CHAPTER 8

GRACE

Dinner at home is tense. I don’t really expect it to be any other way, not with Mom and Dad still upset about my disappearance last night and Thane still … elsewhere. I can’t remember ever feeling this awkward around my parents. Ever.

When dinner is over, I clear the table and take care of the dishes. Alone and in silence. It’s like their disappointment is my punishment.

I hang the damp dish towel on the oven door handle when I’m done. I can’t just let it be like this—the distance and tension are too much. I walk quietly to their bedroom and knock on the door.

“Come in,” Dad says.

He’s sitting at the small desk in the corner of the room—the closest thing to an office this apartment has space for—and Mom’s in the bathroom, getting ready for bed. In all my years, I’ve never felt like such an outsider in my own home.

Dad doesn’t look up, and my heart breaks a little more.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I say with as much feeling as I can shove into three small words. “I’m really, really sorry.”

His attention stays focused on the computer screen and I feel tears start to well in my eyes. He’s not even going to respond.

Then I see his shoulders rise and fall in a small sigh.

“I know,” he says. When he turns to look at me, his eyes are shining too. “I know you are, Gracie.”

I rush over to him, practically throwing him off the chair with my hug. Then I feel Mom’s arms wrap around us.

“We were so scared,” she says. “Terrified that something awful might have—”

She can’t finish. She doesn’t have to.

As much as I want to reassure her, to tell her that nothing terrible happened, that nothing terrible will happen, I can’t lie again. Last night was awful and dangerous and seconds away from becoming their worst nightmare. Mine too. Tonight might be just as bad. Or the next night, or the night after that. My life is suddenly more dangerous than their worst fears. I can’t make a promise that everything will be fine, because I can’t control the outcome.

A war that’s been brewing for millennia is about to break out in San Francisco, and I’m right in the middle of it all.

If I think about it too much, the fear might overwhelm me. I need to focus on the positive, on the right now.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I promise you, I’m fine.”

For now.

“Make us one more promise,” Dad says, leaning out of the hug. “Never go anywhere without your phone again.”

Mom nods. “It would have saved a lot of worry.”

“I promise,” I say. Even though I know that if I’d had my phone last night, it would have either gotten blown up in the loft or drenched in the bay.

But I’ll never leave home without it again.

I tell them I love them—and they tell me they love me right back—before retreating to my room. Speaking of my phone, it’s ringing when I walk through my door.

My heart pounds when I read the screen: Milo.

“Hi,” I say, trying to disguise how breathless I feel. “What’s up?”

There’s a brief pause before he says, “I thought we were.”

“We—” I slap a hand over my mouth. “Omigosh, Milo, I totally forgot.”

I can’t believe I’m such a moron. Milo is Thane’s friend, his soccer teammate at Euclid, and about the cutest boy I’ve ever met. He’s sweet too, which is a major bonus. And he likes me.

When I was all high on confronting Miranda yesterday, I called him and asked him out. I was terrified, but I did it. And he said yes.

We were supposed to meet this afternoon, but after everything that happened last night and then with Sthenno at school and again at Union Square, I blanked. I totally blew my chance.

“Something, um, critical came up and—I’m so sorry.”

“No worries,” he says, though he sounds a little off. “I get it.”

Oh no. He thinks I blew him off on purpose. No, no, no.

“Really,” I insist. “It was something last-minute with my—” I have to stop myself from saying sisters. “A friend,” I say. “She had an emergency and …” I stink at lying. I need to stop trying. “I swear, I really really really want to go out with you.”

Great. Way to sound totally desperate, Grace. I roll my eyes at my idiocy and can picture Milo doing the same. I take a deep breath to compose myself and sink back onto my bed, ready for the rejection.

I expect him to say, No thanks, crazy girl, and hang up, never to be heard from again.

Instead, he says, “How about tomorrow?”

I sit back up.

“Tomorrow?” I echo. A second chance! Relief floods through me. I’m not meeting Gretchen and Greer until four thirty. “I can meet right after school. I have something later in the afternoon.”

“Soccer practice,” he says. “Until five.”

“Shoot.” I have no idea when the girls and I will be done, so I can’t make after-sister plans. “I would invite you over for dinner, but …”

“Thane,” he finishes. “Have you heard from him?”

Not enough. “He texted me last night.”

“Is he”—Milo hesitates—“okay?”

“I think so.” I hope so. “He said he’d be home soon.”

We sit in silence, listening to each other breathing for a few minutes. I’m sure Milo is wondering about his new friend’s weird behavior. I’m wondering what my brother is trying to work through and whether he’ll be happier when he gets back. He’s a good person—he deserves a lifetime of happiness.