I roll the joint in my hand: two inches long and thin. I first smoked up in eighth grade and hated the loss of control. But hanging with the people I knew, surviving in the homes I lived in, I learned quick how to blend in and conform. It’s amazing what you can convince people of just by touching a joint to your lips. “Are you sure you don’t want it?”

She shakes her head. I place the joint between my thumb and forefinger and snap it over the thirty-foot drop. Abby claps. “Well played.” She hoots, then yells, “Happy fucking New Year, nature. You can have your shit back.”

Abby lapses into silence. Somewhere in the distance below, glass shatters. Most likely a home invasion. The sad part is, neither one of us flinch.

“I knew you’d gone straight,” Abby says. “I take that back—not gone straight, but that you weren’t as hard-core as everyone thinks.”

“I know,” I respond. Abby is the one person who has always known. When everyone else was higher than kites, she’d look over and realize that I was sober—because she was, too.

“If I had asked, you would have smoked it with me,” she says.

I nod. Because she wouldn’t have wanted to do it alone, and because the only reason she would have done it is because it hurt her so much to see her dad. “I would have taken a hit.” One. Because that’s the most I’d ever take with anyone.

Her phone beeps. “One minute to the New Year.”

I stare at her in shock. “You set your alarm?”

Abby raises her face to the sky. “Maybe next year will be better.” She’s been saying that forever. I reach into my jacket and extract a lighter. Abby smiles because she knows what I’m about to do. “Do you want me to count it down?” she asks.

“Up to you.”

Abby watches her phone and counts from ten to two. The moment she says one I flick my lighter and hold the single flame into the night.

That’s right, world: one more year has passed and I’m still fucking here.

Chapter 18

Rachel

I OVERSLEPT. LAST NIGHT, I had a hard time falling asleep as my mind replayed the events of winter break. I worried over Isaiah and Ethan and school and Mom and lies and...Isaiah. Like always, sleep eventually came, but not without consequences.

I’m late. Not really late as in school-will-start-soon late. But late as in I-have-a-routine-and-I’m-not-keeping-it late. West calls it superstition. I call him an idiot. My days, they go better if I follow the tradition: an apple and one slice of toast for breakfast, watch the first few minutes of the morning news, double-check my backpack, drive the long way to school and sit in my car for five minutes before walking into the school building.

Mom stopped me yesterday and I missed breakfast. That one deviation created a snowball effect that ended with me having to read a poem aloud in class. I barely hid the panic overtaking me, and I hated how Ethan’s now-observant eyes noted the way the heat flushed up my neck.

Pulling a sweater over my school uniform, I bolt out of my bathroom, gather my scattered books off my bed and try to stuff them into my backpack as I race down the winding staircase.

Loud voices echoing from my father’s office cause me to skid to a halt halfway down the stairs.

“Again?” my father yells, and my stomach drops. It’s West. Dad only shouts like this at West. “Four fights alone since the school year began. When is it going to end?”

The fights. The chink in my brother’s perfect armor. Honestly, West has gotten into more than four fights at school this year, but those were the ones broken up by some authority figure. God only knows how many he’s been in outside of school walls. West is an easygoing enough guy, but when someone pushes him too far, West always pushes back. Part of me envies him that fearlessness.

“The fight happened last week,” West replies in a low tone. “Did your secretary just now get around to telling you about it or was this the first time you could fit me into your schedule?” Mom must be gone if they’re arguing so openly.

One of the books I had been shoving into my pack slips out of my hand and in slow motion, it bobbles on my fingertips. Instead of falling in the direction of the bag, it inclines away from me, drops and begins its rapid descent down the stairs, one loud thud at a time, until the book announces its grand entrance onto the foyer with a resounding BAM!

My spine straightens with the unusually still silence, and I know I’ve undoubtedly gained my father and West’s attention.

“Rach?” Dad calls from his office at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you okay?”

I suck in a breath to steady myself. He doesn’t even have to look to know it’s me. No one else in this family would ever make such an awkward mistake. I rush down the stairs and pause in the large entryway of his office. “Just clumsy.”

My father’s lips quiver as if he wants to laugh like I’m a clown in a show. How he turns his emotions around so quickly, I’ll never know, and I enviously wish he would share his secret. It’s probably why he’s never understood why I couldn’t control the panic attacks.

When I fidget, the quivering stops. He remembers I hate being laughed at—and I hate that he remembers.

I steal a glance at West, who shoves his hands in his pockets and stares at the floor. Mom doesn’t know about the times West’s temper has gotten the best of him. West can fake perfection, where I always fall excruciatingly short.

“Maybe I should try out for the circus,” I say to lighten the mood. “I’d be a whiz at juggling china.”

And it works. Dad laughs...at me. “Good thing Grace isn’t your middle name.”

With a glare between West and Dad, West leaves the room and I watch him go.

Dad pushes away from the massive oak desk, stands to his full six feet and gestures for me to join him. This is what Ethan will look like someday: tall, dark chestnut hair, even darker brown eyes and full of confidence. Mom said she fell in love with Dad the moment she saw him at college orientation.

Dad sits in one of the two chairs in front of his desk and indicates that I should take the other. I rotate the gold bracelet on my wrist one time. I have a routine and he’s ruining it.

“The guy provoked West.” It had to be said. “I heard about it at school and—”

“I don’t want to talk about West.”

One more rotation of the bracelet. West and my impending lateness are warring for attention in my mind. “Mom’s gone?”

“She left early this morning for a breakfast.”

I should be eating breakfast. Why can’t he let me continue with my routine?

“I wanted to tell you that I’m proud of you,” he says.

Despite the tension of the morning, everything inside of me explodes with joy.

“What you did last week at the charity event was mind-blowing. If you had told me two years ago that you would make a speech in public, I wouldn’t have believed you. You surprised me, Rachel, and you made me proud.”

I’ll be wearing this smile for a week. “Thank you.”

Dad leans forward, rests his arms on his knees and combines his hands. “You know how hard it was for your mother and me to lose Colleen.”

My joy drains, leaving me feeling cold. How could I expect anything different? I’m here so he can recite the same January speech. I glance over at the framed pictures on the table behind his desk. There are more of Colleen than of anyone else. I should know. I’ve counted them since I was six. “Yes.”

“And you know how hard this time of year is on your mother.”

I nod. Colleen’s birthday was the twenty-eighth of December. The charity ball and assorted holiday parties keep Mom afloat, but after the Christmas decorations are boxed away and the donations are counted, she spirals into a month-long depression.

“After Colleen passed, I had no idea how your mother was going to continue, but then she found out she was having you—a girl. The day of your ultrasound was the first time I had seen your mother smile in months. You’ve always given your mom that extra push.”