Diana burst into my room at the end of my daily stretches. It was the middle of July. I was running out of time, and the exercises hadn’t gotten any better in the two months since the spell. I put on a shrug over my leotard and swallowed down panic. Sometimes if I pushed myself too hard I’d throw up from the stress. But I preferred being sick to the days where I gave up halfway through and curled on the floor in a ball, crying.
Diana dumped her purse by the spare bed and flitted around the room examining every object, as if she hadn’t spent fifty percent of the past ten years here. Her humming energy wasn’t perfectly happy, but it wasn’t sad, either. She seemed on the verge of lots of different emotions all at once, and I wasn’t sure if she’d laugh or cry or scream.
“Are you okay?” Diana asked. She looked into my eyes, squinting as if to make out something on the horizon. “We didn’t get to talk at the carnival. How’s it been going?”
My hand went to my burning wrist. “I’m fine. Fine.”
“You don’t have to be fine.”
I laughed. “Sometimes I wish everyone would be a little less in touch with their feelings and thoughtful and empathetic.”
“I can be cold and remote.”
“Yeah right. Give it a try.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows, frowning, but she could only hold the pose for a few seconds before laughing and collapsing backward onto the bed.
“What’s up?” I asked.
She hugged her arms around her chest and stared up at the ceiling. “You’re going to laugh at me.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You would about this.”
I pinched the sensitive skin inside my elbows. Stupid, stupid Old Ari. Had I laughed at her before? In the year I spent with Win, did I tease her? Make her feel bad about herself? Was I so different with my stupid fancy boyfriend that she stopped depending on me?
I could kill the old me. How dare she treat my best friend like that. How dare she make Diana think she couldn’t tell me anything in the world.
“Try me,” I said.
She covered her face with her hands and moaned. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”
“Told me what?”
She took a deep breath and smiled so that it filled up her entire face. “I think Markos and I are in love,” she said.
I didn’t laugh. I couldn’t move a muscle from shock.
“Say something,” Diana said.
I swallowed. “That’s . . . wow.”
“You don’t believe me.” The smile deflated.
“Give me a second, Diana.”
“I always believed you when you said you were in love with Win.”
I decided it was worth hazarding a guess. “Come on. I never collapsed on your bed and announced we were in love.”
Her smile didn’t collapse any further, and I knew my guess was on target. Sometimes Old Ari wasn’t as mysterious as I thought.
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time together since the bonfire, and . . .” She stopped and looked at me, lips flattening, huge smile gone for good. “You know what, no. I’m not spilling my guts to you without some answers. Markos told me about the money he gave Win, the money you spent. What did you do with it? Why do you need more? Are you in some sort of trouble?”
The room seemed to chill; I felt a neck muscle pinch. “I can’t tell you.”
“Come on, Ari. I get not telling Markos. But you can tell me.”
“I don’t want you to worry about me.”
“Oh, please. Shut up already! I’m supposed to worry about you. That’s what best friends do. God, Ari. Your boyfriend died. You needed money—a lot of it.” She picked at the quilt on my bed. “Tell me. Let me make up my own mind if I should worry.”
Once in seventh grade Diana and I had stopped for ice cream on the way home from school and then spent an hour on the beach. When we finally reached Diana’s house Mrs. North screamed at us. Every second you’re not here I worry, she’d said, and that had sounded so crazy but also so . . . caring. I imitated her saying that for months and we always laughed, but every time I said it, it was with a twinge, the faint but undeniable knowledge that I made fun of Mrs. North because I feared that no one worried about me like that.
“Don’t you trust me?” Diana asked.
“It’s bad,” I said.
Diana nodded. She leaned forward expectantly, ready to be understanding and supportive. I felt sick, as if I’d been spinning without spotting my turns.
I hadn’t heard from Echo since I talked to her mother the hekamist—I might’ve scared her away. Or maybe she’d come back and blow everything up. I didn’t want to live with the threat hanging over me, a ransom I couldn’t pay.
My mind felt muddled. Diana seemed to float farther and farther away.