The next hour was an interrogation. Morgan was desperate to make sense of the timeline, while Penelope threw in sharp, biting questions. Elliott said nothing. He just watched me. By the time they finally left, I felt wrung out, as if I’d been working in triple-digit heat all day.
When I finally stepped out of my room, my mom was waiting. “What can I do? You wantpastel?”
I shook my head. My stomach was a tangled knot.
“Give it time,mija,” she said, smoothing my hair. “They’ll come around. You never have to ask to stay here.”
I kissed her cheek and stumbled back to my room. It hit me then: I had always expected too much from my friends. Too much forgiveness for the way I’d handled my own trauma.
Inside, my sister was waiting.
“I thought everyone left,” I said.
“I figured you’d need company,” she replied, grabbing my hand. “We can watch trash TV, telenovelas, crime shows. Your choice. I’m already making popcorn.”
I smiled faintly. “I’m glad nothing I do can scare you off.”
“That’s the point of sisters,” she said. “Can I say something?”
“Yep.”
“I get why they’re mad. I get why you lied. But Van... they love you. They would’ve been at that hospital every single day. Just like we were.”
I nodded, tears spilling over. “I thought I was protecting them.”
“No, you were being a martyr. Like always.”
That did me in. “When did you get so smart?”
“I watched what my sister did, then did the opposite,” she teased. It finally pulled a real laugh from me.
“I need your help with something,” I whispered.
She tied her hair up, smirking. “Okay. Whose house are we breaking into?”
twenty-three
ELLIOTT
The driveback to Morgan’s was silent, but the air inside the car felt like it was vibrating.
Morgan was in the passenger seat, her head pressed against the glass, her breath fogging the window in rhythmic, shaky hitches. Penelope sat in the back, her jaw set so tight I could practically hear her teeth grinding.
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white, my mind a violent loop of that one image: the photo. Vanessa’sfather, holding her hand. Vanessa, looking frail and broken, trying to take a single step.
The night of your parents’ funeral.I’d been playing those words on loop in my head. The words were a physical weight in my chest. While I had been staring at my ceiling in my bedroom she had been fighting for her life. While I had been spending the last ten years curating an icy, sharpened hatred for her, she had been carrying a silvery roadmap of it on her skin.
“She lied,” Morgan whispered, her voice cracking the silence. She didn't move her head from the glass. “For ten years, Elliott. Every time we went to the beach, every time we had a sleepover... she had an excuse. She had a story.”
“I’m sure she felt like she was protecting us,” I said, though the words felt like ash in my mouth.
“Protecting us?” Morgan snapped from the passenger seat, looking at me in disbelief. I caught Penelope’s eyes in the rearview mirror; they were hard and bright with unshed tears. “She treated us like we couldn't handle the truth. She went through those surgeries—plural, Elliott—alone. Because she thought we were too weak to show up for her.”
“She didn't think we were weak. She thought she was a burden.” I said in her defense because I knew Vanessa and so did Morgan. Maybe she was too mad to see it right now but it was true.
I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine, but nobody moved. The silence settled back over us, heavier than before.
“The night of the funeral,” Morgan said, finally turning to look at me. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. “I remember waking up and she was gone. I was so angry. I thought she just... couldn't deal with the sadness. I thought she’d run away because it was too much for her.”
