“In the car, then,” Rosa commanded. “Now.”

  Iridian did as she was told. Jessica started the engine, and Rosa leaned out the passenger window.

  “John, hey,” she called out.

  John scowled up at Rosa. It was the scowl of a wounded animal. He had his hand pressed against his side. Jessica knew there would be a bruise there. She wanted his whole body covered in bruises.

  “You broke my ribs, you little bitch!” John spit out.

  “Good,” Rosa said. “And if I ever see you on this street again, I will break your spine.”

  Iridian

  (early Monday, June 17th)

  When Iridian’s head had hit the side of her sister’s car, she’d accidentally bitten down on her tongue. There’d been a gush of hot blood, so sudden Iridian had nearly choked. She’d turned her ringing head and spit bloody gobs onto the curb. Now, as she sat in the back seat of Jessica’s car, her tongue was swollen and tender, still bleeding. She had nowhere to spit, so every so often, she was forced to swallow a mouthful of blood. Somehow those mouthfuls of blood went down easier than when her dad had called her a “nothing person.”

  Of all the insults Iridian had hurled at herself in her bathroom mirror, she’d never thought of calling herself “nothing.” It was the worst insult of all—worse than being called ugly or miserable or bird-thin or stupid. It was as if Rafe had taken a hot metal spoon and cleanly scooped out her insides. She’d been left feeling hollow and hungry.

  Then, when the TV screen had shattered and Rosa had come to her rescue, Iridian hadn’t felt relief. Or fear. She had cried out in desperation and grabbed for paper as if paper could save her life. Rosa had told her to leave and go outside, and Iridian had the time for one last attempt. Rafe had been disoriented, and Iridian had leapt forward. Her fingers had closed around a page from her notebook. There’d been ripping—holes being torn from the metal spiral. She’d been left with a shred, less than half a page. She’d held on to that shred as she’d bolted outside. She’d still held on to that scrap of paper as John’s knuckles had crashed into her cheekbone and her head had chimed with the impact.

  That scrap of paper was still wadded up in Iridian’s sweaty fist, where it was safe, and where no one else could reach it.

  Jessica’s phone rattled gently in the cup holder in the center console. It had been doing that off and on since they’d left the house.

  “You should have left it in the yard,” Jessica told Rosa.

  Iridian clenched her fist tighter and looked out to the flashing night sky. Cool winds buffeted the car. Jessica’s windows were rolled down like they always were, and little leaves were blowing into the cabin. They would come in one window, spin in a tiny roller-coaster loop-de-loop, and then go out the opposite window. Jessica’s car had always been as much of a mess as her room, so bits of trash—plastic straw wrappers and old receipts—were flying around in loops as well. Outside there was a storm coming, and inside it was a mini-cyclone. It had rained so much over the course of the last week, Iridian half hoped that by the time she and her sisters returned to their house, there would be no house, or that maybe just the peaks of the roof would be visible. She imagined the soft, rain-soaked ground swallowing the wood and the bricks, sucking it all down with a burp.

  “I’m not sorry.” Rosa turned toward Jessica and tried with little success to tuck the long strands of her hair behind her ears.

  “I know,” Jessica replied. “I just wish I were the one who had done it. Everyone’s been fighting my battles lately.” She paused and looked to Iridian in the rearview mirror. “What happened at the house?”

  “He found my stories,” Iridian said. “He read them. He wouldn’t give them back.”

  “Then Ana got mad,” Rosa said, smirking. “She broke the TV.”

  “Did you know about John?” Iridian blurted. She met her sister’s sharp glance in the rearview mirror.

  “Did I know what about John?” Jessica asked.

  “How he drove off.” Iridian paused to nibble on the inside of her lip, where the skin had split and blood was still trickling out. “After seeing Ana slip, he left her there in the yard.”

  Jessica’s eyes slid back down to the road. “Who told you that?”

  “Peter,” Iridian replied. “He said he and his friends had watched it all from the window.”

  “That’s not what he told me,” Jessica said. “He said they didn’t see the car. And when were you talking to Peter Rojas?”

  “I was at Hector’s,” Iridian replied.

  She then told her sister about what had happened with her notebooks, the smell of oranges, and the hyena.

  Fat drops started to fall on the windshield, and Jessica turned on the wipers. Several seconds passed, and the only sound was the click-swish of the blades skimming across the glass.

  “What else did Peter say?” she urged.

  Rosa shifted in the passenger seat.

  “He said he and his friends saw Ana’s ghost,” Iridian replied. “Last summer. She was outside, tapping on Dad’s window. Rosa knows.”

  “They left me a note,” Rosa said.

  Jessica’s expression was unreadable, which meant she was furious—because maybe she’d learned the truth about John and Ana, but also because the boys had seen the ghost and had thought to tell Rosa and not her. Jessica had always believed that Ana belonged to her and only her. There’d been the insistence on moving into her room and smoking her cigarettes, but Iridian knew Jessica had also spent the weeks immediately following Ana’s death building shrines. She refused to throw anything of Ana’s away, and would pile up used mascara tubes and hair ties and half-eaten boxes of SweeTarts all over the floor. They were tiny ofrendas, built there as if to welcome Ana back, as if she’d just momentarily lost her way out the window that night. So, no. Jessica wouldn’t have liked hearing that Ana had appeared to the boys across the street—and not her—an entire year ago.

  “Where are we going?” Rosa asked.

  Good question. Iridian had been so stunned by everything that had just happened, she’d failed to realize they were driving farther and farther away from her house, her street, her neighborhood. She started to panic a little. She didn’t know how far the chain on her anchor would stretch before it snapped.

  “To the pharmacy,” Jessica said. “Iridian’s bleeding. She needs stuff.”

  Again, Iridian tongued the wound in her mouth. Then she tapped her fingertips up her thigh. The skin there was pricked and torn. It burned when she touched it, so yes, she guessed she needed stuff.

  “You two can just wait in the car if you want,” Jessica said. “Let me know if you can think of anything you need—anything for the house.”

  “I need a new notebook,” Iridian said. “And another pen.”

  Jessica

  (early Monday, June 17th)

  For the last year, Jessica had heard all kinds of things because most people didn’t have the decency to wait until she was out of earshot before they ran their mouths. They’d accused Jessica of being desperate. They’d wondered what she could have possibly been thinking. Of course, she’d known John and Ana had been seeing each other for months up until the time Ana died. That was the reason she’d pursued John in the first place. Jessica coped with her sister’s death by becoming her sister. She’d wanted Ana’s room, her clothes, her makeup, her boyfriend. Looking back, that all seemed so stupid. Maybe not stupid. Maybe more like grief-sick. Now all this time had passed, and Jessica was still stuck hard in the role as Ana-Not-Ana-Not-Jessica.

  And then there was Peter. Fucking Peter. Peter got everything, and Jessica got nothing. Peter got to see Ana knocking on a window at night. All Jessica got was a shadowed hand and wicked laugh. Peter got the glory of fighting John and winning. Peter got to take a quick trip to Mexico and then wash his hands of Southtown.

  As she pulled her car into the parking lot of the pharmacy, Jessica itched at her scalp, then between each of her fingers. She wished she could scratch off all of her skin and start over.

  With her sisters waiting in the car, Jessica stalked across the parking lot. Before she’d even made it through the pharmacy’s doors, her phone chimed once, then again. She tugged it out of her pocket and chucked it into a trash can.

  Cotton squares, hydrogen peroxide, a tube of Neosporin. She’d just bought these things for John, and here she was, buying them again for Iridian, who had gone outside twice in two days and had been damaged each time because of it.

  When Jessica turned into the school supply aisle to grab a pen and another notebook, there was Peter, just a few feet away, bent over and hacking at a taped-up box with a cutter. She knew that blade. The handle was cracked and held together with bright blue duct tape.

  “I used that box cutter on Evalin Uvalde’s tires,” Jessica said.

  “Everyone knew it was you,” Peter replied, with a glance over his shoulder. He said it like it was no big revelation, like it was no surprise Jessica was a petty vandal. “No one could prove it, though.”

  “I should’ve slashed your tires, too,” Jessica added.

  Peter’s blade stilled. He sat back on his heels.

  “Are you fighting with me again?” He looked to the basket in Jessica’s hand and rose to his feet. “What happened?”

  Jessica still itched like she wanted to peel off her skin, and now the spot on her head where John had grabbed her hair started to throb. She was so tired of boys pulling on her, attempting to invade the life she’d tried so hard to keep protected.

  Again, Peter eyed the contents of Jessica’s basket and then did a quick scan of her body: her bare legs, her wrists, her throat, her face. As he breathed out, his lips separated slightly. He was concerned. Jessica didn’t want him to look at her like that. She wanted him to look at her like that. She wanted to look at him like that. She had no idea.

  Jessica needed a foothold. She needed to feel strong again, and the only way she knew how to do that was to make someone else feel weak.

  “Did you know?” Jessica began. “Did you know that a couple of months ago, I actually managed to get Iridian out of the house? We went to the mall. For a while, it went okay. We walked around, went into a couple stores. But when we stopped at the food court for sodas, Iridian froze. She thought she’d seen someone from school. It turned out it wasn’t who she thought it was, but still. She refused to move. She just sat there. At one of the tables, for hours. Hours.”

  “What happened?” Peter repeated. “Jessica, what’s going on?”

  “I sat there with her,” Jessica continued, “until the mall was closing and all the people were leaving, and I was finally able to convince her to walk with me to the car. That is the kind of sister I have.” She paused. “You did that to her.”

  Peter held Jessica’s gaze. “You’re right. I didn’t say anything. I could’ve helped her, but I laughed like an idiot. I’m sorry.”

  “Have you told her you’re sorry?” Jessica urged. “The other day, maybe? When she was over at Hector’s house?”

  Jessica was so, so angry. It wasn’t just about John and the pain he’d left behind. She was angry that the ghost of her older sister was playing tricks on her and her sisters and that Iridian had been quasi-hunted in their front yard by a zoo animal gone feral, but she was also angry—more than she could ever describe—that Iridian had gone across the street and sought help from the boys who’d proven over and over again they were no help at all—that they were, instead, meddling little shit cowards.

  “No,” Peter replied. “I did not.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Jessica scoffed. “But I bet you asked what you could do to help. Since you’re so fucking helpful.”

  Peter tried to say something, but Jessica cut him off.

  “What happened in the lunchroom wouldn’t have ever happened if you and your friends hadn’t decided to help us last summer.” Her voice was rising. “Iridian doesn’t need your help. I don’t need your help. We’ll never need your fucking help, Peter. It is not your business what happens in my house, to my family.”

  “Okay,” Peter insisted. He paused. “Jessica, what is this about? Are you okay?”

  Jessica cackled, full-throated. “You can’t have her! Ana’s my sister. You can’t have her!”

  “I-I . . .” Peter stammered. “Jessica. It’s not . . .”

  “She’s my sister!” Jessica slapped a hand to her chest. “And you saw her! You saw her, right? Her whole body, from head to toe, out in front of the window?”

  Peter nodded.

  “I’ve seen her hand,” Jessica said. “And I’ve heard her laugh. Just once. That’s it. Why is that? Why would she come to you and not to me? How is that fair? How is that fucking fair, huh?”

  The movement was slight, but Peter’s gaze caught on something over Jessica’s shoulder. Jessica turned and saw Mathilda standing in the aisle, looking alarmed.

  “Everything okay here?” Mathilda asked.

  “Fine,” Peter replied.

  “I heard about what happened to your sister.” Mathilda gave Jessica a sympathetic smile. “It was this time last year, wasn’t it?”

  Jessica bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming. Everyone, everyone knew everything. Everyone had pieces of Ana, and no one deserved them.

  Jessica felt Peter’s arms around her—not around her like to bring her into an embrace, but to steer her away from Mathilda and through the back door into the stockroom. Jessica wanted an embrace, though. She wanted one so badly. She swiveled toward Peter, colliding with him. She pressed her forehead into his shirt and sobbed. Then she pressed her lips against his shirt. She felt his heartbeat, beneath the fabric, beneath his skin. Peter didn’t belong to her, Jessica knew, but in that moment, she was claiming him. She had never done anything so wonderful as kiss Peter’s shirt. She pushed and pushed against him, but he didn’t waver.

  Even as she pushed against him, she was saying, “Please, just leave me alone.”

  Peter didn’t let her go, though, and she didn’t let him go, either.

  Iridian

  (early Monday, June 17th)

  “What are you holding?” Rosa had shifted in her seat and was looking at the wisp of paper edging out from Iridian’s fist. There was static in the pre-storm air, causing the strands of Rosa’s hair to lift and stick to the headrest.

  “Is it from your notebook? Were you able to save something?”

  Yes. It did feel like Iridian had saved something. It felt like she was keeping something alive and warm, egglike, in the palm of her hand.

  “Read it,” Rosa said. “I’d like to hear it.”

  Iridian said nothing. Outside, a bright ragged line cut across the sky, and the corresponding boom of thunder made Iridian’s head throb.

  “Please,” Rosa urged.

  Iridian looked to her sister, her kind sister, who was waiting patiently—as if Rosa would wait any other way. Her static-puffed hair was a brown halo. Rosa had captured the energy of the oncoming storm, sucked it inside her, and made it beautiful. Just minutes ago, Rosa had attacked John, and possibly Rafe before that. That had also been beautiful.

  When Iridian glanced down at her fist, she again saw the long, angry scrapes on her leg, extending from her knee up to the middle of her thigh. The blood was dry, but the scrapes still stung. The hurt was deeper than it looked. She’d been struck by a boy, and she’d never forget it. Her stomach hurt. Her head hurt. It beat like a heavy heart. Her tongue hurt. It was swollen and, if she read out loud what was on the paper, her words would maybe sound funny.

  “I was jealous,” Rosa said.

  Iridian looked to her sister, confused.

  “When you told me about the hyena,” Rosa clarified. “I was upset that you saw it and I didn’t. I didn’t know what I was feeling because I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before. I was mad at you and wanted to pull your hair. I’m sorry. I don’t feel that way anymore, by the way.”

  “Oh,” Iridian said. “Okay.”

  “Will you please now read what you have?”

  Iridian loosened her fist a fraction, then all the way. The paper was wadded and damp from her sweat, but in the glow given off by the lights in the parking lot, she could still make out her handwriting—chicken scratches, an ugly mash-up of print and cursive she’d attempted to make beautiful with bright blue ink. She hadn’t even looked at what was on the paper until now. She could’ve torn anything from her father’s grasp. It could’ve been a long description of how a tongue feels against another tongue or a series of incomplete sentences. It could’ve been blank.

  It wasn’t blank. Or about tongues.

  On one side there was a cut-off sentence that started with I want, but then after that, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry was written at least ten times.

  Iridian passed the paper up to Rosa and then told her the story—about finding the pregnancy test, about turning Ana’s crisis into her crisis, about calling her favorite sister a dumb whore. She could barely get those last words out. She hadn’t said them for a year, since saying them to Ana.

  “I tried to tell her I was sorry, like right then,” Iridian said, “but she wouldn’t accept it. She told me I’d fucked up. Sometimes it’s all I can think about.”

  Rosa put a cool hand on Iridian’s knee and was about to say something when Jessica opened the car door and tossed a plastic bag into the back seat. Iridian folded the scrap of paper and smashed it back into her fist, and with her free hand searched through the bag. She found cotton squares and hydrogen peroxide and Band-Aids that were too small for her cuts. There was no pen—no notebook, either.

  She was going to tell Jessica to go back, but then she saw the pink tracks of tears that streaked down her sister’s cheek, and the way she was white-knuckling the steering wheel.