“What’s going on with her and Spence?”
“Well, according to Spence’s mom, they’re gonna break up.”
The room went completely silent except for the TV as both Britt and I looked at Sara in shock. How dare she say something like that!
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded.
Sara waved her beer can at me. “Don’t yell at me,” she said. “Yell at Mrs. Spencer.”
“What did she say?” I snapped.
“Well,” Sara said, as though she was amused by the proclamation, “you know Mrs. S cleans our house, right?”
I did know that. It was a fact that Sara often mentioned around Spence. It had never seemed to bother him, mostly because he was proud of the fact that his mom was working.
“What about it?” I snapped again.
“Well! According to my mother, Mrs. S said that Spence had no intention of flying off to California next fall. He was going to stay at home and take care of her. She said he was thinking about community college for a year before transferring to UVA.”
Heat filled my chest like molten lava slipping into a well. “That’s a lie, Sara,” I said quietly, my tone laced with warning. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Britt sitting on the love seat across from us with big eyes. Her mouth hung open. I ignored her and gave Sara all of my angry attention. “If you repeat that lie, then you and I will never be friends again. Do you understand?”
Sara finally seemed to get that no one in the room thought she was funny. “I was just letting you know,” she said. “I mean, God, Amber! If Spence is about to break up with you, shouldn’t I tell you that?”
“He’s not,” I growled. “And you’re not my friend if you keep saying that.”
Sara’s eyes watered. “I’m sorry,” she said. But the tension in the room wasn’t ebbing.
Britta got up and came over to squeeze in between us. Handing me her cup, she said, “Drink.”
“I’m not—”
“I don’t care,” she cut me off. “You need to chill out. So drink.”
I took the cup from her, my hands trembling, and much to my own surprise, downed the contents.
“CAN I GET YOU TWO something to drink?” Sara Radcliff asked Cole and me.
“No, thank you,” we said together.
She smiled kindly and pointed us to the sofa in her gorgeous living room. When we’d first pulled up to the house, I’d wondered if we’d gotten the address right. The home was a very modern-looking structure, with lots of sharp angles and huge windows. It looked like a house of the future. And it was big.
Sara had answered the door herself, and she was very pretty—very elegant. She had long blond hair set in stylish waves, her skin was flawless and her makeup simple, but also flawless. She wore a pair of lightweight gray silk pants that billowed when she walked, and a cream shell underneath a thin powder-pink sweater that draped across her shoulders. We’d introduced ourselves by first name only, and told her that we were from Chamberlain High, working on our first senior-year story for the paper on Amber and Ben. She’d seemed a bit surprised by the topic, but had readily agreed to talk to us.
Once we were all seated, she said, “First of all, you should know that Amber was a good person.”
I felt some of the nervous tension in my shoulders relax. “We keep hearing that,” I said. “Can you tell us about her?”
Sara glanced over my left shoulder, and I turned slightly to see that one of the bookshelves in her living room held a series of framed photographs. I couldn’t see the images up close, but I suspected there was one of Amber among them.
“She was my best friend,” she said. “Since we were very little. And she was my best friend when nobody else could stand me. I was a holy terror when I was younger, but Amber either took pity on me or saw something in me. She used to always say to me, ‘Sara, you’re smarter than you think. You could be anything you want to be. Why are you settling for mediocrity?’” Sara paused to press her index finger against her upper lip and dip her chin, as if it pained her to remember that. “No adult had ever said anything that wise to me. She was always my best cheerleader, and she believed in me. Somehow, she saw through the tough, rebellious act I was putting up for everybody else. She knew I had potential that I didn’t even know about. Amber was…amazing.”