“Hi, Mom,” I half whisper, half choke. There are way too many eyes on me.

“These are the ladies from the Leukemia Foundation. Ladies, you remember my youngest daughter, Rachel.” My mother graces me with a smile I thought was reserved only for my brothers: one of pride.

They all comment on how it’s nice to see me and how beautiful I look and ask Mom where we bought my dress. I move like a bobblehead while my clammy fingers twist behind my back.

“I loved the speech you gave the other night,” says an elderly woman to my right. Her pungent perfume hits me wrong, and I concentrate on not gagging. I nod, and the gesture only encourages her to speak more.

To the left and a bit across from me, I catch sight of a lady my mother’s age touching Mom’s arm. Mom introduced us earlier—Meg is her name, I think. She was Colleen’s private nurse. They both stare at me, and my heart sinks with the knowledge that I must be their topic of conversation.

“You’re right,” Meg says to Mom. “She does resemble Colleen.”

The woman to my right continues to talk about the speech I made at Colleen’s event. I make fleeting eye contact because I’m more interested in overhearing my mother.

“She’s not as outgoing as Colleen,” Meg adds.

“No,” Mom responds with a hint of sadness. “Rachel’s a little quieter.” A very dramatic pause. “But her father and I are helping her with that. She’s made huge improvements over the last two years. All on her own.” I hear the pride. “All without therapy.”

I miss therapy. I miss having someone to talk to, someone who can empathize with what it feels like to walk into a room and have fear and anxiety consume you to the point that you can’t breathe. But what I don’t miss about therapy is how my family regarded me as if I was breakable, as if I was weak.

“With each day, she reminds me a little more of her sister,” Mom says.

I remind her of Colleen. I should be happy. I’m becoming what my mother wants. But right now, I want to cry.

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt the older woman, who’s still droning on. “I need to excuse myself.”

Chapter 17

Isaiah

I STAND ON THE EDGE of the crumbling brick wall built to protect people from the thirty-foot drop. In the distance, high-rises glimmer and thousands of white twinkling lights circle the city. Each light represents a neighborhood, a house, a home, a family, a person—people who are wanted. It’s the last night of December and it’s fifty degrees. Great for a guy who doesn’t own a jacket.

Forty-eight hours have officially passed since I met Rachel. I’ve thought about her; her beauty, her laughter, that shy smile, our kiss. She discovered a deep hole in my chest and somehow filled it with her existence. Now she’s gone, leaving me alone, leaving me hollow.

Glancing around the panoramic scene, I know I would have brought her here. This place has been abandoned for decades, and few care that you can still drive up the steep hill as long as you move the flimsy wooden barricades.

Sixty years ago, teenagers made out here. Legend says the braver ones drag raced the winding mile road and played chicken at the top where no wall exists. When I teeter on this ledge, I wonder if the drivers who flew over the drop tried to stop or if they were begging for an excuse to end it all.

I would have loved to see Rachel’s expression when she saw the city like this. But Eric and his crew are watching everyone closely as they search for her and the two college boys. I refuse to be the link between Eric and Rachel. She’s safer without me. She’s better off without me. Besides, it’s not like anything would have happened between us.

Movement in the brush catches my attention, and I turn to see a shadow emerge.

“You are so damn predictable,” says Abby. I finally discern her features as she joins me on the wall. Like always, she wears a fitted blue hoodie and even tighter blue jeans.

I have a million questions, but stick with the important one. “What are you doing here?”

“Tradition, jackass.” Not caring that thirty feet below is nothing but sharp rocks, she sits on the wall and dangles her legs over the edge. “I have a gift for you.”

Still mad over losing my rent money, I angle my body away from her. “Leave, Abby.”

“Cut the attitude. That was business. This is friends. Do you want your gift or not?”

The two of us have an odd relationship. We met when we were ten. My then foster father used to take me to the auto shop I work at now, and she used to play in the alley behind the garage. We struck up a friendship that never went away and never stopped being odd. Abby is the longest steady relationship I’ve had with one person, which makes her special.

Special means I’ll put up with her shit. With a sigh, I sit, leaving several feet between us. “How did you get here?”

She reaches into her hoodie. “Asked a client to drop me off and then hiked.”

A client, meaning a buyer, because she’s a seller. “You shouldn’t get in cars with them.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. I typically don’t. But this guy is clean-cut.”

“Which means you should definitely watch your back. Image means nothing.” What people project to the world never shows what’s lurking on the inside.

“You liked her, didn’t you?” she asks, ignoring what I said. “The cute, fuzzy bunny?”

I say nothing and survey the northeast side of town. She’s over there somewhere. Is Rachel happy I never called, or did I break her heart? As much as I hate the idea of it, I hope she’s relieved. She deserved better than me.

“You know what I find interesting?” she asks.

“What?”

“That you still lie to Noah about where you go for New Year’s Eve.”

“My business. Not his.”

“I also find it curious that Fuzzy Bunny isn’t here with you if you liked her so much.”

“I never brought Beth here,” I say in defense.

“You never smiled at Beth like I saw you smile at her.”

I shift, uncomfortable that Abby saw something so intimate between me and Rachel. “You said you had a gift.”

I hear plastic rubbing together in her hand and, because Abby carries very little on her, it has to be a baggy. “Patience, Grasshopper. If I’m giving this type of gift then I want to know it’s for a good cause. Answer me about the girl.”

Flooded with the urge to tell someone, I pull on my bottom earring. “Yeah. I liked her.” Because saying it makes it real, and it was real. “But we would have only been friends.”

She’s silent except for the sound of her heel occasionally hitting the brick wall. “I liked this guy last year, but I blew him off after a couple of days. He came from a good home and was a good guy. Sometimes it’s better that we let the good catches go, you know?”

Her feet continue to kick against the wall. Abby’s not one to share, so that statement had to take a lot out of her. “Yeah. I do know.”

“I hear you need money,” she says.

That grabs my attention. “Says who?”

“No one.” Abby smirks. “You don’t street race and you did. The only reason I could come up with is that you’re low on funds.”

“Wanna give me my money back?”

“Hell no.”

Gotta respect her for that.

“I know someone that’s interested in your skills with cars, Isaiah. He’s been watching you for a while and he’ll pay well.”

“Does your friend give out W-2 forms?”

Abby chuckles. “One thousand in cash for every car you jack. All you need is a lot full of empty cars and your hotwiring capabilities.”

“Not interested.”

“If you change your mind...”

“I won’t.” I’m not interested in becoming a criminal. Once you enter the land of illegal, someone, somewhere owns you.

She withdraws a joint from the baggie. “This is the last of my supply. Once this is gone, I swear not to sell again for the rest of this year.”

Easy promise, since there are only minutes left until the new year begins. Abby’s not a fan of what she does, but she’s good at business and at selling. If she could ever get the hell off the streets she’d probably become someone. “You don’t have to sell,” I say.

“You didn’t have to street race.”

Point taken.

Abby stares out over the blinking lights of the city. “I saw my dad today.” I hear the hurt in her voice.

My heart aches for her. Before I can think of something to say to help her feel better, she continues, “I was going to share this with you, but now I don’t think I want to.” Abby extends the joint to me. “You can have it.”

I roll the joint in my hand: two inches long and thin. I first smoked up in eighth grade and hated the loss of control. But hanging with the people I knew, surviving in the homes I lived in, I learned quick how to blend in and conform. It’s amazing what you can convince people of just by touching a joint to your lips. “Are you sure you don’t want it?”

She shakes her head. I place the joint between my thumb and forefinger and snap it over the thirty-foot drop. Abby claps. “Well played.” She hoots, then yells, “Happy fucking New Year, nature. You can have your shit back.”

Abby lapses into silence. Somewhere in the distance below, glass shatters. Most likely a home invasion. The sad part is, neither one of us flinch.

“I knew you’d gone straight,” Abby says. “I take that back—not gone straight, but that you weren’t as hard-core as everyone thinks.”

“I know,” I respond. Abby is the one person who has always known. When everyone else was higher than kites, she’d look over and realize that I was sober—because she was, too.

“If I had asked, you would have smoked it with me,” she says.

I nod. Because she wouldn’t have wanted to do it alone, and because the only reason she would have done it is because it hurt her so much to see her dad. “I would have taken a hit.” One. Because that’s the most I’d ever take with anyone.

Her phone beeps. “One minute to the New Year.”

I stare at her in shock. “You set your alarm?”

Abby raises her face to the sky. “Maybe next year will be better.” She’s been saying that forever. I reach into my jacket and extract a lighter. Abby smiles because she knows what I’m about to do. “Do you want me to count it down?” she asks.

“Up to you.”

Abby watches her phone and counts from ten to two. The moment she says one I flick my lighter and hold the single flame into the night.

That’s right, world: one more year has passed and I’m still fucking here.

Chapter 18

Rachel

I OVERSLEPT. LAST NIGHT, I had a hard time falling asleep as my mind replayed the events of winter break. I worried over Isaiah and Ethan and school and Mom and lies and...Isaiah. Like always, sleep eventually came, but not without consequences.

I’m late. Not really late as in school-will-start-soon late. But late as in I-have-a-routine-and-I’m-not-keeping-it late. West calls it superstition. I call him an idiot. My days, they go better if I follow the tradition: an apple and one slice of toast for breakfast, watch the first few minutes of the morning news, double-check my backpack, drive the long way to school and sit in my car for five minutes before walking into the school building.