Cash’s nostrils flared, and he wouldn’t look at her. He didn’t answer, because silence was part of their pattern of lies, and it was enough.

“Shit,” Izzy said on an exhale from across the room.

That summer. What did she really remember? She’d thought they’d been tangled together, she and Cash. Blind to anyone else. Hot, slick skin and swollen lips and hungry fingertips. Sugarcoated tongues from the syrupy Coke they’d drunk by the case during the day and alcohol-saturated laughter that spilled too easily from their mouths at night.

The memories felt like a film now, a pretty one, cut with rose and gold and sunburst filters. A melodic soundtrack played in the background as shots of her long blonde hair swirled around bare, tan shoulders and spaghetti straps.

How had it really been? Could she strip away the nostalgia to find the raw footage? There had to be things she wouldn’t want to see, bruises and hurt feelings. They’d been teenagers after all.

That first day when Monroe sat on Asher’s lap during their stupid game of truth or dare.

When Mia had thought about it earlier, she’d still been able to feel Cash’s hand on her back. But what about his face? Had he been watching them? Envious already? Of fresh possibilities, skin that hadn’t already been explored millions of times over the years, a body that didn’t reek of familiarity.

Why did they see things through prisms rather than as they were? Why couldn’t she see his eyes when Monroe straddled Asher? Why couldn’t she remember the punch or the blooming green and purple on Asher’s face?

“When?” she asked, because anything else was too much, too loaded and fragile and important. When did you punch him? That was easy at least.

“That day,” Cash said, and there was almost relief in his voice. Like the secret had been eating him from the inside out for more than a decade.

“You were grounded for it,” Mia said, her brain slow, so slow.

“Dad was furious that I punched someone.”

“Hey, I have a question,” Izzy called from her corner of the room. Mia flinched at the interruption. “As, you know, someone who doesn’t speak your supersecret language.”

Cash just shoved his hands in his pockets, but Mia met Izzy’s eyes, a silent go-ahead.

“Why were you the one swinging at Asher? If Monroe cheated on him with you, wouldn’t it have been the other way around?”

Cash’s eyes flicked to the side to catch Mia’s face in his peripheral, and something slid into place. Why hadn’t she asked that question? Blind spots. She had so many on this case.

Mia swallowed the saliva that had gathered against the pockets of her cheeks, flushing hot, then cold again.