“That’s not true,” I said, trying to soften my voice. “We can’t be here for you if you don’t let us. Look, maybe you could take some time off, focus on auditions, being with Dave—that’s what you want, right?” I took a step forward, with my palms out. Hands up, don’t shoot. “I know he wants you. He’s crazy about you.”
“Oh yeah?” Liv’s face crumpled, and her eyes filled with tears. “Well, he hasn’t texted me once today, so . . .” She shrugged as the first tear spilled its way down her cheek. “I guess I have nothing left to lose.” She spun around and stormed off, east, along Central Park North, but when I started after her she screamed, “DON’T FOLLOW ME!” which caught the attention of a burly cop leaving a deli across the street. He stared at me, one hand on his coffee, one hand on his belt, and I stopped cold, raising my hands for the second time in sixty seconds.
Luckily, after a beat he just waved me away, and I all but ran back to the subway, every step pounding in my chest like a drumroll leading up to some ominous climax waiting in the wings.
? ? ?
You found out about Liv at school, along with everyone else. You wept on my shoulder in the corner of the auditorium that afternoon, called yourself a bad friend, blamed yourself for not seeing it. I just held you and swallowed my guilt while you texted and called her, poring over her photos, searching for clues.
That’s kind of what this feels like, you know? Like putting together a puzzle, examining every piece, and trying to find another way—any other way—it could all fit together.
? ? ?
Dante came over for dinner, unannounced, which was the only way he ever showed up—it must have run on that side of the family. Even with hurricanes you usually got a warning.
From the minute he walked in, I could tell he had an agenda. He was watching me out of the corner of his eye the whole time we ate. I wondered if he could tell how angry I was; I barely said a word, and every time he flashed his trademark smile—sly and snakelike, as if he was in on some joke the rest of us couldn’t hear—I had to look down at my plate to keep from blowing up. Once the dishes were cleared, when he asked me to walk him out, I knew something was going down. One of us was going to strike. I just didn’t who would be first.
“So I heard about what happened at your school,” he said once we were out in the hallway, laying a hand on my shoulder, watching my face for a reaction.
“Yup,” I said stoically to the linoleum floor.
We weaved around the corner and into the stairwell, which was when he pushed me up against the wall, hooking his elbow under my chin. Without thinking I shoved him back—he might have been older, but he was smaller than me, and years of lifting hundred-plus-pound bodies over my head had given me powerhouse shoulders—and he stumbled back, laughing in a way that made it clear he didn’t find anything about the situation funny.
“Relax, cuz, I’m just playing,” he said, giving me a hard, unfriendly stare. “I just want to talk to you.”
“So talk,” I said, crossing my arms. “Don’t touch me.”
“Liv thinks you narc’d on her,” Dante said. “But I told her my little cousin would never do that. I just need to hear it from you.”
“It wasn’t me.”
Dante looked genuinely relieved. “Well, OK then. Good. Any idea who it was?”
“No.” I focused on keeping my face still so he wouldn’t know I was lying.
Everything that had happened in the Boroughed Trouble cue-to-cue had trickled down from Faiqa Bashara, and there was no doubt it had been Ethan who’d turned Liv in. But I couldn’t sic Dante on him. I couldn’t even blame him, really. In his own twisted, dramatic way, he’d basically done the right thing. I should have done it myself. I realized that much once I saw how devastated you were when you found out. If it had been you, puking on your knees in some stranger’s bathroom, and someone else had known . . . I didn’t even want to think about it. Liv didn’t mean as much to me, but that didn’t excuse how I’d covered for her. I mean, everyone is somebody else’s “you,” right?
“Well, listen,” Dante said, “if you’d do a little reconnaissance, that would really help me out.”
“Why should I help you?”
“Come on.” The snake smile again. “Because we’re family.”
“I’ll do it if you stop selling to her.” I tightened my arms around my chest, jutted out my jaw, did anything I could to look bigger, or more frightening. Men don’t have to be tough. That’s what my mom had told me, that day when I came home with the slur on my bag. They can be soft and vulnerable, too. I remember how she kissed my head, stroked her thin fingers under my chin. All the good ones are.