Really, when I think about that night and what she said, I never should have expected her to stand by me when people thought I’d cheated on Carey.

Chapter Seventeen

Of all places to go, the laundry room seems the most ironic. For a girl who can’t get clean, the garbage room would seem to be more fitting, but that would take feeling sorry for myself to a new low.

I’m not sure how I’ll show my face upstairs in my hotel room. Or in public for the next few days.

Sitting on the floor of the guest Laundromat three floors below the one I’m assigned to, I bump my head against a washer and breathe air that smells like mildew and fabric softener. I hate that Jamie got to me with that crap about my mother. I didn’t cheat on Carey, but . . . I used Blake, didn’t I? What did that make me? Not innocent. Not guilty, exactly. Caught in a gray area, maybe.

The one thing I do know is that I can’t give myself away again like that. I can’t betray who was in the picture with me because Jamie’s barb hit a little close to home.

Eventually, when I grow sick of my thoughts, I drag myself up and into the elevator. When the doors open on my floor, I’m surprised to find Angel hanging around in the hall, leaning against the fancy burgundy wallpapered wall.

She sees me and rushes forward. “There you are! Where have you been?”

I don’t realize I’m angry at her until she reaches out to touch me.

“Hiding,” I say. “Licking my wounds.”

There’s an edge to my voice that makes her pull back a little. She tucks a strand of blond hair behind her ear. “You sound mad at me.”

I laugh without humor. “You think?”

She grabs my arm when I brush past her. “Wait a second! I didn’t do anything. Jamie—”

I swing around on her. “No, you’re right. You didn’t do anything. You never do anything.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I thought we were friends, Ang. Did I imagine that? How could you let her do that to me?”

“No, you didn’t imagine it,” she says quietly. “But what do you expect me to do?”

“I expect you to be better.”

Her lips tighten. “Than who? Jamie? Or you? I didn’t do this to you, Q. I’m not the one who cheated on Carey.”

Neither did I. My mouth opens. Closes. Opens. I stare at the EXIT sign above her head so she can’t see the truth in my eyes.

“What?” she shouts. “What are you not saying?”

I can’t say what I’m thinking, so I tell her what I’m feeling. “I never would have let somebody treat you like that. No matter what. Your friendship meant too much to me.”

“I could say the same.”

She sounds so pissed at me, and I don’t get it. “What did I do to you, Ang?”

“You didn’t talk to me! If you were thinking of cheating, why didn’t you talk to me first? You knew how I felt about this. I told you how I felt. Maybe if we had talked, I could’ve helped you. Maybe . . .”

She blasts me until she runs out of breath. Pacing back and forth on that ugly forest green carpet, she goes on and on about how I let her down. How I lied to her. How I threw our friendship away. She sets me in my place. Part of me aches because some of it is true—I haven’t told her anything, and maybe that was a betrayal of our friendship. Part of me is pissed, though, because I wish she’d stood by me anyway.

“I’m sorry,” I say finally. “You don’t know how sorry.”

I scrape my hands through my hair, pulling it forward to hide that I want to cry. I’m surprised by how beaten down I sound. Even Angel hears it.

“Quinn . . .”

“I’m tired, Ang. And honestly, I don’t think I can take much more today. Good night, okay?”

After a moment, she nods and walks away. I wonder if maybe I’ve been hoping too hard that our friendship could be fixed. Because this feels too broken to be put back together again.

*   *   *

The next day Mr. Horowitz and Mrs. Daniels, our government/economics teacher, steer us off the bus when we arrive at the National Mall. We trail after a tour guide to the Lincoln Memorial where a huge Lincoln stares off, permanently majestic and resolute. The tour moves us from monument to monument like herded cattle. The guide remains cheery, but our group grows more solemn with each war memorial we pass.

Some of us have lost family members. Some of us have family fighting now. None of us have been untouched.

At the Korean War Memorial, one wall reads Freedom Is Not Free. The cost in that war: 54,246 dead US soldiers. 103,284 wounded. 8,177 missing.

Stainless-steel soldiers march through the garden in full combat gear, their faces molded with weary determination. Don, I think, trailing my fingers down one massive soldier’s cold cheek. Scared but dutiful; this is how I imagine Don looked with the picture of that dead soldier tucked in his pocket to remind him what was at stake.

We move on to the simple World War I Memorial followed by the more grandiose World War II Memorial. The first is a smaller, round structure with twelve pillars, and the second is constructed of fifty-six pillars in a huge plaza. The difference in size is striking. One war already fading in our memories, and the other still fresh. The World War II Memorial features a wall with 4,048 gold stars. Each star, our tour guide tells us, represents one hundred dead Americans. An inscription near the wall reads: Here we mark the price of freedom.