“People act like that with Ruby,” I said, going on the defensive. “It’s not her fault. She just . . . inspires it, I guess. I mean, half the people in town are, like, in love with her and she never asked them to be, you know?”
It wasn’t out of the ordinary, someone following my sister like a shadow and keeping her in lemonade—it happened to be summer, and my sister happened to get thirsty. Ruby always had followers. Look at Pete, look at Jonah, look at any number of her exes and acquaintances and the Ruby-wannabes with the long hair and short dresses and tall boots who filled our town. London wasn’t special.
Except for the fact that she was.
“Yeah, but London’s not in love with her,” Laurence said. “I’m half in love with her—no offense, Chloe, your sister is fine—and even I don’t go all zombie-slave in front of her like Lon does.”
“It’s not like that,” London said. “You guys, you just don’t know. You don’t know, okay? You don’t know.”
Not one of her friends said a word.
“She’s been looking out for me,” London said quietly. “Ever since I got home this spring.”
“You got home this spring?” I asked. “From where?”
“Rehab,” she mumbled. “I was there . . . a while, and when I got out of rehab I guess she, y’know, cares enough to keep an eye on me.”
I couldn’t tell if she was lying for everyone else’s benefit. That’s what she thought happened to her . . . rehab? Maybe she didn’t know as much as I thought she did.
“She OD’d,” Cate shot out helpfully. London glared at her, but Cate kept on going, oblivious. “She totally almost died at some party out at the reservoir. What was it? Two summers ago? It was, like, really awful. I mean, I heard it was awful. I wasn’t there or anything, but yeah.”
Asha sighed and made a sad face. “I never knew anyone who had an overdose before,” she said randomly. “Did you get to ride in an ambulance to the hospital, Lon?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” London said. “I don’t really remember if I did or not.”
She did; at least her body did—only, it didn’t end up at the hospital.
Owen was extra quiet during this conversation. He’d been there with London that night—he just wasn’t revealing that bit of information.
I thought of what Ruby had asked of me when I’d left her up on the widow’s walk to go with London. Keep an eye on her, she’d said.
Ruby was acting as if the girl were about to combust. As if this thing that was happening—the breath coming out her mouth, the beat thumping in her chest, whatever bit of science or imagination was keeping her alive—wasn’t permanent after all. But none of us had any idea what London was made of now and what she might do.
I was trying not to think of her lying belly-up in the boat, trying not to see her blue and OD’d and dead. I was focusing on her mouth moving, hearing the words come out—and she was undeniably still here.
“I—I’m sorry,” I said to London. There wasn’t much else I could say.
“Yeah, that’s why I was away for so long,” she said. “But I’m way better now.”
I didn’t say a word about the joint she’d been smoking, as, technically, that wasn’t something you were supposed to run off and do after rehab, even if you shared it eight ways with friends. I wondered if I should have stopped her, if that was part of keeping an eye on her like Ruby wanted.
What London didn’t seem to remember was how Ruby had saved her. How, somehow, my sister had turned back the clocks and grabbed her from the swirling, sinking fate she’d gotten herself caught up in and flipped time another way. Ruby had done this wonderful thing and given her this second chance, and here was London, having no idea of any of it.
But I knew.