The tile was cold and gritty against my cheek, and my body ached as I was hauled roughly off the floor.

“She weighs a ton. She doesn’t seem like it, but she does.”

“Shut up and grab her before she smacks her head on the toilet.”

I knew that voice. How did I know that voice? Hands slipped beneath my armpits and more of my body was forced upright.

“Where am I?” I groaned as light rays like daggers pierced my eyes.

“Are you kidding me? No,” the first voice said, annoyed. “No—eww, she’s disgusting. She’s not going in my car.”

“Then we’ll use hers. Find her purse.” The second voice seemed close to my ear. Gentler, somehow. I leaned toward it.

“Here.” A jingle, louder than a siren. My head lolled on my shoulders, throbbing. This light was so bright. I slumped. I was suspended between two sagging bars.

“Good. I’ll take her car,” the familiar voice said. “You can follow me in mine.”

“You know where she lives?” asked the first voice.

“Yeah.”

“Stalker,” the first voice accused the second.

“Would you rather she spent the night with you?”

“No, thank you,” said the first voice. “The quicker I get this bitch off my hands, the better.”

My toes were dragging on the ground. Ah, darkness. No more evil light.

“I cannot believe you came,” said the first voice, now.

“You called me.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t expect you to rush over here for her.”

“What did you want me to say?” the second voice replied. “‘That’s nice, now leave her there on the bathroom floor?’ No. She’s my sister, Syl.”

My body was flung this way and that, until it finally landed on something soft and snug as a cocoon.

“Wow, her car is nice. Feel these seats. Like butter.”

“Yeah,” agreed voice number two. Tess. That’s who it was. I knew I knew her voice. “Now pray she doesn’t puke all over them.”

I felt movement, and lights flashing by, along with waves of dizziness. Then blackness.

When the light shone down on me once more, I could make out Tess, a dark specter in the midst of bright daggers.

She looked like a fucking angel. White shirt, hair pulled back into a bun and secured with a pen. Her face was free of makeup, her skin flawless, her eyelashes long and dark, her lips as pink as cotton candy.

“God, I hate you,” I slurred.

Tess pursed her lips. “Right. Okay, let’s get up to your apartment, huh?”

Her friend appeared. The mean redhead. That was the second voice. I knew I’d recognized it! “What did she just say to you?”

“Nothing,” Tess said. “Now heave.”

“Bad choice of words,” said the redhead. Together, they pulled me out of the backseat of my car.

“What apartment are you in?” Tess asked, huffing as we stumbled toward the elevator.

Right. Right. She only knew where I lived because she’d driven Boone there. I jammed my finger against the floor number.

Fucking Boone. “What kind of asshole says he loves you and then walks out the door?” I asked in the silence of the elevator.

“All men are assholes,” the redhead said. “So, all of them.”

“You got that right,” I replied. “What’s your name?” I must have seen it on a hundred checks over the years. “Annabel?”

“No,” she replied. “I’m Sylvia. But I’m flattered anyway.”

I couldn’t even parse that.

“Were you with a guy tonight?” Tess asked. “Was it Boone? Did he abandon you in the bathroom?”

No, my so-called friends had done that.

“Boone’s not even speaking to me,” I murmured. “Thanks to you.”

Boone. Dylan. All the same. Maybe Sylvia was right.

The lights were way too bright on the hallway outside my apartment. When we first rented the place, I’d thought it was a bonus. No murderers could be lurking here. But now they threatened to do the job themselves, with their fluorescent piercing brightness. I squeezed my eyes shut and slumped.

I heard keys jangling and then, oh, bliss. Darkness. I collapsed on a rug I dimly recognized as being the one near my coffee table. So soft. Mmm…

A golden glow encroached upon my oblivion, and I hissed.

“No, not there. Hannah, get into bed, at least.” Perfect, soft hands tried to guide me back up off the floor.

“Stop!” I moaned, swatting at her. “Leave me alone.”

“Better listen to her,” said Sylvia.

“As soon as I’m certain she’s not going to die,” said Tess, as I slumped on the couch. “Are you sure she’s just drunk? Maybe someone roofied her… Hannah, do you remember what happened to you?”

“I remember everything that’s happened to me.” Fucking creepazoid Todd got all handsy, and my so-called friends had decided to give us space at his insistence, so I hid out in the bathroom until he left. “Don’t start acting all big sisterly, like you care…”

“Sylvia, can you get water? I think she just had too many drinks.”

“I could have told you that. They were all doing shots all night.”

“But then her friends went and left her?” Tess said.

“Yes,” Sylvia said, exasperated. “Because they are bitches. We have established this, haven’t we?”

“Right on, Sylvia.” I pumped my fist in the air and my head lolled to the side. Bunch of bitches.

“Come on, Hannah.” Tess put a mug in my hands. “Drink this.”

“No.” I pushed it away. “You’re a bitch, too.”

She sighed.

So did Sylvia. “I rest my case, Tess.”

“Shut up, Syl.” There were hands on my shoes. Tess’s hands were on my fucking shoes!

“Don’t touch me!” I kicked out.

“Ow!”

I peered through slitted eyes to see Tess with her hands over her face, glaring at me.

“Oh my God, Tess!” cried Sylvia. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Muffled.

“Um, no,” said Sylvia. “You’re bleeding! Did she break your nose?”

“No!” cried Tess. She removed her hands. There was blood on her face. My mouth opened. And then, for some reason, I started laughing hysterically.

“That’s it.” Sylvia stood up and headed toward the door. “I’ll be waiting in the car. I can’t stand here and watch you humiliate yourself like this.”

The sound of the door slamming was louder than the Big Bang.

Tess and I just stared at each other. I felt dizzy. And there was blood on her face, dripping like a giant ball of snot from her nose, dark and slow and beautiful.

“I hate you,” I said.

“I know.” She nodded, slowly. “I wish I hadn’t hurt you.”

“You know what I wish?” My throat burned as if my words were acid, creeping up through my spoiled rotten soul. “I wish you were the Swift. You’re so fucking perfect. You’re everything you’re supposed to be.”

“No, Hannah.”

“Everything Dad wants. Everything Dylan wants. Nobody wants me. I don’t even want me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Well, if you say so, it must be right. Because you’re always right. You’re always right, and I’m always wrong. So where does that leave us?” I slumped into the sofa cushions.

Tess was quiet for a moment. “I’m really sorry. For everything. I…think you’d be more comfortable in bed.”

“I think you’d be more comfortable with your head out of your ass.”

She made a little growling noise in her throat. “Hannah.”

I groaned. I could not take another lecture, another piece of advice. Not from perfect, perfect Tess Not-Swift. “Get. Out.” I pointed, I hoped at the door.

I heard it open. I heard it shut.

And then it all went black.

---

The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was that I was lying in my bed, my blue-gray sheets muting the morning light. The second thing I noticed was that someone was knocking on my door.

I sat up. Bad choice. The insides of my head had turned to wet sand, and everything was sliding off its foundation. I put my hand to my temple, as if to hold my brain in place.

There was another knock, very soft. My cell phone lay next to me on the comforter, but when I tried to check the time, I saw it was dead.

The knock came again.

I looked down at myself. A T-shirt and panties. But the inside of my mouth tasted like roadkill, and my face felt gritty with sleep or makeup or vomit or possibly all three.

Another knock. Not urgent. Not angry. Just…not giving up.

“Just a minute.” Bits and pieces of last night were floating up from the swamp of my brain. If that was Tess, I’d never answer the door. I’d shut myself in here for all time and learn to live off toothpaste and ceiling plaster.

Gingerly, I crossed the floor and went on tiptoe to see through the peephole.

Not Tess. Boone.

Boone. Boone looking fresh and gorgeous, even through the distorted fish-eye glass. Holy crap, had Tess called him? That whole toothpaste and ceiling plaster idea was starting to sound better and better.

I groaned. “Go away.”

“I brought you some medicine. And some breakfast.”

“There is no way I am letting you see what I look like right now.”

“Trust me, babe. I have a pretty good idea of what you look like based on how you sounded last night.”

Last. Night. “We spoke last night?” Bits and pieces of memories were rising to the surface, and all of them were humiliating.

There was a chuckle. “Something like that. Come on, let me in.”

I unlocked the door, then backed away as he opened it.

He came in, and his jaw fell. His eyes widened as he took me in. “Whoa.”

I tugged at the hem of my shirt. “I told you.”

“Yeah, you were right. I probably shouldn’t have looked at you like this. I don’t think I can unsee this.”

“Oh, God, it’s that bad?”

He held up a hand. “Kidding!”

I tried to smooth my hair back. “You’re a jerk.”

“And you’re an extra from a zombie movie.” He cocked his head toward the bathroom. “Why don’t you get in the shower and come out when you feel like a human again?”

I lifted my arms at him, my hands dangling from my wrists. “Braaaaaaains,” I moaned.

“You think that’s funny,” he said. “But have you actually seen your reflection yet?”

“No. Maybe I’m a vampire instead.” I wandered into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

Holy shit, there wasn’t a monster gross enough to describe me. Hollywood would kill for this kind of effect. My eyes were an insane mix of raccoon smears and gritty tear tracks. My hair was sticking up in odd directions and stiff with something I feared was my own vomit. My lips were chapped and pale, my skin was blotchy, my teeth were a sickly greenish-grey, and my eyes were bloodshot.

And Boone had made jokes about horror movies and flirted with…this.

I turned on the shower.

I emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later amid a cloud of steam, wrapped up in my fluffiest robe and with my hair combed back from my forehead. The inside of my mouth had been scrubbed to minty freshness. No makeup, and the eyes were still on the red side, but the beast had been tamed.

“Ah, there’s Hannah.” Boone had set the kitchen table with plates and mugs, and was busy setting out some pastries and some egg sandwiches. “I wasn’t sure what your hangover would want to eat, so…”

“My hangover wants coffee.” I plopped into a chair.

“My lady.” He poured me a mug, then watched as I snatched an egg sandwich.

“So,” I said, breaking off a corner of the bread and nibbling.

“So,” he said. “Some night?”

“I called you.” My memory was slowly being dredged for the unsavory details of the previous evening. Apparently I’d become close personal friends with Boone’s voicemail.

He chuckled, then pulled out his phone. “A few times.” He placed the phone between us and pressed a button.

My voice came up, tinny and slurred, but unmistakable.

“And then she just, like, left me here. Alone. I mean, double-u-tee-eff, right? You all do that. Dylan did it. Then my dad. Then you. Then my friends. Then Tess. And you all looooooove me, so much, right? Good to know. Good to know.”

I put down my mug and pressed the heels of my hands into my forehead. “Please, make it stop.”

“The double-u-tee-eff was possibly my favorite part of that one.”

“Staaaaaaahp.”

“Want to hear another one?”

I looked up at his face. “How many are there?”

“A lot. I saw them this morning.”

Fuck me, fuck me, fuck my life. “Oops.”

“Yeah.” He pressed another button.

“You want to know the truth? I might as well tell you, since no one listens anyway. I would rather not graduate than not take this class. I mean, I’d rather take this class than graduate. Is that the same thing? Whatever. My father would kill me. Kiiiiiiiiilllllllll me. Like in my screenplay. Except without the demons. But I don’t care. God, could you imagine? Make him pay to teach me screenwriting and then drop out? Ha, take that Steven Swift!”

This was torture. Actual torture. I should put it in a screenplay. “I am so, so sorry.”

“What class?” Boone’s gaze went right through me. His pastry lay untouched on his plate.

I looked down. “A screenwriting class I got into. It’s stupid. It doesn’t matter.”

He tapped the phone. “It mattered last night. You said you’d rather take it than graduate.”

“No,” I said. “I was right the first time. I’d rather not graduate than not take it.”

He considered this. “You’re right. There is a difference between the two. Maybe you should be a writer. Maybe you could take a class or something and figure that out.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I nibbled on another corner of the sandwich. “It conflicts with one of the required classes for my major.”

“The major you don’t want.”

“Yes.”

“For the degree you don’t give a crap about.”

“Yes.”

“At the college you’re only going to for your father.”

“Yes.”

“Who you hate.”

“Who I’m mad at,” I corrected.

He smiled and all the crackly bits in my brain smoothed out for a moment. “Another important distinction.”

I took another sip of coffee. A big bite of sandwich. “I can’t take it.”

“Why not?”

“I won’t graduate on time.”

“Then don’t graduate on time. I don’t figure you’re going to run out of money.” He raised his coffee mug in a silent salute. “Plus, if you take it and really like it, then maybe you will decide to be a film major. Maybe you’ll decide to switch schools to one that doesn’t have these dumb requirements.”

“Maybe it’ll be a huge waste of time like all my other majors.”

He shrugged. “Could be that, too.”

I was halfway through the sandwich, and nearly through the mug of coffee, and my brain was starting to come back online.

“What if I do that, though? Give up everything and take the class, and I get there the first week, and I’m completely out of my depth? I’m not like these other film people. My script could suck.”

“But you got into the class. They picked you for a reason.”

“Yeah, but this was just a draft. We’re supposed to make it better. Suppose I can’t make it better?”

Boone considered this. “Let me read it.”

“No way.”

He stared at me for a second, then smiled and grabbed his phone. “Fine. We’ll just listen to it instead.”

Oh, no. Oh, no no no no.

“And then she turns around and he’s just like…shredded. You know? His face, his eyes, his mouth. Ripped to pieces. And the bits of the contract are all over the room. And she realizes that she can’t escape, that whatever it says on the contract, that’s what’s going to happen. And then there’s a flashback. Oh, shit, another flashback. Do you think there’s too many of these?”

I groaned and turned it off. “How long does that go on?”

“Let’s just say you left me in suspense round about the fourth gruesome murder,” Boone said. “But even with what little I understood, I was riveted.”

“No you weren’t.”

“Okay,” he conceded. “I was amused.”

I rubbed my temples. “Dude, what are you doing here? Whoever that crazy person is, you should stay far, far away.”

“Probably,” said Boone. “But I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Pick a reason,” he said with a shrug. “Because I’ve been there, too. Because it sounded like you needed someone this morning. Because—” He broke off and looked away.

Because he was still in love with me.

I gulped down the rest of the coffee, letting the liquid scald my throat. It was better than the burning in my eyes or the molten ball of lead in my stomach, or the questions in my brain.

“What else did I say?” I asked hoarsely. “Last night?”

“All kinds of things.” Boone nudged the phone at me. “And some of them, not going to lie, were very, very wild.”

I groaned.

“And some were extremely sweet,” he added. “You can listen if you want.”

I didn’t need to listen. I remembered well enough. “That girl was drunk.”

“In vino veritas.” He cocked his head at me. “Wait, is that Voltaire?”

I laughed in spite of myself.

He scooted around the table and captured my hands in his own. I swallowed. My heart pounded from the mix of caffeine and Boone.

“The girl I heard last night knew herself, Hannah. And you do, too.”

I shook my head. “It sounds easy when you say it.”

“Then I’m saying it wrong. It’s not easy. But it’s true.”

And that was the crux of it. The truth wasn’t easy. That’s why so many people hid from it. That’s why my father had crafted an entire secret life, then forced Tess and now me to play by his rules. I couldn’t do anything about his secrets, but that didn’t mean I had to follow his lead.

Boone was here, now, not caring about what had passed between us. And Tess had come for me last night, and helped me, no matter what I’d said to her. Meanwhile, the friends I’d spent years trying to impress had left me passed out on a bathroom floor. The kind of men my parents wanted me to be with—the Canton boys like Todd—had no compunction about taking advantage of me when I was down.

Boone wasn’t here to ask me for anything, I realized with a start. None of his questions had been about us. They were all about me. About what I wanted, what I needed for myself. He wasn’t trying to be a knight in shining armor. He was trying to be a friend.

Right now, I had the sneaking suspicion that I needed that more than I’d ever needed anything in my life.

But I had no idea what that even looked like. I’d been fucking Boone’s brains out all summer. And every time we tried to make it into something else, we screwed up.

“So what now?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, miserably.

Boone checked the time on his phone. “Think quickly.”

My head jerked up. “Please don’t put a time limit on this for me.”

“I’m not,” he said. “But you said in one of your voice messages that the professor would only hold your spot in the class until noon. If you want it, you’ve got about half an hour to email her back.”

Oh. That. And again, I was astonished to realize that Boone still wasn’t talking about him, about us.

It was just a class. Just one class, out of a dozen wasted classes I’d taken over the years. Why did this one feel so different?

But I knew the answer to that, if nothing else. It was because I wanted it so much.

“What’s that poem again?” I asked Boone. “That one that’s…not by Voltaire?”

Boone looked at me curiously. “‘Stand upright, speak thy thoughts,’” he began.

I cut him off. “Right.” I pushed past him and headed toward the counter where my laptop sat. I opened it up and looked at the email from the screenwriting instructor.

At least I’d woken up in time. “What’s the next line?”

A smile bloomed across his beautiful face, and I thrilled down to my toes. “‘Declare the truth thou hast, that all may share. Be bold. Proclaim it everywhere.’”

I started typing, and he crossed the room to look over my shoulder.

I turned to face him. He was close enough to kiss, but his hands were still at his sides. He didn’t reach for me, just watched in excited wonder.

“They only live who dare,” I said, and pressed Send.

“Wow,” he said at last. “You did it.”

“Yep.”

“How do you feel?”

I thought for a moment. “Honestly? Sleepy.”

“Do you…” he hesitated. “Do you want me to go?”

No. I wanted anything but that. But how could I ask him to stay? “I don’t want you to think I’m using you.”

“Using me?”

“That’s what you said….last time you were here. That I wanted you to play a part for me.”

He smiled his unfairly beautiful smile. Yeah, right. I could never be just friends with this man. “And what part do you want me to play today?”

“I don’t know….the guy who brings me breakfast and makes me coffee when I’m hungover. The guy who doesn’t freak out when I look like a zombie. The guy who talks me through doing the scary, hard thing and sign up for the class.”

He blinked. “That’s not a part, Hannah. That’s just me.”

Now it was my turn to be confused. “You know, I think maybe I haven’t had the best models in the world when it comes to how people behave in healthy relationships.”

“No?” he replied. “What with your dad and his secret daughter and all that? I mean, I’m not one to talk, but I think you may be onto something there.”

I sighed. “So are we absolutely hopeless?”

Boone shook his head. “I hope not.” I waited for him to do something more. To reach for me. Anything. But there was nothing. And just when I thought the awkward silence couldn’t go on a moment longer, he spoke. “So, you want to let me read this script for real?”

“Would you?”

“Sure. I mean, I’m no expert, but…I kind of want to know how it ends.”

So I got dressed, had breakfast, and then read him Bloodlines, right there on the couch. He laughed in a few inappropriate places, and I pelted him with throw pillows as payback, but I already had ideas about how to fix a few of those issues.

“Don’t you have work?” I asked him after an hour or two.

“Don’t you have school?”

“No self-respecting senior schedules class on Friday,” I told him. Unless they were a real nerd, like my sister. Which reminded me.

“In those voicemails, I didn’t happen to mention what happened with me and Tess last night, did I?”

“She brought you home, and then you had a fight.”

“Something like that,” I admitted. “Actually, I told her I hated her and kicked her in the face.”

Boone sat up straight. “Wow.”

“Accidentally,” I added. “I accidentally kicked her in the face.”

“But you meant to tell her you hated her.”

I thought about this. “Yeah. I guess I did. I don’t think I do hate her, but God it felt good. It was the best I’ve felt in ages.”

He made a face. “Something tells me I should be offended by that.”

I lobbed another pillow at him. “You know what I mean.”

Boone snatched it out of the air and tossed it aside. “Do I?”

His aquamarine eyes were intent on mine and my mouth went dry. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to jump his bones. Was that wrong? Was I completely messed up?

My phone rang. I checked the readout. “It’s my mother.”

“Huh.”

His phone rang, too. “That’s weird. It’s my mother.”

“Excuse me.” I took my phone to the other side of the room and answered, praying she wasn’t calling me about another setup. “Hey, Mom.”

Across the room, Boone was answering his phone.

“Hannah! I hadn’t heard from you about this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?”

“Didn’t you check your voicemail? I called a few times this morning, but your phone must have been off. I really wish you’d get a landline…”

“Sorry, Mom.” Boone was huddled over his phone, too. “Remind me.”

“You know our neighbors the Gardners have had that gorgeous new patio and outdoor kitchen put in?”

Yes, I recalled that. I recalled who had built it, too. “Uh-huh?”

“They are having some people over this afternoon for a barbecue, and I just talked to Suzanne, and she says her son Ronnie will be there.”

“Oh, she did?” I gave Boone a look and mouthed the word barbecue. He nodded, frowning. “Are you sure she said her son’s name was Ronnie?”

He came closer, his eyes narrowed. I heard him say into the phone, “Mother. Mother, you have to stop this.” His face was closed, his tone harsh. I reached out for him but his muscles were so tense his arm felt like stone.

“Of course I am,” my mother said to me. “What kind of question is that?”

“Because I met him,” I said loudly. Not a lie. Not a lie. “And he told me his name is Boone.”

Boone looked up, his eyes softening.

“Boone?” Mom said.

“Yes, Mom. Boone. We’ve been seeing each other a lot recently.” I took a deep breath. “In fact, he’s here with me now.”

Boone squeezed my hand.

Mom was very quiet for a moment. “Oh. Well then, Hannah, are you and…Boone planning on coming to the barbecue?”

My heart ached as I heard it in her voice, the tone of a woman who’d been spackling over her husband’s strange stories for decades. I wondered again what she knew and didn’t know about Tess and her mother. Mom and I may not see eye to eye, but she deserved more, from her husband and her daughter.

“We weren’t, no,” I said. “But if you want us to, we’d be happy to drop by. I would love for you to meet Boone.”

Boone stared at me, his eyes full of questions, but the smallest of smiles played across his lips.

“Mother,” he said, “Hannah Swift and I will be there.”

We clicked the phones off and stared at each other. My heart was pounding. Boone, too, looked like he’d run a mile.

“When you turn over a new leaf, you really mean it.”

“Are you sure this is okay?” I asked. “I mean, going to their party?”

“Are you kidding? If this is what you do on the phone, I can’t wait to see what you pull off in person.”