She felt like she’d been given a gift on her birthday, sure it was the very thing she’d been asking for all year, only to find an ugly stone or a cracked mirror inside the box. “Since when do you care?”

“I care about how this looks. Why bring her here, into our home, for Christ’s sake?”

“Shh, honey. Shh. Calm down. It’s all right. I had nothing to do with it, I swear.” She walked over to him and stood close, then she reached up and petted his lapels. Her hands slid down his jacket and rubbed against the front of his trousers.

His hands circled her wrists. “Emma, there are guests right outside.”

“Then I’ll just make this quick.”

“No,” he said for the first time in ten years, and he stepped away. “Not right now.”

Claire felt nervous, and she hated the feeling. She hated when she didn’t know what to do. She’d watched as Sydney’s old friends converged on her like dust to static, and Claire just stood there. She hadn’t known if Sydney wanted her to step in, or if Sydney would get mad if Claire pulled her away from the first time she’d seen her friends in ten years. Now Sydney’s face was tight and her steps were sharp as Claire followed her back into the kitchen.

As soon as the door swung closed behind Claire, Sydney dropped her empty trays on the counter and said, “Why didn’t you tell me Mr. and Mrs. Matteson were Hunter John and Emma Clark?”

Claire gathered Sydney’s trays and stacked them on her own, then set them aside. “It didn’t occur to me that you would think it was anyone else. Who did you think it was?”

“I thought it was Hunter John’s parents! How on earth was I supposed to know Hunter John and Emma got married?”

“Because when you broke up with him, he and Emma started dating,” Claire said, trying to keep a sensible tone to her voice, trying to keep her stomach from jumping, trying to keep her mind from saying, over and over, This is bad. Something’s wrong. This is bad.

“How was I supposed to know that? I wasn’t here!” Sydney said. “And I didn’t break up with him. He broke up with me. Why do you think I left?”

Claire hesitated. “I thought you left because of me. I thought you left because I kept you from learning things, because I made you hate being a Waverley.”

“You didn’t make me hate being a Waverley. This whole town did,” Sydney said impatiently. She shook her head like she was disappointed in Claire. “But if it makes you feel better, I’m leaving because of you now.”

“Wait, Sydney, please.”

“This was a setup! Didn’t you see it? Emma Clark set me up to look like a…like a servant in front of Hunter John and all my old high-school friends in their expensive dresses and their boob jobs. And how did she even know I was back in town? Why did you tell her?”