The emptiness I’d been struggling to overcome settled around me like a dark, unwavering cloud. My sister, my best friend, the one who shared my birthday, was gone. Forever. And it was there on the side of the road, as I raged in my car, screamed and cried and cursed my sister for leaving me, that I finally embraced the pain and made my decision.

I turned the car around in the middle of the road and drove, without thinking, back to school, back to the two people I wanted to apologize to first.

The school parking lot was full. I could either wedge my car between the Dumpster and the buses-only zone in front of the school or park way over on the other side of the fields. The Dumpster-buses-only spot worked; I wasn’t planning on being here long anyway.

I didn’t bother to sign myself in. The front office had probably already marked me absent. By the time the school secretary got around to calling my parents this afternoon, it’d be too late. By then, they would know the truth.

It was noon, and the hallways were crowded with kids at their lockers swapping out books for their next class or going to lunch. The fact that I was wearing the same clothes as yesterday didn’t go unnoticed. I could see people pointing as clearly as I heard their hushed comments. My hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and what little was left of yesterday’s makeup was smudged. I didn’t care. I was done pretending. I was done trying to fit in. I was … done.

The cafeteria doors were closed, the roar of noise inside barely audible from the hall. But I knew they were there.

It went dead silent the minute I walked in, one hundred and twenty-nine senior heads and a handful of underclassmen turning in my direction. I didn’t have to waste time trying to find them, they’d be in their assigned sections of hell. Molly was at the end of Maddy’s table, a safe three empty chairs between her and everybody else. Alex was sitting there, too, Maddy’s friends crowded around him and Jenna cozying up to his side.

Alex pushed Jenna away when I walked in, the color draining from his face. Dismay—no, fear was what I saw in his expression, pure fear. “Maddy,” he called out, his eyes signaling me over.

I shook my head and walked toward Molly. I’d get to Alex, but not yet. Molly had been kind to me, extending her friendship and an offer to help. Because of that, she was going to be first.

Alex was up and out of his seat the minute he realized I wasn’t going to quietly retreat to the hall and wait for him. “This isn’t what I call laying low,” he said.

I actually laughed at his words, a distorted chuckle that took even me by surprise. “I’m not trying to lay low, Alex.” I’m trying to fix what I did, I finished silently to myself. “I’m sorry I took Maddy from you, sorry I can’t be the girl you used to know, you used to love.”

“Let me take you home. We can talk about this there.”

“No, I don’t want to talk about it.” Not anymore.

“Nobody expects you to be the same Maddy.”

“I expected it, Alex. I tried, I really did. For you, for my parents, for everyone, I tried.” I took out the original drawing I’d made of Maddy three years ago and handed it to him. I’d looked for a half hour the other day before I finally found it underneath a pile of old Barbie dolls in my closet. “It’s not very good, but it’s yours.”

His eyes scanned mine for some sort of explanation. I swallowed hard and counted to three, then told him the truth. “I can’t be her anymore. It hurts too much to be her. I don’t want to spend my days trying to dress and act and talk like my sister. I want to spend them remembering her illogical hatred of my dog and her love of lavender-scented shampoo. I want to cry for her, miss her, and I want everyone to know just how much Maddy being gone hurts, does that make sense?”

He shook his head, the shocking knowledge of what I was saying finally settling in as he whispered my name. “Ella?”

I nodded and took a quick look at Jenna. She had her hand on Alex’s arm as if somehow it was her support he needed. “She’s right. You deserve better than I can give you.”

Jenna’s grin widened at my comment and she moved in closer to Alex, as if telling me who owned him now.

“I know you think Jenna is what you want. What you need,” I continued. “But she’s not. Trust me, she’ll take everything good in you and destroy it and Maddy wouldn’t want that.”

“How dare you—” Jenna began to argue, no doubt to tell me how pathetic and wrong I was.

I cut her off. “You, I have nothing to say to. You’re cold and calculating and not worth my time.”

I walked away, relieved that I was almost done. Molly sat there watching me, her smile genuine. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” she said.

I nodded. It felt great to finally tell the truth, to lay into Jenna after years of listening to her belittle me. “But it is you I owe the biggest apology to.”

“No you don’t. I get why you kept your distance.” Molly kicked the chair out across from her and motioned for me to sit down. “But none of that matters now.”

I slid the chair back in and watched as the hope slowly drained from her face. She had thought I was going to sit down and be her friend, forget about the other end of the table and stick with her. I would’ve had I not already made up my mind.

“There is a seat at that table if ever you want it,” I said as I pointed to the table Josh and I always sat at. “I know it won’t make up for what happened to you last year, but I thought perhaps some real friends and an apology would be a start.”

She looked confused. “I don’t understand,” Molly said.

“I didn’t either until last night. You were up for the co-captain spot on the field hockey team. You were good, probably better than Maddy. The other spot was going to—”

“Jenna,” she said, finishing my sentence.

“If you were hungover or sick, then you’d miss the mandatory Sunday practice and probably lose your chance of being co-captain. At the very least, you’d play like crap for the first quarter and then Coach would have no choice but to pull you out.”

Her eyes darted between me and Jenna, and I swear I saw a flash of understanding in her eyes. “What are you trying to say?”

“Maddy slipped something into your drink that Saturday night. She was trying to make you sick, figured you wouldn’t be able to make practice the next day. I don’t think she ever imagined they’d test the team, I can’t believe my sister—”

She was staring at me as if I were a stranger, as if the words pouring out of my mouth were somehow not mine.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know that doesn’t even begin to make up for what happened to you, but I don’t know what else to say. Don’t know how to make it right.”

Molly shook her head, a look of complete disbelief clouding her expression. “I don’t get it. You, I mean Maddy, talked to me at the party before she left, told me she’d pick me up early the next day so we could go check out Lincoln High’s sweeper, that she was one of the best in the state and if we could figure out her weakness, then we’d have the upper hand.”

“She still is,” I said. I knew exactly what girl Molly was referring to. Maddy had idolized her, talked about her constantly during field hockey season, how she wished she had half that girl’s skills. “Except now she plays for Boston College, not Lincoln High.”

Somehow what I was saying finally clicked and she stood up, her chair falling to the floor behind her as she leaned across the table so her face was mere inches from mine. “Who else knew?” Her voice came out in a shudder, like the words were stuck there and had to be shaken free. “Who else knew that she drugged me?”

I saw Alex make a move toward me, Jenna dropping into the chair behind him. Alex had nothing to be afraid of. He’d had no part in this. In fact, he’d tried to talk my sister out of it for days. And as for Jenna, she still wasn’t worth the effort.