Marah's eyes go flat and blank. "Don't bring her into this."

"You come home with me now," Johnny says. "Or-"

"Or what? Don't come home at all?" Marah snaps back.

Johnny looks like he is falling. But he is angry, too. "Marah-"

She turns to Paxton, says, "Get me out of here."

"Fine, go," Johnny snaps.

I stand there, unable to draw a breath. How has everything gone wrong so fast? When I hear the door bang shut, I turn to Johnny. "Johnny, please-"

"Don't. You knew she was sleeping with ... that kid..." His voice cracks. "I don't know how the hell Kate stayed with you all those years, but I know this: it's over now. This is YOUR fault. You stay the hell away from my family."

For the first time ever-ever-Johnny turns his back on me and walks away.

CHAPTER Seventeen

Oh, Tully.

Over the faint whir of the ventilator and the beep of the heart monitor, I hear the disappointment in Katie's voice. I forget where my body is-or try to-and live in the memory of where we are supposed to be. The Quad at the UW. Good times.

I lie back in the grass. I can almost feel it beneath me; tiny tips poking into my skin. I can hear the murmur of voices distinct and indistinct; they sound like waves washing up on a pebbled shore. That pure, beautiful light envelopes everything and gives me a sense of peace that is totally at odds with the memory I just shared with Kate.

You let them both walk away?

I roll onto my side and stare at this beautiful, incandescent vision of my best friend. In the pale glow of her, I see us as we once were-a pair of fourteen-year-old girls wearing too much makeup, with overplucked eyebrows, sitting on my bed, with an array of Tiger Beat magazines open between us. Or in the eighties, wearing shoulder pads the size of dinner plates and dancing to "We Got the Beat." "I ruined everything," I say.

She sighs quietly; I feel her breath like a whisper against my cheek. I get a whiff of the bubble gum she used to love, and the Baby Soft perfume that she hasn't worn in decades.

"I missed having you to talk to."

I'm here now, Tul. Talk to me.

"Maybe you want to talk to me, about what it's like where you are."

About the kind of missing that wakes you up at night, about forgetting how your son's hair smells right out of the bath or wondering if he's lost a tooth or how he'll grow up to be a man without a mother to guide him? She sighs quietly. That's for another time. Tell me what happened after Marah ran away and Johnny said he didn't want to see you anymore. Do you remember?

I remember, all right. December of 2009 was the beginning of the end. Last year. It feels like yesterday to me.

"After that horrible scene, I ...

run out of the dorms and find myself alone on campus. It is a cold, snowy mess out here now; slush is furring the streets. I go to Forty-fifth Street, hail a cab, and get into the backseat.

At home, I am shaking so hard I slam my thumb in the door. I go straight to the bathroom and take two Xanax, but the pills don't stop me from falling apart. Not this time. I know it's because I deserve to feel bad. What had I been thinking, to say those things to Marah, to hide the truth from Johnny? He's right. This is my fault. How is it that I keep hurting the people I love?

I climb onto my big king-sized bed and curl into a ball on top of the silver silk coverlet. It absorbs my tears as if they'd never been.

I remember time passing in weird ways-in the slow charcoal darkening of the sky, in the lights coming on in high-rises around me, in the number of Xanax I take. In the middle of the night I eat everything in my fridge and am halfway through the pantry when I know I've overdone it. I stumble into the bathroom and puke it all up, along with the Xanax, and afterward I feel as weak as a kitten.

When the phone beside me rings, I waken, so groggy and lethargic that I forget where I am and why I feel like someone rolled over me with a dump truck. And then I remember.

I reach over and answer my phone.

"Hello?" I say, noticing how dry my mouth is.

"Hey."

"Margie." I whisper her name, afraid to say it out loud. I wish she didn't live in Arizona. I need to see her now.

"Hello, Tully."

I hear the disappointment in her voice and know why she is calling. "You heard?"

"I heard."

I am so ashamed I feel sick. "I screwed up."

"You were supposed to be taking care of her."

The truly pathetic thing is that I thought I was. "How do I fix it?"

"I don't know. Maybe when Marah comes home-"

"What if she doesn't?"

Margie draws in a sharp breath, and I think: How much heartache can one family handle?

"She'll come back," I say, but I don't believe it, and Margie knows. Instead of making me feel better, this conversation is making me feel worse. I make a mumbling excuse and hang up.

An Ambien helps me sleep.

For the next two weeks, the weather matches my mood. Gray, swollen skies cry with me.

I know I am depressed. I can feel it, but the strange thing is that I find it comforting. All of my life I have run from my own emotions. Now, alone in my apartment, cut off from everyone, I revel in my pain, swim in its warm waters. I don't even pretend to work on my book. The sleeping pills I take at night leave me feeling fuzzy in the morning and slow-moving, and even with them in my system, I toss and turn at night; sweats and hot flashes have me alternately boiling and freezing.

Until Christmas Eve. Thirteen days after the fight at Marah's dorm room.

On that morning, I wake up with a plan.