Josh took a step closer, tried his best to close the six-inch difference between him and his cousin. “That girl standing behind you took the one good thing I had. She took it without even thinking about what it would do to me, or her parents, or anyone else. And I want it back. I would’ve taken it that night if you’d done as she asked and called me.”

I’d never seen them fight. I’d seen the two of them hurl mean comments at each other at family gatherings, but never once had I heard them actually fight. I started to speak, to beg Josh to stop talking and walk away, but Alex waved me off.

“There is absolutely nothing she can do to change things. Nothing,” Alex said. “I’ve watched her cry herself to sleep trying to think of ways to make this better, Josh, but she can’t. None of us can.”

“You keep thinking that, Alex, and eventually maybe she’ll start believing it, too.”

Alex turned to look at me, confused as to what Josh was rattling on about. Josh had given me the perfect out, the perfect opportunity to come clean and walk away. I didn’t take it. I pretended I had no idea what he was talking about.

Alex’s entire demeanor softened. I don’t know if he saw the fine tremor overtaking my body or if he realized exactly how broken Josh was, but he laid a gentle hand on Josh’s shoulder and sighed. “I get what you have lost. I do. But she’s already apologized, Josh. What more do you want from her?”

Josh shook his head, the anger I saw coursing through his eyes morphing into defeat. “I want nothing from her.” He took a step sideways so he was looking squarely at me, speaking only to me. “But just because you apologized, doesn’t mean I have to forgive you.”

30

Alex waited until Josh was out of sight and our nosy classmates had gone back to their morning rituals before he grabbed my arm and towed me down the hall. There was a little alcove where an old water fountain used to be. He pushed me into it and scanned the hall to make sure no one was listening before he spoke.

“What’s going on between you two?” There was no demand in his tone. It was nothing more than a simple question laced with confusion. I watched as his entire body went rigid, tense, almost like he didn’t want me to answer, like he didn’t want to know. In public, when our friends or Josh were listening, he’d be protective and kind, secure in where he stood with me. But here, in the relative privacy of this dark corner, he looked scared.

“Nothing is going on. He’s upset about Ella. We both are. I was trying to help.”

“I know he’s the reason you left school early yesterday. You were talking to him in the staircase between classes and you went to his house last night.”

“Are you following me?”

He actually looked offended that I would even suggest such a thing. “No, Maddy. I wasn’t following you. I was here, fielding questions about your odd behavior, making up excuses about why you ran out of class and why you’ve decided to make Molly your new best friend. What I don’t know is why you went to Josh’s house instead of mine.”

“I don’t need you to make excuses for me,” I said, irritated with myself for being too weak to handle one day in public as Maddy. “And Josh, well, I wouldn’t worry about him, he’s pretty much written me off.”

“So you say.” He was angry now, I could hear it in his tone as he struggled to keep his voice down and not make a scene. He leaned forward, and I felt his breath against my neck. “Because when my girlfriend leaves school without so much as a goodbye, doesn’t answer her phone, and leaves another guy’s house dressed in his clothes later that night … yeah, well, I kinda think I’m entitled to worry, wouldn’t you say?”

How did he know I was wearing Josh’s clothes? “Who told you that? Who told you where I was?”

He took a step back and braced his hand against the wall, giving himself enough space to calm down while keeping me from passing. “Doesn’t matter who told me,” he answered quietly. “I just want to know why. Why did you go to him instead of me? Why do you trust him more than me lately?”

Oh, it did matter who had told him. I managed to duck out from underneath his arm and scan the hall. It didn’t take me long to find her, standing there pretending she was reading the notices on the student activities board. She wasn’t reading crap. Besides, it’s not like she had a life outside of stalking Josh. Kim had told him. That crazy girlfriend of Josh’s had told him.

I didn’t know who I was more upset with—Kim for sticking her nose where it didn’t belong or Alex for actually thinking for a second Maddy would cheat on him. “You believe Kim? After everything, you believe her over me?”

“I wouldn’t have two months ago. I wouldn’t have two days ago. But since you came back to school—” He paused and shook his head. “I don’t know you anymore, Maddy, and that scares the crap out of me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I tried for angry, which wasn’t a stretch considering I was fuming over Kim’s meddling. “What are you trying to say?”

“First Molly, then Jenna, now Josh. Are you trying to lose everything?”

“So I am supposed to forget what happened, pretend I am happy, and go on like everything is perfect?”

“That’s not what I meant, Maddy, and you know it. I’m the one person who actually gets what your sister meant to you. I remember every conversation we ever had about her, about how you wished you could be more confident like Ella and not care what people thought. How you wished you had half her talent. How you wished we had friends as loyal and honest as Josh.”

I shook my head at his words, tears rimming my eyes. Maddy never wanted to be me; she’d said as much that night in the car. How she was tired of covering for me, tired of making excuses for my lack of social skills.

“You have no idea how much she meant to me. You couldn’t,” I said.

The anger and confusion I’d seen in Alex’s eyes faded as he held out his hand to me. I took it and let him pull me in to his chest. “Josh may be able to tell you who your sister’s favorite band was or how much salt she liked to dump on her pizza, but he can’t remind you of the things you did when you were kids. He doesn’t know about all the time you spent sitting on the hood of my car scanning the latest issue of the school’s newspaper for her drawings.”

I didn’t know Maddy did that, didn’t know she cared. “And you can? You can remind me of that?”

“Every day if that’s what you need. You have told me so much about her, I can guarantee I know her as well as Josh does, maybe better.”

“She applied to the Rhode Island School of Design, did you know that?”

Alex nodded. “Of course I did. You showed me the three drawings she was working on for her application.”

The look on my face must have told him I had no memory of that because he laughed before explaining. “The weekend before the accident we were at your house. We had stopped there on our way to Narragansett Beach because you wanted to change. Something about not having the right shoes on for the bonfire and sand. Ella was out with Josh. There was a modern art exhibit in Boston she wanted to see.”

I remembered that day like it was yesterday. The exhibit was fantastic, but the two-hour ride to Boston sucked. That, and Kim had called every ten minutes asking when Josh would be home.

“I was complaining that we didn’t have time to stop by your house and pick up the beer, but you insisted I come in, said it would only take a minute.”

Nothing ever took Maddy a minute. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.” Alex grinned, and I got the feeling they’d done a lot more than grab a different pair of shoes. “You went into her room to borrow her hairbrush and saw the application sitting on her desk with her sketches.”

I’d actually shoved the application underneath a bunch of homework to keep Mom and Dad from seeing it. Maddy must have had to move a lot of stuff around to find it, but whatever. “Which one was your favorite?”