“I think maybe it’s a little bit about repressing memories? Or something like that?” My answer is hedged, because I secretly want him to tell me that isn’t true and that it’s really not a big deal at all. But I know it’s true. And I know he’s going to expect me to scratch beyond this surface.

  “Like what?” he asks.

  I give him a quizzical look.

  “Like, what kinds of memories, perhaps?” He leads me.

  I glance down to my legs, to the frayed spot on my jeans, and begin to scratch at it with my fingernail, tearing away small fibers of material to make the hole on my knee just a little bigger. I try to let the echo in. It’s quiet, in the depths of my mind, but it’s still there. It’s been there since I had the fight with my parents. Maybe it’s been there in my dreams.

  My sister’s voice—my name being shouted from her lips.

  Water.

  Drowning.

  “I wanted to know what silence felt like. My head was just so…loud.” I answer a question no one asked. I answer my own question—why did I jump in the water when I was six and couldn’t swim?

  I keep my eyes down. Dr. Lowell isn’t writing anything; he’s just sitting comfortably still and listening. I can feel Sam’s eyes on me, though. She’s going to learn a lot in the next few minutes. Maybe I am too.

  “My sister was always doing dangerous things and getting in trouble. My parents spent so much time on her and sometimes I hated her for it. I cried a lot about it in my bed. Everyone thought I was asleep, but I never was. I cried all the time. And when we were at the lake, I just got this idea that if I leapt into the water, my family would have to talk to me too.”

  “And did they?” Dr. Lowell asks.

  I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut for a beat.

  “I don’t remember,” I whisper. I bring my hand up to my head and push at my temple as if I am literally a computer that can be rebooted.

  “Then maybe that means you have some memories you rewrote,” he says, reiterating what I said originally, but in a deftly smarter way.

  “I don’t think it’s a maybe thing,” I say, looking up with a half-smile, a pathetic one. “It’s a sure thing that I rewrote some memories.”

  He nods with tight lips.

  “It’s common. And it’s understandable.” His head falls to the side. His smile sticks around.

  My gaze drops a tick.

  “It doesn’t feel like it’s very common.” I look toward my friend and she slides her hand closer to me on the couch. I reach for it until our fingertips touch, then I sit back up satisfied with her human touch.

  “Do you remember your therapy?” Dr. Lowell asks.

  I look up to meet his eyes. It’s weird, but I both remember and don’t. Everything has a fog over it. I know the things I’ve been told, and I know that I have been in and out of doctors’ offices most of my life. I don’t remember really saying much ever, though.

  “Kinda?” I laugh nervously. He joins me and nods.

  “That’s okay,” he says, finally pulling my folder back to his lap. He takes a pen from the center of his desk, too, and begins to make a few notes on blank paper in my file. When he’s done, he hands it to me to review.

  Arizona is still blocking out some of the trauma she experienced. But she knows the truth. She’s giving herself time to heal so she can process it.

  It’s a fair assessment. My gut says it’s dead on, too.

  I hand it back to him and say “okay.”

  “Anything you think I should add?” He clicks the pen a few times, giving me a moment to think. I take his question seriously. There is something…

  “I don’t know if I made up the false reality or if my mom did,” I say. His eyes wrinkle at my statement and he purses his lips, considering it.

  He finally nods and adds it to the list. I lean forward to read as he writes, but before I can finish, he tears off the strip of paper and hands it to me as if we’re passing notes in school. I unfurl it and read it right side up.

  TO DO: TALK TO MOM.

  I smile at the obvious statement. There’s a reason she sent me here instead of talking to me herself. I might need to make one of these notes for her.

  “Yeah,” I hum.

  It’s quiet in the room for a full second.

  “Yeah,” he reiterates.

  Yeah.

  Chapter Twenty

  I’ve never been in a fight.

  I’m not sure if it’s the idea of being in one that started me down this path, but it was definitely Kelsey’s flashing of supposed nudes of my best friend that pushed me over the edge.

  My parents are going to flip. This is just the icing on the top of a very fucked-up week, and I’m supposed to play at a bar tonight. Now that I’m a bruiser who gets in fights, though, not so sure my parents are going to continue being open to the idea.

  “You’re a real cu—” Kelsey mutters.

  “Uh uh,” Dean Alyson Schlepman says. She’s a tall woman with fire-red hair, cut like she just got out of the Navy. She’s intimidating and strong and there is a reason she has been a dean at this school since it opened. Before Kelsey can lay the ultimate insult on me, Dean Schlepman cuts her off. The point of her finger alone is like being shot with lightning. It comes with this overwhelming shame. It helps that her voice cuts through soundproof walls.

  “Both of you. Office. Now.”

  With our invisible tails tucked between or legs, Kelsey and I both walk past our disciplinarian as she holds her office door open. I hate that her door is basically one giant glass window. I’ve never really cared before when I was the one walking by and being nosey about the students sitting in these chairs. Now that it’s me, however, I really wish that fucker was made of full wood.

  “Kelsey, change that napkin out. It’s disgusting,” the dean says, handing a new gauze pad to the perfect cheerleader with the busted nose.

  I did that.

  I smile at the thought and sight, until Dean Schlepman sees me and snaps her finger in my face again. Shame.

  Shame, but still, a little pride.

  “This was a private matter. It didn’t even involve her, and she got all up in my face.” Kelsey glares at me from above her puff of white gauze with a rad shadow forming, and thinks she’s making an excellent point.

  I roll my eyes.

  “Are you seriously rolling your eyes?”

  She’s unbelievable.

  I do it again.

  She groans, and I take this opportunity to shift in my seat and square my shoulders with the bastion of punishment herself.

  “This school is always bringing in speakers who talk about anti-bullying initiatives, and one of the things they say is that if you stand by and watch someone else get bullied, you’re basically just as bad as they are.” I’m generalizing, but I think my point is coming across.

  Mrs. Schlepman sits back on the edge of her desk. She’s still tall. So freaking tall.

  I feel my pulse start to click in my neck. Ugh. I swallow down the sour taste and keep going.

  “Well, Kelsey was showing pictures—that, frankly, I doubt are even real—around to various tables at lunch of my friend…naked. That’s basically like trafficking child porn, right? My friend is seventeen.”

  The dean shifts uncomfortably and her face pinches at my rather accurate argument. I thought this up in the two minutes we sat outside her door. I’ve always been good at debate. Kelsey picked the wrong friend to attack with her insecurities.

  Our dean shakes her head in disappointment and lifts her gaze to Kelsey, who is now sitting with her mouth agape, unable to give an equally convincing rebuttal.

  That’s right, cheer girl. Band-nerd smart…right here.

  “Those aren’t even my photos. Neal brought them to school, and he was showing them to everyone, and I just was trying to warn the other girls and make sure they deleted anything he sent them, and…”

  I cough out a laugh in the middle of her lie. She glares at me. Neal is the dickhead Jesse punched at the party. He’s exactly the kind of guy to photoshop some girl’s head on another body for gossip, shock, and awe. He’s in media tech.

  But Kelsey also knows everything she just said is bullshit. She was spreading the fire because she gets off on the drama. And now that she touched those images and disseminated them, she’s in deep shit!

  “This…everything about this,” Dean Schlepman says, standing and circling her palm in the space between the three of us. “You both get a week of suspension. There are four days left before break, so as a courtesy, I’ll let you take your finals and serve your suspension when we return.”

  “You mean we get a longer holiday break?”

  Kelsey is so dumb. I flutter my eyes in disbelief.

  “No, Miss Ravenshaw. You will be serving those days here, in a very boring room filled with your least favorite reading assignments and myself. You will be spending quality time with me.” The dean flattens her palm on her chest for effect. It’s…effective.

  My insides sink down into my legs, and I’m pretty sure if a fire alarm went off right now, I wouldn’t be able to run. It would be like one of those dreams where the bad guy is chasing me and all I keep doing is falling.

  I’m falling. And I’m surrounded by bad guys.

  “I’m calling your families, so go back to class. You’ll get the paperwork by the end of the day. And Miss Ravenshaw…”

  Kelsey pauses by her chair before turning to leave.

  The dean holds a basket out.

  “I’m going to need your phone. The police are going to log the evidence.”

  Kelsey’s groan is spectacular and the five-day sentence I am going to have to serve in January is completely worth this moment. She purposely pushes her chair in front of my path on the way out, and I anticipate the door shutting in my face. I catch it before it can close completely, and I let my chuckle fall out aloud.

  “Miss Wakefield, one moment,” the dean says.

  My victory lap is cut short. I turn nervously to find the dean moving closer to me with her arms folded and her eyes puzzled and staring at the floor.

  “I’m aware of some of your recent…challenges,” she says.

  Of course my parents called the school. We go years living in my bubble and I pop it, accidentally, and poof—in the deep end of reality we all go.

  “That uh…my personal issues…” I shake my head and close my lips tightly for a breath. “That had nothing to do with this. I hit her because she pissed me off, and honestly…I’d do it again.”

  I can’t say for sure, but I swear a small grin peeks through the scowl living permanently on her face. She nods it away.

  “I know, I just wanted you to know that if you find anything overwhelming, or if you need to use any of our resources…what I’m saying is they’re here. We are an understanding administration.”

  I’ve never received one of these speeches, and I’m not sure how to react to it.

  “Thank you,” I say, though nothing about it really sounded sincere. It felt like a disclaimer. If I go assaulting people again, they can wash their hands of me and say they did their part—they have a counselor.

  The front of my shirt is torn; I’m busy trying to decide if I can tack it together with a stapler for the rest of the day when I run face-first into Jesse’s chest.

  “Hey, Bruiser,” he teases.

  My mouth falls limp. Does word really spread that fast around this place?

  “Sam found me after fifth hour and told me what went down. I leave you to eat one lunch on your own and you go all pay-per-view.” He follows the length of my arm down my finger to where it’s looped in the hole in my shirt. He tugs on it a little.

  “Pretty sure you’re just gonna get sent back there for dress-code violations,” he says.

  I sigh.

  He might be right. It’s not in a great place.

  “Here,” he says, stripping away the hoodie he’s wearing over his plain-white T-shirt. I let him because I can’t think of anything that will make my heart feel more whole again.

  I slide into the cotton, still warm from his body, and hug it to myself. I catch a glimpse of Kelsey over his shoulder. She’s huddled with Neal and a few of the other guys I remember hanging out at the party. They’re looking at us and laughing, at first—then suddenly Neal’s face gets deadly serious.

  “I don’t know if that tool wagon thinks you’re going to beat his ass again, or is realizing that he’s caught in hella big trouble for harassing Sam.” I nod for Jesse to look behind him. He gives the asshole a passing glance.

  “Yeah, well fuck him. He’s not worth it.”

  Jesse turns back to face me, and I must be wearing a look of shock because his neck shrinks and his head tilts in confusion.

  “Just…it’s funny to see you being the calm and collected one. I’m the one with the suspension slip and a pending phone call home,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he sighs, stepping into me and wrapping me up in his perfect arms. He kisses the top of my head. “Just make sure they still let you play tonight.”

  I chuckle.

  “Good to know you have your priorities straight,” I say.

  “Everyone knows that Zeppelin was nothing without John Bonham,” he retorts quickly.

  I grin against his body. I love his record-store flavor. Only a girl like me would get gooey over being compared to a fairly grizzly dead drummer. As it stands, he may as well have just proposed with those words.

  I press my hands on either side of his face, pushing his cheeks in enough to make his lips fish out for my kiss. I pucker and make a cartoon noise when I kiss him, and he laughs the sound of joy.

  “Robert Plant was pretty important too,” I say with a wink.

  I vibe off my own swagger for the last hour of the day, and I ride home with a quiet Sam, who spent the rest of her school day at the nurse’s office, hiding. I almost ask her about the legitimacy of the photos half a dozen times, but I eventually decide that it just doesn’t matter. Nothing gives that asshole the right to demoralize her—whether she took those shots or they were fakes.

  “You know I love you…like, bury-a-body-for-you-under-the-light-of-the-moon kind of love, right?” I blurt that declaration out just as she shifts her car in park at the bottom of my driveway.

  It takes her exactly half a second to burst into tears and climb over the middle of her front seat to hug me with the full weight of her body.

  I let her cry. I listen to her rip on Kelsey and Neal, and then she rattles off five or six more names of people I don’t even know. I agree with every word she says, and I let her dry her nose and eyes on the shoulder of Jesse’s sweatshirt. I hold my friend until she shifts from feeling betrayed to being pissed, and then my mom pulls into the driveway around us, and I swallow every ounce of badassery I thought I had grown in the last six hours.

  I can tell by her face that she’s gotten a call from school.

  “How fast can you learn the drums?” I joke.

  My friend twists and sees my mom pacing.

  “Maybe we record you and I can just sit at the drums and look pretty,” she laughs out.

  “I’ll call you…assuming I still have a phone later today,” I say.

  I leave my friend and follow my mom into the house. I linger at the door for a few seconds, glancing back to my friend who offers me a sympathetic smile along with a sniffle. That small moment makes whatever is about to come at home worth it all over again.

  I expect my mom to pull out a chair at the kitchen table. This is where important discussions happen—though, up until recently, they were usually family-wide meetings about some financial decision or cutback we would have to make because the business was slow. I always figured this would be the place where my parents told me that junior college was as good as it was going to get.

  Mom doesn’t stop there, though. She climbs the stairs, stopping halfway up to wave her hand and usher me up behind her.

  I climb, hesitantly, following her steps into her room to a bound notebook she has sitting in the middle of her bed. She doesn’t speak, only sits down and grasps it, holding it in her lap while her lips rest, parted and unsure of what to say next.

  “I’m really sorry.” I say the only thing I can think of saying. I got in a fight, and I ruined our family. Sorry is the least I can say.

  My chest grows heavy and I sink my weight into the wall behind me.

  My mom’s eyes tear up but she shakes the emotion away. She’s always been so good at this part. I made her this way, I think.

  “You and Ella were inseparable. I don’t know if you can remember that.” Her eyes hit mine, and I search them for scenes of my past. The memories are like a flipbook with pages torn out in-between. I shake my head.

  “A little,” I admit.

  A sad smile paints her lips.

  “I let this happen. And Ari, I am so very sorry. It was just…” A small sob eeks out. I move to the bed and sit so our legs are touching. I want to hold her hand, but I can sense that if I do the tears will flow freely.

  “Everything you need…it’s in here. I didn’t want it to be erased forever, I just wanted you to heal. We needed to heal.” She slides the book from her lap to mine. I hold it in my hands the same exact way she did. I’m terrified to open the pages.

  I can hear my mom’s breathing. It’s a slow, difficult draw. This is her worry, how it manifests. After a few long seconds, longer breaths, I move my left hand from the book and rest it on hers. Her fingers wrap around my hand at first touch. It’s the most real embrace I can remember us ever having.

  “I got in a fight today,” I say.

  My mom laughs out and squeezes my palm hard.

  “I know. I hope you won,” she says, breathing out a stronger chuckle.

  I lean to my side and rest my head on her shoulder and together we breathe.

  “I totally did,” I say. My mom’s shoulder shakes with amusement.