No one knew this, though. Lily mistook my avoidance for being my usual introverted self. Aria thought maybe I was just anxious. And Owen, well, he was decidedly oblivious to my emotions and moods.

I watched the world from my living room window, while Owen took his post-coital nap in our bedroom. Apparently it was exhausting degrading his wife on top of a Maytag top-loader. Aria had smothered herself in baby oil and was sunbathing in the backyard, which I warned her about. But to my fair-skinned teenage daughter who despised her pale legs in shorts, skin cancer was a fair exchange for a tan. This was what women did, hiding the sorrow behind sun-kissed smiles. I always thought of that riddle: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The answer is no. I was the tree, falling, crashing. Nobody listened or cared.

Shy and timid—these were words often used to describe me by those who never bothered to take more than a passing glance. When applied with such force, the words soon became tools that chipped away at me, creating who I was on the surface, shaping me with each syllable. But at my core, underneath the hardened plaster that everyone interpreted as me, I wasn’t who they thought I was.

In fact, no one knew the girl behind the mask. Even I hadn’t seen her true face. Not fully, at least.

It was easy to miss the real me. The angry me. The passionate me. The indomitable me. Of course Owen would laugh at such adjectives used to describe his meek, obedient wife. Always so agreeable. Never confrontational. A wallflower. If someone bumped into me on the sidewalk, I was the first to apologize. If another parent challenged my childrearing methods, I would humbly seek their approval. If a Facebook “friend” questioned my latest post, I would hastily delete it. Ever the people pleaser, I had lost all fight.

Until now.

Until my doorbell rang.

Until I answered it, finding Robin standing resolutely on my doorstep, her clenched jaw saying it all. Something had happened, something that would destroy our friendship for good.

“Hey, Robin.”

Dark clouds heavy with rain gathered in the sky behind her, matching her angry scowl.

“How could you do that to Ryan?” Robin demanded.

I had no idea what she was talking about. I needed her to understand this. She and Lily were my only allies; I couldn’t risk losing her, no matter how disappointed I was in her son. “Do what?”

“Pressing charges against him. Claiming he raped Aria. We’ve been friends forever, Mackenzie. How could you without talking to me first?”

“Robin, I swear it wasn’t me. Owen must have . . .” Had he done it behind my back? Did Aria know?