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  I knew before she even spoke that she was my father's information source. I listened as patiently as I could to her explanation that of course she still speaks to my father when necessary, and where did I think she obtained the extra money to pay for the trip?

  The truth was I hadn't thought about it. I knew money was tight, but when she agreed that I could go, I was more concerned with the logistics of handling the trip itself, and if I'm honest, looking forward to spending the time with my friends and Sam, than trying to figure out how she funded the trip.

  But learning she was in sporadic contact with my father took me by surprise. More surprising? The fact that he agreed to give her the money, knowing it was for me. But then again, maybe he'd been plotting to set me up to be cornered by Robin from the get-go. He probably believed Robin would do nothing more than beg me to dissolve the restraining order and take him back. Again. After all, my father still believes that I'm a crazy liar who fabricated Robin's abuse for attention, or vengeance, or whatever excuse he's adopting today. He never believed Robin would hurt me. He never will.

  I wasn't exactly angry with my mother; however, it was clear she was more than angry with herself. Despite my father's previous betrayals, she never thought he would tell the Forbeses where I'd be, or maybe neither of them thought Robin would blatantly disregard the restraining order. But he has a history of getting away with violent crimes, so why would he believe that the words on that worthless piece of paper actually applied to him?

  Then again, neither of them know him like I do. No one does really, and I hope to God that no other girl ever has to.

  I take a deep breath, trying to shake the memory of that revelation. I peek over at my mother, sitting stiffly, formally, her legs crossed at the ankles as she watches Dr. Schall as if awaiting something.

  "Thank you for joining us, Amy," he says.

  "Of course," she replies, and I sit there, unable to shake the feeling like the other shoe is about to drop.

  "We don't have a lot of time, so I won't beat around the bush. There are a couple of things we'd like to discuss," Dr. Schall says matter of factly.

  This isn't surprising, of course. That's why she's here. But for the first time I get the distinct feeling that I don't want her here. That she's intruding on some private matter. It's ridiculous, I know, but there are things I discuss with my therapist that I could never, would never, discuss with my mother. And now I wonder if they plan to talk about something I'd rather them not bring up.

  I feel my pulse race, and though I try to ignore the fine sheen of sweat on my brow and focus on taking even breaths, I know they both have noticed my anxiousness. Of course, they're both tuned into it, conscious of my every reaction, and so I try even harder to suppress them.

  Because I'm eighteen, Dr. Schall can't bring up things we've discussed in therapy without my express prior consent, so it's always on my mom to ask questions she wants to ask, and she's usually reluctant to pry. But today, there's a determination mixed with her nervous energy, and I wonder at it.

  "Honey, I wanted to talk about school. I know it's almost over, but I saw that C in Government, and—"

  "Why don't we first talk about why you think Rory's having trouble in school," Dr. Schall interjects.

  I deflate. I literally sag into the sofa like a petulant child. This isn't a conversation I want to have, but at the same time it's kind of a relief. Because I was imagining it would be something worse.

  "Well, she—"

  "Talk to Rory, not about her," Dr. Schall interrupts again.

  My mother nods. "Right. Of course. Rory, you aren't sleeping more than a few hours a night. I'm not blaming you, I just think maybe we should reconsider-"

  It's me who interrupts this time. "No fucking way."

  My mother startles at my language, but I don't care. I'm not taking those goddamned sleeping pills. I shudder at the mere thought of it.

  "But maybe there's another kind we could try," my mom suggests. We both look to Dr. Schall—my mother for hope of a solution, and me for confirmation that none exists.

  "There are certainly other sleeping aids we could try," he says cautiously.

  I shake my head. "They don't work, Mom. I can't… I can't do it." It's not a very articulate argument, I admit. But she knows what I mean. The sleeping pills do help me sleep. But they don't stop my nightmares, and so instead of waking up screaming, I find myself trapped in terror, too drugged to awaken, my dreams more vivid than ever. My fingers start to tremble as I remember the nights I took those pills. Buried by my own medication inside horrors I can't escape, in which I can't tell the difference between dream and reality, or past and present. It's how I would imagine my own, personal hell.

  My mother's arm slides around my shoulders as she mutters apologies, withdrawing her suggestion. I placate her, telling her it's okay, and force my mask back in place. Everything is okay. I am okay. Or so my mask implies.

  "Okay, then," my mother continues, glancing over at Dr. Schall for what appears to be encouragement. I swallow anxiously. "Well, maybe if we talk about things. Maybe that will help."

  I sigh in frustration. "Mom, why do you think I come here twice a freaking week? What do you think we do? Play Scrabble for an hour?"

  Dr. Schall's moustached top lip quirks up as it often does at my snark. But my mother's next words knock the jest right out of me.

  "Have you talked about Cam?"

  She asks this like it's the most normal question in the world. Something we talk about all the time. From her tone, you would never know that the only time I've so much as referenced the best friend I lost in the most tragic way possible was when I'd told her I'd talked about him to Sam. No details. Nothing more than one sentence on the plane home from Miami saying I'd told Sam about him.

  I'd been a vulnerable wreck. Barely coherent through my exhaustion and desolation. And neither of us has brought it up since.

  My anxiety is back now in full force, my heart twists painfully in my chest and my gut churns with bone crushing grief. With all of the issues I've had to learn to deal with—or attempt to deal with—I'm fully aware that I have yet to process Cam's death in any healthy, appropriate way. But how do I begin to process something that threatens to send me spiraling into a terrifying panic every time I so much as think about it?

  Because the tragedy of what happened to Cam is distressing enough. The guilt that consumes me over being the cause of it—it's not something I'm likely to ever come to terms with. But it's the harrowing loss, the despair-shaped hole left in Cam's place, that threatens to send me plummeting past panic, back into the pit of depression in which I spent the months before I moved here. And I know if I find myself back there again, well, I may never find my way out.

  I sit there silently, unable to reply to my mother's question about Cam, so I do nothing more than try to stay calm and force my eyes to remain dry, but my non-answer answers for me.

  My mother sighs. It's a sad, resigned sigh, and it disheartens me even more.

  "I spoke to Michelle yesterday."

  Of course she did. She was on the phone when I got home from studying calculus with Sam yesterday and hastily ended her call and hung up as soon as I walked in. It's what she always does if I walk in on her on that call she makes religiously every week. She thinks overhearing the conversation might trigger me, and in truth, she may very well be right.

  It's completely messed up, I know that. But Michelle just reminds me of Cam, and the pain is still too raw, too potent. I'm not strong enough. I don't know if I ever will be.

  "She's sounding better lately. She asks about you, you know," my mom continues.

  "I-" My breath catches in my throat. My heart beats too fast as Michelle-colored images swarm my mind—of my childhood, of my past. Each fragmented image leaves remnants of Cam in its wake. It's all too connected, and there's just no way for me to extricate Cam from memories of Michelle. He's there, ever present, inextricably entwined into every happy memory I'd ever had, a
nd especially into those of his own mother.

  Damn it. I worry my lip between my teeth in an attempt not to allow my frustration to manifest into sobs. Why is she bringing this up now?

  "I don't want to talk about this," I mutter hoarsely. I take deep breaths, focusing intently on every inhale and exhale.

  "I know that, Rory, honey. But you need to eventually, and you were able to talk to Sam Caplan about it, so maybe if you just try—"

  I stand abruptly. I don't want to think about Cam and I don't want to think about Sam. All I feel is guilt and grief and I can't fucking bear it right now!

  "I do try! I try every fucking day, Mom! I have to try to do things that you just do. I have to try to sleep, I have to try not to sleep. I have to try to get up in the morning, to go to school. I have to try not to break down at any given moment. I have to try not to freak out when some random guy passes too close, looks at me too long. I have to try to stop worrying that he's going to find me again. To try and accept the fact that he's going to get away with ruining my fucking life!"

  My rant is hysterical, and my awareness of this fact in no way helps me to change it. My tears run freely down my cheeks, and the horrified look on my mother's face only delivers a fresh wave of guilt.

  Dr. Schall clears his throat, as if to remind us both that he is still present, but I don't break eye contact with my mother.

  "Rory if you don't feel ready to discuss Cameron Foster then that is okay," he assures me. "I think what your mother is trying to understand is why you felt able to discuss him with Sam Caplan, but not her, or myself."

  I open my mouth to respond. But I don't have a response. I don't know how to explain my connection with Sam, or how in that moment I just felt as if I could tell him anything. I don't know how to explain how conversely, I can't talk about Cam to my mom. She knew him. She loved him. How can I look her in the eye and witness her own grief when I know I am the cause of it?

  "Cam's dead." My voice is low and toneless, like it's coming from someone else. "There's nothing to talk about. He's not coming back." I feel physically sick to my stomach. It's a hard truth for me to voice, one I'm reluctant to accept, but one I know to be true.

  "Rory, why don't you have a seat," Dr. Schall suggests, but I can't. I'm jumping out of my own skin. I feel cornered. Like they planned this. Like they got me in this room and tried to trick me into talking about Cam.

  "Honey, I know how hard you're trying. I do. And I'm so proud of you. I just think if you talked about him—"

  "I don't want to fucking talk about him!" I wail. Why won't she just get the fucking point?! "I never should have talked about him to Sam! I never should have gotten close to Sam at all! All I do is fuck everything up!"

  I'm practically blinded by my own tears as I dart out of the office, only vaguely aware of them both calling after me. I ignore the receptionist's startled look, and flee through the vestibule. Only when I'm outside can I take a deep breath. I feel for my purse strap, and realize that in my haste to get out of there, I left it behind. Fucking great.

  Now I don't have my car keys or my pills. In fact, I realize that it's probably the only reason my mother didn't come after me, since it's more than clear I shouldn't be driving right now.

  Instead, I lean back against the brick facade of the medical office building and squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to squelch my tears. I count backwards from ten, again and again, and breathe. I breathe in and out, in, and out.

  It's long minutes before my breaths even out and my tears start to slow. I swipe at my cheeks with the sleeve of my leather jacket. It's then that I remember I left a lone cigarette in the pocket, bummed from Dave several days earlier.

  I don't want to smoke. I know how unhealthy it is, and the last thing I want is to develop a nicotine addiction.

  Well, no. That's not actually true. The last thing I want is to feel like this for another fucking moment. So I pull out the matchbook that I keep in that same pocket and light the cigarette. I inhale deeply, embracing the calming effects, all the while silently lamenting over how much I hate my life. And then I hate myself even more for my self-loathing. Because this isn't who I want to be.

  "Rory?"

  I'm startled by a girl's voice. I hastily drop my cigarette and stub it out with the sole of my boot and wipe my eyes again. I recognize her immediately.

  "Hi Bits." I greet Sam's kid sister with a shaky voice. I've only met her a couple of times—once here at Dr. Schall's, of whom she's also a patient, and once at dinner at the Caplans' house.

  I watch her expression grow concerned as she approaches, and I add mortification to my list of overwhelming emotions. I try hard to hide my distress, but I doubt I'm all that effective.

  "Everything okay?" she asks.

  It's a ridiculous question. It's obvious that everything's not okay. Nothing's okay. I don't even know what okay is anymore. But something in Bits's eyes expresses the sincerity of her concern, exuding an empathy reminiscent of her brother's. An exceptionally rare degree of understanding and an answering compassion.

  Of course, Bits knows what it's like to feel like utter shit. When she'd intentionally overdosed on pills last summer, after what had once been described to me as a bad breakup, it had really shaken her older brother. And it was Sam who confided in me about it. But pain knows pain, and I recognized something kindred in Bits almost immediately.

  "No," I whisper. It's the first time I've admitted it out loud, and there's something vaguely freeing about it. Bits just nods and, to my surprise, wraps me in a hug.

  I lean into her, accepting her offer of friendship. We pull away at the same time, and though I hate that Bits went through what she went through, it helps to know someone has gone through hell and come out the other end okay. She certainly seems okay, anyway.

  "I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you're going to get through this. And one day, maybe not as soon as you'd like, but one day down the road, you're going to look back at all this and see it differently," she says with a wisdom that is far beyond her sixteen years.

  I don't know if it's true, of course. It doesn't seem likely. That there will be a time when I'll come to terms with being without Sam, when I'll accept the way I lost Cam. If I'll be able to move on from Robin. If he'll even let me go. Sam will move on eventually. If he hasn't already. He'll meet a girl, and if I want to stay in his life I'll have to be okay with it. How could any of that ever feel okay? It all feels so hopeless. I feel the ache in my chest and the emptiness in my gut as sharp as ever.

  But it lifts my pitiful mood to hear that at least for Bits, her depression is in the past. To see her looking genuinely happy.

  "Sure hope so," I mutter.

  Bits smiles faintly in reassurance. And then I nearly panic again.

  "Shit, Bits, please don't tell Sam about this. I don't want him to think-"

  "Don't be ridiculous." She says a line her brother has dropped so many times. "Sammy only thinks I tell him everything," and she smiles wryly.

  From absolutely nowhere, a small laugh makes its way up my throat, and in its wake a small, barely-there smile.

  The door opens behind me and my mother emerges from the vestibule, holding my purse.

  "Rory, I'm sorry—" she begins.

  "It's fine." I cut her off. She's relieved, but she doesn't let it show long as she notices our company.

  "This is my friend, Beth," I tell my mother. Really only her immediate family calls her Bits, and it's probably weird that I call her that, but it's the way Sam introduced her to me.

  My mother would have recognized her if I'd called her Bits, but I don't want to embarrass her by explaining exactly who she is. We are at a therapists office, after all, and one who specializes in teen victims of abuse and depression at that. Though the hint of recognition in my mother's expression tells me the unmistakable midnight blue of Bits's eyes didn't get past her.

  "Nice to meet you, I'm Sam Caplan's sister," she introduces herself. I guess she's not
quite as ashamed of her issues as I am of mine.

  Bits excuses herself so she can get to her appointment, and I spend the next several minutes convincing my mother that I'm now okay to drive.

  When we meet up back at home, neither of us brings up Cam or our failure of a therapy session, and dinner is a quiet and somber event. We don't force conversation, there's no need. It's not our first dinner shrouded in silence and regret.

  Chapter Three

  I speed walk around the perimeter of the school so that I don't keep my friends waiting for lunch. They all leave through the entrance near the gym since it's adjacent to the student lot, but I still can't bring myself to walk past the locker rooms. I see Carl and Tina in the distance standing by her car waiting on me, but I'm startled by the male figure huddled behind the steps leading to the lot.

  "Dave?" I ask when I reach him and realize who it is. He spins to face me.

  "Shh!" he replies, looking a bit panicked. I raise my eyebrows in question. What the hell is he doing? But then I follow his gaze to Chelsea's white BMW, where she and a couple of her friends, including Lily, are chatting.

  "You are not hiding from Lily right now…"

  His expression tells me that that is precisely what he is doing. I start cracking up, and I'm vaguely aware that it's probably the first time I've really laughed since Miami.

  "Either get lost, or get back here and hide, Pine!" he loud-whispers.

  I really have to get to Carl's car, but I join Dave for a minute and mimic his position crouched behind the concrete steps, still laughing.

  "Did you see her? Was she looking this way?" Dave asks anxiously. It is incredibly comical.

  "She's just standing around by Chelsea's car," I assure him. "What happened? You two were getting along so well over break." Actually they were hooking up over break, and I'm pretty sure Lily was hoping for it to continue.

  Dave raises his eyebrows at me. I deflate. Of course, they're not the only ones who were getting along especially well in Miami. I almost hate it when Dave has these random moments of wisdom—I prefer his usual role as the comic relief in our group. Compassion marks his features, and maybe a little regret. I don't think he meant to wipe the amusement from my face so quickly and completely.