"Amanda, you can't!" her older sister bursts out.

"Honey." Mrs. Grace steps out of line with the rest of her family, like she might approach Amanda, but she stops well short of the stairs. "I know he might seem like a friend because of ... what happened."

There's a collective flinch from everyone but Amanda.

"But," Mrs. Grace soldiers on, "he's a stranger. You don't know what his intentions are." She manages to convey every possible awful sexual connotation in one word.

I straighten up. "Hey, wait a minute." I'll admit to some messed-up priorities, but I'm not that guy.

Amanda tilts her head to the side. "Mom. I doubt it's any worse than anything that's already been done."

That sends a ripple of shock through them.

"Amanda Diana Grace!" Mrs. Grace is horrified.

"I mean, unless he plans to kill me, and I don't think that's the case." Amanda shifts her gaze to me. "Is it?"

"No!" I manage, but it comes out half-choked with surprise. Jesus.

"Good," she says simply.

"After everything we've been through, you're crazy if you think we're going to let this happen," her father says. "This is insane. You're..."

Insane. The word hangs in the air.

"It's our job to protect you, even when you won't protect yourself," he finishes. "You can't do this."

"I'm twenty," she reminds her father sadly. "Maybe you missed that while you were at the office or just avoiding me in general."

He rocks back, as if she slapped him, and then, his face white and his jaw clenched, he storms out of the foyer, heading deeper into the house.

"Amanda!" The older sister glares at her, before hurrying to follow their father.

Whoa. Amanda has sharp teeth. Good for her.

But then she turns her attention back to me. "Well?" she asks, and I can see the determination and vulnerability in her eyes. She's looking at me like she's out in the middle of an endless ocean and I'm the only land in sight.

Fuck.

No. Just say no, a panicked voice in my head says. This has crazy mess written all over it in capital letters.

But if I say no, I'm walking away from my best chance at getting what I need. The media would be all over Amanda visiting me on set, especially after the flameout earlier today.

I shift my weight uncomfortably. Damnit. None of this has gone as planned. Amanda is not the enthusiastic fan that Elise depicted, grateful for a couple of pictures and a short, carefully monitored visit, managed by a production assistant or publicist. My only job in that scenario would be to smile politely and act interested, maybe even eat lunch with her. But this, this is something else, trouble I can't afford, responsibility I don't want.

But when I open my mouth to say a politer version of that, something else comes out instead. "Bring a jacket," I say. "It's colder now."

Relief washes over Amanda's face, followed immediately by what looks like uncertainty. But then she squares her shoulders. "Five minutes," she promises and steps back from the railing, disappearing in the direction, presumably, of her room.

I grit my teeth. What have I done? This is definitely going to be one of those moments where, tomorrow, I'll be wondering what the hell I was thinking. Actually, I'm already wondering that, and yet I can't seem to bring myself to call out, "Sorry, never mind," and haul ass out of there.

Mrs. Grace hurries past me and up the stairs without so much as a glance in my direction.

"So, what movie?" Mia asks, folding her arms across her chest. Her resemblance to Amanda is unmistakable, but she's clearly younger, maybe just sixteen, and her chin and nose are more pointed, giving her a distinctly slyer appearance.

"What?"

"What movie are you filming in Wescott?" she elaborates slowly, as if I'm the stupid one for not understanding her abrupt conversation shift.

"Oh. It's this thing, Coal City Nights. Max Verlucci is-"

"Season One writer, yeah." She waves her hand dismissively. "I know. Liza has the whole Starlight series on DVD."

Liza? The older sister with the permanent I-sucked-a-lemon expression?

"The zombies were cool, but the narrative went to crap in the third season." Mia watches me, waiting for my reaction, and this somehow feels like a test.

"Yeah." What else am I supposed to say? She's right. Zombies on a show about a guardian angel in love with the girl he's supposed to protect made no sense.

"You know she's messed up," Mia says.

It takes me a second to process another of Mia's whip-fast topic changes. "Yeah, I'm kind of..." ... getting that. It sounds too flip. So I just settle for repeating myself. "Yeah."

"This is a big chance she's taking, and she doesn't do that very often anymore," Mia says, eyeing me suspiciously, as though I've done something to trick Amanda into this.

"I ... okay." It feels much too warm in here suddenly, and I flap my jacket back and forth, trying to cool off.

"So don't screw it up." She fidgets with her sleeve, picking off an invisible bit of lint. "It's not her fault, obviously, but she's right. Everyone's trying so hard, but it's not getting any better. Maybe we're making it worse-I don't know." She shrugs, the tight motion barely visible. "My dad wants to pretend it never happened, and my mom wants to make every second about Amanda getting better. And if one of them is right, the other one has to be wrong. It's kind of hellish." She pauses, staring down at some unknown point on the floor, and she seems younger, smaller than before. "It would be nice not to be trapped in the middle of that, just for a while."

Shit. "Listen, uh, Mia? What do you think-"

Amanda reappears at the top of the stairs, struggling into a black zip-up fleece, a canvas bag dangling from one arm.

That was fast. Was it even five minutes? How is this happening so quickly? I swallow loudly.

"How will we reach you?" Mrs. Grace, wringing her hands, follows Amanda down the stairs.

"I have my cell phone."

"Amanda, please don't do this. You're not ready. Dr. Knaussen-"

"Dr. Knaussen can call me, too. I'll check in with her just like usual." Amanda sounds confident, but her hand is trembling as she moves it along the railing in her descent. She catches me watching and tightens her grip, steadying it.

"But small steps, Amanda-" Mrs. Grace persists.

"Aren't cutting it, Mom." Amanda stops at the bottom of the stairs and turns to face her mother. "I'm not making any progress that way, not anymore. And I want to have a life someday," she says in a softer voice, a quiet plea for understanding. "Besides, you're the one who keeps saying I should do whatever I feel like I'm ready to do."

Except I'm not entirely sure Amanda's all that ready. As soon as I pull the door open and step out of the way to let her lead, she freezes up, like someone terrified of heights balancing on the edge of the high dive.

I can feel the tension behind me from Mia, from Mrs. Grace, who are both, undoubtedly, watching this play out.

Maybe this'll be over before it even begins. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Relieved, I think. A sign from the universe that it wasn't meant to be, as my agent used to say. You know, before he stopped taking my calls. "Is everything-"

"Fine. It's fine," Amanda says shortly, tugging her bag up higher on her shoulder, and then, with a deep breath that seems more appropriate for someone about to face a ravenous and rabid grizzly bear, she pushes forward and out the door.

Oh yeah, she's definitely not ready. And neither am I.

This is such a bad idea.

5.

Amanda I just left the house. To stay with a stranger. Overnight.

My chest constricts painfully at the thought.

Behind me, the screen door slams shut, and I can hear the sound of Chase's footsteps on the porch steps and then behind me on the path to the driveway. Is it possible for footsteps to sound reluctant and/or resigned? Because if so, his do.

I inhale through my nose and exhale slowly through my mouth, trying to count, four in and eight out, and do both the breathing and counting quietly enough so as not to attract even more attention. The truth is, I don't have time to freak out right now because I'm pretty sure I've got about thirty seconds before Chase finds a polite excuse to back out. I need to think this through and come up with a way to convince him this is still a good idea.

But it's hard to think when my skin is buzzing. The sun is down, and it's really getting dark now, the automatic porch lights providing the only illumination. On a bad day, this is usually when my anxiety kicks into high gear, for some reason. Combine that with the unpredictability that comes with being outside-branches moving in the wind like arms reaching out for me and dead leaves skittering at my feet like small crabbed creatures-and I should be a wreck.

Except this doesn't feel exactly like one of my tsunami waves of anxiety or even the start of a panic attack. This is more like I'm plugged in, connected in some weird way. Like I've taken a leap over the edge of a cliff, and I'm enjoying the fall, for the moment. I'm hyperaware of everything, the scrape of my shoes on the concrete, the faint ticking of the engine cooling in the car on the driveway, the birds chirping and fluttering as they settle in for the night.

A hand lands solidly on my shoulder, and my heart catapults into my throat. I jerk away violently, tipping myself off balance and nearly landing backward in one of the evergreen bushes that line the sidewalk.

Chase jumps back from me, his face almost comical in shock. I'm not sure who is more surprised. "Sorry!" he says, his hands up as if he's under arrest. The light from the porch catches on the car keys in his palm, making them gleam. "I just thought ... your bag." He tips his head toward the bag that's now hanging from my wrist, the bottom of it dragging on the ground.

Oh. Yeah. I want to close my eyes in defeat. That makes more sense than some random attacker sprinting up between us and grabbing me, which, of course, is what my brain signaled.

Again, there's very little space between stimulus and panic for rational thought. "Sorry," I say, straightening up and pulling my bag onto my shoulder.

"No, I'm sorry," Chase says quickly. He looks toward my house, as if expecting someone to come charging out. He might not be wrong. "I should have realized-"

"No, it's okay. It's just ... I'm a little jumpy. When people touch me unexpectedly," I say, fumbling for the words that will make this not weird. It's not uncommon for rape survivors to have trouble with being touched, but most people just don't think it through. Touch is human instinct, an attempt to comfort, even.

A pained expression crosses Chase's face, and he takes a step back, as if I'm a ticking emotional time bomb and might explode in messy tears and gibbering nonsense right then and there.

Really? I'm the one who lived through it, but he can't stand to hear me reference it, even obliquely? God. He's not "my" Chase, and that is so screamingly obvious. But I suppose that's better than if he were like the people who are eager to hear every detail. There are definitely those, too.

Still, all my awkward damage is fully on display, and I can feel panic bubbling up in my throat. In a second, Chase isn't even going to bother with the polite excuse.

As if he can read my mind, he takes a deep breath and says, "Listen..."

"Look, I know this is crazy," I say, cutting him off. "Or weird or both. You don't know me, I don't know you. And this is obviously not what you were expecting when you came here..." Shit, I'm babbling. Stop babbling. "But I have a reason, a good reason for asking to come along."

He raises his eyebrows expectantly.

I'm tempted to ask him if he minds waiting to hear said reason until we're in the car on the way to Wescott. I can feel time, and my summoned-from-nowhere courage, slipping away. I would bet my life that my mother is standing at the picture window in the living room, watching us, waiting for me to retreat and fly back into the house.

Suddenly, I can see myself walking past Chase, up the stairs, into the house, and to my room, where I lie down again on the floor of my closet and just stay there forever, living on that pile of discarded shoes.

"You need help. You said so," I blurt out.

He stiffens. "That's not exactly what I said."

Good, Amanda, way to put him on the defensive.

"No, I didn't mean..." I take a deep breath and start over, borrowing his words. "I don't know how much you know about what happened to me." I pause.

He nods slowly. Someone did research for him. But clearly not enough.

"Obviously, I'm having some trouble getting back to normal. I mean, I'm doing okay. I have a therapist and everything, and it's not like I'm suicidal or anything." I force a laugh, but his eyes go wide.

Clearly that thought had not entered his mind until I put it there.

"But I'm stuck. And I need to find some way to fight through. And I thought..." I pause, trying to find the right words, ones that will explain without scaring him away. "When I was in that place," I say carefully, "I had only one link to home. There was a poster on the wall. My sister had the same one. Chase Henry as Brody Taylor. The one with the black leather jacket and the collar..." I catch myself tugging at my fleece to demonstrate, as if he needs the reminder, and stop, feeling my face heat up.

Chase's mouth twitches with a faint smile. "The angry librarian?" he asks.

"Huh?" I ask, confused.

He tips his head toward the house, and I realize he's describing Liza. Perfectly, actually.

And that makes me relax enough to laugh, a little giddy. "Yeah, that's her. She was so in love with you." The words come out in the same teasing tone I used to use with Liza herself whenever she would drag me in to watch Starlight with her and then stand six inches away from the screen so as not to miss so much as a micro-blink from "Brody Taylor."

Chase ducks his head, his hand rubbing the back of his neck, and it's hard to tell with his face in shadow, but it looks like he's blushing. And that causes a weird pinch in my stomach.

"The glasses are fake." The words pop out of my mouth, and I have no idea why. "She only needs them for reading, but she wears them all the time to make people take her more seriously. Law student and whatever."

He nods solemnly. "I see."

What the hell is wrong with me? I'm stuck in babble mode. "Anyway," I say, struggling to refocus on my point. "The poster. It was a link to home, and apparently, according to, like, every therapist in the world, I needed an outlet, a coping mechanism or whatever. So my brain sort of made one, I guess." This all sounds so crazy. Crap.

"And it looked like you," I make myself continue. "Gave me the courage to keep hoping, and the strength to keep fighting." I'm caught for a second in the memory of "my" Chase whispering in my ear that last morning, pushing me to reach out, literally, to catch the furnace repairman's attention. "Saved my life, actually."

The real Chase looks taken aback.

"It wasn't you," I say quickly. "I know that. It's this psychological equivalency thing."

"But you think I can help you," he says, sounding doubtful.

"Not you, exactly." I'm struggling to explain something that seemed so clear in my head just a few minutes ago.