Page 115 of What Remains of Grace

“You do,” Emmie said. “Beige. Structured. Very ‘I’m here to collect forms.’ It’s great for court days, but this is a rally. We need color. I’ll pay you back by letting you dress me for the hearing. It’ll just be bailiffs and old people there anyway.”

Against her will, Jenna felt a laugh bubble up.

“You’re unbelievable,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” Emmie said again, like it was becoming her catchphrase. “Rally’s on Friday. I’ll handle the masses. You handle not passing out.”

Jenna shook her head, a mixture of exasperation and reluctant awe. As she turned to go, Emmie called after her, almost casually, “Hey, Aunt Jenna?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to make it harder for him than he ever imagined, I promise. He is not walking in here and taking what’s left of my mom without fighting all of us. The whole damn town.”

Jenna met her niece’s eyes.

In them, she saw Grace. And something new, too. Something fierce and young and unbreakable.

“Okay,” Jenna said gently. “Secret Society. Lead the way.”

Emmie grinned, wicked and bright. “Oh,” she said. “I already am.”

A small, surprising warmth uncurled inside her, faint but real.

It wasn’t quite hope.

But it felt like the doorway it might walk through.

28

The Rally

Cole had never spent so long staring at a shirt.

Not because he cared about the shirt, because he didn’t. It was navy. It was clean. It was fine.

But Emmie had told him to “wear something really nice if you’re going to be standing next to my aunt,” and now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. About tonight. About all the people showing up. About the woman he hoped would look at him the way she had in the dim light of his bedroom, head tucked against his shoulder, whispering things she probably shouldn’t have said out loud.

A rally shouldn’t have felt personal. But it did.

His reflection in the bathroom mirror looked more like a guy going to court than to a rally. Jaw tight. Eyes serious. He tried on a smile and managed something that was at least not actively terrifying.

He could still feel the heat of her pressed against his side from that night. The low hum of the box fan in his bedroom, the streetlight through the blinds, striping the sheets in pale orange.

They’d been lying there, her head on his shoulder, the afterglow of everything they shouldn’t be doing but absolutely were still rounded the edges. He’d thought she was asleep until she spoke.

“You lied to me,” she’d said quietly.

Cole had stiffened. “About what?”

“The rally,” she said. “The Secret Society. All of it. You and Emmie were planning this for days. You never said a word.”

He’d stared at the ceiling, searching for the least stupid answer. “I didn’t lie,” he said eventually. “I didn’t tell you. That’s different.”

She lifted her head to look at him, hair mussed, her blue eyes muted but unmistakable even in the dim room.

“‘Omissions are betrayals,’” she said. “I think I read that somewhere. Keeping information from someone who matters to you isn’t neutral. It’s a betrayal.”

“Okay, but whatever article you read was talking about people hiding affairs and bank accounts,” he said gently. “Not . . . surprise parties.”