It’s almost eleven in the morning by the time I wake up Saturday. Nora isn’t in my bed, and I’m both disappointed and glad about that. I get up, feeling the most well-rested I have in a long time. Bright sunlight pours through the windows, warming my room. I shower and get dressed, then head downstairs.

“He’s alive!” Dad says, doing his best Doctor Frankenstein impression, complete with throwing up his hands and ending with an evil laugh. I cock an eyebrow and shake my head, trying not to laugh.

“Funny, Dad.” I go right to the fridge.

“Morning, Jackie.” Mom comes into the kitchen with a basket of clean towels. “You slept in today.” She’s unable to hide how happy it makes her, which is really sad if you think about it. The insomnia hit me hard and hasn’t lifted since. Taking those sleeping pills made me feel too out of it and didn’t keep the nightmares away.

Mom sets the laundry down and comes over, putting her hand on my chin and tipping my head down. I’m taller than her—I’m taller than my dad too—and she has to stand on her toes to get a good look at me. “I haven’t seen you without dark circles under your eyes in too long. I almost forgot how handsome you are.” She winks then pulls me in for a hug. I’m not an affectionate person, and how emotional Mom gets makes me a bit uncomfortable. I try to be understanding and hug her back.

“Where is everyone?” I hope it doesn’t sound obvious, and I hope no one knew Nora spent the night with me last night, that she’s the reason I was able to get eight hours of solid sleep. Just thinking about her body, soft and warm, pressed against me sends waves of comfort through me.

“The girls went down to the lake. You should go. Roni said a bunch of kids from school are going and it’s such a nice day out today.” Mom drops not so subtle hints that I should go out and be social like I used to. I always say no.

“I think I will. I haven’t been there in a while.”

Mom is so shocked she actually takes a step back and looks at Dad, who looks at me blinking before he smiles. Dad gives me money, telling me to take Veronica and Nora to lunch later. Mom makes me breakfast and then I take off, driving to the lake.

It’s at the base of the mountains and the water is always cold. There’s a small section of manmade beach and a restaurant along the water’s edge. I used to come here all the time, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I get out of my Jeep and walk through the parking lot.

Bright sunlight pours down on me, making me hot by the time I get to the sand. I spot my sister surrounded by her friends. They’re laying out tanning, and Alice, my least favorite of Veronica’s friends, sees me first. She sits up, adjusting her skimpy bikini top, and smiles.

“Hey, Jack!” She pushes her shoulders back, lifting her chest up into the air.

Veronica jumps up, eyes wide. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” I scan the group of girls, looking for Nora.

“Then why are you here?”

Nora isn’t there, and the disappointment I’m feeling is more than I expected. I shrug. “I wanted to come.”

The concern on my sister’s face melts away into a smile. Fuck, I hate that I’ve driven my family to this, to the point where me going out to do normal things is a rarity.

“Do you want to hang out with us?” Alice asks, bringing her sunglasses down her nose.

Veronica rolls her eyes. She knows Alice has had a crush on me for years and it annoys the shit out of her. “I doubt he came here to hang out with us, right, Jack?”

“Right.” I take a step back and Alex and Talon, two guys I used to call friends, come over. They have a football in hand and a minute later, we’re throwing it around. I go long for a catch, and I see her. My heart flutters and I almost miss the football. Nora looks up just in time, smiling as soon as her eyes meet mine.

“That was fun,” I tell Alex and hand him back the football.

“Taking off already?” he asks.

“I’ll be back. Maybe.” My eyes are still on Nora, and the guys follow my line of sight to her.

“You fucking the new girl?” Talon grins. “She's hot. Check out those tits.”

“I wouldn’t talk about the tits on the girl Jack is fucking,” Alex says dryly. “Go have fun with her.” He claps me on the back and then meets my gaze. “It’s good having you back, man.”

Next to Jason, Alex is—was—my closest friend. I’ve known him almost as long, and the three of us were inseparable in our younger years. He drifted away a bit the last year or two; lucky for him, given the shit that happened. Alex is the only one of my friends to keep checking in and keep trying. Everyone else wanted to move on.

I couldn’t.

I wouldn’t.

Maybe it was because I wouldn’t allow myself, like the therapist said. Whatever it was, I stayed in the same place while the world moved on without me.

Nora smiles when I draw near, holding her hand up to her face to shade out the sun. She’s sitting on a rock that juts out over the water, and she’s wearing a black bikini with cut-off denim shorts. Her sandals are on the rock behind her, and her hair is in a messy braid over her shoulder.

“Hey, sleeping beauty. Want to join me?”

“Shut up,” I say with a smile. “It felt good to sleep in.” It felt good to sleep with her by my side, but I don’t say it out loud. I take off my shoes and sit next to her, dangling my feet over the water.

“Are you going in?” she asks, leaning forward. “It’s so cold.”

“It’s always cold. There are underground streams that come down from the mountains. I used to go in on hot days, but it’s not hot enough today to warm back up.”

“The sun feels glorious today.” She closes her eyes and tips her head up. Under direct sunlight, little freckles are visible on her cheeks. The breeze blows loose strands from her braid around her face. She’s gorgeous.

“This morning,” I start. “Did anyone see you?”

She shakes her head, keeping her eyes shut. “I left at like four in the morning. I stayed to make sure you were asleep then went back to Veronica’s room. I got like three hours of sleep before your parents got up. They’re really loud in the mornings.”

“Tell me about it. So, I take it you’re tired?”

“Yes. That’s why I came over here. Everyone was too loud and cheery, though this rock isn’t the most comfortable place for a nap.”

“No, it’s not.”

She yawns and rests her head against my shoulder. Feeling eyes on me, I turn to look at the people along the water. Alice is glaring at us, and quickly looks away when she catches my eye.

“I haven’t been able to sleep well either,” she confesses. “I miss my bed. I had a queen bed before, you know. With the best sheets and the most comfortable pillows. Plus, I liked being home. It was familiar. Now…now everything is different.”

It’s easy to forget everything Nora has been through. “You lost so much,” I say more to myself than to her, and instantly feel like an ass for pointing it out.

“Yeah.” Her chest rises with a heavy sigh and she closes her eyes. “I’ve never been more homesick in my whole life.”

“It’s shitty they wouldn’t let you bring your stuff.”

“Yeah. It is. My stuff that I couldn’t pack and take with me—like the bed—got put into storage. The house is for sale now.”

“I never realized how much goes into things like that.”

“I didn’t either,” she admits. “I never thought about it before. My grandma prepared me for it, but we both thought she’d have at least another ten or fifteen years before she had to slow down. She hardly looked older than fifty, though that might be thanks to a few facelifts and some Botox.”

“There’s no way you could have stayed?”

“I was staying with a friend. Her parents were okay with it, and they let me bring my cat.”

“You had to leave your cat? Fuck. I don’t even want to think about having to leave Charlie.”

“Yep. Becca’s parents were fine with us being there. Both of her parents are producers. They weren’t home much anyway, so having the extra person around to hang out with Becca was nice.” She shivers, and I know it’s not from the cold water. Her feet are nowhere near it and the sun is beating down hard, making me sweat. “Then social services came, saying they had a family who wanted me. Like I was some sort of homeless animal. Not too many people want to foster teens, I guess.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry, Nora.” I tip my head down, noticing the emotion she’s fighting. She waits a beat, then forces herself to smile before looking out at the horizon. I don’t know how she can be so strong.

“This is the closest I’ve ever been to the mountains like this,” Nora says. “I always knew they were big, but they’re…they’re so much more. I know it doesn’t make sense.”

“It does,” I agree and put my arm around her. A sense of peace settles inside me, and I long to be closer to Nora. I’m walking a thin line, and I know the danger I’m putting us both in. There’ll be no stopping me, and if things go too far, I won’t turn back.

“You should go up there sometime. There are lots of trails.”

“No way.” Nora angles her body closer to mine. Her breasts press against me, and it’s all I can do not to lay her back and move on top of her. “I’d get lost.”

“That’s the point.”

We sit in silence for a moment, enjoying the sun. My eyelids fall shut, and a soft breeze blows Nora’s hair into my face again. I bring my hand up, cupping her cheek, and slide my other arm farther around her. Nora inches closer and my heart starts to pound. I’m aware of everything around us. The mountains. The water. The warm sun. My sister, only yards from us. I shouldn’t get this close to Nora. I should be resisting the strong urge I have to kiss her.

The craving to feel her against me is dark and consuming. Yes, I’m aware of everything around us, but I don’t care. I want to feel again. I want to be with someone who doesn’t look at me and see blood and pain.

I want her.

Her hand settles on my side, fingers slipping under the hem of my shirt. Gently, she brushes a fingertip over my scar and my skin bristles. Heat goes through me, driving me to act and not think. I lean forward, lips parting.

I’m going to kiss her.

I don’t care who sees.

I don’t care if it’s wrong.

Nora tips her head up, and her nails dig into my skin.

And then a car in the parking lot backfires, the loud pop echoing off the mountains. Suddenly, I’m there.

The smell always gets me first. I can be perfectly calm, not thinking about it at all, and it hits me as hard as the bullet did when it ripped through my flesh on my side. It’s not real. I’m not there, yet I can smell it like I’m standing in the thick of it all over again.

Gunpowder.

Blood.

Gasoline.

I hear it next. The rapid firing of a gun. Screams. More shots. My own voice ringing out over the harrowing hail of gunfire.

Then I see it, and when I get to that point, I’m gone. The blood. The bodies. The look in Jason’s eyes. The way his body fell after the final bullet tore through him.

“Jack?” Nora’s voice is distant. She’s sitting right next to me, yet it sounds like we’re separated by a thick door. “Hey, Jack. Can you hear me?” Her hands go to mine. I blink, forcing my eyes to focus on her face.

There are no guns firing. There is no blood around me. I’m not pulling the trigger and watching the bullet hit my best friend.

“Jack?” Nora moves her hand to my face, turning my head in. “Are you okay?”

I blink away the living nightmare and focus on the deep green of her eyes. I twist my hand and lace my fingers through hers, and the panic starts to fade, just like it did last night.

“No,” I whisper, and for the first time in over a year, I tell the truth.

Her jaw tenses and she closes the distance between us, sliding her hand down my back as she leans in. I wrap her in a tight embrace, burying my face in her hair.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, and she doesn’t have to continue for me to know what she means. She’s not telling me that I’ll be okay, that life will somehow click together and be okay. She’s telling me it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to admit it. And it’s okay to have someone to lean on.

“Yeah,” I whisper back, feeling it for the first time since that god-awful day. “I think it will be.”

* * *

The first thing I do every morning is go to the window and look out at the Kellers’ treehouse. Most mornings, Nora is in it. Today, light rain falls and thunder rumbles through the mountains in the distance. I doubt she’ll be out there, but I look anyway.

By the time I’m ready to walk out the door, the rain has stopped. Nora isn’t on her front porch like usual. Veronica told me Nora talked to Stephanie and she was fine with me giving Nora a ride to school in the mornings, like she did yesterday.

I toss my bag in the back of the Jeep and sit inside, waiting for Nora. She’s usually outside by now, and I’ve come to know that she’s a particularly punctual person, made that way by living with her strict grandmother. Running late stresses her out. Five minutes pass and worry builds inside my chest.

I don’t know what happened yesterday, but Nora was in Mrs. Freeman’s office for a long time. Long enough that I had to leave the office instead of waiting for her in that mothball smelling chair like I usually do. She was a bit more reserved the rest of the day, and when I saw her outside in the treehouse listening to music, she only half-smiled and turned away.

Growing impatient and realizing that I’m going to have to go inside and yell at Veronica to get a move on, I get out and go around to the back of the house to look for Nora. She’s not in the treehouse, and if it wasn’t for Charlie sitting at the edge of the yard, I would have missed her. He’s anxiously looking past the bushes, whining and wagging his tail. I follow his line of sight to the person sitting on a large, flat rock alongside the alley. Her back is to me and her hood is up, but I can tell by her hunched shoulders she’s upset.

Nora throws small stones into a muddy puddle. The ends of her hair are wet from the misty rain that surrounds us, and the bottoms of her boots are muddy. Loose gravel crunches under my feet as I draw near, and Nora looks up. Her eyes are red as if she’s been crying.

“Hey, Jack.” She wipes her hands on her jeans, leaving little muddy streaks on her thighs. Quickly, she wipes away her tears.

“Are you okay?” I stop in front of her. She closes her eyes in a long blink, jaw trembling as she tries to compose herself.

“Today’s my mom’s birthday. I didn’t think it would bother me, but it is.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Nora picks up another pebble and throws it hard into the puddle. “She would have been thirty-three today.”

I’m bad at math, but even I know thirty-three sounds young to have a sixteen-year-old daughter.

“Yes, my parents had me when they were teenagers,” Nora goes on, seeing the curiosity on my face. Her hands go to the damp alley ground again, rolling loose stones between her fingers. “They were the exception, they beat the odds. And it meant shit in the end.”

Her fingers curl into a fist, and she throws a handful of gravel as hard as she can into the puddle, causing little droplets of brown water to splatter her arm.

“My mom got her shit together, even though she was just a kid. Married my dad. Went to college. They built a life of themselves—for me. We were happy and then…and then it all got taken away from me.”

“You mean when they died?”

“Yes.” Nora’s eyes fill with tears. “They were hit by a drunk driver. I was in the car with them.”

“Shit, Nora. Saying sorry doesn’t feel like enough.”

Her eyes meet mine, and the pain I see hurts my heart. “That’s when I went to live with my grandma, and on my mom’s birthday, she’d drive me hours and hours away to Greendale—where my mom and dad originally were from—to put yellow lilies on her grave. And now…now…” Her voice thins, and she takes a few seconds before she can go on. “My grandma gave me everything she could. Made sure I went to a good school. Put me in study groups and all that shit. And she was real. She knew my life was fucked up and didn’t hide it. She was my grandma, my mom, and my friend. And now we can’t go see Mom’s grave because…now she’s rotting in a piece of shit nursing home hours away and I’m here, in this stupid house with these stupid people all because some stupid judge said this is the way it has to be.”

Tears fall from her eyes, melting away the I-don’t-give-a-damn exterior she holds around herself, and for the first time, I see her. The real her.

Hurt.

Vulnerable.

Scared.

For the first time, I see myself reflected back in her eyes. Bad shit happened to her. It’s not fair, and no amount of convincing can make me believe everything happens for a reason. Things just happen, and it doesn’t matter who’s there. They just happen.

And it happened to Nora.

I shuffle closer, gravel crunching under my shoes, and extend a hand. Nora looks at it, eyes glistening from the early morning sunlight, making it look like someone tossed emeralds into a fire. She pushes her raven hair back and raises her gaze to me in question.

“Get up.” The words come out gruffer than I intend. I’m trying to keep my emotions in check. Trying, and failing.

Nora wipes the mud off her hand, and then moves her arm up, slipping her fingers in between mine. Her soft skin against the roughness of my palm sends a jolt through me, and I blink, looking down at her hand in mine. Small. Delicate. I could easily swallow her whole, consuming her and turning her whole world dark.

Part of me thinks it already is.

I pull her to her feet with ease, and the wind blows her hair into my face. The sweet floral scent of her shampoo mixes with the pungent smell of the wet earth beneath our feet.

“Do you know where it is?” I ask, still holding her hand in mine.

“Where what is?”

“The piece of shit nursing home.”

She looks right into my eyes and nods. She hasn’t wiped away her tears. She’s not ashamed to feel. “Yeah. I do. It’s in Greendale.”

Greendale is just about two hours away from here. “Then let’s go.”

Her mouth opens ever so slightly, and my mind jumps to what I want to do to those full, pink lips. I look away. She’s my little sister’s friend. I can’t. I shouldn’t. Oh, but I want to.

“We have school,” she whispers.

I shrug. “Sure. Unless you’d rather sit through math or something.”

Her shock turns into a smile, and only this girl could look so beautiful right now, with mud covering her shoes, hair a windblown mess, and tears streaking her cheeks.

“I like math, you know. I just moved to the senior math class.”

“I heard.” I put my hand on her waist and move closer. My body is reacting to hers in every way that it shouldn’t. She’s sixteen. I’m eighteen. She’s Veronica’s friend.

But I get her, and for some strange reason, she gets me.

“How do we do it?”

I swallow. There are so many things I want to do with her. To her. “Do what?”

“Skip school.”

The wind picks up along with the rain. Nora shivers and I slip my hand from her waist to her back, pulling her in against me. “Josh Greyson works in the office every morning. He’ll fake a note for the secretary if you pay him.”

“And that works?”

“So far. I’ll text him now.” Getting my phone out of my pocket means letting go of Nora, which is the last thing I want to do. It takes a bit of mental force to remove my hand from her back and reach into my jacket.

“He’ll do it,” I tell Nora, getting a response from Josh almost instantly.

“How much?”

“Twenty bucks. He’s cheap.”

“I’ll give you ten,” she offers, then wrinkles her nose. It’s fucking adorable. “Except I don’t have access to my money. Or my car. Or even my phone.”

“They took your phone away?”

She rolls her eyes. “Supposedly it helps with the adjustment or something. I’ll get it back in a few weeks. I have like a year and a half left on my grandma’s plan anyway.”

“You had a car?”

“It was a birthday present from my grandma.”

I blink. “I didn’t realize interior designers made that much.”

Nora laughs. “By L.A. standards, we were just regular people. Though you’d be surprised how much celebrities are willing to pay for a well-designed space.”

Veronica’s voice echoes off the houses, startling us. “Jack? Where the hell are you? We’re going to be late!”

“So much for ditching school.”

“I have an idea,” Nora says and looks toward the front of the house. “Let’s go.”