Joyce brings us a rubbery pizza and delivers it with a quiet reminder. “We close in forty minutes.”

“How long do you think the police will be?” I ask Josh.

He sighs. “No idea.”

So much for sticking around here. I take another sip of my mostly flat definitely-not-Coke and try to avoid Kayla’s eyes.

At the bar, Joyce slides another drink to the man in the corner. He hasn’t said a word. Hasn’t looked up from the second tumbler of whatever he’s drinking. With the way she looked at him earlier, I’m surprised he’s getting another drink.

“Hey, Mira?” Kayla says.

“Yeah?”

Kayla gives me the smile of a girl who’s only half here. “Are you afraid to look at me?”

Apparently, I’ve been staring so much at everyone else in the bar that Kayla, who’s been on the verge of a coma most of our trip, thinks I’m avoiding her. I can’t imagine why she’d care about it, but I frown.

“Why would I be afraid to look at you?”

She leans in and I fight the impulse to flinch. She shrugs a slim shoulder.

“Maybe you’re afraid that whatever bad, bad stuff I put inside my body might somehow rub off on you? That you might be bad, too.”

“Stop,” Josh says.

Kayla whirls, her eyes narrowed. “Why do you care?”

He glares. “Because we don’t need any more drama on this trip.”

Kayla laughs, but to my surprise leans back, crossing her arms over her chest. Her sullen swagger melts away. She pushes her thumb into a crack in the tabletop, and her chin trembles.

“It’s not what you think,” she says. “It’s not—it’s not like I’m some stupid party girl who just craves the high.”

“I didn’t think…” I don’t know how to finish, so I trail off with an awkward shrug.

Kayla gets up with a laugh that pinches at my chest. “Yeah, it’s best when you don’t think about people like me at all. So, keep it up.”

She walks toward the RESTROOMS sign on the side of the room.

I shake my head at Josh. “Why did you have to snap at her?”

“I didn’t mean to snap. I’ve got other things I’m worried about,” Josh says. He doesn’t look at me, though. His brow is furrowed and his gaze is fixed on Harper and Brecken at the end of the bar.

I walk to the bathroom to check on Kayla. Maybe I can’t control what’s happening here, but I can decide who I am. I can be a person who cares enough to pay attention.