A tongue gliding up my neck flashed to my mind. It was my turn to shake. “I think I might have run into one of those snakes.” I popped the last bite of toast into my mouth. The grease and fat was doing its job, and the water and medicine was starting to work its way into my veins. I felt tired. Exhausted, really.

A guilty conscience had a way of tiring out a person. Jesse had covered for me. Lied to his family for me. Because I’d messed up the way I’d been born to do. Dammit. The day couldn’t get any worse, and I’d only woken up five minutes earlier.

“Thanks for breakfast, Lily,” I said, burrowing back down into my blankets. “If you’re sure it’s all right with everyone, I think I will rest for a little while longer.”

“That must be one nasty headache, Rowen,” she said gently before heading toward the door.

“It’s a nasty one, all right.” I threw the covers over my head and tried to shut out the world.

That next week, I tried not to think about Jesse, which was another way of saying I failed at not thinking about Jesse.

When I emerged from my monster “headache,” no one asked me any questions or suspected anything. Rose gave me a hug, said she was glad I felt better, and we got on with the day. It was such an odd concept to me: being trusted. People in my life just assumed that when I opened my mouth, a lie was about to come out. My mom had been the first one to take away the trust card, followed by teachers, counselors, friends . . . you name it. Most people in the past five years had found some reason to not trust me.

I wasn’t saying I was blameless in the whole denial of trust thing. Plenty of people had plenty of reasons to distrust me. What I’d grown tired of was everyone automatically assuming that because I’d done it before, I’d do it all the time. When people started expecting everything coming out of your mouth to be a lie, you just stopped trying.

But that’s not the way it was at Willow Springs. I was given the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t labeled a liar because I’d been caught telling one. I wasn’t labeled a good many of the names I’d been called before. I was given a fresh start.

Maybe that’s why I made a vow to never tell another lie to another Walker. Or let one Walker lie to another Walker because of me. I wouldn’t repay their faith in me by disappointing them.

I didn’t know what the end of summer would bring, or what the kids at my new school would think of me when I showed up, but at Willow Springs, I was Rowen Sterling. Nothing else.

In one week’s time, I’d kept that vow. I hadn’t lied once to any of the Walkers, although I’d come close. Instead of answering Rose when she asked if I knew why Jesse had been so out of sorts the morning he’d left, I’d pretended my cell phone had just rung and dodged out the back door to take my imaginary call. Honesty through omission. It wasn’t the best case scenario, but it was a far cry from the worst.

Between chores and sleep, I spent my free time drawing. Anything. And everything. Rose’s hands as she kneaded bread dough in the morning, the hat wall beside the dining table, the girls picking strawberries, hell, I even sketched Old Bessie . . . I drew it all, but mostly, I drew Jesse. I never meant to, but halfway into my sketch, I’d realize his eyes were shining back at me, and even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t scrap it and start again. So I finished those sketches, and then I had a book full of Jesse. It made the week without him pass a little faster.

It was Saturday night, and I was anxious about that for several reasons. One, because it was the night of the big dance and barbecue everyone had been talking about nonstop. Two, because it was the night Jesse was scheduled to come home. And three, because I didn’t want Rose to freak out when she saw what I’d done to her three daughters who were the very definition of natural beauty.

We’d been stowed away in Lily’s room for a couple of hours, spraying, swiping, and curling the heck out of each other. Well, I’d been doing the spraying, swiping, and curling. The girls, except for Clementine, had managed to sit still and endure it.

“Curly or straight?” I asked Lily once I finished powdering her nose and highlighting her brow bone.

Lily made a face as she considered it, trying not to smear her pale pink lipstick. She looked older but not offensively so. When Lily mentioned that morning she wasn’t super excited to go to the dance, I of course asked her why. She said she felt ordinary and overlooked whenever she went to one of those things. She said she didn’t feel like she fit in. After giving her a hug and telling her she should have her head examined, I suggested we turn her bedroom into a makeshift salon so I could give her a few makeup and hair tips.

Once Hyacinth and Clementine saw what we were up to, they refused to be left out. Clementine was easy, except for her bouncing around like a rabbit on speed. I curled her hair and let her slick on a coat of lip balm. Done. Hyacinth was a teenager, but just barely, so after doing her hair, I let her talk me into some mascara and lip gloss and prayed Rose or Neil wouldn’t skin me.

Since Lily was sixteen, I took a little more time with her eyes and added a touch of blush. I found myself chuckling a few times as I anguished over using a light hand with the girls’ makeup. I usually used the opposite with my own makeup.

Lily’s face flattened as she finally made up her mind. “Curly.”

I almost sighed. The Walker girls had some long, thick hair that took forever to curl.

“Rowen!” Clementine called to me as I grabbed the curling iron. “Will you put some of that eyeliner stuff on me, too?”

“I most certainly will not,” I replied as I wrapped the first chunk of Lily’s hair around the iron. “If you keep bouncing like that, those curls are going to bounce right out of your hair.” I tried to give her a stern look as she bounced on the end of Lily’s bed, but it didn’t work. Staring sternly at a little girl with perfect little ringlets bouncing up and down in a dress that was five sizes too big for her was impossible.

Her bouncing stopped immediately as she patted her hair to make sure those curls were still in place. “Lily!” We were less than ten feet away, but Clementine was big into shouting. “Can I pick out another dress to try on?”

Lily sighed. “Yes, just not the one I’m wearing tonight.”

“Yippee!” Clementine dive-bombed from the bed and rushed toward Lily’s closet where Hyacinth was looking for her own dress.

“Okay, I could smell the hairspray fumes and burning hair from the porch.” The door swung open and in stepped someone I hadn’t expected to see right that minute. The curling iron almost slipped from my hands.

“Jesse!” Clementine went from running to the closet to sprinting toward her brother. She tripped on the dress right as she made it to him, but he caught her before she crashed and burned.

After giving her a quick hug and greeting his other sisters, his eyes shifted to me. Everything about him seemed hesitant, unsure. I knew I mirrored the feeling.

“Hey,” he said, staying firmly planted in the doorway.

“Hey,” I said. My heart thundered to life with two lame words exchanged between us.

“How was your week?” His voice wasn’t quite cool, but it wasn’t warm either. It was almost . . . conventional. Maybe that was worse than cool.

“All right,” I said with a shrug. “How was your week?”

“All right.”

We had that repeating each other thing down.

“Don’t we look beee-u-teee-ful, Jesse?” Clementine asked, tugging on his hand to get his attention.

“Positively,” he replied with a smile. So he could still form one, just not for me. “Did a fairy godmother come wave her wand your way or something?”

“No, silly,” Clementine replied before her face wrinkled up. “Rowen? Are you a fairy godmother?”