Something snapped in me. Despite what I’d been saying about how I had changed and I wanted things to be different, until that moment, I had hoped they could at least be close to how they were before. But nothing could be the same after this. Anger coursed through me, anger that had been resting just beneath the surface for a long time.

I tugged open the door and stalked toward the bumper. The music poured out of the open cab behind me, my soundtrack to a breakdown. I thought I heard my name but my ears still felt blocked, pulsing with the sound of rushing blood. Even as I told myself I was overreacting, even as I tried to calm my beating heart, I couldn’t stop myself. I picked up the bumper. It was heavier than it looked and threw me off balance for a moment. I stumbled forward but then righted myself. I lifted it over my head, my shoulders protesting with a sharp pain ripping through them. I ignored the warning and hurled the bumper with all my might to the ground. It kicked up a few rocks but skidded to a halt, its leash still attached to Cooper’s truck. I picked it up again by one end and hit it over and over again onto the driveway. Each strike left a black mark on the white pavement. And each strike mangled the bumper a little more. As I was about to lift the bumper again, a crackling voice came out of the cab of Eric’s truck behind me.

“Those are the songs that make me feel alive. Although, if you’re listening to this now, it’s probably because I’m dead. In which case, I hope you played at least one of those songs at my funeral. If you didn’t, go dance on my grave to one of them. I know, Mom, too morbid. But if you can’t laugh, what’s life worth?” His voice was so familiar, a bit like my dad’s, and yet so foreign.

I couldn’t catch my breath. It came in rapid short bursts that weren’t filling my lungs like they needed to be filled. My shoulders hurt so bad I was sure I had torn something.

My eyes darted to the bent and battered bumper. A pair of arms wrapped around me from behind. The smell of flowers enveloped me. Amelia. “You’re okay,” she whispered. “You’re going to be okay.”

Jackson was on the ground untying the bumper from the rope.

Cooper was out of his truck, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, I thought that ring was anchored to the frame.” He was pointing at a piece on the back side of the bumper. “I hadn’t meant for the bumper to handle all that pressure.”

“Can we fix it?” Jackson asked, freeing the bumper and analyzing the damage. “We can rebuild the platform, right?”

Cooper’s eyes went to the collapsed platform still beneath the truck behind them.

Abby was walking around it now. “The supports are just bent. If we unscrew them and pound them out . . .”

“No,” I said.

Everyone went still and looked at me.

“No. We can’t hide this. It’s done.” I had done this and now I’d have to face my parents. The air was quiet, no more music was playing and no other hidden messages from my brother.

“What do you need us to do?” Amelia asked.

“Nothing. I wanted to talk to my parents. This is good. I just need some time alone if that’s okay.” I needed to think and to stand under hot water, then ice my aching shoulders.

“Are you sure?” Amelia asked. “I don’t want to leave you alone like this.”

Like this. Like the mess that I had become. The girl who could beat her brother’s bumper to twisted scrap metal. The girl who was obviously unstable. “Check in on me if you need to but I’m fine. I promise. I need to prepare myself. I need some space to think.”

Amelia nodded and went to the house, probably to gather her things.

Cooper gave me an apologetic shrug. “Sorry about . . .” He looked at the bumper, at the platform, then back to me.

“It’s okay. Thanks for trying.”

Abby gave me a small wave and she and Cooper climbed into their truck and left.

Then it was just me and Jackson. I couldn’t even look at him. He probably thought I was crazy. I felt a little crazy.

As if reading my mind, he said, “It’s about time you lost it.”

My eyes snapped to his and he had on his trademark smile. The one that made it look like life was just a joke waiting to be told.

“I told you a long time ago to run as far from me as possible, didn’t I?”

“And to think if I had I would’ve missed this awesome display.” He nudged the bumper with his toe.

“Apparently, I have to be the best at breakdowns as well.”

He laughed. “I was thinking the same thing. Show-off.”

I smiled as well but then took a deep breath. “Jackson, I—”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he said before I could finish. “Come on, I’ll help you clean things up.”

He stepped toward me but I stopped him with, “I just need time. To think.”

He looked hurt and that confused me.

“You need your earphones?” he asked.

“What?” It took me another second to realize that he was upset because he thought I needed time to think about him, about us, when I really just meant I needed to think about the night in front of me with my dad. And how I was going to clean up the mess I’d made. I was about to say as much when he put on his smile that closed him off, protected him.

I started to panic. Why was he pulling away?

“That’s what you do, right?” he asked. “Shut out the world when things get real. I thought you had some sort of breakthrough. That you realized that closing yourself off to everyone and climbing inside your head, living in the past, didn’t help. That you realized you need other people.”

My defenses shot up with his attack. I didn’t need him telling me how to deal with my problems and I definitely didn’t need him telling me everything I’d been doing wrong. I’d already had a guy willing to do that. “When did I say any of that?”

“I don’t know, maybe when you showed up on my porch last night. When you texted me this morning.”

“I asked for a little space, Jackson. Is that so wrong? What do you want from me?”

“Nothing, Hadley.” And with that he walked away. I didn’t move as he started his car. I didn’t move as he drove away.

“What just happened?” Amelia asked, her backpack on her shoulder, her shoes in her hand.

“I think he’s done with me.”

“No, he’s not. He’s just upset that you don’t need him to stay.”

I wondered if she was projecting. If she was the one upset.

“He’ll be fine tomorrow,” she said. “He’ll understand. You just need some downtime. You’re kind of in a big mess right now.”

She understood. I nodded.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

Jackson was wrong, I had learned that I needed other people. But I had also learned that some things had to be faced alone. “I’m sure.”

“Call me if you need me.”

Thirty-Seven

I rewound the tape and listened to those six sentences . . . for the tenth time. There was a smile in Eric’s voice as he spoke and I couldn’t help but agree with my dad. His tone, his making something serious into a joke seemed very much like Jackson.