Wrath

Chapter 6

“This is a very quite serious charge, Ms. Grace.” Jack Powell frowned sternly at her, and ran a hand through his floppy brown hair. “Do you have any evidence to back up these claims?”

Other than absolute certainty in the pit of her stomach? Other than nearly explicit-but undocumented-admissions from both suspects? Uh…

“No,” she admitted. “I was hoping you could handle that. Now that you know what you’re looking for.”

“And why come to me with this information? Why not the vice principal, or someone else in the administration?”

“Well, I figure they must have used the newspaper equipment to print the flyer, and you are the sponsor. It seemed like your department.” Harper hoped it sounded convincing. She wasn’t about to admit that when you’re turning in your former best friend for stabbing you in the back, it’s more palatable to do so with the hottest teacher in the history of Haven High. Besides, Vice Principal Sorrento had a creepy birthmark on his forehead that had already eaten most of his hair and would surely soon get started on his face. Mr. Powell, on the other hand, could have been Hugh Grant’s stunt double-and pretending she was starring in one of those movies where the sassy American falls into bed with the dapper Englishman was almost enough to distract her from the task at hand.

She’d woken up that morning determined to act. Striking back was the best way to keep from obsessing over Miranda’s words and what it meant that the one person who knew her best had decided she wasn’t worth knowing.

“Beth Manning and Miranda Stevens are two of my best students,” Powell said dubiously. “Are you sure-”

“It was them, Mr. Powell. I’m positive. Just look into it-you’ll see I was right.”

For a moment, Harper pictured how Miranda’s face would look when she got summoned to the vice principal’s office to receive her punishment, sure to be especially harsh under the new “no-tolerance” regime. But she pushed the image out of her mind.

Miranda had no regrets, right?

Fine. Good. Then neither would she.

In her backpack, Beth carried: four sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, and a pale pink pencil sharpener in the shape of a rose. Just in case. One Mead notebook and one matching folder for each class, color coded. A folded-up picture of her twin brothers, stuffed into the front pocket. Two dollars in quarters, for vending machine snacks. A pack of wintergreen Eclipse gum, to help her stay awake in history class, where the teacher had a bad habit of droning on and on about his long-ago European vacation. A Winnie the Pooh wallet she’d gotten on a family trip to Disneyland and had never had the heart to replace. And today, Beth carried two neatly typed, four-page-long speeches on the subject of education, each bound together with a single staple positioned in the upper-left-hand corner.

One speech was eloquent, witty, and succinct, seamlessly shifting back and forth between heartfelt personal anecdotes and powerful generalizations. It was a sure winner.

The second speech was awkward, wordy, and nonsensical, filled with run-on sentences and the occasional misspelling. It was hackneyed and repetitive and made stunningly obvious pronouncements such as, “Without teachers, there could be no schools.” It was a loser, from beginning to end.

The first speech was written by a Jane A. Wilder, of Norfolk, New Jersey. The second speech was written by Beth Manning, hastily spit out in the early hours of the morning because, at four A.M., she’d finally given up on sleep and decided that she needed a backup plan in case she decided not to let Jane A. Wilder unknowingly save the day.

As she approached the principal’s office, she took both essays out of her bag. There was a box, just inside the door, marked SPEECHES FOR THE GOVERNOR. It was almost empty-but lying on top was one titled “Education: You Break It,You Buy It.” By Harper Grace.

Beth resisted the temptation to pull it out of the box and read it-she’d rather not know. And she resisted the even stronger temptation to take it from the box, stuff it in her backpack, and run away.

Instead, she focused on her choice: Do the right thing or do the smart thing.

What good would it do her to be an ethical person if she was stuck practicing her ethics in Grace, California for the rest of her life, earning a junior college degree in food preparation and then working at the diner for the next fifty years until she dropped dead of boredom in the middle of a vat of coleslaw? On the other hand, what good would it be to wow the admissions committee, earning her ticket to a bright and better tomorrow, all the while knowing she was living a life that, in truth, belonged to Jane A. Wilder of Norfolk, New Jersey?

She did what she had to do.

She flipped a coin-and in the flicker of disappointment that shot through her as soon as she saw Abraham Lincoln’s stern profile gazing up from the center of her palm, she realized the decision she wanted to make. She ignored the coin, and put one of the speeches back in her bag. The other went into the box.

Right or wrong, it was, in the end, her only choice.

Adam shuffled into the coach’s office and slouched down in the uncomfortable metal folding chair, doing his best to avoid the coach’s hostile stare. They sat in silence for a moment as Adam waited for the shouting to begin. He’d been waiting all week for the coach to summon him about the big fight and finally dish out his punishment. But that didn’t mean he was looking forward to it. And he had no intention of speaking first.

“I assume you know why you’re here?” Coach Wilson finally asked.

Adam nodded.

“Instigating a brawl with the whole school watching?” He shook his head. “Not smart.”

Adam shrugged.

“The Weston Wolves’ point guard broke his nose, and their center will be out for half the season with two broken fingers.”

Adam shrugged again.

“Well?” the coach asked, his face reddening the way it did at Saturday morning practice when it was obvious half the team was too hung over to see the ball, much less send it into the basket.

“Well what?” Had there been a question in there somewhere? Adam hadn’t been paying much attention. He just wanted to get this over with.

“Well, don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

Adam shook his head.

“Damn it, Morgan!” The coach slammed his palm down on the desk with a thud. “What’s wrong with you? When I took over this team, all anyone could talk about was Adam Morgan, how talented he was, what a great team leader he was-and do you know what I found instead?”

Silence.

“I found you. You screw up in practice, you screw up in the games, you’re surly, you’re unfocused, and on the night you finally start playing to your capacity, you start a damned fight. What’s wrong with you?”

Having made it this far into the meeting without saying more than two words, Adam suddenly found the inertia too much to fight.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Morgan, but I don’t like it. I’ve got no use for hotheads.”

Just get to the point, Adam thought.

“I should probably throw you off the team.”

Adam searched himself for shock, despair, or any of the other reactions you’d expect at the thought that basketball, the last good thing in his life, could disappear. But he couldn’t find any. He just felt numb. And if getting thrown off the team meant he didn’t have to confront Kane’s smirk, day in and day out-maybe it would be for the best.

“But I’m not going to.You’re too good. I’m giving you one last chance, Morgan. Don’t screw it up.”

Again, Adam waited for the flood of emotion, relief. It didn’t come.

“Don’t thank me yet,” the coach continued, ignoring the fact that Adam hadn’t moved. “You know the administration is cracking down this month. Everyone involved in the fight gets two weeks’ detention-except you. As the instigator, in addition to the detentions, you’ll be suspended from school for five days.”

Suspended, while everyone else, including Kane, got off with detention? That was enough to slice through Adam’s apathy.

“Coach, the other guys were all in it, just as much as I was. I saw Kane Geary snap that guy’s fingers-” It was a lie, but who cared?

“And I saw you take Geary down, so I wouldn’t be throwing his name around if I were you. At least he had too much class to come in here and tattle on you like a little baby.”

“Class?” All Kane had was the ability to charm any gullible adult who crossed his path. “He had it coming, Coach,” Adam protested, rising from his chair. “You don’t know him, he’s-” But there was nothing he could say, not here. The frustration building, Adam swept his arms in a long, swift arc, knocking the folding chair off balance. It toppled over and skidded across the floor.

“I’d advise you to calm yourself down now, son,” the coach warned. Adam breathed heavily through his mouth and resisted the urge to react to that single, offensive word. Son. Only his father had ever called him that, and only when he was drunk and angry-and Adam had been foolish enough to get in his way. “I’m going to forget we had this little chat, Morgan,” the coach said, leaning back in his chair. “And when you come back from your suspension, you and I, we can start with a clean slate. I would advise you to use this week to take a serious look at your behavior, and find a way to get it under control. Before you get yourself into some serious trouble.” He flicked his hand in dismissal. “Now, get out.”

And, ever obedient, Adam did as he was told.

Maybe he would follow the coach’s advice and spend his week off trying to relax, trying to move on and forget about the wreck Harper, Kane, and Kaia had made out of his life. Maybe he could even accept that Beth wasn’t going to forgive him. Maybe he could find a way to live without the constant urge to break something.

Maybe.

Kaia used to struggle with staying awake in school; now, though it seemed like she hadn’t slept in days, she arrived every morning feeling like she’d injected a double espresso directly into her bloodstream. She was too aware of every set of eyes that might be tracking her path down the hall.

She stared down at her desk every day in French class, feeling Powell’s gaze resting on her from across the room. Reed was nowhere to be found, and yet it felt like he was everywhere, lurking in corners, peering out from behind lockers, sneaking glimpses of her-but disappearing as soon as she sensed his presence.

She’d had her car repainted and washed it three times, but she could still trace her fingers along the ghostly letters. They were too faint to make out, but she knew they were there, hiding under the new coat of paint, for only her to see.

So she spent her days watching and waiting, and her nights lingering in town, wandering the narrow, broken down streets of Grace, preferring to stay away from her empty house and its loud silence. The last three nights she’d gone to a movie at the Starview Theater. The same movie was showing each night-Clueless. She didn’t like the film very much; as someone intimately familiar with a realworld life of luxury, she didn’t have much patience with the movie’s shoddy impersonation. But still there was something strangely appealing about sitting alone in the dark, surrounded by strangers, watching a completely predictable life unfold with perfect symmetry on the screen.

Besides, it gave her something to do.

It was ridiculous, Kaia told herself, spinning the combination lock on her locker, all this angst over a one-time thing. It could have been a random act of vandalism-it’s not like there weren’t enough bored delinquents running loose in this town. There was no reason to think that she’d been a carefully chosen target.

Kaia opened up her locker, and a small envelope fell out. An envelope she’d never seen before, an envelope that couldn’t have been slipped in through the vent because her locker had no vent. Just a door, and a lock. And someone out there knew the combination.

She looked up and down the hallway. No one was watching her.They were all absorbed in their own lives. Or so it appeared.

The envelope was small, and light blue. And it was blank. She stuck a nail under the seam and slowly ripped it open, unaware that she was holding her breath.

She pulled out three small pieces of glossy paper. And now she breathed again, harsh and fast. They were photos.

The first, a distance shot of her buying a movie ticket.

The second, framed by her living room window, showing her curled up on the couch, eyes fixed on the TV.

The third, a close-up, her head tipped back against a wooden deck, her hair wet and plastered against her face. Her eyes closed. And there was something else in the frame, a hand, reaching down toward her face, toward the lock of hair that covered her left eyes. Proving that it wasn’t a telephoto lens, that someone had been there.

Close enough to touch.

“I didn’t do it.” Miranda could come up with no strategy other than repeating that over and over, until they believed her.

“Ms. Stevens, we have proof. Mr. Powell found traces of your file on the newsroom computer.” The vice principal nodded in the direction of Jack Powell, who stood behind his desk, stone-faced and silent. “You were the only one logged in that morning. But we do suspect you had an accomplice. Who were you working with?”

“No one,” Miranda protested. “I didn’t do it.” She was shaking. She and Harper had gotten into plenty of trouble over the years, but never anything that had landed her here, squeezed into an uncomfortable chair, facing down the vice principal and fending off the claustrophobic conviction that the walls of his office were closing in. And she’d never gotten into trouble without Harper by her side. It was different, she was quickly discovering, when you were alone.

“If you tell us who it is, Ms. Stevens, I might consider your cooperation when deciding your punishment. What you’ve done is very serious, you realize. This will go on your permanent record. It could affect your entire future.”

Was her loyalty to a girl she barely knew and barely liked really worth getting into even more trouble? Miranda didn’t know-but she knew she wasn’t a rat. Once Beth found out they’d been caught, she would surely insist on turning herself in-say what you wanted about Beth, she at least had principles-but Miranda wasn’t about to make the decision for her, no matter what it cost. She lifted her head up and crossed her arms in an effort to look resolute-and to stop herself from trembling.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”

“This is a one-shot deal, Stevens.Tell me now, and I can help you. But once I’ve decided on your punishment-”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I can’t.”

“Very well, then.” He rubbed the large brown birthmark on his forehead, then looked down at his desk and began flipping through a stack of papers, as if to signify that she was no longer worth his time. “A month of detentions, then, starting today.”

Miranda got up to leave, doing her best to hold back the tears. Harper would never cry in a situation like this. She would just grin at the vice principal, making it clear that nothing he could do or say would affect her in the least. Miranda couldn’t manage a smile, but at least she didn’t cry.

“Stevens,” the vice principal said as she was almost out the door, “you’ve made a very poor choice here today. I hope, for your sake, you don’t look back on this moment and realize it was a huge mistake.”

Kane ambushed her right outside the vice principal’s office. She’d caught him at his weakest moment, so it seemed only fair to return the favor.

“I have to admit,” he said, slipping up from behind her, “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Miranda flushed and looked away, one hand flying up, as if on its own, to check that her hair was sufficiently in place. The small gesture was all it took to confirm Kane’s suspicions.

“Didn’t know I had what in me?” she asked in confusion, smiling widely despite the tears forming at the corner of each eye.

“I think you know what.” He jerked his head back toward the office. “What’d they give you? Life without parole? Plus a little community service?”

“A months detention,” she said ruefully. “Wait-you know, and you’re not mad?”

“Mad?” Kane grinned at her, delighting in the way the blood all rushed back to her face. Not that there weren’t plenty of girls falling all over themselves to have him, but Miranda was different. She’d always been a bit of a riddle, and there was something almost comforting about being able to tuck her neatly into a recognizable category. Something a bit disappointing, as well-she didn’t belong with the bimbos. “Why would I be mad?” he asked, stroking his chin in deep thought. “Just because you spread a bunch of embarrassing rumors about me to the whole school?” She raised her eyebrows as if to say, well… yes.

“I was mad,” he allowed. But it had, after all, been such a feeble scheme. And there was almost something endearingly pathetic about Miranda’s little attempt to strike back. Like a kitten trying to take down a tiger. “I was mad,” he repeated, “but it’s not a deal breaker.” He put an arm around her, the way he had a hundred times over the course of their friendship-except, this time, he noticed the way she brightened up at his touch. “Besides, I’m kind of impressed. It’s good to see you raising a little hell.”

“I learned from the best,” she said teasingly.

“Then you didn’t learn enough. I know better than to get caught,” he boasted.

She ducked her head and giggled. It wasn’t a sound that suited her. She wasn’t a giggler.

“How did you know they caught me, by the way?”

“A master never reveals his secrets,” Kane swore. His network of informants depended on his discretion-and his power depended on his access to their information. “Let’s just say I have my ways.”

“Someday, Kane, you’re going to find out you don’t know everything,” Miranda cautioned him.

“And someday, Stevens, you’re going to find out I know even more than you think.”

Do the right thing, or do the smart thing?

She couldn’t flip a coin this time, not with Miranda facing her, waiting for some kind of answer. Miranda was flushed, and kept smiling and staring off into space, as if her brush with the vice principal had completely unhinged her.

“I’d never ask you to turn yourself in,” Miranda said again. “I just thought you should know what was going on.”

“And they didn’t mention me at all?” Beth asked. She felt guilty for even considering weaseling out of responsibility, but she’d never been in trouble before, and the prospect of getting caught terrified her. They were huddled over a small table in the library, just across from the shelf of college guides-a vivid reminder of how much Beth stood to lose.

Maybe you should have thought of that before you broke the rules, a voice in her head suggested.

“No,” Miranda confirmed. “They know there’s someone else, but they have no idea who it is.”

“A month of detentions…” Beth couldn’t imagine it. She’d never even had one.

And it wasn’t just the fear of spoiling her record-her permanent record-that stopped her. She worked at the diner after school. On off days she babysat for her little brothers and bounced between countless applicationpadding extracurriculars. She couldn’t spend a month in detention; it would ruin everything.

“Do you want me to turn myself in?” Beth asked, knowing already that the ironclad rules of the teen honor code would force Miranda to say no, regardless of the truth.

“No, of course not. I mean, unless you…”

“I could,” Beth offered. “I mean, I would, if you wanted me to. Of course.”

“Oh, I know you would, of course.”

“But, you know, if you don’t really think it would change anything…,” Beth hedged.

“No, I guess… no reason for us both to go down, right?” Miranda said weakly“! mean, it seems sort of silly, for you to just-out of solidarity, or something.”

“But if you wanted me to-”

“No, only if you wanted to-”

She deserved that month of detentions, every bit as much as Miranda. But then-what was the difference?

Did she deserve for her boyfriend to cheat on her? Did she deserve to bomb the SATs after all her studying? To cry herself to sleep every night? To be screwed over by Adam, by Harper, by Kane, to be left alone? What had she ever done to deserve any of that?

But what had Miranda done, either, other than come along for the ride?

She opened her mouth, intending to say one thing-and then said another thing entirely.

“Okay, I guess I’ll keep quiet,” she told Miranda, who gave her a thin smile. “Thank you.”

Beth had always thought of herself as someone who did the right thing, but now she knew the truth. She only did the right thing when it didn’t cost her anything. She opened her mouth to take it back, but Miranda was already standing up and walking away. Not that it mattered: Beth didn’t have the nerve, even if the alternative meant hating herself.

I’ll make it up to you, she promised Miranda silently. Somehow.

Kaia didn’t know he was there until he’d crept up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She almost knocked over her coffee when she whirled around and realized he had approached her in a public place, in a coffee shop, where anyone could see. Powell was on permanent orange alert at the possibility of anyone seeing them together, and if he’d elected to throw his obsessive caution to the wind, it could mean only one thing: He was losing it.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked, wondering if he’d been following her.

“I needed to see you,” Powell said, ignoring the question. He wrapped his fingers tightly around her forearm and pulled her toward a secluded corner of the deserted coffee shop. She settled into an overstaffed armchair, but he stayed standing, hovering nervously behind her.

“Sit down,” she hissed, disgusted. Where was the cool British charmer she’d pursued, the one with the icy glare and the cocky certainty that nothing mattered but what he wanted? “It’ll be bad enough if anyone sees us together, but if they see you fluttering around me like a nervous boyfriend-just sit down.” She pointed to a chair across from her close enough that they could talk without being overheard, and far enough that he wouldn’t be tempted to touch her, even if he’d truly become unhinged.

“So? What is it?” she asked, when he’d finally sat down and a minute had passed in silence. “What do you want?”

“What are you doing?” he asked, almost sorrowfully.

“What am I doing?” She arched an eyebrow. “Look where we are. What are you doing?”

“You won’t return my calls. I needed to see you.”

“I’ve been busy.”

He let loose a harsh chuckle. “Busy? In this town? No such thing. No, I can guess what you’ve been doing.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been with him, haven’t you?”

“You’ve been watching me?” she said, pretending the realization came as a surprise.

“Of course not.” He laughed, a few bitter barks of noise that contained no humor. “I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

He seemed so honestly disdainful of the idea that she almost believed him; but then, if he hadn’t been watching her, why the righteous anger? How could he be so sure?

“It’s all over town, dearest.You may have some discretion, but your gutter-rat, I’m afraid…”

Reed wouldn’t have spread anything around, he wasn’t the type. But how could she be so certain, she asked herself, about a guy she’d just met? What made her so willing to trust the pizza delivery boy who drove around in a pickup truck, smoked mountains of pot, and never answered any of her questions?

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re right. Let’s say I was…”

“Cheating on me,” Powell supplied helpfully. It was an odd choice of words, since cheating implied a relationship. And whatever they had-an agreement, an unwritten contract, a mutual disregard-it wasn’t a relationship.

It was sex, nothing else.

“Whatever,” she said, throwing up her hands in supplication. “Let’s say you’re right. What now?”

He looked surprised-maybe by her unruffled expression, which, she hoped, made it painfully clear that she didn’t care what happened next.

“Now? Now you stop seeing him,” he ordered. “We agreed-you want this, you want me, you can’t have anyone else.”

“Fine.” Kaia shrugged.

“Fine?” He raised his eyebrows. Maybe he’d been expecting more of a fight. “You’ll stop seeing him, then?”

“No.” Did she have to spell it out? “I’ll stop seeing you.” She finished her iced coffee in a single gulp and stood up. “It’s been fun, Jack. See you around.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” he growled, grabbing her arm roughly to pull her back down. She shrugged him off. “You think you can just walk away?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s not how it works, Kaia. You want to be very careful about what you choose to do right now.”

It didn’t sound like a desperate plea to win her back.

It sounded like a threat.

As if she’d be scared of some washed-up British bachelor who’d fallen so far, he was hiding out in the middle of nowhere teaching French to future farmers of America. Even if he was the one playing with spray paint in the middle of the night, or jerking off courtesy of his digital camera, it was a coward’s revenge, and cowards didn’t scare her.

“Bye, bye, Jack,” she chirped, and headed for the door.

“This is a mistake, Kaia.” His low, angry voice followed her out. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that.”

Doubtful.

Harper had been looking forward to a nice, quiet evening at home in front of the TV, hoping to lose herself in some cheesy MTV reality show-other people’s misery was so much more fun than her own. But it wasn’t to be…

“Mind if I join you, hon?” Her mother didn’t wait for an answer before squeezing next to Harper on the threadbare couch. Parents could be so inconvenient sometimes.

Harper nodded and tried to hold back a sigh. “Whatever.” She upped the volume on the TV in anticipation of her mother’s inevitable commentary.

“Is that the girl from that show on HBO?” her mother asked, peering at the screen. “Oh, wait, no, she has blond hair. But is she-”

“Mom! She’s a real person, okay?” Harper explained, more harshly than she’d intended. “It’s a reality show. They’re all real. No actors. Get it?”

“No need to yell, dear, I’m sitting right here,” Amanda Grace said dryly, raising her eyebrows. For a few minutes they watched together in blessed silence, then, “Wait, I thought she was dating that other boy? The one with the Mohawk?”

“She was, Mother.”

“But then what’s she doing with this one? And are they really going to-oh! Can they show that on TV? What are you watching?”

“It’s just a show, Mom.” Harper slouched down on the couch, wishing she’d chosen a different channel. Was there anything more embarrassing than watching on-screen sex with your mother?

“Harper, I hope that if you… well, if there’s anything you want to talk about, you know, in that department-”

Correction: Talking about your own sex life-or, at the moment, lack thereof-with your mother was definitely more embarrassing.

“Mom, there’s nothing to discuss. Trust me.”

“I do, honey, it’s just-” Fortunately, the scene shifted, and her mother gasped. “Is that vodka? And those two girls, what are they-? Is this really what you teenagers are doing with yourselves these days?”

“It’s TV, Mom,” Harper pointed out, feeling simultaneous twinges of pride and guilt that she’d been able to keep her mother so successfully in the dark.

“Reality TV.”

Harper shook her head. “There’s nothing real about any of this crap,” she argued. “It’s all edited to make it more exciting, and you know they’re just acting up for the camera. No one’s like that in real life.”

Harper flipped the channel over to one of those ‘All Women, All the Time’ stations, hoping her mother would get absorbed by some soapy sob story and forget all about her. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“I haven’t seen Adam around here lately,” her mother suddenly said, still staring at the TV. “Or Miranda.”

Maybe she wasn’t so oblivious after all.

“They’re around,” Harper said softly. She wasn’t about to unload on her mother-last time she’d actually confided in one of her parents, she’d been barely out of diapers-but the temptation was there. There was something to be said for unconditional parental adoration, especially when everyone else you care about has decided you’re worthless and unlovable.

“What’s going on with you these days?” her mother asked, finally turning to her and smoothing down Harper’s unruly hair, just like she used to do when Harper was younger. “You seem… sad.”

Harper shrugged. “You know teenagers, Mom. We’re a moody bunch.”

“I know you,” her mother countered. “I know when something’s wrong. It might help to talk about it.”

“No it won’t.” She knew she sounded sullen and sulky, like a little kid, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Honey, I know high school can be tough-I wasn’t born middle-aged, you know. But you’ve got to remember, it’s not everything. The things that seem so horrible now, they’ll pass.You’ll get through it. Everyone does.”

“Can we just not talk about this? Please?” This was why Harper never told her parents anything. They didn’t get it. Harper knew her mother would probably think she just had some kind of teenybopper crush on Adam, that she and Miranda were just having a little spat that could be solved with ice cream and a smile. Having been a teenager once, a million years ago, didn’t qualify her mother to understand what she was going through-and it obviously didn’t give her any idea what Harper’s life was like, how hard it could be.

“Of course,” her mother said, lifting the remote and flipping through the channels until she stumbled upon a showing of The Princess Bride. “How about we just watch the movie?”

Loving this movie was one of the few things they still had in common. They’d watched it together about twenty times, and had memorized almost every line. Harpers mother switched off the light and draped a heavy blanket over both of them. Harper smiled, letting herself get carried away by the familiar jokes and the sappy but irresistible love story. If only life were as clear-cut as it was in the movies-if only you could slay a few Rodents of Unusual Size, battle your way across the Fire Swamp, slay an evil count, and get what you most desired. It would be an improvement over the real world, where danger snuck up on you and courage was so much more difficult to find.

“Harper?”

“Mmm?”

“You know your father and I love you, right?”

Of course she knew it. But it never hurt to hear it again. She focused intently on the screen and blinked back tears as Princess Buttercup threw herself into the arms of her one true love.

“Yeah,” she murmured softly, leaning her head against her mother’s shoulder. “You too.”