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“You okay?”
I say more nothing.
“Stupid question,” Jane mutters to herself. “Sorry.”
“S’ok.” A hand appears under the bathroom stall door. It’s holding a small plastic cup with ice chips in it.
“Here,” Jane says. “I was pretty sure you were throwing up.”
I take the cup. “Yeah.”
“Drew’s really worried about you.”
I snort.
“He is,” she says again, as if we’re arguing.
“About time. Too bad he wasn’t so worried four years ago.”
The door makes a slight rattling sound. “What does that mean?” Jane asks.
I say nothing. Suddenly, she inhales sharply.
“Oh, my God, Lindsay. He was the fourth guy?”
“Oh, please,” I snap. My mouth tastes like fermented cotton and my head throbs with pain. “Like you didn’t know?”
“Mandy and Jenna and Tara spread these vicious rumors, but no one believed them!” I can’t tell whether she’s lying or not. I need to believe her, so I do.
“You mean, people believed their rumors about me, but they couldn’t believe their rumors about Drew?”
Her turn to go silent.
“I never thought about it that way,” she finally says in a squeaky voice.
“I should never have come home,” I groan. My purse shuffles against my hip and I remember my pills. I remember Stacia’s call earlier. Maybe I’m really not ready for all this. The island looks so much better. More appealing. Life was so simple there. I knew what was expected, even if I couldn’t always manage to do exactly what they wanted.
Out here, in real life, the complexities are so much more convoluted.
“Don’t say that, Lindsay. You have every right to be home. You’ve suffered enough.”
“Define ‘enough,’” I moan, sucking on a piece of ice.
She makes a snort-laugh. “I think there’s a picture of you in the dictionary next to the word ‘suffering,’ Lindsay.”
Jane wasn’t this sharp four years ago. While I always liked Jane, I’m coming to admire her now.
“Huh.” I make a sound that’s half laugh, half recognition of the truth in her words.
“Look. You have a lot to face. Mom and I wish your parents had brought you home a long time ago—”
“You and Anya talk about me?” I ask, surprised by the thought.
“Of course we do.”
“Oh! Because of the..because you found me that night.”
“No. Because we like you. We care about you. We hate what happened and wish we could change it. And Mom’s been telling your dad for two years now that it was past time for you to come home. He said the people at that place you were in were telling him you weren’t ready.”
