Page 29 of Broken Things

“I just did,” she points out.

“AfterIbrought it up,” I say. I’ve thought about Owen a thousand times—I’ve had to try hard not to think about him—but never expected to see him again, or even have the chance. Last I heard he was in boarding school in England. For years, there have been rumors that the Waldmann house is for sale.

Brynn snorts, tossing her bangs out of her eyes, like a horse. “I only saw him yesterday,” she says. “Besides, you can’t tell me you really want to see him after everything that happened. You’re not still in love with him, are you?”

“Of course not,” I say quickly, pressing hard on the accelerator so the car leaps forward, and Abby slams back against her seat and shoots me an injured look.

“See?” Brynn says, shrugging, as if it’s no big deal and she’s been doing me a favor. “I was just protecting you.”

I’m so angry that for a second I can’t speak. The worst thing about it is that Brynndidused to protect me. When I spaced out in the locker room once and Lily Jones accused me of staring at her tits, Brynn piped up, “What tits?” and suddenly everyone was laughing at Lily, not me. When I was sad about my parents’ divorce, she’d do funny impressions of anyone she could think of to get me to laugh.

When Summer died, all of that died with her.

Brynn stuck up for me to the cops, sure—she knew I had nothing to do with it—but it was as if she blamed me anyway.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” I say, “I’m doing fine. I’ve been doing fine without you for the past five years.”

Brynn mutters just loud enough for me to hear, “Doesn’t seem like it.”

“Excuse me,” I say, stepping harder on the gas and barely missing a boy on a skateboard who gives me the finger. “I don’t think you’re one to judge.”

“Hey, Brynn,” Abby jumps in before the fight can escalate. “Do you want us to swing by the hospital or something? So you can say hi to your mom?”

Instantly, I feel terrible: I’d completely forgotten about Brynn’s mom and her accident. I take a deep breath, imagining my anger as a shadow, imagining it driven away by a spotlight. “Yeah,” I say. “I’ll drop you anywhere you need to go.”

But Brynn only looks furious. “I can’t believe you,” she says finally, her voice tight as a wire. “I can’t believe you would use my mom against me. You would use her to getridof me.”

“I’m not trying to get rid of anyone,” I say. “I thought—”

“Well,don’tthink,” Brynn snaps. “Don’t think about my mom, or about me. I can take care of myself,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.

“She was just trying to help,” Abby says.

Brynn’s silent for a second, fiddling with her phone. When she looks up again, her face has gone blank. Not angry, but just completely devoid of expression, as if someone has shuttered her eyes. “You know what, actually?” Her voice, too, is toneless. “Drop me off at Toast. I’ll meet my sister there. We’re going to visit my mom together.”

I try to catch her eye in the rearview mirror, but she won’t look at me. “How is your sister?” I ask, instead of all the questions I really want to ask, likeWhen did you talk to your sister? Why are you pretending to text when your phone is off?

“Fine,” she says, staring out the window. A muscle flexes in her jaw like a heartbeat. “It’s like you said. We’re all doing just fine.”

Brynn

Now

After Mia drops me off, I track exactly five minutes across the face of an enormous clock behind the juice machine, then duck out of Toast again, before the barista side-eyeing me can harass me about placing an order. For half a second, I feel guilty about ditching out on an imaginary date with my sister to visit my mom in her imaginary hospital room.

That’s the problem with lies. They aren’t solid. They melt, and seep, and leak into the truth. And sooner or later, everything’s just a muddle.

It isn’t hard to track down Jake Ginsky’s address. That’s the promise of a place like Twin Lakes. No one’s ever really a stranger. Which means: there’s no place to hide.

Ginsky’s mom ran an acupuncture and massage therapy business out of a converted room above their garage; I remember because once Summer and I had a fight about it. It was Decemberof seventh grade, and surprisingly warm: I remember we strung Christmas lights on the house in T-shirts that year.

Summer told me Jake had told her he’d give her a massage one day after school, and when I made a joke about whether she’d end up handcuffed to a radiator in the basement, she scowled.

“Jake’s not like that,” she insisted. “He told me he wants me to be his girlfriend.”

“That’s what all guys say,” I responded.

And she tilted her head back to narrow her eyes at me, just like Hank Ball did. “How would you know?” she said. Then she sighed and stepped closer to me, staring up at me through her lashes now. “I’ll make you a deal. I won’t go to Jake’s. But then you have to give me a massage.” And, just to bug me, she made a show of touching her shoulders, rolling her neck, running her fingers along the sharp promise of her clavicle.‎ ‎

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