I sat there for a few more minutes after Duce left. I stared at Nick's grave until my eyes watered and my toes felt numb from the cold. At last I stood up and brushed a leaf off of the headstone with my toe.

"Bye, Romeo," I said softly.

I walked away, shivering, and didn't look back, even though I knew I'd never again go visit his grave. He was Ma's Beloved Son Beloved Son. The words carved in the granite said nothing about me at all.

37.

A police cruiser was sitting in the driveway when I got home, Dad's car parked behind it and a battered red Jeep behind it. A feeling of dread washed over me. I trudged up the driveway and let myself in the house.

"Oh, thank G.o.d!" Mom cried, rushing from the living room to the front door. She wrapped herself around my neck. "Thank G.o.d!"

"Mom... ?" I said. "What's... ?"

A uniformed officer followed her into the entryway. He looked none too pleased to be there. He was followed by Dad, who looked even less happy than the officer. I peered into the living room and saw Dr. Hieler, sitting on the couch, the lines in his face making it look harsh and tired.

"What's going on?" I asked, pulling away from Mom. "Dr. Hieler... ? Did something happen?"

"We were about to issue an Amber Alert," Dad said, his voice ragged with anger. "Jesus, what next?"

"Amber alert? Why?"

But then the officer was ambling toward me. "You probably don't want to be picked up as a runaway," he said to me. "Just so you know."

"Runaway? I'm not. I wasn't. Mom..."

He headed for the front door and Mom followed him, thanking him and apologizing. The radio on his shoulder was squawking and I missed most of what they said.

Dr. Hieler got up and shrugged into his jacket. He came toward me, his face looking confused and sad and angry and relieved all at the same time. Once again I thought about his family at home. What domestic serenity had I kept him from tonight? Was his wife at home, secretly wishing I had run away for good?

"The grave?" he asked very quietly. Neither Mom nor Dad heard him. I nodded; he nodded. "See you Sat.u.r.day," he said. "We'll talk then." And then he, too, was speaking softly to Mom in the doorway-apologies on both sides of the conversation now-and shaking Dad's hand as he left. I watched the officer race away in his cruiser and Dr. Hieler climb into his Jeep and pull away without fanfare.

"I've got to get back," Dad said to Mom. "Let me know if you need anything. And my opinion still stands. She needs more help than she's getting, Jenny. You've got to stop letting her make all of us miserable." He cut his eyes to me. I looked away.

"I've heard you, Ted," Mom said with a sigh. "I've heard you."

Dad put one hand on Mom's shoulder and gave it a quick pat, then disappeared through the front door.

Mom and I stood in the empty entryway regarding one another.

"This was quite a show," she said bitterly. "Once again. We had reporters in our yard. Once again. Dr. Hieler had to chase them away. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, Valerie, and once again look what's happened. Maybe your father's right. You can't have an inch or you'll take a mile."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know. I swear, I wasn't running away. I just took a walk."

"You've been gone for hours, Valerie. You didn't tell anyone where you were going. I thought you'd been kidnapped. Or worse. I thought that Troy kid had done something to you like he threatened."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I really didn't realize."

"Bull," said a voice from the landing above us. We both looked up. Frankie was standing there in a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, his hair sticking straight out to one side.

"Frankie," Mom warned, but he cut her off.

"Dad's right-all she does is cause trouble."

"I said I was sorry," I repeated. It seemed like the only thing I could do. "I wasn't trying to cause anything. I went to the cemetery and started talking to Duce and lost track of time, I guess. I should've called."

Mom looked at me, startled. "Duce Barnes?"

I looked down.

"Oh, Valerie, he's one of them," she breathed. "He's one of those Nick-types. Didn't you learn? Everything you've got going on and all you can do is hang around with boys and get into trouble?"

"No, it's not like that," I said.

"I had soccer tryouts today," Frankie yelled from the top of the stairs. "But I couldn't go because both Mom and Dad were here, freaking out because you were missing. G.o.d, Valerie, I try to be on your side, but all you think about is yourself. You think you and Nick were everybody's victims," he said. "But even now that Nick's gone, you still do stuff to make people miserable. It's impossible. Just like Dad says. You're impossible. I'm sick of my life always having to revolve around yours." He stomped back into his room and slammed the door shut.

"Very nice," Mom said, gesturing to the s.p.a.ce where Frankie had just been standing. "Why is it that you can't let us have just one good day? Here I was trusting you and-"

"And I did nothing wrong," I interrupted, practically shouting. "I took a walk, Mom. I didn't ruin your day. You ruined it by not trusting me." Mom's mouth hung open, her eyes wide. "When are you guys going to get it? I didn't shoot anybody! I didn't do it! Stop treating me like a criminal. I'm sick and tired of taking all the blame around here." I heard Frankie's door squeak open a crack, but didn't look up. Instead, I briefly closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. The last thing I wanted was to cause more drama for Frankie. "I took a walk to say goodbye," I said evenly, opening my eyes and looking at Mom. "You should be really happy. Nick's officially out of my life forever. Maybe you can trust me now."

Mom closed her mouth, dropped her hands to her sides. "Well," she said after a long while. "At least you're safe." She turned and walked up the stairs, leaving me in the entryway alone. Above me, I heard Frankie's door click shut again. Yeah Yeah, I thought. Safe Safe.

38.

Frankie went to live with Dad during the week and only came home on the weekends. Mom swore it wasn't because of me, but I had a really hard time believing it after the scene he'd made, especially since he left without saying goodbye. I felt really guilty about it. I'd never meant to hurt Frankie. I'd never meant for his life to revolve around mine. But I seemed to have a way of doing that-hurting people without meaning to.

By the time spring wrapped around us full force, I had noticed that he'd cut his hair to match the rest of the soccer players and was wearing a pair of gla.s.ses that completed a clean-cut look for him that I'd never have imagined.

He didn't speak to me much, except to give reports on how Dad and Briley were doing when Mom wasn't around.

"Dad's got a new car," he would say, or, "Briley is so nice, Val, you should give her a chance. She listens to punk, can you believe it? Can you see Mom listening to punk?"

I pretended not to care one way or another what was going on with Dad and Briley, but once while Frankie was in the shower, I dug around in his backpack for his cell phone and scrolled through the photos he had stored on it until I found pictures of them. I then sat on the floor and stared at them until my eyes felt sandy.

The divorce was almost final. I noticed, though, that Mel, Mom's attorney, was still coming over pretty much nightly and sometimes he'd bring hot sandwiches from Sal's with him or a bottle of wine. And I noticed, too, that Mom wore makeup on the days he came over and would sit raptly at the kitchen table with him and laugh every few minutes and touch his forearm lightly with the pads of her fingers when she did it.

I could hardly stand the thought of it, but every so often I'd wonder what kind of stepdad Mel would make. I brought it up with Mom once and she blushed and simply answered, "I'm still married to your father, Valerie." But she'd walked away sort of dreamily after that, fiddling with her necklace and smiling softly, like Cinderella did the morning after the ball.

Even though Duce and I had technically made a truce that day at Nick's grave, it didn't change anything for us at school. We didn't talk. We didn't meet at the bleachers in the mornings. And we didn't eat lunch together. Instead, I managed to finagle Mrs. Tate into letting me eat lunch in her office with her, by promising to look through college catalogs while I was there.

It was the time of year when school seemed interminably long and boring. Somehow, hearing the birds chirping right outside our open cla.s.sroom windows made the hours of the day multiply and pile one on top of another. Schoolwork seemed stupid, too, this close to graduation. Like we were just filling time. Hadn't we learned everything we needed to know already? Couldn't we just go out and play like we did when we were kids? Don't seniors deserve recess?

May second came and went without a lot of fanfare. We held a moment of silence in the morning, followed by a reading of the victims' names over the intercom with morning announcements. There were a few prayer vigils at some local churches that night. But mostly people just went on about their lives. Already. After only a year.

Everyone was talking about graduation. About party plans afterward. About dreadful family parties before. About what they were wearing, how they were keeping their hats from falling off, what joke would be played on Mr. Angerson.

It was tradition in our school for each graduating senior to hand the administrator something small and concealable as he shook your hand on stage during graduation. One year it had been peanuts. One year pennies. One year it was plastic bouncy b.a.l.l.s. Angerson would be forced to put whatever was handed to him in his pockets, and by the end of commencement his pockets would be bulging under the strain of seven hundred bouncy b.a.l.l.s or pennies or peanuts. Rumor had it this year it was going to be condoms, but the cheerleaders were heading a strong campaign against it. They wanted jingle bells, so he couldn't move without making noise. I, personally, liked the jingle bell idea. Or maybe nothing. Maybe what poor Angerson needed from our cla.s.s was simply a break. A great big handful of nothing.

And when the graduation talk ebbed, conversation turned to college talk. Who was going to MU? Who was going overseas? Who wasn't going at all? And did you hear the rumor that J.P. was going to join the Peace Corps? What's the Peace Corps? Will he get malaria and die? Will local rebels kidnap him and behead him in a hut hidden by banana trees? The talk never ended.

Every day at lunch, Mrs. Tate would grill me about my future plans.

"Valerie, it's still not too late to grab a scholarship to one of the community colleges," she'd say, looking pained.

I'd shake my head. "No."

"What are you going to do?" she'd asked me one day as we ate lunch together.

I'd considered this, believe me. What would I do once graduation was over? Where would I go? How would I live? Would I stay at home and wait for Mom and Mel to possibly get married? Would I move in with Dad and Briley and Frankie and try to repair the relationship that I was pretty sure Dad didn't want anyway? Would I move out and get a job? Get a roommate? Fall in love?

"Recover," I'd said. And I'd meant it. I needed some time to simply recover. I'd consider my future later, when Garvin High had slipped off me like a heavy coat in a hot room and I'd begun to forget the faces of my cla.s.smates. Of Troy. Of Nick. When I'd begun to forget the smell of gunpowder and blood. If I ever could.

Everything seemed to be going along all right until one rainy Friday, the smell of wet gra.s.s clippings permeating the hallways. The storm clouds were thick outside and made inside the school feel like evening. The final bell had just rung and the hallways were a flurry of activity. As usual I wasn't part of it, just moving around in my bubble, waiting to mark another X on the calendar-another day closer to graduation.

I stood at my locker, trading out my math book for my science text.

"So who's the chick who tried to axe herself?" I heard a girl ask a few lockers away. I perked my ears and looked over at them.

"What do you mean?" her friend asked.

The girl's eyes got big. "You didn't hear? Some senior tried to kill herself a couple days ago. Took pills, I think. Or maybe slit her wrists, I don't remember. Name was Ginny something."

I gasped. "Ginny Baker?" I asked aloud.

The girls looked at me, their faces confused.

"What?" one of them asked me.

I took a few steps toward them. "The girl who tried to kill herself. You said her name was Ginny something. Was it Ginny Baker?"

She snapped her fingers. "Yeah, that's her. You know her?"

"Yeah," I said. I rushed back to my locker and crammed my books inside. I slammed my locker and headed for the office. I rushed past the secretaries and into Mrs. Tate's office, where Mrs. Tate looked up from a book, startled.

"I just heard about Ginny," I said, trying to catch my breath. "Can you drop me off at the hospital?"

39.

I had to bite my palms when I stepped out of the elevator on the fourth floor into the vestibule of the psychiatric ward at Garvin General. I had a sick feeling in my stomach like if I messed up even the tiniest bit, someone would step around the corner with restraints and take me back into my old room, make me stay there and go to those insane group sessions. Make me listen to Dr. Dentley's idiotic "Let me repeat what I've heard, Miss Leftman. Let me validate you."

I stepped up to the nurse's station. A bristle-haired nurse looked up at me. I was surprised to find that I didn't recognize her at all, which either meant I was too drugged up and stupid to take in her face when I was here, or she was new. She didn't act as if she recognized me either, so I was betting on the latter.

"Yes?" she asked with that weary and suspicious face all mental health nurses have, like I was going to help a patient escape and seriously mess up her day.

"I'm here to see Ginny Baker," I said.

"Are you family?" the nurse asked. She rifled through some papers on her desk as if I didn't exist at all.

"I'm her half-sister," I lied, surprising even myself with how smoothly it came out.

The nurse glanced up from her paperwork at me. She looked like she didn't believe it for one second that I was Ginny's half-sister, but what could she do-demand a DNA test? She sighed, motioned over her right shoulder with her head, and said, "Four-twenty-one, on the left there."

She went back to her paperwork and I shuffled past the desk and into the hallway, praying I wouldn't run into anyone who most certainly knew that I wasn't a Baker step-child, especially Dr. Dentley. I took a deep breath and ducked into Room 421 before I could think about it too long.

Ginny was propped up in bed, her arms hooked up to IVs and monitors. She was staring blankly up at the TV. A big Styrofoam cup with a striped bendable straw was sitting on the bed table in front of her. Her mother sat next to the bed, also looking up at the TV, which was playing some sort of dramatic daytime talk show. Neither of them was talking. Neither of them looked like they'd washed their hair today.

Mrs. Baker was the first to glance at me when I entered the room. A string of tension wound itself around her torso when she placed my face, and her mouth opened just the tiniest bit.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," I said. At least I think I said it. My voice felt like a squeak.

Ginny looked at me then, and once again I was struck by how disfigured her face was. Once again I felt sorry. No matter how many times I looked at her spoiled cheekbones and flayed lips now it was always shocking.

"What are you doing here?" she mumbled.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," I repeated. "I wanted to talk to you."

Ginny's mom had gotten out of her chair, but she stood behind it, almost like she was hiding behind it. I half expected her to pick it up and use it to fend me off, sort of like a lion tamer.

Ginny's eyes roved to her mom and back to me, but neither of them spoke. I took a few more steps into the room.

"I was in Room four-sixteen," I said. I didn't know why this was important for me to tell her, but for some reason it felt right when it came out of my mouth. "It's better on this side, because they keep the insomniacs over in the four-fifties."

Just then I heard a voice that I recognized and the squeak of cheap shoes coming down the hallway. I braced myself to be kicked out, which sucked because even though I wasn't sure what I wanted to say to Ginny, I knew I hadn't yet said it.

"Well, how's Ginny today?" the voice said behind me, coming into the room. Dr. Dentley.

He walked to Ginny's bedside and lifted her wrist to take her pulse, the whole time yammering on about what a good group they had this morning and did she feel restless and how did she sleep last night before noticing that both Bakers were still staring at me. He turned, surprise dawning on his face.

"Valerie," he said, "what are you doing here?"

"Hi Dr. Dentley," I said. "I'm just visiting."