“Lucky broke the window?” Evie says, brow furrowing.

Ugh. I ignore the tightness of my stomach and whisper to Evie, “Don’t tell her about the photo. I’m sorry for making everything worse.” Then I nearly start crying again.

“Don’t be stupid. You didn’t do anything,” she says, wrapping long arms around me. Then she murmurs in my ear: “I was wrong about everything. We shouldn’t have gone to that party. It’s the curse. It works in weird ways. I’m sorry you got hurt in the blowback.”

While Evie and I lean on each other, clinging, Mom relays the story to Evie about the window, asking me for details occasionally. Like Mom, Evie seems to buy the lie. And I let her. Because I don’t know what else to do.

Well. That’s not exactly true.

I know I could confess. There are, in fact, several moments in the conversation when I think Right now! Do it now! Just tell them! But I hesitate, and the moments fall through my fingers like sand. The longer I stay silent, the harder it is to speak up, and the sicker and sicker I feel about it.

So I finally just tell them I’m tired, that I need to sleep. And because they are both better people than me, they don’t suspect anything is amiss.

If they only knew.

I’m so confused about the whole thing, and all I can do is go back over what Lucky said in the police station. What we talked about there … what we discussed behind the pool house at the party. Our old friendship before I left town. How much had changed.

And the flirting.

I consider what my mom said, the Bonnie and Clyde comment.

And the pit-pattering-panic I felt behind the pool house fills up my chest again. Dear God. I have to stop thinking about that. There’s no way he’s suddenly filled with amorous longing for his former best friend and because of these feelings, decided to take the fall for her crime.

Correction: accidental crime.

Anyway, now we’re back to square one.

Why in the world did he do it?

I think before this goes any further, it’s best I find out.

Because it’s officially summer break now, I’m working extra shifts at the Nook along with Evie and a couple of other part-time employees Mom has on staff. Summer season is serious business for the entire town—definitely for our bookshop. Yesterday, I was happy about putting in more time at the Nook. It’s Step Two of my three-step plan: Save up enough money for a plane ticket to Los Angeles.