I laughed. "How can something so small be so loud?"

"And terrible," he added. "Isn't it great?!"

"Tell me you didn't spend money on that."

The Vegas Tree transitioned into "Let it Snow," which, actually, it was, both outside and in. Snowflake garland and icicle lights appeared around the room in a flurry, as Carter emptied the bags and turned my bland little hospital room into a Christmas Extravaganza. When a mult.i.tude of presents appeared around the tree, I started to feel like a jerk. We were forced to spend Christmas/his birthday in the hospital, and I didn't even have anything to give him.

"Hey! Now what's that? I hope those are only decorations." Carter's sly grin told me they weren't. "But I already gave you all your gifts!"

He sat next to me and reached for my hand. My good hand. I gave it over and he pressed it to his cheek. "You are the only gift I care about this year."

That's about when I melted. Then he unpacked a beach-ready snowman, wearing sungla.s.ses and swim trunks, that sang "Feliz Navidad" when you touched one of his b.u.t.tons and I almost died again. Of laughter.

"Seriously, where did you get this stuff?"

"It's amazing the quality holiday decorations you can still find on Christmas Eve at the drug store." He pushed the snowman again, and the sounds of the Christmas-I-was-missing filled the room.

I'd just hung up the phone with Aunt Tessa and the rest of the family in Mexico when Carter returned. Aunt Tessa would have been here, had, in fact, been ready to fly back last minute at exorbitant cost and with about seven layovers to come get me, if I hadn't convinced her that was ridiculous. I wasn't dying, I had Carter with me, and I'd be fine. And, also, would be delivered to her by private jet when I was released the next day, compliments of a very lavish and unexpected gift arranged by Daniel Astor.

Except for the broken wrist and wrecked car, this holiday was turning out rather better than I expected.

It improved even more when Carter unpacked dinner, a home-cooked feast compliments of Melinda. "Did she make all this yesterday?"

"And this morning, so it would be ready before I left to come here. And Grandma gave us a whole pie."

"Pecan?"

"Of course."

Evelyn Revell's pies were legendary. After more than a day of hospital food, I was ready to eat the entire thing myself. And also, maybe ready to cry. I blamed the industrial-strength pain killers I'd been downing at regular intervals as my eyes filled with moisture. "Carter, this...this is too much."

"Hey." He left off unwrapping our silverware-plastic, scavenged from the tiny cafeteria when he'd reheated our plates-and sat on the edge of my bed. "It's not anything," he said. "We love you. I love you. It could be better circ.u.mstances, but there's nowhere I'd rather be." He rested his forehead against mine while I took deep yoga breaths, fighting the urge to cry. His skin was warm, but the fresh, wintery scent of the cold still lingered around him from his trips back and forth to the parking lot. After a moment, he kissed me. "It is a Merry Christmas."

"I can think of a few places I'd rather be, but yeah, I guess it is. And a happy birthday," I added. When all he did was frown, I said, "Why do you do that?"

"What?"

"Every time I try to wish you a happy birthday, you make this face." He almost smiled at my imitation.

Running his fingers through his hair, he said, "We just don't really celebrate it. Christmas is enough for one day."

In a way, I got it. His birthday was also the twenty-year anniversary of his mother's death. But at the same time, "Carter, you don't have to apologize for being alive."

"I don't have to celebrate either."

"Well, I do. Let me be happy to have you."

The frown he'd been sporting morphed into a sly smile that I knew meant trouble. The good kind. "You were happy to have me-"

"OH look. Presents!" I pushed my hair forward to cover the pink in my cheeks, though really I don't know why I bothered. It was just the two of us. And possibly any number of nurses and doctors at any second.

Carter laughed, dropping a kiss on my nose before retrieving the presents and resting the boxes on my lap. "Biggest to smallest," he advised, so I started with the heaviest one. Books. A bunch of them, including an early edition E. M. Forster that Melinda had probably been saving for my birthday.

"Is it cheating to shop at your own place of business?"

"Someone has to buy the books. Plus I get a sweet employee discount. Besides, I thought you could use them, since this"-he tapped on my cast-"probably won't be compatible with the ocean."

c.r.a.p. I hadn't even thought of that. I hadn't thought of a lot of things beyond that I couldn't wait to get the heavy purple thing off of me. The second box was filled with sunscreen. "I'm sensing a theme here," I told him, "but I can't figure out what this one could be." The third box was tiny, tied with a misshapen bow that clearly indicated fastidious Carter had not wrapped it himself. "Did you go all the way to the mall?" He shrugged as I untied the ribbon, though I could see he was trying not to smile.

Inside, impossibly, was a bikini. Purple, with black stripes, that matched my cast perfectly.

I threw my head back and laughed, the best laugh I'd had since the accident, and maybe even in weeks. Carter's face exploded into a smile about as bright as the Mexico sun was going to be. "How did you find this?"

"You don't want to know." I did, actually. Still grinning, he said, "I might have convinced a few sales girls into checking the stock rooms for me." On Christmas Eve, no less. Good lord, his powers of charm knew no limits.

I leaned forward and kissed him squarely on the mouth. "I love it. Thank you."

He laughed. "Even though it's purple?"

"Yes. Even then."

"I," he said, "love you. Merry Christmas."

"Happy Birthday," I repeated. And it was.

Circ.u.mstance and a few missed days of my beach holiday aside, at that moment I was so happy just to be alive and with the boy I loved. In fact, in some ways, it was the best-worst Christmas I'd ever had.

ALONG WITH A renewed appreciation for life, I returned from winter break with a few other things: the cast I'd done a poor job not getting sandy; what was sure to be an awkward tan; a new card from Senator Astor to add to my collection, wishing me well and a quick recovery; and, finally, a terrible feeling I'd forgotten something important, something I'd been thinking just before the car crash.

Amy returned from break with a pet.

"Isn't he pretty?" She petted the leaves of the potted fern as if "he" were a dog.

"Um." As far as plants went, I actually thought it was pretty ugly, like a plant having a bad hair day. It has wispy fronds that looked soft but seemed to stick in every direction. At least the green of the leaves went with our color scheme.

She narrowed her eyes, patting the plant protectively. "Don't insult Ferny!"

"Ferny?"

"Listen, Young, I've never had so much as a goldfish before now, so don't kill my joy, okay? Ferny's mine and I love him."

I laughed. "Okay. I love him, too. But where did you even get him?" Despite what she said, he was not a pretty plant. Amy wouldn't have chosen him on her own.

"One of my dad's nurses thought his office needed more color. She couldn't know that he kills, basically, every living thing besides patients. We have a landscaper for a reason. Anyway, she grew him this plant for, like, a year, from a baby plant cutting from her great-grandmother's prize fern or something. So it wasn't like he could keep it and let her watch him kill great-grandma's fern progeny, so he gave it to me. Told her it was going to be my favorite Christmas present ever. Which was a lie, because my favorite present ever was totally my Acura, but I do love him. I want to take care of something. Ferny seems like a good place to start. Less commitment than a fish. And he could be a lifetime companion!" She looked at her plant again, stroking one of the stray fronds. "You'll always listen and never leave me or cheat on me or want to watch just one more football game, right baby?"

Ferny didn't disagree.

He received a pedestal of honor near the window, and the more I looked at him, the more I realized he was like a bulldog. Adorable for his ugliness. He was, in fact, a good listener, and never complained about Amy's or my choice of music, and never blushed like I did whenever Amy asked him a personal question.

And Ferny never would cheat on her. Amy'd been joking when she'd said that, but her fear was there, and the more I listened to her talk to her plant, the more I worried about just how off things were between her and Caleb. They were fighting more and more. They'd always fought, because that was Amy, and that was Caleb too, but the fights weren't real. It was flirting, or foreplay.

Lately though, they were real. And though I'd never have thought it possible a few months ago, the prospect of Caleb cheating was real too. I knew because I saw it.

THEY WERE IN a great study corner of the library, one with a window and lots of privacy. It was a week after we'd gotten back from break. I wondered if he always did his tutoring there, or if it was only with Mandi Worthington. Usually I wouldn't even go by there during work hours, but when I ran out of things to do early, the librarian sent me around to check for stray books. I didn't have my cart, which always announced my presence, so they didn't hear me coming. I had my music on, so I didn't hear them either. But I saw them.

When I saw how close they were, I ducked to the side of the study carrels and watched. They were studying, in that they had books spread on the table and pencils poised over notebooks, but it really looked more like organized flirting. Mandi leaned over to look at Caleb's work, letting her shoulder brush his, her pretty blond hair falling on his arm until he laughed and brushed it away. She touched his arm and pointed to her own work, and his fingers seemed to glance against hers as he nudged his pencil across the page.

Part of me wanted to cry, the other part to go kick Caleb right in the tutors, but I was frozen. When someone else stepped out of the elevator and drew their attention, I disappeared. I didn't know what to do, but I didn't want them to know I'd been watching.

I told Carter. I had to tell someone, do something, and Amy wasn't the right choice. Plus, a check of my watch told me she was at Physics Club, and even though she'd definitely think this was an emergency, I wasn't about to drag potential relationship problems out in front of all her science nerd friends. I loitered in the library pretending to do my homework until it was closing time at the bookstore.

"It wasn't him," Carter said.

I looked over in his direction. We were sitting in front of the fireplace with the store lights off. The flames threw alluring shadows across his features, but it didn't look like he was joking. "It was him. I saw it, Carter. Contrary to what the song told you, that excuse doesn't work. I know Caleb's your friend and all, but the guy solidarity-"

"No." He squeezed my hand. "I mean, it wasn't...it's not him. It's her. She's doing it."

"You sure about that?"

"Well, maybe it's a little him. He's got to be attracted to her. But I swear, it's her. A Siren...they can make you lose your mind. I tried to warn him, as much as I could."

I sighed. I hated to admit what I said next, but it was true. "Sometimes I think Amy makes him lose his mind."

Carter didn't even hesitate. "It's part of why he loves her," he said. And he was right.

"But it's getting worse. You've seen it. Don't you think this is part of it? They're just...off, and now I see him with Mandi and I don't know. I never thought he'd do this to Amy."

"He's not. Lane, I swear. She's doing it." Softly, he added, "She got sent here from Webber not to be closer to Alexis but because there was some kind of issue there."

I was half surprised and half nodding like I'd expected him to say something like that. I knew she was trouble, and I wasn't surprised she'd been in trouble, whatever it was. I only wished they'd told me; as her dorm representative, it would have been nice to know. Which made me wonder how Carter did. "Did your uncle tell you that or something?"

"No." He looked away, probably to cover his guilty expression. "Her cousin did."

Wow. Apparently it was boyfriend-screw-up night. I extracted my fingers from his and folded my arms across my chest. "So she really does need physics help every Wednesday night, huh? I thought I was joking about that. Just how much time do you spend talking with her?" I was being that girlfriend I hated to be, but it was Alexis. He knew better. He should have known better.

He ran his now-free hand through his caramel waves. "f.u.c.k, Lane. Now I'm under suspicion too?"

Oh, it was on. "Should you be?"

"Christ. No. I help her with physics. In the bookstore lounge, in front of everyone, all of whom can see that nothing is or ever will be going on between us because, in case you haven't noticed, I am a thousand lifetimes in love with you. Sometimes she talks to me like a friend, because her other friends are s.h.i.tty. The end." He was standing by the time he got to those last words.

Just like that, my anger rushed out of me. I felt like the one who was s.h.i.tty. What the h.e.l.l was wrong with me? With us. Everything felt so unstable. First Caleb and Amy, and now I was picking fights with Carter.

I dropped my head, hair falling over my shoulders to cover my warm cheeks, and apologized. "I'm sorry."

He sighed and sat back down, brushing away those tendrils so he could see my face. "No, I am. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten so angry. I...I probably shouldn't help her, talk to her at all, but, I don't know. She's not perfect, but maybe everyone deserves a chance to make up for it."

And then it all made sense. He empathized with Alexis. Sometimes I felt like Carter trusted everyone and I trusted no one and I wasn't even sure how we got that way. I could never tell if he was blind to the bad or chose to focus on the good in people. And when had I become so suspicious? Maybe because I'd spent so much of my childhood by myself. It was a self-reliance thing. Carter wanted not to be alone in things, and I wasn't sure anyone but myself could get things done.

But Carter and I needed to be in this together.

I leaned my head on his shoulder. "Did you mean all those other things you said?"

He put his arm around me, pulling me closer and adding a kiss to my forehead. "Yes. Most of Alex's other friends are s.h.i.tty."

I laughed and our fight was over. "Except Brooke."

"Except Brooke," he agreed. "And," he added, voice lowered and lips close to my ear, "I am that in love with you. Don't forget it."

THE NEXT DAY I practically sprinted from cla.s.s after last bell and managed to catch Brooke just as she was leaving the Arts building. We walked together to volleyball. As co-captain, I still dutifully attended every practice, cheering from the sidelines or helping retrieve errant b.a.l.l.s. I was allowed to run, so I ran with them. But it wasn't volleyball advice I needed from her today.

Exactly like I hoped, no one joined us on the way to the gym. Besides some of the team, we had basically zero friends in common, being as we were technically on opposite sides of Northbrook's great divide-Alexis Morrow. But Brooke was cool. She didn't hold it against me that I was Alex's enemy, and I didn't hold it against her that she was Alex's long-time friend, so we got along great. When we saw each other.

"G.o.d, it feels like I never get to talk to you this year," she lamented as we started up the hill from mid-campus. It was a clear day, but cold, and everyone was hurrying from place to place. Several inches of new snow had fallen in the last few days and frozen solid, forcing everyone to traverse the acres of campus only on the cleared walkways.

"I know," I replied. "We need to start our breakfast dates again, now that swimming and Push are over."

"Ugh, Push. I'm so not looking forward to it next year."

"I'm pretty sure they make it so bad on purpose, so we know what it feels like when we get to college."

"Seriously. I think Lex didn't sleep all week, right?"

"That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about..."

She gave her delightful laugh that I envied so badly. "About sleeping with Lex, or not sleeping with her? Because I think that honor is reserved for a kid from Hotchkiss right now."

You'd think Alexis would've been the kind of girl who always had a boyfriend, but she didn't. She had boyfriends, a rotating collection of expensive ones who'd drive up to visit from Manhattan or schools like Andover and Choate with their luxury cars and shiny hair. The closest she'd had to a relationship since I'd known her had been the few weeks after last year's disastrous Winter Ball when she'd kept up her fling with a senior I'd sort of dated before Carter. That had ended as horribly (for him) as I'd worried it would. I realized now she was still holding out for my boyfriend.

"Um, no. No no no," I said, laughing too, before I dropped my voice and got to the point. "Actually, it's about her cousin, Mandi. Do you spend much time with her?"

Brooke made a noise that wasn't nearly as pretty as her laugh. "What was it you just said, 'Um, no, no no no?' 'Cause that's about what I think of Mandi. She's insufferable. I mean, I feel bad for her, but I can't stand her."

I nodded. I knew what she meant. There were days I thought it was hard being a teenager, and I couldn't imagine being a teenager while trying to control a gift that basically made your hormones, and everyone's around you, go crazy. But still. "I think she's worse than Alex."

Brooke agreed. "Times ten. I know Lex can be a b.i.t.c.h, but she's really not all bad. Mandi's just...off in the head or something. It's not all because of the gift. But, so, what was it you wanted to ask about her? I might not know, but ask anyway."

We were almost to the gym, just pa.s.sing the Chapel, so even though it was freezing out, I pulled her around the side of building. "Okay, I hate to ask, but...do you think you could, um, eavesdrop on her?"

Brooke looked curious. She knew what I meant. "This is serious, huh? I mean, I don't really like to know what a Siren's wanting basically ever, right? But for you, okay. What's she up to?"

"That's the thing. I don't know, exactly. But remember what you said to me after the SATs?"

"You think it's her?"

"Maybe. She's, well, she's flirting with Caleb Sullivan. Hard."

"Oh yeah." She nodded. "I know. Her little confrontation with Amy didn't help either."