Ellis tapped a key.

Pic after pic, all showing the same brutality: his face, wrecked.

“What’s the date on these?” I said.

“Day before the accident.”

“That’s it.” I clapped my bad fist into my good palm. “That’s what made him drink.”

Elle peered up at me. “That’s speculation.”

“Look at his face.” I butted in and flicked through the other photos. Couple more bruise pics, then nothing. “Someone beat the shit out of him, then he tried to kill himself.”

“You almost sound happy about it.”

I wheeled away, paced a circle. “Things are finally starting to make sense. It’s a relief.”

The relief of blaming someone else for what happened.

“It’s sick to feel glad that someone got hurt.”

“I’m not glad, Elle. But he’s a stranger to us. I can look at it objectively. We never knew him.”

“We still killed him.”

“Did we?” I pointed at the screen. “Or did the person who did this kill him? Because this is what made him drink, not us.”

She poked glumly at the keyboard.

I sat beside her, laid a hand on her knee. “You don’t seem surprised.”

Shrug.

“You already saw these, didn’t you?”

“I glanced through while I was copying files.”

“And didn’t tell me.”

She hung her head, hair shading her eyes. “I just don’t like where this is leading. We’re going deeper down this rabbit hole without getting closer to understanding. It’s only getting darker and darker.”

But don’t you see? I thought. If we’re not the reason he died, then everything’s okay. We can heal. Go on with our lives.

Forget all of this like it never even happened.

“I need closure, Ellis.” Her leg tensed beneath my curling fingers. “I need to know why Ryan did this so I can put it behind me.”

“We already know. He was depressed and his life was falling apart, so he drank.”

“That’s how it happened. Not why.”

“You’re looking for meaning in something meaningless. He was just in pain.”

I flung my hands up. “My whole fucking life changed that night. I lost myself, and you, and my entire future. If I can’t find meaning in that, how can I survive?”

“Is that really why you want closure?”

I didn’t answer that. Instead I said, “Don’t you want it to mean something, too?”

“I don’t know what I want anymore.”

My arm slipped around her. She was shaking. About to cry.

“Elle.” I stroked the back of her head, the fine short hair there. It still smelled like violets. “Why are you acting like this?”

“It makes me sad.”

“What does?”

“That someone hurt him for being the way he is.”

I touched her cheek. “Is this reminding you of your parents?”

The glint in her eyes was answer enough.

“It’s okay, baby. That’s all over.” I tucked her head beneath my chin. “You don’t have to be afraid of them anymore.”

“I’m not.”

“Then what?”

Her arms wrapped around my back.

This whole thing was freaking her out. Her nervousness earlier, the white lie about the photos. That comment about the rabbit hole. Still convinced she was behind the wheel.

I couldn’t blame her for being scared. But I had to know more, for both of us.

“Hey.” I swabbed her tears dry. “No being sad. It’s not allowed today. You know what today is?”

“What?”

“The best day I’ve had all year, because of you.”

She finally smiled. Sweet and small, unassuming. I slid her glasses off and brushed the wet glaze from her lashes. I couldn’t take my hands from her face.

“Stay the night,” she whispered.

Electricity arced from my spine to my fingertips and collected there, buzzing. I was sure she could feel the static I trailed across her skin. I ran my thumb over her lower lip, and when her mouth opened and she exhaled into my palm I felt suddenly weightless, no bones or heaviness inside me, just a shimmering mist of nerves. I thought of Dalí’s Galatea of the Spheres. A girl made entirely of translucent bubbles containing sea, skin, sky.

“What are we doing?” I said.

“Falling in love again.”

Heat flashed in my belly, lightning white. “I thought we were trying to be friends.”

“We’ve never just been friends, Vada.” Ellis circled her hands around the back of my neck. “Let’s not pretend anymore.”

She was irresistible like this, all tousle-haired and unraveled. So rare to see her careless, overcome with want. With loneliness.

“This isn’t a good idea,” I said, stroking her cheek. “Rushing back into things.”

“You like rushing.”

“I know. It’s weird being the voice of reason, for once.” I grinned. “You are so pretty right now. All I want to do is kiss you. But I don’t want to fuck this up again. I want my best friend back, Elle.”

“You don’t want me.”

“Of course I do.”

“No. You want your sugar daddy.”

Sucker punch.

It’s not that I wanted him instead. But Blue was going to drop another grand tonight to keep me off cam. While I was here, with her. It felt wrong. I knew it was mainly social conditioning—girls are taught that our bodies are currency, that we owe them to men for being nice to us, for giving unasked gifts to us, for not assaulting and raping us—and if Blue wanted to pay me to fuck my ex and further complicate our It’s Complicated–ship, that was his kink. Thank God for low-maintenance clients.

But I also thought: It’s not fair to him. He can’t touch me like this. All he has are his words.

And his words make me feel something that I want more of.

Ellis saw my hesitation. Hurt blossomed in her face. She wrenched away, left the room.

“Elle—”

“It’s fine. Go see him.”

Ask me again, I thought, and I’ll stay.

Ask me. Please.

But she didn’t say another word.

“Hi.”

SoBlue: hi.

I sat cross-legged on my bed, swishing a bottle of beer. Silence for a minute. “Bad day?”

SoBlue: no.

SoBlue: just feeling more ruminative than talkative.

A knot loosened in my gut. “Me too.”

SoBlue is typing . . .

Then nothing. Erased.

“Can I make a request?”

SoBlue: shoot.

“Press Enter instead of Delete. Before you second-guess yourself.”

SoBlue: ha.

SoBlue: deal. but you too. no self-censoring.

“I couldn’t censor myself to save my life. It’s a legit problem.” I sipped golden ale that tasted like malted passion fruit. From my window the sunset clouds looked oil-painted, a soft scumble of cobalt and coral. A gentle Monet sky. I wondered if Ryan had ever sat in his window and watched the paint melt off the troposphere and trickle into the ocean. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. I keep getting into situations where I have to make some life-defining choice. When does that end?”

SoBlue: when life ends.

Shiver.

“Something really bad happened to me once, Blue. I almost died. Someone else did instead. And I keep feeling like God made a mistake, that he let the wrong person live. The person who’s too afraid to even commit to her own life.” I took a swig. “There. No self-censoring.”

SoBlue: that can happen even when you think you know what you want.

SoBlue: someone i know used to be a star athlete.

SoBlue: golden boy. bright future.

SoBlue: but he had an accident and became disabled.

SoBlue: no more sports. whole life uprooted.

SoBlue: now he feels adrift, like you.

“Is he depressed?”

SoBlue: very.

“What keeps him going?”

SoBlue: pet projects, diversions, amusements.

SoBlue: but nothing truly fulfills him.

SoBlue: he’s hollow.

Is he you? I wondered.

SoBlue: point is, nobody knows what to do with this life.

SoBlue: and the second you think you do, your life will flip upside down

SoBlue: like this:

SoBlue: