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“She went to work,” I say.
“Let’s just go inside. You should try to eat something. I’ll call Ty for you, okay?”
I get out of the car and walk inside the small A-frame cabin. Lisa’s home is a lot different than mine. Upon entering, I’m met with cool AC, sending goosebumps up and down my arms. The kitchen smells like chicken and rosemary. Her parents and two younger brothers, still in muddy baseball uniforms, are all at the table together. The boys are going on and on about how they were somehow robbed of a win today, their parents listening intently until they notice us in the entryway.
“Oh, my goodness! Mel! Your face!” her mom exclaims. “I heard about the fight, but…”
“I’m okay,” I tell her. “It’s not that bad.”
“Well, if I knew you were coming, I would have set a place for you,” she says. “Scoot over, boys. We can squeeze another chair in here.”
“That’s okay, Mom,” Lisa says. “We’re going to eat upstairs, actually. We have…stuff to do.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I’ll bring up a couple of plates for you.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Lisa says, ushering me toward the staircase.
“Yeah…thanks, Eileen.”
See what I mean? It’s different here.
A few minutes go by before there’s a knock at the door, and Eileen hands Lisa two plates with chicken and dumplings and green beans, and I inhale mine before finishing Lisa’s off as well.
We try to call Ty, but no one at his house answers.
It’s around midnight when my mom calls Lisa’s house and tells us that Ty has been arrested. I don’t sleep after that.
five
Summer 1999
The sun has been up for hours. I’m lying on my side, facing away from my snoring friend, staring at the spot where the light hits her closet doors, watching it slowly migrate downward as the sun rises. I can’t cry anymore—I’ve officially run dry.
And as the pills wore off overnight, the ache in my muscles returned with a vengeance.
He’s alive—Grant—from what I understand. Ty found him in a hotel bar, dragged him out back, and nearly beat him to death before a couple of employees pulled him off and called 911. And now, he’s sitting in a jail cell…because of me.
The phone starts to ring again, and it sets something off inside me. Deep in my gut, I can feel it—a visceral reaction like the one I’ve ignored so many times recently, telling me to run from whatever is on the line. But I don’t run, I don’t move. I stare at the place on the wall where the light hits and know that everything is about to change for this stranger whose body I’m stuck in—the broken girl from the mirror with skin covered in worms.
I’m not surprised when there’s a knock on the door.
“Girls?” Eileen calls out. “Are you awake?”
“I’m awake,” I answer, my voice hoarse. I feel Lisa sit up in the bed next to me.
She opens the door halfway and steps into the room. “Your mom said you need to come home, Mel. She said it was important, and you need to get there right now.”
“Okay,” I tell her. “Thanks.”
She nods, a knowing look on her face before she pulls the door closed.
“We don’t have to go,” Lisa says. “We could just go to the lake. Or up to the falls, hide on that side of the hill with the wildflowers all day.”
It’s tempting, but all I can think about is Ty. Instinctively, I begin fiddling with the diamond ring on my left hand, drawing Lisa’s gaze. “I can’t,” I tell her.
She nods knowingly. “Okay, let’s go.”
We get back in the car, and Lisa pulls to a stop in the street in front of the house. There are two cars in the driveway—Ty’s mom’s car and a police cruiser; a red sports car I don’t recognize is parked in front of the house.
