“I could’ve…” I couldn’t have. A storm was inside of me. I could’ve peed my pants and I wouldn’t have felt it, but I forced myself to stay there. Everything in me screamed to run, to hide, but I couldn’t. I stayed put. I stared straight ahead and I made myself hear what else she was going to say. Angie was going to rip the Band-Aid of denial I had put over myself. I had started to peel the ends away, but she was about to rip it all clear.

All the agony from last year and summer was about come flooding back. My hands curled into my legs and I held on, waiting for it.

“You were the most perfect daughter they ever could’ve asked for. Your brother died. You worshiped him. You gave your virginity to his best friend and I know some of that was because of Ethan. It wasn’t all about you and Jesse. I don’t know how, but I know some of that was about Ethan. Maybe you were trying to connect to another person who loved him like you did, I don’t know, but your parents should’ve been there for you. They weren’t, Alex!” Angie was shouting now. She was still sitting in the driveway and she was yelling, but it wasn’t at me. It was for me. “And your mom, come on. You really think she tried to kill herself? I don’t. I think she wanted attention. I think she wanted a reason to leave and to justify it in her head that she couldn’t care for her daughter anymore. I know those nurses that took care of her. They said she hadn’t taken enough to kill herself, just to put herself to sleep for a while. She’s the one who called the ambulance. She told the 911 operator to call her husband, but her daughter could not be told a thing.”

I was faintly aware of a door opening, but I couldn’t look. The tears were blinding me now. Searing pain paralyzed me as I tried to breathe. The breaths grew shallower and shallower. I was struggling to breathe as the agony filtered in.

Angie’s disgust came out, loud and clear, as she continued, climbing to her feet now. “And you never said anything! Why didn’t you say something? I would’ve been there for you. I would’ve gone to the counselor if I knew for sure. I didn’t know for sure. I thought maybe, but it took all last week to ask around. Finally, people started talking about it, but I knew. I knew something was going on. They were never home. Every time I came over, they were never there. And you could go anywhere. You came over all the time. You never had to call your parents for permission for anything. And that depressing house. I mean, seriously, Alex. They left you in that house? All alone in that house?!”

I shot to my feet now. “I wasn’t alone.” My chest was being split open. A hole had formed and she was ripping it to pieces. “Ethan was there!”

“Ethan’s dead!” she shouted back. “Newsflash, Alex! Your brother’s been dead for two and a half years now. It’s time to move on!”

“What do you think I’m doing here? I’m trying, Angie.”

Her face clouded over and more tears came. She began shaking her head, “I can’t. I just, I tried to be a good friend to you, but I knew something was wrong. I knew it, but you never said anything. I couldn’t be there for you if you didn’t tell me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you couldn’t handle it! Your parents love you. Your boyfriend worships you. You don’t know what it’s like to feel as much pain as I did and to watch everyone else have what I didn’t. You don’t know what that was like.”

“Because you didn’t let me,” she whispered, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth again. “You didn’t let me in. Why didn’t you let me in?”

The truth slid free in me. I hung my head as I whispered, “Because if you had known, you would’ve left me too. I only had you.”

“Oh my god,” she gasped, wrapping her arms around me. She jerked me against her and hugged me as if her life depended on it. “I am so sorry. I am so, so, so sorry. I really am. I am so sorry, Alex. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”

Slowly, I hugged her back. I was clinging by the end.

She began to rock me back and forth, smoothing a hand down my hair and back. “I don’t know if I would’ve been there for you, but I think I would’ve tried. You never told anyone. No one knew, not really. You got good grades. You were so damn perfect. Too perfect, but I knew something was wrong. I felt it and they were never home. I’m sorry I didn’t know until now. I really am sorry.”

She held me and we both cried. I wasn’t sure what I was crying for, but it was the good kind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Angie left not long after our crying session. I was relieved. It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful for her visit, but I could only handle so much. When I went back inside, Hannah and Beth acted like they had never snuck outside or overheard anything at all, but I knew they had. I was okay with that. This is why I was friends with them. When the game was done, Hannah got an invite from her sister to an after-party. She made a crack how this wasn’t going to happen again so they went. When Jesse came home later, I could tell he wanted to go too so I went with him. It was then that I learned their after-parties were something else. We drank out of gold-trimmed glasses. I got one with sparkles inside. That was also where I learned how much I didn’t fit in with the other basketball girlfriends. Was I one? Jesse and I hadn’t talked about it at all, we weren’t official, but I was family. I contented myself with that. I was Jesse’s family. No one else could take that claim from me.