Her twin shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. What were you going to say?”

Alice took a moment to raise her eyes from their intense examination of a piece of cheese. “In all the years I’ve known her, I’ve never heard J—her apologize for anything.”

Libby opened her mouth to say “That’s not true” but quickly closed it. Her automatic habit of defending that woman was now well and truly broken. Alice’s quietly spoken words brought old memories bubbling to the surface and many of them involved Alice being upset at something Jess had said or done. All of them showed Libby telling her twin not to be so sensitive, to learn how to take a joke and not be a wet blanket. Yet again, guilt pinched and her appetite vanished as it often did these days.

She pushed away the rest of her lunch. “I’ve been reading about toxic friendships, but there are no clues there either. She was fun and she made me laugh, although now I realize it was often at the expense of someone else. But she never put me down. She was amazing after Dom—None of it makes any sense! Have I been wearing blinders for years?”

“Maybe.” The look on Alice’s face matched Libby’s bafflement. “Or not. She was always nicer to you. Less mean girl and more selfless. And when you met her, you were ready for a change from me.”

“Alice!”

Her twin gave her a long and unflinching stare. “Come on, be honest. We’d started high school and you’d gone through puberty but Mom was still insisting we do everything together as if we were ten. Looking back, I’m not sure that was a good idea. I was trying so hard to keep up with you even though I never could and you felt I was holding you back. You were ready for some excitement and Jess had that in spades. I think you had a girl crush.”

Libby squirmed at the accurate tag, and again questioned her maturity. “But surely if it was a crush, I’d have grown out of it?”

“I dunno. Friendship’s really complicated. And I think she had a crush on you too. She got me out of the way pretty fast so she could have you to herself.”

Libby thought back to those few months when they were fourteen and Alice had retreated into herself. How her parents had looked worn and gray with worry. How she’d been so caught up with her new friendship with Jess, she’d spent little time with her twin. Old guilt stabbed her.

“Was our friendship why you stopped going to school?”