She walked across the parking lot to a place she called the Grove, a copse of trees she and Nolan had discovered sophomore year and made their smoking hangout. It always smelled like fresh rain and sap. Here, Parker could be herself under the cover of the leaves—angry Parker, crazy Parker, or tormented and damaged Parker. It didn’t matter. No one ever came here.
She dug for a smoke and lit up eagerly. As the nicotine hit her bloodstream, another memory of Nolan hit her. Just when he was getting woozy that night at his party, he’d looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since her accident. And all he’d said was, I always knew you were a crazy bitch.
Parker forced her eyes back open. No, she told herself. She would not fall down that hole. She would not relive last week. She would move forward and forget everything.
“Hey there.”
She looked up. Her film studies teacher, Mr. Granger, stood at the edge of the trees. Granger was one of those cool, good-looking, young teachers who always knew about current music, looked the other way when kids texted in class, and talked about his semester abroad in Paris, when he’d drunk absinthe and made out with a burlesque dancer. He’d started a photography club, where kids developed black-and-white photos the old-fashioned way, and nearly the entire female student population had signed up.
Anger pricked Parker’s skin. He wasn’t supposed to know about this place. And she was angry at him for other reasons, too. He’d been the one who made them watch that damned film. He’d been the one to sort them into groups after. He’d been the one to ask, Is murder justified so long as the person really, truly deserved it?
Now Granger came closer, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket himself, which surprised her. “I didn’t take you for a smoker,” he said quietly, lighting up.
Parker took a drag. She didn’t know whether he was kidding—she looked exactly like a smoker.
“I have to go,” she said gruffly, throwing the butt onto the grass and twisting it out with her shoe. Even the Grove was ruined today. And when she walked back into school, she felt yet another stabbing migraine coming on.
Maybe, she suddenly thought, going to a therapist would be helpful after all. Maybe he would help her block out all those memories. Maybe he’d do some sort of hypnosis thing until she no longer had any feelings at all. Maybe he could fix her.
Or maybe, a small voice in the back of her head said, what she did to Nolan proved that she really was broken beyond repair.
CHAPTER TWO
CAITLIN MARTELL-LEWIS SHIFTED FROM FOOT to foot on the Beacon Heights soccer field. The manicured lawn looked vivid green against the woolly gray afternoon clouds that hung low in the sky. It felt as if the gentle autumn warmth had been sucked out of the air overnight, leaving a moist chill that cut through her warm-up pants. Caitlin breathed in the scent of freshly cut grass and impending rain. The smells of soccer.
“All right—we’re going to have to go heavy on the offense.” Caitlin rubbed her hands together as her teammates listened. “Megan and Gina, you two take the midfield. Shannon, Sujatha, Katie, and Dora, you’re defense. You guys are going to have to stay on your toes. The rest of us are on forward.”
“We’re going to crush those boys.” Katie O’Malley glared at the opposing team: Beacon’s varsity boys’ soccer squad. Today was the annual girls-boys play-off.
The boys’ coach, Coach Marcus, and the girls’ coach, Coach Leah—who were, incidentally, married to each other—paced the sidelines in identical maroon-and-white soccer anoraks. Caitlin glanced at her coach briefly, then looked back at her team. “Viking, you’ve got our goal, right? Don’t let those bastards score.”
“I’ve got this,” Vanessa Larson said. At almost six foot two and stunningly beautiful with her long red hair and chiseled cheekbones, Vanessa the Viking was also Caitlin’s best friend on the team.
Then Ursula Winters, who normally played center mid but had taken over as striker when Caitlin was injured, looked at Caitlin harshly. “Are you sure your ankle’s healed? You don’t want to hurt it more by coming back too early.”
Caitlin frowned. “I’m fine,” she insisted. Of course Ursula didn’t want Caitlin to play—she wanted to take her place. But Caitlin was fine . . . mostly. She had a high ankle sprain, but she’d powered through it with physical therapy and the occasional hit of OxyContin—the same drug, actually, that Nolan allegedly OD’d on. And now here she was, back on the field after just three weeks. She had to prove to the coach that she was ready for the big play-off game in two weeks. Winning that was her ticket to an athletic scholarship at the University of Washington, something she’d been working toward her whole life.
Suddenly, Caitlin felt two strong arms wrap around her shoulders. “Gotcha,” her boyfriend, Josh Friday, murmured in her ear.
“Get off me,” Caitlin mumbled good-naturedly, elbowing him. “I’m trying to focus.”