Damen was a few years older than me. He ran a tattoo shop call Art Addicts downtown where I got my eyebrow pierced. I’d gone back a few times with friends and discovered he had a side business of the less-than-legal persuasion. He had hookups and seemed to know a lot of skanky girls. Those traits made him an appealing acquaintance.

Some loser I didn’t know was sitting in the front seat, staring out the windshield. I opened the back door and a cloud of smoke poured out. Two guys who looked vaguely familiar were in the middle with a chick I’d seen at the tattoo shop squeezed between them. She looked at me and then over her shoulder at the two girls in the very back. I didn’t recognize either one. They both had on too much eye makeup. The fake blonde was busy hauling on a joint. The real blonde was putting on lip gloss. I climbed back between them.

“One of those is for me,” Damen said as he pulled away from the curb.

“Is that right?” I put an arm around both of them. “Which one is mine?”

“Me,” they said at the same time.

“I’ll just keep them entertained until you’re ready then, yeah?” I called up to the front.

“Not too entertained. I’m not into sloppy seconds.”

Music blared through the speaker system, making further conversation impossible. Not that talk was necessary.

It was twelve thirty by the time I got home. I was wasted. And high as a kite. My parents’ car wasn’t in the driveway so I assumed they weren’t home. I was wrong. They’d parked in the garage. My dad was sitting on the stairs when I came in, his tie loose around his neck, his shirt untucked, the top two buttons undone. He was calm. Which meant he was really fucking mad.

I heard the soft tread of feet coming down the hall from upstairs. “Is he home?”

My mom came into view at the top of the landing, her eyes red-rimmed. She’d been crying. She pulled her pale blue satin robe tight around her and came down the stairs, skirting my father, who still hadn’t moved.

“Oh, thank God! You have no idea how worried I was. I told you ten thirty. I was very explicit about that.” Her voice cracked.

It made me feel like shit, which was precisely the point. “I’m sorry, Mom. I lost track of time.”

“It’s after midnight! You have school in the morning! Where have you been? What happened to your neck?”

She was much shorter than me, especially without her heels, and she had to lift her head to meet my eyes. I couldn’t focus well; the combination of weed and booze made me logy and uncoordinated. She grabbed me by the chin and forced my head to the side. “Are those hickeys? What kind of girl are you spending your time with? You smell like a bar! I have had it, Hayden. What’s it going to take?” Her anger gave way to more tears and I just stood there, feeling like the asshole teenager I was.

“All right, Eleanor, I’ll take it from here.” Dad rose from the stairs and gently settled his hand on her shoulder.

She spun around and pointed a finger in his face. “Don’t! Don’t treat me like I’m too fragile to handle this. I birthed him.” She turned back to me. “I can deal with the holes in your face Hayden, but this”—she gestured to my neck—“I have a real problem with you spending time with girls who think this is appropriate. What if you get her pregnant? Then what are we going to do? I’m too young to be a grandmother! Not to mention the drinking and the drugs. And don’t try and deny it, Hayden. I’m not stupid. I know what that smell is!”

I shoved my hands in my pockets, weaving on my feet, and slurred, “I don’t think you’re stupid, Mom.”

My father shot me a look that should have made paint peel off the walls. “Eleanor, I agree. You have every right to be upset with him. However, this conversation would be better served in the morning, when he’s coherent.”

She seemed to realize he was right. With a graceful flourish, she lifted the hem of her robe and went back upstairs. Mischief, our black-and-white cat, who loathed me, wailed in my direction and followed her.

When the door to my parents’ bedroom slammed shut, my dad turned around. His arms hung loosely at his sides, but his fingers flexed and clenched repeatedly; his disappointment and exhaustion were obvious. I was wearing him out. He didn’t yell. He didn’t swear. He didn’t kick me out of the house. Any of that would have been preferable to what he said next.

“You better take a good long look at what you’re doing with your life, Son. The decisions you make now will have a direct impact on your future. If you’re not careful, you’re going to put your mother in an early grave. And if it’s just you and me? Well, I’m not sure either one of us will survive that.”

Less than a week later, they were dead.

“Hayden? What are you doing up so early?”

Tenley stood in the middle of the living room. Her hair was a tousled mess. She wore one of my long-sleeved, black shirts with shorts underneath. We still hadn’t had sex since she first came home. In the past eight days, the only thing we’d done was kiss. It was driving me fucking insane. And times like this, when I needed a distraction from the shit going on in my head, I wanted to say screw it and, well, screw her.

“I was just checking out some articles.”

“At seven in the morning? How long have you been up?”

“An hour maybe?”

Tenley crossed the room and dropped down beside me. She glanced at my open laptop on the coffee table. “Do you mind if I read it?”

“Go ahead.” I wanted her closer, so I moved her into my lap while she scanned the article. I wondered what the content looked like from her point of view. She clicked on the links I’d bookmarked. The related articles petered out when the case went cold.

“You’ve been looking at these a lot lately.”

“Yeah. But it doesn’t go anywhere, as you can see. I keep looking for something because there are things that just don’t fit, you know? There were problems with the evidence, but the articles don’t say anything about it.”

She tucked my hair behind my ear. I needed to get it cut.

“The lack of closure must be so horrible.”

I took her hands in mine and kissed her knuckles. “I want answers. I want it to make sense. There are images . . .” I shook my head against the memories. “And the smell—I think that was the worst part. For a long time I kept thinking it would fade, but it hasn’t. There’s so much I can’t remember very well. The night it happened is mostly a haze, up until I came home. Then it’s so fucking clear, it’s in hi def.”

Tenley’s smile was sad. “I know what you mean about the smells. Some parts of the crash are black holes, but others . . .” Goose bumps rose along her arms. “Scents trigger the worst memories.”

That was it exactly. Violent death had a distinctive odor. The residue was like a black smear on my life I couldn’t clear away, no matter how much time passed.

After a minute of silence when we were both wrapped up in shitty memories, Tenley kissed my temple. “I know talking about it is hard, but have you ever considered—”

“If you’re going to say therapy, you can stop right there. Nate’s been up my ass about it for years.”

She looked utterly taken aback. “You’ve never talked to anyone about this?”

“I’m talking to you.”

“I mean a professional.”

“What’s the point? I already know why I’m fucked up. I don’t need someone to tell me that for a hundred bucks an hour.”

“You’re not fucked up, Hayden.” I raised an eyebrow and she sighed. “It’s not about the why. It’s about finding ways to deal with what you went through, so it doesn’t rule your life. That’s the reason I’ve decided to attend a grief-counseling group.”

“What? When are you doing that?”

“There’s a group starting in January on campus. It’s been a year—it’s time.”