Wrath

She’d learned the platitudes from her father, who was full of them. His favorite: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. And now Beth finally got it: Wishes weren’t worth much. You couldn’t just close your eyes and hope things would turn out right. You had to make things happen. Harper had taught her that, too.

Harper had been a good teacher this year-and, of course, Beth had always been an eager student.

Tomorrow would be the final exam.

She was ready.

“I didn’t know who else to call,” Kaia said apologetically, when Harper met her in the parking lot and handed her the shirt she’d requested. Kaia slipped it on. “Thank you.”

“Dare I ask what…”

Kaia shook her head. “Better not to. Sorry I had to drag you out here. It’s late, and-”

“Trust me, I could use the diversion,” Harper admitted. She looked more closely at Kaia, who seemed normal on the surface-but that surface was somehow thinner, more fragile than Harper had ever seen it. She gestured toward the coffee shop they were parked in front of. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.”

“No.” Kaia ran a trembling hand through her hair. “I have to”-she looked at her watch, looked at the road, the car, anywhere but at Harper-“I just have to go.”

“Not like this,” Harper said firmly. “One drink. Just some coffee. We’ll talk.”

“I don’t need-”

“Not for you,” Harper said, only half lying. “For me. It’s been a crap night. I could use some company”

As if too tired to fight, Kaia nodded. As they walked toward the door, Harper cautiously attempted to put a hand on Kaia’s shoulder-in comfort, she thought. Kaia flinched away.

Inside Bourquin’s, they nestled in two comfy, overstuffed armchairs in front of a roaring fire. Each sipped a steaming cup of coffee, black.

“You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

Kaia shook her head again. “There’s nothing to-”

“Come on.”

“Okay, there’s plenty to tell. But it’s not like I’m going to-” Kaia stopped herself, and Harper recognized the look on her face. She’d worn it enough times herself, when she was about to say something catty and caught herself just in time.

“You talk,” Kaia said instead.

“About what?”

“About anything, I don’t care. I just want to… sample someone else’s problems for a change. So just talk. What’s going on with you?”

Harper couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

“What?” Kaia asked, annoyed.

“It’s just…” How to say it without sounding rude? Then again, who cared how she sounded? “My life is totally fucked up, everyone’s gone, and-let’s just say I never thought I’d be pouring out my problems to you.”

Kaia lifted her mug in a mock toast. “Right back at you,” she said, forcing a grin.

Harper sighed and slumped against her chair. She’d hated Kaia, once, and then they’d been cautious allies, brought together by circumstance. And now? Harper still didn’t trust her. But she somehow felt that she knew her- or maybe that Kaia knew Harper. It was the one person she’d thought she’d never let see her vulnerable; but these days, Kaia seemed like the only one with whom she could drop the act.

“Where should I start?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “Adam’s probably screwing some other girl in our backyard, as we speak. Or two of them.”

“Two girls? Adam?”

“Don’t ask. Meanwhile, Miranda hates me. I’ve got to give this shit speech tomorrow and”-this time, her laughter took on a twinge of hysteria-“turns out I’ve got stage fright.”

“Well, at least that one I can help you with.” Kaia dug through her purse and pulled out a tiny pink case, then opened it up and slipped two pills into Harper’s hand.

“And this would be…?”

“Xanax,” Kaia explained. “Mother’s new little helper. I snagged her stash before they shipped me out here. Take a couple before you go on. You’ll be fine.” She let forth an almost manic giggle. “I might have a few myself tonight.”

Harper slipped the pills into her pocket and sank back into her seat. “One problem down. Too many to go.”

“Feels like everything’s closing in on you?” Kaia asked-and was that sympathy in her voice?

Harper nodded.

“Like you don’t belong anywhere and you don’t deserve to?”

She nodded again.

“Like everyone thinks they know you, but no one really does?” Kaia took a deep breath and surreptitiously wiped the corner of her right eye. “Feels like maybe you’d be better off if you just took off one night and never came back?”

“Run away and leave it all behind?” Harper asked, surprised-because she’d just been staring out the window imagining how good it would feel. “If only.”

“Yeah. If only.”

It wasn’t their kind of thing. But it was a nice fantasy.

There was silence between them for a moment, comfortable enough that Harper found the courage to speak. “Have you ever… done something that you wished you could take back? You know, just go back in time, do it all over again, the right way?”

Kaia dipped her pinkie into the coffee mug and stirred it around the dark liquid. “Maybe.”

“It just seems like it should be possible to fix things,” Harper said, thinking of the look on Adam’s face when he’d thought Beth was cheating on him. He’d crumbled, totally destroyed. All because he trusted Harper and she’d used that trust to ruin him. “One bad decision, one screw-up, that shouldn’t be it. You shouldn’t have to feel guilty forever, right? There should be something you can do.”

“What, like atone for all your sins?” Kaia asked. She shook her head. “No. Sometimes, maybe. But sometimes…” She shrugged and closed her eyes for a long moment. “Sometimes you make the wrong decision and that’s just… it. Everything changes. You can’t go back.”

“You really believe that?”

“I don’t know if I really believe anything.”

Harper nibbled on her lower lip. “I don’t buy it,” she said finally. “No second chances, no hope. That would be hell.”

“Look around you,” Kaia drawled, gesturing to the tacky, faded, over-stuffed and over-ruffled coffee-shop decor, the darkness that lay beyond them. “We’re in hell.”

“You really hate it here, don’t you?”

Kaia shivered, though the coffee shop was almost overly warm. “More than anything,” she said, almost too softly to hear. “More than you know.”

Harper almost envied her. For Kaia, this was all temporary-she had somewhere to go back to, a happy memory and hope for the future to keep her warm. For Harper, this was it. Life in Grace was all there was. And she’d destroyed everything that made it bearable.

Kaia could dream about waking from the nightmare, going back to New York, moving on with her life.

But for Harper, this was permanent reality. There was no escape.

Chapter 13

“Check it. I think it’s a secret service agent!”

“No way.”