In all my days, I’ve never considered myself helpless. The one exception being the time I had to stay on the opposite side of the street as my house, my life, burned to the ground and I couldn’t do anything about it. I thought I’d never experience anything like that again, but here I am, sitting here waiting to be consumed as Dane leans over and slips one hand around the nape of my neck to draw me in. I lift my chin to meet him.

Our lips move like they’re old friends who’ve known each other for years: predictably and steadily. Then Dane’s hands find my waist and he pulls me onto his lap. That’s when it changes. I’m in control, and I run my tongue between the seam of his lips to taste his. As if he approves, Dane runs one hand up into my hair, fastening my mouth firmly to his as our tongues roll together. The other finds its way to my hip, kneading in time with the movements of his mouth. I’m lost to him. Lost to the feeling that comes with a simple act that suddenly doesn’t seem so simple at all.

When our hips begin to move together and our breathing labors, I falter. Have I just unknowingly said yes to whatever he’s proposing? So much is unspoken these days that I can’t be sure. Sensing my unease, Dane retreats just a few inches, a crease forming between his eyebrows. I place a hand on his shoulder to steady myself, anchor my thoughts.

“I can’t promise you anything, Dane. I don’t know what you expect from me, and I’m not even sure what I have left to give right now.”

He cups my face and uses his thumb to pry my lip from between my teeth. “I know you have doubts. But this, whatever we’re doing, it’s enough. Nothing about my situation is easy, and I don’t expect yours to be. I just want to get to know you. Slow, fast, whatever you want. If you’ll let me.”

I go to chew my lip again when his thumb reappears, stopping me. I bite it on impulse, then kiss the pad of it before saying, “Okay.” I’m not sure what I feel. It’s a little like relief, fear, and burning desire all mixed together.

“I have to warn you, it won’t be easy. Like I said, being affiliated with my family has its drawbacks. Normal dates, that sort of stuff, it wouldn’t be wise. We’d have to meet privately so as not to draw attention. Outside of town, places like this. We couldn’t tell anyone.”

That kind of statement would raise a red flag in a normal relationship, but I know this isn’t one. Still, my curiosity is piqued. I shift off his lap, leaving my legs entwined with his. “Why all the precautions?”

He directs his gaze to where he’s lacing his fingers through mine. “There are all sorts of people in my father’s line of work, and they don’t know how far removed I am from the business. Anyone close to my family can be used as a target. It’s better we don’t tell anyone, at least for now. Is that okay?” He’s firm in his reasoning, but I can see that he’s concerned.

“Even your family?” I ask, remembering the way Dane avoided the main house during the party.

“Especially my family. Trey doesn’t understand why I choose to live the way I do, busting my ass to make a few bucks, keeping to myself, and any change from the norm would attract his attention. I don’t want him to think he can somehow use you to manipulate me.”

My head jerks back in response. “Trey? You think he would do that?”

Dane nods coldly. “Yes.” He blinks, looks around, and dusts his hands off on his towel. “We should find our way out before it gets dark. Don’t want to be food for the critters.” He disentangles himself from me, stretches, then begins packing up the backpacks. It takes a moment to shake off the foreboding feeling his warnings have given me, but I stand up to help, rolling up the towels and stuffing them away.  

Once we’ve got everything packed, Dane helps me into my backpack once again, and we set off for the truck. The shadows are long when we make it to the trailhead, though the trek back seemed to take only a fraction of the time. We spent the walk in silence, aside from Dane’s commentary on this tree or that wildlife. It seems we’re leaving the park with more to think about than we arrived with.

Just as we’re approaching the truck, Dane says, “I’m glad we did this. Now at least I can say I kicked your butt at hiking.”

I chuckle. “You were starting to surprise me, but now I know you’re just a typical man.”

“Well, a man I am.”

“I hope it was worth it. Now that I’m less of a mystery, you might just lose interest and run off.” I hand off my backpack, and he stores it in the backseat before facing me and leaning his shoulder against the truck. It was a joke, but there’s a disbelieving smile on his lips.

“Not even close. Call me crazy, but I think there’s a whole lot left in here that I’m dying to know.” He taps my temple, then grazes his finger over a cheekbone, along my jaw, watching my lips like he wants to eat them. My breathing becomes uneven, ragged. The air is thick, but not with humidity. It’s choked with him and what he makes me feel.

I sigh with meaning so he can’t tell how unsteady he’s made me, then I say in a disappointed tone, “I promised I wouldn’t try to ‘find myself’ out in the woods.”

Instead of a retort, he begins to laugh. One that originates from deep in his belly and makes you feel like even the trees can understand what it means. “You would say something like that after I just bared my heart to you,” he teases. Then he leans in close and kisses me on the corner of the mouth. It’s chaste in comparison to the one in the woods, but fingers of flame fan across my abdomen anyway. “Let’s get you home.”

 

 

The drive is peaceful. Outside, dusk descends rapidly upon Tennessee, and rose-reds and burnt oranges smear across the sky. I feel languid in my seat, my muscles stretched and sated from all the walking we did today. I’m impressed with myself and a bit impressed with Dane, though I’m not going to admit that out loud. I confessed more than I expected, but an odd satisfaction has settled deep in my bones as a result. I guess there’s something to be said for getting things off your chest, though I didn’t know how much those secrets weighed until I set them free.

Dane is drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel to the beat of the music, and when he thinks I’m not paying attention, he purses his lips and bobs his head. I want to laugh, but I know the moment will be broken if I do. So, I let him rock out on his own until the song is over, then I prop my chin on my hand atop the center console.

“Were you enjoying that song?”

He glances at me, ready to shrug it off, but when he sees my teasing grin, he does that lip-biting smile he does when he tries to suppress it and fails miserably. Somewhere along the way, despite keeping my distance, he’s become familiar to me. A distinguished face in a sea of strangers.

“Don’t cut those judgmental eyes at me. Why don’t you pick something this time? Something that makes you want to dance.”

I shake my head fiercely. “You don’t want to see me dance.”

“Oh, but I do.”

“Maybe if we’d finished the bottle of wine at the lookout . . .” I trail off purposely, letting him know there’s no chance of him seeing these dance moves without a little incentive.

“It’s probably better we stay away from my place, but we could go to yours and open another?” His hand slides over to mine, giving it a squeeze.

I resist a smile, but I know it’s showing in my eyes. Now that the tough conversations I imagined would end every possibility of us are out of the way, it would be so easy to give in. To share meals and bottles of wine. To pretend there aren’t things hovering over us that are out of our control. It’s basically unfair that he’s asking to come over when I’m in such a good mood and my head is clouded with endorphins.

“Okay,” I say before my senses return. “But I am choosing the music.”

I use the tuning dial to scan the stations, but most of them are spotted with static or playing country music from eons ago. Banjos are aplenty. Damn this place and their lack of decent music. I’ve about given up, ready to hand the DJ duties back over to Dane, but something catches my attention.

That voice.

Those chords.

I turn the volume up a notch, my stomach dropping to the floorboards as my fears are confirmed. There’s no mistaking that rasp, those painful lyrics. But it can’t be. He told me he wouldn’t . . .

“Ooooh, precious little girl, too good for this place, too good for this world. . .”

I mash the knob to turn the radio off entirely. Bile rises in the back of my throat, and the air in the truck suddenly feels stifling. Those lyrics . . . they were only meant for the two of us. I made him promise he wouldn’t ever release that song. Jenson often wrote about situations I’d rather keep private, but he had a way of stringing together words to create stunning verses that I never forbade him from releasing them. Until that one.

“Hey, you okay?” Dane’s voice is like the crack of a whip, waking me from my internal panic.

My arms are braced on either side of me, fingers splayed and tense, and I can feel my pulse all the way to my fingertips. There’s nothing I can say to make him understand; I haven’t even told him about the . . .

“I’m okay.” My voice comes out gravelly, proving I’m not. “I don’t feel . . . I think I might be dehydrated from the hike or something.” I flex my fingers and lean my head against the coolness of the window, desperately trying to drag my mind out of the past. “I’m sorry to flake out on you, but can we take a raincheck on that bottle of wine?”

I feel his concerned glances, but he doesn’t protest. He pats my thigh, giving it a squeeze on the last one. But I am numbed to everything that’s happening outside of my own mind.

“Of course. I’ll save it for you.” He offers me a small, sincere smile. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

I nod weakly in response.

The rest of the trip home crawls by, and before Dane can cut the engine in my driveway, I’m out the door. I don’t know what’s stronger, the pressing urge to vomit or to pass out. Maybe both, simultaneously.

“Thanks for the, uh, hike, Dane. I promise I’ll call you tomorrow,” I call over my shoulder as I unlock my door. I barely have time to shut it behind me before I’m sapped of any remaining strength and overtaken by sobs that make it feel like all the breath, the life, is being squeezed right out of me. I sink down onto the floor in the dark entry hall, hunching over the pain in my midriff. The pain in my heart.

Those words were for us to hear. Only us. Now hundreds, if not thousands, of people are listening to our suffering. They’re bearing witness to the most excruciating part of my past. And to find out like that—unwittingly, on a beautiful day with someone who’s hardly more than a stranger beside me . . .

The shrill creak of my front door, possibly the only thing that could penetrate the sounds of my sobs and the striated layers of my thoughts, permeates the otherwise dead silence of my house.

“Raven? You left your wallet in the tru—” Dane’s voice tapers off to nothing, and I don’t have a chance to pick myself up off the ground before I feel him.

His hands are on my back, then they’re encircling me, pulling me to a sitting position and into his side. I crumple against him like wet paper. My emotional stress trumps any possibility of feeling embarrassed by the sudden outburst.

Dane doesn’t say anything at first, just smooths the hair away from my tear-streaked face. I feel his eyes on me, though mine are closed. I couldn’t be more grateful for his silence. I keep my forehead on his shoulder until the initial waves of shock and hurt have passed and I’m left sniffling, filled with residual exhaustion.

“It’s all right,” Dane says, smoothing back the frazzled strands of my hair. “Whatever it is, it’s all right.”

It seems like nothing is all right. But something about what he’s doing combined with the tone of his voice is working.

“Was that one of Jenson’s?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply thickly. I take a few deep breaths before going on. “That song wasn’t ever supposed to be released. He wrote it after we lost our baby. I had a miscarriage. His way of dealing with anything was to lock himself up in his music room and write. He came out one day and handed me the lyrics, and I felt everything all over again, as if it were brand new. We agreed to keep it between us.” I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep the oncoming surge of grief at bay. Jenson recorded the song himself using a music program on his computer. When he played it back to me, it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to listen to. Now it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to talk about.

“And he didn’t warn you that it would be played on the fucking radio?” Dane asks, his tone twisted with incredulity.

“No.”

He releases a breath, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Raven. For what you’ve been through, that you had to find out that way . . . in front of me.”

Sorrow rests heavily in my chest. I’m sorry for losing my baby, too, but I don’t want to discuss that further. It’s still a raw subject, and I’ve never felt so vulnerable talking about it as I do now with Dane. Everyone is so quick to offer their sympathies, yet slow to truly understand. The way he’s looking at me now, it’s like he wants to climb into my mind so he can witness just a fraction of what I’m feeling. Despite everything else, that warms my heart a few degrees.

“I never expected to hear it so publicly, but it’s okay that it was with you.” A flush of anxiety blooms as soon as the words are out, but I force it away. I’ve been both withdrawn and smart-mouthed toward this man, and all he’s done is return my spiky remarks with kindness. A few smart retorts of his own, but mostly kindness.

Using the hem of my shirt, I clean what I hope are the last traces of my breakdown from beneath my eyes. When I stand, Dane looks questioningly up at me.

“Sorry about that.” I feel obligated to say it. What else can you do after you’ve bolted from someone’s truck without a word of explanation at the end of a date? I reach out to him, and he accepts my hand and lets me help him up.

“You don’t need to apologize. Especially for that.”

“Still, that was . . . probably the last thing you were expecting. Do you want something to drink before you go?” Although it was sweet the way Dane comforted me, this night is one I need to handle on my own. Dane is from a completely different era of my life than Jenson, and my baby that never came to be, and I’m not sure what to do with the overlapping of those two worlds. So I box it up like I do with everything else and shove it away.

“I’m all right. Are you?”

I laugh bitterly. “I don’t know what to do with this. But I’m okay. And I know you can’t tell from the way it ended, but I had a good time today. So thank you.”

He smiles. It’s just an upturn at the corners of his mouth, but it still counts. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

As much as I don’t want to see the amount of concern in his gaze, I force myself to meet it. I’ve been running from feelings and emotions for so long it’s exhausting, and although I thought I would get on with my life just fine without them, it’s clear from today that I still have a lot I need to address. To poke and prod so that when the time comes, I really and truly can move on.

I give him the strongest smile I can muster and nod to emphasize my next words. “You need to. It’s something I have to come to terms with on my own.” Not to mention he would just distract me. The freedom I felt today—being able to speak without restraint and without worry of being judged—perforates the sorrow I feel. It’s a nice diversion, but it’s just that: a diversion. At some point those suppressed feelings will return, and I’ve learned they only grow stronger the longer they’re buried.

“I know. I just wish you didn’t have to do it alone.” He starts toward the door, then, thinking better of it, he turns and snags me with one arm, drawing me in and surrounding me with reassurance. I give in to it, my head landing naturally on his sternum while his chin rests in my hair.

“Good night, Raven,” he says when he pulls away, just a hint of his melancholic smile remaining. Before the front door closes behind him, he peeks his head back in. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

“I won’t,” I say, but it’s swallowed by the silence.

 

 

I’m hurting. Not just my heart, but my entire body. I feel soreness in places I didn’t know existed. It doesn’t escape me that that phrase is often used after a particularly strenuous round of sex, and I’m using it to describe how my body feels following what was essentially a long walk. I really need to start working out again. Maybe tomorrow.

I stretch and, as my mind wakes up, pieces of last night slowly begin to reassemble. So much was revealed and admitted that I don’t know where to begin to process it. Then, the melody of Jenson’s song, “Skyward,” resurfaces in my memory. I drag my aqua-blue quilt over my head—something I bought to brighten up my mood. It isn’t quite working as intended.

Betrayal nips at me, igniting my anger, but I don’t know how to react. I want to call my ex-husband and rip him a new one. I want him to know how much he’s betrayed me. I want to burrow into a cave and never have to face the ugly parts of my history again.

It would be helpful to call somebody; someone who understands Jenson and I, and what we’ve been through. But Caroline and the rest of the traitors made it clear whose side they’re on, so asking them how to handle a Jenson-related issue is off limits. I feel a flash of regret that I didn’t stay close with my only college roommate—at least then I’d have a friend who wasn’t shackled to the memory of my ex-husband. Then I remember how she used to stack a week’s worth of dirty dishes outside her bedroom door and I’m over that in a heartbeat. Looks like I’ll have to do the next best thing.

“He did what? Oh hell no. I would be livid,” Lynn exclaims. Calling her is the first thing I’ve done today; I haven’t even gathered the strength to get out of bed. Lynn skipped right over the niceties and went straight to sympathizing with my anger.

“I am. Well, after the initial shock, that is.”

“I’m sorry you had to hear it on the radio like that. You have every right to be upset,” she says. Remembering Dane’s words of warning, I left out the part that I happened to be with him when I heard it.

“Thanks. I just don’t know what to do now. Pay no attention to it to prove that I’ve moved on?”

“Oh no. He has to know that even though you two might be finished, that doesn’t give him an excuse to go sing about whatever the hell he wants, especially with this being something you both agreed not to release.” Her voice has raised a few more octaves by the end of that sentence, and I feel a burst of gladness that I had the good sense to become her friend.

I chew on my lip, weighing the options. I know deep down that a subject as sensitive as this needs to be addressed, but I have no desire to hear his voice again. It feels like a little piece of my heart that he still owns is dangling by a thread, just waiting to be sewn back up to the rest of it by his caramelized words.

I know my faults, and one of them is compartmentalization. While it’s useful in some situations, it’s not ideal in relationships. I stuff what I’d rather not feel into a tiny box I can stash in the shadowy corners of my mind with the rest of the junk I’d rather not think about. There is no chance of reconciliation between us, I firmly believe that, but I did my best to shove my old life into one of those boxes, and I’m afraid of what would arise—the magnitude of the feelings that would be unearthed—if I spoke to him again.

“Although I fully want you to roast his balls on a spit, I know there’s a sensible way to go about this,” Lynn says, though she sounds regretful.

“Do you have any clue what that is? Because it’s difficult for me to think sensibly right now.”

“Well, it’s important to get all your feelings across. There are two halves to every past relationship, and he should know better than to think he owns all your hardships. Let him know how it felt to hear that song come on without warning.”

“Okay,” I agree with a sigh, though I’m dreading making this phone call.

“And by the way . . . keep your radio off for a while. Probably forever. That song is playing nonstop.”

 

 

I end up staring at my phone screen for an indeterminate length of time. An adult would just call him and get it over with. A super adult might set up a meeting in person. But I don’t want to crack a window into my past, much less open the front door and invite him right in. So I text him, like the coward I am, letting him know he had no right to release that song without my approval. I try to keep my cool, but my emotions get the best of me. When I re-read the message I’ve already sent, I cringe a little before finally settling on the idea that he deserves my reaction.

My ringtone chimes repeatedly, signaling I have an incoming call, and I regard my phone through one squinted eye as if shutting the other will somehow spare me the blow of seeing my ex’s name on the screen. I don’t want to talk to him. I already decided that. I hit the button on the side to send him straight to voicemail, where my greeting has nothing better to do than listen to him and his laments.

Sure enough, an alert sounds not long after to notify me of a new message. I glare at the notification, my mind bouncing between the options of deleting it, unheard, or listening to a voice that will drag me right back to the past.

I press play and squeeze my eyes shut.

“Raven”—a long sigh—“God, I wish you would pick up the phone. I never meant to go behind your back with that song, I just felt in my heart that I needed to release it. That it would help me heal. Things haven’t been the easiest since you left. I’m . . . well, I’m sorry you were unprepared to hear ‘Skyward.’ It was one of those things that happened so fast it was like I was in a haze the entire time.” That’s called being drunk, moron, I think before biting back my cynicism. “And I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me. Obviously.” A bashful chuckle. “Anyway, please give me a call back. I understand that I didn’t go about things the way I probably should’ve, and I would like to apologize properly for it. All right. Well. Bye.”

Click.

I wait for sadness to swell into the hole left where my heart was, but it doesn’t. What I feel is more like the ebbing pain of an old wound that’s partially healed. That’s good, I guess. Progress. But rather than cauterize the live wires of my anger, that voicemail only sparked them. He “didn’t go about things the way he should’ve”? You think? I guess some people can be fully in tune with their emotions while having zero perception of others’.

My reflex is to call him back and let him have it, but I know that’s my passion talking. I’m not the only one who’s hurting, mourning the end of our relationship so soon after the end of our child’s life. The baby girl we never got to meet. I get it, even if I don’t have an artist’s heart.

Instead of calling him, I just do what any other woman would do. I Google him. There are a few articles in the search results I scroll past, with headlines that are like digital pitchforks directed right at me. It’s strange that they don’t bother me anymore, but I guess there’s too much on my mind to worry that I’m still the scapegoat.

Then, one headline makes me pause, one finger suspended over the scroll pad. JENSON KING SUSPENDS TOUR; CRITICS SUSPECT EARLY RETIREMENT. The presumptuousness of it does just what the writer intended: sucks me right in. I click.

 

The adoring screams that have become synonymous with Jenson King concerts tapered off into apprehensive silence on Saturday when the country singer announced he would be canceling his spring performances in favor of seeking treatment for an undisclosed health concern. This news came just after he performed his new single, “Skyward,” for the first time. King became tearful during the last verse as he sang lyrics that alluded to the loss of a child.

No matter how sentimental the moment, some attendees voiced their protests loudly and clearly, but more expressed their support and concern for King. “We came all the way from Texas for this show, and we would do it again in a heartbeat,” said Fallon Mckinney, a devoted fan. “His true supporters understand that sometimes even guys like him come on hard times. We’ll be looking forward to his return.”

When that return will be is unclear. As far as whether “Skyward” refers to the loss of his own child, presumably with ex-wife Raven Sutter, that continues to be only speculation. The couple finalized their divorce in December amidst rumors of infidelity. Jenson King declined to comment on the matter when we caught up with him after the show. Despite King’s impending absence from the live music scene, we anticipate that “Skyward,” as well as King’s recovery, will be met with nothing but support in the weeks to come.

 

I skip past the burn I feel reading about my supposed “infidelity”—fucking lies—and focus on the words “undisclosed health concern.” So he finally accepts the serious threat his alcoholism poses. Now. After everything. That stings more than the rest. And because I’m more hurt than angry, I shove my phone into my bedside drawer and put off calling him. 

 

 

Despite the emotional downpour from the weekend, life resumes as it should on Monday. For once, I don’t resent the monotony—the coffee-making, the dealing with patients who’ve clearly been lying about their flossing routines, the chatty, invasive coworkers.

But just as I’m leaving work, my phone vibrates almost angrily, knocking against the contents of my purse. A bubble of anxiety forms as I fish for it with one hand while starting my car with the other. Is it Jenson, feeling guilty? He should be. Or is it Dane, wondering why I’ve avoided him ever since he scraped me off my entryway floor on Saturday?

I don’t want to face either one.

When I finally locate the damn thing, it’s somehow worse than I expected. The name Serena glows on the screen—my sister. The one I “forgot” to call to update on my new, exciting life in Heronwood. Though it’s less about forgetting and more about avoiding. I consider blowing her off, but I know from experience she’ll only get more persistent the longer I evade her.

I barely get a “Hello” out before she charges ahead.

“Ohh, so nice to hear from my dear little sister,” she says snarkily. She has a rare talent for being abrasive in few words. I want to hang up on her already.

“It is me. Dear Little Sister herself.”

“When were you planning on calling me? When you got fed up again and moved on to the next town? What’s next, Timbuktu?”

“Hello to you, too, Serena. So sad we don’t get to chat very often.”

There’s a scoff on the other end of the line. “You and your jokes. What’s new?”

“Not a lot,” I answer drily.

“I haven’t spoken to you in about a month. Are you really going to pretend that nothing’s happened since you left your husband and moved out to bum-fuck—”

“I work. I come home. I try not to drown my sorrows in white cheddar Cheez-Its and pinot. Happy?”

She sighs, as if she predicted I would disappoint her and is disappointed by the fact that I, indeed, have disappointed her. “Tell me about the new town. This . . . Heronwood.”

“It’s quaint.” I know better than to readily volunteer more information because, as she so often does, Serena already has a destination in mind for this conversation, and she will steer it there no matter what the cost.

“Have you made any friends? Met anyone interesting?”

“The townsfolk are very . . . inquisitive. Friendly.”

“So you’ve met a guy.” It’s not even a question.

“Why does it always come to this—you assuming I would just jump into something like that? I just finalized my divorce, Serena.”

“Is that a confirmation or a denial?”

I’m practically stewing in my anger. If smoke came out people’s ears like it did in the cartoons, it would be billowing out of mine. But I’m not sure whether I’m more mad that she guessed correctly, inciting a pang of guilt, or that she’s likely assuming I’m still the same girl I was a decade ago.

“I’ve been trying to lay low.”

“Only you would make a voluntary move sound like witness protection. You chose to go there. Why would you willingly become a hermit?”

“I told you I go to work,” I say impatiently. “Hermits don’t work. Anyway, I couldn’t stay in Nashville, could I?”

“As a decently-functioning adult, you definitely could have. But you did what you always do in tough situations: you ran.”

I let out an extra-long sigh to curb a smartass retort, trying to control my breathing. Arguing is not the way to win with Serena. There is no way to win with Serena but to let her believe she has.

But I can’t help it. “You should write a self-help book. Maybe it would pad your ‘marketing’ salary.” It’s a cheap shot, but how many am I supposed to endure from her before I snap?

“It’s graphic design,” she snaps, “and you don’t have to be nasty. God, you’re impossible. Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall with lame comebacks.”

“So what have you been up to, sister? You know, other than hammering your obvious disappointment into my head.”

“I’m your older sister, Rae. You should be more concerned if I didn’t call to ask about you.”

There are so many things I want to say in response that I don’t know where to begin, but the second I release those words, they can’t be taken back. And Serena is a grand champion at holding grudges. I should know. She didn’t speak to me for the better part of four years for taking her unicorn pencil case when I was in third grade. At least when my words are still in my head, locked up tight behind my lips, I can’t hurt anyone.

“Thank you for your concern, Serena. You must come visit. You will hate it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Anyway, text me your address so I can send you a birthday card.” I just answer with a mhmm, which she returns with another forceful exhalation. “Call me if you need me, Raven. But I know you won’t.”

I say my goodbyes and hang up, tossing my phone so forcefully in the direction of my purse that it clatters into the crack between the passenger seat and the door. Unfortunately, nobody knows how to sour a day worse than Serena, and nobody knows me better than her.