I’m fine, Sandy typed, her fingers banging hard against her phone. I promise.

Are you sure?

The texts were making the whole thing worse. They might have been the worst part of the entire situation. Actually, no, they weren’t. They were bad, but they weren’t the worst part. Not by a fucking long shot.

The first time the two of them had met to study, Hannah had picked the Black Cat.

Sandy got there ten minutes late and totally out of breath. She’d had to haul ass on her bike to make up the twenty minutes she’d spent sitting around thinking she might not go meet Hannah after all. That she might bag the whole GED thing, honors or not. But then she’d remembered how Rhea had looked at her: that hope. No one had ever looked at Sandy that way. Like they had expectations.

She spotted a girl she thought might be Hannah, sitting there in the window with books spread out in front of her. She was tall and real pretty, with shiny shoulder-length brown hair and bright blue eyes. Her long legs were folded kind of awkwardly under the little table, and she was wearing an oversize Yale hoodie. She was smiling a little, too, like she was enjoying some kind of funny private joke.

“Sandy?” Hannah had asked, standing as she made her way over. “Are you okay?”

Sandy was sweating and still breathing hard. Her face was probably beet-red. “I’m fine,” Sandy said, dropping herself down into the chair. She thought about mentioning her bike but decided against it. Hannah had probably gotten there in a chauffeur-driven limousine.

“Oh, okay,” Hannah said, but she looked a little worried still as she shuffled around her books and papers. “Should we start with the math? Maybe that would be fun.” Sandy must have made a face, because she watched Hannah’s smile sink. “Sorry, it’s not fun, I know. None of this is fun. I’m just nervous. I’ve never tutored anyone. I can try to be less annoying.”

“That’s okay,” Sandy had said, smiling for real. Because it was kind of funny, the way Hannah had said that. Maybe she wouldn’t end up hating this girl after all. “Anyway, what do I know? I’ve never had a tutor.”

Before they could start, Hannah’s phone rang. She stared at the screen, smiling in a way that made her seem the opposite of happy. “Sorry, hold on just a second.” She answered the phone, sticking a long finger in her ear to block out the sounds of the café, even though it wasn’t that loud. “Hi, Mom.”

Her voice went all high, like a little girl’s, and she said “Uh-huh” a lot. “Sorry, I forgot,” she said finally. “Okay, yeah. Okay. Mom, stop. Okay, yes. An hour.” After she hung up, Hannah kept smiling, but she seemed sad. “Sorry about that.”

“Everything okay?” Sandy asked. And she was curious. She always wanted to know what kids like Hannah—good, regular kids—fought with their moms about. She was always the one riding Jenna for screwing things up. She couldn’t imagine it being the other way around.

Hannah looked embarrassed. “My mom’s just kind of, you know”—she shrugged—“intense sometimes.”

“About what?” Sandy needed details to be able to picture Hannah’s regular-girl life. “What did you forget?”

“To clean out my junk drawer.”

Sandy’s eyebrows lifted. “What the hell is a junk drawer?” There was no end to the things other kids had that Sandy did not.

“You know, where you keep all your—” Hannah moved her hands around, as if trying to figure out how to describe it.

“Shit you should throw out?” Sandy offered.

“Yeah.” Hannah had laughed. “I guess you’re right.”

“That’s intense.”

Hannah looked confused. “Having a junk drawer?”

“Your mom hunting you down to bitch you out about it.” For the first time ever, Jenna calling Sandy all the time and begging her to come home because she missed her didn’t seem so bad.

“I guess. Sometimes it feels like I can’t do anything right,” Hannah said. Then she shrugged and smiled like she was over it completely. “But I know that’s just the way my mom is. She likes things a certain way.”

Sandy had laughed for real. “Don’t they all, sister. Don’t they all.”

Blondie’s was dark and mostly empty when Sandy got inside. There were two old guys at the far end of the bar, listening to one of Monte’s loud stories. Straight ahead was a younger guy with his back to the door. He had longish brown hair and was wearing some kind of suit jacket and a big expensive-looking watch. It was the watch that stood out. It wasn’t the kind of thing you saw in Blondie’s, not even on those ironic assholes. He was good-looking, too, Sandy could tell even from behind. It was the way he was sitting—like he owned that stool.

“Hey, kiddo!” Monte boomed, heading over to meet Sandy. “What are you doing here?”

Sandy loved when Monte called her “kiddo.” Men never treated her that way anymore: like a kid. Monte always seemed so happy to see her, too. Suddenly, there were tears at the back of Sandy’s throat, trying to break free. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

“Have you seen Jenna?” Sandy asked.

Monte frowned and shook his head, wiping the bar with a white cloth that looked tiny beneath his huge hand. “She’s not on the schedule this morning, kiddo.” His brow wrinkled. “You know how she bitches about the crap tips on the day shift. And you know, there’s only so much of Jenna’s bitching any one man can stand.”

“Yeah.” Sandy forced a laugh. It didn’t even sound like her voice.

“There something wrong, Sandy?”

Monte only called her Sandy when he was worried. Like that time he gave her a talk about staying away from strangers as if she’d been five years old. There had been a lot about puppies and candy. Totally useless and totally sweet.

“I can’t reach her, that’s all. Her phone’s probably dead or something,” Sandy said. “I just thought I’d check here for her.”

“Hmm.” Monte narrowed his eyes, then ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek. His antennae were already up. He waved Dominic over. “Hey, Dom, you seen Jenna today?”

Dom shook his head, his fleshy cheeks trembling. He looked worried, too. “No, why, Pop?”

Dom and Monte knew Jenna was messed up. Lots of people did. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. But they were the only men in her life who’d never tried to take advantage of it.

“I’m sure she’ll be home soon,” Sandy said. “But I— Our landlord called and this thing came up and I need to ask her something.” That was almost sort of true, and it sounded a lot better than them getting thrown out on their asses.

“The last time I saw her was at close last night,” Dom said.

“Did she say where she was headed?” Monte asked.

“Nah, she was talking to some friend of hers,” Dom said. “I told her she could cut out a few minutes early.”

Dom was being polite. Most of Jenna’s “friends” were the kind she took home for only a night. But there was a chance Sandy could track him down, whoever he was. “What did he look like?” she asked.

“She, not he,” Dom said. “And I didn’t look at her real close.” Which meant she wasn’t pretty. “You could try asking Laurie. She was in last night. I saw her talk to them for a minute.”

Laurie, a senior at Ridgedale University, was the only student who worked at Blondie’s. Laurie came from nothing, needed the job to pay for tuition. So far, it was taking her a couple extra years to make it through. She was twenty-three and a few credits away from graduating, but she swore she would. Sandy believed her, and it gave her hope. Laurie was proving it could be done even when you started at less than zero. Laurie lived in an apartment a few blocks away with her roommate, Rose, who was in Blondie’s all the time, even lately, when she was super-pregnant. People gave her crap about it—pregnant and in a bar—never bothering to notice that all Rose ever drank was water.

“Okay, thanks,” Sandy said. “If you see Jenna, could you tell her to call me?”