The day had clouded over; I’d traded my sundress for sweats. I hugged my knees and rested my chin on my right kneecap.

“Sorry,” I said, because if I didn’t, she might get mad. Frankie was big on hearing sorry, so I said it a lot—sometimes even when I didn’t mean it.

“So, what’s up?” Frankie said. She meant, Why are you calling me?

“Tell me something about home,” I said. “Something normal.”

“That’s why you called?” Frankie said. “To hear about this boring town?”

“I miss that boring town,” I admitted.

“You’re weird,” she said. “Wait, did you and Kennedy find the old man?” I’d told her some; Kennedy had told her more.

“No,” I said, sighing. “He’s nowhere to be found.” The scent of prairie rain filled my nostrils, even though I couldn’t feel the drops yet. “I think him being in the picture and the message in the steam were just coincidences,” I told my sister. I told myself. “The old man was just an old man, and I got into a shower stall that had a message for someone else. It was probably just a prank.” I sucked in as much of the delicious air as I could. “Colette is gone, and as much as we want to, we can’t get her back. It’s over.”

“Okay,” Frankie said before answering my original question. “They put up a new stoplight.”

“Where?” I tried to sound interested. A new stoplight wasn’t really the type of “something” I’d wanted to hear about home, but I’d take anything.

“By school,” she said. “Also, Mia and Colin are shipped.”

I sat up straight on the rock, my mouth open for a second before I remembered how much I didn’t want a horsefly to fly in.

Mia had been the newest member of our friend group—until our friend group had broken apart at the seams. Until she’d said mean things about my sister and never apologized.

And for years, Colin had been my crush. It hadn’t been like Jackie’s crush on Izzy, but it’d been there.

“How do you know?” I asked, gripping the phone tightly, biting off a chunk of newly grown fingernail on my other hand.

“I saw them at the movies,” Frankie said. “She was wearing hoops as big as those plastic bracelets we used to—”

“How do you know they weren’t just there as friends?” I asked, eyes on the darkening clouds.

“Don’t interrupt me!”

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “But how do you know?”

“Friends don’t kiss.”

There it was.

Honestly, I wasn’t mad at Colin. We’d flirted but had never been a thing. And after Colette died, I hadn’t thought about him like that anymore. I don’t know why, but the crush had vanished.

But Mia?

“I’m raging,” I said angrily. “Where does Mia get off?”