the recruiters coming to see me
play if it weren’t for him.”
“That must be crazy to think about,” I say. “All those
people, coming to see you. I’d freak out.”
“Yeah.” Adam grins nervously. “But in a good way, you
know?”
“You’ve worked really hard,” I say. “You deserve it.” I
wish Trev would text me. I take another long drink of soda.
My mouth’s dry. I feel too hot all of a sudden. I swing my
good leg back and forth and frown when it hits the bumper.
“You excited about senior year?” Adam asks.
“Kind of.” I blink, rubbing at my eyes. I struggle to
swallow, and when I try to take a sip, I miss, spilling soda
everywhere. My arm feels weird and heavy.
“Easy,” Adam says, taking the bottle out of my limp
hand and sliding off the trunk.
I blink again, trying to clear my throbbing head.
“Sorry, Sophie,” he says quietly. “I like you. Always
have. You’re a nice girl.”
The words take a second to work themselves into my
brain. I can’t concentrate; my eyes droop. I feel like I’ve just
done six shots of tequila in a row. “You . . . what? I don’t . . .”
I try to get up off my elbows, but my arms and legs are
like Jell-O. I can barely feel them.
Drugged.
The word fl oods into me, a too-late realization
that breaks through the sluggishness.
“Oh, God,” I mumble with numb lips. “No.” I try to get
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up again and slide off the trunk, but he’s there, holding me
up. His face is inches away from mine; I can see a spot on
his jaw that he missed shaving.
“No!”
I push at him, a solid wall of muscle, as he crowds
me against the car. I need something. The bear spray. It’s
in my purse. I have to get it out. . . . If I can just reach it . . .
“Sophie, don’t fi ght it,” he says, and he’s so gentle when
he holds my wrists together, it scares me more than if he
had punched me in the face. I kick out with my good leg,
but my bad one is so rubbery that it won’t take my weight,
and I sag against him farther.
“I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t want to do this the fi rst
time. I tried to warn you but you just won’t stop,” Adam
says. I push at him again, trying to tilt my body to the side
as he loops some hard plastic around my hands, pulling at
the end of the zip tie, binding my wrists together. “You have
that reporter asking questions, you went to Matt, you went
to Jack, to Amy. You’re too nosy, Sophie. Just like Mina.”
I open my mouth, cottony and dry from the drug, to
scream, but he’s too fast for me. He claps a hand over my
lips and shoves me as I struggle against him—when had he
opened the car door?—and I fall onto the backseat of my
car, dizzy as he lets go of my mouth to yank the keys out
of my pocket.
“It was you.” I croak out. I have to say it. I need to hear it.
Leaning over me, he says, “It was me.” A quiet confi r-
mation, an almost relieved revelation, the last words I hear
before he slams the car door shut and I pass out.
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