“Yeah. What I don’t think I told you at the time was that it was the day after the anniversary of my parents’ deaths, and the whole reason Ms. Peggy dragged me along with her was because I’d been really depressed. It was…it was just too hard. Being seventeen was bad enough, but everything just reminded me that it was just Callum and me. But, that day in the garden with you did something that hadn’t happened to me yet. Somehow, just for the moment, I forgot about the empty house. The pain. Instead I was just a girl talking to a boy wearing a cast, throwing rocks into a fountain and laughing.” Sloane smiled. “That feeling, I think, is what I fell in love with. That simple happiness that had been really hard to find. I should have told you, but, well, it was easier not to. I’m sorry.”

That was it.

The simple origin story of The Girl Who Said Nothing.

The boy with the cast was now the man with the Star Trek shirt and the same smile.

“You have no reason to apologize. For any of it,” he said. “In fact, one reason I’m here is to tell you that, as far as I’m concerned, we’re friends for life, Sloane De Carlo. Small town or not.” He took in a long breath and let it out. “Another reason I’m here is to actually apologize to you. For Carol. Please hear her out.” He turned toward the entrance of the room. “Carol?”

Sloane could have been blown over by a feather at how surprised she was when Queen Bee herself peeked around the corner at them. She had something in her hands.

Marcus pumped his smile once more and then walked to and past his twin, who was walking right up to Sloane like it was just another normal afternoon.

Carol stopped a few feet from her. A moment or two crept by. Sloane wasn’t sure Carol was going to say a damn thing until, finally, she did.