I swal ow.
“So, what exactly happened with Claire?”
“We don’t know,” Dad says. “We knew they were seeing each other, but how it ended—we assume it’s because Claire got pregnant, but we didn’t even know about that until Tess told us. Do you remember when she did that?”
As if I could forget that day, Tess coming home and going straight up to her room, not even taking phone cal s, and when Mom asked how Claire was at dinner, Tess had stared at her for what felt like forever before she final y said, “Pregnant,” spitting the word out like it was poison. After that, she’d left the room whenever anyone said Claire’s name.
I look at Mom and Dad, so close, so together, and think of the last two photos of Claire and Tess. The first one, Tess lit up like an angel, sleeping in Claire’s bed as if she belonged there. The second, Tess staring at the camera and smiling even though her eyes were so not happy.
“I have to go,” I tel them, standing up, and they both rise too, questions in their eyes.
“I have to get out of here, I have to think,” I say. “Today has been … I thought I knew Tess, but I—was she ever who I thought she was? Is anyone who they say they are?”
They don’t answer me.
They don’t have to. Tess wasn’t who I thought she was, and you can never ful y know anyone, not ever.
I see that now. I see so much now.
I leave the house and start walking down the street.
Claire is sitting on her porch, staring up into the sky, and I stop at the end of her driveway, wait for her to look down. Look away from whatever she’s watching—or thinking about—and see me.
up at the sky like she’s reading it, like the stars are speaking to her, and so I clear my throat and say, “Hey.”
She looks away from the sky then, looks at me. It’s hard to see her face from where I stand because she’s sitting so the porch light cuts her into areas of light and dark, shadowing her eyes but showing the fingers of one hand curled up tight.
“You want to talk about Tess,” she says, and there’s no question in her voice at al .
“I found—” I say, and then stop, thinking of the photos. Of Claire’s face turned toward Tess’s, of the two of them smiling. Of the picture Claire took of Tess sleeping. Of how Tess had them al hidden, like she wanted to pretend they never were.
I bet that’s what Claire wants too.
“I found out,” I say. “I figured it out.”
Claire moves into the light then, motions for me to sit on the porch with her. “Just—be quiet, okay? Cole’s asleep and you know how he wakes up super easily.”
“I know.”
“I know you know,” she says, and then sighs. “How did you figure it out?”
“Wel , you were—there was everything you said in the car, you know,” I say. “And then I went home and started thinking. And then I walked by Tess’s room and remembered how, um—”
“You found something,” Claire says, and for the first time, she sounds surprised. “Tess kept—she kept things?”
“Pictures,” I mutter. “On her computer.”
“Oh,” Claire says. “So you know know.”
“Yeah. Or at least, I think I do.”
“If you saw what I think you did, I don’t see how you can not know,” Claire says. “Wait, did that make any sense?”
“No,” I say, and she grins at me.
“I didn’t—if I’d known we’d be friends I wouldn’t have—”
“Kept it from me?”
“Ever talked to you,” she says. “I don’t—”
She takes a deep breath.
“I wanted Tess to go away and never come back. I wanted her to—I wanted her to tel me she was wrong. That she was sorry.”
“I’m sure she is,” I say, though I’m not real y sure at al . How can I be, when the Tess I knew never spoke Claire’s name, but the Tess I didn’t kept pictures and remembered her every time she used her computer?
“No,” Claire says. “She isn’t. She—I had to drop out of school because of her, Abby. She made my life hel .”
“Wel ,” I say slowly because she’s right, Tess did ruin high school for Claire. “I guess she—I guess she was so hurt when you got pregnant that she felt like she’d broken her own heart for thinking you wanted her like she wanted you, and—”
