“Why, Amber?” she wailed. “Why?”
Britt and her boyfriend had split up the day before. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Spence was at school taking his SATs for a fourth time, and I’d wanted to be there to support him, but Britt had called and she was so upset that I’d been a little worried about her hurting herself. I had spent the night at her house and we’d stayed up until two A.M. talking about what an ass Grady—her ex—was. I’d thought she was past the tears, but the second I’d mentioned going to meet Spence, the waterworks had started all over again.
“Who’s going to take me to prom?” she sobbed.
“You’ll come with us,” I told her.
She shook her head into my shoulder. “I’ll look like a loser hanging out alone!”
“No way!” I said. “You won’t look like a loser. Momma can do your hair and we’ll find you an amazing dress, and we’ll show Grady what an idiot he was for letting you go.”
Britt continued to sob, and all I could do was hug her and tell her that it’d be okay. I’d tried to get her to eat something, but she’d refused all food, and as she leaned against me I could feel the sharpness of her frame against mine. What if this sent her on another one of those starvation sprees? Britt couldn’t afford to lose any more weight.
At last the tears subsided a little and we made our way downstairs. “Where’re your parents?” I asked as I sat her at the table. I went to the cabinets and rummaged around for something tempting enough to make her eat.
“Dad’s probably at the golf course, and Mom’s at aerobics.”
Britt’s parents were almost never around. Her two older brothers were off to college, and her mom and dad acted like she was gone, too. They often went away on vacation leaving her behind for weeks at a time, and not once had they come to any of our school events or to see her perform in school plays.
Britt had an incredible voice, and had been the lead in the school musical every single year we’d been in high school. We all thought she’d move to Hollywood and try to make it big some day. I was rooting for her. I found a box of Pop-Tarts in the back of the pantry and toasted two—one for her, one for me. When I set the plate in front of her, she simply stared at it moodily.
“I’m not hungry,” she said, before getting up to retrieve a Tab from the fridge.
I made a face. That stuff was so gross; I didn’t know how she could stomach it. I nibbled on the other pastry and said, “How about when Spence gets done with his test we go to a movie? The Secret of My Success looks good.”
Before she could answer there was a knock on the door. Britt looked panicked. Maybe she thought it was Grady and she didn’t want him to see her all disheveled.
“I’ll get it,” I said.
When I opened the door I found Spence there, looking anxious. “Hey,” he said. “How’s she doing?”
“It’s just Spence!” I shouted back to Britt. Stepping out onto the porch, I motioned for him to follow me to the chairs. Keeping my voice low, I said, “I’m really worried about her. She hasn’t had anything to eat since yesterday at lunch, and you saw what she had then.”
“Couple of carrot sticks and a Tab,” he said.
“Yeah. This whole thing with Grady has her in a tailspin.”
“I didn’t know she was all that into him,” Spence said.
“She wasn’t, but he was her date to prom, and the fact that he broke up with her has crushed her confidence.”
Spence scratched his temple. “What can we do?”
I wound my arm through his and squeezed. “We’ll take her to prom and let her hang with us. Maybe you could dance with her a few times?”
“You sure?” he asked.
We both knew that Britt had a major crush on him. She’d never said anything about it to either of us, and she wasn’t a threat to me, so it didn’t upset me. I was crazy about him, too, so I understood. For his part, Spence pretended not to notice the way Britt would sneak looks at him or laugh at everything he said or occasionally touch him in a flirtatious way. It was super-obvious to everybody, but we loved her like a sister, so we put up with it.
“It’s fine,” I told him. “I just want her to stop being miserable.”
“Okay, then,” he said, puffing up his chest. “I’ll be the only guy there with two dates. I’ll become a legend.”
“Thanks, honey,” I said with a laugh. “How’d the test go?”
He shrugged. “It went. I did okay, I think.”
I regretted what I said next the second it came out of my mouth. “But not like last time, right? Not that good.”
Spence didn’t reply, and suddenly the space around us was filled with tension. He still hadn’t admitted to me that he’d cheated on his SATs, and by now I was convinced that’s exactly what he’d done. I tried to change the subject.
“I was thinking we could take Britt to that new Michael J. Fox movie to help take her mind off things.”
When he didn’t reply, I lifted my head from his shoulder to look at him. He was staring off into space, his mouth pressed into a thin line.