I catch my breath and erase any hint of emotion from my voice, as if the kiss had no effect on me. “Was that enough proof?”

Marco smiles like he thinks I’m teasing him. It takes every ounce of strength I have not to smile back. When he realizes I’m serious, confusion flickers in his eyes. His shoulders tense, and he becomes all hard edges and sharp corners again. “So did I measure up?” he asks.

“What are you talking about?”

“Rich girls like you only kiss guys like me because you’re curious. You want to see how a tattooed thug compares to a rich boy from Heights. I’m the guy you hook up with when you’re pissed off at Daddy or you want to make your rich private-school boyfriend jealous.” The second he says it, Marco cringes.

But the words punch holes in me like bullets. I put both hands on his chest and shove him away. “Then you have nothing to worry about, because my rich boyfriend is dead.”

Marco drags his hands over his face and stares at the ground. “I wasn’t thinking, Frankie. I’m an asshole.”

“You’re right.” I slide off the hood and walk away without looking back.

CHAPTER 16

CRITICAL LIFE SKILLS

After the party and my conversation with Marco, I can’t sleep.

I shouldn’t want him, but I do.

Worse … I want him to want me.

I need to stop thinking about him—and the kiss. And his expression when I pretended it didn’t mean anything. He looked hurt, but it was probably shock. I injured his pride, that’s all.

Marco wouldn’t let a girl from the Heights have the upper hand.

By now everyone in the Downs probably knows I kissed him. That will make afternoons at the rec center fun. Listening to thirteen-year-olds gossip about me ranks right below attending another tree-planting ceremony.

If I know the kiss didn’t mean anything, and I’ll probably pay for every second of it at school on Monday, why am I still thinking about it?

When our lips touched, my fears fell away, and I felt safe for the first time since Noah died.

Noah.

My first kiss.

My first everything.

Why didn’t my body melt into Noah’s like that when he touched me? Why wasn’t it more intense? Maybe I’m so emotionally screwed up that I can’t tell the difference. It’s easier to tell myself that than feel guilty about the truth.

Noah was so many things … a kick-ass lacrosse player and a terrible speller, a guy who would never turn his back on a friend or pass up seconds at Thanksgiving, the kind of guy who seemed so perfect that you wanted to hate him until he admitted all his flaws. He should’ve been the guy who melted me with a kiss. Not Marco.

Intensity isn’t what I need.

Guys like Marco want girls they can get into bed. I’m not that girl. So why does his kiss still haunt me?

When it comes to Noah—the real ghost in my life—I find myself turning to the journal I started for Mrs. Hellstrom’s class. Maybe writing Noah’s story gives me a place to put all the fears and emotions I can’t express out loud.

And maybe it will help me remember.

I pull the notebook out of my backpack and turn to a blank page.

Noah died in a parking lot in the Heights, seven days before his eighteenth birthday.

Most people know that part of the story.

The son of a wealthy Washington, DC, entrepreneur being beaten to death on the pavement outside a club sent the local media into overdrive.

Every detail related to the crime became public knowledge.

Noah’s time of death.

His blood alcohol concentration.

When the reporters ran out of relevant information and I refused to talk to them, they settled for whatever they could dig up. Interviews with Noah’s teachers as they clutched tissues and chronicled his years of academic success. Photos of him wearing his lacrosse uniform or standing next to his father in the suits Noah hated wearing. His favorite food (Hawaiian pizza) and his favorite subject (history, according to his mom—but in reality, study hall).

The only parts of the story the press never figured out were the ones that actually mattered.

Who killed him.

And why.

* * *

Abel texts me way too early on Sunday morning, to ask if he can come by and talk. I’m still angry with him, but he never gets up early unless he has to, and Abel doesn’t do serious talks. Those are two red flags.

I meet Abel in front of Dad’s building. He sits slouched in the driver’s seat of his Land Cruiser, staring blankly at a plastic tricycle on the grass. I knock on the passenger-side window, and it takes him a moment to react.

He hits the unlock button, and I climb in next to him.

“Sorry. Rough night.” Abel runs a hand over his face. He looks like crap. The shadows under his eyes are dark enough to pass for bruises, and there’s no sign of his easy smile.

“What happened?”

Abel tightens his grip on the steering wheel. “Lex told me she doesn’t want to see me anymore. I’ve never been dumped by someone who refuses to be my girlfriend.”

“You lied to her more than once. What did you expect?”

“I screwed up. I get it. But this is about more than that. She’s been looking for an excuse to bolt.” Abel picks at a hole in his T-shirt. “After everything that happened this summer, I thought things would finally work out with us.”

“What do you mean by ‘everything that happened this summer’?”

He shakes his head. “I figured Lex told you. I guess it didn’t mean anything to her.”

“What? You have to give me more than that.”

“We hooked up … more than hooked up.” He hesitates, like he wants to get the next part just right. “We were together, like a real couple. Even if we never talked about it. But the closer we got, the more it scared her. She used the gambling as an excuse to walk away.”

Together, like a real couple.

They slept together. That’s what he means.

It’s the part Lex keeps leaving out. My best friend lost her virginity with our other best friend, and she didn’t tell me.

Why am I surprised? I spent the whole summer avoiding them both. But Lex kept calling and e-mailing. She never gave up. She even picked me up on the first day of school and acted like nothing had happened.

Abel rests his forehead against the steering wheel. “Who ends a relationship before it even starts?”