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CHAPTERONE
Freya
“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” I ask.
Julie looks at me from the bed. She’s got her knees pulled up to her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs.
She’s so different from the Julie I remember from our school years, with her ready smile and quick-witted sense of humor.
But that was before the gas explosion took her dad’s life, and she came to live with us. That was four months ago.
She shakes her head slowly. Her hair is blonde, a little greasy, her cheeks far gaunter than they used to be.
My chest gives a pang at how much she’s changed. It’s not her fault.
Her dad, like mine, died but not years ago before she can even remember.
“I’d love to,” she says after a pause. “But this cold is really doing some work on me.”
I bite down, warning myself not to say anything.
Julie may have a cold. But an illness so bad she has to remain in bed…all without a runny nose, cough, fever, or any symptoms I can see.
The other possibility – that her grief is so powerful it makes herfeelill, even if she’s not –causes more agony to twist into me. I wish there were a way I could magically make her feel better.
“That’s okay,” I say, walking across the room, previously our spare room. There are books strewn everywhere, a minefield of them as I approach. “I can stay here with you if you like.”
Julie’s gaze snaps to my wrist, to the butterfly tattooed as though mid flight. It’s blue, its wings spread.
When I got it last year, I was tempted to putDadbeneath it since that’s what it represents, my father and his passing.
Mom told me he liked butterflies. He had dreams of collecting them before he passed.
But I left it as simply the butterfly. I know what it means.
Finally, Julie looks up at me. “And steal this chance from you? No way.”
“It’s just a party,” I say, shrugging, though I can’t stop my lips from twitching into a half smile.
“No, it’s notjusta party at all, actually. There will be dozens of tattooists ready to give you tips or even a job. Or who knows…maybe their phone number.”
Julie smiles, trying to make me laugh. I laugh along with her, though a distant part of me notes how fake it sounds, how forced, as though we’re both simply playing a role.
“Is Lexi still meeting you there?” Julie goes on.
Lexi is the woman who tattooed the butterfly on my wrist. She reached out to me a week ago since I mentioned I’d love to work in the field one day.
“Yeah,” I say.But I’d love it if you would come.
I push that thought away. I used to say things like that in the early days and weeks after her dad’s death. A tragic accident, the gas exploding, nobody to blame, and luckily nobody else was hurt.
Julie reaches over and softly touches my arm. “Then you better get going. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be partying like crazy when this cold goes to hell.”
I smile, telling myself it’s true, telling myself these aren’t just more empty words.
It’s not her fault, anyway. It’s not like she can justget overwhat happened.
Julie and I bonded as kids because we were both missing a parent, she her mom, and me my dad. We used to joke about our parents getting together so we’d become sisters, though mom and Elijah never looked twice at each other.
