My dad chuckled a bit as he shut the door. “I’m not surprised.” He reached behind my mom and squeezed my shoulder. I winced but gritted through the pain.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Then my mom told him everything we’d talked about and finished by playing him the tape. He smiled through tears. Then we went and played Eric’s music loudly while we visited his grave in the dark.

As we walked back to the truck, my dad ahead of us, I looked at my mom and said, “You know I don’t expect you to just stop doing all your charity work, right? I know that makes you happy.”

“I know. But I need to find a balance. A healthy balance. I’ll work on it. I promise.”

“Me too.” Because I needed a healthy balance as well. Robert had been right. I had been too focused on one thing. But he didn’t know why. Jackson had figured that out. I was competing. Competing with my dead brother. Now I needed to learn to swim for me. I touched my shoulder. If that was still a possibility.

My dad slowed until he was walking beside me and draped his arm around my neck. “Should we go get some Froyo?”

“Yes,” both my mom and I said together.

Thirty-Nine

Amelia had checked on me approximately fifty times since Saturday. Every message some variation of the words You good?

It’s like she thought my parents had stolen my phone and were answering texts while I rotted in the basement as punishment for what I’d done. I didn’t blame her. I thought I’d be in bigger trouble too. I did get a stern lecture about taking the truck without asking and my dad told me I had to visit several junkyards to help him find a replacement bumper. We had talked as a family and were still trying to decide what to do with the truck. My mom was all for me driving it. My dad thought we should sell it and I kept flipping back and forth between the two. I wanted to take my time. I didn’t want to sell it and regret it later. For now, I decided to continue riding to school with Amelia and use it only when I really needed to go somewhere . . . like to get an apple pie.

Without Jackson, apparently. I hadn’t heard from him since our fight. I’d thought about reaching out to him, but along with being sad about what had happened between us, I found myself angry. Angry at how he had acted. At how he’d made everything about him on the hardest day of my life.

My shoulders were still bothering me and that terrified me. I couldn’t lose swimming over this too. For that I decided to take a long break. My mom was going to take me to the doctor the following week. But there was no harm in a break. At least that’s what I told myself over and over.

Amelia pulled up to my house Monday morning and took in the now-empty spot where the truck used to be. My dad had hauled away the platform Sunday. The grass beneath it was dead. I climbed in her car.

“You good?” she asked.

I smiled. “For the fifty-first time, yes, I’m good.”

“Why are you not grounded for twenty years?”

“Guilt.”

She laughed. “Ah. You get the guilt-parenting? How have you worked this to your advantage?”

“I didn’t get grounded.” I hoped I’d find a new normal soon with my parents because as much as I didn’t want to be in trouble, I didn’t want them to feel guilty forever and it seemed like that was going to be the case for a while. They were walking on eggshells around me and it wasn’t good.

“Oh, Hadley, come on. Years of neglect. You need to collect the guilt-parenting perks while they last. They’ll be gone soon.”

I shoved her arm.

“How are you and Jackson?”

My heart clenched. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“He hasn’t called begging for forgiveness?”

“No.” He’d erased every trace of me from his life. He’d walked away. He was done.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” But I wasn’t sure it was.

Amelia and I walked our separate ways to first period. I needed to drop by my locker and pick up a book. My locker was outside the B building, fourth row down. Today the row was fairly empty. A blond girl at the end was piling books from her backpack into her locker. She gave me a smile as she exited. I turned the dial on my lock and opened the door. A clear plastic cup sat inside, its bright green contents immediately making my mouth water.

“You’re still on sugar, yes?” a voice from above me said, and I yelped, nearly dropping the Slurpee. I backed up, until I bumped into the row of lockers behind me, and looked up. Sitting on top of the lockers was Heath Hall.

“You were right.” He tugged at the neck of the mask with his right hand. “This thing is hot.” In his left hand he held a Slurpee. He took a sip through the small hole that made up the mouth on the mask. “It’s a good thing I have a favorite drink that is nice and cold.”

My fear dissolved but was replaced with the anger that had been competing for space the last couple days. I’d had a really hard weekend and he hadn’t even checked on me. Instead, he’d walked away and now was making a joke out of what I assumed was his apology.

“Someone once told me that all good apologies are accompanied by a bribe.” He gestured toward the Slurpee I held. I stepped forward, retrieved my math book out of the locker, and shut the door. “How did you get this in my locker?”

“I have a few people on staff that like me as well.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Ms. Lin?”

“I hear she’s your mentor. Knows all about your inner artist. And gets to keep locker combinations in case her poor students forget them.”

“And apparently she gives them out to anyone who asks.”

“Don’t be mad at her. Who can resist this charm?” He took another drink. “This is still really gross.” He set it next to him. “Is everything good with your parents?” he asked.

“We’re going to chat about my parents with you on top of the lockers?”

“Yes.”

The late bell rang and I turned to leave. He jumped down, cutting me off before I could walk away. He grabbed my hand.

I pulled it free. “Is this really how we’re going to do this? You’re going to show up here misusing the mask and assume I’m going to get over it just because you’re trying to be funny?”

“I’m not misusing the mask. This is my fear.”

“No, this is you being ridiculous. You faced your fear out at the lake.”

“I thought I did. But then something occurred to me this weekend. I thought my fear was just about me not knowing what I want. And that’s definitely part of it. But my main problem is that I don’t commit fully. To anything. To a future. To my schoolwork. To a girl.”

I met his eyes. They were all I could see of him. “Will you take that ridiculous thing off? I can’t take you seriously with it on.”

“Are you saying you can take me seriously with it off?”

“Good point.”

He glanced around, probably making sure the row was still empty, and took off the mask. His expression wasn’t one of humor like I’d expected. He actually looked serious and sad, like he really had been agonizing over this all weekend. His hair was even messier than usual and I kept myself from running my fingers through it. He stared at the mask for a long moment.